"Here it is! He has been here three times in the past ten years, each time sicker than the last, each time with his daughter. He is a great teacher at the University of Bucharest. An expert in the history of this region."
Kaempffer was interested now. "When was the last time?"
"Five years ago." He shrank away from Kaempffer as he replied.
"What do you mean by sick?" Woermann asked.
"He could not walk without two canes last time."
Woermann took the ledger from the innkeeper. "Who is he?"
"Professor Theodor Cuza."
"Let's just hope he's still alive," Woermann said, tossing the ledger to Kaempffer. "I'm sure the SS has contacts in Bucharest who can find him if he is. I suggest you waste no time."
"I never waste time, Captain," Kaempffer said, trying to regain some of the face he knew he had lost with his men. He would never forgive Woermann for that. "As you enter the courtyard you will notice my men already busy prying at the walls, loosening the stones. I expect to see your men helping them as soon as possible. While the Mediterranean Bank in Zurich is being investigated, and while this professor is being sought out, we shall all be busy dismantling this structure stone by stone. For if we should obtain no useful information from the bank or from the professor, we shall already be started toward destroying every possible hiding place within the keep."
Woermann shrugged. "Better than sitting around and waiting to be killed, I suppose. I'll have Sergeant Oster report to you and he can coordinate work details." He turned, pulled Iuliu to his feet, and pushed him down the corridor, saying, "I'll be right behind you to see that the sentry lets you out."
But the innkeeper held back an instant and said something to the captain in a low tone. Woermann began to laugh.
Kaempffer felt his face grow hot as rage welled up within him. They were talking about him, belittling him. He could always tell.
"What is the joke, Captain?"
"This Professor Cuza," Woermann said, his laughter fading but the mocking smile remaining on his lips, "the man who might possibly know something that could keep a few of us alive... he's a Jew!"
Renewed laughter echoed from the captain as he walked away.
ELEVEN
Bucharest
Tuesday, 29 April
1020 hours
The harsh, insistent pounding from without rattled their apartment door on its hinges.
"Open up!"
Magda's voice failed her for an instant, then she quavered out the question to which she already knew the answer. "Who is it?"
"Open immediately!"
Magda, dressed in a bulky sweater and a long skirt, her glossy brown hair undone, was standing by the door. She looked over at her father seated in his wheelchair at the desk.
"Better let them in," he said with a calm she knew was forced. The tight skin of his face allowed little expression, but his eyes were afraid.
Magda turned to the door. With a single motion she undid the latch and jerked back as if fearing it would bite her. It was fortunate that she did, for the door flew open and two members of the Iron Guard, the Romanian equivalent of German stormtroopers, lurched in, helmeted, armed with rifles held at high port.
"This is the Cuza residence," the one toward the rear said. It was a question but had been uttered as a statement, as if daring anyone listening to disagree.
"Yes," Magda replied, backing away toward her father. "What do you want?"
"We are looking for Theodor Cuza. Where is he?" His eyes lingered on Magda's face.
"I am he," Papa said.
Magda was at his side, her hand resting protectively atop the high wooden back of his wheelchair. She was trembling. She had dreaded this day, had hoped it would never come. But now it looked as if they were to be dragged off to some resettlement camp where her father would not survive the night. They had long feared that the anti-Semitism of this regime would become an institutionalized horror similar to Germany's.
The two guardsmen looked at Papa. The one to the rear, who seemed to be in charge, stepped forward and withdrew a piece of paper from his belt. He glanced down at it, then up again.
"You cannot be Cuza. He's fifty-six. You're too old!"
"Nevertheless, I am he."
The intruders looked at Magda. "Is this true? This is Professor Theodor Cuza, formerly of the University of Bucharest?"
Magda found herself mortally afraid, breathless, unable to speak, so she nodded.
The two Iron Guards hesitated, obviously at a loss as to what to do.
"What do you want of me?" Papa asked.
"We are to bring you to the rail station and accompany you to the junction at Campina where you will be met by representatives of the Third Reich. From there—"
"Germans? But why?"
"It is not for you to ask! From there—"
"Which means they don't know either," Magda heard her father mutter.
"—you will be escorted to the Dinu Pass."
Papa's face mirrored Magda's surprise at their destination, but he recovered quickly.
"I would love to oblige you, gentlemen," Papa said, spreading his twisted fingers, encased as always in cotton gloves, "for there are few places in the world more fascinating than the Dinu Pass. But as you can plainly see, I'm a bit infirm at the moment."
The two Iron Guards stood silent, indecisive, eyeing the old man in the chair. Magda could sense their reactions. Papa looked like an animated skeleton with his thin, glossy, dead-looking skin, his balding head fringed with wisps of white hair, his stiff fingers looking thick and crooked and gnarled even through the gloves, and his arms and neck so thin there seemed to be no flesh over the bones. He looked frail, fragile, brittle. He looked eighty. Yet their papers said to find a man of fifty-six.
"Still you must come," the leader said.
"He can't!" Magda cried. "He'll die on a trip like that!"
The two intruders glanced at each other. Their thoughts were easy to read: They had been told to find Professor Cuza and see that he got to the Dinu Pass as quickly as possible. And alive, obviously. Yet the man before them did not look as if he would make it to the station.
"If I have the expert services of my daughter along," she heard her father say, "I shall perhaps be all right."
"No, Papa! You can't!" What was he saying?
"Magda ... these men mean to take me. If I am to survive, you must come along with me." He looked up at her, his eyes commanding. "You must."
"Yes, Papa." She could not imagine what he had in mind, but she had to obey. He was her father.
He studied her face. "Do you realize the direction in which we will be traveling, my dear?"
He was trying to tell her something, trying to key something in her mind. Then she remembered her dream of a week ago, and the half-packed suitcase still sitting under her bed.
"North!"
Their two Iron Guard escorts were seated across the aisle of the passenger car from them, engaged in low conversation when they were not trying to visually pierce Magda's heavy clothing. Papa had the window seat, his hands double gloved, leather over cotton and folded in his lap. Bucharest was sliding away behind them. A fifty-three-mile trip by rail lay ahead—thirty-five miles to Ploiesti and eighteen miles north of there to Campina. After that the going would be rough. She prayed it would not be too much for him.
"Do you know why I had them bring you along?" he said in his dry voice.
"No, Papa. I see no purpose in either of us going. You could have got out of it. All they need do is have their superiors look at you and they'd know you're not fit to travel."