Anguished by the sweaty confinement of my clothing, I wriggled out of my coat and threw down my hat. Knowing what I had to do next, I gulped down the rest of my vodka.
Peeling the blanket off Adam’s face, I discovered a tiny cut on his bottom lip. A scrape from the barbed wire? With the tip of my finger, I touched it, then gently prised his lips apart. The end of a white string was caught between his teeth. Holding my breath, I pulled at it but it wouldn’t budge.
I couldn’t risk breaking his jaw or scarring his lips. I covered Adam’s face and asked Schmul how long it would take for the boy’s body to become malleable again.
‘Up to three days,’ he replied.
Stefa was more religious than I was and would never wait that long to bury Adam, which created a dilemma. ‘I need for you to get a message to a friend right away,’ I told the undertaker, handing him all the złoty I had left in my pocket, which he refused, saying I’d given him enough. I told him where to find Izzy and what to say to him.
Stefa might appear at any moment, so as Schmul headed off, I turned my attention back to Adam. I could find no bloodstains on his belly, chest, or behind, which was another indication that whoever disfigured him had let the boy’s blood coagulate before starting his work. Yet the murderer or his assistant hadn’t waited very long, for if he had, the capillaries on Adam’s chest wouldn’t have released any blood at all on being pressed and no bruises would have been visible.
Of course, it was possible that Adam had been mutilated right after being killed and had bled profusely but had been carefully washed afterwards. Yet it seemed unlikely that anyone would spend so much time cleaning a Jewish boy soon to be discarded.
By now, the vodka was starting to turn my thoughts to mist, so I eased my head back on to the flagstones. And amidst the ceaseless flow of clouds, I saw that Adam’s murder had taken away my terror of death; nothing worse could ever happen to me.
Izzy and Schmul helped me up when they arrived.
‘Any sign of Stefa?’ I asked.
‘None,’ Izzy replied. ‘You want me to check on her?’
‘No, don’t go. If she hasn’t come down yet, it’s because Ewa managed to convince her to try to get some sleep.’
When I told Izzy what I wanted him to do, he shook his head and held up a hand between us like a shield. ‘I’m sorry, Erik, I can’t – it’s impossible.’
‘Please, look at what they’ve done to Adam. We need to find out what happened.’
After I pulled the blanket off the boy, Izzy reached behind him for the stability of a wall that wasn’t there and nearly tumbled over. We looked at each other across fifty years of friendship; two old men realizing there were no words in any language to describe a loss – and crime – like this.
I held him while he cried. The way he shook pushed me deeply into the past.
He brought me into the present again by standing back from me and wiping his eyes. ‘Erik, I don’t think I can touch him,’ he told me.
‘Please, Izzy, it has to be someone who loved him. I can’t let anyone else do this.’
He lifted his hands to explain himself, then lowered them, hopeless.
‘No one else will be as careful as you,’ I told him. ‘I need you more than I’ve ever needed anyone.’
Sitting on the ground, he took a tiny pair of tweezers from the small leather case he’d brought with him, then turned to me. ‘For pity’s sake, Erik, don’t watch me.’
Schmul and I waited in the hallway of Stefa’s building. Izzy soon came to us with a two-inch length of white string pinched in his fingers. It bore no traces of blood.
‘Any idea where it’s from?’ he asked, dropping it into my palm.
‘None.’
‘How do you suppose it ended up in Adam’s mouth?’
‘Maybe whoever killed him put it there to tell us something about himself,’ I theorized. ‘A kind of calling card.’
‘You think a Nazi is challenging us to find him?’
‘Maybe. Though it’s just possible that Adam managed to secretly put the string in his mouth – knowing it could somehow identify who did this. He was a smart boy.’
Schmul had overheard us. ‘But Dr Cohen,’ he said, ‘what about his leg? What does that mean?’
‘That? That means whoever did this is not like you or me,’ I replied, ‘or anyone we’ve ever met.’
Stefa and Ewa came to the courtyard a few minutes later, carrying towels, soap and a bucket of hot water. My niece’s eyes were so red that they might have been bleeding.
‘I’ll go to Pinkiert’s and organize everything,’ I assured her. ‘But first tell me if you were able to find out anything at 1 Leszno Street.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she replied.
‘At the place where Adam may have crossed over. Had anyone seen him?’
‘No.’
