"Aha," he said again, clearly unconvinced. Then he shrugged and said, "If that's what you want, then I'll do it. But you're making a mistake. A big mistake."
"Thank you, Shmuel."
He grunted, not bothering to hide how sour he was about my holding back information he desired.
After a moment in which neither of us spoke, I said, "About Esther Grunewald…"
"What about her?"
"How will you write her up?"
"In the best possible light, of course. I'll describe her selflessness in taking and saving another woman's child. I'll write about the gruesome manner of her death. Apart from a few coldhearted creatures, I doubt anyone who reads my column will finish it with dry eyes."
"You're not going to write about her involvement with a British officer?"
He pursed his lips and shook his head. "In my opinion, she's a hero, Adam, but most people won't see her that way. What they'll see is a woman who went to bed with an enemy officer, regardless of why she did it and how many Jews benefited from her actions. Do I need to tell you what words they'll use to describe her?"
"No," I said bitterly. So Mira had been right.
"I don't think she deserves that," said Birnbaum.
"What she deserves is to be celebrated as a hero."
"And one day, a few years from now, perhaps, she will be. Look, Adam, we're a young country. We need our heroes to be pure, just like a young child sees his parents. We can't process gray, only black and white. When we grow up, when we mature, then we will be able to appreciate Esther Grunewald and the hard and unseemly sacrifices she had to make."
"I understand," I said.
"I wish it were different," said Birnbaum.
The next night, after all the customers had gone, Greta locked the door to the café and came to sit with me at my table.
She had made a fresh pot of coffee and now proceeded to fill two cups, handing me one. I set it down on the table to let it cool. For now, the wonderful aroma it emitted was enough.
While the coffee cooled, I told Greta everything that had happened, from the night Alon Davidson attacked me to my last meeting with Michael. She listened in silence, shaking her head in disgust and anger when I told her about Leah Goldin's betrayal of Esther and of Strauss's attempted rape of her. She broke the silence when I got to the part about the assassin who had followed me from the café to the beach.
"So that was what that whole nonsense was about," Greta said. "I thought you had a screw loose—telling me to act naturally and informing me that you were going for a walk on the beach." She frowned. "Why the beach?"
"I wanted a secluded place where I could talk to him."
"Wasn't that risky?"
"It was. But I had an advantage: he didn't know that I was onto him and that I had a gun with me. Besides, there was no choice. He had information I needed."
"And you got it," Greta said.
"I did."
"And the man?"
I told her. She pursed her lips and looked away for a few seconds. Then she returned her eyes to me.
"It had to be done, didn't it?"
"Yes," I said. "It did. And he deserved it."
Greta gave a short nod to herself, sealing the matter. She sipped her coffee. She did not ask about Strauss. She didn't need to. His death had made front-page news in a couple of newspapers. He was found dead in his office with three bullets in him. The police were said to be pursuing a number of leads, but I doubted any of them would pan out. Mira would not have left any incriminating evidence. The police had also not made any connection between Strauss and the dead man who was found a few days earlier in a shed on the beach.
"What did he look like?" Greta asked, once I'd finished my story.
"The man who followed me to the beach?"
"Yes."
I described him to her. Greta shook her head.
"I don't remember him," she said, making a face. "I don't like the idea of criminals visiting my café, and I like the fact that I'm unable to tell them by their faces even less. And he's not the only one I missed."
She was talking about Michael. The story of his arrest and confession had appeared in Birnbaum's column in that morning's
"My first impression of Michael was rather positive as well," I said.
"And your second was of him saving your life. It's incredible, isn't it, the way things turned out?"
"Yes."
"And sad. So incredibly sad."
"Are you talking about Esther or Michael?"
"Both. What he did was terrible, of course. But he was driven mad by the loss of his son and his wife's condition. I can't help but feel sorry for him."
I drank some coffee. I wondered whether I had been driven mad by the loss of my wife and daughters, and if so, whether I had ever recovered.
"Are you really going to visit his son's grave?" Greta asked.
"Yes. And Talia Shamir's grave as well."
"Oh?"
"Michael asked me to, when we were walking to the police station. He thought Talia might forgive him now that he was about to confess."
"So you were right. Confessing was good for him."
"In some ways, yes."
"His future will not be easy. He will be in jail for a very long time."
