by Mario Bolduc
Kevin sighed.
“Your father could take you back,” Max suggested. “You could work in the factory, maybe. You could ask him.”
“Packaging?” he replied scornfully.
“I’m sure you could keep training in Montreal, right?” Max didn’t dare look at himself in the rearview mirror. He, the con man, giving a speech worthy of a priest.
“I’ll never go back.”
Kevin was never one to speak of his troubled relationship with his father. Max hadn’t insisted. He was in no position to demand the truth. He respected his friend’s discretion. He’d never really had a reason to get mixed up in Kevin’s relationship with his father. It had nothing to do with him.
“So what are you going to do?” Max asked.
“No idea.”
The two men fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts.
The night was full of light, the streets still wet from a too-brief rainfall. Taxis passing him, customers behind their windows. On the sidewalks, men and women desperately trying to find a cab in the small hours of the morning.
Max hesitated. There was something he could do for Kevin, but it might destroy their friendship. But Kevin was desperate. He needed help, and now; Max’s small, secret gifts weren’t enough anymore.
Or, Max thought, he could also do nothing. He could simply drive Kevin back home and return to Susan’s arms. He could let the marathon runner deal with his own problems.
Not a chance, Max decided. “Listen, Kevin, I’ve got to come clean with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t work in a bank. What I told you and Caroline, it was all a lie.”
Kevin turned toward Max, confusion on his face. Perhaps a hint of disappointment at being lied to by his friend all these years.
With a few words, Max told him everything. He was a con man, a thief, really, but a thief who made his life harder by making his victims consent to their own fleecing. He played on their worst instincts: vanity, greed, ambition. Max tried to reassure Kevin that he and Caroline had never been marks. Quite the opposite; he’d always seen them as friends.
“And, well, I’m not even called Robert Cheskin. My real name is Max O’Brien. But all over the world the authorities are after me. So I need to change identities early and often.”
Kevin looked at him, speechless.
“These days, for example, I’m playing a broker for an investment company, luring a large insurance company.”
“And how much is that going to bring you in?”
“A lot. But there are fees. Accomplices to pay, informants to compensate …”
Silence again.
Kevin could have reacted by ordering Max to stop the car and let him out here, now, on the wet pavement. Clearly, his ventures with criminality had been a complete failure; he might not want to fall into the same trap twice.
But Kevin remained silent, as if he were trying to guess his friend’s intentions.
Max told Kevin about his early days in the craft. The operations he’d been part of, then those he’d initiated. The bad experiences, as well. Painful memories. Time in prison, for example, time that had seemed to drag on even once he was out. The prison walls surrounding him now were made of fake names and counterfeit papers, of aliases and invented pasts.
“The work I can offer you is dishonest and illegal, of course,” Max added. “And might just lead you straight to jail.”
Kevin still seemed perplexed. He raised his head just as Max’s Saab stopped in front of his building in Sunset Park. “And what would I do, exactly? I don’t know the first thing about any of this.”
Back in his room in the Intercontinental in Bucharest, Max tried to reach Josée Dandurand. No dice; she must’ve still been sleeping. He emptied two tiny bottles of whisky he found in the refrigerator. His appetite teased, he went down to the bar to have a bite. The place was full of conference-goers, and it was happy hour. The barman poured a Scotch for Max before moving on to the other end of the counter to settle the bill of a couple of Brits.
A commotion all of a sudden.
Max turned around. There was a group in the corner of the bar surrounding an individual Max couldn’t yet see. Five or six people. The impromptu crowd was composed of ruddy, paunchy men, listening with interest to the speaker. The man got up suddenly to shake the hand of someone he knew, giving Max a view of him. Fifty-five years old, more or less, wearing a finely trimmed moustache over thick lips. Tanned skin giving him the look of a South American.
“Victor Marineci, the Gypsy MP. ” The barman was watching the man, as well. “This conference is quite the opportunity for him. With the elections coming up, Prime Minister Popescu-Tăriceanu is in trouble and Marineci might be part of the next government. Minister of the interior, maybe. Can you imagine? A Gypsy head of the police!”
Max turned around. “With you, no need to listen to the news. The lounge lizards in Romania must be the most informed in the world.”
“I’ve got a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Bucharest. I got my diploma the day Ceauşescu was killed. And so — barman for life!”
Max smiled.
“Would you like another?”
“Sure, thanks.”
“Me, too.” A young woman had just slid onto the stool next to Max. Heavy makeup, friendly smile, provocative short skirt.
“Let me guess, you’re an American,” she said with a strong Russian accent. She offered her hand. “You can call me Tatiana.”
Max saw Josée Dandurand walk into the bar. Tall, blond, elegant, her step confident. She scanned the room for Max among the sea of conference-goers. A man offered her a drink. She smiled politely, no thanks. Max turned toward her and she recognized him. She quickly closed the distance and they held each other in their arms hard, just as they’d done after the rivière Saqawigan tragedy a few years earlier. Max, comforter-of-all-trades. Josée hadn’t slept since she’d heard the news, doubly so because the trip over to Romania had been difficult.
“I thought they’d gotten back on their feet, the Romanians,” she said to Max. “This country is a disaster!” A crushing bureaucracy, lines in front of cash machines, the faces of the border guards drawn and heavy. “They took hours just to look through my papers!”
By the time she’d reached the hotel, she’d been so tired she collapsed on her bed. She was just waking up now.
Josée smiled. “You’re not going to introduce me to your friend?” She pointed at Tatiana.
But the young Russian woman had turned her back on Max already and was now speaking to two Italians who’d approached her. Max led Josée to a table.
“I spoke to a few journalists,” she began. “The authorities have no concrete proof. No witnesses. I’m sure we’ll be able to get Kevin out of his bind.”
“If we can find him.… Do you want to eat something?”
“I’m not hungry. All I can think about is Kevin.”
“He’s innocent.”
“The fact he’s vanished is rather incriminating.”
Josée informed Max that a liaison for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Marilyn Burgess, would be present the next day for their meeting with Adrian Pavlenco. Max had been expecting it. Canadian authorities would surely want to follow the investigation closely, given the nationality of the suspect.
“Did you get in touch with a lawyer here in Bucharest?”
Josée shook her head. “I’m waiting to know what he’s actually accused of. After that we’ll see. I’ve got a few names.” She smiled. “Strange to meet again in such circumstances. Are you still living in New York?”
“Yes.”
“Still a banker?”
“Still a banker.”
Josée looked him over carefully for a long moment. Behind her Max saw Tatiana leaving with the two Italians.
“We’ve got to get Kevin out of this mess,” Josée finally said. “I’m convinced he’s innocent.”
Max nodded. It was imperative they help him, and quickly. But probably not using the methods the young lawyer was thinking of.
5
Auschwitz-Birkenau , September 19, 1943
Three men, all dressed in white, were standing in front of a sort of workbench, their backs turned to him, working in silence. They weren’t paying any attention at all to Emil Rosca, who was lying on the operating table. Among the men, Dr. Hans Leibrecht. Emil hadn’t taken his hands off his precious ears since he’d been brought into the room, especially after a nurse had come to measure them that very morning. Sure, they weren’t the prettiest ears around: they were a bit thick, slightly folded at the points, and stuck out from his head a little. But they were his ears, and the Nazi doctors were preparing to take them away from him for no reason at all.
His whole life Emil hadn’t thought of his ears twice, like the rest of his body, really. It was his and he lived in it, and that was all. And yet today here he was envying the men and women sent directly to the gas chamber. At least their deaths were painless. Would he still be able to hear? The guards’ orders? The music from his accordion? Last night Samuel seemed to have been able to hear his voice. Or perhaps Emil’s movements had jolted him awake. In the dark, Emil hadn’t dared to ask how the boy was feeling without his ears. By the time light returned to their dormitory, Samuel was dead. Two orderlies took his body away, leaving a brown stain on the boy’s pillow in the shape of a butterfly.
Absorbed by their work, the men spoke among themselves in a German Emil could barely understand, despite his fair knowledge of the language. In 1940, when the Wehrmacht had come into Ploesti to secure its oil wells, the Roma had begun trading with the soldiers. Out of necessity, Emil had learned basic German, which he spoke as well — or as poorly, really — as he did Romanian. But he couldn’t read or write either language. Nor his own language, Romani, the tongue of the Roma. And yet he enjoyed its musicality, its intonations. Every day in the camps he felt nostalgic for the paramíchi, the stories that had enthralled him as a child. And soon, maybe, he would never be able to hear anyone speaking his own language again. Or any other. A pang of anguish overtook him. He thought of his parents, who ’d vanished. The SS had chosen not to split up Romani families in the camps, but his own family, for a reason Emil didn’t know, was scattered to the four winds. The young Rom had discreetly asked around. He was the only Rosca in Auschwitz.
“As long as we don’t have a solution for transporting specimens,” Emil overheard Dr. Leibrecht say, “we’ll face the same problems time and time again.”
“The institute is supposed to take care of it.”
“Dr. Josef refuses to ask anything of them.”
“We’ve got the same issue with eyes.”
Dr. Leibrecht turned around, adjusting his glasses on his face, then leaned over Emil without ever looking at him. Emil felt like an object, a piece of furniture, about to be repaired. Or broken. Leibrecht pulled a lever under the table, sending it upward suddenly. The movement surprised Emil, and he dropped his hands from his ears. The two others, orderlies of some kind, quickly grabbed his arms. Emil was far too scared to cry out. Within a few moments, he was tied to the table, his back uncomfortably pinned against the flat, hard surface. Leibrecht muttered something to one of the orderlies, who quickly went off to grab a metal tray on which were placed surgical instruments — all Emil could make out was the glint of the scalpel’s blade.
The doctor put the tray on a small panel he’d pulled out of the table like a drawer. He examined his instruments, as if unsure which one he should use. Panicked, Emil struggled pathetically as one of the orderlies held his head firmly.
“Is the phenol ready?” Leibrecht asked.
A syringe appeared in the hand of the other assistant.
“Draw the sample as soon as the specimen’s vital signs indicate death.”
“As you say, Herr Doktor.”
With a fidgety little gesture, Leibrecht daubed Emil’s ear with a liquid. It smelled horrible. But he’d put on too much, and swore as the young Rom felt the liquid slowly run down his neck and slip under the collar of his gown. A cold, sticky, viscous trail. Emil had never been so afraid in his life.
Leibrecht picked up a scalpel and placed a hand on Emil’s forehead, preventing any movement at all. “Rainer, phenol.”
The orderly was about to stick the needle in Emil’s thorax, right above his heart, when Dr. Josef’s voice sounded from across the room.
“Hans, can you come here a moment?”
“Just give me five minutes,” Leibrecht answered.
“Now!”
The doctor sighed as he placed the scalpel back on the tray and left the laboratory, closing the door behind him. Abandoning the syringe filled with phenol on the tray, the orderly sat down at the edge of the table, the way you might sit on the hood of a car, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering one to his colleague. Soon, acrid grey smoke filled the room, making Emil dizzy. Because of the liquid the doctor had daubed on his ear, he couldn’t feel anything on the right side of his face. Emil kept glancing toward the phenol syringe, just out of reach. What would be the point, anyway? In a few moments, Dr. Leibrecht would return and finish his operation. It was the end. Death was coming. Death, which Emil had naively thought he could avoid in the camp, among his people. He saw in his mind’s eye his father repairing a pot, face covered in soot. His father with a gormónya on his knees, teaching him how to play. He could see the celebrations of the kumpaníya when the Kalderash, the Lovari, or the Tshurari met on the road. He remembered the feast of hedgehog served on long tables around which children ran, laughing, shouting. The pavika, the rejoicing, where wine ran more freely than water under the kind supervision of the bulibasha.
Suddenly, the doors to the operating room flew open. The two orderlies jumped to their feet, as if caught dawdling. A young woman walked in, her step straight and energetic, followed by Dr. Josef. She was a redhead with delicate skin in a tailored floral suit. She seemed lost, out of place in the midst of all this horror, though not surprised by what she saw. A German woman, without a doubt. Directly from the Kommandantur. The wife of an officer, perhaps. Emil saw Leibrecht gesture for his attendants to disappear. A guard stood near the doorway behind the doctor and the woman. He’d likely accompanied the redhead in.
“You’ve just arrived here in Auschwitz,” Dr. Josef said, his voice stiff. “I understand that in Berlin, high society might have looked kindly on your initiatives …”
“High society has nothing to do with any of this.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“With the best doctor of the Third Reich. But that doesn’t mean you can disobey orders.”
Emil was impressed this woman would stand up to Dr. Josef.
“And, might I add, it isn’t my idea. It’s Oskar’s. I’m only the messenger.”
Dr. Josef turned toward Leibrecht, who was looking at him with fire in his eyes.
“His requirement was clear, Dr. Mengele,” she said.
Dr. Josef sighed. “The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute is urgently awaiting these specimens.”
“Take them off someone else. You’ve got plenty to choose from.”
“I don’t like your attitude at all, Frau Müller.”
The young woman seemed to deflate all of a sudden, as if she realized she’d gone too far. “I assure you, Dr. Mengele, no one is questioning the value and usefulness of your work.”
“For which, if I must repeat myself, I received a clear mandate from the institute.”
“Which no one is questioning.”
Leibrecht burst out, incapable of containing himself further. “Leave, please. We have work to do. It’s late. The day has been long enough already.”
> Frau Müller turned toward the doctor. “Hans Leibrecht. Sent away from Dachau for insubordination. Am I mistaken?”
Leibrecht was about to answer something, but Dr. Josef silenced him with a gesture. “Listen —” Mengele began.
“Anyway, this whole discussion is pointless,” Müller cut in. “As my husband takes his orders directly from the SS-Obersturmbannführer.
The camp commander.
The sound of a paper being unfolded. A letter, perhaps, that the woman brandished. Emil couldn’t see it.
“Signed by Rudolf Höss himself,” she continued, with the consent of SS-Standortarzt Eduard Wirths, your direct superior. You can check with him if you still have your doubts.”
Mengele quickly read through the letter, then raised his eyes level with Müller. He was furious, but there was nothing he could do. Leibrecht, meanwhile, had moved to the far end of the room. He was watching his superior be humiliated by this newcomer. Mengele returned the letter to her. Anger had transformed his face. Good Dr. Josef, always so generous with his sweets, now seemed like a lion trapped in the corner of a cage.
Mengele passed by the SS guard and left the laboratory without closing the door behind him. He spoke with someone at the Kommandantur over the phone — one of Rudolf Höss’s subalterns, perhaps. A long tirade, which the others listened to in silence. Dr. Leibrecht observed the young woman as if trying to understand what in the devil’s name motivated her. Ordinarily, officers’ wives were happy enough to just parade about. The more ambitious among them worked in the Registratur, the prison archives, or at the Standesamt, the civil registration office. This one, however, seemed different, animated by some strange energy.
Dr. Mengele stalked back into the operating room, his anger barely contained. In a dry voice, he ordered Leibrecht to untie Emil from the operating table. The doctor hesitated, then, under Mengele’s urging, undid the straps that held the boy. The whole time his eyes were fixed on the young woman, his stare cold enough to give you chills. Emil expected her to lower her eyes, but no. She held her own.