Mahlke nodded when I made a point, let his lower jaw sag from time to time, and laughed for no reason. Then suddenly he bubbled over: "It was wonderful last night with the Pokriefke kid. I wouldn't have thought it. She's not the way she puts on. All right, I'll tell you the honest truth: it's because of her that I don't want to go back. Seems to me that I've done my bit – wouldn't you say so? I'm going to put in a petition. They can ship me out to Gross-Boschpol as an instructor. Let other people be brave. It's not that I'm scared, I've just had enough. Can you understand that?"

I refused to fall for his nonsense; I pinned him down. "Oho, so it's all on account of the Pokriefke kid. Hell, that wasn't her. She works on the No. 2 Line to Oliva, not on the No. 5. Everybody knows that. You're scared shitless, that's all. I can see how you feel."

He was determined that there should be something between them. "You can take my word for it about Tulla. The fact is she took me home with her, lives on Elsenstrasse. Her mother doesn't mind. But you're right, I've had my bellyful. Maybe I'm scared too. I was scared before Mass. It's better now."

"I thought you didn't believe in God and all that stuff."

"That's got nothing to do with it."

"OK, forget it. And now what?"

"Maybe Störtebeker and the boys could… You know them pretty well, don't you?"

"No dice. I'm having no further dealings with those characters. It's not healthy. You should have asked the Pokriefke kid in case you really…"

"Wise up. I can't show my face on Osterzeile. If they're not there already, it won't be long – say, could I hide in your cellar, just for a few days?"

That too struck me as unhealthy. "You've got other places to hide. What about your relatives in the country? Or in Tulla's uncle's woodshed… Or on the barge."

For a while the word hung in mid-air. "In this filthy weather?" Mahlke said. But the thing was already decided; and though I refused stubbornly and prolixly to go with him, though I too spoke of the filthy weather, it gradually became apparent that I would have to go: rain is a binder.

We spent a good hour tramping from Neuschottland to Schellmühl and back, and then down the endless Posedowskiweg. We took shelter in the lee of at least two advertising pillars, bearing always the same posters warning the public against those sinister and unpatriotic figures Coalthief and Spendthrift, and then we resumed our tramp. From the main entrance of the Women's Hospital we saw the familiar backdrop: behind the railroad embankment, the gable roof and spire of the sturdy old Conradinum; but he wasn't looking or he saw something else. Then we stood for half an hour in the shelter of the Reichskolonie car stop, under the echoing tin roof with three or four grade-school boys. At first they spent the time roughhousing and pushing each other off the bench. Mahlke had his back turned to them, but it didn't help. Two of them came up with open copybooks and said something in broad dialect. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" I asked.

"Not until nine. In case we decide to go."

"Well, hand them over, but make it fast."

Mahlke wrote his name and rank in the upper left-hand corner of the last page of both copybooks. They were not satisfied, they wanted the exact number of tanks he had knocked out – and Mahlke gave in; as though filling out a money order blank, he wrote the number first in figures, then in letters. Then he had to write his piece in two more copybooks. I was about to take back my fountain pen when one of the kids asked: "Where'd you knock 'em off, in Bjälgerott [Byelgorod] or Schietemier [Zhitomir]?"

Mahlke ought just to have nodded and they would have subsided. But he whispered in a hoarse voice: "No, most of them around Kovel, Brody, and Brzezany. And in April when we knocked out the First Armored Corps at Buczacz."

The youngsters wanted it all in writing and again I had to unscrew the fountain pen. They called two more of their contemporaries in out of the rain. It was always the same back that held still for the others to write on. He wanted to stretch, he would have liked to hold out his own copybook; they wouldn't let him: there's always one fall guy. Mahlke had to write Kovel and Brody-Brzezany, Cherkassy and Buczacz. His hand shook more and more, and again the sweat oozed from his pores. Questions spurted from their grubby faces: "Was ya in Kriewäurock [Krivoi Rog] too?" Every mouth open. In every mouth teeth missing. Paternal grandfather's eyes. Ears from the mother's side. And each one had nostrils: "And where dya think they'll send ya next?"

"He ain't allowed to tell. What's the use of asking?"

"I bet he's gonna be in the invasion."

"They're keepin 'im for after the war."

"Ask him if he's been at the Führer's HQ?"

"How about it, Uncle?"

"Can't you see he's a sergeant?"

"You gotta picture?"

" 'Cause we collect 'em."

"How much more furlough time ya got?"

"Yeah, whenner ya leavin?"

"Ya still be here tomorrow?"

"Yeah, when's yer time up?"

Mahlke fought his way out, stumbling over satchels. My fountain pen stayed in the shelter. Marathon through crosshatching. Side by side through puddles: rain is a binder. It was only after we passed the stadium that the boys fell back. But still they shouted after us; they had no intention of going to school. To this day they want to return my fountain pen.

When we reached the kitchen gardens outside Neuschottland, we stopped to catch our breath. I had a rage inside me and my rage was getting kittens. I thrust an accusing forefinger at the accursed thingamajig and Mahlke quickly removed it from his neck. Like the screwdriver years before, it was attached to a shoelace. Mahlke wanted to give it to me, but I shook my head. "Hell, no, but thanks for nothing."

But he didn't toss the scrap metal into the wet bushes; he had a back pocket

How am I going to get out of here? The gooseberries behind the makeshift fences were unripe: Mahlke began to pick with both hands. My pretext cast about for words. He gobbled and spat out skins. "Wait for me here, I'll be back in half an hour. You've got to have something to eat or you won't last long on the barge."

If Mahlke had said "Be sure you come back," I would have lit out for good. He scarcely nodded as I left; with all ten fingers he was reaching through the fence laths at the bushes; his mouth full of berries, he compelled loyalty: rain is a binder.

Mahlke's aunt opened the door. Good that his mother wasn't home. I could have taken some edibles from our house, but I thought: What's he got his family for? Besides, I was curious about his aunt. I was disappointed. She stood there in her kitchen apron and asked no questions. Through open doors came the smell of something that makes teeth squeak: rhubarb was being cooked at the Mahlkes'.

"We're giving a little party for Joachim. We've got plenty of stuff to drink, but in case we get hungry…"

Without a word she went to the kitchen and came back with two two-pound cans of pork. She also had a can opener, but it wasn't the same one that Mahlke had brought up from the barge when he found the canned frogs' legs in the galley. While she was out wondering what to give me – the Mahlkes always had their cupboards full, relatives in the country – I stood restless in the hallway, gazing at the photograph of Mahlke's father and Fireman Labuda. The locomotive had no steam up. The aunt came back with a shopping net and some newspaper to wrap the cans and can opener in. "Before you eat the pork," she said, "you'll have to warm it up some. If you don't, it'll be too heavy; it'll sit on your stomach."

If I asked before leaving whether anyone had been around asking for Joachim, the answer was no. But I didn't ask, I just turned around in the doorway and said: "Joachim sends you his love," though Mahlke hadn't sent anything at all, not even to his mother.