“I did?”
“To see him, Judit.” Now, he gave a nervous half-smile.
“So he’s here?”
“Of course he’s here,” Bondi said. “It’s all been arranged. They’re expecting us today. He’s in good spirits, apparently. He’s had a few visitors since that documentary premiered. I should say,” he added, “that not all of those visitors come away with a positive impression.”
“That’s not surprising,” said Judit. Thus, she acknowledged, at last, the visit’s purpose. It was not a holiday. It was something else altogether, planned back in another lifetime, and she wondered if she could ask Bondi to cancel the appointment. Frankly, she didn’t know what she would say to Stein, and couldn’t remember what she’d planned to ask him. Could she back down? Probably not. At best, she would brazen the visit out and just move on. She said to Bondi, “Afterwards, let’s see if you can get us a real room.”
Bondi said, “I like this one. Lie down. Next to me. On the bed.”
“It’s awfully narrow,” Judit said, but she did manage to lie next to him. He rearranged himself and unfastened the rest of her zipper, resting his cheek against her belly. “You won’t hear anything, Joseph,” Judit said. “Believe me, it’s too soon.”
“How do you know? I have remarkable abilities in that direction. I hear everything.”
“And what do you hear?”
“A heartbeat.”
“That’s my own heart,” Judit said, “or yours.”
“I hear her say, Momma, don’t work so hard.” Bondi spoke Yiddish.
Judit giggled. His cheek tickled, and the Yiddish couldn’t help but sound a little comical. “How do you know it’s a she?”
Bondi continued. “Stop working, Momma, just for a while. Take a vacation. And throw the film away.”
Judit sat up. Bondi was sitting too, right across from her, and he was no longer the boy in the convertible. He was a serious man who had his coat on, and he looked at her with clarity and authority. He continued in Yiddish.
“Throw it away. Let it be. Please, Judit, it will do no good.”
Judit said, “What film?” Almost before the words were out of her mouth, she asked, “Who told you?”
“Everyone knows,” Bondi said. The shift to German seemed to cause him effort, as though he were struggling to keep the situation at arm’s length. “You aren’t discreet. You can’t be. It’s not your nature. And the timing couldn’t be worse. Please tell me you have it here.”
“I have it here,” Judit said.
“Good,” said Bondi. “Give it to me.”
“I need to think, Joseph. It’s not that simple. You can’t understand. I have a responsibility—”
“Yes you do,” said Bondi. “To our child.”
Judit rolled over. The room had a wide window, and the view was magnificent, a stretch of meadow leading to woodlands hazy with buds and pinks. She laid a hand on her belly, just where Bondi had placed his cheek, and did imagine she felt something, though it was far too early. “Maybe after I talk to him,” she said.
“He has nothing to do with it,” said Bondi. “Why bother an old man who’s been dying for thirty-five years, who’s already dead? So Soviet soldiers shot a lot of Germans in the head. That’s what they always do. The Red Army were savages, and if you think Stein could give orders to men like that, you’re just naïve.”
“How could you even know?” Judit asked. Then she understood. Of course Bondi knew. He’d known for years, just as Lehmann had known. There must be thousands of people who knew, and they let history move on. Maybe they dismissed it, or maybe they forgot. Or did they? A generation of survivors lined up at that tent in Dresden. Did her own parents line up at that tent in Dresden? Did Rudolph Ginsberg dig the grave of Hans’s parents? The Russians killed them, but her father dug their grave. Would she betray her own father? Would Hans avenge his parents? Would he step forward with the evidence? Who’d stop him? She could not move. She couldn’t name what she was feeling, even as Bondi folded her into his arms.
“Sometimes I think that none of this is real to you,” Bondi said. “Not me, not the baby. You’re not living in the present. If I could only make you know how meaningless, how stupid it is to bring up that old stuff again.”
“This is why my husband’s dead,” Judit said.
The words were buried in Bondi’s coat. He was right. None of it was real to her, neither his arms, nor the citrus smell of his cologne, nor whatever had or hadn’t been developing inside her since March. Nothing was real but what had happened in the Opera House four years ago.
But no. Bondi was real. He’d been there too. The muscles through that coat were hard, and there was something else she could feel against his thigh. Old grief gave way to instinct and she rubbed herself against it. He pulled back abruptly. It was a gun.
“Are you on duty?” Judit asked.
They looked at each other for a long time without speaking, and what passed between them was acknowledgment.
Then someone knocked. It was the orderly, who announced that the patient was ready to receive visitors.
2
JUDIT hadn’t been sure what to expect. In the documentary, Stein had been sitting up, looking right at the camera, lean, but also wiry and vigorous. What she saw now was a figure arranged on a hospital bed, with a leonine head propped on several pillows. His eyes were closed, his wild hair translucent. Bags of fluid and blood-filled tubes extended from both wrists, and his arms were wrapped around a hard, white cushion. His male nurse sat him a little higher, as Judit and Bondi approached.
“Please, he shouldn’t strain himself,” Judit whispered.
Stein heard her. “No. No. It’s good for me.” And now, Judit was startled; as in the film, that voice remained rich, warm and strong in ways that seemed impossible. Then Stein opened his eyes. They were his own, hooded and liquid, in that ruin of a face. He added, “It’s really been an honor, meeting so many young people these past few weeks.”
She knew that what he said required some response, and Bondi gave it. “The honor is ours, sir.”
“You know,” Stein said, “you all surprise me. So formal. Sir. In our day, only martinets used that word. Are you a martinet, young man?”
Bondi blushed hard. Stein seemed to make him anxious, and Judit admitted that the old man’s gaze unnerved her too. Already, she was struggling to remember what had brought her here. The questions she’d so carefully constructed months before felt like packages she’d left somewhere.
She did remember one thing. “Anna Lehmann sends regards.”
“Who?” Then something seemed to open up, and he smiled quite warmly. “Anna’s still alive? That’s something, isn’t it. Remember me to her. Who would have thought we’d live this long? We’re a couple of old monuments, aren’t we?” The words took the wind out of him, and he grabbed the cushion hard and coughed a few rich monumental coughs. He spat into a cup the nurse brought over. That nurse was the same one Judit had seen beside Stein in those countless blurry photographs, ageless and muscular, though his crew cut was a little threadbare.
Bondi was at Judit’s elbow. “We shouldn’t stay long. It’s obviously not a good day.”
Stein broke in. “Son, you don’t know what a bad day is.”
The nurse concurred. “This is one of Mr. Stein’s good days. He’s pleased that you’ve come. I can tell.”
“So you know Anna. You’re the historian. You’re the one who made that movie with the German girl.” He wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. “I don’t suppose she’ll come.”