BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY 77 Wolfsohn's Hat. Herr Zarnke was also in the habit, every chance he got, of hanging three Hags with the hooked cross on them out of his three windows. Herr Wolfsohn had continual reason to be irritated by Herr Zarnke. The walls were thin, he could hear Herr Zarnke's loud, grating voice from morning till night. He often met him on the stairs, too. He could not help noticing that Herr Zarnke had big, strong, white teeth. With a balefullook of suppressed fury, then, at the visiting card, Herr Wolfsohn opened the door of his Hat. From the kitchen came the sound of his wife's clear, sing-song voice: "Is that you, Markus?" He often made jokes about that foolish question. "No," he answered, full of good-humoured sarcasm. "It's not me." She went on bustling about the kitchen. He took his collar off, exchanged his brown business suit for an old, threadbare suit, his shoes for well-worn, comfortable slip- pers. He shuffied over into the other room, took a smiling look at his sleeping children, the five-year-old Elschen and the three- year-old Bob, and shufBed back. He sat down in the black wingchair, acquired in Oppermann's Furniture Stores at a special price, areal bargain, a windfall. He sniffed with relish the odour of the pickled cutlet, the so-called Kasseler Rippe- speer. There was no need for hirn to turn the radio on. He could listen in to Herr Zarnke's radio. It was pleasantly noisy music today, He looked it up in the paper: aha, Lohengrin, Frau Miriam W olfsohn-he called her Marie-bustling, with fair, reddish hair and a rat her plump figure, brought in the meal, There was a bottle of beer with it, cold and tempt- ing. Herr Wolfsohn took up his newspaper, ate, drank, read, and listened to the radio while his wife talked to him. He en- joyed his evening peace with all his senses. However, what Frau Miriam Wolfsohn had to tell him in her garrulous way was not altogether pleasant and she ex- pected hirn to rnake a fuss about it. She spoke of the necessity of buying a new winter coat for the five-year-old Else. It was