The Warsaw Anagrams полностью

‘A lot.’ He held his hands half a foot apart. ‘Tell me about Paweł.’

‘A nice boy, by all accounts. Went to the cinema with Anna, took her on picnics. Only one problem: his mother is a Jew-hating witch who banished him to Switzerland to keep him away from Anna. So was there anything special about the skin that was taken from the boy?’

‘We can’t find anyone who knew him well enough to say. Was there anything special about Anna’s hand?’

‘Her mother didn’t think so. What was the boy’s name?’

‘Georg.’

‘And where was Georg found?’

‘Chłodna Street – in the barbed wire, just like Adam.’ Schrei smoked thoughtfully and disregarded my next question. ‘So maybe Paweł’s mother had Anna killed,’ he conjectured in a slow, cautious voice. ‘Anna knew her, so maybe she could have been lured somewhere to be murdered by her, or by someone helping her.’

‘Maybe. I mean, that’s what witches do – kill children. But I’ve no reason to believe that Anna ever met Adam, and in any case, it’s nearly impossible for me to believe that Mrs Sawicki knew anything about him, so why would she have had him murdered?’ I went to the window and gazed down into an image of Stefa lying under the Berlin Morgenpost. Schrei tossed me his next question, but I let it fall between us. ‘You know what Mrs Sawicki told me?’ I said to him. ‘That our story is over – the Jews, I mean.’

‘She may be right,’ he replied glumly.

Schrei closed his eyes and angled his face up, as though trying in vain to recall the warmth of summer sunlight, and just like that we were on the same team – fighting to keep The End from being written into our four-thousand-year-old autobiography.

‘You want something to drink?’ I asked him in a conciliatory tone. ‘I’ve still got a little schnapps left.’

‘Any coffee?’ he asked.

‘Some chicory substitute that isn’t too bad.’

On the way to the kitchen to boil water, I patted his shoulder. Surprised by my gesture of friendship, he stood up and accompanied me.

‘Georg – did anyone see who left his body in the barbed wire?’ I asked.

‘No. Was Anna smuggling?’ he shot back, leaning against the cabinets.

‘I don’t think so. She left the ghetto to see Paweł, but he was already in Switzerland.’ To keep my word, I refrained from revealing she’d been pregnant. ‘She never made it back inside,’ I added. ‘Not that she had much to return to.’

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘There’s a second witch in her story.’

‘Who?’

‘Her mother forbade her to date Goyim,’ I replied, ‘and she beat Anna when she refused to give up her Polish Prince Charming. Do you know if Georg had ever met Adam or Anna?’

‘No, I’ve no idea,’ Schrei replied.

‘And you know where he lived?’

‘He’d been in the Krochmalna Street orphanage, but he’d run away.’

‘The orphanage run by Janusz Korczak?’ I asked.

‘That’s right. Have you discovered anything that Adam and Anna had in common?’

‘They had the ghetto in common,’ I replied.

Thinking I was trying to be funny, he grinned – a tough guy’s grudging smile – and took a quick, determined puff on his cigarette. He was starting to like me and getting his energy back.

‘And what else?’ he asked.

‘Being half-starved… becoming adults before their time… wanting to get to a warmer climate.’ I refrained from mentioning Mikael or Rowy just yet; I didn’t entirely trust Schrei and couldn’t risk him alerting my suspects that I’d be following them. ‘How long a list do you want?’ I asked him.

‘I meant,’ he said, sighing mightily, ‘have you found anything specific they had in common?’

‘Not yet,’ I lied.

‘Were Anna and Adam friends with any of the same kids?’ Schrei asked.

‘Not that I know of. Was there any string in Georg’s mouth when you found him?’

‘String?’

‘Adam had a small piece of white string in his mouth. Did anyone look in Georg’s?’

‘No, but he might have been keeping a tiny square of gauze in his fist.’

‘Might have? What’s that mean?’

‘We found a piece of gauze in his fist. But maybe it had been in the barbed wire and got stuck to him when he was tossed there. It had been raining – the gauze must have been wet and clingy.’

‘What kind of gauze?’

‘The kind used in wedding veils, that sort of thing.’

‘Did you save it?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘It didn’t seem important. Look, Dr Cohen, hundreds of Jewish kids die each month in the ghetto – should we save everything they’ve got in their hands?’

‘Was the gauze bloody?’

‘No, it was clean.’

‘Which means it may have been put in his fist after he was murdered. Or he may even have snatched it up.’

‘Why would he do that?’ Schrei questioned.

‘I don’t know. What was Georg’s surname?’

‘If I tell you that, you have to promise not to go public with anything you find out.’

‘Whatever you want,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll even leave you my first editions of Freud in my will. You can read, can’t you?’

‘This is serious, Dr Cohen. You’re already in trouble.’

‘With whom? Besides God, I mean – for being an assimilated Jew.’