The One Man

FIFTY-ONE

The iron door to Block Eleven opened and the large man hesitantly stepped in, his cap in his hand. He took an anxious look around, a row of dark cells lining the barrack walls, hearing people huddled inside them, in total darkness, a few desperate moans. Some iron contraptions that looked like chains or harnesses hung from hooks on the walls.

Franke, against the wall, saw the burly man’s eyes fall on them uneasily, as if he understood what they were for.

“Come on in.” Lagerkommandant Ackermann stood up. “Please, sit down.” He pointed to a wooden chair on the other side of the table. “Your name is Macak, correct?”

“Yes, that’s me. Macak.”

“Pavel, isn’t that right? And I’m told people call you The Bear?”

“Because of my cheery disposition, I guess.” The bearded man forced a smile. He didn’t like Germans much to begin with, only their cash, and now, pulled away from his work line by an armed detail and brought here, to this hellhole, a grim-faced guard at the door and two big-shot officers staring at him, even a man as hardened as he could be forgiven for feeling at bit of unease.

“No doubt.” The camp commander grinned. “And you are foreman of one of the construction crews in Brzezinka?”

“That’s right.”

“And I’ve been told you have even done work inside the camp here? Even recently?”

“I have.” The foreman nodded uneasily, a glance toward Franke, who leaned against the wall. “Wherever the work is, that’s where we go. Right now, that seems to be you.”

“Even yesterday, if I’m correct,” the Lagerkommandant pressed on. “You and your crew helped construct the new barracks by the kitchens, I’m told?”

“If you’re happy with it, yes, that was our work.” The foreman nodded, forcing a smile.

“And the day before that as well?”

“The job took three days.” The foreman shrugged. “We did what was requested.”

“The work is fine, Herr Macak. It just seems there was a minor discrepancy in our count between those who were on the truck in Brzezinka and let inside the gate and then those upon leaving at the end of the day. We counted thirty-one in the morning and somehow only thirty left. I’m sure it was simply a mistake.”

“Thirty, huh…?” The foreman ran a hand across his beard. “I’m quite sure that’s what it was. I’m always accurate with my numbers. Besides…” A moan emanated from a cell behind them. “This isn’t exactly the kind of place one wants to get left behind in, if you know what I mean.”

“And why exactly would you say that, Herr Macak?” The Lagerkommandant looked back with a frosty smile.

“No disrespect.” The foreman shrugged. “Only-”

“Yes, I was just joking you, Herr Macak. I understand perfectly what you meant. In fact, our initial thoughts went there too. Why would anyone possibly want to be left behind here? Except then we came across this…” The commandant got up and removed a tan cloth jacket from a hook on the wall and tossed it onto the foreman’s lap. “In a storage bin. Near where you and your team happened to be working. Maybe you remember someone wearing it that day. As I recall, it wasn’t exactly warm Tuesday. I could understand someone taking it off, perhaps in the heat of the day. But then finding it at the bottom of a storage bin, under rags and buckets… And then coupling it with this matter of this missing person who you say doesn’t exist. Number Thirty-One. You know we Germans always need to be precise. So any thoughts on this, Herr Macak? Simply for our records…” The Lagerkommandant’s eyes remained on him.

The foreman felt the sweat rise up on his neck and kneaded his cap. “Could be anybody’s.” He shrugged. “I can’t quite say.” His voice now had a quiver of anxiousness in it.

“Maybe something we could do might jog your memory, what do you think? Perhaps an extended work contract at one of the construction sites around. Steady work is hard to come by these days, is it not?”

“It is,” the foreman agreed. “And it would be my honor to have that. But the fact remains, I don’t recognize it,” the Pole said, trying to hand the jacket back. “Sorry, but if that’s all there is”-he glanced at his watch-“I know my crew expects me back and…”

“So we say there were thirty-one people on your crew…” The commandant pulled out a chair directly across from Macak and sat down and stared at him. He held a small horsewhip in his hand. “And you say thirty. But you know what I think?” He jabbed a finger in the air. “I think this jacket belongs to the one who up to now remains unaccounted for. So with all apologies to your work crew…” His stare hardened from amiable to icelike, “I’m afraid that is not simply all there is, Herr Macak, and maybe for a long while, until we know precisely who he is.”

The foreman let out a breath. He just looked back at the commandant and scratched his beard. Franke could see that the man was someone who knew he had one foot in the soup now and was rolling over in his mind the best path for keeping the rest of him out of the pot.

“Perhaps as you try and think on it, you would consider the possibility of becoming a resident here yourself from now on, Herr Macak? We can arrange that. No problem for us. It is why I arranged for us to meet here. Though I can’t fully promise”-the commandant shrugged, his smile fixed-“that your stay here will last long. Do you understand what I’m saying, Herr Macak?”

The foreman inhaled a deep breath. He glanced toward Franke, who had not yet moved or spoken, but whose presence in the room, the gray-suited intelligence officer covered with war eagles, clearly gave him cause for discomfort.

Then he looked back at Ackermann.

“My cousin.” The foreman swallowed and picked up the cloth jacket. “He said the guy was visiting. That he was a good worker. I remember he took a break near the end. I didn’t keep track of him.”

“Describe him,” Franke cut in, with a glance toward Ackermann. Validation surged in his blood.

“Medium height. Dark features, kind of thin.” Macak shrugged. “Like a lot of people one sees in here. Couldn’t work a lathe for shit, that I can tell you.”

“And he spoke Polish?” Franke continued, moving over in front of Macak now.

“Yes.”

“Like a native? Or perhaps someone who has learned it? Who is from abroad?”

“He pretty much said as little as possible,” the foreman said. “But from what I heard, it seemed quite good.”

“And so, your cousin?” Ackermann interjected, tapping the horsewhip in his hand. “What is his name?”

Macak drew in a troubled breath.

“I’m asking you, Herr Macak. One way or another we’ll find out. If we have to bring your whole fucking work team back in here and put a gun to their knees. So what will be easiest for you, Herr Macak? It would be hard to ply your trade with a bullet in your knee, would it not?”

The foreman looked back at them and swallowed. The stubbornness in his eyes ebbed. He’d tried. Done the best he could. What would anyone expect? He wasn’t going to die to save him. There was a war to get through. And he had a wife and two daughters. “Josef,” he said, running a hand across his face. “Wrarinski. He’s the baker. In Brzezinka.”

“Brzezinka,” Ackermann confirmed.

Macak nodded glumly.

“Pick him up,” the intelligence colonel said to Ackermann without hesitation. “Now.”

Macak had known Josef for as long as he’d been alive. The baker had prepared the cake for the foreman’s own wedding, three tiers with a sweet praline inside and vanilla frosting. He had stayed well into the night, dancing. Every St. Stanislaw’s Day, he and Mira brought over muffins and fruitcakes.

But Macak knew he had just signed his cousin’s death warrant.

FIFTY-TWO

Blum chewed on a stale crust of bread and sipped the thin gruel in his bowl outside his barrack before the block was split up into their work details.

He could weigh this all day, he knew, but he would not come to a different answer. It would only cost him time. Crucial time. And as vital as it was to do what he was sent there to accomplish, something else rose up inside him now. Something equally important.

Something that would not let him go.

No tragedy is greater than that of a single person who is afraid to do the right thing. Doesn’t the Talmud tell us that? That to shrink from moral courage, knowing what was right, was the death of light. It became the same as what he saw around him here. Will it cost or save lives? Sometimes that was no matter. He realized all he would be putting at risk. The promise he made to Strauss. To President Roosevelt. His mission, with all that was clearly riding on it. Those whose lives depended on its outcome. He was sorry about that.

But it was about one life now. A life that meant everything to him.

And saving that one life was akin to saving the world.

He had left her once before, in Krakow-left her to die. Left them all to die.

He had vowed that wouldn’t happen again. And now here was his chance to prove it.

The lengthy roll call the camp had stood through had consumed half the morning. It was already after ten. That left only nine hours before he, Mendl, and Leo had to line up under the clock tower for the overnight work detail. Blum knew, four would make it even more difficult to get away unseen. Leisa was never the brave one. He would have to stay by her. And Mendl too. Yet he knew he had to try. A dark cloud hung over the camp every day, but inside Blum, the path was now lit and clear.

Whistles sounded. The morning meal was done. “Line up! Work details!” the kapos called. “On the double! Now!”

He spotted Shetman washing out his bowl at the faucet. Blum went up to him. “You said to let you know if I needed something else done in here?”

The little man continued to rinse his bowl. “What is it you need?”

Blum kneeled down beside him. “Is there a way to get into the women’s camp?”

Shetman shrugged. “There is always a way. When do you need to go?”

“Today. Now,” Blum said back. “In the next couple of hours.”

“The next couple of hours…?” Shetman chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Boy, you must have the itch real bad.” Forays into the women’s camp, situated several hundred yards away, were typically for conjugal purposes.

“It’s hard.” Shetman shrugged. “And it costs money.”

“How much?” Blum reached into the lining of his uniform and peeled off four crisp fifty-pound notes. British pounds.

“But with money, there is always a way.” The little man’s eyes lit up. “Even in here.”

“There’s just one more complication…”

“Complication…?” Shetman looked at him.

Blum peeled off two more fifty-pound notes. “I need her brought back out.”

“Now, that will cost you.” Shetman met his eyes and smiled. He shook his bowl dry and wrapped the bills into his palm.

“And as long as I’m paying…” Blum peeled off another fifty-pound note. “I’ll need another men’s uniform. A small.”

FIFTY-THREE

The woman stepped hesitantly into the Lagerkommandant’s office, in a thin burlap dress, her head shaved, a scarf tied around it.

Her nerves showed. Her eyes darted back and forth between the Lagerkommandant and the intelligence colonel, Franke, who sat at the table, seemingly wary even to step foot in the room, into the lion’s den, face-to-face with the man who controlled life and death here.

“Don’t be afraid.” Ackermann beckoned the woman forward. “I promise, we won’t bite. Please, sit.” He pointed to a chair. “You told the Obersturmführer you had something of importance to share.”

The woman stepped closer to his desk and nodded. She could have been forty or sixty; in here, it was hard to tell. “My son,” she said nervously, “he’s only twenty. He’s somewhere in the main camp. I haven’t seen him since we arrived.”

“And so you shall, my dear, you shall see him,” the commandant replied good-naturedly. “And I give you my word, I will watch over him myself. And you as well. Once we hear what you have to say.”

“I have your promise then?” She looked at him, distrusting.

Franke saw she would no more trust the Lagerkommandant to pour water on her if she was set on fire and he was holding the pail. No one in here would.

“As an officer, madame. I assure you. Now out with it. Colonel Franke and I have work to attend to. What is it you have to say?”

“This morning I happened to overhear a conversation,” she began. “I didn’t catch it all, only parts. But what I was told you would find of interest was, there is someone here, inside the camp, who has snuck in. From the outside.”

Franke sat up in his chair. They had sent out a team to pick up the baker, but this was even more evidence that his suspicions had been right. “You heard this? You see, he is here!” he said to Ackermann, his blood coursing with electricity. “Now there is no doubt. You are certain of this, madame?” He turned back to the woman. “You saw him?”

“I did.”

“And you heard this where, madame?” Ackermann asked her.

“By the orchestra. This morning. I was bringing clean sheets to the infirmary. He claimed he had snuck in. And that he is somehow leaving. Tonight.”

“Tonight?” Now Franke stood up and faced the woman too.

“Yes. He said he has a way out. But only tonight, he kept saying. I’m sorry, but I think they saw me, so I couldn’t hear how.”

Franke’s blood surged. His suspicions had been correct. A few days ago it was only a puzzle, a puzzle for him to solve, and as the pieces slowly came together, he had put everything on the line. His career. His reputation. He knew from the beginning that this was it! His chance. Now it was only a matter of why. Why was the man here? And how to stop him.

Only until tonight. That didn’t give them much time.

“Who, madame?” Franke stepped up to the woman. “Who is this man? If you saw him, you must be able to point him out?”

“In this place…?” She shook her head. “I don’t know who he is. Or what block he is in. I only overheard him for a moment as I went by.”

“Describe him then.”

“He was thin, kind of like your height.” She pointed to Franke. “Dark features. In a prisoner’s uniform. Young looking. He can’t be more than twenty-four. I know that doesn’t help you much. I tried to follow him as he was led away.”

“Led away?

“By a guard. But he blended into the crowd. I’ve no idea what block he was in. I’m sorry, Lagerkommandant. But I also know something else…”

“Tell us, madame,” Ackermann pressed.

“You said I could see my son.” She looked at him for final confirmation. “That is a promise?”

“Yes, yes.” He rolled his hand. “Go on. You will.”

Likely in the gas chambers, Franke suspected, if he could trust anything in here.

“I believe he has a sister here.” The woman looked at him.

“A sister…?” Franke said. His eyes stretched wide.

“Yes. And one more thing… She is in the orchestra.” The woman nodded. “Her I can point out.”

FIFTY-FOUR

“Mirek, this is Levin.” Shetman introduced Blum to the head of the camp repair team. “I’m told Pan Mirek here can take a carburetor out of the grave and bring it back to life. As we discussed, he’ll be joining you today.”

The head of the repairs crew looked at Blum with a complicit nod. According to Shetman, the repairs team had the most unrestricted access between the men’s and women’s camps, holding passes to freely go back and forth as the situations called for. And the camp’s water pump, which was kept in the main camp, was routinely lugged back and forth to the women’s camp, in many cases only as a cover for conjugal purposes, and often with the tacit understanding of the guards, whose palms were always well greased to look the other way.

“Good. We can always use a good hand.” The repair chief folded a few, crisp bills into his palm.

Blum had given Shetman three hundred and fifty pounds, a vast sum, to get the job done.

“You come along and you don’t say a word,” the repair chief said. “If any of the guards there are poking around suspiciously, then it’s off. Our call. No argument. And no refund either. Those are the terms.”

“I understand,” Blum agreed. What choice did he have?

“They usually give us about twenty minutes to get the pressure back up”-Levin chuckled, “if you know my meaning. They know what the game is there. We’ve got some gifts for them. Here’s your pass.”

Blum stared at the square white paper with hard-to-read script on it.

“Don’t worry. It’s perfectly valid. So don’t sweat over that. Sweat over what you’re about to do. We’ve never brought someone out before.”

“Then thanks for doing this.”

“Not me.” He pointed. “Rozen’s going with you. He volunteered.”

A man with dark wiry hair and shoulders like wire hangers stepped up. Blum shook his hand.

“It all should work though. If everything falls in line. Which block is she?” the repair chief asked.

Blum said, “Thirteen.”

“Thirteen?” The repair chief winked at Rozen complicitly. “What is it with the water in Thirteen? We were just there last Thursday.”

Shetman handed Blum the uniform he’d requested and patted him on the back. “Good luck.”

“Why?” Blum asked Rozen as they towed the ramshackle pump toward the front gate.

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this? Levin said you volunteered.” They both knew if they were found out, they’d be shot on the spot. Or strung up on one of those gallows and left there for everyone to see.

Rozen stopped the cart and pulled up his sleeve. “See this number.” Blum looked. A11236. “I’ve been here from the beginning. Since forty-one. No way they’re ever going to let people like me make it out. We’ve seen way too much.” He picked up the tow bar again. “They just keep me around because it keeps them in business. So in the meantime I try to do some good.”

“Well, whatever the reason, thanks,” Blum said.

“Besides, like Levin said, the idea appeals to me.” They started up again. “So who is she? Wife? Sweetheart?”

“Sister,” Blum said, guiding the pump from behind. It had a cylindrical tin housing that contained the pump and hose feed which was set on an unsteady wooden platform with four wheels and a towing rod.

“Sister? So then why do you need her in here?” Rozen looked back, puzzled.

“Is it all right if I tell you tomorrow?” Blum said. By then he wouldn’t have to answer the question. They’d be gone.

“You don’t have to ever tell me.” Rozen shrugged. “It’s not my business.”

They passed by the kitchens and the administrative building on the other side of the wire. Guards looked them over as they went by. Rozen nodded to a few he recognized. No one gave them a hard time. “I’ve done business in here a long time. I know most of them at the gates,” he said. “I’ll do the talking, if that’s okay.”

“Of course.”

“The reason we go now”-he looked up at the clock tower-“ten after, is to make sure by the time we come back, the shifts won’t have changed.”

At the front gate, they presented their passes to the guards. Blum still felt a knot tighten in his stomach. An SS sergeant with a submachine gun slung over his shoulder looked over the pump.

“Emergency over in the women’s camp,” Rozen told him. “Block Thirteen.”

“Thirteen? Second time this week.” The guard sniffed and shook his head. “What do they do with the water over there?”

“If you’d let us fix the damn pipes for good, we wouldn’t have to keep lugging this thing.”

“You.” He came over to Blum. Blum handed him his pass. “New…? Didn’t I see you carrying the shit buckets the other day?”

Blum now saw he was one of the guards Dormutter was playing up to yesterday. Blum wasn’t sure exactly how to answer.

“He looks young, but he’s as sharp a mechanic as we’ve found,” Rozen interjected. “Why waste skills like that in the latrines?”

The guard looked Blum up and down. “Nice promotion.” He handed Blum back the pass. “Enjoy the view over there.”

They were waved through, and they made their way along the perimeter of the brick wall, following the road. The rattly cart needed help getting over the scrub and bumps on the path. The women’s camp was only a couple of hundred yards down the path, but dragging this apparatus made the trip seem endless. The closer they got to Birkenau, the stench in the air grew even worse. It was like he and Rozen were heading straight for the gray, low-hanging cloud that always hung over it.

A troop carrier passed them by, filled with soldiers. Farther west, Blum noticed the train tracks that were being built, and past them the line of pines and maples where Josef’s partisan detail would attack from tonight. These woods were the only spot of green Blum had seen since he had been here. He made a mental reference to Vrba’s map. It was accurate enough, he saw, thinking of what lay ahead. He sucked in an anxious breath. Later.

“The women’s gate is right up here. This is where it starts to get dicey,” Rozen warned. “Block Thirteen, you say? Does she know you’re coming?”

“No. It was only today that she even learned I’m here.”

“You’re taking a big chance then, if you don’t mind me saying. You know this can only happen once.”

“I understand.” Once is all I have, Blum said inwardly.

He hadn’t heard the orchestra playing anywhere in camp for several hours now, as most of the population was out at work. He assumed that meant they were now on break. Or sleeping. It was just after two p.m. Ahead, Blum saw a small brick building at a road with two SS standing guard.

Rozen looked back with a serious cast on his face. “Here we are.”

A brick wall ran the length of the perimeter of the women’s camp with the occasional guard tower manned with machine guns.

“Ah, Scharführer!” Rozen nodded familiarly to a guard as they wobbled up to the gate.

“Back so soon?” The guard rolled his eyes.

“Trust me, it’s no holiday for me either, dragging this contraption over. You’d make my life a lot easier if they had their own here.”

“I’ll be sure and take that up next time I speak with the Führer,” the guard snorted with a sarcastic grin. “Where to today? Thirteen? Again?” he remarked, as Rozen showed their passes. Blum was sure there was a bill sandwiched between them.

“So what is it there?” The guard stepped up to Blum and gave him the once-over. “Frau?”

Blum glanced at Rozen, unsure how to answer. The repair chief gave him a quick nod.

“Yes. My wife.”

“Then I hope the old pump works, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled complicitly. “See you in twenty,” he said to Rozen with a wink, “if I’m still here.”

They hurried through, the guard checking his palm as he went back to his post and tucking something in his uniform.

They were in.

FIFTY-FIVE

The women’s barracks were similar to the men’s-long, two-storied structures, windows on top, with trenches along the sides. Some even had small gardens planted in front with wildflowers growing. There were several dour-looking female guards in brown SS uniforms with pistols strapped to their belts. And male guards too. As they passed, several prisoners made advances at them. “Come over here, lover boys. We need a hose too! Where are you going?”

“Thirteen.”

“How come Thirteen gets all the action? What’s Thirteen got that we don’t? Look!”

“The water’s off, that’s all,” Rozen replied, lugging the pump along the row of barracks.

“Ours is off as well!” a woman called. “Bring that big pump of yours over here.” A few of them laughed openly.

“I’ll see you on the way back.”

They mostly had shaved heads and wore shapeless rags over their skin and bones, and rarely even saw a man other than the guards, from whom they suffered the same brutality as did the male prisoners.

“Thirteen’s over there,” Rozen said, pointing to a long barrack identical to the others. “You’ll open the housing. I’ll hook up the pump. You’ve got twenty minutes. Less, since we have to give the appearance that we’re doing some real work. And you can’t go inside the barrack. That’s verboten. And remember, we take her only if no one’s around. And on my say-so. Otherwise I pack the ship up and leave you both here.”

“I hear you.” Blum’s heart began to race in expectation. He looked around. They had their own Blockführers and clerks to watch out for here as well. Not just the guards. A couple of women were tending the garden on the side.

“Ladies… back again,” Rozen announced. “We’ll get this thing running yet.” He towed the pump along the side of the barrack, so it was mostly out of view. Blum opened the pump housing. A thick rubber hose was wound up around a wooden coil, which he pulled out and gave to Rozen, who flicked the motor on and led it over to the outdoor spigot. He kneeled down and twisted open the tap. A trickle of brackish water ran out. Probably as much as they had had on a good day, Blum presumed, as in the men’s camp. Rozen took a wrench and bent down and removed the faucet head, and hooked up the rubber pump nozzle to the pipe going, “Maestro, please…!” and gave the signal back to Blum, who began to raise and lower the pump handle, forcing the pressure forward.

Then he looked back at Blum and gave him a complicit nod. Which meant get going! “I’ll take over now.”

Blum nodded. He went over to the two women in the garden in front of the barrack, saying quickly in Polish, “Please, Pani, do either of you know Leisa Blum here in Thirteen?”

One shook her head and said, “Greco.” I’m Greek. I don’t understand.

The other shrugged. “Blum? No,” shaking her head too. “I don’t know names here.”

“She’s in the orchestra. She plays clarinet.”

“Ah, clarinet, yes!” Her face lit up. “I know her.”

“Can you find her for me? Quick, please!”

“But I don’t know if she’s here.”

She went inside the barrack. Blum went back over to the pump and kneeled by the faucet, pretending to check the pressure, as Rozen moved the handle up and down. On the far side of the yard, he saw a heavyset female guard bludgeoning a helpless woman seemingly without mercy; the woman screamed and raised her hands in defense. But soon she stopped moving. The female guard kicked the inert body several times to make sure she was dead and then rolled her over with her foot. Horrible as it was, Blum kept checking the block. Five minutes had passed. What if Leisa wasn’t there? What if he had to go back empty-handed, knowing he could have saved her but had failed?

He’d think about this moment for the rest of his life.

Finally, the woman who’d gone off came back, her arms apart, and shaking her head in disappointment. “Sorry, she’s not here. But I sent someone…”

What if someone had seen them talking earlier? What if the orchestra was rehearsing somewhere? What if a thousand things? Blum thought in a rush of panic. He looked at Rozen. Ten minutes now. Where was she?

Suddenly the Oberaufseherin, the block wardress, just as the men had their blockschreiber, came out of the barrack in a huff, barking to Rozen, “What’s this? I didn’t send for you.”

“Well, someone did, madame.” Rozen coolly threw his hands up. “You can see there’s a problem. Anyway, the pressure looks like it’s starting to come back.”

That seemed to calm her, and she went back into her office, yelling, “Next time, it must come from me!” But time was ticking away. There was only so long they could stay.

Finally, Blum saw another woman coming from a neighboring block all excited, and a few yards behind her, Leisa. Thank God! Leisa stopped as soon she saw him, clearly in shock, twenty yards away. Blum waved her over to the side of the barrack down from the pump, like two lovers who were going there to have some moments alone. “Nathan, what are you doing here?” she uttered in disbelief. “I was practicing. I-”

“Hush.” He pulled her farther along the barrack to make sure they were completely alone. “Leisa, just listen,” he said under his breath. “I told you I have a way out of here. But it must be tonight. And you must come with me to the men’s camp. Now.”

“To the men’s camp?” Her eyes flooded with terror. “Now? How, Nathan?”

“Inside the pump. Come close,” he instructed, “make it look as if we are lovers. It will work, Leisa. You can fit. Rozen goes back and forth all the time. But there’s no time to think on it. It must be now. You can’t even go back and get anything. You can’t even say goodbye. You just have to trust me. And come.”

“Now…?” She shook her head fearfully. “I can’t, Nathan.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just can’t. It’s too quick. I have friends…”

“You must. Otherwise you will die in here, Leisa. With your friends. Have I ever let you down?”

“No. Never,” she said. But he could see how conflicted she was.

“And I won’t now. Look, I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. I know this all seems out of a dream, seeing me here like this. But I’m on a mission, Leisa. To get someone out of the camp. A scientist. And we have a way to get out. A plane is coming tonight. Nearby. To take us out of here. To England.”

“A plane…? England…” Blum saw her face come alive, but as she looked to make sure no guards were around, the color drained from it. Trepidation came into her eyes. “Nathan, I can’t. I want to, but I’m just not ready, I-”

“Leisa, listen to me. You must!” He took her by the shoulders. “If only for the sake of our parents. You know that they would want this for you. For us. We have to try.”

Blum gauged the time. Maybe fifteen minutes had gone by. At the most, they had maybe five more. Five minutes to convince his sister to give up everything she knew to be true for the past years and place her faith in him. A shadow from her past, suddenly come alive. And putting herself at grave risk. He glanced back at the pump. Rozen would soon be getting anxious. Blum took her by the arms. “Now that I’ve found you, I won’t leave without you, Leisa. No matter what else is at stake. I won’t leave you behind. Not ever again.”

Through the conflict in her eyes he could see deep into her heart. The fear alive in there. Her trust in him, which he knew was without limits. She was just frozen, behind these wires. This place had taken everything from her. Her will. Her ability to act. Her hope. Yet a flicker of it still burned deep inside her. Blum could see it. Like a light down a long dark corridor in her conflicted eyes. He cupped his hands on her cheeks and said to her again, “This is me talking. You have to trust me, Dolly. Come!”

At first her eyes shook with indecision. Then suddenly she nodded. “All right, I will. I’ll come, Nathan.” She kept nodding. “I do trust you. I’ll come.”

Ebullient, Blum took her by the hands. “I knew you would.”

“I just need to get my-”

“No.” Blum shook his head. “There’s no time. It has to be now.”

“My clarinet… I just can’t leave it.”

“Not even your instrument, Leisa. Nothing. We have already lost a lot of time. It must be now.”

She swallowed with a sense of resolve, nodding, and he wiped a last tear off her cheek. “Okay, then… Let’s go.”

“We’re going to make it,” he said, putting a hand to her face. “I promise. Okay, Doleczki?”

She sucked in a breath for courage and smiled. “Yes.”

He led her by the shoulders back toward the pump wagon. He nodded to Rozen, who was still at the handle.

She’s set.

“Okay, pressure’s back up!” the repairman announced. Then he went back to the spigot and switched out the pump hose for the faucet, making a big scene of it. “Come see…” Two or three women went and kneeled down and turned the spigot on. Water came out, perhaps a shade more than before. But just as brackish. “Go ahead, drink up,” he said. “We’re all done.”

A couple filled their cups while Blum guided Leisa onto the pump platform and she squeezed herself inside the metal housing. Just enough room in there for her to wedge herself in. Rozen then brought the hose back over and coiled it around the wooden spool, Leisa crouching inside. The more it wrapped around, the more completely it hid her. When the hose was wound back in, Blum shut the housing door, closing her in. “I know it’s dark in there,” he said through a vent. “But you’ll be safe. I promise. Just stay calm.”

“All right, Nathan.” Her voice came back meekly. Her knew how terrified she had to be, huddled up in there. His little sister was never the one who threw herself off rocks into a lake at their summer cottage or, in the ghetto, dodged between buildings after curfew.

Rozen glanced back at Blum. “Ready?”

Blum nodded. “Yes.”

“So let’s go.” The repairman looked around and didn’t notice anyone who seemed focused on them. Just a routine repair, prepared to return home. Rozen in front, they wheeled the pump back out into the main yard. “Bye, ladies.” He waved. “Till next time.”

“Next time, Rozen, you should stay for one yourself,” one called.

“I will.” He waved to her. “Promise.”

They towed the pump-which was heavier now, with Leisa inside-through the main yard of the women’s camp and then back to the outside gate. Blum’s legs grew rubbery as they wheeled it up, the same guard checking the passes again and looking over the pump, eyeing Blum with sort of a derisive laugh. “Back so soon. You Jews certainly don’t last very long.”

“You said twenty minutes, Unterscharführer.” Rozen watched the sergeant circle the pump. “I’m sure if he had the time, my friend here could have gone on for hours.”

All it would take, Blum knew, would be one perfunctory look inside, in the course of just doing their jobs, and they were all dead. He saw himself hanged on the gallows like the other prisoners he had seen, or dropped with a bullet to the head where he stood. Leisa too, which made his worry even stronger.

Just be still, Leisa… Do not move, he willed her inside.

“You look a little pale. All a bit too much for you?” The guard chortled at Blum.

“It’s just that I hadn’t seen my wife in a long time.”

“And you may not again. Best to look at each time as your last. Okay, go on.” The sergeant finally waved them through. They pushed forward, trying not to make it look like there was an added weight inside. They were almost at the path. Suddenly a second guard came out of the gatehouse, announcing, “I’m off. I’m wanted at the guardhouse over at the main camp. I’ll escort them back.”

Blum’s heart went into free fall. He shot a worried glance to Rozen, up in front. The repairman’s look mirrored his own, and read, Just be steady and don’t panic. And hope that Leisa holds together. There was nothing else they could do.

“Come on, yids. On the double.” The guard grabbed his rifle. “I don’t have all day.”

Blum’s gut knotted tight with dread. They pushed on, over the scrubby terrain, the couple of hundred yards between the two camps. With Leisa inside, the cart was even less maneuverable. Its wobbly wheels bobbed up and down over the ruts and gullies. Blum imagined she must be going out of her mind inside. She had to have heard it all. Knowing her death, all their deaths, was so near.

“Nice afternoon, is it not, Herr Scharführer?” Rozen asked him, more to let Leisa know that they had company in case she said something.

The guard was in no mood. “Just keep your mind on what you’re doing. I don’t have all day.”

A few yards behind them, he lit a cigarette and smoked. He waved to a few cohorts riding by on the road. Blum kept the wheels steady with every bit of strength he had. If they broke an axle over a rock or a buried root, it would be a quick end for all of them.

At last they made it back to the men’s gate. Luck was with them. The same set of guards were manning it as when they left.

“Look what I’ve brought you.” The guard who had escorted them back chortled, flicking out his cigarette. “Two stinking sacks of shit. Ready for the dung heap. They’re all yours now.”

“Emergency over…?” the sergeant who knew Rozen rolled his eyes and smirked. “I’m sure the women there are probably all taking baths with all their fresh, new water.”

“Pass,” the second guard ordered Rozen, holding out his hand. “Let me see.” This one was clearly new, and seemed to take his duties a bit more conscientiously than his senior partner. He had narrow blue eyes, blond hair under his cap, and a short, flat nose.

Rozen handed his to him.

“And yours…” he barked at Blum officiously.

Blum handed him the small white paper.

He looked it over, checked it even down to the date, it seemed, taking the whole thing very seriously.

“At times they use the men’s water pump over in the women’s camp.” The sergeant seemed to explain the ropes to him. “Happens all the time, does it not, Rozen?” he said with a complicit wink.

“It does, sir. All the time.”

“Now and then,” the senior guard laughed, “even the Jews have to dip their little peckers into the soup, right?”

“And what a hot soup it was,” Rozen said conspiratorially with a glance to Blum.

The blond-headed corporal, his SS uniform new and pressed, stepped around the pump. He looked at the cart’s wobbly wheels and the rickety wooden platform and then, to Blum’s horror, tapped on the metal housing with the tip of his gun. There was a hollow sound. “What’s in there?”

“The pump, sir,” Rozen said.

“The pump…” The guard tapped on the housing again. “Open it. Let me see.”

Blum froze.

The sergeant rolled his eyes at Rozen with kind of a helpless sigh, as if grousing, New man here. Just oblige him. He has to do his job. But Blum knew what would happen if they opened it and found Leisa inside.

“It’s just the pump, Corporal,” Rozen said again.

The new guard stared back at him. He looked at the door. “Then open it.”

Panic wormed its way through Blum’s bowels. He couldn’t open it. If he opened that door, they were all dead. Leisa would be barely able to hold together inside. Stay very still, he commanded her silently. She had to have heard everything that was happening. Blum glanced at Rozen. There was nothing they could say. The guard tapped the door again. “Now.”

“Whatever you say…” Rozen shrugged, a cospiratorial glance toward Blum, and stepped around the pump. “But if you fucking Germans would just allow us to fix the damn pipes there once and for all, we wouldn’t have to fucking lug this contraption over all the time.”

“What did you say?” The guard’s eyes stretched wide in disbelief.

“Nothing.” Rozen stood upright, awaiting the rain of blows that was about to follow. “I just-”

“Fucking Germans…?” The corporal took his rifle and butted it into Rozen’s jaw. The prisoner went down. His mouth filled up with blood, a tooth coming out onto the ground. “Fucking Jews!” he glowered, his face red with rage. He kicked Rozen in the ribs and groin, as the repairman tried to cover himself up. “Filthy pieces of shit!” he screamed, and kicked him over and over. He took his gun and pulled back the bolt, and put it to Rozen’s head.

Blum’s blood stirred in riot. He desperately wanted to interfere. Rozen might easily be shot or beaten to death. But do what? Whatever he could do would be suicidal for him, and for Leisa too, inside.

Rozen covered up his head, awaiting the end.

“Corporal…” The sergeant put a hand on his colleague’s arm. “I know him. He’s been around here from the start. He’ll get his soon enough…”

The younger guard tensed on the trigger, trained on Rozen, his eyes ablaze.

“But maybe not today. What do you say there? You’ll have your shot,” the older guard said. “But I agree, fucking Germans…” He went up and kicked Rozen sharply in the ribs. The repairman let out a gasp, clutching his side. The sergeant kicked him again. “Let me hear you say a word like that again and my new corporal here can do all he wants, do you understand? And with my blessing.”

Curled in a ball, Rozen spat blood out of his mouth and nodded gratefully. “I do, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Now get your asses out of here. Are we okay, Corporal?” he said to the younger guard, who still had his gun pointed at Rozen’s head.

“Mark your days, Jew.” The younger one finally lowered the gun. He gave Rozen one last kick to the ribs. The repairman rolled over and groaned. “Now get the fuck going and count your luck. Now!”

“Yes, sir.” Rozen picked himself up to his knees and the corporal kicked him in the rear and sent him sprawling forward, his face in the dirt. Blum ran around and helped him to his feet, and picked up the towing rod. “Thank you, sirs. Both of you.” Blum pulled the pump, at the same time assisting Rozen, who was doubled over, coughing up bloody spit, staggering alongside him. Blum looked back and saw the sergeant slap the new guard on the shoulder with an understanding grin.

They’d made it through.

“God, that was lucky. Are you all right?” Blum said under his breath, as soon as they were out of earshot. A few prisoners and even SS men who were nearby turned to watch.

Rozen coughed and nodded. Then he winked at Blum with a victorious smile. “A few kicks to the ribs are a lot better than a bullet to the head if he’d opened the door. And luck…?” He snorted. “The only luck is that I’ve greased that bastard’s palm so many times, the thought of spending the rest of the war without it was obviously too much for him.”

Blum looked in the canny prisoner’s eyes and lit up into a smile as well.

“And who needs fucking teeth in here anyway?” Rozen spat out a little more blood. “All they ever feed you is soup.”

They wheeled the pump back to the repair shed. No one was around. Seeing the coast was clear, Blum opened the door to the housing and whispered inside, “Leisa, you can come out now. It’s safe.”

They let out the hose a bit and she crawled out, white, afraid. Elated, she threw her arms around Blum, afraid to let go. She gave Rozen a grateful hug as well.

“Here.” Blum handed her the uniform Shetman had provided him. “Put this on, quick. Over there.”

She went around the side of a truck, took off her dress, and slipped into the small striped uniform.

It was a little large and hung off her shoulders; it just made her look like skin and bones. Blum handed her his own cap. With her shaved head and smooth skin, she looked like a boy of fourteen or fifteen. But that was enough.

“Here…” Rozen took a little dirt from the ground, rubbed his hands together, and applied it to Leisa’s cheeks and under her eyes. It maybe made her look a year or two older. “Now at least you look fit for work. Welcome to the men’s camp.” He winked conspiratorially, then rubbed his side. “Whatever it is you are here to do.”

Blum shook the man’s hand. “Thank you.”

He never thought he could feel so happy to be back in this hellhole.

Only four hours left to go.

FIFTY-SIX

“Kurt…” Greta Ackermann turned in surprise as her husband unexpectedly stepped into the bedroom.

It was just three, and she was in the midst of changing to go to the infirmary. He rarely showed up at home this time of the afternoon. She had just finished brushing out her hair and had picked out a modest dress. “I didn’t hear you come up the stairs. Have you had lunch?”

“I’m not hungry,” he said, and came around her in the mirror as she was set to slip the dress over her undergarments. “Here, let me help you with that.”

“I could have Hedda put something out for you. I think there’s still some chicken left in the refrigerator…”

“I’ve had my lunch,” he said, keeping his eyes on her. He wrapped his arms around her from behind. “Mmmm, you smell nice. It’s been awhile.”

“Not now. Kurt, please…” She tried to pull herself away. “I was just heading over to the infirmary for an hour or two. I said I would assist the nurses in the-”

“What a shame to waste how you smell on those disease-ridden yids,” he said, not letting her go. He sank his face in her neck beneath her hair. “They’ll be dead in a short while anyway. Or maybe you have a date with your young Jew boyfriend… You would dress up for him, wouldn’t you? You would open a button or two and give him a free glance. Don’t think I don’t know…”

“Know what, Kurt…? You’re talking idiocy.” She tried to reach for her dress. “He’s just a boy. Besides, it’s Thursday. Our matches are Tuesdays. And anyway, you asked me not to play with him anymore, so I’ve put our game on hold.”

“That’s good.” Inside, he brightened. That solved one issue. Now on to the next. He removed his hat and tossed it onto the bed. He unbuttoned the top buttons on his jacket. “It’s been a long time. You haven’t fucked me since the night of the Von Hoellens’ party. It’s been months.”

“Yes, and you were drunk that night, as I recall. Anyway, Kurt, please, I need to go. They’re expecting me.” She tried to twist out of his grasp.

He tightened around her from behind, one arm underneath her breast, the other on her shoulder, and pulled her into him.

“Kurt, please… Go back to the office if that’s what you’re here for. It’s not the time for this now.”

“Not now, not anytime, it seems.” He licked the back of her ear and tightened his hold on her. He whispered in an even voice, “You’d do it for him, wouldn’t you? The little yid chess player. You’d get all primped up and fuck him, right? But not me. Your husband.”

“What are you talking about, Kurt? I- And you’re hurting me… Please, let me go.” She tried to wrestle away, but he gripped her even more firmly. He wouldn’t let her go. She loathed him when he got like this, single-minded, bullying. Usually when he was drunk. She felt him behind her, getting hard and ready. He was right-she hadn’t let him inside her in months. She could barely tolerate the random brush of him against her in bed. At their meals, she listened to the numbing details of his days: numbers in, numbers out; work completed. She went to his officers’ parties and watched as he and his cronies got drunk and sang their stupid songs, all the while pretending to smile. She listened to his incessant chattering about the sacrifices for his career; his ambition and true worth; his goal to replace Hoss, who would soon be pegged for a bigger job; to use this pit of hell he was responsible for to elevate their future. All the while loathing the sound of his voice, the very touch of him against her, regretting with whatever shame she could still summon her youthful decision to have allowed herself to be swept away, to have married him. And the trap she now found herself caught in. Always scared, as he turned to her in bed, what if she became pregnant? What if she carried his child? What then?

“Kurt, no.” She would rather a reptile ran its tongue along her neck. She pushed him away. “Please…”

“Not no-yes,” he replied. His tone seemed to carry a warning in it. “Today, you do not push me away. Today, it is not no, Greta. It is yes.”

“I’m not one of your prisoners here, Kurt.” She glared at him behind her in the mirror. “You do not order me around or tell me what to do.”

“But in fact you are my prisoner, Greta. You are my wife. And I do. I do order you.” He ran his fingertips along her arm. “There’s no way that can be undone.”

She spun around in his arms and her eyes had fire in them too. “Then the answer is yes, Kurt.”

“Yes…?” He smiled; he seemed pleased to have finally persuaded her.

“Yes, I would rather a little Jew fuck me than you.”

“You little slut!” He raised his arm as blood rushed into his face and hit her with the back of his hand.

Greta let out a gasp. She stumbled onto the bed. She touched her lip. Blood oozed down her chin. “You are a bastard, Kurt!”

“Not today, did I hear it right…?” He struck her again and she fell. “Oh, yes, today.” He kneeled over her, wedging his knees between her thighs, unbuckling his trousers. She tried to wrestle away, slapping at him, fending him off, but he pinned her, one hand under her chin, which sucked the air from her, as the other pulled down her girdle and he pushed his dick close. She glared back at him, tears forming in her eyes as he declared triumphantly, “Today, Greta, I get to fuck you.”

Later, after he had put his hand over her mouth to cover her screams while he forced her legs up and pushed himself deep inside her; after he had ripped her bra and left his dreaded ooze all over her thighs and sheets; after he left her whimpering and drying her tears, Kurt rolled off the bed and laughed, a wrathful, loveless laugh between his sated breaths.

“See,” he said, a mocking gleam in his eye. “I can still be a man to you in a way no one else can.”

“You are a bastard to me, Kurt. You are the devil.”

“Please, you give me far too much credit, Greta. I am still only Lagerkommandant. But anyway, I have a busy day and night still in front of me. Two trains. One from the West. Prague, I think. The other from Hungary.” He stood up and buckled up his trousers. “And then there’s the matter of our intelligence ferret from Warsaw… Sniff, sniff.” He scrunched up his nose like a weasel. “He believes someone has entered the camp from the outside. And who knows, he may be right. In any case, we will have him soon. In the meantime, all it’s doing is slowing our numbers for the day.” He picked up his jacket and brushed the wrinkles out. “And those numbers are our future, Greta… You know that, right?”

She did not answer. She just stared vacantly out the window. The view was not of wires and low-hanging smoke but of the forest, far in the distance. Something pleasing, green.

Far away from here.

“Anyway, we’ll have him soon. His little truffle hunter.” Kurt put his arms through his jacket and tucked the lapels close. “And on that other matter, darling, I really wouldn’t get too sweet on him, if I were you.” He buttoned his jacket.

“What other matter, Kurt,” Greta said distractedly. “Who?”

“Your little chess boy. It would be quite a waste, you know. Of your attention. Special arrangements are being speeded up.”

“Special arrangements…?”

“Don’t be naïve, darling. You know precisely what we do here as well as I. What is it called, that little clock that times your moves in chess?”

“The game clock, Kurt,” she answered.

“Yes, the game clock. Well, you’d better turn it on, my dear. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick… Because you don’t have much time left.”

She sat up, worry building inside her. She knew Kurt, and she didn’t like how he sounded now. There was something in his mocking tone that sounded as if some decision had already been made. “I’ve already stopped playing with him, Kurt. Just as you asked. You said you would look out for him.” She pulled her dress over her breasts.

“I believe I said for as long as I could…” He looked in the mirror and smoothed out his jacket. “But now I’m afraid the matter is out of my hands.”

“You promised, Kurt.” Greta stood up. “You can still save a single Jew in this hellhole. You’re just doing this to hurt me.”

“I’m afraid my hands are tied.” He shrugged and turned back. “It’s all straight from Berlin. Right from the top. Tick, tock. The clock is speeded up. Right, my dear…?”

She stared, revulsion rising up in her like sweat bubbling through her skin. “Who the hell are you, Kurt?”

“Who am I…?” His question carried a slight smile.

“What have you become? Something I don’t recognize. We used to dream of how our life would unfold. You thought you would practice law. What kind of animal are you now?”

“The same kind of animal that is all around us, Greta. You look at it every day, you just don’t see it. Are you blind? Yes, a big night tonight…” He put a hand on her cheek and smiled. “And you know how I like to welcome our new guests.”

Kurt looked back at himself in the mirror and seemed pleased. He picked up his cap and put it on his head, and tilted it at just the right angle. “Now onto the matter of our little intelligence friend and his truffle hunter… Turns out, the little weasel has a sister in here. In the orchestra, of all things. But not to worry, dear, we’re about to sort all that out.” He bent down and placed a kiss on her cheek, dry as sandpaper. “Have a nice afternoon, my love.” He went to the door. “Oh, and darling?”

She looked up at him, an ache throbbing in her belly like she was carrying a child she knew was dead.

“Say hello to the good doctor for me when you’re at the infirmary, would you? We should have them for dinner soon, don’t you agree?”

FIFTY-SEVEN

Blum took Leisa back to his block and hid her in the area reserved for those who were ill, near the rear.

“Lie down here,” he whispered, putting her onto a cot. He handed her a thin blanket. “Keep this over you.” It was getting late. The work details would be filing back soon. “You’ll be safe back here. No one will know.”

Only one other prisoner was stretched out on a cot, his mouth open, looking more dead than alive.

“Nathan, I can’t believe you’re actually here.” Leisa placed her hands on his face, her eyes gushing in wonderment. “That I’m actually touching you.”

“And I can’t believe that after everything, you’re actually alive! For so long, I was sure that-”

“Don’t speak that now.” She put a finger to his lips.

“I can’t help it. To me, it’s like you’ve risen from the dead. That I have my sister back. Do you remember the name I called you when we were kids?”

“Of course. Doleczki,” she said. “Dimples. But I’m afraid you can barely see them now. And you were Myszka. Because you were always like a little mouse. For your agility at getting yourself in an out of trouble.”

Blum laughed. “Yes, Myszka… I can hear Mother calling me that. Whisking me out of the kitchen. ‘Away, Myszka, shoo, shoo, or I’ll call the big cat on you.’” His eyes lit up as he brought back the fond memory. Then he looked away. “You know I’ve never forgiven myself. Not for a second. For leaving. For abandoning them. And you.”

“You didn’t abandon us, Nathan. Father pushed you to go.”

“If I had been there I would have never let them go out into the square. I knew ways to get around. Mr. Loracyk’s apartment led out onto the rooftop of the house next door. It was an easy jump. We could have sneaked across it and then gotten out in the next building onto Cimilianska Street.”

“And then what? Run from basement to basement like criminals until someone turned us in? They would never have gone, Nathan. You know that. In the end, everyone in the ghetto was sent somewhere. Their fate would have been no different.” She tried to brush the sadness off his face. “They only looked at you with pride, big brother. They always loved you and had the highest hopes for you. That was our only hope in the end. That whatever would happen to us, at least you had made it. You would survive. And now look…” Tears edged into her eyes. “You’re here… in this camp. The same as all of us. What was the point?”

“The point is that we are both going to make it out, Leisa.” He took her hand. “You and I. You will see.”

“Just like Chaim was coming to save me?” She pushed up on an elbow. “I went to him, Nathan. Just like you asked me to. I had nowhere else to turn. And do you know where he was? On a slab. In the morgue, at Gestapo headquarters. To be tossed into a mass grave. Things happen, Nathan, things even you can’t control. It’s time to let Mama and Papa go.

“But enough of that. I have something to show you,” she said, her face lighting up. “I think you’ll like it.” She took her shoe and slipped off a crack in the fake heel. She took out a small, tightly folded scrap of paper and gently unfolded it. “It hasn’t left me since the day you left. I’ve hidden it, even in here. Do you remember, we promised each other…”

He stared at it.

It was her half of the Mozart concerto for clarinet she’d torn in two on the fire balcony the night before he left.

“Of course I remember,” he said, and took it into his hands.

“The Mozart A-major. We were never supposed to be without it until…”

“Until we saw each other again.” He looked at her contritely. “Leisa, it’s been a long road, moving to America, and then thinking you were gone. I’m afraid I-”

“Nathan, I know.” She put her hand on his cheek. “It’s okay. Don’t worry. I understand…”

“I’m afraid that’s why I had to hide it very carefully myself,” he said with a widening grin, reaching into the lining of his uniform and coming out with a similarly folded square, which, when opened, became the matching half.

“You are a devil, Nathan!” Leisa crowed ecstatically.

“I’ve never been without it for a day myself. It’s been my lucky charm. I just never ever thought we’d ever be able to do this again.”

They put the torn halves on the cot and fit them together until they formed a seamless match.

Leisa’s eyes grew liquid with joy.

“I can hear it in my head. La-la, la-la-la, la-la…” Blum sang, waving his hand as if conducting. “I can see Master Bernheimer himself as if he were here now.”

“Yes. Mr. Baggypants.” Leisa giggled too. “He always looked like a rumpled character straight out of a Tolstoy novel. I can see him too.”

“I bet he’s dead now,” Blum surmised.

“Yes. I heard he was among the first to be taken.” Leisa nodded. “Most everyone we knew is dead now.”

He clasped her hand. “But, sister, tomorrow you will wake up, and it will all have been like a dream. This place. All that was bad. All left behind. We’ll be in England.

“England?” She blinked at him incredulously. “How?”

“I told you. There is a plane. It will land nearby. Tonight. I’m going to get us on one of the overnight work details. You will pretend to be a boy. I know it doesn’t seem so easy, but it will be night and the line will be crowded. It will work. At oh thirty hours there will be an attack by local partisans. That will provide the cover for our escape. If all goes well, they will take us to the plane.”

Her eyes expanded with awe. “How are you part of all this, Nathan? You’re a soldier now?”

“Yes. After a year in school, I enlisted in the U.S. Army. They sent me back here on a mission. I’m here to take out an important scientist who is needed for the war effort.”

“A scientist…?”

“The truth is, I don’t even know what he does. Only that it’s all extremely vital to the war effort. You won’t believe this, Leisa, but the mission was approved by the President of the United States himself.”

“Roosevelt?”

“Yes.” Blum nodded.

“You’ve met him?’

“No. But I spoke with him on the phone. From London. He wished me luck.”

“The president called you? And what did you say?”

“I told him that I was honored. But that I didn’t need any luck…” He picked up his half of the sheet music. “As long as I had my good luck charm from my little sister.”

“Oh, stop. I’m sure that’s exactly what you said…” Leisa rolled her eyes. With her shaved head and sunken features she reminded Blum of the little girl he had always remembered. “You are very brave, Nathan. Mother and Father, they would be so proud of you. Imagine, the president…”

“Yes, she would probably have baked him an almond cake and sent it to the White House.”

“And Papa would ask what size hat he wore and send him one. Perhaps a very nice bowler.”

“I think he prefers fedoras. Or maybe a Panama in the summer. I’ve seen that in the newsreels.”

“Whichever, it must be firm and resistant, Papa would say,” Leisa said, mimicking her father’s deep voice.

“But never stiff,” Blum added.

“No, no. At all costs, never stiff.”

The prisoner across from them stirred, his eyes glazed, and then turned the other way.

“And what if it all doesn’t, Nathan…?” Leisa’s eyes dimmed with worry. “Doesn’t go so well?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tonight. What if your plane doesn’t arrive? What if the Germans find us? What if the guards notice that I am not a man? You should leave me here. You know the kind of risk you are bringing on yourself and this man to get me out and take me along with you?”

“Then it will all have been worth it, my little sis. Coming back here. Finding you. No matter what fate has in store. I have never felt such joy as the moment I followed the sound of that clarinet and saw that it was you.” He took his half of the torn music sheet and refolded it. “You and me, we are whole once again. I would never leave you here. No matter the risk. Or the outcome. Not again.”

She leaned across and hugged him a long time.

“But anyway, this is all nonsense,” Blum said, patting her on the back with affection. “Because we are going to make it. Soon we’ll be putting these two halves back together in America. And you’ll be playing your clarinet at Carnegie Hall.”

“And you’ll be with me?” She pulled away and looked at him. He saw that she’d been crying.

“Of course. Right on stage. Next to you.” He wiped a tear off her cheek. “Still trying to learn my scales.”

That made her laugh.

“But now you must pretend to sleep. There are a few things to attend to. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe here. For the time being, you hold onto these.” He handed her the two folded music sheets. “We are a whole again. That’s all that matters. We’ve only a few more hours here.”

“Okay.” She wedged the music sheets back in her shoe.

“And so as not to surprise you, there is someone else who is coming out with us tonight. He’s a boy, the professor’s nephew. He’s a very smart lad. He’s only a year or two younger than you.”

“There are four of us then?” Her tone carried a measure of worry.

“Yes.” Perhaps something on his face conveyed that the same concerns were running through his mind too. “But do not worry. We’re going to make it, Leisa.” He squeezed her hand tightly. “God wants us to. How else would I have gotten this far?”

“I’m not sure God is watching,” Leisa said. “If he was, this place wouldn’t exist.”

“Well, then one way or another I’ll get you out. How’s that?” Blum winked at her.

“Yes, you, my brave brother. Now, that’s something I can believe in.” Leisa smiled, throwing her arms around his neck once more.

FIFTY-EIGHT

Josef Wrarinski looked around the dark room and knew his time had come. Low-pitched groans emanated from the small, closed row of cells behind him. Instruments were hung on the walls, instruments, Josef knew, whose only purpose was to inflict pain. His hands were bound behind him. Two officers stood in front of him: one the camp commandant, with a handsome but falsely sympathetic face; the other a balding colonel with impatient but purposeful eyes who wore the markings of an intelligence officer.

A beefy sergeant with fat lips and short, thick hands stood off to the side, his uniform jacket unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled, as if waiting to be called.

If he was here, Josef said to himself, they clearly knew.

He could delay things, he figured. He could deny everything; declare his innocence until he was hoarse. He could get down on his knees and sing Die Holzhackerbaum, “The Happy Lumberjack,” and hoist a fucking beer with them. But it would all be for nothing. He had chosen this path, and now he must walk it. Josef knew he would never leave here on his feet.

He would never see his family again.

“Herr Wrarinski, welcome to Block Eleven,” the commandant said with a deliberate and falsely accommodating smile. “By all means look around, take in a whiff. I think you understand the kind of place this is and what goes on in here.”

Josef didn’t reply.

“So let us not waste time or play around. Time is short for us. I’ll tell you why you’re here. First, let’s not pretend you are simply a baker, any more than as the Lagerkommandant of this camp, I am running a fancy spa for the fanciful rich. Two days ago, someone made their way into this camp. We believe he flew in on a plane and that a group of partisans, you among them, picked him up and placed him the next day on a work detail inside this camp. Colonel Franke, here, who as you can see is from the intelligence corps in Warsaw, believes this man’s mission here is to extract someone from inside the camp. We believe their escape is set for tonight so, as you see, this doesn’t give us the time for the usual cat-and-mouse questioning. Am I understood? So the question I put to you, Herr Wrarinski, if you ever hope to walk out of here again, is, who is this man? And how is he set to leave tonight?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Josef shrugged. As a lieutenant in the Armia Krajowa, he was prepared to take whatever they had to give. They’d all sworn they were. He knew the risk long ago, and now he must face it.

“And that is your response?” the commandant asked.

“My only response, since I don’t know the answer to what you’re looking for.” The partisan nodded.

“Well, that is a shame.” The intelligence colonel stood up with a sigh, unbuttoning his sleeves. “Because it means, either you or your cousin, Herr Macak, who is still our guest in the cell behind you, is a liar. Because he has specifically told us it was you who came to him and placed this person on his work team the other day. Cousins…” He shrugged, slowly rolling his cuffs. “Who can figure out precisely where their competing loyalties lie? But since we are short of time, we will have to assume you both are lying. Now, we can go about it in several ways, finding out who is telling the truth and dealing with the other. I can ask Sergeant Dormutter here to apply his skills, and I am told, he is a very stubborn and persuasive questioneer.”

Josef glanced at the sergeant, who was smirking against the wall.

“Or I can ask you the question again…” Franke sat on the desk across from Josef and opened a file. “This time pointing out that you also have a wife and two lovely children at home, Karl and Nikolas, correct? Not even teens yet, and I am saddened to think how they would fare if Major Ackermann here picked them up and relocated them here-for argument’s sake, say, tonight. Sadly, many people, women and children among them, I am told, seem not to last a single day.”

Josef looked at the sergeant with the meaty arms and the ready smirk, and the steely-eyed intelligence officer, who now got up, came over to where Josef was sitting, and dropped the file on the chair next to him, so that a photo of Mira and his boys edged out a bit, just far enough for Josef to see.

“Shame”-the colonel shrugged, scratching his brow-“for them to have to pay for your silence.” He sat on the edge of the table and stared, not unsympathetically, Josef thought, but with a resolve that was clearly unmistakable. “Your time is over, Herr Wrarinski,” the German said. “The only question still to answer is, what of your wife and children?”

FIFTY-NINE

Alfred spotted Zinchenko, the Lithuanian kapo who generally organized the overnight work details, weaving through the yard with his ever-present club, as they served the evening meal.

“A word, kapo…?” Alfred went up and got his attention.

“If it’s quick.” The Lithuanian had a hair-trigger temper. Alfred had personally seen him club dozens of men senseless for seemingly nothing more than just the pleasure of it, or more, just because he could. Alfred didn’t even like going up to the man because you couldn’t predict what mood you’d get in return, nonetheless having to barter with him for his fate.

“I was hoping you could arrange for me to be on the tracks detail tonight,” Alfred said, leaning close to him.

“You?” The kapo gave him a sniff of amusement.

“Why not?”

“Why not… Have you ever held a pick or a shovel in your life?” the kapo asked with a smirk. “Look at you, there’s not a scrap of muscle left on those bones, if there was ever.”

“Maybe. But there’s enough to do the work for the extra meal, if you’d indulge me.”

The nightly work detail was formed mainly by kapos going from block to block and rousing from their bunks those who had just come off their own twelve-hour shifts. To keep them from dropping in their tracks, a second bowl of soup was served on a short break after midnight, and then they could generally sleep after breakfast the following day. Still, it wasn’t exactly a plum assignment. The guards on the overnight shift were always grumpy and quick-triggered, and every morning, a few who went out the night before on their own feet came back as crumpled, twisted corpses wheeled in a cart.

“There’s a few bucks in it for you, if you agree. British pounds…” Alfred said, finding a spark in the kapo’s mercantile eyes.

“What do you think I am?” The Lithuanian glowered back at him. “I could put a dent in the back of that overstuffed skull of yours just for asking that.”

“Sorry. I meant nothing of it,” Alfred said. “Just a meal.”

“A meal.” The kapo spat. Then he looked back up. “Pounds, you say…?” Alfred knew it was like putting out the evening garbage under the nose of a kitchen mouse. “Teams are put together seven thirty by the clock tower,” the Lithuanian agreed.

“Thank you, Zinchenko. I’ll be there.”

“And don’t puke out on me, Professor. This isn’t just a meal ticket. You come, you work, same as everyone. Or else.”

“I understand,” Alfred said. “And listen…” He took a step after the kapo as he began walking away. “I also know a couple of others who were looking for the same privilege.”

“Others?”

“One of them is Leo. You know him. He’s the chess champion in camp.”

“Don’t press your luck, old man. Or they may be wheeling you back in a cart, the hell with your meal.”

“I only thought pounds are hard to come by in here… Same price, of course.”

At first, the kapo started to walk away. But the inner workings of his mind were as transparent as the slow tick-tick of a cheap watch. “You say sterling, huh…?”

“Brand-new notes. Taken off a new arrival. What other use do I have for them?” Alfred shrugged. “My vices are all behind me.”

“Ten pounds a head.” The kapo rubbed his nose.

“Ten? That’s double the rate in marks.”

“That’s the price. Go through the kitchen trash then if you want more to eat.”

“I could buy the finest dinner in Vilnius for that,” Alfred appealed to the kapo’s Lithuanian place of birth, as if he had fleeced him dry.

“Then by all means, feel free to go to Vilnius. On me.” The kapo began to walk away.

“Okay, okay. What choice do I have? We’ll be there.”

“Wait at the end of the line,” the kapo said with a greedy smile. This night would keep him in vodka for a month. “And come with the cash. I’ll find you there.”

SIXTY

When Martin Franke was a boy in Essen, his father, who was an ironworker in the mills of the Krupp Ironworks, acted as if he only had one son.

Yet there were three.

His father was a sullen, irascible drunkard, and every night after his shift, while his wife sat in the bedroom and made quilts, he drank at the kitchen table until he staggered his way to bed, rarely exchanging words with his children. His particular brand of harshness was not the type designed to inspire his boys to improve their station in life through education or hard work. His intent was simply to belittle them, to remind them of the dark, sweltering furnace that awaited them, where he trudged off to every day, and the scant, scraped-together life that he had handed them and that he had failed to pull himself up from.

Hans, the oldest, was a local football standout in his youth, and their father readily threw his achievements in Martin’s face-Martin never having the same physical stature as his older sibling. At the family table, it was as if Hans was an international star, already a mainstay on the German team, even though he had never gotten farther than the local playing fields.

“Why are you such a little twig?” His father would look at Martin with shame. “Look at your brother. He has a future ahead of him. What will you be able to offer anyone at the factory? Germany needs tall firs to build its future, not spindly twigs.”

Ernst, the middle son, wasn’t blessed with much between his ears, but in a brawl, you could always count on him to be the last one standing. When Ernst looked in the mirror with his father behind him, the old man saw an image of himself as a youth, someone tough, good with his fists, who had dreams maybe, until the reversals after the Great War had forced him into the mill. How often Ernst left Martin holding the bag for scrapes and transgressions at school or beer missing from the family icebox. He had the smug, self-righteous bravado of someone who knew he had nothing to contribute in life yet who everyone sought to line up with and who pretended he had it all. Even to this day, when Martin brought him to mind, all that came was the image of his brother’s flat nose and thick lips in a perpetual, supercilious smirk.

Martin was the silent one, more of a watcher than a doer from an early age, never blessed with the agility or brawn of his older brothers. But he did have a methodical mind. Yet, his high marks in school produced more of an indifference than a badge of honor in his father’s beer-dulled eyes. No one ever went anywhere from their town except into the mill, which was like a giant furnace eating up youth like a forest of timber. After graduation, Hans, whose football skills never progressed further than a few mentions in the local paper, became a smelter at the ironworks. He worked alongside his father. In 1942, as a forty-six-year-old, he was drafted when they were throwing anyone who could walk into uniform, and word came even before the telegram that he had frozen to death in Stalingrad a year later. The bully, Ernst, was recruited into the SA in 1935 as Hitler rose to power and went around smashing windows at synagogues and kicking in storefronts and beating up Jews, his fists in high demand. In 1938, he was found dead in an alley in Dortmund with a knife in his khaki uniform and a Jewish star stuck to his chest.

Martin meanwhile went on to the local police academy after graduation. His steady, watchful way gave him the skills of a standout investigator. Over ten years he worked his way up to becoming the most decorated inspector on the Essen force. In 1937, he was recruited by the Abwehr with the rank of captain. He was rewarded with a posting in France in 1940 and then a station at the embassy in Lisbon in 1942, and a promotion to his present rank.

But by then his father had died in a lathe accident on the job, and he never saw a single medal on his son’s chest.

And that was what Martin Franke was thinking of in the Lagerkommandant’s office that night, as he waited to catch his prey. How surprised his father would have been, if he was sober enough to even see, that by night’s end, his little twig of a son who could not stand up to his drunken old man would have unearthed a plot that all the big firs in Berlin would have to take notice of.

“So where is this orchestra member?” Ackermann said to Lieutenant Fromm as his aide came into his office. “You’ve had three hours.”

“We have found two women, but according to our witness,” the young lieutenant said, “neither is the one. The third, the clarinet player-her name is Blum-did not show up for her performance this afternoon upon the return of the work details.”

“So then pick her up. What is the delay? Bring her to me,” Ackermann insisted.

“That is the problem, Herr Lagerkommandant. We went to her block, Thirteen, in the women’s camp, but she was nowhere to be found. In fact, she has not been seen since.”

“Since this morning…?”

“Since apparently a repair detail was sent to her block in the afternoon. The block matron claims she was seen talking with one of them. It was assumed at the time to have been a conjugal visit.”

“Conjugal? I don’t understand.”

“A water pump team was brought in. Though no one seems to have officially requested it.”

“So there you have it!” Ackermann turned with excitement to Franke, who was at the table nearby. “I think we know now who your truffle hunter has come here to find.”

Franke slowly stood up. He shook his head skeptically. “To find a sister? No, I do not think so, Major. That is not why he was flown in by plane and was able to connect with the local underground. No, I am certain there is a bigger prize that awaits us in here. We will see.”

“The escape of a single prisoner is a big enough prize for me,” Ackermann said. He instructed the lieutenant, “Find me the repair chief of this team. I want him in front of me immediately.”

“Yes, Herr Lagerkommandant…” The aide cleared his throat, but still remained.

“Go, Fromm. Why are you still standing there?”

“Because I think I already know where to find them, Herr Lagerkommandant,” the SS lieutenant said.

“Out with it then. Or are you waiting for them to send you a postcard from London after they escape?”

“Something unusual turned up from the men’s roll call this morning. It did not surface until a short while ago.” The lieutenant cleared his throat.

“I’m waiting…”

“One of the prisoners in Block Twelve used the name Fisher. A Pavel Fisher was recorded among the list of deceased. Yesterday. The Blockführer has confirmed that he was the only Fisher in his block.”

“And what was this Fisher’s number?” Ackermann pressed his aide.

“Today’s? A22327, Herr Lagerkommandant.” The lieutenant found his notes and read it off.

“And…?” Ackermann waited. “I’m trying to determine if this Fisher’s number matched the dead man’s number, Obersturmführer Fromm, if you please?”

“It did not, sir,” the aide said nervously. “In fact, the number A22327 belonged to an entirely different prisoner.”

“Who?” Ackermann stared impatiently. He snapped his fingers. “Quick, Fromm. We are pressed for time.”

“Rudolf Vrba.” The lieutenant swallowed hesitantly.

“Vrba.” Ackermann stood up; the color draining from his face. The name was known, of course. Known to everyone in the camp, both guard and prisoner. He now knew if this got out, without the immediate apprehension of all involved tonight, things would not go well for him when Hoss returned and the conversation turned to his career. No matter what numbers he reached.

“What is it?” Franke asked.

“You are right, Colonel. This is far, far larger than someone who is simply here to rescue his sister. Bring out the entire block!” Ackermann said to Fromm. “Every fucking yid in there. I want it scrubbed and gone over so that even the fucking bed lice are accounted for. Do you understand me, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, Herr Lagerkommandant. I understand.” The SS aide came to attention and moved to leave.

“Wait, Lieutenant…” Franke motioned for the aide to remain. “Major, there is more than just this man and an escape that is at stake. It is imperative we also find out precisely who he is here for.”

“And what do you suggest, Colonel?”

“I suggest we let it all play out.”

“Play it out? Why take such a risk?” Ackermann said. “We know where he is. We have them now.”

“It’s only a small risk, don’t you agree? The work teams are assembling shortly, are they not?” Franke checked his watch. A part of him flashed back to an image of his father-dull-eyed, in a sleeveless undershirt in the kitchen, hunched over a beer. His two shining sons now gone in shame, while his twig of an unworthy offspring was about to blow the lid off an Allied plot that might even put an Iron Cross on his chest. “I say let it all proceed as planned. In a few minutes, we know precisely where they will be.”

SIXTY-ONE

As the minutes passed, Alfred sat among the spent and exhausted workers in his bunk. He’d had his evening meal-his last at the camp, he hoped. Of all the things he had experienced and hoped to forget, the rancid swill they served twice a day that barely kept them alive would be near the top of the list.

His mind drifted to Marte and Lucy.

How they had both talked of one day making it to America. To settle in some beautiful, bustling city with an esteemed institution there. Maybe Chicago. With Fermi. Or Berkeley in California with his old friend Lawrence. Or New York. He’d been there once to share a paper at the Atomic Science Symposium in 1936. To continue his work in a place that was safe and not hostile to the Jews would be a dream.

It had been all their dreams, when they had crossed from Poland to Holland to France, papers in hand.

But now it would just be him going on. If that was to be his fate. This pale, undernourished shadow of himself, so thin Marte might look at him twice and still not recognize him.

He and this boy.

It was just like Heisenberg’s theorem, Alfred reflected. Uncertainty is the only certainty in this world. The only thing you can completely measure. Even on the small scale of the atom, there were inherent limits to how precisely events could be known.

And clearly on the grander scale of life as well.

It made him smile, recalling what the great Einstein was said to have muttered when told that it was his theory, E = mc2, that had opened up this new world and unleashed the radioactive consequences of mass and energy.

“Ist das wirklich so?” Is that really so?

Even as vast a mind as Einstein never imagined the consequences that resulted from his random musings on a notebook page.

The unknowable was the beauty of life, Alfred now knew. And also its greatest sadness.

If you identified the position of a particle, he recalled, say, by allowing it to transfer through a zinc-sulfide screen, you changed its velocity and thereby lost its information. If you bombarded it with gamma rays, you inalterably changed its path as well, so who could then measure precisely where it was? Any new measurement always rendered the one before it, even an instant before, uncertain. And then the one after that and the one after that, so said Heisenberg.

Only the wholeness of everything leads to clarity.

And when does one ever get to see that? When do we ever get to see the whole picture?

You see it now, don’t you, Marte? And Lucy? I know you do. And I am going on, for as far as God lets me.

With this boy.

The only moment of true clarity is at the end.

He got up from his bunk, slipped his blue and swollen feet into his hard clogs. He carefully folded the thin, hole-ridden cloth that had acted as a blanket these past months and placed it neatly on the foot of his mattress.

“Leaving, Professor?” Ostrow, the forager, who slept across from him inquired, noticing Alfred tidying up.

“Just hungry,” Alfred said. “I intend to find myself a meal.”

“Of what? Some bits of stale bread? A little grizzle perhaps? Boiled to perfection. Maybe a lump of fat?” The forager chortled.

“No.” Alfred looked at him. “I was thinking crumpets, actually.”

“Crumpets?” The cobbler watched as Alfred made his way to the front of the block, sure that with all those numbers and theorems clouding his head, the old man had finally lost his mind.

“I’m working on the night shift tonight out on the tracks,” Alfred advised Panish, the Blockführer.

“You?” Panish’s eyebrows arched up.

“And why not? Is it so strange I would do my share of work?”

“No, not strange, just…” The Blockführer thought to himself that it must be suicide. That, as many did from time to time, the old man was finally tossing it in. “Goodbye, Professor. God’s grace to you.”

“Thank you, Panish. I will need it all.”

The Blockführer made a note in his book that bunk number 71 would need to be filled.

At the door, Alfred looked at his block for what he knew would be the last time. Bent, spindly shapes, more bone than flesh. Goodbye. Only wholeness leads to clarity, he thought. They will see that tomorrow. We only know bits and pieces. Fragments. What the universe allows us to see. The rest… The rest is just things flying around. Uncertainty.

“Ist das wirklich so?” He smiled, and stepped out into the night.

SIXTY-TWO

Blum sat on the edge of the cot where his sister lay sleeping and stared at her.

He put his hand on her shoulder, feeling her steady breathing beneath him, her lungs going in and out, and he wondered if, in her dreams, there was a faraway place she escaped to, a place of safety and trust, far beyond the odor of death that penetrated everything here. He brushed his hand along her cheek.

Doleczki.

He reminded himself why he was there. Why he had come back to this country that had only the cruelest of memories for him. Why he had put on this striped smock, snuck into this pit of hell, faced immediate death if it came out who he was and what his mission was.

He knew now it wasn’t to help win the war for his new country, or even to get back at the Germans for what they had done to his parents.

No, that wasn’t it.

It was to bury the shame he had long felt for being the one who left. To pay the debt in his heart for those he had left behind.

And now, as he stared lovingly at his sleeping sister’s face, he realized he had repaid that debt in the most remarkable way.

He felt expansive.

One of the first pieces Leisa had ever played at recital was from Orpheus in the Underworld. By the German Offenbach. It told of the grieved, desperate lover who ventured down into the underworld with his lyre, passing the ghosts and anguished souls of people unknown; charming Cerberus, the guardian of the deep with his three gnashing heads until even the cold heart of Hades melted just enough and he allowed Orpheus’s love, Eurydice, to go back to the world above with him.

Whatever you do, don’t look back was the underworld ruler’s only condition.

And in a way Blum felt like that lyre player himself. Seducing his way into Hell, cheating death not once but twice; past the wires and the guards, until the beautiful sound of music somehow lured him to her.

Except this time he would not leave her behind.

This, not the calculations of some professor, was why God had sent him here.

“Leisa,” he whispered, squeezing her on the shoulder. “Wake up now.”

His sister stirred with a start and then, as if reassured that Nathan still was beside her, smiled. “I had the most troubling dream,” she said. “We were back in Krakow. I was hiding. In the attic of Father’s shop. You remember how we used to play up there, amid the rows and rows of hats and size molds?”

“Yes.”

“Except this time I was locked in. It was dark, and no one could hear me when I called, and for a moment I was really scared. So I played. Somehow I had my clarinet, and I had to play louder and louder. I was sure no one would ever come. That I would be lost up there forever. But then you came. You found your way in. You rescued me, Nathan.”

“I know,” he said with a smile. “I was having similar thoughts myself. Just like today.”

She turned to him. “We’re going to make it, aren’t we, Nathan?”

“Yes. We will.”

“No, I mean, really. You can tell me. Because I couldn’t go on if I was causing you danger. I’d rather die here, Nathan. I-”

“Hush now.” He squeezed her arm. “No one’s going to die. You remember the vow I made to Papa when he held you in the window…?”

“I remember you telling me about it.” Leisa smiled. “I was just an infant.”

“Just know that my promise to keep it is even stronger now. So yes, we will make it. I promise.” He looked at the man sleeping in the bunk across from them. “Now, put this on.” He handed her his cap and tucked it down over her brow. He put his hands in the gravel near the foundation and smeared a bit of dirt from his thumbs onto her cheeks. “Now you look like a tough young man.”

“Not such a flattering thing to say, Nathan.”

“Maybe. But today it will save your life. So let’s go.” He pulled her to her feet. His heartbeat picked up with urgency. “It’s time.”

SIXTY-THREE

NEWMARKET AIR BASE, ENGLAND

Strauss was on the tarmac briefing the flight crew that was preparing to leave when a radioman ran up and said he had an important call. He followed the man back up to the communication center.

It was Donovan. Back in Washington.

“So tonight’s the big night, Peter?” the OSS chief said.

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“I’m sure this is a stressful time for you. Have we heard anything more?”

“Only what I’ve patched along. Blum’s inside. The plane crew is preparing their flight plan. We have diversionary bombers set for Hamburg and Dresden. The partisan attack will go off as planned in five hours.”

“Well, you’ve done your job well, son. You should be proud, whatever the result. I just called to tell you good luck.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

“How is it you say that in Hebrew, Captain?”

“Beh-hats-la-khah, sir,” Strauss replied. “Literally, it means in success.”

“In success…? You know, it’s generally not a good thing in this trade to set your hopes too high. There’s always more on these things that can go wrong than right and dash them. In this case, a lot more. We both knew from the start the odds of success were long.”

“I understand, Colonel. But I’m thinking my man might just surprise you in this case.”

“Well, nothing would make me happier than to inform the president so. So let’s say we both put in a little hope on this one.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”

“Beh-hats-la-khah then.” The OSS chief stumbled over the word. “You know, mazel tov would be a damn sight easier.”

Strauss laughed. “Yes. We’ll see about that then, sir. A bit later.”

“I’ll be at my desk as long as it takes awaiting the news.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll inform you as soon as I know something.”

Strauss put down the phone. It was hard to stop his heart from pounding. He had a good feeling inside him. Hell with the odds, he smiled. He felt certain tonight they were going to buck them.

SIXTY-FOUR

At just before 1930 hours, the work line formed under the clock near the main gate. About thirty to forty prisoners stood in an irregular formation. Most, including many who had already worked a full day and had been roused from their naps, showed little desire to be there. Blum came up with Leisa and settled into the ragtag line. On Blum’s instructions, she kept her eyes down and her cap low on her brow. With her dark features and dirt smeared on her cheeks, she didn’t look much different than any teenage boy. Darkness had fallen. Four or five of the SS guards stood around, keeping order. Others ringed the area around the front gate armed with submachine guns. Dogs barked and tugged at their leashes, as if the scent of Jews trudging off to work reminded them that it was mealtime.

Alfred and his nephew came up and melded into the queue.

“Is everything done?” Blum asked.

Mendl nodded. “But who is this?” he asked, surprised to see Blum with someone else. His face reflected what Blum already knew: That three was one thing, but now four, whoever this addition was… Four would be harder to conceal as they tried to lose themselves in the attack. Four was one too many.

“You said you wouldn’t leave behind your own flesh and blood,” Blum said, gesturing to Leo.

“Yes, but…”

“Well, neither would I. Leisa, this is the man I came here to rescue.”

“Leisa?” Mendl stared at her, his eyes widening in confusion.

“My sister,” Blum said under his breath. “An unanticipated development. But she’s coming along. Any issues?”

“Your sister?” Mendl saw there was no wavering on Blum’s face. “No issues at all,” he replied. And no time to argue anyway.

“I’m Leo,” Mendl’s nephew said. “We’ll all watch out for each other.”

Leisa nodded back a nervous smile.

Blum pressed some bills in Alfred’s hand. “Here. At the going rate, enough for four.”

A few stragglers arrived. “Stay in line!” Guards and kapos pushed everyone together. Slowly the line began to move forward. The dogs barked, snarling at prisoners as they shuffled past, held back only by their straining handlers. Blum watched as Mendl made eye contact with a kapo who was traveling down the line wielding a truncheon.

“Ready for a hard night’s work, Professor?” The shifty-eyed kapo seemed to recognize him.

“Hopefully, it won’t be as bad as all that. This line is for the rail tracks, right?”

“Yes, the rail tracks.” The kapo nodded.

Alfred reached out and pressed the bills Blum had given him into the kapo’s palm. Zinchenko shifted his eyes down and seemed surprised. “It’s now four of us,” Alfred said.

“Four?”

“Why do you care? Someone else came along. It’s all been paid for.”

The kapo glared at him with contempt but put the cash in his pocket. “Stay in line or I’ll make sure your bell is rung good.” He raised his club at a prisoner in the row behind them.

Trucks pulled up outside the front gate. The camp labor fed various work sites. Some for the rail tracks that went up to Birkenau and various ditches beyond the camp gates, used both for sewage or as a mass grave for those who didn’t make it to the ovens, which were only a short ride away. Others-the IG Farben facility and a munitions plant-were situated a mile or two to the west by Auschwitz 3. The trick, as when Blum first arrived here, was to make sure they were positioned in the proper line; otherwise it all was pointless. The attack would come and they’d be in a different location. They’d be stranded here.

“Remember, run toward the river,” Blum said into Alfred’s ear. “As soon as the shooting starts. Not to the woods. They will provide cover for us.”

“I will get him there,” Leo said.

“You will do just as we discussed,” Alfred rebuked him sharply. For the first time Blum saw just how doubtful the old man was that he’d be able to run amid the shooting. Still, everything depended on him getting there. And alive.

“You stay by me,” Blum said, posting himself between Alfred and Leisa. Now he had two to protect.

“What if we are out there and the attack doesn’t come?” Alfred asked. “What if all we get is our ladle of soup and then we’re marched back in?”

“Then you are no worse off than when you woke up this morning.” Blum shrugged philosophically. “But I won’t be able to say the same.”

Leo pointed toward the front. “We’re going.”

The line began to move, an officer at the front counting off those who passed before him. Alfred and Leo merged in behind.

“There is something I must tell you,” Mendl said close to Blum’s ear, “in case I don’t make it.”

“You’ll make it.”

“It’s about Leo.”

“Your nephew? Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to watch out for him as well. I give you my-”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I-”

Suddenly the officer taking numbers at the front of the line yelled, “Vierzig! Vierzig nur. Nicht mehr.”

Forty. Forty only.

He counted each prisoner and tapped them on the head as they went by.

Blum froze. He scanned up ahead. Maybe fifteen or twenty had already passed through. There had to be an equal number still in front of them. A knot twisted in his stomach. “We’re going to be left behind,” he said to Mendl, worry setting in. If they were sure to make it through, they’d have to move up three or four rows in line.

“Zinchenko…” Mendl got the eye of the kapo he had bribed. “They said just forty only…”

“A meal’s a meal, Professor,” the kapo replied indifferently. “There are other lines.”

“Those other details are more like death marches,” Mendl pressed him. “We paid your price. A deal’s a deal, Zinchenko. Honor it.”

“You want to argue, Professor?” The kapo reared his club. “Here’s the court of appeals.” The bastard clearly didn’t like to be challenged.

Panic reared up as Blum looked ahead and saw the work line nearing its last ten, the officer counting aloud. “Thirty-one, thirty-two…” He tapped the head of each prisoner he let through.

Fifteen or so were still in front of them.

“We’re not going to make it,” Blum said, his alarm mounting. Could it now be all for nothing? The plane might already be in the air. The attack… It was tonight or never. They had to move up.

“There’s more where that came from, Zinchenko,” Mendl whispered to the kapo, seeing the same outcome taking shape. “I can get it for you.”

“Dreiunddreißig, vierunddreißig…” the officer called. Thirty-three, thirty-four.

Ten still in front of them. And only six more spots.

“Zinchenko…” Alfred hissed.

“Here! More grist for the mill tonight,” the kapo called out, pushing the professor and Leo forward and grabbing Blum by the neck of his uniform. Blum held onto Leisa. The kapo threw the four of them forward toward the front of the line, grunting to the officer who was counting them off. “These four are on me tonight. Top workers, all of them.”

“None of them look like they can even hold a spade,” the German replied, looking them over. Then, back to his counting as if it was no matter. “Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight…” The officer pushed each of them on the shoulder until they passed. “Only two more,” he said to the row behind them. “Everyone else, keep your lines. There will be more details.”

They’d made it through.

Relieved, Blum squeezed Leisa’s arm as they made their way slowly through the main gate, which was ringed by guards staring blankly ahead as if the prisoners were cattle, not men. Many in line grumbled about their rotten fate. Roused out of their bunks, deprived of a night’s sleep. And just their luck, Hauptscharführer Scharf was in charge; he had a hair trigger even when he’d had a good night’s sleep. Tarps were cleared from the bays of the trucks and those in the front of the line began to climb in, guards checking numbers and pushing them along, dogs snarling, barking loudly, a reminder to anyone who might have a thought of escape outside the wires.

Blum’s heart pounded with anticipation. It was one thing for him to sneak through with only Mendl, but Leo and Leisa made it far more challenging. But they were almost there. Only one more checkpoint. Ahead, another guard was taking down workers’ numbers. Getting Leisa through would be the final hurdle. With her hair shaved and dirt smeared on her cheeks, in truth, she looked no less a man than Leo. “Just say your name and show your arm,” Blum whispered in her ear. “And don’t look him in the eye. Keep your head down. You’ll be fine.” She nodded bravely, but Blum could feel her nervous heart beating briskly.

Mendl was first up. He recited his name and number. The guard dutifully waved him past. Then Leo. The same result. Blum was up next. He pushed Leisa in front of him and held onto her arm.

“Blum,” she muttered in a low voice, showing her forearm.

“A390207,” the guard read off. Leisa kept her eyes down.

Blum eyed the Luger strapped to the guard’s side. If he stopped Leisa, if this was it, that was where Nathan would lunge. They would be dead in an instant, of course. But he wouldn’t let them be taken, tortured. He would not go without a fight like his parents.

“Next.”

Leisa stepped through.

It was done.

“Mirek. A22327,” Blum said.

“Mirek. A22327…” the guard confirmed. Then his gaze went past Blum to the one in back of him. “And you…”

They had made it. Their line was now climbing up into the truck. Blum squeezed Leisa’s shoulder. It was all going as planned. All they would have to do was work the line for a couple of hours and wait for the attack. When it came, with machine gun fire and maybe a grenade or two, there would be chaos. Smoke. People running about. There was always the last hurdle, of course, to sneak away amid the pandemonium and make it to the river. And now with four of them, that would be a harder feat. But if he had to, Blum was prepared to disable one of the guards; everyone would be distracted in the confusion. It would be risky, of course, that was clear. But the hardest part had passed. He had made it inside, managed to find Mendl, and Leisa too. It was all going to work, he was sure. He felt it in his heart. In a few hours, the plane would land and they’d be on their way to London. And then to America. The thought of Orpheus bringing Eurydice back from the dead came into his head-he was going to do it. And then Hades’s own warning passed through his mind:

Whatever you do, Leisa, don’t look behind.

Just a few seconds more.

About half the work team had climbed into Truck Number One. The tarp was lowered and secured, and the rest were directed to the one next to it. Slowly they began to file in. Five, then ten, guards herding them quickly into the cargo bay. “Schnell! Schnell!”

It was almost their time now. Blum’s heart surged. A guard pushed each one up who stepped forward. “You. You.” Now it was their turn. Leo put his foot on the step and jumped in first. He reached back to help Alfred, who awkwardly put a foot on the step, took Leo’s hand, and hoisted himself up with a quick but satisfied look that seemed to say, Thus far, so good. Blum put his face close to Leisa’s ear and whispered, “I’ll help you up. We’re almost there. It’s only-”

The guard blocked them with his arm. “Alt!”

An instant later, bright lights flared on; everything was flooded in a blinding glare. Blum shielded his eyes, dogs barking, lunging out of the darkness, all teeth and gnashing jowls. The piercing wail of a warning siren.

What was going on?

To Blum’s horror, the commandant he had seen at roll call this morning came around the side of the truck. Closely followed by the Abwehr colonel he had seen as well, his Mauser drawn.

How were they here? What the hell had gone wrong?

Someone pinned him by the shoulders, amid voices in German shouting. “These four!”

The intelligence colonel stood in front of him, his eyes alight with satisfaction. “So our truffle hunter, at last…” he said in English. “And which of you is the prize?”

The commandant greeted Alfred. “Herr Professor.”

In that instant Blum saw in a flash that everything was lost. The mission. Mendl. Leisa. All lost. His blood surging, he lunged for the colonel’s pistol, trying to rip it from his hand. He knew it was a futile act. At any second, he would likely be shredded by machine gun fire. He knew he had cost his sister her life, just as he had tried so valiantly to save it. But still he leaped. He got his hands as far as grasping the colonel’s gun, focused only on the fact that he would not go like his parents had gone, accepting and scared, when someone struck him in the back with a hard, blunt object and, knees buckling, he fell to the ground.

Leisa ran over to him and screamed, covering Nathan and shouting his name.

“Leisa, no, no…” Blum pleaded. He looked up at her with heartbreak in his eyes, knowing he had failed her. Failed them all.

“Ah, and our missing clarinet player as well…!” the commandant said. Leisa’s cap was off her head now and she was totally exposed. “You can be sure you will be properly serenaded by your friends on your way to the gallows.” He nodded and a guard struck her in the back with a rifle stock. With a whimper, she crumpled to the ground.

“Leisa, no! Don’t hurt her. Please!” Blum reached out for her.

“And let us see who this is,” the commandant said. A guard yanked Leo down from the truck.

“I’m sorry, young man,” Mendl said as a guard dragged him down, pummeling the old man on the back and head with the stock of his gun.

“Alfred!” Leo ripped his arms free and ran to the old man and received a rifle butt across the head, sending him to the ground as well.

Blum was dragged up to his feet and squinted into the bright light. “Let her go,” he said, not even able to make out the faces in front of him. “You have me. Please, let her go.”

Then something firm and blunt made contact with the back of his head, and the sight of his sister being dragged away unconscious was flooded over by a wave of darkness.

SIXTY-FIVE

“In a faraway world…” Greta read to the barely conscious man on the cot who stared up blankly, “through the veil of mist you see an image of beauty…”

She came here and read most every afternoon. Today, after what Kurt had done earlier, she couldn’t go home. As hard as it was to see the withering, disfigured shapes, more bones than flesh, many in their last throes of life, it was also one of the few places that made her feel whole. Made her believe in life again. To see a brief flicker of a smile or twinkle in the eye of someone on the edge of death, whose mind was now set free. She wasn’t permitted to tend to the sick, since she wasn’t a trained nurse, nor was it appropriate, Kurt insisted, for the wife of the Lagerkommandant to touch the Jews directly or, even more so, to try to mend them. So she did what she could.

Which was to speak soothingly to those who were dying, assure them that they weren’t alone. No one should leave this world without someone holding their hand or sitting by their side. Once she smuggled in precious sulfanilamide to treat a patient with gangrene, which was generally a death sentence in here. And once, when a young female prisoner who tended the sick and kept her pregnancy hidden gave birth-in a state of abject fear, as it generally meant death for both mother and child, because Kurt would insist this wasn’t a nursery, and bringing a Jewish life into the world was not worth the milk it would take to feed it-she took the newborn baby and arranged for her housemaid, Hedda, to smuggle it out of camp. And she prayed with all the hope still in her that though she had not brought a child into the world herself, somewhere there was one still living because of her.

One against all who had died.

Mostly she just read. Rilke. Heine. Holderlin. Most of the people she sat by were already more corpse than living. Three days, and then they shipped you to the crematorium and your fate was sealed. But she knew they liked to hear the sound of a woman’s voice, momentarily transporting them to a place of calm and rest. And as she helped a few let their final thoughts fly over the dark cloud and wire back to their homes and families, it made Greta feel, at least for a brief time, less trapped and alone herself.

Almost free.

“Pani…” the patient she was reading to reached out and touched her arm. His lips quivered. He indicated he would like a sip of water.

“Just rest. I’ll be right back.” She marked the place and got up to pour him a small cup.

That was when she heard the sound of the siren.

An unmistakable, repeating wail, penetrating the entire camp like a blade through the ears, designed to alert the guards in the case of an escape or emergency and to signal to the prisoners that a capture had been made, since no one ever got beyond the second row of electrified wire.

In her heart, she always cheered for those brave enough to try.

But now she feared, from what Kurt had told her, that they had found the intelligence officer’s mole. It demoralized her that they had won again, just as Kurt had predicted.

Still, for just a second she hoped that maybe this time they hadn’t won. Maybe this one time someone had made it free.

She put the cup of water to the patient’s lips and let him drink, then she excused herself and went outside.

Guards were hurrying, weapons in hand, in the direction of the front gate.

“Rottenführer Langer,” she called, seeing the corporal coming from that direction. “What is going on?”

“An attempted escape,” he announced.

“Escape…?” Then maybe the mole hadn’t been caught yet. There was still hope.

“But do not worry, Frau Ackermann,” Langer said, sarcasm showing through. “You will be pleased to know that it has not succeeded.”

Pleased… She would have been pleased if anyone had made it beyond the wires, if only for a moment, to die there, as many did, just to end the misery for good. But whoever these escapees were, she knew they would not face such a quick death. “Excellent, Corporal,” she replied, transparently enough that even a dull rod like Langer could see right through.

“But I think you will be particularly interested, Frau Ackermann, to know the identity of one of the escapees…” The Rottenführer’s eyes lit up with kind of a gloating grin. “The young boy, I’m afraid,” he clucked.

“Boy…?” Her heart rose up in alarm.

“Your chess partner, Wolciek, Frau Ackermann.”

“Leo?” Greta’s blood stopped cold.

“I always knew the little prick had a devious side,” the Rottenführer sniffed, “and with all the kindness you graciously bestowed on him. Anyway, you should make sure he didn’t rob you blind before we put him out of his misery.”

Leo.

Her heart felt like it was tied to a weight and cast into the sea. For a moment she thought that maybe Kurt had set it up himself. She knew how much he resented their intimacy. And what had he told her, My hands are tied. He could not protect him anymore. She knew he would do anything he could to hurt her. This was right up his alley.

Leo.

She felt shaken. He was a dead man now, she knew. Worse than dead. Kurt would always find something special for those caught trying to escape as a warning to any who harbored the same thoughts. And this one he would apply himself to with relish. How he would gloat later, with that repulsive, self-assured, I-told-you-from-the-start smirk. “As I recall, Greta, I warned you not to open our house to a Jew and let your defenses down.”

“Yes, you are right,” Greta said back to Langer. “I will check.” Though inside her heart was torn at the devastating news. “And where have they taken him, Rottenführer?” she asked, though, of course, she knew.

“Where they are all taken, Frau Ackermann.” Langer snorted with a cynical laugh. “To give them a fond welcome back to camp. Not to matter, by breakfast he will be on the gallows for all to see as they pass by. An example must be made of such vermin, do you not agree?” he asked. He who had dragged Leo visit after visit to her door and had been told to wait outside, who was now seemingly delighting in the pain he knew it caused her.

“Yes, Corporal.” Greta nodded. “An example for certain.”

The corporal excused himself with a smirk and hurried off, cackling inside. No doubt the entire guardhouse would be laughing over it within the hour. An example, he had said. Yes. An example indeed.

Greta headed back to her house. Leo was the only thing of goodness she had ever touched in here.

But for once the Rottenführer was right.

That is precisely what needed to be made of these people. An example.

SIXTY-SIX

Water was splashed on him. Blum came to. Suspended by the arms from hooks in a cell, his feet dragging the floor. It was dark. His arms ached. The cell stank of feces and urine. His head still felt fuzzy from the blow he had taken. He wanted to ask, “Where are they? Leisa? Mendl? What have you done with them?” But then he realized his mouth was taped. Two men stood in the cell in front of him. One he recognized as Sergeant Major Scharf. Avoid that one, a born killer, he’d been warned. The other was Zinchenko. He had no idea how much time had passed. Hours, maybe. The plane, it had likely come and gone by now. His only way out of here.

What did it matter now?

He would die here shortly anyhow.

“Herr Vrba.” The German laughed, grabbing his wrist. “A22327. Welcome back. We had no idea how much you actually missed it here.”

They took him down from where he was hanging.

“Excuse us, we have to pretty you up a bit for your interview. You’re looking a little ragged,” the SS sargeant said. Then he drove his fist into the pit of Blum’s stomach, forcing whatever air was inside him from his lungs, doubling him over. Zinchenko picked him up and Scharf hit him again. Every cell in Blum’s body screamed out in pain for air. He felt the urge to vomit. “This is only the start. Get used to it, yid,” the SS guard said. “We’ve got all night. For me, this isn’t even work. It’s pleasure.” The next blow was to his kidneys. Paralyzing pain, rocketing through him.

Then they let him go and he crumpled to the soiled concrete floor.

Where was Leisa? Dead already, likely. They didn’t need her, so why keep her around? All she was, was just another escaped prisoner. Thousands die every day. Someone had betrayed them. Josef, maybe, the partisan. Who knew? What did it even matter now? The mission was over. He was done. When they were ready they would do what they could to find why he was here. Torture him likely. This was child’s play. Beat his heels. Stick wires in him. He didn’t know if he could stand up to much abuse. And in the end, what did he really know? Not much. That’s why they never told him the full picture, Strauss said. In case… In the case that he ended up just as he was now.

It was a suicide mission, they had all known it. From the start.

“C’mon, Jew, you’ve got people to see. Get your ass up.” Scharf ripped the tape off his mouth.

Blum’s thoughts went to the cyanide capsules sewn into his collar. Bite, Strauss had said. It will do the trick. In seconds. He had to believe it was still there. How had Strauss put it: It might just be the best alternative, if you’re captured…

If he just clamped down on his collar and didn’t have to go through the ordeal.

They dragged him out and down a row of cells, his legs unable to hold him. The light got slightly brighter-harshly emanating from an exposed bulb. At the end of a hall he saw a table. A German leaning on it. The intelligence colonel, he recognized. And Ackermann, the commandant, behind it in full dress as if he had an appointment with the Führer. Three wooden chairs in front. Two had bodies slumped in them, their arms fastened behind them. He saw they were Mendl and Leo. Faces bruised, puffy. They didn’t look any better than he. Mendl particularly. His head was bowed; he was breathing very softly. Leo was doing his best to look brave, a welt on his face, but inside, Blum knew he must be shitting bricks.

Because he was.

“We’ve saved you a seat!” the intelligence colonel announced, his face brightening. “So glad you could make it, Herr Blum. That is your name, is it not? I did get to meet your sister. So sad not to hear her play.”

“Where is she?” Blum looked up at him accusingly.

“Please, please, we’ll get to that later,” the colonel said. “In the meantime, let’s focus on what we have here.”

They threw Blum into the left-hand chair, twisted his arms behind it, and bound them with a rope. With seeming relish, Scharf pulled the knot as tight as he could. Blum looked toward Mendl and Leo. “I’m sorry,” he said. He tried to suck needed breath into his lungs.

“No matter.” Mendl drew in a labored breath himself and tried to smile. “I’m not sure my stomach was fit to have enjoyed the food on the outside anyway. It’s Leo I’m actually sad about… My fault to include him from the start. And of course, your…”

Sister, he decided not to say. Who knew where she was or what fate she had already suffered?

“Don’t listen to what he says,” Leo said to Blum. “He’s an old man. His head doesn’t work right sometimes.”

“Defiant to the end.” Mendl smiled fondly at him. “Always did hold you back as a student.”

“So, shall we get started?” the balding colonel said, his palms together as if announcing the commencement of a party.

“I want to know where my sister is,” Blum said in German to the dark-featured commandant behind the table. He had a small riding whip in his hands.

“I would not worry about her right now.” He shook his head. “Her fate, I’m afraid, is sealed. Only you can make it”-he tapped the whip in his palm-“more acceptable, if you understand what I mean.”

“Tell me what you’ve done with her,” Blum said again. “I want to see her.”

“Do you now…?” The commandant sniffed kind of grudgingly with a smile of amusement.

“I am Colonel Franke,” the intelligence officer said, sitting down on the edge of the table, facing them. His gaze came to rest on Blum, soft, gray eyes both seemingly pleased that he had found his prey and at the same time calculating, calmly methodical. “I know you’ve only been in the camp a handful of days, but I think you have seen, and certainly your friends here can verify if you need, that Major Ackermann here is quite capable at a number of things, and one of them I have noticed is inflicting as much misery on a man as can be tolerated. He and his aide here, Hauptscharführer Scharf. Which is precisely what will happen, I assure you, if what we discuss is not fruitful.”

The beefy sergeant looked at him with a smug gleam in his eye.

“Let me start with what we do know. You’ll be interested to know I’ve been following your journey for a long time. We know you were dropped in on the morning of May twenty-third, three days ago. Your accent is very good, Herr Blum. You are Polish, I presume? Czech, maybe?”

“I want to see my sister,” Blum demanded again.

“You’ll soon tell us.” Franke ignored his plea. “Or one of your associates here will, I assure you. I know you were picked up by the local underground and came into the camp as part of a construction team. The foreman of that team has, I’m afraid, met with a sudden work-related accident that has halted his construction career. His skull was bashed in. I know you were sent in here to locate someone within the camp, and it seems we have found him,” the colonel tapped his finger on the table, “the professor here… and to take that person out. But to where, Herr Blum, if you don’t mind? If you want to see that sister ever again. Back to England maybe? Your area of specialty was what, Professor Mendl? Mathematics? Physics…?” He waited. “Not talking…? No matter. We will soon know. And the others…” He turned to Leo. “How do you fit in, young man? I hear you are quite the chess prodigy. I used to play myself. It will be a shame not to have the challenge. No takers yet?” He nodded, smiling, as if unruffled and checked his watch. “Ten thirty… It is still early. We have all night. There is a lot that can be done to make someone talk when you have all night.”

“Let’s get on with it, Colonel.” The commandant tapped his watch impatiently. “Enough talk. Hauptscharführer Scharf here is growing impatient. And so am I. These are my prisoners, not yours. We’ll interrogate them as we please. But sadly, there is a train arriving shortly that will interfere. And, espionage aside, there is still a business here to manage.”

“Go to your train, Herr Major. You will answer to Göring himself if what they know does not come out before your sergeant here bludgeons the life out of them. So who are you…?” The colonel turned back to Blum. “Why Mendl? Why are you so important, old man, that someone would come into the den of hell here to get you out? And to where…? And you, my young friend…” He turned to Leo. “You seem fond of the old man. Start talking, or I’ll have the sergeant do his work on you if your friends here are too stupid to comply.”

“We’re dead anyway.” Leo shrugged, meeting his gaze. “We were dead the day we walked through those gates. It was only a matter of when.”

“Let them go,” Blum said. “Leisa and the boy. Promise me as an officer they will not be harmed. And I will tell you what I know.”

“Then start speaking, Herr Blum.” The intelligence colonel got up and sat in front of him. “My car is outside. I can have them at the Romanian border in hours.”

“No one is going anywhere,” Mendl interrupted him, fighting to summon the breath to speak. “In fact, none of us will even be around tomorrow. Even if the colonel here gives you his word, the minute he leaves, they’ll be a bullet in the back of their heads. Or maybe something far less ‘acceptable…’ Isn’t that right, Herr Lagerkommandant? We are all already dead but the final blow.”

“As I said, the choice is yours,” Ackermann said, with a nod that indicated let’s get on with this waste of time. “I say one by one we put them up on the rack, let Scharf have a go at them. In a minute, they’ll be cackling like geese.”

“You see, I can only save you for so long,” Franke said. “Otherwise, what happens is out of my hands.”

There was a noise at the door and a guard came in from the outside. “The train, Herr Lagerkommandant. You asked to be notified…”

Ackermann nodded. He drew in a breath. “Half an hour. An hour tops, I will be back.” The commandant stood up. “No one leaves the block. No one goes anywhere. On my orders, understood, Scharf?”

“Of course, Herr Major.” The sergeant came to attention. “Perfectly understood.”

“Kapo Zinchenko, you can join me. And if you don’t have what you need when I come back…” He glared at Franke. “We’ll do it my way. And you, my little chess player,” he turned to Leo with an icy smile, “when I return, you and I will have to have a much more personal discussion about just how you came in the possession of these…” He took out the photo of Greta Leo had taken and placed it on the table and put the white rook she had given him on top of it. He smiled. “I look forward to such a talk.” He tossed his riding stick on the table and went out the door.

“You heard the man.” Franke threw up his palms in frustration as if to say he no longer had control. “He has a very difficult job. Yet in some ways, he might be right. I’ve always been told I have too much patience. So what is it you know?” He came around the table and went up to Alfred. The old man’s eyes were dropped and his mouth hung open slightly. “Why did they send this man in to find you? What do you know, Professor, that is so vital?”

“Just that the density of a gas is directly proportional to its mass,” Mendl said with a slight smile. “Isn’t that right, Leo?”

“Yes, Professor, it is,” the boy replied. “At least, that is what I’m told.”

“Very brave, very brave. Don’t you think, Scharf? Such a show of daring. So you are the truffle…” Franke said to Mendl, taking his Luger from his holster and dangling it in his hand. “And that makes you the pig.” He looked at Blum. “And you see what happens to little pigs in here, don’t you?” He took hold of the gun and put it to Alfred’s side. “Why did he come here to get you out?”

“If you think the prospect of a bullet frightens me after six months in here, you have greatly underestimated this rat’s nest,” Mendl said.

“Is that so, Professor?” Franke squeezed the trigger.

There was a dull report, the acrid smell of burnt fabric and flesh. With a groan, Alfred rocked back in his chair, a twisted grimace on his face.

Leo shouted, “No!”

A flower of blood spread on Alfred’s uniform.

“The next one is to his kneecaps, boy. And then his balls. You know about the balls, don’t you, son? If it doesn’t bother him, I know it does you. So why the good professor here? I know you know. And where were you headed? Speak up, boy.” He put the Mauser to Mendl’s knee. “Only you can stop it.”

“Don’t.” Mendl turned to Leo and shook his head. He looked at his side, blood matting against his uniform. “Do you hear me, Leo, don’t.”

“Yes, Leo, listen to him.” Franke wrapped his finger tightly around the trigger. “What is your tolerance to watch him suffer, boy? You only have so much time. No answer…”

The colonel pulled the trigger again.

Mendl thrashed in his chair, the bindings holding him down. He arched his head back and writhed in pain. Blood ran from above the knee.

“Stop!” Leo begged.

“I say it again, son.” The colonel took his pistol and drew it back one more time. He held it to where Alfred’s legs joined. “I’ll give you to the count of five…”

“No, lad,” Mendl said, shaking his head. The color had drained from him. “Not one word.”

“Two, one, boy…” Franke stiffened his hand on the gun. “Now!”

“He is a physicist!” Leo shouted. “Stop! Please! In electromagnetic chemistry. He has an expertise in a process called gaseous diffusion. It’s about the displacement of gases inside an enclosed space.”

“And why is that important?” Franke urged him. Again he pressed the muzzle to Alfred’s groin. “I’ll take him apart piece by piece, I promise. Why did he come here?” He motioned to Blum. “Who is behind it? The British? The Americans? Where were they taking him back to? Don’t press me, boy, he only has so much time.”

“Do it to me!” Leo twisted in his binds. “Leave him. Shoot me! Can’t you see he’s dying? Shoot me!”

“Last chance.” Franke’s gaze fell on Leo as he pulled back the pin.

“For God’s sake, no,” said Blum, straining to get out of his binds. The SS goon behind him came up and smacked his gloved fist heavily across Blum’s head.

“He’s taking him to America!” Leo shouted. “America.”

“America!” Franke gasped, eyes wide.

“It’s for a weapon. I’m sorry, Alfred, but I can’t sit back and watch him just kill you. I’m sorry…” Leo looked at the colonel and began to sob. “Shoot me. You can shoot me. Can’t you see you’re killing him!”

Franke pulled back his gun. Blum could see his brain putting together that the stakes had now grown to something far larger than even he had first imagined. “What kind of weapon?” he said to Leo. “What kind?” This time he put the gun to Alfred’s head. “Or I swear this is only the beginning of what you will see. Tell me, or I will splatter his brains all over your lap.”

“I don’t know! I don’t know what kind! I swear. I don’t know anything about the weapon. That’s all he’s told me. Just don’t hurt him. I’m sorry, Alfred, but I can’t watch them kill you like that. I can’t… I can’t…” The boy hung his head and wept.

“It’s all right, son,” Alfred muttered softly. He turned to Franke. “That’s all he knows. You’ve gotten everything you can get.” The flower of blood on his side had spread. “It’s all I’ve told him.”

Franke sat back down on the edge of the table, this time in front of Blum. “All right… So now it’s you, truffle hunter. Your turn.” He put the gun to Blum’s knee. “Somehow I don’t think anyone is going to rush to save you.”

“Probably right,” Blum said back to him. He bent his head to reach the two pills sewn into his collar. Strauss had said, even through the material, enough of the poison would get into his system to do the job. And why not now? There was no mission anymore. Leisa was likely dead; they all would be in a matter of hours. He lifted his shoulder up so his collar was close to his teeth. Why not now?

“Except there is one person…” the colonel said. He nodded to Scharf. “One person who still might persuade you. Bring her in.”

SIXTY-SEVEN

They dragged Leisa in from the last cell and ripped the tape off her mouth. She sucked in air and cried out, “Nathan!”

It was hard to look at her. Her face was swollen; her eyes puffy and bruised. Staring at her, Blum was filled with sorrow. But all he could do was helplessly shake his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nathan, don’t be.” Leisa looked at him, her eyes flooding with tears. “I’m only sorry you are here.”

He smiled through the tears that streamed down his cheeks. Tears of anguish, powerlessness. He fought with his bindings, desperately trying to wrench his arms through the knots for what purpose he wasn’t sure, almost ripping his right arm from its socket. “Do not ever touch her again,” he seethed at Franke in German, “or I will find a way to end your life.”

“You will, will you? Very daring, Herr Blum. You are quite the protector. And so very touching.” The light reflected off the colonel’s shiny brow. “Don’t you think so, Sergeant Scharf?”

“I do, Colonel,” the SS henchman chuckled, as if things were about to heat up very nicely for him.

Franke said, “I’ve heard about your little reunion at the wire. One question. Did you know your sister was here, or was it just providence that you found her while looking for the professor?”

Blum didn’t reply.

“I assume the latter. All the more, it tugs at one’s very heartstrings, right, Sergeant?”

“Indeed, it does, sir.” The Hauptscharführer grinned amusedly.

“Well, now we’ll see just how very touching it gets.” Franke picked up his gun and softly ran the back of his hand across Leisa’s face and neck.

Blum glared, his blood boiling over. “Leave her alone.”

“Who ordered you to come here and locate the good professor? How were you planning on getting him back? First to England, I presume? Or maybe Sweden? Across land? Or is there a plane?”

“Professor, how are you holding up?” Leo asked, leaning across.

“Not so well, I regret…” Mendl’s head sank back. It was clear the man was slowly dying.

“Don’t you worry about him. Tell me about the bomb the lad was talking about.” Franke sat over Blum, running the muzzle of the gun along Leisa’s cheek. “I’ve heard of such things-heavy water, harnessing the power of the atom. How far along are the Allies in development? Cat got your tongue? Maybe I can loosen it just a little.” He moved the Mauser to Leisa’s head. “How will it be to watch her brains blow into your lap? Very messy, I think. Only you can stop it.”

Leisa shook her head, tears flooding into her eyes. “Nathan, don’t. Not a word. We’re all dead anyway. Don’t give him what he wants.”

Blum screamed and struggled with everything he had to free his bound hands. Just to put them around Franke’s neck, if God intervened for him, and then be bludgeoned by the bloodthirsty sergeant. She was right, they were all dead anyway. “I don’t know what kind of bomb,” he shouted. “Please! Let her alone.”

“I wonder what it must be like to watch your sister die. The sister you so daringly rescued from the women’s camp. And now to see her so close to death. And you are the only one who can save her. With just a word. Merely a squeeze of my finger and…” Franke tensed on the trigger.

“I swear, I don’t know about the weapon!” Blum screamed, his eyes desperate and begging. “I was just sent here to get him out. That’s all I know. I swear it.”

Leisa met his gaze, imploringly. “Nathan, don’t.”

“Why you?” The colonel kept at him. Blum writhed in futility at the bindings. “Tell me, or she’ll be dead in her next breath.”

“Because I spoke the language. And looked the part. To fit in here.”

“You are a Pole?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And where did you come from prior to this mission? From England? The United States?”

“From the United States!” Blum looked at Leisa, shaking his head with despondency.

“From America!” Franke’s eyes lit up. “America. And how did you get there?” He raised the gun again. “Don’t go silent now…”

“I escaped from the ghetto in Krakow in 1941. I enlisted in the Army a year later.”

Leisa looked at him, calmness replacing fear on her face. Suddenly he saw it. All the while, she had thought the opposite. Yet in this moment, with him unable to do anything to stop it, or save it, he saw, with her so willing to die, that she was stronger than he. She was beautiful. “Nathan, I release you from your vow,” she said with a knowing smile. “It’s okay now. It’s okay to stop.”

“So why did you come back?” Franke pressed. Blum’s eyes stung with tears and he shook his head. “Whatever vow she is talking about, it can’t be worth watching her die. You’d gotten out. You were safe. Why did you risk it all to come back? To find your sister?”

Nathan shook his head. “No. I thought she was dead.”

“For your new country then…?” Franke said. He kept the Mauser’s muzzle pressed to Leisa’s temple. She turned her head away.

“No.” Blum shook his head. “Because I was ashamed. Ashamed I had gotten away.” Blum looked at Leisa and his eyes filled with tears. “Because everyone else, my parents, and I thought my sister, were dead.” His gaze settled on Franke. “Because I was the one who would go.”

“See, they always talk. They want to play the big hero but they always talk.” The intelligence officer smiled. “You wanted to avenge your parents’ deaths. And so how do you feel now, Herr Blum, knowing what you’ve done has had just the opposite effect? That it has essentially gotten the person you loved most, who was alive, killed?”

“We would have all died anyway, Myszka.” Leisa looked at Blum. “This only makes it quicker.”

“How do I feel…?” Blum said. In the distance he heard the sound of marching music. Ackermann’s train disembarking. He smiled at her, bringing forth an image of her as a child, maybe just a glance or a mischievous wink while they were doing their lessons, and then looked back at the colonel. “I would do it again. In a heartbeat.” He thought that maybe these would be the last words she would ever hear. “She is half of whoever I am. You cannot separate us. I would rather die with her than live, not knowing.” Then he looked back at Franke and shrugged. “So how does that touch you?”

“Let me show you,” the colonel said, and extended his arm at Leisa’s temple.

He was distracted by the sound of the outside door opening. A woman came in. Pretty. In a patterned dress and a raincoat. Blond hair pulled back in a tight bun.

“Frau Ackermann!” Sergeant Scharf said in surprise.

Leo looked up.

“I have never been in here before,” she said, scanning the room where such grave deeds were said to be done. “I’ve only heard…”

“Frau Ackermann, with all due respect, this is not the place for a woman.” Franke put down his gun. “As such, I must ask you to-”

“I have something to say,” she said. Her gaze turned to Leo, at first with a ray of affection as she noticed the photo and alabaster chess piece on the table, then just as quickly seemed to harden. “I treated you with respect. I gave you food, presents. I said I would watch out for you… And this is how you betray my trust.”

Scharf, behind Leo, held back his smirk.

“These people are worthless, madame,” Franke said. “Show them a little kindness and they behave like…”

She lifted her hand out of her sweater and removed a gun.

“Frau Ackermann!” Franke’s eyes stretched wide. He took a step toward her.

Her hand was a bit shaky at first-it was clear she had never held a gun-but steadily she extended both arms and leveled the weapon directly at Leo, strapped into his chair. “I took you under my wing. I gave you hope. You shamed me.” She pulled the hammer back.

“Madame, I’m sorry.” Leo looked at her and hung his head, waiting.

“Don’t be.” Greta twisted her shoulders and shifted the gun toward Franke. He stared in shock. “They behave like what, Colonel…?”

She fired, Franke’s jaw opening in a bewildered, wordless reply, and a dark hole appeared between the Abwehr man’s eyes. He dropped like a weight onto the floor.

His smirk erased, Scharf struggled at his waist for his own gun, and Greta fired twice into his chest, the impact hurtling him back against the wall, where he slowly sank, in a smear of his own blood, and slid to the floor.

At first there was only silence. The smell of lead and burnt flesh. For a moment, everyone was simply too stunned to fully comprehend what had just taken place.

“Quick,” Greta said, “there is little time. The train will occupy them only for another few minutes.” She ran over and undid Leo’s bonds. “Do you have a way out?” She directed the question to Blum.

“Yes. I think so.” Still a little stunned.

“Then you can change.” She pointed to the intelligence officer’s uniform. “His car is outside. There’s a driver in it. But you must hurry.”

“Nathan!” Leisa ran over and undid the knot that bound Blum’s wrists.

Blum swung his arms out of the rope and threw them around Leisa, having thought he would never hold her again. Then he quickly ran over to Franke on the floor and did as Frau Ackermann suggested, unbuttoning the officer’s gray jacket, pulling the dead man’s arms through. They heard the far-off sound of music playing and the din of new arrivals on the train platform. People were no longer being separated to the left or to the right but all in one line, quickly processed, likely to their deaths, that very night.

Blum wished he could warn each one of them. But right now they were the best cover he could ask for.

As soon as Leo was free he hurried over to Mendl. The old man’s face was white now. He had lost a lot of blood; the wound had bled completely through his striped tunic. Yet there was kind of a calm and clarity in his eyes even as his strength ebbed away. Blum flung on the German officer’s jacket as Leo untied Mendl’s arms. “Professor, please get up,” he said. “You are coming with us.”

“No.” The old man shook his head. “It’s too late now. I’m not going anywhere. You can see, I’m done.”

“No, you are not done,” Leo pleaded. “Not yet, Alfred. You must come.”

Blum pulled off the dead man’s boots and tore off his trousers. “I think you know more than anyone, sir, how much depends on it.” He thrust his legs through the pant legs and pulled on the black boots, perhaps a size or two too large, but his feet went through without difficulty.

Leo tried to help his friend up. “Alfred, please… you must try. We can take you.”

“No. I can’t. I can’t…” His breaths had now grown heavy and harder to draw. He looked to his side and put his hand there, and when he brought it back up his palm was smeared with blood. He shook his head forlornly. “I will only die on the way and slow you down. Let me stay.”

“Impossible,” Blum insisted, dressed in Franke’s Abwehr uniform now. He didn’t look like the colonel, of course. Not a stitch. He was half his age and with darker features. But at night, in the uniform, with his cap low on his brow-an instant was all they would need. “Get up, sir. I was sent by the president of the United States to bring you back, and as long as there is breath in you that’s what I will do. You more than anyone know what is at stake in getting you out. I will carry you if I have to. It’s only to the car.”

“Blum, please…” The flower of blood had seeped wider on Mendl’s side. There was only a resigned and fading glimmer left in his eyes. “I can’t.”

“You must! I will not leave you behind. Not after what we’ve risked to find you, Professor. Not now.” Blum knew they had only seconds to get out of there. Ackermann had said he’d be back in half an hour. That could be any time. Blum looked at the white-faced physicist, fearing with every passing moment that he would expire and all would be lost: the mission, his oath, Roosevelt’s own voice sounding in his head, Do not fail us, not knowing what to do.

“I’m afraid God had in mind a different ending,” Mendl huffed, giving the faintest smile. “But there is still a way…”

“A way…? The only way is out that door, sir. What is it you mean?” Blum knew that in minutes the man he had risked his life for might well be dead.

“Leo,” the professor said. He reached out his hand, almost blindly, and the boy grabbed it. Mendl looked at Blum. “He’s not my nephew at all. I lied. I’m sorry, I know how it might have slowed us down, but it was for this very eventuality. The boy…” Mendl coughed, then winced, wiping blood off his lips with his sleeve. “He knows it all. Everything I know. Every proof. Every formula. On what it is you need. I’ve taught him it all these past months.”

“You’ve taught him?” Blum stared at Leo, his mouth agape. “Is this for real?”

“Yes,” the boy said. “But-”

“He has it all, Blum. Every bit.” A flame flickered in Mendl’s eyes that confirmed it. “Even more than if I gave you my own notes to take back with you. I give you my oath on this.”

Blum turned to Leo. He didn’t have a pad or a notebook with him. Not a thing. And nothing with him when they attempted to leave the camp. “How? Where…?”

“Tell him, Leo,” Alfred said with a smile, nodding. “Go ahead.”

The boy tapped the side of his head. “In here.”

“In your head?” Blum gaped and looked back at Mendl.

“Remember, I told you he was a remarkable young man…” the professor said, though each new breath seemed to take even more out of him. “He’s as good as an encyclopedia with what he has in there. I knew it the second I met him. Trust me, Blum, what a joy it would be for me to go and reunite with some old friends; to present my work at last. But I would only slow you. You know as well as I do, none of us would make it then. So now go,” he smiled weakly, then coughed, blood on his tongue, “you no longer need me.”

“Quick, you must hurry,” Greta said. “You hear the orchestra? The crowds are starting to move. Kurt will be back shortly.”

“They’re playing Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy,’” Leisa confirmed to Blum. “That means they are being moved off the platform.”

Leo’s eyes filled with tears. “Alfred, please, come… You must.”

“No, son. It’s your path to go, Leo, not mine. That’s why God sent you to me. I see it now. It’s the only thing of which I’m certain.”

“I cannot leave you behind.”

“Yes, you will, Leo. You must leave me. You promised you would. You owe me that oath.”

Blum took Leo by the shoulders and peered into his eyes. “This is all true? You know this? Just as he says. Every bit of it? I need to know this with absolute certainty.”

“Yes.” He hesitated at first, then nodded with conviction. “I swear it.”

“Then we must go. Now.” He took Franke’s Mauser from the floor. “Professor, I wish there was something I could say. God owes you a far better fate than simply for us to leave you here to die.”

“My fate is in good hands,” he said with a resolved smile. “My girls have been waiting for me a long time.”

“And madame…” Blum turned to Greta. “There is room. Will you come?”

“Thank you.” She shook her head. “But I will stay with him.”

“Please, come…,” Leo said, imploring her. Everyone knew what fate awaited her upon her husband’s return.

“No.” Greta smiled at him. “The professor knows it correctly. It’s not my fate either. And anyway, you may all need a few moments of diversion when my husband comes back here. So go.”

Blum nodded. “Then whatever impelled you to do what you did for us, you have my heartfelt thanks.”

“You must hurry.” She looked deeply into Leo’s eyes and put a hand on his cheek. “Go. The guards will be coming back from the platform any time. God watch over you.”

“And you, madame,” Blum said back. “Leisa, wrap yourself in that cloth.” Blum pointed to a folded blanket on the floor. “Leo, you will follow behind me once I give you the signal that it’s safe. You say his car is right outside?’

“Yes.” Greta nodded. “When I came in, his driver was having a smoke.”

“Well, let’s hope that he’s done with it and back in the car.” Blum checked the Mauser. “Otherwise, his war is about to end and we’ll have to make a run for it in the car as best we can. Leo, is there any chance you know how to drive?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t.”

“Me either, sadly. So let’s both hope he’s back in that car. Professor…”

Mendl didn’t answer. His head was tilted, his mouth open, his lips white and crusted, muttering something. He was dying.

“Alfred!” Leo said, anguish tearing him inside. Again, he seemed unable to leave.

“Leo!” Blum grabbed onto his shoulder. “You have to leave him. It’s time to go.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Greta said. “He will not die alone. Your friend is right, you must leave without delay. But Leo…”

“Yes, Frau Ackermann…” Leo turned at the door.

“Greta.” She smiled. “And you would not embarrass a lady to have so easily forgotten, would you…?” She held out the photo of her in the boat he had taken along with the white chess piece. She went over and wrapped them in his hand and gave him a fond kiss on the cheek. “Good wins out, Leo. Every once in a while. Remember that. Even in here. So you make it, live out your life. If only just for me.”

“I will, madame,” he said, tears winding down his cheeks. “I will.”

“Then go.” Greta went back over to the professor and took his hand. “He needs to hear a soothing voice now.”

“Thank you again,” Blum said, and opened the cellblock door a few inches. He peered out. He saw the large car only a few yards away. It all looked clear. “Are you ready?” He glanced at Leo and Leisa. They both gave him a nod. This was it, then. He took one more look at Alfred and then smiled at Greta a last time. “To good, then. Seems as right as anything.”

“Yes. To some good.”

Blum drew the colonel’s cap down over his eyes and stepped outside.

SIXTY-EIGHT

Luck was with them outside. No guards were visible. A huge din and the sheen of bright lights came from the direction of the train platform near the front gate. Franke’s driver was in the front seat of a large Daimler sedan, the driver’s door open.

“Come.” Blum, holding Leisa in a blanket in his arms, waved to Leo.

The driver jumped out to open the door.

“Remain in the front,” Blum snapped officiously in German. He had Franke’s Mauser in his hand and was prepared to use it if the driver didn’t comply. Fortunately, the intelligence colonel must have been enough of a taskmaster that the driver merely snapped back to attention, uttering, “Yes, Herr Colonel,” and remained behind the wheel.

Blum twisted the latch on the Daimler’s trunk and a large hatch opened. He tucked Leisa inside. “Now.” He looked around and waved Leo out of the door. The boy ran out and climbed in the trunk as well. Blum told them, “Stay quiet. I will get you both out when we are safely away.”

He shut the latch and came around the side. “Start the engine,” he barked, climbing in the backseat, the colonel’s Abwehr cap pulled low. “We head back tonight. Let’s go.”

The driver turned around. “Back to Warsaw, Herr Colonel…?” It was already close to midnight and it was a many-hour drive.

His eyes widened in shock.

Blum had the Mauser at his face. “If you want to live, you’ll just drive. Once we are past the gates, I will let you out. But if you say one word or give even the slightest signal that something is wrong, that will be the last thing you ever do. Are we understood?”

The driver, a corporal in a gray Abwehr uniform and soft, peaked cap, at most a couple of years older than Blum, nodded and turned back around. “Yes, sir, I understand.” He turned the key and the Daimler’s engine rumbled to life.

“Keep both hands on the wheel so I can see them. And as you can hear, Corporal, my German is perfect, so no games. Be assured my gun is at the back of your head.”

“Yes, Colonel.” The driver nodded nervously.

“Drive.”

He turned the car around and headed slowly back toward the main gate. No one seemed to take notice or come after them. Blum could see guards in the watchtowers behind machine guns, but their attention seemed directed toward the tracks, not the fancy officer’s car below. There was a lot of activity ahead as the train had let off its cargo. Floodlights glaring, music playing. A festive Slavic dance. Guards barking orders. Blum could see a huge crowd, thousands, like a black wave, congested on the railway platform.

Likely none of them would be alive to see the light of the next day.

“Stop at the gate, as normal,” Blum instructed. His heartbeat began to pick up. He saw two or three guards manning the entrance. “And let me say again, one wrong word and it will be the last breath you ever take.”

“Yes. I hear you.” The driver nodded.

“Good.”

They slowed on the brick approach and pulled up to the front gate, the very one Blum had been brought through three days earlier. The clock on the tower read twelve oh eight. Another hour and a half or so until the plane was scheduled to land. If it would still land. Blum suddenly pushed back a tremor of concern, thinking how he and Mendl would not be there at the river as planned when the attack took place, twenty minutes from now. A guard stepped out of the guardhouse and came up to the Daimler. The driver rolled down his window. Blum pulled the action back on the Mauser so the driver could hear it. “Remember, I’m listening to every word.”

“Leaving so late?” the gate guard asked, with a look around the car.

“Back to Warsaw,” the driver said. “Urgent business, I’m afraid.”

“Herr Colonel…” the guard acknowledged, perfunctorily peering in the back.

Blum, sitting deep in the darkness of the rear seat, gave him a wave in return. The gun was hidden by the colonel’s greatcoat draped over his arm.

His heart almost beat out of his chest.

“Well, watch out for the fog, then,” the guard said, and signaled the guardhouse. “It gets bad in the valley at night.”

“I will. Thanks,” the driver replied. The gate slowly rose and the guard stepped away.

Blum let out a deep exhale.

The Daimler pulled ahead. As they passed through, Blum glanced behind and watched the guard take his place back in the guardhouse. The gate lowered again. His heart began to resume its normal cadence.

He had spent three days inside the worst hell on this earth.

And now they were free.

SIXTY-NINE

Ackermann knew something was wrong as soon as he and Fromm approached the cellblock.

Whistles sounded. Guards were running all around, shouting. Lieutenant Kessler stood ashen in the doorway and came to attention as he approached.

“What has happened?” the Lagerkommandant asked, a nervous feeling grinding at his belly.

Kessler just motioned inside.

Ackermann stepped in. His jaw tightened sharply as he took a look around.

Franke was dead. Impossible. On the floor. A dark hole in his forehead. His eyes as wide as a two reichsmark coin.

And Scharf… He was sitting upright against the wall, looking as startled as a man can appear, two red holes in his chest and a trail of blood smeared where his body had slid.

Greta turned to him. In a blue print dress and raincoat. She was holding a gun.

“What’s gone on here?” he said, aghast, though the answer was irrevocably clear.

“They’re gone, Kurt. That what’s gone on.” Greta smiled, though not with humor. “Your precious mole. His sister. Oh, and my little chess player. All gone. The professor…” Mendl sat in the chair with his head back, eyes blinking at long intervals, a large bloodstain on his stripes, muttering something. “He stayed with me.”

“What the hell is he saying?” Ackermann asked, not sure why he cared.

“He’s speaking German, Kurt. You should understand. Something about ‘Ist das wirklich so?’”

“Is that really so?” Ackermann said, bewildered.

“Maybe he’s as amazed as you are, Kurt, at what he sees.”

“Greta, put down the gun. Please.”

“No, Kurt. I won’t.” Instead, she raised it at him.

Fromm went for his pistol, but Ackermann held his arm.

“I could kill you as well, Kurt. But why would that even matter now?” There was pleasure in her eyes and voice. “Your career is done. Everything you worked so hard for. All your precious numbers. And I don’t even need to pull the trigger. You’re already dead. As dead to them now as you are to me. Dead to everyone.”

Ackermann stared at her in horror and then slowly looked around. “Greta, what have you done?”

“What have I done?” She laughed. “The question is, Kurt, what is it you have done? What have you all done? They were people. Your precious numbers… Not digits, Kurt. They were mothers. Husbands. Little children. They had lives. Hopes. Just like we did once. People.”

“I did what I had to, Greta. If not me, someone else.” He took a step forward. “Fromm, go sound the alarm. I want those three brought back now.”

“Yes, Herr Lagerkommandant.” The aide slowly backed away to the door, aware of the gun in Greta’s hands, which never shifted from her husband’s chest. He hurried out.

“We’re going to catch them, Greta. It will all be for naught. We’ll catch them, and you already know what we will do to them. Now put down the gun.”

“I’m afraid I can’t, Kurt. It’s too late. We both know that. Not now. And one last, little thing, my darling husband… something you should know.”

“What is that, Greta?” He looked at her, rage building up in him. She was right. His career was ruined. Their lives. What else was there?

“You were right. I did fuck the little Jew.”

The Lagerkommandant’s jaw twitched in anger.

“I let him do to me willingly what you had to force on me.”

He gritted his teeth. “Greta, give me the gun.”

The old man had stopped muttering. His head hung to the side. His mouth was open. But his eyes seemed clear. A last, deep exhalation came out of him.

He was gone.

“I think I know what he means, Kurt. Ist das wirklich so? Anyone who has lived in this hell would know. I think he sees his wife and daughter. As I now see something…”

“What do you see, Greta?”

“I see beyond this.You still have to believe in something. Even in this hell, right?”

“And what do you believe in, Greta?”

“What do I believe in…?” She smiled at him thinly. “I believe in the sky, Kurt. The big blue vastness of the sky.”

“Greta!”

She raised the gun to her head and squeezed the trigger.

After Greta’s body slumped to the floor, she was able to lift herself up. She no longer felt bound by a place of ugliness and death. She walked right by Kurt, still staring in horror and disbelief, as if she wasn’t there. The door was open. She went past the barracks, one after another, in their geometric sameness, and the grim, red-bricked crematorium. Guards running around. Past the bitter smell and the heavy cloud that always hung so low you could never see the blue behind it, even on clear days.

But now she could see the sky. Infinite and beautiful. She could see stars, galaxies. She could see all the way to a faraway place she had read about. Of grass and rivers and beauty. It all seemed so close, just up ahead of her. It made her smile. Through the mist. It was always just an arm’s reach away, she thought. Always so close.

Just beyond the wire.

SEVENTY

“Head for the town of Rajsko,” Blum told the driver as soon as they were clear of the camp. The road sign said it was to the southeast, twelve kilometers. “Remember, there’s still a gun to your head.”

“Please,” the young driver said. “I’ll do what you say. Just don’t shoot me. I was just married four months ago.”

“Then just drive. And two hands on the wheel. At all times.”

The drop location had been a field three kilometers south of the hamlet of Wilczkowice, and the landing site was on a farm road cleared just enough to accommodate the Mosquito a quarter mile to the north. Josef had pointed it out when he picked Blum up.

“What time do you have?” he asked the driver.

“Time? Zero zero fifteen hours, sir,” he answered, glancing behind.

The attack on the work crew was set to take place in fifteen minutes. The plane was well on the way. But when there would be no one at the river, Blum’s fears now turned to whether it would even land at all. He only prayed there would still be people at the landing site. They had to clear the field and light the way. They would be in radio contact with the plane.

Now he just had to locate the site.

“What is the mileage, Corporal? On the odometer.”

“The mileage? Seventy-eight four two nine,” he read.

“Seventy-eight four two nine,” Blum repeated. “Thank you.” For the first time he sat back.

The road was dark; after midnight there was almost no one on it. He wondered how much of a head start they had until they were discovered. Until Greta Ackermann was discovered. At first the Germans wouldn’t know for certain which direction they had taken. But they likely had checkpoints at each town, and, in a fancy Daimler, they would be spotted in a flash.

“Hit the lights,” Blum ordered the driver.

“But, sir, the road is dark. It’s dangerous.”

“Trust me, not as dangerous as if you don’t.” Blum put the gun to the back of the driver’s head. “Hit the lights.”

The driver switched off the headlights.

Blum’s thoughts went to Mendl and Ackermann’s wife. He was probably dead by now; and she, who knew. He only prayed that what the professor said was true. That all he knew was safely locked away in Leo’s brain. Everything depended on that now.

Rajsko, three kilometers.

“Slow down. We’ll be making a left-hand turn up ahead.”

“A left? I thought you said you wanted to go to Rajsko.”

“There’ll be a kind of mill on the right-hand side, and there should be a dirt road on the left. Take it. Go slow, or you’ll pass it.” It was one of the back roads Josef had taken to avoid detection on his way to Brzezinka the night Blum arrived.

Up ahead, he suddenly saw headlights in the distance coming toward them. “Quick, pull off the road now.”

“Here, sir?”

“Now! In this gully to the right.” Blum put his gun to the driver’s head again. “And don’t even think of flashing your lights as they pass unless you want to make that new wife of yours a war widow.”

“Yes, sir.” The driver nodded. He swung the Daimler, its lights off now, into a clearing to the side of the road. The oncoming headlights grew brighter. Blum saw that it was a truck. Heading toward the camp. As it passed, his heart stood completely still. He leaned forward, the gun at the driver’s head.

“Not a move.”

As it passed, Blum saw it was a troop truck-filled. He knew there was a detachment in Rajsko. So likely the word had gotten out. He held his breath as he watched the truck pass by and keep on going, its taillights fading into the night.

Blum let out a breath. “Okay, let’s get going again. And keep your eyes out for that turnoff.”

They found the road and skirted the sleeping town. It wound past dark farms and cottages, their inhabitants asleep. The road was rutted and uneven, fit more for a farm truck or a tractor than a heavy Daimler built for cruising. He felt bad for what Leisa and Leo must be going through in the hatch.

Finally it let them out onto the main road again.

“Which way now?” the corporal asked.

“Left. Toward Wilczkowice.”

The driver took the turn, and for a few kilometers the only vehicle they came upon was a chemical truck heading east, likely for the IG Farben facility. Blum searched for anything even remotely familiar. There was nothing, but, to his joy, a couple of miles down they came up on the train crossing where the guards had stopped him and Josef three nights ago, now deserted and quiet. Blum knew he was on the right path. But now was where it began to get tricky. He, Josef, and Anja had been talking, and he hadn’t paid attention to the way. It never occurred to him he’d need to find his way back. He knew he was looking for a back road, unpaved, off the main thoroughfare. But where? He passed a farm with a conical silo. Yes, he thought maybe he’d seen that before. Perhaps. “Keep going.”

Farther along, they passed a darkened farm road blocked by a fence. “Stop!”

The driver applied the brakes.

“What is the mileage now?” Blum asked. “On the odometer?”

“Seventy-eight four fifty-one,” the driver read off.

They had driven twenty-two kilometers. Fifteen miles.

This had to be the road.

“Get out, and pull back that gate,” Blum instructed him. “Make one move to run and I’ll shoot you in the back. I don’t need you now.”

“I won’t. Don’t. Please.”

“Hand me your gun.”

“I don’t carry a gun,” the driver said. “I’m only a mechanic. See…” He lifted up his jacket. As he said, there was no gun strapped to his belt.

“Okay, then quickly.” Blum stepped out of the car with him. “The gate should unlatch.”

The corporal ran over, fumbled with the lock for a few seconds, then finally threw open the gate, all the time Blum keeping his gun trained on him. It was pitch dark. Blum wasn’t 100 percent sure about the road. But the gate had to be the one Josef had flung open on their way to Brzezinka. They hadn’t passed another that fit. And the mileage seemed correct.

“Now go back and open the hatch,” Blum instructed him.

“Okay,” the driver said, his palms raised to his shoulders. “Just don’t shoot.” He opened the trunk of the car. Leo and Leisa peeked their heads out, uncertain.

“Where the hell are we?” Leo inquired.

“Close to where we need to be. Climb on out.”

Leisa looked around. “Is everything all right, Nathan? Do you know where we are?”

Blum gave her a positive wink to convey it was all okay.

“What do we do with him?” Leo said, speaking of the driver, who was starting to look at them with an anxious concern.

“We’ll decide. For now, climb in. Leo, you’re in front.”

They continued down the dark road, headlights on now. Blum focused at every stretch and turn, trying to find something that looked familiar to him. A barn. A farm gate. A sign.

Nothing.

“What’s the time?” he asked the driver again.

“Zero zero forty,” he said. Fifty minutes to landing. If they missed the plane, it didn’t matter if they were right or wrong. Or where they were. They had no other way to get home. There was the safe house back in Rajsko, but that would entail driving around in a vehicle every Nazi in Poland probably knew of by now. Plus, their escape plan had been infiltrated, that was clear. Who knew if the “safe” house was even still safe?

They suddenly came to a fork.

The driver turned around. “Which way?”

Three kilometers west of Wilczkowice, Josef had said. “That way,” Blum said, pointing left.

Here, the road seemed to wind along a ridge of dense trees.

“How will the plane even land?” Leisa asked, looking around. “It’s all forest here.”

“Hush!” Blum cautioned. He saw the driver’s head turn.

“Are you sure of where you are?” Leo questioned from the front.

“I don’t quite have your memory,” Blum said tersely, “but it is somewhere near.”

He damn well prayed it was.

They continued on, another mile or two. The night was so thick and dark they could see nothing but the glare of their own headlights and bugs smacking against the windshield, virtually blinding them. The Daimler bumped along the uneven path. A rabbit ran across in front of them. The driver stopped for it. Then a fence of wire blocking in a field that Blum thought perhaps he had seen before. Then a house in the distance, a dog barking. A hand-scrawled sign: NIE WCHODZIC NA POLA. Keep off the fields.

His heart picked up. He was sure this was near where he had landed. “Pull up here.”

The Daimler came to a stop.

“This is it?” Leo looked around doubtfully. There was nothing. Nothing but fenced-in fields and more woods.

“It’s close enough. Everyone get out.”

There wasn’t a light or a landmark to fix on anywhere. Blum estimated they had driven at least two miles from the main road. The nearest dwelling was at least several hundred yards away.

The driver looked at them nervously, his hands raised.

“Now what?” Leo turned to Blum, questioning.

Blum looked at the driver. “Now we deal with him.”

SEVENTY-ONE

“Give me your watch,” Blum instructed the driver.

“It belonged to my father,” the German protested.

“My apologies to him then. Mine was shot by the Nazis.” Blum waved his gun at him. “Come on now.”

The driver took the watch off and handed it over. It was ten of one. Forty minutes now. If the plane was still set to land. The attack would have already taken place on the camp work detail and the partisans would know that no one had come to meet them.

Blum’s heart raced anxiously. He didn’t see a sign of anyone around.

“So? What do we do with him?” Leo finally asked.

“He says he’s just a mechanic,” Blum said.

“I am,” the driver insisted, overhearing the word “mechanic,” which was the same in Polish. He was maybe a year or two older than Blum, no more. With a new wife. If he was being truthful. His eyes kept flitting around, maybe searching for an escape route to take off on, if it became necessary.

“Well, he’s heard things,” Leo said. “And mechanic or not, he’s still got that eagle on his chest.” He pointed to his Abwehr insignia.

“It’s just a uniform,” the driver pleaded to Blum, needing no translation. “I was drafted.”

“You two go on ahead.” Blum pointed to a dark clump of trees a couple of hundred yards away. “Wait there. I’ll take care of him.”

“You have to kill him,” Leo said in Polish. “Or else he’ll alert them all.”

“Maybe it’s just as he said,” Leisa said, coming to the driver’s defense.

Blum nodded. “You both go on. I’ll catch up in a while.”

The driver was trying to figure out just what was being said and didn’t seem to like what he was hearing.

Leo and Leisa started off through the deep grass toward the trees. Blum waited until they were fully out of sight.

“Please, I won’t tell anyone,” the German pleaded, sensing what was happening. “I’m only a mechanic. They ordered me to make this drive. The uniform means nothing to me. They make me wear it. I don’t believe in what they do.”

“Just walk.” Blum motioned with the gun. There was a spot of high grass under a tree. “Over there.”

“Please, I did what you asked. You said you would let me go. I won’t tell a soul. I promise,” he begged nervously.

“You heard about the plane.”

“I didn’t hear a thing. What plane? I don’t speak a word of Polish. My wife’s expecting in three months. Don’t shoot me. Please…”

“I’m sorry. Bad things happen in war. No one told you? Move over there.” The driver took a step back. Blum knew what the right thing was to do. He remembered what Strauss and Kendry had asked him back in England, “Can you kill?”

I’m a soldier. Of course I can kill.

“On this mission it may mean the difference between life and death. You will have to do far worse than kill a cat.”

So do it then. Now.

The driver stood there, fear pooling in his eyes.

Blum said, “The Nazis murdered my father and my mother simply because they were near where one of their own was gunned down.” He tightened his finger on the trigger.

“I didn’t do that,” the corporal pleaded. He looked into Blum’s eyes. “Please.”

“Take a step back.”

The driver swallowed fearfully and did as he was told.

Blum wanted to shoot him. For his father and mother’s sake. For all the pain and monumental suffering he’d witnessed in the past three days. For all of that, it felt fitting to hold this gun and watch a fucking szkop German, a moment or two from execution, begging, as anyone might, as thousands of Jews must have begged already, for his life.

Blum pointed the Mauser at the driver’s chest.

Now.

Instead, he lowered the gun. “Go on. Get the hell out of here.”

The driver looked back in bewilderment.

“Go on! And remember that it’s a Jew who gave you back your life when I could have taken it. Do something good with it. That’s in the Talmud.”

“Yes.” The corporal grinned and nodded, grateful for his stroke of luck. “I promise. I will.”

“Get in those woods over there and remain there until we are gone.” Blum waved the gun at him. “Or I’ll change my mind.”

“Yes. Of course. Don’t worry, I will.”

He calculated it would be at least two miles on a dark truck path back to the main road to flag down a vehicle. And if he ran to some farm house, all the way out here, unarmed… Who could be sure where any farmer’s loyalties would lie? “Go!”

“Yes. Thank you,” the young corporal said, nodding. “Thank you,” he said again. He trudged off, looking back once, picking up his pace, and disappeared into the brush.

Blum fired a shot into the ground. Then another.

Then he hurried back through the high grass to where Leo and Leisa were waiting.

“Did you do it?” Leo asked.

Blum nodded grimly.

“It was the right move. And now…?” Leo looked at him doubtfully.

One a.m. He wasn’t sure if he had made the right decision letting the driver go. But the plane would be there in half an hour. Too soon, Blum was sure, for the man to make his way back and find his countrymen.

A quarter mile southeast of the drop site.

Blum pointed in that direction. “Now we go on foot.”

SEVENTY-TWO

MIDNIGHT GREENWICH STANDARD TIME.

0100 HOURS IN POLAND

At Newcastle, Peter Strauss leaned over a radio operator who was communicating with the Polish resistance.

“Truffle Hunter One to Katya,” the radioman said in Polish to their contact on the ground. “Please confirm that you have our delivery. The truck is close by.”

The Mosquito had left three hours ago. It had maintained radio silence for most of the journey, but now, according to the timetable, it was deep inside Poland and approaching the landing site.

If it all went well, Blum should be on that plane with Mendl in half an hour.

Strauss wasn’t a religious man. Law school and the bitter war had long cured him of that luxury. His father, the cantor, hardly recognized the secular man with two young kids who ran around in Yankee caps-not even Dodgers!-and barely knew the meaning of the High Holy Days. Nonetheless, Strauss felt himself praying a bit tonight. A year had been spent trying to get this one man out of Europe. A year in which operatives had died; where they were blocked at every turn. In which hope had turned to despair at least a dozen times.

And now, at last, they were within minutes. “As close as Exodus is to Genesis,” the cantor would say. Every cell in his body seemed to be at attention. Strauss had gone through six cigarettes in just the last hour. The attack on the work detail outside the camp would have already taken place. He should be hearing from those on the ground at any second. If they had them, if Blum and Mendl were safely in their hands, all that was left to do was land.

“Anything…?” he pressed the operator, searching for any sign of contact.

“Nothing yet, sir.”

“Just keep trying.”

“Truffle Hunter One to Katya. The truck is in the neighborhood. Let us know if you have our goods.”

0010.

“To Katya,” the scratchy voice finally came back in Polish. This is Katya.

“I have contact, sir!” the operator said. “Katya, the trucker wants to know if you have our delivery.”

“Negacja,” the voice came back. Negative. “No truffles. Only beets today, I’m afraid.”

The radioman didn’t even have to translate. Beets. That was the predetermined response if the escape didn’t go as planned.

Strauss’s stomach plummeted. It should all have happened close to an hour ago. He checked his watch, though in the past ten minutes he had checked it five times.

Fucking beets.

He sat on the edge of the radio table.

“I’m sorry, sir. Do we still land?” the radioman asked him. “The pilot wants to know.”

Do they still land? What was the point of risking a plane and its crew in the middle of occupied Poland if their “cargo” was not there to be picked up. On the slim hope that they had managed some other way out? Be real, there was no hope. It was a year-a year of planning, every detail, every possibility, wasted. And Blum… Strauss muttered a prayer in Hebrew. He’d had the highest hopes. God bless him. God bless us all, he said, for what he’d done. He blew out a disgusted breath and rubbed his brow.

“Sir, the pilot is asking if they should still land?” The radio operator turned around.

Strauss had an urge to say, Yes, Goddamnit, do it anyway. Land. A flicker of hope had still burned. Blum was a resourceful man.

“Call it off,” he said. He put the headset down. He looked at his watch. “Have them remain in the area until the extraction time, and then head back.”

It was suicide from its conception, Strauss ackowledged to himself. Donovan had said that. They all had. A one-way mission from the start. He prayed that Blum was somehow okay, even if he hadn’t made it out. Spending the war in that camp. He just plain liked the bastard, and admired his courage. But the cold truth of it was, they would likely never know.

“Get me OSS headquarters in D.C.,” Strauss told the operator after he’d delivered his message to the plane. Donovan.

The president had asked to be informed about the mission.

He should know the bad news.

SEVENTY-THREE

The three of them thrashed through the woods and dense brush in the direction Blum was certain Josef had pointed to him where the plane was set to land.

It was dark; only the moon lit their way. Leisa and Leo’s feet were bare. They stayed out of sight as best they could. As they hiked, Blum prayed over and over that the hope he still clung to that the plane would come was not futile and that the landing site was somewhere close. He knew someone had given them up; that much was clear. Was it Josef? Or the foreman, Macak? Or even Anja? And how much of the plan had that person divulged? Blum realized that if the partisans’ attack on the work column had taken place as planned, what would they think now except that he and Mendl had not made it. That he was either dead or captured. What then? Who knew if they had already radioed that information back? If the plane would even come now as planned? Or if it had turned around and was on its way back to England.

If there was anyone even ahead of them to meet them here?

“Are you sure we’re right?” Leo looked back, exasperation on his face as if they were traipsing around on a wild goose chase.

“Yes, it’s just through the next fields,” Blum said. “I’m sure.”

He had to believe himself.

And what if it didn’t come? The plane. And there was no one to meet them. Blum remembered the safe house in Brzezinka… That option was now likely completely lost. It was miles away. Every checkpoint in the area would be searching for Franke’s Daimler. Soon the woods would be littered with Germans. There would be no way they could ever reach the town on foot.

Blum knew it was this or nothing. “Keep going,” he exhorted them, as if trying to convince himself as well.

“Nathan, can we rest a moment?” Leisa asked, trying to catch her breath. Her bare feet were cut and sore.

He checked the watch. It was 0110 now. Twenty minutes to landing. Nothing looked familiar. No sign of anyone around to meet them. The only light they had to guide them was the bright, full moon.

Maybe the next field.

“No, we have to go on. Here, let me help, Leisa. I’ll carry you.”

“No, I’ll make it,” she said, continuing on ahead.

“You remember how we used to play hide-and-seek in the fields at our country house?” He tried to take her mind off of their situation.

“Yes, but that was always during the day. And there was our little cousin, Janusz, who always gave your hiding places away.”

“You had to bribe him with cakes to shut him up, otherwise you were a dead duck.”

Lesia giggled. “What a brat. No wonder he became such a little tubby.”

“Yes, I think he and that cat, Phoebe, were in cahoots and-”

They heard a sound. Coming from behind them. Even Leo turned.

Blum’s heart stood still.

It was dogs. Barking. Not the kind of dog who was watching over a farm and roused at night.

Multiple dogs. The sound was far off, but clear. Coming from behind them.

“Stop!” Blum said, grabbing Leisa’s arm. He put out his palms for them to be still.

In the distance, there were voices too. A shout.

“Shit.” It had to be. The Germans were after them.

“How could they be here so soon?” Leisa said in a forlorn voice that conveyed, What hope was there now?

“I don’t know. I don’t know…” Blum shook his head, unsure. Could it have been the driver? So quickly? Leo was right, of course. He should have shot the little bastard for sure. It had been wrong to let him go.

Or maybe whoever had given them up to begin with had also given up the landing site.

What did it even matter? They were behind them now. Maybe half a mile.

“Run!” He took Leisa’s hand and sprinted through the high field. “It’s up here, I’m sure of it,” Blum urged them farther on. A quarter mile southeast from the drop site. It had to be around here. But he wasn’t supposed to get them to the spot-the partisans were. So it was all unfamiliar.

They ran until they were almost out of breath.

“Where the hell are we going, Nathan?” Leisa finally said in exhaustion. “We’ll never outrun them.”

“They’re only minutes behind,” Leo said. “By the time we-”

Suddenly he stumbled and let out a shout. Ten feet ahead of them, he had tripped over something and landed on his side. “What the hell is this?”

He held something up.

“It’s a lantern,” Blum said. Unlit.

“Here’s another,” Leo said, crawling a few feet away. “And one more.”

Then Blum came upon one, running up ahead.

There were dozens of them. In two parallel lines. Set at ten-meter intervals.

“It must be a road of some kind,” Leo said. Dirt, of course. Cleared out of the uneven field. Bumpy. It seemed to stretch on for quite a ways. Wide enough for a truck or a tractor. Or a…

They looked at each other with joy and realized they had found it.

“Good lord, it’s the landing site!” Blum said. It had to be.

He looked at his watch. They’d made it! Fifteen minutes to the plane.

Blum spun around and wanted to cheer in with elation, but the Germans were only minutes behind them. “Now we have to-”

As if out of nowhere a hand wrapped around his mouth, yanking back his head. A knife went to his throat. “Nie ruszaj sie,” someone whispered in Polish. Don’t make a move.

People came out of the dark woods holding guns.

Leo and Leisa put their hands in the air.

“How are you fucking here?” the man with the knife hissed in Blum’s ear.

“We escaped. From the camp. We’ve brought you truffles,” he said, using the code word he had used with Josef. “I’ve come a long way…”

The person released his neck. Blum spun around to face a bearded man in a hunting jacket and cap. He put his knife in his belt.

And Anja. The girl who had picked him up with Josef. Her blond curls coming out of a knit hat. Holding her Blyskawica submachine gun.

“Where’s Josef?” Blum asked.

“Josef’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“He was picked up. By the Germans. We assumed you gave him up.”

“Me? Not a chance. Never.”

“Then why were you not on the work detail as planned?” the bearded man demanded. “We went through with the ambush. No one was there.”

“We tried. We were all caught at the gate. Someone gave us up. They threw us in a cell.”

“It was a trap,” spat the man in the beard, who seemed to be the leader. A cadre of ten others dressed in dark clothing came out of the trees and brush. “We lost six good fighters.”

“A trap…?”

“They were waiting for us. What happened to the old man? You were supposed to just be two.”

“He didn’t make it. It’s just us,” Blum said. “But the mission is still alive.”

The leader looked at them, suspicion and resentment flickering in his gaze. He stared contemptuously at Leo. “I hope, whoever the fuck you are, it was worth the life of our friend Josef. He killed a lot of Germans.”

“What about the plane?” Blum asked them. “The Germans are right behind us.”

“We’ll handle the Germans this time.” He signaled to his men in the woods, and they began to spread out in the brush. “And as for the plane…? Lucjan, bring me the radio again. Truth is, we didn’t think we’d be seeing anyone here. I need to call back your ride.”

Strauss had no sooner started to contact Donovan to deliver the bad news when the radio operator grabbed his arm. “You may want to hold a second, sir. There’s another transmission coming in.”

“Truffle Hunter One. Katya here…” The operator translated the Polish. “You’ll be pleased to know that we have your truffles after all. Three big ones. Ready to be picked up. Come get them, as planned. And fast, please, as there are other buyers nearby.”

We have your truffles. Come get them!

“We’re back on!” Strauss shouted, seizing the operator by the shoulders, almost knocking his headphones off. He grabbed hold of the mic and contacted the circling plane himself. “Water Dog One, Water Dog One, we’re back on! Repeat, they are there. Get down and get them as fast as you can. And you may have some excitement on the ground. We’re back on as planned!”

The Mosquito copilot came back scratchily. “Roger. Going in now.”

Strauss sat back. Elation coursed through him. He was reserved by nature, a cantor’s son, but he made no attempt to hold back at all. “Cancel that call to Donovan,” he said to the operator, slamming the table, papers flying onto the floor. “We’re back on! They’re there!”

However the hell Blum had done it, they were there!

Then he stopped and for the first time thought on what the partisan leader had just told them. He sat down on the edge of the table and muttered, quizzically, wrinkling his brow, “Three…?”

SEVENTY-FOUR

They hid in the woods while the band of partisans disappeared into their cover. Anja and another ran out into the field and lit the lanterns.

In minutes, the landing strip became clear.

Now all Blum had to do was pray they could hold the Germans at bay.

Five minutes.

“The plane is in the area,” Janusz, the partisan leader, said. “Unfortunately, it looks as if we’ll have a local welcoming committee as well.”

The yelps of the search dogs could be heard advancing through the dark fields, closer than just minutes before. Shouts in German. Lights flashing haphazardly.

Blum checked his Mauser. His blood was surging. It was clear they were going to have to fight it out.

Above them, they suddenly heard the sound of an engine in the night sky.

“Hear that?” Blum said to Leisa, exultantly, and pointed toward the sky. “Who else has a plane coming to pick them up? In a few hours, we’ll be in England.”

For the first time since he had found her today by the orchestra, he saw the bright smile on her face and the trusting eyes he remembered from their youth.

“Yes. I hear it, Nathan.”

“See, Leo.” Blum pushed the boy triumphantly. “I told you this was the spot.”

“I never doubted.” Leo grinned back. Then he cast a nervous glance in the direction the German shouts were emanating from.

Another minute and the rumble above them grew louder. The plane would land without lights, Janusz explained, the lanterns guiding them in.

“There!” Leo pointed to the sky.

Barely a shadow above the horizon, the only light coming from the cockpit, the plane descended from the north. Soon it was only a couple of hundred feet off the ground, its wings swaying in the wind.

Blum said, “She’s coming in fast!”

“Get ready. She’ll be on the ground in thirty seconds,” Janusz said. “When they are, we’ll-”

Suddenly they heard the sputter of machine gun fire. A Czech ZB-26. The partisans had surprised the Germans and were trying to push them back from the site. All they would need was to hold them off for another minute or two.

Blum could see dark shapes, soldiers, advancing in the same field he, Leisa, and Leo had come through minutes before, and the yellow flashing of submachine gun spurts.

“Get down!” Janusz instructed them. “We’re going to take some heat.” The Germans were now returning their fire, mostly toward the woods where the resistance fighters were spread out. The ground firing was so loud, it wasn’t clear whether they had yet made out the plane.

“There are a lot of them.” Janusz pulled back the bolt on his Blyskawica. “Once it lands, you will have to move quickly and whatever you do, do not stop.”

Blum nodded, taking hold of Leisa’s hand. “I understand. You?”

“Yes.” She nodded, the worry clear in her eyes.

“Get ready then. Take my hand.”

Anticipation coursing through him like a river spilling over its banks, Blum followed the path of the Mosquito as it swooped above the field and came in. Now you could see its wings dipping from side to side, lower and lower, and the cockpit light descending below the trees, and then it touched, its wheels hitting the ground and then bouncing high, once, then twice along the bumpy, improvised strip.

Janusz said, “Get set, it’s down!”

Propellers whirring, it came to a stop at the far end of the field and immediately turned back around. It settled a couple of hundred yards away from them, preparing for a swift departure.

A hatch door in the fuselage opened.

Janusz gave them the thumbs-up. “Get going-now! Go!” The fighting had gotten even closer. “Good luck!”

Cocking her Blyskawica, Anja said to Blum, “I was wrong. You do look like a fighter now.”

He smiled back at her. “As do you.”

Nodding to Leo and taking hold of Leisa, Blum shouted, “Run!”

They sprinted into the field, legs pumping as hard as they could. Behind them they heard the concussive sound of a grenade exploding nearby. Then a flash. Recoiling from the noise, Leisa stopped and screamed. Blum retook her hand and pulled her. “Go on!”

The fighting grew closer now. The Germans, now aware of the plane, had shifted their attention to the three of them. As they ran, rounds sprayed at their heels, the zinging phht, phht, phht of bullets hitting the earth close behind them.

Blum shouted again. “Run!”

The plane was about a hundred yards away from them. An airman crouched in the opening, waving them on. Leo ran ahead, Blum, clinging to Leisa’s hand, ten yards behind. “Don’t stop, either of you! Run!”

He heard an explosion not far behind them. A grenade landed directly where Janusz and his men had been firing from, bodies flying in the yellow blast. The concussion almost shattered their eardrums. Anja stepped out from the brush. She stood there in the open field, covering them, discharging her submachine gun until it was empty, and then Blum heard a spurt of return fire and Anja crying out and falling.

“Anja!” He wanted to go to her, but they couldn’t stop now. “Leisa, Leo, keep running!”

Suddenly a German came up on the side. Blum let Leisa go and ran off four shots on his Mauser, emptying Franke’s clip. The soldier fell back.

Blum turned and ran.

The airman was waving them in now. Twenty yards. Bullets sprayed, scraping the ground behind them, clanging loudly off the fuselage. Ping, ping, ping, ping.

“Leisa, keep going! Don’t stop!”

They were going to make it. Ten yards.

Finally they reached the plane, bullets popping loudly against metal all around them. “You first!” Blum said to Leo.

The airman put out his hand. “Who the hell are these?” he shouted. “Where’s the old man?”

He hoisted Leo into the plane. Then he reached down for Leisa.

“Mendl’s dead,” Blum said. “Leisa, get in now!” The ground fire had grown more intense. Bullets pinged like heavy hail against the fuselage. The airman had a bullet graze his shoulder and grunted, “Shit!” ducking back inside.

Leisa screamed hysterically, ground fire tearing all around her.

“Leisa, now, you must go!” Blum pushed her up, the airman scampering into a crouch and grabbing onto her arm. He pulled her inside. The engines revved loudly and the propellers began to whir.

“Nathan, come on!” she screamed back to him.

Now it was Blum’s turn. The airman grabbed onto his hand, bullets blistering all around the fuselage door.

“Nathan, give me your hand!” Leisa turned back around to help him.

Leisa, no…

He reached out and touched her, catching a glimpse of the beauty and love she had for him in her fierce, determined eyes.

That was the instant he felt something hot and searing slam into his back. Like a prize-fighter’s punch. Only harder. His insides on fire.

“Nathan!” his sister screamed.

Then another, straightening Blum up, his fingers slipping out of the airman’s desperate grasp.

Maybe one more.

The next thing he knew he was on the ground. He looked up at the plane. He couldn’t hear any sound, only the airman shouting silently for him to get up. Leisa, her face twisted in helplessness and horror, screaming his name over and over, just no sound, desperately lunging with her hand, fighting the airman off to climb down to get to him.

Nathan, get up.

He tried to pull himself to his knees. He tried with every bit of strength he had. But it was like the heaviest weight he had ever felt had pinned him to the ground. Kept him there.

Get up.

He rested his head back on the soil. It felt good there. He blinked once or twice. He looked at his hand on his chest, and it was covered in blood. Things began to grow hazy. You have to get up, he told himself. Up. He felt an explosion to the left, close to the plane. A grenade, maybe. The earth threw him up for a second. Then back down.

He could see the airman and Leisa shielding themselves from the incoming fire.

They’d better get out of here fast, Blum said to himself. Go.

You have to go now, Leisa. Now.

He put his head back down. He heard the sounds of the propellers whir. The only regret he felt was that he wished he had done what he intended to do and shot the damn driver.

SEVENTY-FIVE

“Nathan!” Leisa screamed. “Nathan!” staring down at him in horror. She tried to hurl herself back out of the plane to get to him, but the airman grabbed her by the torso to rein her in, fighting against her desperate attempts to wrestle out of his grip. “Nathan, no, no, no!”

“We have to go!” the airman shouted, trying to get to the door. Bullets shrieked into the fuselage and he ducked to the floor. “The fire’s too intense.” You could see Germans advancing in the field now. Only fifty yards from the plane. The airman reached to throw back the door handle. “We have to go now!”

“No! No!” she kept screaming, fighting him with every ounce of strength she had. “Nathan! Nathan! We have to get him.”

Before he shut the door, she peered down at him, in helplessness and horror, blind to the incoming fire. I saw him there. His eyes had become still and glazed. I don’t know, maybe I saw some life still in him. Not fear. Not even a glimmer of it. Regret, maybe. At seeing her go. If it doesn’t sound crazy, I would almost say there was a smile on his face.

“We can’t!” The airman pulled her back inside. “He’s gone.”

“No!” She tried to tear herself away from him. “He’s not gone! He’s not!”

“He’s gone!” the airman shouted, and threw the door closed.

“No…!” She was screaming, sobbing, as the realization that he was left behind became clear now. “No, no,” she kept repeating, tears running down her face. “It was supposed to be me. Don’t you understand, I was the one who was supposed to die. Not him! Me…!” She ran to a small window and continued to shout his name, looking down at him, as bullets peppered against the outside door. “Nathan, get up, please…”

“We’ve got to get out of here now!” one of the pilots shouted back to us. “Hold on!”

The propellers whirred faster and faster and the engine rumble intensified into a drone. We started to move.

“Don’t you understand? I was the one who was supposed to die,” she kept sobbing. “Not him. Me! Nathan!”

“You both have to strap yourself in!” the airman said. “We’re taking off now. Hard.”

“No, please, don’t leave!” She scrambled back to the door. “Don’t! Don’t,” she said as the speed picked up. “Don’t leave him…” She dug her fingers against the door.

I grabbed her and brought her over with me to the makeshift seat. There was no time to strap anyone in. The plane was already moving fast. I felt the g-force tug as the Mosquito picked up speed over the bumpy landing strip.

So I just held onto her as tightly as I could. She was crying, sobbing against me, saying his name over and over.

I held her against me, and I vowed then to never let her go.

SEVENTY-SIX

So this is what it is like… Blum said to himself.

The plane door was closed. Leisa was safe inside. He heard the rumble of the engines revving, the ping, ping, ping of bullets clanging off the plane.

It’s not so bad at all.

Go, he said. Go. Now. You have to go.

The droning of the engines grew louder and louder.

Then everything became very quiet.

Whatever light there was, even only the halo of the moon, intensified into a bright glare, luminous as a star exploding. He thought maybe he heard the whine of the plane as it took off from the bumpy field. And that it swooped around, maybe just one time, dipping its wings, to say goodbye.

Or maybe he was just imagining that.

Either way, he felt pride, somehow. Leo was on his way to England. With everything he held in his head. Strauss and Donovan would be pleased. He had done what he said. He had fulfilled his mission.

And Leisa… She was safe too. He had watched over her. Just as he’d always promised. He had kept his oath on that as well.

Doleczki. He smiled. He had seen those dimples one last time as she smiled at him in the woods. Don’t be angry with me. That was my vow all along. Our Mozart fit together one last time. Remember that. Keep it that way. Together.

No, it’s not so bad at all.

He heard shouting. He couldn’t tell if it was up close or far away. Or if his eyes were even open or closed. What did it matter now? Aliyah. Why did that of all words come into his mind? The first time he went up to read from the Torah. He’d made a promise to return one day. To the Holy Land.

“A man may compel his entire household to go up with him to the land of Israel,” Rabbi Leitner had said to him, “but may not compel a single one to leave.”

He dug his nails into the soft earth around him.

Papa, I told you, I will not leave.

It had been dark the night he went away; nerves grinding in his stomach. He stood somewhere between a boy and a man. “I don’t want to go,” he begged his father as he dressed to go on his journey. “If I do, who will take care of her?”

“You must go,” his father told him. “I release you from your vow, Nathan. You can’t protect her any longer.”

“But I can,” he said back defiantly.

“No. You can’t.” His father shook his head. “Not any longer. With what is to come, only God can protect her now. But you have something even more important you can protect. You will take the Mishnah to a new home. In that way, you will protect us all, my son. Our history. Our tradition. Not only Leisa. Us all. For that, you have to go.”

“But, Papa…”

“What is good cannot be known in the short term, Nathan. Remember?” his father said. “It is a great honor.” He put his hands on Nathan’s shoulders. “And they chose you, my son. Here…” His father took off his hat, his goose-felt bowler, and placed it on Nathan’s head, adjusting it so that it sat just right. “This is rightfully yours now. Now you are really a man. And remember, a hat is not just a thing to wear, it’s what you stand for. Who you are.”

A feeling as proud as the day he first stood at the bimah and read from the Torah ran through him. His father’s goatee curled into a smile. He put his hand on Nathan’s cheek. “Do you understand all this, my son? What I’ve told you.”

A soldier ran up to him on the ground. He pointed his rifle at Blum’s chest, his finger on the trigger.

“Yes, Papa.” Blum stared into his father’s eyes. “I think I understand.”

SEVENTY-SEVEN

THE EDWARD HINES, JR., VETERANS ADMINISTRATION HOSPITAL

“So I guess you know now”-the old man shifts in his chair and looks at his daughter with hollow, bloodshot eyes-“that the woman I held in the plane was your mother.”

His daughter nods, her hand firmly wrapped over his, tears forming in her eyes. “Yes.”

“I vowed never to let her go. And I didn’t. I didn’t let her go for sixty years.”

“Oh, Pop,” she says, taking his hand and bringing it softly against her cheek.

“She used her middle name, Ida, when we came to the States. And I guess it just stuck. All these years. As you understand now, there was a lot that took place there that we wanted to leave behind. We moved to Chicago just like her brother had. It was the only family either of us had.”

She’s never heard this, any of this, the true story of how her father and mother met. She has only heard, without much explanation, that it was “in the camp.”

“Oh, Daddy.” She squeezes his hand.

It is after midnight now. The floor staff had let her stay on. The night nurse had looked in on them from time to time, taking his tray, bringing him his pills, but they let him finish his tale. He has been sitting up this whole time, years pouring out of him, years he had kept to himself, completely hidden, stopping only for a few sips of water when his throat grew dry.

Then he just sits there, and there is nothing more to say.

“So you see, I’m no hero. I couldn’t even save the one man who saved me. This photo…” He picks up the one of the military officers presenting the Distinguished Service Cross. “This wasn’t given to me. They were presenting it to his sister. To your mom. The only surviving family he had. You probably missed somewhere in that box, there’s a little plaque, ‘To Nathan Blum, Lieutenant, U.S. Army.’ He was the hero.” The old man shakes his head. “Your uncle… Not me.”

“I’m not sure, Pop.” His daughter shakes her head too. “From what I heard, I think you both were.”

“I don’t know…” Her father sits back. “But I did give him the greatest honor I could think of…” He takes her hands. “And that was to give his name to you, pumpkin. At least I can finally tell you who you got your name from. Natalie.”

A sensation of pride surges through her. Her eyes glisten. She had never known. Natalie. After Nathan. Her uncle. “Thank you, Daddy.” She nods.

“I’m so sorry…” He shakes his head again as a tear winds down his cheek.

“Sorry for what?” She squeezes and kisses his hand.

“Sorry that all these years I couldn’t tell you what was in my heart. What was always here. Every day.” He taps his chest. “In here.”

“That’s okay.” She grabs a tissue to dab his eyes. “You did now.”

“We made a pact, your mom and I. I never picked up a chess piece again. And she… Well, as you know, maybe she played a little piano over the years. The clarinet…” He shrugs. “It just reminded her of everything she felt responsible for and wanted to leave behind. She did bring this back, though.” He reaches inside the cigar box and takes out the two halves of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, which had been taped back together. “So now you see, they’re one. Seventy years it sat in there…” He looks at her and smiles. “You know that he was the real love of her life, her brother, not me.”

“That’s not true. She adored you, Pop. You know that.”

“Well, she used to say that I had my own heartthrob too…” He picks up the white chess piece and holds it in his hand. “You know, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought of her. When I haven’t been heavy in my heart. All these years. That’s the reason. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

She nods, tears welling in her own eyes. “Yes.”

“She said to me, ‘Good wins out, Leo… Even in here.’ Even in that hell we came out of. ‘Live out your life,’ she said. ‘If only just for me.’ And I have.” He looks at his daughter. “I’ve been a good father, haven’t I, sweetheart?”

“Of course you have, Daddy. The best.”

“And a good husband?”

“Yes.” She takes his hand. “Sixty years.”

“And I provided for you all? We built a family. You, Greg, and the kids…”

“A beautiful one, Pop. You did.”

“That was the vow I made. In that plane. And I tried to live up to it every day.” He looks at the picture of the pretty blond woman in the boat, the rim of her white sailor’s cap folded up and that beautiful smile. “None of us would have been here if it wasn’t for her. You never would have been born. All the good things in my life would never have happened. I would have died there. So I guess she was right, in the end, about good.”

“Yes.” His daughter looks at the dog-eared photo. “She was right.”

“Here. You can keep this all now.” He hands her back the photo and the chess piece. “Maybe you’ll tell the kids one day. When I’m gone. But now I’m a little tired. I think I’ve earned that nap. I think this is the latest I’ve stayed up since your mom and I took that cruise to the Caribbean and I won twenty-eight hundred bucks in the ship’s casino.”

“I never heard about that one.” His daughter laughs with surprise.

“Your mom was mad. Never let me near a casino again.” He curls a smile. “But I always could count the cards pretty well.”

He tries to stand, and she takes him by his arm and helps him, a step at a time, over to the bed, where he eases onto his back and lets out a satisfied sigh. “Just move it down a little for me, pumpkin. The switch is over there. You know, when I finally get out of this place”-he winks at her-“we ought to pick up one of these for the house.”

“Of course, Pop. We’ll put it on the list.” She depresses the lever and gently eases him back down.

“That’s good.” He closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, he catches her staring at him. “What?”

“It’s just that I’ve loved you every day of my life, Daddy. But I’ve never been prouder of you than I am now.”

He nods, a satisfied smile creeping onto his face. “It’s good to hear you say that, pumpkin. But now I’m gonna get my beauty sleep, if it’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay.” She bends down and gives him a kiss. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

She takes her things and puts everything neatly back in the cigar box, staring a second at the photograph of the woman in the boat, whom she now had a name for, one last time. “Thank you,” she whispers to her softly.

Then she puts the photograph into the box with everything else and closes it, closes the story that their lives had sprung from, and goes to the door. She stops before turning out the light. “So I have to ask one more thing, Pop. Was it true?”

“Was what true, pumpkin?” he asks with his eyes closed.

“About your memory. We always knew you had a good one. I mean, you could certainly recite the entire Illinois Code of Civil Law by heart.”

“Was it true? Well, let me see now… As I recall, you were born on January twenty-second, 1955.” He puts his fingers to his forehead. “That was a Saturday, I think.”

“Of course it was a Saturday, Pop. I heard a million times, how I kept you from going to the Cubs game that day. You had front-row seats.”

“Oh. All right, all right… Guess I’ve gotten a little rusty in my old age.”

She smiles, about to reach for the light. “And you didn’t tell me about all the formulas you brought back. Mendl’s work. What happened to all that? Did it have the impact they hoped for?”

“Did it have the impact…?” He shrugs. “They said it changed the course of the war. History, for that matter. At first they were a little unsure what to do, what with Alfred and Nathan not being there. They brought me out to this place in New Mexico and I just started rattling things off… They had a staff of people taking things down fast as I could say them. Turns out, in the end, however, the Germans weren’t quite as close to a bomb as anyone thought. Still, you know what, honey…?”

“What, Pop?”

Her father turns to her. “I never understood a single thing that old man said to me. I just took it all down and put it in here.” He taps his head. “Gaseous diffusion… Never made a lick of sense to me. Now, tax law, that I understand.” His words begin to grow faint. “Trusts, wills… Those things make sense. Know what I’m saying, hon…?”

She stands at the door for a while and he closes his eyes. In a few seconds he is asleep.

“Yes, Pop.” She turns out the light. “I think I know.”