Russell asked him if he knew the Rosenfeld farm.
The man looked at him coldly. 'What do you mean - do I know it?'
'Do you know where it is?' Russell asked patiently.
'Of course.'
'Will you take me there?'
The man hesitated, as if searching for an adequate response. 'I have other business,' he said eventually, and flicked his horse into motion.
Russell watched the cart disappear into its own cloud of dust, and walked back round the station building in search of staff. Knocking on a door marked 'Stationmaster', he found himself face to face with a fat, red-nosed man in a Reichsbahn uniform. Mention of the Rosenfelds elicited a doubtful sniff but no outright hostility. Their farm, it transpired, was about five kilometres away.
'Is there any way I can get a ride out there?' Russell asked.
'Not that I know of.'
'The lorries out front?'
'Their owners took the train to Glatz. They didn't have the petrol to drive there.'
Five kilometres wasn't so far. 'Can you give me directions then?'
'You do know they're Jews?'
'Yes.'
The man shrugged, shut his door behind him, and led Russell back to the front of the building. 'Straight up this road,' he said, pointing westward, where the cart's trail of dust was still hovering above the track. 'You go across two crossroads, straight towards those hills, then you'll come to a fork. The road on the left follows the slope round. There are two farms on it, and you want the second.'
It sounded straightforward enough, Russell thought, and he soon reached the first crossroads. The outskirts of Wartha began a short distance down the road to the left, and the spire of the town church rose above the roofs a kilo-metre or so to the south. He kept going, down a rutted and well-shaded dirt track. An endless field of grain stretched away to the north, and the sound of a distant tractor carried over on the wind. When the motor cut out the silence was almost palpable, and the sudden bark of a dog seemed like a desperate attempt to fill the void.
It was really hot. When he reached the second crossroads Russell stood for a minute in the shade of a convenient oak, wiping his brow with his handker-chief. What was he going to tell the Rosenfelds? Everything, he supposed.
He resumed walking. In a couple of hours the sun would be behind the mountains, and as far as he could remember there had been no moon the night before. He wasn't at all sure he fancied this walk in the dark. And he hadn't even asked about trains back to Breslau.
After what seemed an age he came to the fork in the road. The track grew narrower, more rutted, but the first farm soon loomed into sight. He became aware that a woman was standing watching him. Chickens were squawking at her feet, clearly interested in the feedbag she was carrying.
'Good afternoon,' he shouted.
'Good afternoon,' she replied, more cautiously.
'The Rosenfeld farm?'
She pointed up the road and turned her back.
It took him another fifteen minutes to reach his destination. Miriam's home was on the lee side of a hill, smoke drifting up from its chimney and into the light of the sinking sun. There was a copse of trees to the right, a single cow tethered on a long rope to one of the trunks. On the left was a sturdy wooden barn, beyond that what looked like a kitchen garden.
Another woman was watching him, he realized, hidden in the shadows of the east-facing doorway. He had a sudden inexplicable hope that it might be Miriam, but of course it wasn't. This woman had streaks of grey in her hair.
'Frau Rosenfeld?' he asked.
'My husband will be back in a few minutes,' she told him.
'That is good,' Russell said, stopping a few metres away from her. 'I wish to talk to you both.'
'What about? Who are you?'
'My name is John Russell. My brother-in-law Thomas Schade employed your brother-in-law Benjamin.'
'Employed? Has he lost his job?'
'I'm sorry, Frau Rosenfeld, but Benjamin is dead.'
Her hands flew up to her cheeks. 'But how...' she began, only for another thought to take precedence. 'Who is looking after my daughter?'
'That is why I'm here. I'm afraid your daughter has gone missing.'
'Missing,' she echoed. She closed her eyes, and for a brief moment she seemed to visibly shrink. Then, with what seemed an almost absurd effort of will, she drew herself upright. 'I will fetch Leon,' she said. 'Please...'
'I'll wait here.'
She strode off in the direction of the kitchen garden. Russell sat himself down on the front door step, noticing the mezuzah on the frame as he did so. You didn't see many of those in Berlin anymore.
He felt as if he had crossed into another world. He had known a lot of Jews in his lifetime, but most had been intellectuals of one sort or another, and all had been urbanised. The Yiddish-speaking Jews of the Pale, that vast expanse of plains stretching across southern Poland and Ukraine, were as much of a mystery to him as the Bushmen of the Kalahari.
Miriam's father came into view, half-running ahead of his wife. He looked smaller than he had in the photograph, but Russell could see the kindness in the face, even twisted as now by fear. The words came out in a rush: 'What is it that I am hearing? My brother is dead? My Miriam is missing? What does this mean?'
Russell told him. About Benjamin's murder and their worries about Miriam, about the police refusal to investigate. About the hiring of Kuzorra and the possible sighting, and the threatening of the detective.
Frau Rosenfeld mostly listened in silence, but her husband kept interrupting with hopeful questions, as if determined to find better explanations for what had happened. When Russell reached the present Leon Rosenfeld looked at the ground for the moment, then back at his guest. 'I thank you for coming,' he said. 'Now I must move the cow.'
Russell stared after him with astonishment.
'He needs to think,' Frau Rosenfeld explained. 'He will come back and announce that he is going to Berlin to look for her.'
'That...' Russell began, and hesitated. Wouldn't he scour the planet for Paul if his son went missing? He would, but that didn't make it wise for Rosenfeld to go charging off. 'I would do the same, but it would not be a good idea.'
Her look questioned his wisdom, if not his motives. 'Forgive me,' she said, 'but you are not a Jew. If she is with other Jews in Berlin, would not another Jew have a better chance of finding her?'
'I am not a Jew, but many of the men who work for my brother-in-law are. They knew Benjamin, and they have spread the word among Berlin's Jews. No one has heard from her, or of her. If your husband goes to Berlin...Let me be blunt - the police will not listen to him, and if he kicks up a fuss - which in any sane society he would and should - then they will punish him for it. The Jews in Berlin survive by keeping themselves to themselves. Your husband will be no use to Miriam - or you - if he ends up in a concentration camp. Or worse.'
'I don't know if I can stop him.'
'You must try. I will keep looking, I promise you. I will promise him.'
'I will try.' She sighed, and drew herself up again. 'Forgive me, keeping you outside all this time. Please, come in. A glass of water.'
Russell followed her into the farmhouse. It was as well-kept as the farm, and more comfortable than he had expected. The furniture was old but recovered; an even older-looking piano stood by the far wall. There was small case of books, and a game-ready chessboard on a narrow table. Vases of wild-flowers flanked the menorah on the mantelpiece.
Frau Rosenfeld had just given him the glass of water when her husband returned. He walked over to his wife and put his hands on her shoulders. 'Esther, I must go to Berlin.'
She shook her head. 'I have already told Herr Russell that you would say that. He said he would do the same, but it would not be wise.' She told him why.
It was his turn to shake his head, but he said nothing more. 'Where is my brother buried?' he asked.