“I’m getting my revolver,” he said, almost inaudibly. “I’ll shoot down the first one who breaks into my home! No one has the right to barge in like that.”

He started to pass his wife and head to the bedroom.

“We’ll see about that,” he said. “We’ll see about that…”

Fists again pounded the door and the bell was ringing shrilly.

“Well?” asked Findler, who had stepped into the hall when he heard the noise. “What’s happening here? That’s just great. If the brothers catch me here, in their excitement they might take me for a Jew and smash my teeth in.”

He ran his hand tenderly over his mouth.

“Don’t you have a back door?” he then asked Silbermann, who was standing there watching him, as though he were expecting help and advice. “And to hell with it, you can foist your damned building on somebody else,” he added.

“I’m getting my revolver,” Silbermann repeated mechanically, “and I’ll shoot the first one who breaks into my house!”

“Now there,” said Theo Findler, to calm him down. “Easy does it. Better you should go. I’ll talk to them. See that you get out through the back door. And I’ll take the place for ten thousand. Do we have a deal?”

“You are … All right, all right, it’s a deal.”

“So then get a move on! I need you alive so you can sign the deed.”

“Go, go,” his wife begged.

The doorbell rang again, and Silbermann wondered why no one was kicking in the door.

“And what will happen to my wife?” he asked helplessly.

“Just count on me,” said Findler, full of confidence. “I’ll take care of everything, but now see to it that you get out of here!”

“If anything happens to my wife … you won’t get the building.”

“Fine, fine,” Findler reassured him, “but if you don’t disappear, then you’ll be putting both your wife and me in danger!”

He straightened his jacket, ran his right hand over his bristly hair, took a deep breath, and went to the door.

“Well?” he asked in a booming voice. “What’s going on?”

“Open up, Jew!”

“Have you ever seen a party block leader who is a Jew?” Findler asked coarsely.

“Shut up, you filthy pig, open up!”

Findler turned around to make sure Silbermann had left the hall with his hat and coat, then signaled to Frau Silbermann that she should hide in one of the rooms, and then shouted, “I’m a member of the party!” He tore open the door. “There is no Jew here!” he announced.

Six or seven young men were standing in front of him. For a moment his forceful appearance intimidated them. He reached into his breast pocket to show them his party book.

“The Jews swindle everybody,” said one of the men. “Silbermann a party member—of all the Jewish nerve!”