‘He said something like that once,’ the older boy replied. ‘He mentioned to me that a man told him he could sing at a concert he was going to organize.’
‘Did Georg tell you the man’s name or what he looked like?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
I gave him a złoty with my thanks, and he ran off.
‘Where’s mine?’ Zachariah whined.
‘If I give you more money, I need you to do something for me,’ I told him.
‘What?’
‘I want you to get disinfected at the Leszno Street bathhouse. You know where it is?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good.’ I dropped two złoty – one after the other – into his excited hands. I wanted to tighten the scarf I’d given him around his neck – as an excuse for holding him once more – but he dashed off before I could, one hand securing his crown.
Dorota refused to let me into her apartment once again. ‘My husband isn’t home,’ she confessed, ‘but if he ever learned that a man asking about Anna had been here…’ She shook her head as if dealing with his temper was a constant burden.
‘Just tell me about your daughter’s hand,’ I told her gruffly.
She drew back her head like a surprised hen. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘Did it have any birthmarks?’
‘No.’
‘Anything else that would make it identifiable to someone who’d never seen her before?’
‘I don’t know – just a small patch… a discoloration on the back,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But why are you-?’
‘What did the patch look like?’ I interrupted.
‘It was tiny and red – like a stain. On the skin between her thumb and index finger. People were always trying to wipe it clean when she was little.’
‘Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me that before?’ I demanded angrily.
‘It was so small. And it seemed so unimportant. Besides, Anna was ashamed of it.’ She reached for my arm. ‘The poor girl hated it!’
Outside Dorota’s apartment house I took my first steps too quickly and slipped on the fresh snow. The trunk of a beech tree saved me from a bad tumble. Embracing it, standing apart from the people hurrying past, I saw that Adam and Anna had both been marked at birth. And if I was right, then Georg had been, too. Someone had wanted their skin blemishes and birthmarks. But why?
Everything pointed to their having been murdered outside the ghetto and then dumped in the barbed wire. And it seemed clear now that Georg was recruited by either Rowy or Ziv. One of them must have identified the children to the murderer – a German or possibly Pole – who had had the kids followed and snatched.
I was anxious to question both men, of course, but doing that would do little good, I reasoned; if one or both of them were guilty, they’d try to cast the blame on someone else – probably on Mikael, since there was no reason why they wouldn’t be able to make the same deductions I had. Or would they simply tell me that they couldn’t have known that Adam and Georg had any skin blemishes? After all, it was unlikely that they’d seen either boy naked or – during our frigid winter – in short pants. Only one person could have – Mikael.
Maybe Anna had threatened to denounce him for his abortions and he had asked whoever was working with him on the outside to kill her when she left the ghetto. In that case, the murderer had waited until she visited Mrs Sawicki, then lured her away.
I hailed a rickshaw, sure of only one thing: I’d resume following Mikael as my most likely suspect. But as soon as we set off for his office, a fact I’d overlooked made me call out to the driver that we needed to change our destination.
I discovered Stefa’s apartment door open. A squat young Gestapo officer with his cap in his hands was gazing out the window. Another Nazi, older, his hair turned to silver by the light from my carbide lamp, was reading.
Before I could slip away, the younger man turned to me with a surprised expression. Sensing a change in the room, the German at my desk also faced me. Putting down his book, he showed me a cat-like grin.
My legs tensed, and if I’d been younger, I’d have raced down the staircase. Instead, I slipped out of my coat and stepped inside. At times, the state of one’s body can determine everything.
‘Are you Dr Erik Cohen?’ the German who’d been reading asked me. He put on his cap and stood up.
‘Yes.’
‘We need you to come with us.’ His Prussian accent made me shrink back.
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘Out of the ghetto. I’ll explain in the car.’
I hung up my coat to give me time to take a couple of deep breaths. ‘I’ve done nothing,’ I told him.
He smiled, amused, revealing fine Aryan teeth – the teeth of a man who ate satisfying meals served by starving Jews.
‘We’re not going to kill you just yet – that would be too kind,’ he told me.
Apparently, that was what passed for wit amongst the Nazis; the young German laughed in an appreciative burst.
‘Why do you want me?’ I asked.
‘I’ll explain on the way down the stairs.’
