The Warsaw Anagrams

I squatted to his level so he’d trust me, but my knees were so sore that it felt as though broken glass were sticking into them. I dropped down on to my bottom to relieve the pain. When I asked my little friend to sit with me, he dropped down and crossed his legs.

‘Where’s your coat?’ I asked him.

‘My sister is holding it.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She went for food.’

I took off my muffler and twirled it twice around his neck. ‘There, that’s better,’ I told him. ‘Now, what kind of goods did Georg smuggle?’

He held out his hand again. I gave him another zloty. He inserted both coins into his sock, then told me happily, ‘I don’t know.’

‘I paid you so you could tell me you don’t know?’ I made an exaggerated, silent-movie frown. ‘You’re taking advantage of an alter kacker!’

He giggled and squirmed. The ghetto hadn’t yet murdered his sense of humour, which was worth paying for. But more than that, I realized I’d found the child I wanted.

When I learn who killed Adam, take me, but let this boy survive, I whispered to God – or maybe to Satan. It didn’t seem to matter which, as long as my wish was granted.

‘Do you know which secret passage Georg used to get out of the ghetto?’ I asked.

He held out his palm for more money. I snatched his hand. ‘Listen, Zachariah, this goes beyond money – I need to know very badly.’

‘Georg went right through the wall,’ he answered. ‘He and some other boys knocked out some bricks one night.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘On Okopowa Street, near the cemetery,’ an older boy with a scab on his chin told me. ‘I was with him.’

I motioned him over and he squatted down beside me.

‘Did he ever speak about meeting anyone dangerous or threatening?’ I asked.

‘No.’

Zachariah agreed with that. He rubbed his eye with his knuckle. I noticed a louse crawling in his eyelashes. I took his shoulder. ‘Don’t move,’ I told him.

I pulled out the wretched parasite between my thumb and forefinger, then crushed it with my nail.

‘What was that?’ he asked.

‘Just a bug,’ I replied, tossing it away. ‘Listen, did Georg ever say why he didn’t go back to the orphanage?’

‘He hated being cooped up!’ Zachariah exclaimed, as if that answer might win him a ticket to the cinema.

‘And do you know where he was living?’

‘On Nowolipie Street.’

‘What number?’

Zachariah made a face and hunched up his shoulders to indicate he didn’t know.

‘Georg was kind of secretive,’ the older boy said solemnly.

‘What did he look like?’

‘He had big ears – like an elephant,’ Zachariah told me. He tugged on his earlobes.

‘Did you ever see him naked?’

‘Naked how?’ he asked, puffing out his lips in puzzlement.

‘I need to know if he had any identifying marks on his hip.’

As soon as I finished my question, a jolt of understanding made me gasp. I realized now what might have made Adam’s leg special.

‘No, I never saw his hip,’ the older boy told me.

‘Me neither!’ Zachariah chimed in.

I got to my feet. The two boys did, as well. I continued my questioning, but I felt as if I’d crossed an invisible portal into a myth, in which the only way to identify brothers and sisters separated at birth was by a telltale sign on their skin. And Adam’s telltale sign was on his ankle – his right ankle: a line of four birthmarks. But of what value could they have possibly been to anyone? And could something so small and insignificant really have summoned Death to my nephew?

‘How about Georg’s clothing – anything unusual?’ I asked the acrobats.

‘I know the answer to that one!’ Zachariah exclaimed, his eyes brightening. ‘He had newspapers stuffed into his shoes!’

‘That’s all?’ I asked.

‘And he wore a chain around his neck,’ the older boy told me.

‘What kind of chain?’

‘With a little Virgin Mary at the end. He said his mother was Jewish, but that his father was Russian. His father had hung that necklace around his neck when he was just a baby. He never took it off.’

‘And Georg juggled, right?’

Zachariah nodded.

‘Did he do anything else to earn money?’

‘No,’ the little boy replied, but the older acrobat added, ‘Georg sometimes sang while he juggled. Mostly Yiddish folk songs. He said it got him a bigger crowd.

‘Was he any good?’

‘Pretty good, but he wasn’t the best juggler in the world. He could do only four pairs of socks. And sometimes one would fall.’

‘Socks?’

‘That’s what he juggled – he rolled each pair into a tight ball.’

By now, I’d realized that Rowy or Ziv was sure to have noticed him sooner or later while looking for new singers. Was it possible that they were both involved in Adam’s murder? Rowy was terrified of being conscripted again into a labour gang, and perhaps he had exchanged the lives of three Jewish children for a guarantee of safety. As for Ziv, what did I really know about him, other than that he was shy and awkward, and an exceptional chess player?

‘Did Georg ever talk about singing in a chorus?’ I asked Zachariah and his colleague.

‘He said something like that once,’ the older boy replied. ‘He mentioned to me that a man told him he could sing at a concert he was going to organize.’

‘Did Georg tell you the man’s name or what he looked like?’

He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

I gave him a zloty with my thanks, and he ran off.

‘Where’s mine?’ Zachariah whined.

‘If I give you more money, I need you to do something for me,’ I told him.

‘What?’

‘I want you to get disinfected at the Leszno Street bathhouse. You know where it is?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ I dropped two zloty – one after the other – into his excited hands. I wanted to tighten the scarf I’d given him around his neck – as an excuse for holding him once more – but he dashed off before I could, one hand securing his crown.

CHAPTER 22

Dorota refused to let me into her apartment once again. ‘My husband isn’t home,’ she confessed, ‘but if he ever learned that a man asking about Anna had been here…’ She shook her head as if dealing with his temper was a constant burden.