Richard Zimler - The Warsaw Anagrams

‘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.’

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.