The Boy Who Stole from the Dead

CHAPTER 36

NADIA STARED INTO the barrel of the gun. The woman was serious. The mere mention of a World War II ghetto gave her instant credibility. She had witnessed horrors beyond Nadia’s comprehension. Who knew what she’d done to survive? Shooting a stranger dead in broad daylight was unthinkable to most people. But to a mother with such a background who thought she was protecting her son, not so much.

“My name is Nadia Tesla. I met Karel at the café outside the power plant in Chornobyl last year. I told him I was a journalist but he knew better. He knew I was there to see my uncle who’d sent me a message to America that he had something valuable. Something very valuable. Karel took me to see my uncle, and then he showed me wolves.”

“You say your name is Nadia Tesla? What did my son call you? Did he call you Nadia? Or did he call you Panna Tesla?” Panna, with a pause on the ‘n,’ was the Ukrainian word for Miss. “I raised my Karel to be a gentleman. I’d like to know if I succeeded.”

Nadia sensed it was a test. “He didn’t call me by either of those names. He called me Nadia-Panya.”

She raised her chin and studied Nadia, as though for the first time. “Oh. So you’re that Nadia Tesla.”

Nadia’s father had used that line all the time. Nadia could see his lip curling up as he said it. She knew she was out of harm’s way. It was a classic, old-school Ukrainian line that implied the given person was one of the good guys.

“Who are your parents? Where are they from?” Karel’s mother said.

“My father was born in Bila Tserkva. My mother was born in Kyiv. They moved to Lviv when they were teenagers. Then they immigrated to America. My mother’s retired. My father passed away when I was thirteen.”

She waved the gun at Nadia. “What are their names, kotyku? Their names?”

“Maxim and Katerina.”

She studied Nadia again. “Oh. Those Teslas.” She turned and put the gun in a drawer.

Nadia didn’t bother asking if Karel’s mother knew her parents. She knew the answer was no. She’d asked their names to make sure they didn’t stir a memory. A bad one, Nadia suspected.

“Is Karel here?” Nadia said.

“No. Karel is gone.”

“Where did he go?”

“Have you had breakfast yet? When did you get into town?”

She insisted Nadia sit down at the kitchen table. For the second time since Bobby had been arrested, a woman with a gun served her tea. If there were a third time, Nadia was certain it wouldn’t go so well.

Nadia explained that she’d flown to Kyiv on business, and come to Lviv to see her parents’ adopted hometown.

Karel’s mother poured water into cups. “What religion are you? Orthodox or Catholic?”

“Catholic.” Nadia remembered the Mezuzah. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if you had said neither, that you are an atheist, that would have told me something about you.”

“What would it have told you?”

“That you are like my son.” She smiled. “He was born a Jew but became a scientist. He only believes in that which he can prove. Though he’s searching. He’s questing. He’s trying to find a being higher than the equation.”

She served tea with rugelach and poppy seed cake. Nadia started with the poppy seed cake. She could never resist it. This one had raisins and nuts and melted in her mouth. Nadia sensed that Karel’s mother was as lonely as she was wary. Her best approach to find Karel was to continue the conversation and be sociable.

“I noticed the castle up the street with the star of David on it,” Nadia said. “What is that building?”

“That was the Jewish hospital,” she said. “It was dismantled in 1965. Now it’s a tourist destination.”

“Why was it dismantled?”

“Because it had fallen apart. It was no longer necessary after the war because the Jewish quarter ceased to exist.”

“What do you mean, ceased to exist? You’re still here, right?”

“Yes. I’m still here. In 1939 before the war, there were one hundred and twenty thousand Jews living in Lviv. In 1941 that number grew to two hundred and twenty thousand. Refugees from Western Poland. That was half the city’s population. Today there are only two thousand of us left.”

Nadia didn’t know what to say. She knew what the Nazis had done. Everyone knew. But the Nazis had been gone for more than half a century.

“The first daily Yiddish newspaper in the world, the Lemberger Toblat, was published in Lviv in the nineteenth century, when it was under Austrian rule. Lviv was a center of Yiddish literature. Ukrainians and Jews who lived in Lviv got along very well. Until the cooperatives came.”

“The cooperatives?”

“Ukrainian communities consisted mostly of farmers. Jewish communities consisted mostly of shopkeepers and moneylenders. When the farmers pooled their resources to buy and sell products without a middleman, it created tension. Many Jewish people lost their jobs.”

“Did any of your family survive the war?” Nadia said.

“No. My parents were shipped to Belzec in May, 1942. That was four months after my only brother was hanged to death from the gallows the Nazis set up in the town square. He was part of the armed Jewish resistance. His last words were ‘the sun still shines.’ He was captured by the SS paramilitary death squad, who were assisted by the Ukrainian auxiliary police. Most Ukrainian kept to themselves during the war. But some didn’t. That was the second of two major pogroms in Lviv. You know what a pogrom was?”

Nadia shook her head.

“A legal riot against Jews with the full support of the law.”

“Horrible. How did you survive?”

“The resistance hid me. I was passed on from sanctuary to sanctuary until the war ended. The Nazis never found me. I was one of the lucky ones.”

Nadia took a bite of rugelach and sipped her tea. “I need to find Karel. I need to ask him some questions about things that went on in a place I cannot talk about. It’s a matter of life and death for someone I love.”

“He went on a pilgrimage to Zarvanytsia.”

Nadia had never heard of the place. She shook her head.

“It’s a small village in Ternopil. It’s known for its miracle-working icon of the Mother of God.”

Nadia frowned. “But I thought he was—”

Karel’s mother raised her eyebrows. “Jewish?”

“No. A scientist.”

“He is. But as I said, he’s searching for something more.”

Nadia stood up and thanked her for her hospitality. She started toward the door.

“He said you might show up here some day, you know.”

Nadia wheeled. “He did? When did he say that?”

“When he retired and moved here. About seven months ago. He’d bought the building years before in preparation for retirement.”

“Why would he have thought that back then?” Nadia asked the question aloud, even though she was asking herself.

“Because he is Karel. His father was one of the scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project. He is a special boy. He sees the future.”