The Warsaw Anagrams полностью

I thought that was witty, but he glared at me as if I’d gone too far. ‘With… me,’ he said slowly and darkly, and he took a long and greedy puff. He had fantastic lungs – I’d give him that.

‘Mazel tov! ’ I told him sarcastically. ‘God and Benny Schrei regard me as too clever by half. Do you and He perform together often?’

‘This is useless,’ he concluded, frowning. ‘You’re useless. And I’m too sick of my life to go on hitting verbal ping-pong balls back and forth with a crusty old bugger like you.’ He strode past me, chin high and elbows swinging, just like the cowboy hero in a Karl May Western.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told him, and when he faced me at the kitchen door, I said, ‘I really am, but what can I do?’

I saw in the willingness of his eyes that he’d wanted someone to apologize for a long time – for what, I didn’t know, but every Jew in Poland woke up with an urgent need for someone, even a stranger, to tell him he was sorry.

‘You want me to follow your orders,’ I went on, ‘but I’m exhausted, and underneath my exhaustion is an anger so deep it’s probably bottomless. And besides, I’ve always been bad at doing what other people want.’

The water was boiling by now, but I’d used up all my strength bantering with him. I sat at the table and propped up my head with my hands.

‘When was the last time you had a good meal?’ he asked me.

‘Define good.’

‘I’ll make the chicory,’ he told me.

‘It’s in there,’ I said, pointing to one of the cabinets.

‘So what are you going to do when you find out who killed Adam?’ he asked me, taking out the tin. He also found a wedge of cheese that Stefa must have hidden for an emergency.

‘Have you ever been to London?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he replied.

‘How about Paris?’

‘Once, why?’

He took a paring knife from the towel on which I’d let the washed silverware dry and started scraping the outside of the cheese.

‘Was Paris exactly as you thought it would be?’ I questioned. ‘I mean, when you were walking along the Seine did you feel just as you thought you’d feel?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘So how can I know what I’ll do when I reach the final page of this mystery?’

He scowled as if my comparison was silly. ‘Do you have any bread?’ he asked.

I pointed to my stash of matzo on Stefa’s spice shelf. He took a rectangle and cut two reasonably mould-free slivers of cheese on top. ‘Eat this,’ he said, putting it in front of me.

It was comforting to be given an order. While he made our ersatz coffee, I nibbled away – the third mouse in my family, and the only one who hadn’t yet had his neck snapped in two.

We let silence settle the quarrel between us. I was grateful for that.

‘I want you to come to me when you find out who murdered Adam,’ he told me, putting a steaming cup of chicory in front of me. ‘Before you do anything stupid, I mean.’

‘All right, but I’m prone to doing stupid things. It’s a personality flaw.’

Sniffing, he said, ‘No offence intended, Dr Cohen, but are you aware you smell like a dog’s behind?’

His no offence intended made me laugh. I liked him more and more.

To give ourselves a rest, we talked about the wretched weather for a time – a favoured subject in Warsaw for at least nine months every year. Then he asked about Stefa, and I told him how she’d given me back a belief in miracles. When I spoke of her Moroccan slippers falling off, and of the sores I discovered between her toes, he closed his eyes as if he might give up his Hollywood gangster persona and turn back into the softer man he undoubtedly was in the Before Time.

‘Hey, give me some more cheese,’ I asked, to move us beyond our impasse.

He cut me a big slice, pulling the knife towards his thumb like a peasant, which made me realize how far he’d come.

‘Got a pen and paper?’ he asked while I was licking the crumbs from my palm.

‘What for?’

‘I’m going to write down what I know about Georg.’

I told him to fetch my dream diary from under my pillow and my inkstand from my desk. In the thirty seconds he was gone, I realized the obvious: he was too overworked to solve the murders of Adam, Anna and Georg; he wanted me to do that for him. And I also realized that he must be sure a Jewish accomplice inside the ghetto was at least partly responsible for Adam’s death or he wouldn’t be worried about what I’d do.

‘Who are the letters under your pillow from?’ he asked when he returned.

‘My daughter. She lives in Izmir. She’s an archaeologist. She likes old things.’ Except for her father, I almost added, but I hoped that was no longer true.

‘Thank God she’s safe,’ he told me.

‘Yes, that’s a very good thing. Listen, Schrei, after I find out who killed Adam, Anna and Georg, what’ll you do with me?’

‘Do with you? I won’t do anything with you.’ He was offended by my implication.

‘If the murderer turns out to be a wealthy smuggler who’s collaborating with the Germans, you won’t put a bullet in me?’

‘Not if you keep his identity to yourself.’

‘And if I don’t?’