The Aftermath [antikvár]

'The Beast is here. I've seen him. Berti's seen him. Dietmar's seen him. With his black fur like a fancy lady's coat. And those teeth like piano keys. We have to kill him. If we don't, who wiU? The Tommies? The Yankees? The Russkies? The French? None of them wiU, because they're too busy looking for other things. They want this and they want that. They're like dogs fighting over a bone that's got no meat on it. We have to do it ourselves. Get the Beast before he gets us. Then everything will be better.' The boy Ozi readjusted his headgear as he led the others through the pulverized landscape of the Tommy-bombed city. He wore the English hard-helmet he'd stolen from the back of a truck near the Alster. Although it was not as stylish as the American or even the Russian helmets he had in his collection, it fitted him the best and helped him swear in English when he wore it, just like the Tommy sergeant he'd seen shouting at the prisoners at Hamburg's Dammtor station: 'Oi! Put your fucking hands up. Fucking up, I said! Where I can see them! Dumb bloody fucking Huns.' Just for a moment those men had failed to raise their hands; not because they didn't understand, but because they were too weak from lack of food. Dumb-Bloody-Fucking-Huns! Below the neck, Ozi's clothes were a hybrid fashion of make-do invention where rags and riches jumbled together: the dressing gown of a dandy; the cardigan of an old maid; the collarless shirt of a grandfather; the roUed-up trousers of a storm trooper tied with the belt of a clerk's necktie; 3