“The maître d’ asked me to let you know you got a call from Zvi.” She frowned sympathetically. “I’m sorry. He can’t make it today after all.” She lowered her eyes, embarrassed, it seemed, to have to bear such sad news.
“Thanks very much. I appreciate your telling me.” Willi nodded, knowing very well that in Zvi’s line of work, plans changed like the wind. The woman didn’t leave, though. In fact, she pulled up a chair and sat rather near.
“It’s not why I came, Inspector. I’m just passing it along from that guy.”
Moishe the maître d’, whom Willi knew well, nodded from the front of the café.
“I see,” Willi acknowledged, noticing she was beautiful, her taut frame and tan complexion reminding him of some desert gazelle that could keep its footing even on the rockiest precipice. “Then how can I help you, Mrs.…?”
“I’m a social worker with the Jewish agency. My name’s Leah.” He caught the faintest hint of lavender on her neck. “Something happened I need to speak to you about.” The olive eyes cast a quick glance behind her shoulder. “A week ago.” They fixed back on Willi. “Just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“one of my clients lost her memory. She went to sleep with it, but the next morning woke up and recognized no one, not even herself.”
“How awful. Did she have a stroke? You’ve taken her to a doctor?”
“Don’t patronize me, please” came a prickly response.
This Leah, Willi’d already discerned, was what they called a sabra—a Jew born in the Holy Land, named for the cactus that sprang ubiquitously from the driest soil here, prickly on the outside, sweet, supposedly, within.
“She’s seen top specialists. More than one. Everyone agrees it wasn’t a stroke. And everyone agrees there’s no other explanation for it.”
“So, why come to me?”
She smiled vaguely, her dark eyes softening. “Because I heard you specialized in such things. Medical mysteries. At least take a drive to Beersheva with me and see.”
Something in the glistening look she gave him pulled a chord in Willi’s heart and threw him back in time. He could practically still feel that crisp autumn day in the Berlin park. Grandpa Max’s birthday lunch. That frightening Hitler Youth parade. When they’d gotten back to Wilmersdorf, he’d taken Vicki out to dinner, then spent the rest of the evening at home, making love for the first time in weeks. How tender it was. How passionate and playful. And in retrospect, how grateful he was to have no idea it would also be the last time.
Next morning Vicki met a friend at a café on Joachimstaler Platz. She was sitting near a window when a truck jumped the curb. A piece of glass slashed her carotid artery, and she was gone in under a minute.
“Beersheva isn’t my jurisdiction, Leah. Sorry.” He averted his eyes.
Her hand reached across the table, gently touching his arm. “It won’t take long. Please. It’s important. She lives in the middle of the desert in a settlement surrounded by enemies, with very little protection. It would have been easy for someone to sneak through the fence and—well, I don’t know what they could have done.”
“You’re saying you think someone did this to her?”
Leah shrugged and nodded simultaneously. “It’s why I came to you. There’s no better criminal inspector in Palestine and everyone knows it. Such a terrible fate when you think about it, isn’t it, Inspector? I mean, what are we without memories?”
Willi didn’t want to think about it. Amnesia didn’t sound so bad. There were plenty of things he sometimes wished he didn’t have to remember.
He wanted Leah to go away. He was tired, suddenly. He’d seen too much in this world. He’d no room left in his heart, in his mind, for more sad stories. He made the mistake of looking into her eyes, though, and shivered at the tug of the same dark whirlpool Fate kept casting him into.
Note on Historical Accuracy
The real Ilse Köhler Koch is a historical figure, wife of a Buchenwald concentration camp commandant whose cruelty earned her the moniker the Bitch of Buchenwald. After the war she was tried by both the Americans and the West Germans and spent the rest of her life in prison. This book presents an entirely fictionalized account of her youth. The account given of Berlin Police Force Deputy Chief Bernhard Weiss, also a historical figure, is essentially accurate.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank everyone at St. Martin’s Press for encouraging me to write this book, especially my editor Michael Homler. Also, Jon Sternfeld, my great agent. And most of all, Colin for his brilliant insights and endless support.
ALSO BY PAUL GROSSMAN
The Sleepwalkers
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Children of Wrath is Paul Grossman’s second novel. His first, The Sleepwalkers, was published in hardcover in 2010 and in paperback in 2011. He lives in Manhattan and teaches writing at the City University of New York. He’s hard at work now on his third novel. Visit his Web site at www.Paulgrossmanwriter.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CHILDREN OF WRATH. Copyright © 2012 by Paul Grossman. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Grossman, Paul.
Children of wrath / Paul Grossman. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-60191-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-8894-0 (e-book)
1. Murder—Investigation—Fiction 2. Berlin (Germany)—History—1918–1945—Fiction. I Title.
PS3607 .R674C47 2012
813' .6—dc23 2011041101
e-ISBN 9781429988940
First Edition: March 2012
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