“And they let you go? I thought-”
“Yes, usually they killed you, too. After you told them. We all knew that. They had no more use for you.”
He looked at her, waiting.
“I agreed to give them names I didn’t know yet. To be an informer. They thought I would do it-so weak, they hadn’t even had to beat me. A coward. With blood on her hands. What they wanted.”
“And did you?”
“Only to get out. To have a chance to escape. I knew they would watch. But we did it, my family. We went into hiding. The Party helped us, the ones who were left. They thought whoever had betrayed Otto had betrayed me, too, so they helped us. Safe houses. We lived like that, place to place. No one ever knew I’d given them Otto. Of course by that time it didn’t matter if you were a Communist-it was enough to be a Jew. So we hid. Do you want to hear the rest?”
“How he died.”
“I don’t know that. Shot, I suppose. I hope it was that. No, what happened after. Not everything, don’t worry, not all the horrors. Just enough to know why it’s like this now. Why isn’t she weeping? On her knees begging forgiveness-”
“You don’t owe me any-”
“Doesn’t she feel anything, facing me, Otto’s son? What kind of person is this? That it doesn’t matter to her. Can’t even say she’s sorry.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing now?” he said gently.
She shook her head. “It’s too late for that. So, one story only. Something you can’t put in a film. Never mind the hiding, the rest of it. How you feel in the line, select one here for work, select him for the gas. Impossible to understand that, even when it’s happening to you. So impossible for you.” She took a breath. “We were back in Berlin then- the first big roundup. 1942, February. Cold. All of us in a basement, like rats, but still. Leon, my sister, her husband, all down there, but safe. Then not safe.” She looked up. “We were betrayed. Maybe a justice. Anyway, Jews in the cellar, so they came for us. You don’t fight, but they pull you out anyway. Poke the guns in your stomach. Yelling. I can hear them now, it never goes away, the yelling. And it frightens Rosa, my sister’s baby. An infant. ‘Shut it up,’ he screams at her. The soldier. As if she could do something-all that noise, so terrifying. Terrifying to us. And she tries to quiet it, against her shoulder, you know, rocking, while they’re pushing us out and it’s not enough for him. ‘Shut up!’ he yells and then he grabs it, right out of her arms. A second, my heart stops. Now, too, I can see it. He takes Rosa by the feet and before my sister can move he smacks her against the wall, swinging her like a doll, once, that’s all, because then it’s quiet. He drops her like a rag, a piece of- I don’t know. A thump, and then blood on the wall, a blotch, little streaks. There’s nothing in his face. It doesn’t matter to him. This takes-how long? How long can the heart stop? A second, less. And it’s my whole life in that time. Then I hear my sister scream and I’m somewhere else, another life.”
She stopped, almost out of breath, shutting her eyes, then reached for another cigarette, something tangible, right now, and lit it.
“She brought it with us. She picked it up and brought it. They didn’t care. On the train. Until Leon managed to get it away from her, get rid of it. By that time she didn’t know. She was-not herself. So of course they selected her right away for the gas, a madwoman. Right on the platform.” She looked up at him. “Tell me anything matters. Otto’s son.” She reached out and grazed his hand with her fingertips. “If it did matter, I would be sorry. Do you know that?”
She turned her head, distracted by the sound of doors opening.
“Here they come. They’re going to watch a film.” She stood, drawing him up with her. “Make some excuse for me, yes? Headache, whatever you like, it doesn’t matter.” She smiled to herself, a weak grimace. “That, either.”
She slipped out behind the stream of people heading for the bathrooms before the movie started. It seemed a disorganized moment, an aimless milling, like the scattering pieces in his head.
“What’s wrong? What was all that?” Liesl said.
He stared for a second, adjusting to the switch back to English, his mind elsewhere.
“Nothing. She’s- I’ll tell you later,” he said, looking at her closely now. Had she known? How could she not? Unless Danny had kept this secret, too. “Can we cut out before the movie? What’s the form?”
“We can’t. It would be considered an insult,” she said. “Listen, I have to talk to you. I think I know-”
“Later,” he said, touching her arm. “Here’s Bunny.”
“Everything fine?” Bunny said, looking at Liesl. “Did you enjoy Dick?”
Her dinner partner had been Dick Marshall, out of his pilot uniform, a smile replacing the oxygen mask. More window dressing for the party.
“Yes, he was very funny.”
“I’ll bet,” Bunny said, but relieved, as if he’d expected a different report. He turned to Ben. “And you. I thought it’d be pulling teeth, but there you were, nattering away.”
Ben felt fuzzy, a diver decompressing too fast. Why were they talking about any of this? Floating on froth, like the meringues.
“Mr. L can’t get two words out of her. Well, we’d better start the picture before the natives get restless. Glad you enjoyed yourself,” he said to Liesl. “You’ve got a treat in store-Jack sent over something special.”
“Ben,” she said, when Bunny left, “at dinner-”
“She knew Otto,” he said. “She knew Danny.”
“Daniel?”
“In Berlin. When he was with my father. She thought the Nazis had killed him. He was getting people out. The way he helped you, later. It started then. Why didn’t you tell me he was a Communist?”
“What are you talking about?” she said, nervous, unprepared for this.
“She told me. She was there. You must have known.”
“Known what,” she said, a quick dismissal. She looked toward the room, measuring their distance from the others, then back at him. “He never said. Everyone was a bit then. They were against the Nazis. Organized. There wouldn’t have been a resistance if they hadn’t-”
“You never asked?”
“I didn’t care about that. Politics. When someone throws you a lifesaver, you take it.”
“And marry him.”
Her eyes flashed. “It wasn’t important.” She looked down, biting her lip. “I thought he was-sympathetic, that’s all. So maybe he worked with them, everyone did. It was never official-you know, a Party member. Meetings. I would have known about that. It was a way of looking at things then, because of the Nazis. Years ago. Anyway, that was there. It was different after we came here.”
“It’s not something you stop, just like that.”
“Things change. People change.”
“Do they?”
“You think that? That’s what you’re looking for in his desk? A card? A letter from Stalin? I would have known.” She looked away, hearing herself, yesterday’s certainty. “He made movies here, that’s all. Silly movies.”
“So did my father. And he ran a cell. According to her.”
“If you want to know, ask them. The Party.”
“I don’t think they’re handing out membership lists these days.”
“Ask Howard Stein. It’s always in the papers about him. That he must be one. Polly says he is. Ask him. Why is it so important anyway?”
“Because we have to know everything about him. What he was doing. Why anyone would-”
“No. You have to know. I don’t know why. Look, they’re going in. No more about this. The way people talk. Who knows what’s true. My father’s applying for citizenship. How would it look? A Communist son.”
“A dead one.”
“Well, my father’s alive. Talk like this-”
“We have to know. It might be important.” He took her elbow. “Don’t run away from this. Help me. We owe it to him.”