“I said I was sorry....”
“Forget it,” she said. “We’d better see to that cut. My office is just around the corner.”
chapter twenty-six
They were both soggy as they climbed the stairs to Rebecca’s office, their footsteps echoing in the empty building. She found some towels in a storage closet. Thank you, Iris. Handing one to Goldie’s cousin, she led him to an examining room, then excused herself. In her private office, she removed the sweatpants and put on her light wool skirt. Her knee had stopped bleeding; she quickly washed it off and applied a bandage.
When she returned to the examining room, she was caught off guard by the change in the man’s appearance. He had pulled off his wet sweatshirt and thrown the towel around his shoulders. His upper body was surprisingly muscular. The cap had come off revealing longish, damp grey-black hair that hung over his ears. The rain had washed most of the blood off his face. His melancholy eyes watched her.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you’d told me who you were right away, Mr. Malkevich,” she said. “Call me Nesha.”
She swabbed the cuts on his face with antiseptic. He smelled of soap. “When was the last time you saw Goldie?”
“I was seven or eight.”
Rebecca stopped a moment, surprised.
“We lived far apart in Poland. They were city girls, we were country cousins. Didn’t visit often. Goldie left for Argentina when I was nine. Then the war broke out in September. For five years I was isolated from the world. When I was fifteen, my Uncle Sol found me and brought me to California.”
So this was the root of his melancholy. “You were very young. How did you survive?”
“Who says I survived?”
She took in an involuntary breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
He watched her face with glazed unseeing eyes. He was disconnected from his body, ignoring her ministrations. “A Nazi patrol pulled into our town. Ordnungspolizei, order police, though I didn’t know it then. I was playing deep in the woods with a Polish friend. By the time we got back, all the Jews were being marched in this ragged line into the square. I saw my mother in the line holding my little brother’s hand, my older brothers were somewhere behind. She was turning around looking for me. I started to run to her, waving my arms, but before I could get close, our eyes met. She shook her head frantically — I didn’t know what to do. She had such a look on her face. I’d never seen her look like that, filled with terror. Some women were wailing, and that look on her face — I held back.
“A Nazi officer stood in the centre of the square, directing the chaos. His uniform was clean and pressed, his leather boots shined. He was a giant — immaculate, the handsomest man I’d ever seen. We were all small and dirty in comparison. We were nothing. Even the visor on his cap — it threw a shadow over half his face. Anonymous, mysterious power. I was too far away to see his features, but the aura of fear after all these years — I ran away into the woods. I deserted them. I saved myself. But I realized even then that there was no point being alone without them. So, after a while, I ran back. This is what haunts me forever. They were all in the synagogue when I got back. The soldiers had set fire to the building. Flames rose out of the windows. Screams, screams — I can still hear them. One girl managed to get out of a window. They shot her while she ran. I watched and didn’t understand anything. It’s still a mystery. What had these people done? Everyone I ever loved went up in smoke. The air was filled with ashes.”
Rebecca felt her skin crawl with his darkness. She couldn’t leave him there. “Where did you go then?”
He pulled the towel closer around himself, crossed his arms over his chest. “Back into the woods. I found a group of Jewish partisans. Maybe they found me. I stayed with them till we were raided. Somehow I managed to escape. I was young. I could run fast.”
She smiled slyly. “You still can.”
He pursed his lips, nearly smiled.
“Go on,” she said.
“I was alone for a while before I found some more partisans. I constantly had to find new groups because people were always being caught, disappearing. Anyone who managed to survive in the woods was a partisan. We fought with whatever we could find. A few had guns but it was rare. Then one day, I got a gun. I’ll never forget because it was the first time I saw a Nazi killed. He must’ve been on patrol and gotten lost. The partisans I was staying with then, one of them stabbed him, then ran off. A group of us teenagers hid behind trees for twenty minutes watching the body, sure he would get up again. You have to understand, the Nazis were like gods. We were afraid to look at them. They were so far above us. How can I explain? They weren’t real. We didn’t believe they could die. So when they killed this Nazi, we thought: how can a god die? Finally I got up the courage to approach — I was fifteen then. Up close he looked like all the other corpses I’d seen. I touched him with my foot. He rolled over and I knew he was dead. It was a revelation. I took his gun.” He looked askance at her, mischievously. “I still have it.”
Rebecca led him down the hall into her inner office. She took the kettle Iris kept near the sink and boiled some water for tea while he watched, ensconced in one of her upholstered chairs.
“You said you went to California?”
“My Uncle Sol, on my father’s side. I don’t know how he found me. I was fifteen by then. A couple of years later I got a letter from Goldie and Chana. That was the first I knew Chana had survived. Somehow they’d traced me to Uncle Sol’s, who was no relation to them. They were very polite, but we hardly knew each other. I grew up. I studied accounting. My life went on. We corresponded off and on for years, mainly on holidays. When Chana moved to Canada she stopped writing. But I still heard from Goldie now and then.”
Suddenly Rebecca thought of something. “In what language?”
“What?”
“What language did you correspond in?”
He thought a moment. “Polish.”
She jumped up and pulled her purse out of the closet. Taking the top letter out of its envelope, she thrust it under his nose. “Can you tell me what this says?”
He took the page and held it out at arm’s length. “I should get reading glasses.” After a moment, he said with surprise, “This is from Chana.” Then in a voice halting in the translation, “’ ? wish you would come. Even for a visit. The High Holidays will be here soon. Please, please come. I am so lonely here. Leo doesn’t like me having friends or going out. He even got angry when I tried to meet someone for lunch.’ ”
Rebecca handed Nesha a few more letters. He stumbled, reading. “’ If only I had children, but as you know, this topic was always forbidden. Once he made up his mind, there was no changing it. I so much wanted children. How is Enrique? It’s been so long since I heard from you. We could help you move here if only you would think about it. Please write. You are the only person I can talk to. Leo is always angry with me about something. Sometimes he scares me.’ ”
Nesha flipped to another letter. “’ ? had a dream that took me back thirty years. I was in the camp again.’ ” He dropped the letter down, shaking his head. “Enough,” he said.
“Please go on,” she said softly. “I’d like to hear.”
He observed her for a moment, his brown eyes resigned, as if to say: You really want to know this? Alright, you shall hear it.
“’I was in the camp again. The Ukrainian guard took me from the barracks, walked behind me to the building that I cleaned every day, the officers’ quarters. Only, something makes me afraid today and I don’t want to go. There’s something there I don’t want to see, and I resist. So in my dream I’m walking slowly, very slowly down the street. The Ukrainian guard screams to walk faster. And I try, but it’s like I’m in water, I cannot make my limbs move faster. I don’t want to go inside. But it’s not in my control and suddenly, I’m in the room, the dust rag in my hand and then — then I see it, what I’ve been so afraid of. The Hand. I don’t want to touch it but I c
an’t help it. I’m drawn to the shelf where it sits upright, like a silver glove on a glass base. I remember it perfectly — the little framed glass windows over the knuckles of the middle fingers. In my dream I reach for it closer and closer but I know I mustn’t touch it or I’ll die. Just like he did. I’m about to touch the silvered fingernails. I’m willing to die to touch it — then I wake up. Goldele, I’m frightened of this dream. It’s a bad omen. I don’t understand why it’s come back to haunt me.’ ”
Nesha let the letter fall into his lap. They both sat in a solemn quiet.
“What do you suppose it means?” she said.
He shrugged. “A nightmare. People who lived through those times always have nightmares.”
“But it was so specific.”
“Why did you give me these?” he said.
“I’m sorry if they upset you...,” she said. “But the brother-in-law didn’t want me to have them.”
“So?”
“Maybe he had something to do with Goldie’s death.”
Nesha shook his head. “I haven’t told you everything. I didn’t come to you right away because I didn’t know if I could trust you. I didn’t know what your role was in this whole thing.”
“My role?”
“I saw you come out of Goldie’s place the night she died. Then I saw you go into the store on Baldwin Street. I thought you might be involved in some way.”
“What does the store have to do with anything?”
A minute ticked by before he seemed to make a decision. Reaching into the pocket of his sweatpants, he pulled some folded pieces of paper out of a plastic liner.
“I’ve been after this man most of my life. Last week I got lucky. A trick of fate brought me this.” He unravelled one of the pages and held it out to Rebecca.
She recognized the picture that Goldie had waved in her face that last time in the office. A duck running along a sidewalk. But now that Rebecca could study the photo, she saw the Blue Danube Fish shop in the background. Walking past it, emerging from a shadow, was the unmistakable image of Feldberg.
Then came the Shoichet* and slaughtered the ox
That drank the water that quenched the fire
That burned the stick that beat the dog
That bit the cat that ate the goat
That Father bought for two zuzim.
One little goat, one little goat.
* ritual slaughterer
chapter twenty-seven
“This is the man?” Rebecca said, gaping at the picture.
Nesha, who was about to take a sip of tea, sat up to attention. “You recognize him?”
“It’s him,” she said. “This is the brother-in-law.”
“I don’t understand,” Nesha said in a flat voice. “Chana’s husband?”
“This is Leo Feldberg,” she said, incredulous herself.
“Is it possible?” he said, staring at the picture as if for the first time. “Steiner has hidden himself in plain sight all this time by masquerading as a Jew?”
“You lost me,” she said. “Who’s Steiner?”
“Oberscharführer Johann Steiner. The Nazi in the square that day.”
“But you said you were too far away to see his face.”
“I would never be able to recognize him. That’s why it took me so long to find him. He wasn’t one of the major ones. Maybe he only killed five hundred instead of ten thousand. Maybe no one was looking for him except me. I had to do research — it was just luck — I found a file with documents, papers with his signature. And this photo.” He couldn’t take his eyes off it. “Why would the photo be in his file if it wasn’t him?”
“Where did you find the file?”
He observed her. “You know, most people don’t want to hear this stuff.”
“Please, I want to know.”
He stared at her another moment, then went on. “As soon as I arrived in America I started looking for him. I didn’t know his name; I didn’t know what he looked like. Every year on the anniversary of that day in April, I went to the Jewish Congress searching for information. Then the Wiesenthal Center opened and I kept looking. For anything. Names, documents. Anything. Other boys my age played football and lied to their parents about where they took their dates. All I dreamed about was finding the murderer. It was as if...,” he struggled to find the words, “as if there was a fire burning in me. Like the fire I’d seen consume my family. It won’t be put out until I get him.” He pulled the towel tighter around himself.
“They got to know me at the Wiesenthal Center. I always asked for Louis. He showed me whatever they got that year that might’ve helped. Up till now there was almost nothing. But finally I got lucky. A man named Greenspan, a survivor, died recently and his children sent them his research in boxes. His son said he didn’t want it in the house. That he had to listen to it all his life and now he was glad to get rid of it. So the poor schnook spent half his life collecting this stuff, maps, photos, all kinds of goodies, and his children couldn’t give it away fast enough. Louis just left me in the room with all these cartons. Most of the stuff was labelled. But this one box I came across, it was some kind of a grab bag: photos, affidavits, old passports. And no labels. It was as if he had things left over he didn’t know what to do with. So he threw them into a box until he could get to them. Only he never got to them. And there it was, just sitting and waiting for me after all these years. A very slim file with Steiner’s name scribbled across. I photocopied what was in it, two photos and two documents.”
He pulled more paper out of the small plastic folder he’d retrieved from the deep pocket of his sweatpants. Unfolding the sheet carefully, he held it up so that she could see the meticulous small script.
“I can’t read German,” she said.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll translate.” He took in a quick breath before starting.
“’ We entered the village of Dobienk on Sunday, April 6, 1941, where my men rounded up 140 Jews with the help of local informants. Some locals helped us take them into the synagogue, which we set on fire. Also burned down the Jewish quarter. Rescued whatever silver pieces found, as instructed. Unterscharführer Johann Steiner.’ ”
Rebecca had barely grasped the horror of what he’d read when Nesha pulled out a second document from his little folder. She stared at it a few moments, realizing she didn’t need a translation to figure it out. It seemed to be a day-by-day report in list form of the activities of Group 3 of the Ordnungspolizei for a period of a week in April 1941, beginning with the sixth. The flowing methodical hand of Rottenfü hrer Ernst Waldhausen noted the town, date, and number of Jews killed in each, starting with Dobienk. Obviously this sheet represented only a quarter of the month. Somewhere lay the rest of the month, followed by the next month, and the next, all neatly recorded within the lines. A ledger of bones.
“Oh, my God!” she murmured. She looked up, wishing she could say something comforting to him, but he had already taken out the last thing in his plastic folder. She stared at the other photo he had copied from the file. A group shot of men in greatcoats standing in front of a fence of barbed wire. One man wore the peaked hat of an officer, the others cloth caps, his subordinates. Underneath was written “Skarzysko.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Is this him, too?”
“I think what happened was that he was given this position at the camp — Skarzysko was a labour camp — as a reward for his services in the Ordnungspolizei. Probably promoted to Oberscharführer then. It must’ve been later in the war.”
She examined the picture of the man. It had been taken from far away, all the faces blurred with time and distance. It could’ve been Feldberg. But then it could’ve been anyone.
All of a sudden Nesha came awake. “Where is he?”
She was startled by his newfound energy. “You don’t know it’s him.”
“I’ll ask him.”
“Then what?”
He rubbed both eyes with his thumb and foref
inger. “That has nothing to do with you.”
“Let the police deal with him. If he’s a killer.”
He leaned his head forward toward her, his jaw set beneath the stubble starting to shade his skin. “Do you have the death penalty in this country?”
She looked away, understanding his drift and uneasy with it.
“Is it enough for him to go to jail?” he said. “You didn’t know my family. But you knew Goldie. You know how if feels when someone you care about meets a violent end. Is it enough for that monster to go to jail and sit comfortably watching TV for the rest of his obscene life?”
“I’m only concerned for your safety,” she said, impressed with the emotions he was raising in her. No, it wasn’t enough.
He sat up stiffly. “I’m sure your concern is admirable, Doctor, but I neither need nor want it.”
His attention turned to the letters in her lap. All at once he reached across the space between their chairs and lifted one of the empty envelopes from the top of the pile. His dark eyes travelled from the address on the envelope to her face.
“He didn’t have far to go,” said Nesha.
He rose abruptly, pulling the towel from around his shoulders, and headed for the examining room.
She stood in the hallway, watching him shuffle something from under the heap of his sweatshirt. Facing her, he took pains to manoeuvre it into his waistband out of her sight. Who did he think he was fooling? He pulled the still damp shirt over top.
“I can’t let you go like this,” she said alarmed. “Don’t you care what happens to you? You could spend the rest of your life in prison.”
“It means nothing to me. I’ve been in one kind of jail or another since I was ten years old.”
“You must’ve had moments of happiness since then.”
His full lips curled up in an ironic smile. “I know what you’re trying to do, and I almost appreciate it. But it’s too late to save me, Doctor. I have nothing to lose.”
She stood in the doorway, blocking it. “I can’t begin to understand what you’ve been through. To be honest, I don’t want to understand. It’s too painful. But that’s why I can see the whole picture. You’re too close. You can’t see that you’re about to ruin any chance for peace you may have.”
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