Kneeling down, he told the German, ‘There was a beautiful boy named Adam, and he had birthmarks behind his ankle.’
He spoke sweetly and slowly – as if his words were the beginning of a children’s story that Lanik still had time to read.
The Nazi shook his head as if he knew nothing about my nephew.
Was it his denial that incensed Izzy? He grabbed Lanik by the hair and smashed his head against the floor.
I cringed on hearing the cruel thud – like two billiard balls knocking together.
The German groaned, and blood spilled over his lips, as though he were vomiting his last chance for life.
Leaning down, Izzy spoke into Lanik’s ear: ‘Adam and Anna say hello.’
And then, using both hands, he planted the blade as deeply as he could in the Nazi’s chest.
In the weeks to come, I would often wonder how I could have known Izzy nearly all my life and never suspected how good he would be at murder.
CHAPTER 28
A black Mercedes was parked outside the church, obviously waiting for Lanik to return. A dark-uniformed chauffeur was inside, reading a newspaper spread into wings. Remembering Schrei’s advice, we didn’t run. We walked east. I never looked back.
Izzy carried my briefcase; I’d left it behind and he’d gone back for it.
Rain splattered around us but didn’t feel wet against my skin. Its relentless pounding seemed the world’s way of insisting on a justification from me for my very life.
Izzy opened our umbrella and summoned me to him, but I needed to be by myself. I was listening for a policeman’s voice to call out to us in Polish or German and demand we stop. I would have turned round and begged to be shot on the spot.
The voice never came.
I remember passing railroad lines. Did we zigzag along sidestreets to keep from being seen? What happened to my bloodstained overcoat? I can’t recall, but I must have left it inside the church; I remember being chilled and noticing at some point that I no longer felt the protection of my muffler around my neck.
I was lost inside the labyrinth of ending a man’s life. When we passed a bus stop, I considered waiting there for the Germans to find me, not out of guilt, but because I couldn’t see how I’d ever find my way back to the person I’d been. Or why I’d want to.
Then, my heart seemed to leap in my chest, and the rain became wet, and I saw Izzy looking back at me with worried eyes, and I began walking purposefully behind him, towards the horizon, which was where freedom was waiting for us. It was as if a hand had tugged me back to my own hopes – my daughter’s hand, as it turned out; I realized I still had a chance to live out the rest of my life with her.
I don’t know how far we walked. I next remember Izzy pointing to a brick building on the left. It was a grimy hotel, with dead geraniums in ceramic windowboxes.
‘We’ll call Jasmin from in there,’ he told me.
Izzy left our umbrella at the door. I took Jasmin’s phone number from my wallet. The owner of the hotel was standing behind the counter of a wooden bar, polishing glasses with a tea towel. When I explained what I needed, he lifted out a black phone and put it on the counter.
‘Where are you boys from?’ he asked us as I sat down on a bar stool.
‘Muranow,’ answered Izzy, drying his hands on his trousers. ‘We’re on our way to a wedding, but we got a little lost.’ Izzy smiled and shrugged as people do to excuse their frailties. ‘I rarely come to this side of the river.’
‘How’ bout a little drop of something to take the bite out of the cold weather?’ the man asked, slapping his cloth over his left shoulder.
‘Two vodkas,’ Izzy replied.
I picked up the receiver and began to dial. Our host was pouring our drinks when Jasmin answered. Thank God she’d returned home.
‘It’s me,’ I told her, unwilling to let the hotel owner overhear my name.
‘You who?’ she asked.
That had me stumped. ‘Stefa’s uncle,’ I finally told her.
‘Dr Cohen? Oh, my God! I thought I’d never hear your voice again.’
‘We’re lost,’ I told her. ‘We’re outside Praga, but I’m not sure where.’
Izzy took the phone and described our location. ‘Listen, baby,’ he added casually, ‘can you pick us up in your car and drive us to the wedding?’
After a moment, he nodded towards me to let me know that Jasmin had agreed.
‘Meet us down the street,’ Izzy told her. ‘We’ll be waiting under a blue umbrella.’
The vodka didn’t scorch my throat, as it usually did. Or more likely I was too far away from myself to feel it.
Izzy paid for our drinks and our phone call. Outside, he began walking away, towards the countryside. I stayed put.
‘Erik, come on!’ he exhorted me, summoning me with whirling hands to follow him. ‘I don’t want that hotel owner to see the car that picks us up.’
I obeyed. We both knew I was useless now and he’d have to take charge.
We waited in an empty lot strewn with refuse, out of sight of the hotel. Izzy held our umbrella over our heads, hiding our faces from the occasional cars that drove by. He hooked his arm in mine and held me close.
The rain had subsided a bit, but I was still freezing.
Irene would be grief-stricken on hearing of her stepfather’s murder. Unless her keen affection for him had been part of her performance.
If she didn’t intend for me to kill him, then why did she send for me? Maybe she feared that she, too, would end up on a butcher’s table unless her stepfather was stopped. Perhaps she had been marked at birth, like Adam, Anna and Georg.
There were so many things I’d never get to ask her. Though perhaps Izzy was right and she’d told me all she could.
He put his arm around my waist because I was shivering. ‘Look, Erik,’ he observed cheerily, ‘the worst that can happen is that the Nazis will find us and shoot us.’
Black humour under other circumstances, but in this case he meant:
A big black car with wooden doors pulled up a few minutes later. Jasmin rolled down her window. She was wearing a peaked green hat topped by a golden feather – the kind of cap Robin Hood might wear in a theatrical production. On her slender hands were white kidskin gloves. ‘Get in!’ she urged us.
I sat in front and Izzy got in the back.
‘You’ve saved our lives,’ he told her right away.
I started to introduce them, but Jasmin reminded me they’d met at my birthday parties.
She took off slowly, concentrating on the road. Her lips were pressed tightly together. She knew she might lose her nerve if she faced me, so she didn’t.
Izzy began explaining what we’d done. Jasmin said nothing, though when he told her how he’d stood up to address Lanik, she began hiccupping – an old sign of failing nerve I recognized from our sessions.
‘You can drop us any time you want and get on your way,’ I told her when Izzy had finished. ‘We’ll still be grateful for the help you’ve given us.’
She took her eyes off the road for just an instant and brushed my cheek. ‘You once told me, “Terror traps us all from time to time, but the important thing is not to let it build walls around us.”’
‘I remember,’ I told her, but in truth I’d said that to most of my patients.
‘Do you recall what you did then?’ she asked, showing me an eager look.
‘No, I’m sorry. It was a long time ago.’
‘You stood up from your chair and came to me on the couch. You’d never done that before. You were probably
