Oskar had a whole minute in which to study the moon with impunity, to look for a solution among the craters, to reconsider his idea of stepping into Christ’s shoes. This green light talk was not to my liking, and I certainly was not going to let any half-baked hoodlums put me on a schedule. I waited about thirty-five seconds; then Oskar said: “I am Jesus.”

What happened next was pretty good, but I can’t say I planned it. Immediately after my second announcement that I was Jesus, before Störtebeker could snap his fingers or Firestealer could dust, the air-raid sirens let loose.

“… Jesus,” said Oskar and took a breath. Thereupon my identity was confirmed, successively, by the sirens at the nearby airfield, the siren on the main building of the Hochstriess Infantry Barracks, the siren on the roof of Horst-Wessel High School, the siren on Stemfeld’s Department Store, and far in the distance, from the direction of the Hindenburg-Allee, the siren of the Engineering School. It was some time before all the sirens in the suburb, like a choir of iron-lunged, overenthusiastic archangels, took up my glad tidings, made the night rise and fall, made dreams flare up and crash, crept into the ears of the sleeping population, and transformed the cold, disinterested moon into a merciless light that there was no way to black out.

Oskar knew that the alarm was on his side; not so Störtebeker, the sirens made him nervous. For some of his henchmen the alarm was a call to duty. The four Air Force Auxiliaries had to climb the fence, rush back to their batteries between the car barn and the airfield, and help man the 88’s. Three others, including Belisarius, were wardens at the Conradinum. Störtebeker managed to keep his hold on the rest, some fifteen of them. Since nothing more was doing in the sky, he went on questioning me: “Very well, if my ears do not deceive me, you are Jesus. O.K. One more question: that trick of yours with the street lights and window-panes, how do you do it? You’d better come clean. We know all about it.”

Of course they didn’t know a thing. They had witnessed one or two of my vocal triumphs and that was that. Oskar told himself that he must not be too severe in his appraisal of these junior hoodlums, or juvenile delinquents as we should call them today. Their way of doing things was amateurish, too eager, too direct, but boys will be boys; I was determined to be patient with them. So these were the notorious Dusters that everybody had been talking about for the last few weeks, the gang that the police and several Hitler Youth patrols had been trying to track down. As it later turned out, they were schoolboys, students at the Conradinum, the Petri and Horst-Wessel High Schools. There was a second group of Dusters in Neufahrwasser, led by high school students but made up chiefly of apprentices at the Schichau shipyards and the railroad car factory. The two groups worked separately, joining forces only for night expeditions to the Steffens-Park and Hindenburg-Allee, where they would waylay leaders of the League of German Girls on their way home after training sessions. Friction between the groups was avoided; their territories were marked out with precision, and Störtebeker looked upon the leader of the Neufahrwasser group more as a friend than a rival. The Dusters were against everything. They raided the offices of the Hitler Youth, attacked soldiers found necking in the parks to strip them of their medals and insignia of rank, and with the help of their members among the Air Force Auxiliaries stole arms, ammunition, and gasoline from the AA batteries. But their main project, which they had been maturing ever since their inception, was an all-out attack on the Rationing Office.

At the time Oskar knew nothing about the Dusters, their organization or plans, but he was feeling low and forsaken, and he thought these young men might give him a sense of security, a sense of belonging somewhere. Despite the difference in our ages—I would soon be twenty—I already considered myself secretly as one of them. Why, I said to myself, shouldn’t you give them a sample of your art? The young are always eager to learn. You yourself were fifteen or sixteen once. Set them an example, show them your accomplishments. They will look up to you. Maybe they will choose you as their leader. Now at last you will be able to exert influence, to bring your intelligence and experience to bear; this is your chance to heed your vocation, to gather disciples and walk in the footsteps of Christ.

Perhaps Störtebeker suspected that there was thought behind my thoughtfulness. He gave me time to think, and I was grateful to him for that. A moonlit night toward the end of August. Slightly cloudy. Air-raid alarm. Two or three searchlights on the coast. Maybe a reconnaissance plane. Paris was just being evacuated. Facing me the front, rich in windows, of the Baltic Chocolate Factory. After a long retreat, Army Group Center had dug in on the Vistula. Baltic was no longer working for the retail market, its whole output went to the Air Force. Oskar was having to get used to the idea of General Patton’s soldiers strolling beneath the Eiffel Tower in American uniforms. In response to this painful thought—ah, the happy hours with Roswitha!—Oskar lifted a drumstick. Störtebeker noticed my gesture, his eye followed my drumstick to the chocolate factory. While in broad daylight the Japanese were being cleaned out of some Pacific island, on our side of the globe the moon was shining on the windows of a chocolate factory. And to all those who had ears to hear, Oskar said: “The voice of Jesus will now demolish some glass.”

Before I had disposed of the first three panes, I heard the buzzing of a fly far above me. While two more panes were surrendering their share of moonlight, I thought: that fly must be dying or it wouldn’t buzz so loud. Thereupon I blackened the rest of the windows on the top floor. Awfully pale, those searchlight beams, I said to myself before expelling the reflected lights—probably from the battery near Camp Narvik—from several first– and second-floor windows. The coastal batteries fired, then I finished off the second floor. A moment later the batteries at Altschottland, Pelonken, and Schellmühl let loose. Three ground-floor windows, then the pursuit planes took off and flew low over the factory. Before I had finished off the ground floor, the AA suspended fire to let the pursuit planes take care of a four-motored bomber that was receiving the attentions of three searchlights at once over Oliva.

At first Oskar feared the spectacular efforts of the antiaircraft batteries might distract my new friends’ attention. My work done, I was overjoyed to see them all gaping at my alterations in the chocolate factory. Even when applause and cries of “Bravo” rose up from nearby Hohenfriedberger-Weg as from a theater, because the bomber had been hit and could be seen falling in flames over Jeschkenthal Forest, only a few members of the gang, among then Putty, looked away from the unglassed factory. Neither Störtebeker nor Firestealer, and it was they who mattered, showed any interest in the bomber.

Once more the heavens were bare, except for the moon and the small-fry stars. The pursuit planes landed. Far in the distance fire engines could be heard. Störtebeker turned, showing me the contemptuous curve of his mouth, and put up his fists, disengaging his wristwatch from the long sleeve of his raincoat. Taking off the watch, he handed it to me without a word. Then he sighed and tried to say something, but had to wait for the all-clear signal to die down. At last, amid the applause of his henchmen, he got the words out: “O.K., Jesus. If you feel like it, you’re in. We’re the Dusters if that means anything to you.”

Oskar weighed the wristwatch in his hand, a cute little thing with a luminous dial and hands indicating twenty-three minutes after midnight, and handed it to Firestealer. Firestealer cast a questioning look at his boss. Störtebeker nodded his consent. Shifting his drum to a comfortable position for the homeward march, Oskar said: “Jesus will lead you. Follow Him.”