of the drawer lay a cookie tin. She opened it, thinking to find sewing paraphernalia. Instead, she found a mound of pale blue airmail envelopes, much like the ones she had confiscated from Goldie’s apartment. Only these were from Goldie to Chana. Rebecca pulled out the top letter. No use. She had to find Nesha.
She tiptoed toward the light in Feldberg’s bedroom. With each creak, she stopped and waited, adrenaline on alert. The room was empty. The bed floated beneath a down-filled black and blue duvet, its headboard and dresser a rich mahogany. There was very little surface clutter, everything orderly.
She heard a sudden scrape of metal on metal coming from the den. When she got there, Nesha stood near the open drawer of a small desk, absorbed in some kind of ledger. He’d broken the lock.
“Could you read this?” she said, holding a page in front of his face.
When he looked up his eyes were distant, but he took the page from her. His lips began to move silently. “This is an old letter Goldie wrote to her sister,” he replied, still reading. “Nostalgic, but not useful, I think.”
“Could you...?” Rebecca said.
He glanced at her briefly, then began. ‘”Chanele, I’m so glad you are still in touch with our cousin in California. Our dear cousin. How strange and wonderful to think of someone who brings to mind our life from so long ago. Memories both painful and happy. Happy because life at home was good; Mother, Father, our sisters and brothers, all happy memories of those poor sweet souls. What I can’t bear to think about is leaving them behind, never seeing them again. The grief never goes away. It is good to know there is one last person still living who has some connection to our dear family.’”
Rebecca felt a trembling come over her. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “It doesn’t sound like the same person. She’s so articulate in Polish. I never knew that side of her. I never really knew her at all. It was always such a struggle for her to communicate in English.” She felt her eyes tear over, quickly forced herself past the moment, unwilling to lose control in front of a stranger.
“What about the others?” she said, pulling out a few of the letters.
He scanned them quickly. “Same kind of thing. Domestic details. Goldie telling her she was lucky to be in Canada. Sympathizing with her about the husband. And so on.” He handed the sheets back to her.
A car door closed somewhere nearby. Both their heads snapped up. Nesha carefully replaced the books in the desk. Rebecca’s body stiffened from the effort of listening. Someone had just parked outside in the back. A man’s voice disturbed the quiet. A key turned in the lock of the side door.
Nesha grabbed Rebecca’s hand and pulled her toward the closet in the corner. The side door of the duplex slammed and a woman’s voice joined the man’s. Nesha pushed her inside the closet, then squeezed in front, closing the door. She was pressed tightly against his back; she had to turn her face to the side. She was gagging on the overpowering smell of mothballs. His breathing was remarkably even as his shoulder blades moved softly against her chest. Even if they weren’t discovered, how would they get out? In another second, noisy footsteps began to pound up the stairs. The other apartment. They both let out their breath but waited until the steps sounded overhead. She realized she was leaning her head against the back of his neck.
“Good God!” she whispered, when he opened the door. She couldn’t breathe amid the mothballs. The tenants were moving around in their apartment upstairs.
“Why don’t you go?” he said, once they were back in the den. “It’ll be safer.” His eyes seemed softer when he looked at her.
“If you come.”
He smiled with resignation. “You’re a stubborn woman.”
They headed down the hall. Near the phone on the kitchen counter lay the day’s mail, mostly bills and junk mail. However, one envelope bore an official-looking return address from Germany. Without hesitation, she pulled out the letter on official stationery, heavily typed in German. All she could tell was that Feldberg was being notified about something that involved money.
She thrust the sheet in front of Nesha’s face. “How’s your German?”
He screwed up his eyes and began to move his lips silently.
“The bastard!” he said finally. “He’s getting paid for his so-called suffering. Incredible! This letter says his restitution — he’s getting restitution from Germany! — will go up because of his incarceration at a labour camp in Poland. Which camp was he in?”
Nesha’s eyes shifted quickly along the page. “Skarzysko Kamienna. That’s it!” he cried. “That’s the link. Steiner was in Skarzysko — he was promoted to the labour camp. It’s him!”
She shook her head. “How could he have lived all these years as a Jew? Even fooling his wife?”
“Everything fits. Do you have a better explanation?”
Rebecca was pushing the letter back into the envelope when a ring exploded from the phone less than two feet away, making her jump. Nesha lurched toward her protectively. They stood watching each other, waiting through three rings, then four. Suddenly a machine clicked on. Feldberg’s raspy voice told the caller to leave a message.
“Leo, pick up the phone. I know you’re there.” Rebecca recognized Isabella’s low Hispanic voice. “Please, Leo, I need you tonight. I can’t go on. I called Teresa to take my place at the club but I can’t stand it, can’t stand being alone here.” She’d had something to drink. Probably numerous somethings. “You must forgive your Isabelita if I said something. I can’t remember, did I say something bad? Where are you, I’ve been calling for hours! Please don’t be angry, pick up the phone, please Leo, please.”
When the phone finally clicked off, Rebecca said, “We’ve got to get out of here.” She turned to look into his face. “Now.”
He blinked once, expressionless, but he didn’t argue. “Just a minute,” he said. He vanished into the den and came out a minute later with Feldberg’s ledger and a few bankbooks.
“You’re taking those?” she said.
“I’m an accountant. I’m going to do his books.”
chapter twenty-nine
Nesha, carrying the ledger under his arm, walked Rebecca back to her Jaguar which she had parked on a side street off Bathurst. She was the one looking over her shoulder at the empty street. The people in the houses whose tidy lawns and ornamental trees breathed quietly in the dark were no doubt sunk in front of their TVs by now and paid no attention to two shadows navigating the sidewalk.
“Nice car,” he said. The red coat beamed beneath the street lamp.
“Want a ride to yours?” she asked.
He got in and she drove him one street over to his rental car. He was in no hurry to get out.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. It was nearly nine.
He smiled. “Got any Jewish delicatessens here?”
“Follow me,” she said.
They drove in tandem along Eglinton Avenue, she
