Afra closes the window and bolts it firmly down. She shakes it again once, then takes the preserved sausage that hangs in the pantry, cuts another piece off the smoked meat, puts it all in her apron and goes into the kitchen.
Meanwhile, Albert has got up and gone over to the cubbyhole in the kitchen, leaving the crust of bread in the middle of the room. Afra puts the meat and sausage on a wooden platter, places it on the table with a jug of water and two glasses. She bends down, picks up the bread from the floor and puts it back in Albert’s hand.
‘There, dear, you’ll need good teeth, but don’t chew on that piece of wood, you’d better leave it alone or you’ll hurt yourself.’
Afra tries to make her voice sound cheerful; she doesn’t want to show that she is still worn out by her argument with Hetsch. How does he manage to pester her so much? He must have passed her father – if he were in the house Hetsch would have had to hold back. Always keeping up appearances. So she’s a tavern girl, is she, available to all comers?
‘Oh, leave me alone, you lying lot!’ she mutters to herself.
Albert looks enquiringly at his mother.
‘Not you, darling, I didn’t mean you.’
Afra picks Albert up in her arms. He is holding the hard crust of bread in both hands, chewing it.
‘There you are, something nice to suck.’
She bends her head and kisses him on the forehead.
When there is a knock at the door, she is afraid for a split second that Hetsch has come back. She holds the child more tightly, as if she could shield him from some misfortune, and then opens the door. In the doorway stands one of the two journeymen who have been roaming the countryside.
‘The door wasn’t locked, so I came right in. Just wanted to ask if we could wash out there at the well? And maybe you’d have a mug of milk or a bite to eat? A crust of bread would do for us.’
‘I can give you some curds, and a slice of bread. I’ll bring it out to you.’
‘May God repay you.’
‘Where are the two of you off to, then?’
‘Everywhere and nowhere.’
‘That’s no kind of destination. Meanwhile, you can go back to your friend, I’ll bring the curds and bread out to you.’
Afra turns away, still with the child in her arms. Albert has put the hand holding his gnawed crust of bread round her neck, and he is clinging to her collar with his other hand. However, the stranger stays where he is, making no move to go. The child pulls gently at his mother’s earlobe. She turns.
‘I said I’ll bring it out. No need for you to stand around the kitchen.’
Afra looks distrustfully at the stranger. Until Albert begins whining and struggling, and attracts all her attention to himself. He writhes in her arms, wanting her to put him down on the floor.
‘And maybe you’d have a little mug of warm water for shaving?’
‘Yes, if that’s all.’
Afra puts Albert down and goes over to the kitchen stove. She opens the lid of the hot water compartment and scoops some out into a small mug.
‘Did you two find a place to sleep last night?’ She hands the young man the water. ‘This’ll have to do. I haven’t quite filled it, so you can add a little cold. Got everything else you need? A mirror, or shall I get you my father’s?’
‘We don’t need a mirror, but thanks all the same. I’ll bring your mug right back.’
‘No hurry. When I’m finished in here I’ll bring the breakfast out to you. I have to go into the yard, there’s washing still hanging on the line, and it looks like the weather won’t hold for long.’
The young man is still standing in the same spot, now with the can of water in his hands, not moving. Afra is unsure of herself, doesn’t know what to do. To persuade the visitor to leave, she goes over to the window and looks out.
‘It won’t break just yet. I don’t think it’ll rain in a hurry,’ she hears him say. He waits a moment longer, holding the can of water, as if he would like to add something more, but then turns and goes over to the door.
Afra, who has turned her back to him, hears him close the door behind him.
‘That fellow didn’t know what he wanted, did he, Albert? As pushy as Hetsch.’ And then, ‘Oh, my word, Albert, I have to sweep up the little broken vase still lying on the bedroom floor. Wait here and Mama will soon be back, all right? I’ll just get the dustpan and brush and go over there. I won’t be long, and stay away from the stove, Albert, or you’ll burn your fingers.’
But Albert wasn’t listening to her; he was sitting on the floor playing with his bit of bread, making little pellets of bread dough mixed with his spit and rolling them back and forth.
From the statement of Matthias Karrer, pedlar and knife-grinder, eighteen years after the events concerned
Right after the war I left the Unterlichtenwald area. Under the Nazis my father hadn’t been allowed to go around with his licence trading from door to door. He was always telling me what that free way of life was like. My folk have always been on the road, it’s part of us, like air is part of breathing; it’s in our blood. My father came into the world beside the family’s caravan, on the road, just like that. Same as his father before him and all our ancestors before that. Our folk went on the road with horse-drawn caravans, with bag and baggage, ducks, geese, pigs, everything, all their household goods. We had our usual places and we went there. Everyone knew when we was coming. We was honest folk, not gypsies, we were Yenish.
Must have been the spring of ’47 when I set out. I packed my rucksack and left. The first Karrer to go off on his own, not with the whole tribe, but I knew I’d always find some of us on the road. And so I did. Our folk know each other by their talk, it’s a mixture of cant and Bavarian and Yiddish; in fact a bit of everything, just like us.
So then I met two fellows in autumn that year, Otto and Wackes. I don’t know what the right name of Wackes was. He was just called that because Wackes is our word for a Frenchman. He was always saying he’d make his way through to the French and join the Legion. That’s the kind of fellow Wackes was.
I let the pair of them persuade me to do a few silly things, nicking something here, walking off with something else there. But at that age things look different, and you want to impress your new friends. When you’re young you’re stupid too. It don’t do in the long run.
And in Alling, Otto and I got caught climbing into the bakery. We’d had nothing much to eat the day before, only a few apples still almost green and a crust of stale bread. All that time I was kind of confused, what with hunger and the air inside my belly going to my head.
It was just dark when we came to the village. All day Wackes wouldn’t leave us in peace. He said how simple it was to climb into the baker’s shop, and he knew his way around it ‘like he knew his own waistcoat pocket’. He’d been put to work there in the war, and he still had accounts to settle from those days. The baker had been a real slave-driver, and it wouldn’t hurt if he had to pay for that a little now. And he’d do it himself, said Wackes, if we didn’t dare, but his hand hurt and wouldn’t heal. So as I’d believe him, he stretched it out to me, and I could see that he had a deep cut over the ball of his hand, with the skin gaping open and the flesh standing proud.
‘What’s more,’ he said to me, ‘it means you can show if there’s really anything to you, or if you’re just talking hot air while you shit your pants. We can do without a mate like that, eh, Otto?’
Otto nodded as if he agreed. As a young lad you don’t wait to be asked twice, so it was agreed. We’d nick money and bread or whatever else we could find.
The Frenchman was to be on watch in front, and Otto and I would get into the bakehouse through the back window.
The baker had his bedroom right above the bakehouse. Wackes hadn’t told us that. Maybe he didn’t know. And when I’d broke the window next to the door it must have woken them upstairs. It made such a noise, the breaking glass would have woken the dead. The window was gone and we climbed into the bakehouse. And then it all went very fast. We didn’t even have time to look for money or anything else. The baker took us by surprise. If there’s someone holding a shotgun under your nose then you know it’s time to keep still. Before we’d even looked around, the police were there and taking us away. That bastard Wackes was gone. So it was only Otto and me ended up in clink.