At just before eight, Ewa kissed me goodnight and led Helena to the door. I tried to give her money for a rickshaw – one of the bicycles mounted with a seat in front that had become common on our island by then – but she refused.
I propped Stefa up with pillows and spooned soup into her mouth, but she ate with inner-turned eyes and said nothing to me.
Then – God knows why – I sat at my desk and wrote a list of all the people I had known who were dead, starting with Adam and Hannah. I counted them when I was done: twenty-five. I spent another hour working on the list and came up with two more. But I still wasn’t satisfied.
Only then did I remember that my mother became a frenzied list-maker after my younger brother was born. Papa and I would find her numbered inventories everywhere around the house. Years later, I asked her about it, and she told me it was the only way she could keep her head above the high water of having two children to raise.
On a whim, I inserted
I settled into Stefa’s armchair for the night. She stirred only once, some time after midnight, needing to pee, and her fever was down a little in the morning. She thanked me in a strong voice when I handed her a cup of hot tea sweetened with molasses and the sugar crystal I’d saved. I felt she’d returned home and kissed her cheek in welcome. After smearing rhubarb jam on her toast, I fed her pieces on the end of a fork. She joked about my aristocratic table manners, which seemed a very good sign, but while I was in the kitchen making myself some ersatz coffee, she called out, ‘Is Adam’s shirt dry yet?’
I went in to her. Maybe something in my expression reminded her of the truth; her eyes opened wide in horror and she brought her hands to her mouth.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she whispered timidly.
‘Let’s talk,’ I said, rubbing her feet through the covers. ‘You’ll tell me whatever you want, and I’ll make no judgements. I promise.’
I made that vow because I couldn’t bear the thought of being remembered as an unfair uncle after I was gone.
‘No,’ she told me firmly. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
I stood up and retreated to the kitchen. There was a knock on the door while I was staring mindlessly into my coffee. I found Wolfi, Feivel and Sarah looking up at me from the landing. Their little faces were fearful; I suppose they thought that Adam’s death might have turned me against them.
‘Hello, Dr Cohen, we… we came to see Gloria,’ Feivel told me hesitantly.
‘She’s not doing so good,’ I replied. ‘But you can come in and feed her if you like.’
While Feivel and Wolfi spilled seeds into her dish, Sarah carried the budgie’s water cup back from the sink in both her hands, determined not to spill a drop. Her clenched determination gave me an idea.
‘Maybe one of you could adopt Gloria,’ I suggested. ‘Adam would want that.’
Wolfi said, ‘My dad hates pets. And he says birds shit all the time.’
Feivel gazed down, swirling his foot. Sarah bit her lip, looking as if she wanted to dash away.
‘Forget what I said,’ I told them. ‘I was being thoughtless.’
‘No, I’ll take her!’ Feivel announced, and he nodded hard when I looked at him, as if to convince us both.
As the two boys carried the cage downstairs, Sarah looked back at me for a moment, as though to fix me and the apartment in her memory, and I realized – with despair clutching at me – that I’d never see her or any of Adam’s other friends ever again.
At 9.15, I left Stefa alone to visit Mrs Rackemann. She let me into her shop and locked the door with a firm twist of her hand.
The forger she’d hired – who went by the name of Otto – had typed me a document on Nazi stationery identifying Erik Honec as Sub-Director for the Warsaw District of the
She grinned cagily on telling me that – she plainly adored trying to outwit the Nazis.
I tilted the stationery towards the light from her desk lamp. At the top of the sheet of off-white paper, the Nazi emblem – an eagle perched on a wreath centred by a swastika – looked sinisterly impressive. And the embossed stamp at the bottom seemed to be the real thing. As I ran my finger over its surface, Mrs Rackemann said, ‘Otto’s pretty damn good, isn’t he?’
‘A real pro,’ I agreed.
‘He produced papers for the Polish Interior Ministry for several years. He knows what he’s doing – though he wished you’d supplied him with a photograph.’
‘I might have lost my nerve if I’d gone home to get one. Besides, a Pole won’t know what to expect, and I’m not planning on identifying myself to any German officials.’
