I carefully placed the picture between the pages of my notebook and slipped it into my pocket. Then I surveyed the chessboard I'd been playing with when Henrietta arrived.
I played chess almost every day. Greta kept the board and pieces behind the bar for me. I always played both sides and always a lightning game, with no time to think over moves. A lightning game is the only way to keep things interesting when you play with yourself as an opponent. I found that it also took my mind off things, which was usually a blessing.
This particular game, white was in a hopeless position, behind by one rook and a bishop. But in a lightning game anything can happen. I kept on playing, making rapid moves, hoping that white would somehow rally to a victory. Maybe I was looking for a sign that a hopeless situation, like the new case I had taken on, could still end well.
White lost in four moves.
3
A little after seven I folded the chessboard and went over to the bar so Greta could stow it away for me.
"When are you seeing Rachel Weiss?" she asked me as she took the board from my hand.
"Seeing her? That's not exactly how I would put it. You trying to avoid thinking unpleasant thoughts?"
"Wipe that smirk off your face and answer my question."
"Tonight," I said. "I'm going over to her place tonight."
Greta gave a thoughtful nod and eyed me long and hard, as if trying to memorize every inch of my face, or perhaps say a prayer over me.
"You watch yourself, you hear?"
"It'll be all right," I said, discomforted by her concern. "Don't worry."
"I'll worry all I want. And you should worry, too. If you're not worried, you're being arrogant, and arrogance can get you in trouble."
"I have done this sort of thing before, you recall."
"I know, but tonight may be different. So watch yourself. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," I said in a somber voice, as if making her a promise. But in truth, I was not worried and couldn't see why she should be.
Outside, it was still hot, but not as oppressive as earlier. The broad, tree-lined sidewalks of Allenby Street were teeming with pedestrians, and on the road a bus laden with passengers was maneuvering around a truck that had parked with its tail end blocking part of the way. A handful of cars waited patiently for the road to clear. There was a sense of optimism in the air. And why shouldn't there be? Israel's War of Independence was, to all intents and purposes, over. We Jews had won. It was a costly victory, with six thousand dead and many thousands injured, but we had our state. A two-thousand-year-old dream had come true. Armistice agreements had been signed with Egypt, Lebanon, and the Kingdom of Transjordan. Rumor was that an agreement would soon be signed with Syria, Israel's sole remaining belligerent neighbor. Maybe now we would have peace. Maybe.
Not that everything was rosy. Far from it. The economy was in tatters. Thousands of impoverished Jews were pouring into the country on a monthly basis. There was nowhere to house them all, so tent towns had sprouted in various places across the land. Conditions there were miserable. There were also widespread shortages of basic products, including food. A few months ago the government had announced a rationing policy, which included meat, cheese, butter, eggs, and a variety of other items. A number of substitutes such as powdered eggs and chicory coffee were introduced, none of which tasted very good. The rationing gave birth to a thriving black market, with nearly every citizen participating in it, as either seller or buyer. I was one of the latter.
The government made great efforts to crack down on black marketeers, but it was a futile battle. Jewish mothers were not about to let laws and regulations deprive their children of proper nourishment. Good for them.
Hamaccabi Street, where I lived, was an unassuming residential road tucked between the much larger King George and Tchernichovsky Streets. I lived on the third floor of a ten-year-old building that no architect was likely to point to as the pinnacle of his achievements. My apartment comprised a closet-sized bathroom; a walk-in-closet-sized kitchen; a balcony big enough for two people, as long as both held their breath; and one room that served as dining room, living room, and bedroom all rolled into one.
The furniture consisted of a bed, a nightstand bearing a shadeless reading lamp, a closet, one chest of drawers, a scratched-top dining table, and two mismatched chairs. There were no paintings or pictures. Bare walls were good enough.
The rent was cheap, the neighbors unobtrusive, and Greta's was a short walking distance away. It suited me just fine. Compared to some of the places I'd been, it was a palace.
Upon entering, I removed my shirt and draped it over one of the chairs. Then I went into the kitchen, filled one of the three glasses I owned with water and drained it in one long gulp. From the icebox I withdrew the little butter I had left from that month's rations. From a cupboard over the sink I got a box of sardines I had bought on the black market.
I sliced two pieces of bread, put them on a plate, smeared them with butter and stacked some sardines on top. I set the plate on the dining table and sat down to eat. Before the World War, this would have seemed like a poor meal. These days I knew it for what it truly was—a feast.
I rinsed the plate when I was done, made some tea, and took the steaming cup with me to the bedroom. I checked my watch. 20:11. There was time to burn before I was to go see Rachel Weiss, as Greta had put it. I leaned my pillow against the wall and sat on the bed with my back to it. On the nightstand lay a dog-eared paperback western by Max Brand and next to it was an English-Hebrew dictionary, in case I encountered any unfamiliar words. I flicked on the reading lamp, picked up the novel, and began to read.
A few minutes later I realized that I had read the same page over and over and could not recall a word of it. My mind kept returning to Henrietta Ackerland and the hopeless case I had agreed to take on. I flipped open my notebook, read through my notes—it took but a minute—and gazed once more at the picture Henrietta had left behind.
Are you still alive, little one? Or is your mother living on a fool's hope? And will she be able to survive when that hope flickers out?
Maybe she would. She looked frail, but looks could be deceiving. In Auschwitz I had seen men continue to live for months even as their muscles dwindled, their cheeks hollowed out, and their limbs thinned to sticks. And had I not survived when everything had been taken from me?
Stop it! Just stop it! You have other business tonight.
It was no use. The memory flooded my mind without warning. I shut my eyes against its assault, but it had already commandeered my consciousness. It was the first day, that miserable cold day, after we had spilled out of the stinking, cramped cattle cars into that hell on earth called Auschwitz, after the men had been separated from the women and children, after the initial selection that determined who would live to see that day's end and who would be gassed and turned to ashes before sundown.
With the other men who were to live, I had staggered along toward the barracks, the guards shouting obscenities at us, the whimpering of once proud men like the cries of birds with broken wings around me, the air smoky with an unknown and unimaginable stench. Suddenly a pain, sharp and rending, deep in my stomach and chest, unlike any pain I had ever suffered before or since. My chest constricted and my vision darkened. I stumbled forward and would have landed on my face had the back of the man marching in front of me not been in the way. A pair of strong hands straightened me up, and a voice whispered in Hungarian, "Keep walking. Don't give the bastards an excuse to beat you."
Putting one heavy foot ahead of the other, I shambled forward, pushed ahead by the men behind me. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, and my ears were pierced by an unrelenting internal shriek. For in that moment I knew, with a certainty that snuffed out all hope of denial, that my two daughters had just died.