Richard Zimler - The Warsaw Anagrams

I put all the valuables I’d sell inside my old leather briefcase.

When Izzy was finished hunting and pecking, I led him into the kitchen, where Bina was scouring the oven. She was wearing her coat and her black beret.

‘Give me your hand,’ I told the girl, reaching out for her.

I put five hundred złoty in her palm. ‘Make sure you stay alive!’ I ordered her. She replied that it was too great a sum, so I shook her hard. ‘Do anything you need to do, but promise me you’ll make it out of here!’

‘I swear,’ she replied, starting to cry, because I was bullying her.

Apologizing, I hugged her to me, then counted out another 500 złoty and handed them to her. ‘Give half of this to a little acrobat named Zachariah Manberg who performs outside the Femina Theatre every day at noon. But only give it to him a little at a time. Otherwise he’ll just squander it – or have it stolen by the older boys.’

‘And the other half, Dr Cohen?’

‘There’s a young woman who works in the bakery in the courtyard – Ewa. I want her to have it.’

‘I’ve met her. I’ll make sure she gets it.’

‘Good girl. Also, if you run out of funds, there are some reasonably good paintings in Stefa’s wardrobe, and first editions of psychiatry books on my shelves. Sell them on the Other Side if you can, but don’t take stupid risks. You can sell everything but Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams . Leave that for me, in case I need to come back.’

Bina nodded.

I was left with a little more than a thousand złoty for myself, and Izzy had nearly six hundred at his workshop.

‘All right, let’s get going,’ I told him.

‘Where will you go?’ the girl asked.

‘We’ve one errand to run inside the ghetto, then we’ll head for the Soviet Ukraine. I don’t think I’ll be back.’

She brought her hands over her mouth and moaned. ‘You’re… you’re leaving for good?’

‘Yes, it’s time.’

‘But we’ll see each other when we’re free, won’t we?’ she asked in a petrified voice.

‘Yes,’ I replied, smiling. ‘I’ll come back and find you. We’ll have a reunion, right here in Stefa’s apartment. So take good care of it.’

‘I will. Now bend your head down, Dr Cohen,’ she requested.

‘What?’

‘Bend down.’

I did. And then that astonishing girl gripped my shoulders and kissed me on my brow as if I were her child setting out for his first day of school.

I’d put on my good suit so that I’d look like an elderly gentleman out for a leisurely stroll. At Izzy’s workshop, he, too, changed into his best clothes and put on his Borsalino. Then he counted his stash of złoty and grabbed his gold watch. I reminded him to take a lemon along. He took two. He slid his photographs from the Bourdonnais under his coat.

‘I need to say goodbye to Róźa,’ he told me.

I waited outside his apartment. When he returned to me, his face was flushed.

I hailed a rickshaw. I had to decide now where to go: Mikael’s office or the Jewish Council.

‘Where to?’ the driver asked.

‘Just a minute,’ I told him. ‘I still don’t think I can kill Mikael,’ I confessed to Izzy.

‘Then let me do it,’ he requested.

‘It’s not your war,’ I told him.

‘Erik, I loved Adam too!’

‘Still, you should go to Louis guiltless.’

‘Me, guiltless?’ He grabbed my arm hard. ‘Have you heard anything I’ve told you about my life?’

I took his free hand and kissed it. A strange gesture, but this was not a day like any other, and a quarrel with him could have ruined all our plans.

Izzy understood. ‘Sorry,’ he told me.

I turned round to face the driver. ‘Take us to the Jewish Council’s headquarters,’ I told him.

Benjamin Schrei was in an office he shared with two other men. He rushed to greet us, smiling his million-dollar Gablewitz smile, and introduced us to his colleagues, who brought us desk chairs.

We sat down opposite our host. Four wilted, fire-coloured tulips sat in a turquoise vase on his desk between us.

‘You might try watering them,’ Izzy told him in his bantering way.

Schrei slicked back his gleaming hair and sighed. ‘They were doing great till this morning. You should have come yesterday. It’s your timing that’s bad.’

‘Yesterday, we didn’t know what we know now,’ I replied, and I told him what we’d learned about Mikael. When I was done, I handed him Georg’s pendant and suggested that he question Ewa if he had any doubts about our conclusions. Izzy added that he’d probably find Anna’s earrings with Rowy.

‘You boys have done good work,’ he told us. ‘And the council is grateful.’ He lit the cigarette that he’d dangled between his lips, then leaned towards us. ‘So what do you have in mind for Dr Tengmann?’

He squinted at me through his smoke.

‘Does it make any difference what I tell you?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘I’ll take care of him whatever you say.’

‘And take care of means exactly what?’ Izzy questioned.

‘He shall cease to cast a shadow on this earth,’ Schrei answered in a dramatic voice. Catching my glance, he added, ‘Nothing you can say will prevent that. Still, I’d like to know what you’d do in my position.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m a curious man. And I want your opinion. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you, Dr Cohen. You interest me.’

‘Even though I’m an assimilated Jew?’ I asked to provoke him.

‘You’re hardly assimilated now.’ Eyeing me cagily, he said, ‘Face it, Dr Cohen, you stink like a ragpicker from the most backward shtetl in Poland. And you’ll never voluntarily speak German or Polish again to anyone who isn’t Jewish. Am I right?’

‘Probably,’ I admitted.

‘You know,’ he added, an amused smile twisting his lips, ‘if you learned a little Hebrew, you could be a pretty good Yid.’

‘He is a pretty good Yid!’ countered Izzy, ready for a fight.

‘You’re right,’ Schrei replied. ‘I’m sorry. It was a bad joke.’

‘I think Stefa would want him dead,’ I told him.

‘Fine, but what do you want?’ our host insisted.

‘I want a cigarette,’ I requested, stalling.

I knew that Schrei wanted me to give him the biblical answer: an eye for an eye … That would have proved I accepted the rules of the God of the Torah. But what he didn’t understand is that I wanted to take responsibility for my revenge. I wanted that sceptre of red fire for myself.

‘Mikael Tengmann being killed won’t bring back Adam,’ I told him after he’d lit my cigarette. ‘And my sending him straight to hell wouldn’t make me happy.’

‘It won’t make me happy either,’ he confessed. ‘But I’ll still do it.’

‘You’ve a hard job,’ I told him.

‘Ah, now you’re beginning to understand,’ he replied, showing me a gratified smile.

‘You take care of Mikael, and I’ll take care of the Nazi working with him,’ I said as if we were trading stocks.

He shook my hand to complete the deal. ‘All right, but do you know who the German is?’

‘Yes.’

‘How are you going to get him?’

Izzy answered for us. ‘That depends on how well he’s guarded.’

‘Maybe you should take a few days to plan this,’ Schrei suggested. ‘If the Germans find you outside the ghetto, they’ll shoot you on the spot. And that’s if you’re lucky.’

‘I can’t wait. If I wait, I may lose my nerve,’ I told him.

‘You have money for bribes?’

‘Yes.’

‘A gun?’

Izzy patted his pocket. ‘It’s German,’ he replied, grinning at the irony.