Billiards at Half-past Nine
Heinrich Böll
 Architect Robert Faehmel's secretary, Leonore, describes Robert and the knowledge that something in her routine life is not ordinary. Robert is meticulous in everything he does. An old friend of Robert arrives at the office but Leonore sends him to the Prince Heinrich Hotel where Robert is, daily, from 9:30 to 11:00. Trouble is afoot for the entire Faehmel family, which includes three generations of architects: Heinrich Faehmel, his son Robert and Robert's son Joseph. The man who wants to see Robert is named Nettlinger, but the Hotel bellboy, Jochen, refuses to let the man disturb his patron who is in the billiard room. Upstairs, Robert is telling Hugo about his life and we discover that Nettlinger was once a Nazi policeman. Robert and his friend Schrella, both of whom were schoolmates with Nettlinger, had opposed the Nazis, refusing to take "the Host of the Buffalo," a reference both to the devil and the Nazis. Schrella had disappeared after being beaten by Nettlinger and Old Wobbly, their gym teacher, also a Nazi policeman. Nettlinger and Old Wobbly had not only beaten Schrella and Robert, but had corrupted one of Robert's three siblings, Otto, who died in 1942 at the Battle of Kiev. His mother, Johanna Kilb, is committed to a mental institution because she tried to save Jews from the cattle cars going to the extermination camps. It is now Heinrich's 80th birthday. Heinrich and Robert meet in a bar after visiting Johanna, sitting down and talking for the first time in many years. Meanwhile, Schrella has returned to Germany and talks with Nettlinger, who tries to make amends for his past life despite the fact that he has not really changed, and remains an opportunist. Schrella goes to visit his old home. We meet Joseph Faehmel and his girlfriend Marianne. Joseph has just learned that Robert was the one who destroyed the beautiful Abbey his grandfather had built and this greatly upsets him. Marianne tells him the story of her own family: her father was a Nazi who committed suicide at the end of the war. Before taking his own life, he had ordered Marianne's mother to murder the children. She hanged Marienne's little brother but the arrival of some strangers prevented her from doing the same to Marianne. Johanna, in control of her wits, leaves the sanatorium with a pistol which she intends to use on Old Wobbly for his past sins. The entire family gathers in the Prince Heinrich Hotel for the birthday party and Johanna shoots at a Secretary of State who was watching a military parade from a hotel balcony. This act was intended to signal Johanna's inadaptation in a society ruled by "The Buffalo", whose members already forgot the horrors of the world. At the conclusion, Robert adopts the bellhop Hugo. A birthday cake which is shaped like the Abbey is carried in. Heinrich slices it and hands the first piece to his son.