MANES
SPERBER
57
catch his breath, I asked him what he thought of the defection of Red
Front men to the Nazis and whether he believed the trend would in–
tensify rapidly now .
The longer Hannes spoke , moving circumspectly from one
point to the next, the clearer it became to me that without his know–
ing it he was reversing his standpoint , so that in the end the deserters
had become almost a vanguard .
If
the Party did not immediately
proclaim an uprising against the still shaky regime, then
it
would
surely last for many years. The Hitler people would make sure no
one, at least no working man, would get a job unless he belonged to
one of their organizations. In that case, all the workers would
naturally have to truckle - the women would see to that ; they
would not let the children go hungry merely because their fathers
would not do what was necessary to provide for their families . "Well,
this would be the time for an about-face, better sooner than later, so
we could undermine the Nazi organization from within, you get it,
from within."
When I did not agree, Hannes mustered other arguments for
this "strategy for the future ," as he called it. He repeated them until
he himself was bored and finally fell asleep in the middle of a
sentence . The night was not over; I put out the light and waited for
sleep, which did not come until dawn and was breaking. I awoke
around noon. Hannes had left long before that.
"Perhaps he will not come again today. But you should stay
here if you like," the mistress of the house, an old friend of mine,
said. I hesitated to tell her anything about my night's conversation
with Hannes, to warn her. But I advised her not to take anyone in
the following nights . One had to reckon with the mistrust of the
neighbors , all of whom had hung out the swastika flag . My friend
said, "It's not certain whether Hannes will come again this evening,
but if he doesn't - we haven't the slightest reason not to trust him,
have we?" I did not answer. She looked into my eyes - I turned
away. She understood .
•
• •
On March 20 I was finally transferred, put into a police van,
where I was shoved into a man-high but very narrow cubicle whose
upper wall was a kind of wire lattice, through which one could see
out. My eyes adapted quickly, and were soon able to piece together
