"9th May, 1919." "A Friday." "Paul Simon returned from the World War." "For six days he had tramped home from France to the Hunsrück." "THE CALL OF FARAWAY PLACES" "Isn't that Paul Simon?" "Oh, go away!" "The cart belongs to Kath Legrand." "Her Helmut was killed on the River Vistula." "Thank God!" "Paul's back home." "Mother, wait a moment." "Pauline, come here." "Eduard, your lung." "You're sitting at the window again." "You'll tip over;" "don't keep fidgeting." "He's supposed to take care of his health." "Come away from that window you'll catch your death with your chest." "Wiegand's bought a motorbike." "With a sack of berries." "He sits on it like a cat on a grindstone." "Yesterday he almost ran over my foot." "Don't exaggerate." "It's true." " Shut up!" " I always have to be quiet with you." "Paul, did the French feed you so well in France that you've no appetite at home?" "Listen to this." ""In London, May Day went practically unobserved."" "Paul!" "To think you're still alive." "It's hard to believe." "Just fancy." "It's hard to believe." ""All heaps of horse or cow dung in places occupied by French or American troops must be cleared away by 1st May, 1919."" ""Manure must be shifted at least twice a week onto fields at least 1,000 metres beyond village boundaries."" "They're mad." "Paul's hands are so white." "Paul always had slender white hands." "Don't you remember?" "I thought men had different hands after a war." "Leave Paul's hands alone." "Isn't that right, Paul?" "Anyway, I always knew he'd come home." "And there he sits." "When Paul was in France and no post came for seven months I heard his footsteps under my window at night." "Then I knew he was alive." "In Munich the Spartacists robbed passengers on a tram." "Thank God we've no trams in Schabbach." "I'II never go to a city." "I remember when mobilization came." "We were in the fields, cutting the corn and the bell tolled and Willi, the postman delivered the letters and they pulled up a poster." "We ran through the village, we thought there was a fire." "Mobilization had started." "And the dead will never rise again." "It's all right for you, Eduard." "The boy's got lung trouble, as you well know." "It's in writing, from the Army Selection Board." "I'd have liked to have been an airman." "Well, one's got money, the other's pretty." "But she's so dark she could easily be a gypsy's child." "You don't know her, Paul." "That's Apollonia from Dickenschied." "She went into service here, because of Helmut Legrand." "The Schissbach rag-collectors moved on to Dickenschied and someone there took her in, of course she's gypsy." "Marie, you can't say that." "Nobody knows for sure." "Now she's in service at the inn." "I'm surprised Maria Wiegand's her friend and Helmut wanted to marry her." "I'm sure she put a spell on him." "Now he's been dead two years by the Vistula." "In Woppert, we had an aviator, Rudi Molz." "He shot down fourteen aeroplanes." "Now he's in the ground, dead." "When airmen crash, they don't suffer." "Eduard, don't talk." "They're as if hypnotized before they crash." "Maybe they think of the nice turf they're going to ruin but they don't think of themselves." "Airmen are the true heroes." "I recognized him immediately." "That's Paul Simon." "Paul, you're back home and my Helmut was killed in Russia." "Did you know?" "Pauline, the glasses." "In Russia they've shot four grand dukes." "Four at one go and they had to strip naked first." "What?" "Naked?" "Where?" "Karl Glasisch, too." "Apollonia's got him on her conscience, too, the witch." "He came home from the war with a skin infection from poison gas." "Now she's turned his head and keeps turning him down." "So he's boozing." "Marie-Goot, be quiet." "And Eduard, stop rocking that chair." "But it's true." "She thinks only of tormenting the men, that gypsy." "She doesn't want Glasisch because of his scabs that's all." "He got that from the mustard gas in Flanders." "Were you ever in a gas attack, Paul?" "City folk just came, looking for food." "Wiegand drove them away." "We've always had food." "Tell Paul, Mother." "The French want us to starve." "We're in the country here." "French!" "French!" "We'll drive you from your trench!" "We said that but now we've got them here." "When the French occupied us they stabled their horses in the church." "In the church!" "In Flanders, we played different tricks." "A Frenchman came into our farmyard." "He kept going around, looking for chickens." "Then he shouted, "Come on, chick, chick!"" "And whacked his stick against his boots." "Then the Americans came." "They were more decent." "They didn't whistle at the girls." "When Big Bertha shelled enemy villages everything shook, we had to drive the tent-pegs deeper." "The German army wasn't defeated, but its strength ebbed away." "My Helmut never fired at villages." "And first the airmen with their bombs." "We had good guns." " What's wrong with his eye?" " He's the basket maker's boy, Hans." "I knew him when he was little." "At his Confirmation party his brother put his eye out with a fork." " With a fork?" " With a fork." " During the meal?" " During the meal." "Exactly." "Two men in Rhaunen killed Hartmann, the chemist." "What?" "I got my heart medicine from him only last week." ""Murder and robbery in Rhaunen."" ""As Hartmann had invested nearly all his money in war bonds the loot was less than the criminals expected."" "Only last week I saw gypsies in Rhaunen." ""Two hawkers suspected of the crime have been arrested."" "I knew it!" "Does it say how he died?" ""One of the criminals was throttling Hartmann while the second used a heavy object to smash his skull in as he lay on the floor."" ""It was this in particular which brought about his instant death."" "Hallo, Paul." "See my white robe?" "...Smashed in his skull..." "I have a white robe like an angel." "AII soldiers go to heaven and get a white robe." "My rash came out and the sun went in." "Murder in the Hunsrück." "There was never such a thing before the war." "I can see the snow in Russia." "All my life there was never such snow in the Hunsrück." "That he's spared your wicked gossip is a good thing, too." "Our Paul and Helmut were always the best of friends." "Son, your lung!" "You can't be friend with such a swarthy person." "My Helmut and Apollonia had agreed to marry before he went off to war." "Apollonia's a beautiful girl." "Has she bewitched you, too, old fool?" "I see the battlefields below." "They lie there so peaceful, as if they wanted to rest." "In Kirchberg in the last three years of the war you could hear the thunder of guns from France." "So we went out and listened to the war." "Sit down." "Paul's falling asleep." "Paul, your trousers are torn." " Have you heard?" " What?" "They're making a new sports field." "They want to make a sports field, Paul." "Paul's gone to sleep." "Down on earth, as you all know there's high German and there's low." "Some say das, some say dat." "Some say was, some say wat." "But in heaven, as you'd expect they speak the Hunsrück dialect." "Airmen have oxygen masks now so they can go higher than 6,000 metres." "That's worn right through." "Do it the other way round." "What's that, then?" "That's my new aerial." "I may get Hilversum." " Hilversum?" "That's a new transmitter in Holland." "Have you got there yet?" " Where?" " Hilversum." "Give me a pencil." "The "Elizabeth" is carrying four hundred four hundredweight of cod to Wilhelmshaven." "End." "That's marine wireless." "Morse code." "I learnt it in Signals during the war." "And all that comes through the kite?" "We're making progress." "We can listen to the whole world." "Not yet awhile." "Walter, there's a kite up there." "I was just thinking about you, Paul." "The bell ringer rings the village bell and stinks like an old goat as well!" "I'II hit you with a stick." "The bell ringer with his stick, we hope he drops dead quick!" "Otto and Adolf." "We might soon have been on there, too, Karl." "And now we watch our girls bed down with Frenchies." "I've seen you with Apollonia." "Tell me..." "A wireless like that..." "I mean a real one, a big one with a horn like you see in pictures..." "Is that expensive?" "Well, I know a Leipzig firm that makes the parts." "It's cheaper to make it yourself only nobody will deliver nowadays for our inflation money." "Paul, come here." "If it could be for in dollars..." "I've got some in reserve, but don't tell anyone." "At home I've got a circuit diagram and assembly instructions for a two valve set." "If I could find out how he's paying for the car he's ordered." "Like us, he invested all his money in war bonds." "I paid gold for iron." "When you've got as much land as he has..." "Such a skinflint." "Our richest farmer and he doesn't even feed his dog decently." "And he must always have the latest..." "First a motorbike, now a car." "Since my grandfather's day the District Council's always met in the inn." "But since Wiegand's been mayor they always meet in his parlour." "So they can save paying me for a few beers and wines." "And in his parlour they won't be so quick to contradict him, will they?" "If only he'd break his neck on his motorbike." "That envious, dirty dog!" "I've heard that gypsy women shave themselves down below." "Is that right?" "Take your scabby fingers away." "Are you shaved, or not?" "Glasisch, keep your hands off Apollonia." "She wants nothing to do with you." "Has she had a kid from a Frenchman, or not?" "Glasisch, that's no concern of ours." "But if it's true, that the kid's in your midden as people say, then it does concern you." "Glasisch, there's nothing but shit in my midden." "Would you like to stick your nose in it, like the other people?" "What's Stinker from Morbach doing here?" "Apollonia's baby, they say it's buried in the midden." "Start your work." "Let's go and see." "That thick muck must be removed." "With buckets, or better, with a pump." "Just leave it to us, Herr Glasisch." " Here's something solid." " Can you get it?" "I know my job, I tell you." "There's something solid." "They've found something." "So Glasisch was right." "It's too hard to be a child." "That's metal." "There's no question about it." "Maybe shells." "Maybe from the last war." "Did any shells come this way?" "Stay here, Herr Jakob." "Please." "Can you tell us what hard object there could be in there?" "I don't know about anything hard." "Eduard, come and help." "It seems to be quite big." "It's Wiegand's motorbike!" "How did my bike get into your midden?" "I don't know." "I didn't chuck it in." "I reckon you know something." "Do you think I drove it in there?" "Anyway, the thing was in there." "Inspector, I'm lodging a complaint against persons unknown." "Mind where you point that finger." "Note that my bike has lain for over a year in Jakob's midden." "AII suspicion and insults." "But someone's got to withdraw and Wiegand, it is time you did." "Inspector, shall I go on searching?" "For over a year, I've looked for the rascal the rotter the Lucifer!" "Wiegand, I've still got five thousand-mark notes from 1914." "I'd give them for the stinking thing." "The other day I threw such notes into the stove." "The Ohlsweiler scrap merchant will give you two hundred marks for it." "Give me your money and do what you like with it." "I'm buying a car, anyway, when times are better." "If my patent invention for unveiling monuments works it'll spread like wildfire from village to village." "They'll adopt it even beyond Morbach." "You in the middle, you on the left..." "no, I'm left, you're right." "The cue is, "Bow silently before them."" "It's got to go like clockwork." "Lower it or it will already be unveiled." "Now it's up to us." "Let's hope the rope doesn't break." "It would be so sad, it would be funny." "Be serious, now." "The children's choir is coming." " Is it working?" " An Eduard patent never fails." "What's the matter?" "It's been going on for three years." "They keep saying bad things about me." "I work myself to death and they won't even give me a friendly word." "I can't live like that, Maria." "Don't take it to heart." "Only Paul Simon has stood up for me." "Paul Simon?" "The heavens praise the eternal glory..." "They're consecrating memorials everywhere." "This week they were in Simmern, Kirchberg and Sohren." "In Sohren's memorial, there's even bells." "And they always make the same speech." "Know who profits most?" "The quarry by the River Nahe." "They're delivering 5,000 memorials as far as beyond Trier and the Eifel." "Well, enough men got killed." "My dear friends assembled here." "The men whose names are inscribed here knew what they were fighting for." "They did not carry the heavy pack of a guilty conscience like their enemies who made a cowardly attack on a peace-loving people." "No, they marched against this universal enemy with the light pack of an easy conscience." "At last a man who stands up to the occupiers." "A courageous man." "We Germans who still have ideals should work to bring about better times." "We should fight for justice, loyalty and morality in the name of our war dead." "Because of the farcical Versailles Treaty which so deliberately humiliates our people Germany will one day arouse the genius of its blood who will deliver us from His dungeon of humiliation like a saviour." "Already we sense His shining presence in the distance." "Then peace will come." "A peace necessary for the strong future of our state and which will influence world history." "Our loved ones did not die in vain." " Let us bow silently before them." " Ready!" "Keep in time with the music." "Mäthes-Pat, I'm here too." "A bullet came towards us meant for me or meant for you?" "Who's that?" "Böhnke, the baker from Simmern." "He lost three boys in the war." "You're always holding what I need." " Why is there always blue smoke?" " The flux always burns blue." " Is this the valve?" " Don't touch it, it's delicate." "You'll burn the house down one day." "Wilfried, time for bed." " It is only half past seven." " No arguments." "He always has to have the last word." "Did you catch it?" "What?" "The music I just heard." "There wasn't any music." "But I heard it, drums and trumpets." "Impossible, I haven't unpacked everything yet." "I've so looked forward to hearing music from you soon, Paul." "The valves are not connected yet." "I've brought you this." "You must let the chocolate melt very slowly in your mouth." "I always do, when I'm in bed." "I put a piece in my mouth and let it slowly melt." "Then you can enjoy it for a long time." "Why are you giving it to me?" "You're so quiet." "I like that." "Quiet?" "Yes, you are." "I like people like you." "During the war, I used to think if I come through this, then I'll do something special and I won't stop until I've done it." " But you're doing that." " Think so?" "Of course." "You're the only one who can do something like this." "Do you really think so?" "If you're the only one, then you're also the first one." "Hold this." "Steady." "Don't wobble." "One day, I'II make a short-wave receiver." "With that, I can listen to the whole world." "But I need a battery." "Then get yourself one." "Paul, what are you doing on the Rhine?" "Apollonia, I've bought a battery for Wiegand's wireless." "Why is it so lovely on the Rhine the German Rhine?" "Because the French side over there pollutes the healthy air." "Apollonia..." "I can't get it into my head that you're the mother of a child." "Nor can I. I just can't believe it." "But I've got one." "Such a beautiful baby, with such beautiful dark eyes." "You should see Armand's eyes." "He's the little Frenchman, the baby's father." "You'd have liked him, Paul." "I only wanted to dance with him." "But he was so far away from home." "I couldn't say no to him." "The worst thing is what they say in the village." "Take no notice of them." "And Jakob won't even pay me for my work at the inn now." "He says I should be glad not to lose my place." "I work as well as ever." "They call me a French whore." "In church, they tipped me off my chair." "They call me a witch because of my black hair." "They say I've trodden Helmut's memory into the mire." "I was seventeen." "I'm twenty now." "Must I pay for ever because there was a war?" "They say I flung my baby into the midden but I didn't want them to see it." "I'm glad you let me see it." "Your child." "Paul, people aren't like you." "You're different from the village people." "I'm not different." "You are, you're making your wireless." "You came back three years ago, but you still aren't at home here." "Where are you?" "Are you catching the three o'clock train, too?" "Go on, we'll meet later." "Armand!" "Paul, Armand wants to marry me." "That's why it took so long." "And you?" "I don't know." "Armand thinks his parents will leap for joy to see me, but that's not so." "That's not so." "How quick it seems when I'm beside you." "We're almost in Simmern." "They're all unhappy with me at home." "Father wants me in the forge and the fields to carry on his work." "I could travel like this with you for ever." "They talk about grandfather and great-grandfather and so on and the trade the family has carried on for years." "And I look at my wireless, and I no longer know who I am." "I've got the feeling I know." "Who am I?" "You don't belong to Schabbach." "Like me, Paul." "If only I were sure." "It's an evil village." "Like all the evil villages out there." "When they flash by faster and faster, I can breathe again, Paul." "Paul, I'm never going back to Schabbach." "I'd like to be with you always." "Let's just go on." "We won't get out in Kirchberg, we'll travel on." "To the end of the world?" "You misunderstand me." "I mean, we really won't get out here." " Where, then?" " We'll find somewhere." "What about my battery and my wireless?" "Then go alone to Schabbach." "Where our sweet little village ends" "Where, by its wheel, the mill-stream wends?" "Here stands, amid dark blossom's foam" "My old beloved parents' home" "I long to go there when I sleep" "I often think of it and weep" "My parents' home, so dear and neat" "We haven't touched any of your things." "It's all just as you left it." "In Berlin, they've built a radio tower with a café on the top and from there, they blare out music, I've read." "Can you get Berlin on it?" "Paul, I'd open a shop and sell wireless sets to the whole district then your father would have money." "Look at the lovely linen, all spun by Maria." "For eternity." "There's Wiegand's car, with Wilfried." " Come one, let's have a go at him." " Good idea." "Know-all Wiegand!" "Nice car you've got!" "Have you got goggles like your dad has for his motorbike?" "My father doesn't ride a motorbike any more." "The gentry only let their dogs ride back where you're sitting." "Stop, I can't bear to watch Wiegand ducking." "He'll crack his starched collar." "Take your scabby fingers off my car!" "You bastard!" "You idiot!" "You'd have done better to go to church." "If I'd fallen in Flanders, I'd be on this memorial." "And people would lift their hats to me." "Go on, Hans, stretch out the aerial!" "That should be enough." "Careful!" "Don't cut their heads off!" "Perfect." "Clap your hands, Wiegand." "A bit higher, Hans." "Higher!" "Still higher!" "Now pull it tight." "Paul has made it." "My Paul's got a flair for that." "Eduard, help me attach the earth lead." " No, go to where it's earthed." " What?" "To the walking stick." "Wilfried!" "What are you doing?" "Eduard, your lung." "You're sitting on damp earth again." "That boy with his lung!" "I don't know." "Something's building up over there." "I think there'll be a thunderstorm." " I don't think so." " Never." "My cellar steps were dry this morning." "There'll be no storm if the steps are dry." "You should have brought the steps for us to see." "Shut up!" "Down by the Nahe, a man saw a storm ruining his crops." "What did he do?" "He took his gun, went to the door and fired up into the sky." "But as he fired, his gun was struck by lightning." "Right!" "If I were God I wouldn't want people firing into my heaven." "I can depend on my cellar steps." "If they're a bit damp, there'll be rain." "If they're warm, we get a storm." "This morning they were cold." "You and your steps!" "You sound as if you'd fallen down them." "That's the High Mass from Cologne cathedral." "Then we needn't have gone to church this morning." "The whole of Baldenau Castle is like a church." "Eduard, the volt metre." "Paul, the music was lovely." "We'll get it better after I tune the aerial." "You're in the newspaper." "It says, "Even in the Hunsrück radio has arrived."" "Here's something else." ""He who waves money about..." ""...never had any before."" "Have you heard in Simmern, the girls are having their hair bobbed." " Is that the latest fashion?" " They have to follow every fashion." "What does that look like?" "Is he back again?" "Now he has his fingers in that jar of gherkins." "Will you stop that?" "What?" "Can't you hear, Pauline?" "Pauline, your lung!" "What we need today are really feminine women and masculine men." "Inwardly and outwardly." "Why don't you want any?" "Glasisch had his scabby fingers in there." "No, I'm not eating that." "Alois, don't make a fuss." "Eat some." "That's a distant radio." "This is RAVAG, Vienna." "Leo Slezak's first wireless broadcast." " Why do they say wireless?" " Leave the wire alone." "Dear listeners non-licence payers everyone listening to wavelength 530." "Today I am singing on the wireless for the first time." "You have no idea how excited I am." "My first song will be "The Linden Tree" by Franz Schubert." "Now, everyone, a nice friendly face." "In the shade of the linden tree I dreamed many a sweet dream." "How furious my father was when Glasisch got beside him in the photograph." "I knew it, the valley and the castle they're like a great dish collecting the waves from space." "Sometimes, Paul..." "You came back three years ago but you still aren't at home here." "That's just what Apollonia told me." "You still think of Apollonia often;" "I've noticed that too." "Well, she speaks French now goes shopping and can make French jokes in Normandy." "She didn't want to stay here with us." "Why have you never asked me how she is?" "She's written to me;" "I'd know best." "She says it's a lovely country, France." "And they are the luckiest people in all Europe." "She wants to be remembered to you." "I still see her going through the village with her black hair." "Always merry, such white teeth when she laughed." "She could look at you so affectionately." "We often talked about you, when she was still here." "You were the only one she thought anything of." "How they tormented her, even as a child in Dickenschied because nobody knew her father they called her a gypsy and blamed her for everything that happened in the village." "Yet she was so good-hearted never wanted to let anyone see her crying." "And she loved you, Paul." "You're just like Apollonia." "You won't let anyone see what you feel." "Paul, once you promised me something." "What?" "That you'd do something special." "That you'd be the only one and the first." "What are we doing here?" "Maria, I think I love you." "Won't you be my wife?" "Now a photograph of the rabbits." "Hold them high." "We'll have a souvenir of them after they're eaten." "Pauline, I said you should bob your hair then it won't get in a mess." "This is my sister Pauline." "I told you about her." "That's a nice dress..." "Did you make it yourself?" "Look, Schorsch, Julius." "The pictures from last Sunday." "I developed them." "They've come out well." "They are wonderful." "Good shot." "You should have been in Simmern last weekend." "It was quite an event." "Julius and I had a great time." "That's a great photo." "Julius, look at the second row." "That's us." "We read about it in Kreuznach, in the paper." "The French arrested the mayor because he wouldn't show his identity card." "And I photographed it." "Not the actual event, but I was there a couple of hours later." "That's the house where they arrested him." "Rolled gold wedding rings in stock - very durable." "I can make wedding rings from your own gold." "He lives up there." "Pauline, I'll be back!" "When I saw you outside I thought I'd better bring you inside the shop because there's a Jew living upstairs who's said to be a Separatist." "They call him the slow worm." "There's still some in there." "Keep still." "We have three of four Separatists in Simmern." "Each of them has five or six window panes." "Imagine all the breakages in the last three days." "The plates are in the bag." "Careful, they're glass." "What's he put there?" "That looks like blood poisoning to me." "We must make sure it doesn't go over the wrist." "Keep it in." "It has to be as hot as you can bear or we don't get the bacteria out." "I read on a calendar what bacteria get up to in the blood." "You must mind they don't go into the heart or the head." "You can't see them, but they've got to come out of the hand." "Keep it in there." "I can't throw them on the manure or they'll go on the fields, then back to us." "Mother, what are you doing?" "What have you got there?" "Where can I tip something like this?" "No, the hares are there." "I'll take them behind the house." "Mother, stop." "These are the bacteria from Pauline's hand." "Paul, where are you?" "Maria, get out of my way." "Paul, get your wife to bed, she must lie down." "I know." "She'll have a premature birth;" "dangerous in the eighth month." "Not in the house." "Pauline is there and I've spilt bacteria." "Go to Wiegand's." "Mother, be quiet." "I don't know what you want from me." "Does it hurt here?" "Not there." "It is the back of my head that hurts." "Why your head?" "That was Pauline." "Will it be premature?" "It's a good thing you're back, Mother." "I was in the house the whole time." "No, I saw you in the slate quarry and a cold wind was blowing out of the cave and I waited so long for you and above me Eduard was sitting in the woods holding a lump of gold in his hands." "Eduard's in Alzey, in prison." "A lump of gold." "He must be lost." "Eduard, your lung!" " Talk German." " He doesn't know German." "To think you're Ralf Windhäuser and you're from America." "In Argenthal, there's another Windhäuser..." "His name's Rudolf." "In my grandfather's time, people emigrated to Brazil." "Nowadays, they're called Emilio, Francisco Roberto and Margrinia." "Like margarine!" "If you won't believe it, go up to the loft and get the letter from Leopold Simon, from the Matto Grosso." "But that's Brazilian." "The American airman won't understand it." "I understand everything." "If you need more we can get anything with dollars in Bernkastel." "Now, Herr Windhäuser, you can go to bed without any worry." " Airmen are the real heroes." " You are right." "Good morning, Mister Paul." "Sleep well?" "He sat up all night in the loft listening to the wireless." "Just imagine, Mathias he picked up London." "A wireless fanatic?" " How terrible he looks." " That will pass." "Come with me for a fly-round over the village." " Get a bit of fresh air." " Me?" "A fly-round?" "Yesterday he arrived, out of petrol." "So me and my friends went to Bernkastel and bought petrol." "It's not easy to get that much petrol in Germany." "Now some of it is in there and the engine's up there." "Here's a special lever where you can let the petrol out in an emergency." "The propeller is special, too a Gypsy-Major." "We'll fly up there in the ether." "See the world from above, better than a king." "Paul, I'm afraid." "Are you flying with him?" "He's letting me, Eduard." "I'd like to fly, too." "Later." "Children, move out of the way." "Land!" "I want to get out, I want to get down." "I want to see that woman!" "Go down!" "I've found out something." "Father." "Paul." "I must tell you something." "First sit down." "I know where there's gold here." "You're light-headed." "Have something to eat." "We have places named Ducat Brook." "Gold Brook, Silver Lake and I know the reason." "Up at the tower there were cars from the Geological Institute in Bonn." "I helped them mend their punctures." "They had geological samples lumps of copper and iron ore and on one box was written "Gold." "Monzelfeld." ""...200mg per 10 tons, 15th June, 1927."" "And other boxes where they'd found gold in Stromberg and Kempfeld." "The district's full of gold and nobody knows." "Yet Gold Brook's been called that for 1,000 years because gold is in it." "A few years back, I read something like that in the paper." "See, Paul, didn't I say so?" "And you found all this out." "Dammit!" "On the back of the car it said Geological Institute of Bonn University." "That's official proof." "Now eat something." "Paul, we must go to Monzelfeld." "I'm not going." "I'm not making a fool of myself." "Here's a fat slice of bread and butter." "That's gold for your lung." "We'll be making a mistake if we don't go to Monzelfeld." "Eat, or you'll spit blood again like you did in the Alzey prison." "How worried we were about you then." "The district's full of gold and nobody knows." "Shouldn't you go back to your observation post?" "We don't want word of this to go around." "Otherwise there'll be a whole town here." "Something's glittering in there." "It glitters like the lumps in the engineer's boxes." "With a leaf shutter - and how small it is." " With my gold..." " Shut up!" "I'll buy six pairs of shoes pigskin, leather, calfskin, yellow and black." "Come over here." "Here's a musquash and kid coat." "Here's a Russian squirrel and marmot coat for 475 marks." " The most expensive on show." " Unbelievable..." "What do you think of a molerab coat?" "That must be a cross between a mole and a rabbit." "With that you'll get round any woman." "My sister Pauline." "What are you all doing here?" "No so loud!" "Is Robert home?" "He won't be back from Koblenz until tonight." " What are you up to?" " We can't tell you." "We'll call back later." "They are having a good time." "Let's go in." " That's not our sort of thing." " Oh, come on." "Well, are we going in?" "We can't go in there with our dirty clothes." "From today, we can go in anywhere, however we look." "Of course, we're going in." "You needn't fear your wife will see you." "I'm not going in." " Not dirty as I am." " Oh, let's go in." " What do you want?" " Two entrance tickets." "Not if you look like this." "Four tickets then." "Even if you buy five tickets, you're not coming in." " Stop!" " We're only looking." " Ten entrance tickets." " No." "They'll be richer when they come out." " Why?" " They'll have pearls in their hair." "Now we'll go to my brother-in-law to see if we've 100% or only 18 carat." "Want to pawn your wedding ring?" "I needn't touch my capital for a long time." "Eduard, you're so strange." "What is it?" "What's this?" "We've got more." "It's not 18 carat." "It's going black." "It's not 14 carat, either." "I'll test it for 8 carat." "It may look golden it is probably cupric oxide." "That might contain gold." "You can hardly see it." "Someone with a gold tooth probably bit the stone." "Grub up!" "Make sure you bring Frau Molz the new Singer sewing machine." "And Frau Weckmüller would like two dozen needles." "I must collect goods from Kirchberg station." "But don't dig around in streams for gold." "Nobody got rich that way." "Leave it to me." "It's all under control." "There's a woman lying in the wood back there." "She's dead." "Paul, what did you see?" "A woman's lying there, dead." "Never seen her before." "She's not from our district." "She's not from around here." " She's got nothing on." " Not even a ring." "We can't leave her lying there." "Who knows what did it?" "We won't touch her." "The best thing is to get Stallkäth from the village." "Paul, you go." " She's not been dead long." " Looks as if she's still alive." "Looks as though it happened this morning." "Just when we were working." "Where is she from?" " She's no German." " Might be a Jewess." "It's possible." "Maybe it was an indecent assault." "Or sex murder." "Like Haarman." "There's no wound." "Maybe she was ill." "Then she wouldn't be naked." "Let's try to find her clothes." " Good idea." " Let's go." "We won't touch them if we find them." "Why are children here?" "This isn't a fair to gawp at." "Keep away from her." "Come out." "It's your father-in-law's barn." "Can we leave her there?" "We can." "I'll call Wiegand." "I found a tiny hole at the back of her head." "It wasn't an illness at all." "Someone must stay;" "better you, Paul." "Didn't you think of calling the police?" "You dump a corpse in my barn." "So I come under suspicion, damn it!" "My barn, but I've nothing to do with the corpse." "I didn't order the corpse to be moved from where it was found, either." "Who are you?" "My son-in-law." "He was working with the others and he found her." "Come with me to the car." "We'll make a report." "26th May, 1928." "About 1 p.m." "You don't need me any more." "So I'll ride home." "Where were you on the 26th May, about noon?" "My son has nothing to do with the corpse." "I asked your son." "Where were you, then, on that day?" "Look at the Socialists and their police." "They don't question the vital person." " Who's that?" " Find out for yourselves." "Check the Party books, you'll get him." "Six days ago, we had the Reichstag elections." "Of our 120 voters, 74 voted Centre 26 voted National and 6 Liberal." "Still they couldn't stop the slide to the Left." "We've got just two Socialists and as one was in hospital in Simmern that leaves the one he means." "Call your dogs off!" "Yours first." "They are interested in the other party's dogs." "My dogs are non-party." "They're used to different smells." "Where do you keep your dogs?" "They smell." "My dogs smell what they smell." "Our dogs don't smell." "I refute that." "They do." "You can smell what they smell." "What was that?" "Paul, someone's in the house." "I'll go and see." "For days I've felt there's someone here." "Don't wake Ernst up." "Sleep." "You rogue!" "That pine marten even got into the loft." "I threw my stick at him and he went leaving his mark." "That's what a marten's shit looks like." "I'll make a trap for it tomorrow in the forge." "I'll go and quieten the animals." "That wicked marten, he's killed our three best hens." "Bit them to death." "It's disgraceful." "He killed our best three hens." "The marten!" "But we will get him." "Such a shame!" "We can't eat them or use the feathers either." "The three best white Leghorns." "Anton, come here." " What's wrong?" " Why?" " Where are you going?" " To get a beer." " There's the cover." " It'll be repaired by next week." "Paul, where are you going?" "Marie-Goot was at Wiegand's for coffee and she buttered her bread so thick Wiegand's eyes almost popped out." "But Marie-Goot wasn't put out saying, "Nice soft cheese you've got"." "So Wiegand got angry and said..." ""..." "Soft cheese be damned you're eating the butter."" "Haven't you seen him?" "But we really haven't seen him." "You must have." "He went for a beer and he must have passed your house." "I still wouldn't know where he's gone." "Mäthes-Pat said he went across your meadow." "Come, Maria." "Sit down." "The police are looking everywhere for him." "Sit down." "They're sure to find him." "Nobody wished him harm." "He had no enemies." "No, he really didn't have enemies." "Such a good chap." "He never harmed anyone." "Impossible." "The door will open and Paul will be back." "I heard there's an exhibition in Mannheim about shortwave wireless, radio spares and so on." "Isn't it possible that Paul might have gone there?" "No, Marie-Goot." "That can't be." "Well, why not?" "THE CALL OF FARAWAY PLACES"