The Storyteller

by Jodi Picoult

  *

  Genevra the historian is arriving in Boston rather than Manchester, because that was the quickest flight she could book. That means a five-hour round-trip drive for Leo, but he says he doesn't mind. He will use the time to fill her in on the aspects of the case that she's missed.

  I stand behind him, watching him knot his tie in the bathroom mirror. "Then," Leo says, "I will drop her off at the Courtyard. From what I understand the beds are pretty comfortable."

  "Are you going to stay there, too?"

  He pauses. "Did you want me to?"

  In the mirror, we look like a modern American Gothic. "I thought you might not want your historian to know about me."

  He folds me into his arms. "I want her to know everything about you. From the way you are the consummate double agent to the way you rock out to John Mellencamp in the shower, and sing all the wrong words."

  "They're not the wrong--"

  "It's not 'you pull off those Barbie books.' Trust me on this. Besides, Genevra's going to get to know you when we go out after work in the District . . ."

  It takes me a moment before the words sink in. "I don't live in the District."

  "Technicality," Leo says, shyly. "We have bakeries in D.C."

  "It just . . . doesn't feel right, Leo."

  "You're having second thoughts?" He freezes. "I come on strong. A hundred and forty percent. I know that. But I just found you, Sage. I don't want to let you go. It can't be a bad thing to know what you want, and run with it. One day, years from now, we can read the press release about Reiner Hartmann aloud to our babies and tell them that Mommy and Daddy fell in love because of a war criminal." He looks at my face and winces. "Still too over the top?"

  "I wasn't talking about moving. Although that's still up for discussion . . ."

  "Tell you what. If you can find a Department of Justice job up here, I'll move--"

  "It's Josef," I interrupt. "It just doesn't feel . . . right."

  Leo takes my hand and leads me out of the bathroom, sits me on the edge of the bed. "This is harder for you than it is for me, because you knew him as someone else before you knew him as Reiner Hartmann. But this is what you wanted, isn't it?"

  I close my eyes. "I can't remember anymore."

  "Then let me help you out. If Reiner Hartmann is deported or even extradited, it's going to be news. Big news. Everyone will hear it--not just in our country, but all over the world. I'd like to think that maybe, the next person who is about to do something horrific--the soldier who is given an order to commit a crime against humanity--will remember that press release about the Nazi who was caught, even at age ninety-five. Maybe in that moment, he'll realize that if he carries out his order, the United States government or some other one is going to hunt him down for the rest of his life, too, no matter how far he runs. And maybe he'll think, I'm going to have to be looking over my shoulder forever, like Reiner Hartmann. So instead of doing what he has been told to do, he'll say no."

  "Doesn't it count for anything if Josef wishes he hadn't done it?"

  Leo looks at me. "What counts," he says, "is that he did."

  *

  Mary is in the shrine grotto when I arrive. I'm a sticky mess; the air is so humid that it seems to be condensing through my skin. I feel like I've replaced all my hemoglobin with caffeine, I'm that jittery.

  I have a lot to do before Leo gets back tonight.

  "Thank God you're here," I say, as soon as I reach the top of the Holy Stairs.

  "That means a lot, coming from an atheist," Mary says. She is silhouetted against the dusk, in the kind of light that would make a painter swoon: fingers of purple and pink and electric blue, like the salvia she is weeding. "I tried to call you, to see how you were doing, with your grandmother and all, but you don't answer messages anymore."

  "I know; I got it. I've just been really busy . . ."

  "With that guy."

  "How did you know that?" I ask.

  "Honey, anyone with two functional brain cells who was at the funeral or the gathering afterward could have figured that out. I have only one question for you about him." She looks up. "Is he married?"

  "No."

  "Then I already like him." She strips off her gardening gloves and sets them on the edge of the bucket she's using to collect the weeds for composting. "So where's the fire?"

  "I have a question for a priest," I explain, "and you're the closest thing around."

  "I'm not sure if I should be flattered by that or if I should find a new hairstylist."

  "It's about Confession . . ."

  "That's a sacrament," Mary replies. "Even if I could grant penitence to you, you're not Catholic. It's not like you can sashay into a confessional and wipe your slate clean."

  "It's not me. I was asked to do the forgiving. But the sin, it's truly, truly awful."

  "A mortal sin."

  I nod. "I'm not asking about how Confession works, for the person who's confessing. I want to know how the priest does it: hears something he can barely stomach, and then lets it go."

  Mary sits beside me on the teak bench. By now, the sun has sunk so low that everything on the shrine's hill is glowing and golden. Just looking at it, at so much beauty in one place, makes the tightness in my chest loosen a little. Surely if there's evil in the world, it's counterbalanced by moments like these. "You know, Sage, Jesus didn't tell us to forgive everyone. He said turn the other cheek, but only if you were the one who was hit. Even the Lord's Prayer says it loud and clear: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Not others. What Jesus challenges us to do is to let go of the wrong done to you personally, not the wrong done to someone else. But most Christians incorrectly assume this means that being a good Christian means forgiving all sins, and all sinners."

  "What if, even tangentially, the wrong that was done does have something to do with you? Or with someone close to you, anyway?"

  Mary folds her arms. "I know I've told you how I left the convent, but did I ever tell you why I entered it?" she says. "My mother was raising three kids on her own, because my father walked out on us. I was the oldest, at thirteen. I was full of so much anger that sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night with the taste of it in my mouth, like tin. We couldn't afford groceries. We had no television and the lights had been turned off. Our furniture had been reclaimed by the credit card company, and my brothers were wearing pants that hit above the ankle because we couldn't afford to buy new school clothes. My father, though, he was on vacation with his girlfriend in France. So one day I went to see our priest and I asked what I could do to feel less angry. I was expecting him to say something like, Get a job, or Write your feelings down on paper. Instead, he told me to forgive my dad. I stared at the priest, convinced he was nuts. 'I can't do that,' I told him. 'It would make what he did seem less awful.' "

  I study Mary's profile as she speaks. "The priest said, 'What he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart until it's choked and overrun. The only person who suffers, when you squirrel away all that hate, is you.' I was thirteen, and I didn't know very much about the world, but I knew that if there was that much wisdom in religion, I wanted to be part of it."

  She faces me. "I don't know what this person did to you, and I am not sure I want to. But forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It's saying, You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future."

  I think of my grandmother, whose silence all these years had accomplished the same goal.

  For better or for worse, Josef Weber is part of my life. Of my family's story. Is the only way to edit him out of it to do what he's asked; to excuse him for his actions?

  "Does any of that help?" Mary asks.

  "Yeah. Surprisingly."

  She pats my shoulder. "Come on down with me. I know
a place you can get a good cup of coffee."

  "I think I'm going to stay here for a little bit. Watch the sun set."

  She looks at the sky. "Can't blame you."

  I watch her move down the Holy Stairs until I cannot see her anymore. It is dusk now, and the edges of my hands look fuzzy; the whole world seems like it's unraveling.

  I pick up Mary's gardening gloves, which are draped over the edge of the bucket like wilted lilies. I lean over the railing of the Monet garden and cut a few stalks of monkshood. In the pale palm of Mary's glove, the blue-black petals look like stigmata--another sorrow that can't be explained away, no matter how hard you try.

  *

  There are so many ways to betray someone.

  You can whisper behind his back.

  You can deceive him on purpose.

  You can deliver him into the hands of his enemy, when he trusts you.

  You can break a promise.

  The question is, if you do any of these things, are you also betraying yourself?

  I can tell, when Josef opens the door, that he knows why I've come. "Now?" he asks, and I nod. He stands for a moment, his hands at his sides, unsure of what he is supposed to do.

  "The living room," I suggest.

  We sit opposite each other, the chessboard between us, set neatly for a new game. Eva lies down, a donut at his feet.

  "Will you take her?" he asks.

  "Yes."

  He nods, his hands folded on his lap. "Do you know . . . how?"

  I nod, and reach for the backpack I've worn while biking here in the dark.

  "I have to say something first," Josef confesses. "I lied to you."

  My hands still on the zipper.

  "What I told you earlier today . . . that was not the worst thing I ever did," Josef says.

  I wait for him to continue.

  "I did speak to my brother again, after. We had not been in contact after the investigation, but one morning, he came to me, and said we had to run. I assumed he had information that I didn't, so I went with him. It was the Allies. They were liberating the camps, and any officers who were lucky managed to escape instead of being shot by them, or killed by the remaining prisoners."

  Josef looks down. "We walked, for days, crossing the German border. When we reached a city, we hid in the sewers. When we were in the country, we hid in barns with cattle. We ate garbage, just to stay alive. There were those who sympathized with us, still, and somehow, we managed to get false papers. I said we needed to leave this country as soon as possible; but he wanted to go back home, to see what was left."

  His lower lip begins to quiver. "We had picked sour cherries, stealing from a farmer who would never notice the handful missing from his crops. That was our dinner. We were arguing as we ate, about which route we would take. And my brother . . . he started to choke. He fell to the ground, grabbing at his throat, going blue," Josef says. "I stared at him. But I did nothing."

  I watch him pass a hand over his eyes, wiping them dry. "I knew it would be easier traveling without him. I knew that he would be more of a burden to me than a blessing. Maybe I had known that my whole life," Josef says. "I have done many things of which I am not proud, but they were during a time of war. The rules don't apply, then. I could excuse them, or at least rationalize, so that I stayed sane. But this, this was different. The worst thing I ever did, Sage, was kill my own brother."

  "You didn't kill him," I say. "You chose not to save him."

  "Is it not the same?"

  How can I tell him it isn't, when that's not what I believe?

  "I told you some time ago that I deserve to die. You understand that, now. I am a brute, a beast. I killed my own flesh and blood. And that is not even the worst of it." He waits until I meet his gaze. "The worst of it," he says coldly, "is that I wish I had done it sooner."

  Listening to him, I realize that no matter what Mary says, what Leo claims, or what Josef wants, in the end absolution is not mine to give away. I think about my mother in her hospital bed, pardoning me. Of the moment the car spun out of control, when I knew it was going to crash, and I was powerless to stop it.

  It does not matter who forgives you, if you're the one who can't forget.

  In the anecdote Leo told me before he left, I realize that I will be the one looking over my shoulder forever. But then again, this man--who helped murder millions, who killed my grandmother's best friend, and who reigned in terror; this man--who watched his brother choke to death before his eyes--has no remorse.

  There is an irony to the fact that a girl like me, who's actively struggled against religion her whole life, has turned to biblical justice: an eye for an eye, a death for a death. I unzip the backpack and remove one perfect roll. It has the same intricate crown at the top, the same dusting of sugar as the one I baked for my grandmother. But this one, it's not filled with cinnamon and chocolate.

  Josef takes it from my hand. "Thank you," he says, his eyes filling with tears. He waits, hopeful.

  "Eat it," I tell him.

  When he breaks it open, I can see the flecks of monkshood, which has been chopped finely and mixed into the batter.

  Josef tears off a quarter of the roll and places it onto his tongue. He chews and swallows, chews and swallows. He does this until the bread is gone.

  It's his breathing that I notice first, labored and heavy. He starts fighting for air. He slumps forward, knocking several pieces from the chessboard, and I take him in my arms and settle him on the floor. Eva begins to bark, to pull at his pants leg with her teeth. I shoo her away as his arms stiffen, as he writhes before me.

  To show compassion would elevate me from the monster he was. To show revenge would prove I'm no better. In the end, by using both, I can only hope they will cancel each other out.

  "Josef," I say, leaning over him and speaking loudly, so that I know he hears me. "I will never, ever forgive you."

  In one last desperate effort, Josef manages to grab my shirt. He bunches the fabric in his fist, pulling me down so that I can smell death on his breath. "How . . . does . . . it end?" he gasps.

  Moments later, he stops moving. His eyes roll back. I step over him and retrieve my backpack. "Like this," I answer.

  *

  I take a sleeping pill when I get home, and by the time Leo slips into bed beside me, I am long gone. I'm still groggy, in fact, the next morning when I wake up, which is probably better.

  Genevra, the historian, is not at all what I was expecting. She's young, just out of college, and she has a tattoo up one arm that is the entire preamble to the Constitution. "It's about time," she says, when she is formally introduced to me. "I suck at playing Cupid."

  We drive to Josef's in the rental car, with Genevra sitting in the backseat. I must look like a zombie, because Leo reaches for my hand and squeezes it. "You don't have to go in."

  I had told him yesterday that I wanted to. That I thought Josef might be more likely to cooperate if he saw me. "I may not have to, but I need to."

  If I was at all worried about Leo thinking I am acting strange, I shouldn't have been. He is riding on such a high I'm not sure he even hears me respond. We pull into Josef's driveway, and he turns to Genevra. "Game on," he says.

  The point of having her here, he has explained, is so that if Josef panics and starts fudging details to make himself less culpable, the historian can point out the inaccuracies to the investigator. Who can, in turn, call Josef on his lies.

  We get out of the car and walk to the front door. Leo knocks.

  When he opens the door, I'm going to ask him if he's Mr. Weber, Leo told me this morning as we were getting dressed.

  And when he nods yes, I'll say, But that's not your real name, is it?

  However, no one answers the door.

  Genevra and Leo look at each other. Then he turns to me. "Does he still drive?"

  "No," I say. "Not anymore."

  "Anywhere you think he might be?"

  "He didn't say anything to me," I reply, and t
his is true.

  "You think he flew the coop?" Genevra asks. "Wouldn't be the first time . . ."

  Leo shakes his head. "I don't think he had any idea she was wearing a wire--"

  "There's a key," I interrupt. "In the frog, over there."

  I walk numbly to the corner of the porch, where the frog sits in a potted plant. It makes me think of the monkshood. The key is cold in the palm of my hand. I open the door, and let Leo enter first. "Mr. Weber?" he calls, walking through the foyer toward the living room.

  I close my eyes.

  "Mr.--Oh, shit. Genevra, call 911." He drops his briefcase.

  Josef is lying exactly the way I left him, in front of the coffee table, chess pieces scattered around him. His skin has a tinge of blue to it; his eyes are still open. I kneel down and grab his hand. "Josef," I yell, as if he can hear me. "Josef, wake up!"

  Leo holds his fingers to Josef's neck, feeling for a pulse. He looks at me across Josef's body. "I'm sorry, Sage."

  "Another one bites the dust, boss?" Genevra asks, peering over his shoulder.

  "It happens. It's a race against the clock, at this point."

  I realize I am still holding Josef's hand. Around his wrist is the hospital bracelet that he never removed.

  JOSEF WEBER, DOB 4/20/18, B+

  Suddenly, I can't breathe. I drop Josef's hand and back into the foyer, where Leo threw down his briefcase when he saw the body lying on the living room floor. Grabbing it, I slip away from the front door, just as the local police and EMTs arrive. They start speaking to Genevra and Leo as I walk down the hall to Josef's bedroom.

  I sit on the bed and open the clasp on Leo's briefcase, take out the SS file that he had not let me read just days before.

  On the first page is the photo of Reiner Hartmann.

  An address in Wewelsburg.

  The birthday, which was the same as Hitler's, Josef had once said.

  And a different blood type.

  Reiner Hartmann had been AB. This was something that the SS would have known, and reflected not only in his file but also in the Blutgruppe tattoo, the one Josef said he had carved out with a Swiss Army knife after the war. However last week, when Josef had been admitted to the hospital unconscious, phlebotomists had drawn his blood and typed it, B+.

  Which meant Josef Weber was not Reiner Hartmann after all.