And what she chose was denial. "My son is not dead," she said forcefully, and there was suddenly some color in her cheeks.
"Listen, I—"
She cut me off. "I said he's not dead. If he was dead, I would have known it, I would have felt it. Here." She pointed to her heart. "Do you understand? Do you?" Her face had taken on a resolute cast, her skin stretching taut across her facial bones. It made her look even thinner, as if she might suddenly tear apart from within and whatever was inside of her would come spilling out. "My son is not dead. He is out there, somewhere, and I need to find him. He needs me to find him. I have no one else to turn to. Will you help me?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My throat had constricted and my tongue felt too heavy to move. With my heart racing and the blood pounding in my ears, all I could do was stare at her, at this woman who had harbored an irrational hope for ten years, that at some point she'd be reunited with her son. It was this hope, I was sure, that had kept her going during the long years of the war, even as Germany was reduced to rubble around her. It was this hope that drove her to get up each morning, to put food and water in her mouth, to live.
It took me a long moment to realize I was not breathing. I made myself draw a breath and let it out. Once I was breathing normally again, I knew two things. The first was that she would never give up on finding her son. If I refused to take her case, she would find someone who would. Some in my profession were not the most scrupulous of men. She might stumble upon someone who would not think twice about squeezing her for every penny she had, feeding her tidbits of false hope to keep the money flowing. I would not do that.
The second thing I knew was that I had to take her case. For my sake, not hers. When she told me how she would have felt it had her son died, it was like the butt of a rifle had slammed into the pit of my stomach. I could still feel my insides churning.
I swallowed hard, but the taste of ashes lingered in my mouth.
"All right," I said, my voice nearly cracking. "I'll give it a try."
2
After ordering each of us another cup of coffee, I asked, "You said Esther Grunewald and your son boarded a train from Berlin to Zagreb. How were they supposed to get from there to Israel?"
"Esther said they would take another train to Greece," Henrietta said. "A ship was to take them the rest of the way."
"What's the name of the ship? What was the departure date?"
Henrietta didn't know. Nor did she know which port the ship sailed from. Only that it was somewhere in Greece.
"Esther didn't know herself," she told me. "All she knew was that she and other Jews from all over Europe were to gather in Athens on March 1."
She did not have the names of any of the other passengers, nor those of the people who had arranged for the ship.
"If all had gone according to plan and you had followed Esther and Willie here, how were you supposed to contact them?"
"Esther was supposed to send me a letter as soon as they arrived and got settled. No letter ever came."
I did not voice my thought that this was another indication that Esther Grunewald and Willie Ackerland had never made it to Israel. Instead, I asked Henrietta to tell me about Esther.
"She was the most beautiful girl in our school. I remember being quite jealous of her. Her hair was black and shiny, her face exquisite, her skin like marble. Boys would follow her with their eyes wherever she went."
"She never married?"
"No. I'm sure there were suitors, but no."
"How tall was she? What was her build like?"
"She was tall. Five foot ten or so. And she was slim, but not like—" Henrietta paused to look down at herself, and a shadow crossed her face "—she was slim in a feminine way."
"And what was she like?"
With an abashed look, Henrietta admitted that she and Esther Grunewald had never been close friends. More acquaintances than anything else. I realized that she was embarrassed to admit she had given her son to a woman whose heart and character were unknown to her.
She did tell me that Esther Grunewald had no siblings and that both her parents had died in a car accident in 1937. Esther Grunewald left no one behind when she emigrated from Germany.
By the time I ran out of questions, I had filled little more than three-quarters of one page in my notebook. I flipped it closed so I wouldn't have to look at the dearth of information I had to go on. What did it matter? This was a hopeless case anyhow.
Henrietta told me she shared an apartment in the south of Tel Aviv with two other women and that she worked as a cleaning lady. She did not have a telephone in her apartment, but one of her clients did. I wrote down the number and the day of the week she cleaned there and told her I'd call her with a report in two weeks, or sooner if I found anything. Then I told her what I normally charged as a retainer.
"I can't pay twenty liras right now," she said. "I can give you ten now and the rest next month."
I said that would be fine. I had no doubt she would come up with the money. To do otherwise would be to disgrace her son, not just herself.
After she left, I took the empty coffee cups to the bar. Greta was there, looking at the doorway through which Henrietta Ackerland had just exited.
"I feel guilty for not bringing that girl something to eat. She's skin and bones," she said.
"That girl is thirty years old."
"When you get to be my age, Adam, you'll understand that thirty is still very much a girl."
"You going to finally tell me your age, Greta?" There was a running bet among the regulars as to Greta's age. I estimated it to be fifty-eight, but it could have been anywhere between fifty and sixty-five.
Greta smiled. "Not today." She had on a flower-pattern dress and was leaning against the bar, her heavy breasts resting on the bar top between her meaty forearms. Everything about Greta was big—her calves, arms, hips, bust. Even her head was big and crowned with a nest of salt-and-pepper curls. "She's a new client?"
"Uh-huh."
"You don't sound too happy about it. Can't you use the money?"
"Of course I can use the money. How else could I afford to come here every day?"
"Yes. I have no idea how you get by. It was nice of you to order coffee for her. Very generous."
We both smiled. Four months earlier, soon after I had returned to prime condition following my time at the hospital, I helped Greta handle a problem. A brawny man was pushing her for protection money. I took the man aside and explained to him with my fists that Greta was off-limits. After he hobbled off never to be seen again, Greta offered to pay me for my help, but I said I didn't want her money. She didn't like the notion of not paying, and she found that having me around made her feel safe, so she said I could eat and drink her debt to me.
Since then, I'd probably eaten and drunk three times what she would have owed me, if not more. But neither of us mentioned it. I kept eating on the house, never abusing the privilege too much, and she kept liking having me around.
"I just don't think I can do what she hired me to," I said.
"Then why take the case?"
"Because it's better for her to feel hopeful."
"Is she in trouble?"
"No. But she is troubled."
"Poor girl," Greta said.
"At least she has a photograph," I answered.
Back at my table, I discovered I was wrong. On the tabletop lay Henrietta's picture. I picked it up, rushed outside into the heat of Allenby Street, and looked in all directions. Henrietta was nowhere to be seen. Back inside, I sat at my table and examined the picture once again. It told me nothing I didn't already know. Why would it?