A car drives into the courtyard. The driver is a young man, cigarette dangling from one side of his mouth, hat pushed back on his head. He gets out and strikes a pose: one arm on the roof of the car, eyes gazing up at Josef. Josef nods to him from the veranda. This will all belong to him someday. Maria’s oldest son. Maria comes running out of the house and throws her arms around the young rascal. The smell of perfume wafts up from below. She turns around and waves goodbye. He waves back. “See you Monday, Don José!” she calls out. Her spending the weekend with her children in town is perfectly all right with him. Maybe he’ll find the courage in the next two days to free the squirrel.

From the veranda he can see out to the road in front of the house. The neighbor’s three dogs are there, out for their evening walk. Ever since her husband died, Maria has kept her dog on a leash. He’s dangerous, she says. Everything here is dangerous, apparently.

He can hear the dog breathing sometimes, depending on which way the wind is blowing. It’s just a watchdog. He’s supposed to bark when someone gets too close, that’s all. On her nightstand, she tells him, there’s a pistol.

At first the dog would bark at him whenever he came loping across the courtyard toward the house; by now, though, the dog recognizes his shambling gait.

Next he hears the mailman’s creaky bicycle. He’s already holding the brown envelope with Carl’s handwriting in his hand. It’s the last Stern issue. Now it makes him nervous after all—why else would Dörsam announce his visit?