The Hunt

“So it is. And who should I say is calling?”

“Jenny Gould. I am Avrum’s sister.”

His eyes brightened.

“Ah, yes,” he said warmly. “This way.”

He led her past the steam machine into a back room. They edged their way through racks of fresh-smelling clothes to a stairway at the back of the shop.

“My name is Jules Loehman,” he said, leading her up a narrow staircase to the second floor. “Uncle Eli is my father.”

“Thank you for helping me, Jules.”

“A pleasure and an honor. I met Avrum a few months ago when he was here. A very courageous fellow.”

“He would be pleased to hear you say that.”

“Good. Then tell him I said so.”

They reached a small hallway at the top of the stairs and Jules knocked softly on a door and then opened it and ushered her into a small, incredibly cluttered sitting room. An elderly man was seated at a roll top desk, writing in a ledger book. Every cubbyhole in the desk was jammed with papers and envelopes. A small dining room table was also stacked with books, papers, file folders. There were even files stacked on the chesterfield and easy chair that occupied one side of the room. In sharp contrast to the litter, the room itself was a bright and cheerful space, lit from above by a large skylight.

The old man was thin to the point of being frail, his white hair wisping from under a black yarmulke. His skin had the soft, almost translucent look that comes with old age and he had a shawl thrown over his shoulders even though the room was quite warm. He looked up as they entered, squinting over his half-glasses.

“Uncle, you have a guest. This is Jenny Gould. She is Avrum Wolffson’s sister.”

“Half-sister,” she said.

He stood with some effort and took her hand.

“Well, well,” he said with a wan smile. “What a pleasant way to start the day.” He kissed her hand then waved at the sofa. “Jules, make a space, please.”

He led her to the sofa as Jules stacked several piles of litter on the floor.

“I had to leave Germany rather abruptly,” Old Eli said, gesturing around the room. “This is the sum total of my possessions. I have been going over these things for almost a year and I am still on the first pile.”

“I must get back to the shop,” Jules said, excusing himself.

“You are German then?” Jenny asked.

‘Ja,” old Eli said sadly. “I taught t the university with Reinhardt and Sternfeld. I got out.” He stopped for a moment and then added: “Unfortunately they were not so lucky.”

“Yes, I know. I am so sorry.”

He studied her through gentle eyes, wise with age and faded with time.

“You have this look of. . . surprise,” Old Eli said.

She laughed. “I am sorry. For some reason I expected you to be younger.”

“Oh? Subterfuge is a young person’s game, is that it?”

“I suppose that’s exactly what I was thinking. A ridiculous prejudice.”

“Most prejudice is ridiculous,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, my dear, it takes an old head to keep young hands steady. Besides, who would have thought that at the age of seventy- nine I would become the traffic director for a subversive organization. I find it all quite invigorating. So, what can we do for you?”

“I must talk to Avrum.”

His face clouded up. He made a pyramid of his fingers and stared across the tip at her. “Very difficult, my dear. In fact, quite impossible at this moment. Have you heard what’s happening? Things are insane in Berlin right now. They are saying as many as three thousand of the Sturmabteilung and many. others may have been killed since two nights ago.”

“I just read the paper. My God, what is happening?”

“On a very basic level, it means that Hitler’s power now is absolute.”

“How can we keep putting up with this? How can the people put up with it?”

“The people?” Old Eli said with great sadness. “Why they ignore it, my dear. They look the other way. Their attitude is simple: they cannot do anything about it so they make believe it is not happening. That is why Avrum’s work is so important. He has literally become the voice of Germany’s conscience. He keeps reminding them that what is happening is morally repugnant. Not just legally wrong, morally wrong.”

He leaned back and stared up through the sunlight at the bright summer morning.

“He was one of my students, you know,” Old Eli said rather wistfully. “I’m quite proud of that. To have been a mentor to a voice of dissent, what a sweet accomplishment.”

“It doesn’t seem possible that the chancellor of our country has resorted to cold-blooded murder,” she said.

“Oh, he did that long before last night,” the old man said.