The Storyteller

by Jodi Picoult

  "Nooooo!" Aleks cried. He tore away from me and rushed the stage as soldiers ran to apprehend him. But he was no longer a man. He bit and clawed, throwing off seven men with the force of an entire army as the crowd scattered to take cover. When only Damian remained, without his protective escort, Aleks stepped forward and snarled.

  Damian lifted his sword. And then he dropped it, turned tail, and ran.

  Aleks was on him before Damian was halfway across the village square. He tackled the captain, turning Damian so that he landed on his back; so that the clear, bright sky would be the last thing he ever saw. In one single, wrenching tear, Aleks ripped out his heart.

  SAGE

  Hospitals smell like death. A little too clean, and a little too cold. The minute I walk inside I have dialed my life back three years, and I am here watching my mother die by degrees.

  Leo and I stand in the hallway, near Josef's room. The doctors have told me that Josef was brought here to have his stomach pumped. Apparently he had an adverse medical reaction, and a Meals on Wheels volunteer found him unconscious on the floor. It makes me wonder who's got Eva now. If someone will be taking care of her tonight.

  Although Leo is not allowed into the room, I am. Josef listed me as his next of kin, which is a pretty interesting relationship for someone you've asked to kill you.

  "I don't like hospitals," I say.

  "No one does."

  "I don't know what to do," I whisper.

  "You have to talk to him," Leo answers.

  "You want me to convince him to get better, so that you can ship him out of the country and have him die in a jail cell somewhere?"

  Leo considers this. "Yes. After he's convicted."

  Maybe it's because he's being so blunt--it shocks me back to the present. I nod, take a deep breath, and walk into Josef's room.

  In spite of what my grandmother has said, in spite of that photo in the spread that Leo created, he is just an elderly man, a husk of the brute he used to be. With his thin limbs jutting from a pale blue hospital gown, his silver hair disheveled, it is hard to imagine that the very sight of this man once crippled others with fear.

  Josef is asleep, his left arm thrown up over his head. The scar he showed me once before, on the inside of his upper arm, is clearly visible--a shiny, dark button the size of a quarter, with ragged edges. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Leo in the hallway, still watching me. He lifts his hand, letting me know he's still watching.

  With my cell phone, I snap a picture of Josef's scar, so Leo can see it later.

  I hurriedly stuff my phone back into my shorts as a nurse enters the room. "You're the girl he's been talking about?" she says. "Cinnamon, right?"

  "Sage," I say cheerfully, wondering if she's seen me taking the picture. "Same spice rack, different jar."

  The nurse looks at me oddly. "Well, your friend Mr. Weber is a very lucky man, to have been found when he was."

  I should have been the one to find him.

  The thought slips into my mind like the blade of a knife. As his one good friend, I should have been there if he needed me. But instead, I was the one who had argued with him and stormed out of his house.

  The problem is that I'm Josef Weber's friend. But Reiner Hartmann is my enemy. So what do I do, now that they are the same man?

  "What happened to him?" I ask.

  "Ate a salt substitute while he was taking Aldactone. It made his potassium levels skyrocket. Could have put him into cardiac arrest."

  I sit down on the edge of the bed and hold Josef's hand. A hospital band is looped around his wrist. JOSEF WEBER, DOB 4/20/18, B+

  If only they knew that wasn't who he really was.

  Josef's fingers twitch against mine, and I drop his hand as if he is on fire. "You came," he rasps.

  "Of course I did."

  "Eva?"

  "I'm going to take her home with me. She'll be fine."

  "Mr. Weber?" the nurse interrupts. "How are you feeling? Do you have any pain?"

  He shakes his head.

  "Could we just have a minute?" I ask.

  She nods. "I'll come back to take your temperature and blood pressure in five," the nurse says.

  We both wait until she has left to speak again. "You didn't do this by accident, did you?" I whisper.

  "I am not stupid. The pharmacist told me about drug interactions. I chose to ignore him."

  "Why?"

  "If you would not help me die, then I had to do it myself. But I should have known it was no use." He waves an arm around the hospital room. "I told you before. This is my punishment. No matter what I do, I survive."

  "I never said I wouldn't help you," I reply.

  "You were angry at me for telling you the truth."

  "Yes," I admit. "I was. It's really hard to hear."

  "You stormed out of my house."

  "You've had almost seventy years to live with this, Josef. You have to give me more than five minutes." I lower my voice. "What you did--what you said you did--makes me sick. But if I . . . you know, do what you asked me to do . . . now, I'm doing it out of anger, out of hate. And that brings me down to your level."

  "I knew you would be upset," Josef confesses. "But you were not my first choice."

  This surprises me. There is someone else in this town who knows what Josef did . . . and who hasn't turned him in?

  "Your mother," Josef says. "She's the first one I asked."

  My jaw drops. "You knew my mother?"

  "I met her years ago, when I was working at the high school. The World Religions teacher invited her to talk about her faith. I met her in the teachers' room during lunch, very briefly. She said she was hardly a model Jew, but that she was better than none."

  That sounds like my mother. I can even vaguely remember her going to speak in front of my sister's class, and how embarrassed Pepper was to have her there. I bet my sister would give anything to have my mother in such close proximity now. The thought makes my throat close tight.

  "We got to talking, and she of course noticed my accent, and said that her mother-in-law had been a survivor from Poland."

  I notice that he uses the past tense when talking about my grandmother. I do not correct him. I do not want him to know anything about her at all.

  "What did you tell her?"

  "That I was sent abroad to study during the war. For years I tried to cross paths with her again. I felt it was fate, that we had met. Not only was she a Jew but she was related by marriage to a survivor. She was as close as I could come to forgiveness."

  I think of what Leo's reaction to this would be: one Jew can't substitute for another. "You were going to ask her to kill you?"

  "Help me die," Josef corrects. "But then I learned she had passed. And then, I met you. I did not know at first you were her daughter, but when it became clear, I knew there was a reason we had connected. I knew I had to ask of you what I did not get a chance to ask of your mother." His eyes, blue and rheumy, fill with tears. "I won't die. I can't die. I know you must think it is ridiculous of me to believe this, but it is true."

  I find myself thinking of my grandmother's story; of the upior who begged for release, instead of an eternity of misery. "You're hardly a vampire, Josef--"

  "That does not mean I haven't been cursed. Look at me. I should be dead now, several times over. I have been locked for nearly seventy years; and for nearly seventy years, I've been searching for a key. Maybe you are the one who has it."

  Leo would say Josef has stalked me, and my family.

  Leo would say that even now, Josef sees Jews as only a means to an end, not as individuals, but as pawns.

  But if you seek forgiveness, doesn't that automatically mean you cannot be a monster? By definition, doesn't that desperation make you human again?

  I wonder what my mother had thought of Josef Weber.

  I reach for Josef's hand. This hand, which held the gun that killed my grandmother's best friend, and God knows how many others.

  "I'll do it,"
I say, although at this point, I am not sure if I am lying for Leo's sake, or telling the truth for my own.

  *

  Leo and I drive to Josef's house, but he will not come inside with me. "Without a search warrant? Not on your life."

  I guess it's different, since I'm just there to pick up the dog, not to hunt for incriminating material. Josef's spare key is kept in a sliding compartment in the bottom of a stone frog that sits on his porch. When I open the door, Eva comes running out to meet me and barks frantically.

  "It's okay," I tell the little dachshund. "He's going to be all right."

  Today, anyway.

  Who will take the dog if he's extradited?

  Inside, the kitchen is a mess. A plate has been overturned and broken, the food is gone (a perk for Eva, I'm guessing); a chair is lying on its side. On the table is the salt substitute Josef must have eaten.

  I right the chair and clean up the broken china and sweep the floor. Then I throw the salt substitute in the trash and wash the dishes in the sink and wipe down the counters. I rummage through Josef's pantry to find Eva's dog food. There are boxes of Quaker instant oatmeal and Rice-A-Roni, mustard, rotini pasta. There are at least three bags of Doritos. It looks incredibly . . . ordinary, although I don't know what I was expecting a former Nazi to subsist on.

  When I go looking for a crate or a doggie bed, I find myself standing at the threshold of Josef's bedroom. The bed is neatly made with a white blanket; the sheets are flowered with tiny violets. There are still two dressers in the room, one with a jewelry box on top and a woman's hairbrush. On one nightstand sit an alarm clock, a telephone, and a dog's chew toy. On the other nightstand is an Alice Hoffman novel, with a bookmark still in place; and a jar of rose-scented hand cream.

  There is something so heartbreaking about this--about Josef's inability to put away the trappings of his wife's life. But this man, who loved his wife and loves his dog and who eats junk food, also killed other human beings without blinking.

  I take the chew toy and, with Eva still dancing at my heels, head back to the car where Leo is waiting. With the dog on my lap, gnawing at the ragged cuffs of my shorts, we drive to my house.

  "He said he knew my mother," I tell Leo.

  Leo glances at me. "What?"

  I explain to him what Josef told me. "What would he have done if he knew my grandmother was alive?"

  For a moment, Leo is quiet. "How do you know he doesn't?"

  "What are you saying?"

  "He could be playing you. He's lied to you before. Hell, he lied to the whole world for well over half a century. Maybe he figured out who Minka was, and is feeling you out to see if she remembers what he did."

  "Do you really think after all these years he'd be trying to clear his name against a theft charge?"

  "No," Leo says, "but after all these years, he might still want to silence anyone who could identify him as a Nazi."

  "That's a little unrealistic, don't you think?"

  "So was the Final Solution, but it got pretty far," Leo points out.

  "Maybe I would believe you if Josef hadn't asked me to kill him."

  "Because he knows you're not capable of it. So instead, he strings you along. He can snow you, the way he can't snow your grandmother," Leo says. "She was there. She's never met the new and improved Josef Weber. She knows an animal, a beast. Eventually, if he can get to her through you, he can kill her, or he can get you to convince her he's a changed man who deserves forgiveness. Either way, he wins."

  I stare at him, a little hurt that he would think this of me. "You really believe I would do that?"

  He pulls into my driveway, but there is already a car waiting there. Adam gets out of the driver's seat, holding a bouquet of lilies. "People need forgiveness for all sorts of reasons," Leo says flatly. "I think you, of all people, understand that. And I think Josef Weber's got your number."

  He puts both hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. In my lap, Eva starts to bark at the stranger outside who holds up a hand in an awkward wave. "I'll be in touch," Leo says.

  For the first time in two days, he doesn't look me in the eye.

  "Be careful," Leo adds, a good-bye that I know has nothing to do with Josef.

  *

  The lilies would be nice, if not for the fact that I know Adam gets a deep discount with a local florist--something he told us while we were making my mother's funeral arrangements. In fact for all I know, this bouquet was just a leftover from the morning service.

  "I don't really feel like talking," I say, pushing past him, but he catches my arm and pulls me close and kisses me. I wonder if Leo is far enough down the street yet, or if he sees us.

  I wonder why I care.

  "There she is," Adam murmurs against my lips. "I knew the girl I'm crazy about was in there somewhere."

  "Actually, she's across town, roasting a chicken for your dinner tonight. I can understand that it's hard to keep track."

  "I deserve that," Adam says, following me into my house. "But that's why I'm here, Sage. You've gotta hear me out."

  He leads me into the living room. I realize that we do not spend a lot of time in there. When he comes over, we mostly go right to the bedroom.

  He sits me down on the couch and holds my hand. "I love you, Sage Singer. I love the way you have to sleep with one foot uncovered and the fact that you hog the popcorn when we watch a movie. I love your smile, and your widow's peak. It's a cliche, I know, but seeing you with that guy yesterday made me realize how much I have to lose. I don't want someone else to snatch you away while I'm dragging my feet over a decision. Pure and simple, I love you, and I want to be with you forever."

  Adam drops to one knee, still holding my hand. "Sage . . . marry me?"

  I stare at him, stunned. And then I burst out laughing, which I'm pretty sure is not the reaction he was hoping for. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

  "The ring--I know, but--"

  "Not the ring. The fact that you have a wife."

  "Well, of course not," Adam says, sitting down on the couch again. "That's why I came here. I'm filing for divorce."

  I sink back against the cushions, shell-shocked.

  There are so many ways a family can unravel. All it takes is a tiny slash of selfishness, a rip of greed, a puncture of bad luck. And yet, woven tightly, family can be the strongest bond imaginable.

  I lost my mother and father, I pushed my sisters away. My grandmother had her parents torn from her. We have spent decades patching up the holes. And yet here is Adam, cavalierly throwing away his loved ones so that he can start over. I am ashamed at myself, for the role I had in bringing him to this point. I only hope it's not too late for him to realize what I'm just beginning to see myself: having a family means you're never alone.

  "Adam," I say softly. "Go home."

  *

  This time, it's for real.

  I've told Adam that it's over, but now I mean it. And I know it's different because I cannot breathe, I cannot stop sobbing. It's as if I am grieving over someone I loved, which I guess is entirely true.

  Adam had not wanted to leave. "You don't mean it," he told me. "You're not thinking clearly." But I was, possibly for the first time in three years. I was seeing myself the way Mary had seen me, and Leo, and I was embarrassed. "I love you enough to marry you," he said. "What more could you possibly want?"

  There were so many ways to answer that question.

  I wanted to walk down the street on the arm of a handsome guy and not have other women wonder why he was with someone who looked like me.

  I wanted to be happy, but not if it meant someone else would be devastated.

  I wanted to feel beautiful, instead of just lucky.

  The only reason Adam left was because I convinced him, through my tears, that he was only making this even harder for me. That if he really cared about me, he'd go. "You do not want to do this," he insisted.

  The same words Josef had said to me during our chess game. But so
metimes, in order to win, you have to make sacrifices.

  When my eyes are so red I cannot see clearly and my nose is stuffed from crying, I curl up on the sofa and hug Eva to my chest. My cell phone starts buzzing in my pocket, and Adam's number flashes on the screen; I shut it off. My home phone starts ringing, too, and before I hear Adam's voice on the message machine, I unplug it and disconnect the phone. Right now, what I need is to be by myself.

  I swallow half a sleeping pill left over from after my mom's funeral, and fall asleep fitfully on the couch. I dream that I am in a concentration camp, wearing my grandmother's striped prisoner's dress, when Josef comes for me in his officer's uniform. Although he is an old man, his grip is a vise. He doesn't smile, and he speaks only in German, and I cannot understand what he's asking of me. He drags me outside to a courtyard as I stumble, my knees bruising on rocks. There, Adam stands beside a coffin. He lifts me into it. It's about time, he says. When he reaches to shut the lid I realize his intentions, and I start to fight him. But even when I am able to scratch and draw blood, he is stronger than I am. He closes the lid, although I am gasping for air.

  Please, I yell out, pounding my fists against the satin lining. Can you hear me?

  But no one comes. I keep beating, hammering.

  Are you there? I hear, and I think maybe it's Leo, but I am afraid to shout because it will use up too much oxygen. I struggle to breathe in, and my lungs fill with the scent of my grandmother's talcum powder.

  I wake up to find Adam shaking me, and daylight streaming through the windows. I've been asleep for hours. "Sage. Are you all right?"

  I am still groggy, sleepy, dry-mouthed. "Adam," I slur. "I told you to go away."

  "I was worried about you, since you weren't picking up your phone."

  Reaching down into the folds of the couch, I find my iPhone and turn it on. There are dozens of messages. One from Leo, three from my grandmother. A handful from Adam. And, oddly, a half dozen from each of my sisters.

  "Pepper called me about the arrangements," he says. "God, Sage, I know how close you were to her. And I want you to know: I'm here for you."

  I start to shake my head, because even as fuzzy as it feels, everything is starting to fall into place. I take a deep breath, and all I can smell is talcum.

  *

  What Daisy tells me and my sisters is that Nana was feeling tired and lay down for a nap at about two o'clock that afternoon. When she didn't wake up in time for dinner, Daisy was afraid she'd have trouble sleeping through the night, so she went into the bedroom and turned on the lights. She tried to wake my grandmother, but couldn't. "It happened in her sleep," Daisy tells us, tearful. "I know she wasn't in any pain."