Destination: Germany
Population: 82.8 million people
GDP per capita: 52.801 USD

The foyer of the vaudeville theater was empty.
The performance already begun and the buzzing of the audience penetrated the shabby red drapes.

We emerged onto a narrow corridor with a number of rough plywood cubicles right and left. A few oddly garbed figures were scurrying about, and through an opening in the flimsy wing I could see a clown on the stage, his enormous mouth wide open; once again the roar of the crowds’ laughter engulfed us, but Jupp pulled me through a door and shut it behind us.

“Five minutes”, muttered Jupp, slipping into his custom…

 Excerpt from The Man with the Knives by Heinrich Böll

“I’m scared, I whispered.”

“So am I. Don’t you trust me?”

“Sure I do…but…let’s go, I said hoarsely, pushing past him and adding, with the courage born of despair, I’ve nothing to lose.”

Withdrawing my gaze from this limitless horizons, I looked at Jupp, now standing opposite me so that our eyes were on a level; he raised his hand moving it slowly towards a pocket, and again I realized that this was a signal for me. I stood completely still and closed my eyes.

It was a glorious feeling, lasting maybe two seconds, I’m not sure. Listening to the swish of the knives and the short sharp hiss if air as they plunged into the fake blue door, I felt as if I were walking along a very narrow plank over a bottomless abyss. I walked with perfect confidence , yet felt all the thrill of danger. I was afraid, yet absolutely certain that I would not fall; I was not counting, yet I opened my eyes at the very moment when the last knife pierced the door beside my right hand…

A storm of applause jerked me bold upright. I opened my eyes properly to find myself looking into Jupp’s white face. Then he pulled me in the center of the stage, right up to the very edge. I was the man who had knives thrown at him…