“What about? Karl? You think he killed Karl? I don’t believe it.”
“Neither do I. But I think he knows who did.”
“Why would he?” she said, and then, when he didn’t answer, “Oh, I see. Don’t ask. Run along, Emma. Is it something terrible?”
“Yes.”
She shivered. “Then don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I like him.”
“I like him too.”
“Then why do this to him? What do you actually do, anyway? Give him shots to make him talk? Keep at him till he breaks down? Like the films? God, Michael. Sitting there like a vulture waiting for him to die. Everybody deserves a little peace.”
Connolly was quiet for a minute. “He doesn’t want peace. He wants to talk. We just-talk.”
“About what?”
“His life. Germany. Everything. He’s dying, Emma. He wants somebody to talk to.”
“And you volunteered.”
“It just worked out that way. I can’t explain it now. I don’t like it either, you know. It’s a lousy way to die. It’s not fun to watch.”
Emma stood, picking up a stone and throwing it at the water. “I hate what you do.”
“I didn’t ask to do it.”
“You didn’t say no, either. And now you’ll never give up. Sometimes I wonder how far you’d go. Would you do anything?”
“No.”
“What’s your limit, then? Do you know?” She came back from the stream.
“I’m not a cop.”
“No, something else. God, I wish he would tell you. Put an end to all this. We could just be ourselves. What’s the difference, anyway? We could go away somewhere together.”
Connolly stared ahead. A dog was barking on the bridge, herding the children across.
“Is that what we’re going to do?” he said.
“I don’t know. Is it?”
He got up and took her arm. “If that’s what you want, yes. We’ll do whatever you want.”
She looked up at him and nodded. “But not now.”
“No. When it’s finished.”
Eisler got worse that night. The morphine had made him itch, and, unconscious, he had scratched himself over and over, so that in the morning his arms were covered in jagged red lines. Connolly found him tethered to the bed with narrow strips of gauze, and when he reprimanded the nurse and gently untied the arms, thin as sticks, he felt Eisler look up at him, momentarily coherent and grateful. “Robert,” he said, his voice little more than a croak. “Is Robert coming?”
“Later,” Connolly said.
Eisler nodded. “He’s very busy,” he said, then drifted off again.
Later that afternoon they talked a little, but Eisler’s mind wandered. He no longer cared about his charts or his own disintegration. He lived now entirely in memory, sustained by an IV dripping into his arm. When Connolly asked once about Karl, he seemed to have forgotten who he was. He went back to Gottingen, a lecture about the instability of negative charges. Connolly fed him small pieces of ice, and when the ice began to melt it ran down his chin, his cracked lips too dry to absorb the moisture. The gold crown on one of his molars had become radioactive, causing the tongue to swell on one side. When they capped it with a piece of lead foil, a last tamper, his gums bled. Warm June air blew in through the window, but the smell, resistant, hung over everything. Connolly no longer noticed. He watched Eisler’s face, waiting. When Eisler gasped, involuntarily wincing in agony, Connolly knew it was time to ask for another injection, and then he would lose him again until the pain had soaked up the drug and brought him back.
“You’ve got to see him,” he said to Oppenheimer. “He asks for you.” And when Oppenheimer didn’t reply, “He won’t last the week. It would be a mercy.”
“A mercy,” Oppenheimer said, examining the word. “Have you learned anything?”
“It’s too late for that.”
“Then why do you stay?”
Connolly didn’t know what to answer. “It won’t be much longer,” he said.
Oppenheimer did come, in the morning, with the sun cutting through the slats in the blinds. He took off his hat and stood for a minute at the door, appalled, then forced himself to cross to the bed. Eisler’s eyes were closed, his face immobile, stretched taut as a death mask.
“Is he awake?” he said in a low voice to Connolly.
“Try,” Connolly said.
Oppenheimer took Eisler’s hand. “Friedrich.” He held it, waiting, while Eisler’s eyes opened.
“Yes,” Eisler said, a whisper.
“Friedrich, I’ve come.”
Eisler looked at him, his eyes confused. “Yes. Who is it, please?”
Oppenheimer’s face twitched in surprise. Then, slowly, he let the hand go and stood up. “Yes?” Eisler said again vaguely, but his eyes had closed, and Oppenheimer turned away. He faced Connolly, about to speak, but instead his eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t go,” Connolly said.
“He doesn’t know me,” Oppenheimer said dully, and turned toward the door.
Connolly went over to the bed to wake Eisler, but when he looked back again Oppenheimer had gone, so he dropped his hand to his side.
“Yes?” Eisler said faintly, returning.
“It was Robert,” Connolly said, but Eisler seemed not to have heard.
“Robert,” Eisler said, as if the word meant nothing. Then his eyes widened a little and he felt for Connolly’s hand. “Yes, Robert,” he said, holding him.
