The Final Circle of Paradise

"Someone did! For that you get worked over good… You think they didn't get beat up? And how they got beat up! But apparently that isn't enough… We should have driven them right into the ground, together with their excrement, but we passed up the chance… And now they are giving us the business! The people got soft, that's what, I tell you. Nobody gives a damn. They put their four hours in, have a drink and off to the shivers! And you can pot them like clay pigeons." He slapped his sides in desperation. "Those were the times," he cried. "They didn't dare open their mouths! Should one of them even whisper, guys in black shirts or maybe white hoods would pay a night visit, crunch him in the teeth, and off to the camp he went, so there wouldn't be a peep out of him again… In the schools, my son says, everyone bad-mouths fascism: Oh dear, they hurt the Negroes' feelings; oh dear, the scientists were witch-hunted; oh dear, the camps; oh dear, the dictatorship! Well, it wasn't witch-hunting that was needed, but to hammer them into the ground, so there wouldn't be any left for breeding!" He drew his hand under his nose, slurping long and loud.

"Tomorrow morning, I have to go to work with my face all out of shape… Let's go have a drink, or we'll both catch cold."

We crawled through the bushes and came out on the street.

"The Weasel is just around the corner," he informed me.

The Weasel was full of wet-haired half-naked people. They seemed depressed, somehow embarrassed, and gloomily bragging about their contusions and abrasions. Several young women, clad only in panties, clustered around the electric fireplace, drying their skirts. The men patted them platonically on their bare flesh. My companion immediately penetrated into the thick of the crowd, and swinging his arms and blowing his nose with his fingers, began to call for "hammering the bastards into the ground." He was getting some weak support.

I asked for Russian vodka, and when the girls left, I took off my sport shirt and sat by the fireplace. The barman delivered my glass and returned at once to his crossword in the fat magazine. The public continued its conversation.

"So, what's the shooting for? Haven't we had enough of shooting? Just like little boys, by God… just spoiling some good fun."

"Bandits, they're worse than gangsters, but like it or not that shiver business is no good, too."

"That's right. The other day mine says to me, 'Papa, I saw you; you were all blue like a corpse and very scary' – and she's only ten. So how can I look her in the eyes? Eh?"

"Hey anybody! What's an entertainment with four letters?" asked the barman without raising his head.

"So, all right, but who dreamed all this up – the shiver and the aromatics? Eh and also…"

"If you got drenched, brandy is best."

"We were waiting for him on the bridge, and along he comes with his eyeglasses and some kind of pipe with lenses in it. So up he goes over the rail with his eyeglasses and his pipe, and he kicked his legs once and that was that. And then old Snoot comes running, after having been revived, and he looks at the guy blowing bubbles. "Fellows," he says, "What the hell is the matter with you, are you drunk or something, that's not the guy – I am seeing him for the first time…"

"I think there ought to be a law – if you are married, you can't go to the shiver."

"Hey somebody," again the bartender, "What's a literary work with seven letters – a booklet, maybe?"

"So, I myself had four Intels in my squad, machine gunners they were. It's quite true that they fought like devils. I remember we were retreating from the warehouse, you know they're still building a factory there, and two stayed behind to cover us. By the way, nobody asked them, they volunteered entirely by themselves. Later we came back and found them hanging side by side from the rail crane, naked, with all their appurtenances ripped off with hot pincers. You understand? And now, I'm thinking, where were the other two today? Maybe they were the very same guys to treat me to some tear gas, those are the types that can do such things."

"So who didn't get hung? We got hung by various places, too!"

"Hammer them into the ground right up to their noses, and that'll be the end of that!"

"I'm going. There is no point in hanging around here, I'm getting heartburn. They must have fixed everything up by now, back there."

"Hey, barman, girls, let's have one last one."