Richard Zimler - The Warsaw Anagrams

He was seated as his worktable. I was standing, too jittery to sit.

‘It could be a trap,’ he warned.

‘No, I don’t think so. Irene lied to me, but only because she’s terrified – and so I’d come to realize that she’d scripted some of what she told me. Whatever she knows has put her in physical danger. She couldn’t tell me any more than she did without risking not just her own life but also her mother’s – without killing her family. So she’s leaving it up to me to identify the murderer – and to do whatever has to be done.’

‘If that’s true, then you’ll never hear from her again,’ Izzy said authoritatively.

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s already told you all she could.’

‘Except that Mrs Lanik said she would wait for her husband’s next absence and then send a car for me.’

‘What if she lied, too? She might have helped her daughter plan everything. Maybe her parents aren’t in Bordeaux, after all. She might have told you that to make sure you knew that some of what Irene told you had been made up. And if her husband or ex-husband are involved in the murders in some way, it’s more likely that she’s the one who overheard what they’d done – or maybe even saw the bodies.’

While I thought that over, he cut us squares of foie gras. He put mine on a slice of bread and ate his plain because of his rickety teeth.

‘There’s more I need to tell you before we leave the ghetto,’ I told him. ‘I think that Adam, Anna and Georg were killed for the defects on their skin.’

‘Defects? What are you talking about?’ he asked.

‘Remember the birthmarks on the back of Adam’s right ankle?’

‘Of course, but what good could they be to anyone?’

I explained why I believed Rowy and a partner outside the ghetto might be responsible for identifying the children to be murdered – possibly with the help of Ziv.

‘Sorry, Erik, I don’t buy it,’ he told me, licking some foie gras off his fingers. ‘Rowy wouldn’t tell you how frightened he was of being forced again into a labour gang if that was his motivation for turning three kids over to the Nazis.’

‘He probably didn’t believe I would be any good at detective work.’

‘Pfffttt!’ he scoffed, in that Gallic way he’d picked up aboard the Bourdonnais . ‘As for Ziv, Ewa told me he runs away every time a mouse appears in the bakery.’

‘But he can think ten moves ahead at chess! He could have planned everything.’ Then a perverse possibility made me start. ‘He was jealous of Adam. My God, he wanted to remove the boy from Stefa’s life!’

‘Even if that were true, which I don’t believe, why would he kill Anna and Georg?’

‘I don’t know, but he did volunteer to help Rowy find more kids for the chorus. What if it was so he could identify children for murder?’

‘I admit that sounds suspicious, but you saw how shattered he was after Stefa’s death. Is that the kind of young man who would plan to murder children?’

‘Look, Izzy,’ I told him, irritated that he was right, ‘all I know is that after we try to find Jesion, we need to take a good look through Rowy’s apartment and Ziv’s room at the bakery. We have to turn up something incriminating. And we’ve got to work fast. We’ve no guarantee that whoever is responsible won’t have another Jewish boy or girl killed.’

Izzy gazed down into that terrible possibility, then started. ‘Erik,’ he told me, ‘what would you say if I could bring the murderer’s Jewish accomplice straight to us?’

Izzy and I moved my desk and my old Mała typewriter into Stefa’s room. We settled on the following wording for our note:

Someone has learned of our activities, and we’re in danger. I need to talk with you. We need to meet outside the ghetto as soon as possible. Introduce yourself to the guards at the corner of Leszno and Żelazna this evening, at exactly 7.30. Do not try to contact me. The guards at the gate will know to expect you. A car will be waiting outside to take you to my home.

We typed three copies and left them unsigned. We put them in envelopes but wrote no name on the outside.

Whoever had been responsible for Adam’s death would be terrified of being exposed as a murderer and would take the note seriously even if he wasn’t absolutely sure it was genuine. As for whoever was innocent, he’d likely believe that the note had been sent to him in error – since his name was not written either in the letter or on the envelope – and stay far away from the guards at Leszno and Żelazna.

I paid a boy selling armbands embroidered with the Star of David to take the letter to Ziv in the bakery, and Izzy paid an old woman selling tin cups on the sidewalk outside Mikael Tengmann’s office to hand an envelope to him.

I wanted to take a quick look at Rowy’s apartment before leaving our note. It was on the ground floor of a stately neoclassical building, with impressive columns flanking the doorway, but much of the roof had imploded and was patched with wooden planks and burlap.

Luckily, I found the young man at home, practising the slow movement of what sounded like a Mozart concerto. His warm, full tone seemed to give form to my sense of abandonment. I could not bear it for more than a moment and knocked.

Rowy welcomed me warmly and put his violin back in its velvet-lined case. I told him I’d had some good fortune and handed him the caviar Mrs Lanik had given me – the price of putting him at ease. He insisted on opening the can right away, and on toasting some challah to eat with it. I sat at his worktable, which was piled high with musical scores. Next to me a rusted bicycle was leaning against a wooden dresser – Izzy and I would start by searching there.

A pink sheet hung from the ceiling halfway back, hiding the only window from view.

‘A young couple with a toddler moved in a few weeks ago,’ Rowy explained.

It was cold in the apartment, so he put more sawdust in his oven. Over our snack, we got to talking about the cramped conditions in the ghetto, and Rowy warned me that the Jewish Council had begun forcing residents with spare rooms to accept Jews who had arrived recently from the provinces. Waving off his concern, I said, ‘Izzy already told me. A girl I know named Bina just moved in with her mother and uncle.’

‘Three extra people – it must be hell,’ he said, and from the way he looked at me, I knew he meant more than sharing my home with strangers.

I couldn’t discuss my inner life with a man I didn’t trust, so I made believe I’d failed to understand his implication. ‘I’ll be fine living in Stefa’s room,’ I assured him.

On saying goodbye, he embraced me. I went stiff, but then kissed his cheek to throw off his suspicions. After leaving, I waited a half-hour, then slid our note under his door and fled.

By then, it was just after five in the afternoon. Izzy had suggested the Leszno Street gate because there was a small café run by an acquaintance of ours nearby, and from there we could see everyone entering or exiting the ghetto. We met there at 5.30. We took a table by the window. We kept the brims of our hats low on our foreheads to be less recognizable.

At seven, we went outside to make sure we didn’t miss any passers-by. I turned up my collar and stood with my back to the street to keep my face hidden, blocking Izzy from view at the same time. Whenever anyone approached, he would glance around my shoulder to see who it was.

We stood that way until fifteen minutes to eight. The coming curfew had emptied the street by then. A Jewish policeman told us we’d better make our way home.

We dragged ourselves off; we’d failed to trap Rowy, Ziv or Mikael.