let the letter fall into his lap. They both sat in a solemn quiet.
“What do you suppose it means?” she said.
He shrugged. “A nightmare. People who lived through those times always have nightmares.”
“But it was so specific.”
“Why did you give me these?” he said.
“I’m sorry if they upset you...,” she said. “But the brother-in-law didn’t want me to have them.”
“So?”
“Maybe he had something to do with Goldie’s death.”
Nesha shook his head. “I haven’t told you everything. I didn’t come to you right away because I didn’t know if I could trust you. I didn’t know what your role was in this whole thing.”
“My role?”
“I saw you come out of Goldie’s place the night she died. Then I saw you go into the store on Baldwin Street. I thought you might be involved in some way.”
“What does the store have to do with anything?”
A minute ticked by before he seemed to make a decision. Reaching into the pocket of his sweatpants, he pulled some folded pieces of paper out of a plastic liner.
“I’ve been after this man most of my life. Last week I got lucky. A trick of fate brought me this.” He unravelled one of the pages and held it out to Rebecca.
She recognized the picture that Goldie had waved in her face that last time in the office. A duck running along a sidewalk. But now that Rebecca could study the photo, she saw the Blue Danube Fish shop in the background. Walking past it, emerging from a shadow, was the unmistakable image of Feldberg.
Then came the Shoichet* and slaughtered the ox That drank the water that quenched the fire That burned the stick that beat the dog That bit the cat that ate the goat That Father bought for two zuzim. One little goat, one little goat.
* ritual slaughterer
chapter twenty-seven
“This is the man?” Rebecca said, gaping at the picture.
Nesha, who was about to take a sip of tea, sat up to attention. “You recognize him?”
“It’s him,” she said. “This is the brother-in-law.”
“I don’t understand,” Nesha said in a flat voice. “Chana’s husband?”
“This is Leo Feldberg,” she said, incredulous herself.
“Is it possible?” he said, staring at the picture as if for the first time. “Steiner has hidden himself in plain sight all this time by masquerading as a Jew?”
“You lost me,” she said. “Who’s Steiner?”
“Oberscharführer Johann Steiner. The Nazi in the square that day.”
“But you said you were too far away to see his face.”
“I would never be able to recognize him. That’s why it took me so long to find him. He wasn’t one of the major ones. Maybe he only killed five hundred instead of ten thousand. Maybe no one was looking for him except me. I had to do research — it was just luck — I found a file with documents, papers with his signature. And this photo.” He couldn’t take his eyes off it. “Why would the photo be in his file if it wasn’t him?”
“Where did you find the file?”
He observed her. “You know, most people don’t want to hear this stuff.”
“Please, I want to know.”
He stared at her another moment, then went on. “As soon as I arrived in America I started looking for him. I didn’t know his name; I didn’t know what he looked like. Every year on the anniversary of that day in April, I went to the Jewish Congress searching for information. Then the Wiesenthal Center opened and I kept looking. For anything. Names, documents. Anything. Other boys my age played football and lied to their parents about where they took their dates. All I dreamed about was finding the murderer. It was as if...,” he struggled to find the words, “as if there was a fire burning in me. Like the fire I’d seen consume my family. It won’t be put out until I get him.” He pulled the towel tighter around himself.
“They got to know me at the Wiesenthal Center. I always asked for Louis. He showed me whatever they got that year that might’ve helped. Up till now there was almost nothing. But finally I got lucky. A man named Greenspan, a survivor, died recently and his children sent them his research in boxes. His son said he didn’t want it in the house. That he had to listen to it all his life and now he was glad to get rid of it. So the poor schnook spent half his life collecting this stuff, maps, photos, all kinds of goodies, and his children couldn’t give it away fast enough. Louis just left me in the room with all these cartons. Most of the stuff was labelled. But this one box I came across, it was some kind of a grab bag: photos, affidavits, old passports. And no labels. It was as if he had things left over he didn’t know what to do with. So he threw them into a box until he could get to them. Only he never got to them. And there it was, just sitting and waiting for me after all these years. A very slim file with Steiner’s name scribbled across. I photocopied what was in it, two photos and two documents.”
He pulled more paper out of the small plastic folder he’d retrieved from the deep pocket of his sweatpants. Unfolding the sheet carefully, he held it up so that she could see the meticulous small script.
“I can’t read German,” she said.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll translate.” He took in a quick breath before starting.
“’ We entered the village of Dobienk on Sunday, April 6, 1941, where my men rounded up 140 Jews with the help of local informants. Some locals helped us take them into the synagogue, which we set on fire. Also burned down the Jewish quarter. Rescued whatever silver pieces found, as instructed. Unterscharführer Johann Steiner.’ ”
Rebecca had barely grasped the horror of what he’d read when Nesha pulled out a second document from his little folder. She stared at it a few moments, realizing she didn’t need a translation to figure it out. It seemed to be a day-by-day report in list form of the activities of Group 3 of the Ordnungspolizei for a period of a week in April 1941, beginning with the sixth. The flowing methodical hand of Rottenfü hrer Ernst Waldhausen noted the town, date, and number of Jews killed in each, starting with Dobienk. Obviously this sheet represented only a quarter of the month. Somewhere lay the rest of the month, followed by the next month, and the next, all neatly recorded within the lines. A ledger of bones.
“Oh, my God!” she murmured. She looked up, wishing she could say something comforting to him, but he had already taken out the last thing in his plastic folder. She stared at the other photo he had copied from the file. A group shot of men in greatcoats standing in front of a fence of barbed wire. One man wore the peaked hat of an officer, the others cloth caps, his subordinates. Underneath was written “Skarzysko.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Is this him, too?”
