The Pre-War Post-German Refrigerator (Part III)

Not forgetting the bathroom, before leaving for my new friends, I precisely removed an unharmed Pompeian tile from the bathroom wall. 

On the way there I bought at the liquor store two half-liters of vodka, and because the whole time the summer held on, I bought, like last time, six bottles of beer. 

My gifts excited them and I automatically became for them a very serious contractor. I told them that I was very interested in the refrigerator, and when I began to explain where it was, they knew perfectly what I was talking about. 

When I moved to the second matter, one of them, finishing his bottle of beer, led me to the back, where under the one surviving wall stood straight in line four bathtubs full of different tiles taken from the strip down. 

I looked for my type for a long time until at last I found it, only in a different color schematic. They fit in format and design, only that mine symbolized heaven and the sea, and these the sun and the sand. 

Taking one I decided you could never have too much of the sun. 

They asked me where I lived and I told them some one hundred fifty meters yonder. It turned out they knew my house quite well. 

Ultimately we came to the conclusion that it would be better for me not to loaf about here anymore, and somehow they’ll bring everything I need to my house in the next two days. I’ll tell this now briefly. 

They showed up good and drunk in the evening three days later, just as I was tumbling around with Marika on the daybed. Lightly aloof I went downstairs and we decided the refrigeration would not fit through the stairs so we pulled their funny cart around to the terrace stairs. 

When I suggested it would definitely be easier to bring it up this way, they both balked, saying that life was easy for them and on these stairs they definitely wouldn’t put their feet. 

I persuaded them a long time that these warnings of mines were just for show, to scare away thieves, but only after running up and down a few times and at the end hopping like a kid up and down the stairs, they allowed themselves to be convinced somehow. 

When we brought everything to the terrace, I told Marika to put something on and I invited the whole crowd to the bathroom. 

It ended on this, that for a hundred fifty złoty they would fix the whole wall for me. In three days they’ll get cement and tools and in two hours everything would be ready. I gave them a fifty złoty advance.