The Things We Cherished
Page 13
“Too much noise,” he replied, tilting his head toward the window. He turned up the volume on the phone and gestured for her to come closer to hear. She hesitated, then slid across the seat, trying to get as close to the phone as possible without touching him. His now-familiar scent, cotton and tweed with a hint of sweat from the night spent in the attic, tickled her nose.
On the other end of the line, a woman spoke shrilly in German, too quickly for Charlotte to understand what she was saying. “Prosecutor,” Jack mouthed, his breath warm against her neck.
When the woman finished, Jack cleared his throat and began to speak at a speed and in a dialect that made it somewhat easier for Charlotte to comprehend. The prosecution’s motion was without basis, he argued, and would unfairly prejudice his client, who had spent months preparing for trial before this court. And, he added, the transfer of the case would result in inevitable delay, needless further incarceration of an old man.
He’s amazing, Charlotte realized as she listened. It was more than just Jack’s ease with the foreign language. He had the perfect balance of advocacy and reserve, his easygoing style a sharp contrast to the prosecutor’s hawkish tone. And he seemed to come alive, as if he were actually before the court, any doubts he might have about Roger’s case thoroughly undetectable. She had seen dozens if not hundreds of litigators in action and Jack was clearly among the best.
“What if,” the judge asked, interrupting, “the appellate court could expedite the case?”
Charlotte’s breath caught. Jack’s argument about the potential delay had backfired. In fact, they needed as much time as possible to find any evidence that might help exonerate Roger. “Even if the court could guarantee such a speedy trial,” Jack began, “there is simply no basis to elevate the case.” He was speaking slowly, as if trying to find the right words in German, but Charlotte could tell that he was actually stalling for time, trying to collect his thoughts. “We’re still gathering evidence and we believe that we will have something shortly that will exonerate our client without having to burden this court—or the higher court—further.”
Charlotte stifled a gasp. What was he doing? They had just come from Roger’s boyhood home and had nothing—other than the arguably damaging discovery that Roger was in love with Hans’s wife.
“What evidence?” the judge asked.
“Respectfully,” Jack replied, “I’d rather not say until I can present the court with something more concrete.”
The prosecutor jumped in, speaking rapidly, and though Charlotte could not understand her exact words, she could tell the woman was arguing that Jack had months to produce evidence to support Roger’s defense and had failed to do so.
“Wie lange?” the judge asked Jack. How long will this take?
This time Jack did not hesitate. “One week.”
“One week,” the judge said, relenting. “If there’s no new evidence to support the defense of the accused, we will proceed to grant the prosecution’s request to elevate the case.”
“A week?” Charlotte asked incredulously after Jack hung up a minute later. “How can we possibly work that quickly?”
“I don’t think we have a choice. We talk to Roger again, go through the last few boxes. Either we’re going to find something that proves his innocence or not.”
He was playing all in, Charlotte realized, the ultimate hand in a poker game. Only so far, all they had was a bluff. It was guts ball, the dangerous kind of stakes for which she herself almost never had the stomach. But he hadn’t asked her. She was suddenly angry. It was her case too. For a minute, she considered calling him on it, but there was no point—he had already made the representation to the court and she would have to live with it.
One week, she thought. When she’d accepted Brian’s invitation to come here, a week was all she wanted to put in before fleeing home. But now it seemed a drop in the bucket, hardly enough time to do what they needed to do.
“Are you going to tell Roger?” Charlotte asked.
“Not right now,” Jack said. “I don’t see the point. If we find what we’re looking for, then the case will stay here and it’s all a moot point.”
“And if not?”
Jack pressed his lips together. “I’d rather not think about it.”
Twenty minutes later they entered the prison. As they reached the door to the conference room, Charlotte’s arm brushed against Jack’s. “After you,” he said, stepping back, his eyes not meeting hers.
Roger sat at the far end of the room. Seeing them, he rose. “You visited the house in Poland? A lovely restoration, isn’t it, if I do say so myself?”
Charlotte fought the urge to jump in and barrage him with questions as she might a witness on the stand. “You’ve done a beautiful job,” she agreed instead, trying to build his trust.
“Herr Dykmans,” Jack began, and she could hear the edge of impatience in his voice. “Can you tell us about Magda?”
An indescribable mix of pleasure and pain crossed Roger’s face. Charlotte’s stomach twisted. She recognized the emotion as one she had felt for Brian over the years, the paradox of reconciling a memory so filled with joy with the tragic ending it had suffered. “Magda,” he said slowly and with great effort, “was my brother’s wife.”
Charlotte empathized silently with how hard it was for Roger to acknowledge that marriage, which carried more legitimacy than his own relationship with Magda, whatever that had been. Like admitting to herself that Brian and Danielle were married. Enough, she thought. This isn’t about me. She forced her attention to the elderly man seated across from her. “Herr Dykmans,” she tried gently, “we understand that Magda may have been something more to you.”
“No, no,” he said, his first reaction after all these years still to deny it.
Jack pulled out the letter and slid it across the table. As Roger scanned the paper, the years seemed to unfold across his face, his misgivings about committing such things to writing in the first place, the strong emotions that had prompted him to take the risk. “This was nothing,” he protested, lifting his eyes from the paper. “The foolish musings of a young man. I never even sent it.”
“Herr Dykmans,” Charlotte said, “we understand from someone we met in Wadowice that what existed between you and Magda was more than just feelings, that there was a relationship.” She willed her expression to be neutral, hoping he would not see through the bluff.
“But that’s impossible …” His voice rose, then trailed off.
She met his gaze, held it. “It’s true though, isn’t it?” A jolt of energy surged through her. This was where she was at her best, getting inside of a witness.
He sat back, resigned, still clutching the letter. “Yes,” he confessed weakly. Charlotte glanced upward at Jack, signaling the significance of the admission. “We were close.”
An affair with his brother’s wife that caused him to risk everything. “Close” was a gross understatement. But he would not be more explicit, Charlotte knew, and dishonor the memory of the woman he loved. “What happened?”
“When I was a student at the university in Breslau, I stayed with my brother and his wife. But Hans was traveling most of the time for his work and Magda and I became close. She disappeared one day, taken by the Nazis. I was never able to find out what became of her.”
“She was Jewish?” Jack asked, confirming what they already knew.
“Yes. When the Nazis started rounding up the Jews in Breslau, I went to Hans and begged him to help her. Even though Magda’s heritage was not well known, and being Hans’s wife offered her some degree of protection, I was concerned that the Germans would stop at nothing, that it was only a matter of time. But Hans said he couldn’t do anything without jeopardizing the fate of thousands.” Roger bit his lip, angry at the memory. “My brother was very principled that way. I wanted to help her myself, but I was just a student; there was nothing that I could do. Then one day she was gone.”
“What happened to her?”
A light dawned in Charlotte’s mind. “Herr Dykmans, is that why you kept returning to Poland?”
He nodded slightly. “Yes. But I never found anything.”
“What did you do? Afterward, I mean?” Jack asked.
“Soon after Magda disappeared, I received word that my brother had been arrested too.” Charlotte held her breath. Embedded in that very statement were the answers they needed to know. How had the Nazis come to seize Hans? Had Roger had something to do with it, and if so, why? She leaned forward, willing him to say more.
“I thought I might be in danger too, so I headed east,” Roger continued, treading just shy of the heart of the matter. “I tried to make contact with some of Hans’s partisan allies.” To do what, exactly—try to make amends for betraying his brother, or to warn the others before it was too late? “But I was unsuccessful.” A guilty look washed across his face and Charlotte could not help but wonder what he had really done. Roger was not Hans, did not share his bravery or his strength. “I couldn’t bear to return to the house in Breslau after Magda was gone, and I didn’t want to risk going back to my mother’s house for fear of putting her at risk. So I lived in different places until the war was over, not staying in any one location for very long.”
“You didn’t flee to the West,” Jack observed.
“No, not until a few years later.” Until, Charlotte realized, he had finished turning over every lead. He could have fled to a non-extradition country in South America or elsewhere. But he hadn’t. He had stayed behind in Europe, at great peril to himself, in hopes of still finding information about Magda—or perhaps even Magda herself.
What had he done in the years between then and now? she wanted to ask. Not for a living—they already knew, and knew that he hadn’t married. But had he loved again? It seemed unlikely. Perhaps he tried and found it impossible, or maybe after Magda he had simply given up. She studied Roger’s face as she often did with her juvenile clients as if reading a map, looking for signs of the places he’d been and things he had seen. But his expression was impassive and unyielding. Maybe that explained the absence of lines—he hadn’t allowed himself to laugh and live and do the things that wore impressions on the faces of others, like water coursing endlessly through a canyon over time.
“Did you look for information on Hans also?” Jack asked.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Roger replied hastily. “But with Hans, we soon knew what had happened. The Polish government had notified my mother of his death in a Nazi prison and they returned some personal effects that seemed to leave little doubt as to the truth of their explanation.”
Whereas with Magda, Charlotte reflected, Roger had nothing. No information about her whereabouts, the fate that had ultimately befallen her. “We’re sorry about Magda,” she said gently. Roger’s mouth tilted faintly upward, the first time she had seen him attempt anything remotely approximating a smile.
“Our priority, though, must still be defending you against these very serious allegations,” Jack interjected. Charlotte cringed at his brusque tone. “Can you tell us anything that might help?”
Roger hesitated, staring down at his fingers. Then he seemed to relent slightly. “When I returned east, in addition to restoring the house and trying to learn about Magda, I was also looking for something.”
“Something?” Jack repeated, struggling to keep the frustration from his voice.
Charlotte reviewed the contents of the attic in her mind. “Was it a letter?” Roger shook his head. “A photograph?”
He pressed his lips together. “A clock.”
She considered his response. Then, remembering the photograph of Hans and Magda, she reached in her bag. She leapt up, thrusting the picture at the old man so abruptly that he reared back. “Sorry.” She pointed to the clock on the mantelpiece in the background. “Is this the one?”
A pained look crossed his face as he studied the image of the couple. Was it grief, Charlotte wondered, or jealousy, even after all of these years? “Yes.”
Charlotte and Jack exchanged looks above his head and she knew he was picturing all of the boxes that remained in the attic. “Would it have been at your family home?” she asked.
“No, it was in Wroclaw.” He spoke more freely now—it was as if once they knew about the affair, he had little reason to be silent. Had his refusal to cooperate in his defense come from his loyalty to Magda, his unwillingness to tarnish her name? “I went to my brother’s former house, but the new owners knew nothing of it,” he added.
“How does the clock relate to the allegations against you?” Jack pressed.
“I’ve tracked down a possible lead to a clock shop in Salzburg,” Roger added, ignoring the question. “I was about to travel there when—” He held up his shackled ankles.
“What does the clock have to do with the case?” She could hear the exasperation rising in Jack’s voice, close below the surface now.
“It contains proof that I—” He faltered. “It helps to explain what happened with Hans.”
She leaned forward. “Does the clock have something to do with Magda?”
“Charley, can I speak with you for a second?” Jack asked before the older man could answer. “Privately?” He pulled her into the hall. “Do you think that’s wise? Pushing Roger on Magda, I mean. I guess I’m just not sure where you’re going, and with so little time left we need to focus on the charges against him.”
“I’m not the one that told the court we could prove this case in a week,” she retorted.
“I had no choice on that, and you know it.”
She brushed her hair from her forehead impatiently. “Anyway, Magda’s a soft spot for Roger, a way to possibly win his trust.”
“But we need to keep him focused.”
Her frustration exploded. “Dammit, Jack, I’m the one who’s good with witnesses, remember?”
“And I’m not?” She could hear the irritation in his voice.
“I’m just saying that’s why Brian brought me in.” Jack’s jaw clenched. “You think that was a mistake?” she pressed.
“Not at all,” he replied quickly.
But she was not mollified.
“You never liked me, or thought I was very good.”
“That’s not it at all,” he protested. “But it isn’t Brian’s call. Or yours. This is my case.”
Charlotte felt as though she’d been slapped. All the while she’d been thinking of the two of them as a team, Jack had perceived her involvement as an intrusion on his turf. “Well, I’m here now, so why don’t you let me do my job?”
“Because you seem to be going off on all sorts of tangents. First the trip to Poland for the house …”
“Which proved to be a good lead.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “It provided some anecdotal information about Roger’s personal life, nothing more.”
The information about Roger’s affair, she thought, was considerably more than an anecdote. But before she could disagree, he continued. “And now this clock. You want to go to Salzburg, too?”
“Actually, I do.”
He threw up his hands. “This isn’t a goddamn Eurorail trip!”
He was treating her like some kind of novice. Charlotte’s rage seared white hot. “Or maybe it’s not about that at all,” Jack added, throwing fuel on the fire.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” But even as she asked the question, she knew.
“I’m just saying that coming halfway around the world on a moment’s notice …” He looked at her levelly. “Well, that’s not something one would do for just anyone, is it?”
He was implying, of course, that she was here because of her feelings for
Brian. “How dare you? If you think you can do better on your own, then be my guest.” Not waiting for a response, she turned and walked from the prison.
Outside she paused, inhaling the fresh cool air, trying to compose herself. Fighting with Jack felt wrong somehow. She wasn’t even sure what their disagreement was really about. And it certainly wasn’t helping their case. But he could be so infuriating. She paused, wondering whether to go back inside and make amends.
Then she spotted the car waiting at the edge of the parking lot. She approached the driver, who leaned on the bumper, smoking a cigarette. “Can you take me back to the hotel?” she asked.
He looked puzzled. “Und Herr Warrington?”
“He’s staying for a while.”
A few minutes later, she sat back in the car, still seething. Jack’s words replayed in her mind: not something one would do for just anyone. Had he been goading her? She recalled his expression as he said it, which bore no sign of sarcasm or malice. No, he genuinely thought she had gotten on a plane and traveled thousands of miles because she still had feelings for his brother. Had she? No, she decided quickly. It wasn’t like that, not anymore.
At the hotel, Charlotte dropped onto the crisply made bed. The jet lag and nonstop travel of the past few days seemed to finally be catching up to her. She pulled out her cell phone and for a moment considered calling Jack. To say what, exactly? It wasn’t as if she had something to apologize for, and if he was still in the prison with Roger, his phone would be turned off anyway. No, best to let things cool off for a while.
Her thoughts turned to the information they had learned in Wadowice, the picture made more complete by Roger’s reluctant admissions. His one true love had been his brother’s wife. What had become of Magda? Perhaps if she could learn some of the truth, the information might help to give Roger some comfort and win his trust. But how?
Charlotte mentally ran through her list of contacts who worked in the Holocaust area, most of whom she’d lost touch with over the years. There was a Polish woman, Alicja Recka, who had worked at the Auschwitz-Birkenau site and had been very helpful to Charlotte in her research. Charlotte recalled reading several years later that Recka had become the research director for the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Of course, the information was years old now; there was no telling if Recka had moved on. But it was worth a try.