He waved the suggestion away. “Aw, they’re idiots. Don’t listen to a word I say.”
Rebecca excused herself and went downstairs. The blonde was still being monopolized by visiting relatives. Rebecca approached the reception desk and spotted, further back, a woman wearing a nurse’s cap busy with some papers.
“Excuse me,” Rebecca said, “I’d like some information about Mrs. Feldberg.” When the woman stared back at her without moving, she added, “Am I not speaking English? I’m a doctor and I want information on one of your patients.” Damn she was riled. If this woman didn’t watch out, Rebecca would take everything from the past three days out on her.
The middle-aged nurse rose heavily and trudged toward the desk.
“When was Mrs. Feldberg found in her present condition?”
The woman’s grey eyes observed her with barely concealed anger. “Night nurse found her going off her shift this morning. Maybe seven.”
“Did she mention anything unusual? Something that didn’t look right?” The woman tilted her head. “For instance, did it look like she’d been in any kind of a struggle?”
Her eyes grew into circles. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that in Mrs. Feldberg’s condition a stroke could’ve been caused by undue stress, a threat perhaps. Did you know that a workman went into her room at midnight? Possibly a plumber?”
“I... I don’t understand....”
“Can you check if a workman was called to fix something in Mrs. Feldberg’s room last night?”
The nurse flipped the large lined page of a book on a nearby desk. Scowling, she approached the buxom blonde and whispered something in her ear. The blonde looked over at Rebecca and disengaged herself from her entourage.
“Now what’s this about someone coming into Mrs. Feldberg’s room at night?” Her lips were tight and nervous, her eyes waiting.
“So there was no workman called last night?”
“Where are you getting your information?” asked the blonde in a too-pleasant voice.
“The small thin man on the cane two doors down from Mrs. Feldberg. He says he saw a man coming out of her room.”
The taut lines that had stiffened the blonde’s round face relaxed. She smiled. “Oh, Duncan! I should’ve known. He says he’s an insomniac but he really falls asleep and has vivid dreams that he thinks are real. You should hear some of them! Well, I think you already did.”
On her way back upstairs Rebecca asked herself why Feldberg would dress up and come late at night to do something he could easily have managed on a regular visit. If he wanted to make sure Chana didn’t tell anyone what she knew, he could’ve visited legitimately during the day and if she happened to have a stroke — well, she was fragile and no one would have been surprised. Maybe he was a perfectionist and wanted to be certain no one connected him to her deterioration. Or maybe the hefty blonde was right and the old man couldn’t tell a dream from the real thing.
When she got back to the room, Nesha was standing at the window. She approached Chana, getting close enough to search for petechiae, tiny broken blood vessels around the eyes that occurred with strangling or choking. There were none. There were no bruises visible on her upper body, no signs of a struggle. She looked at Chana’s hands. No broken nails. Nothing beneath them, like maybe a killer’s skin. Yet Rebecca had an uncomfortable feeling about this. It was too convenient. If her husband had entered her room to silence her, would she have resisted?
“What are you looking for?” Nesha asked.
“I don’t know.”
He stepped over to a cardboard box near the table. Bending over, he picked out one of the rag dolls Chana had sewn. “I thought I’d have another chance to talk to her. This is all that’s left of her,” he said.
Rebecca approached. Someone had unceremoniously dumped the dozen or so dolls into the box on the floor. She took them out and lined them up on the tabletop. A crude uneven lot fashioned from coarse grey cotton, their faces a few stitches of yarn. All but one wore slapdash striped skirts and trousers. The exception was dressed in a little black jacket with matching pants and cap. Three of the dolls’ heads were sheathed in red gauze: the uniformed one, and two prisoners. The last time she had visited, Chana had made a fuss about Rebecca picking them up. But now that she could examine the three of them closely, she wondered if they mattered at all.
“What do you suppose this means?” she said to Nesha. “These three who have red gauze covering their faces.”
He took the uniformed doll from her and turned it over in his hand. That was when she took note of the irregular grey object sewn onto the end of its arm. Last time she had seen it, she’d assumed it to be a gun. That went along with the uniform. Her father’s words echoed in her ear: “assume” makes an ass out of “u” and “me.”
“It isn’t a gun,” she said out loud.
Nesha held the tiny grey appendage away from the doll’s body. Up close she saw the fingers sewn around in wobbly grey thread.
“It’s the Hand,” she said breathlessly.
“The Hand!” he said.
“The silver hand from the camp. In the guard’s room.”
They both stared at the doll. “Creepy,” he said.
“These dolls represent something,” she said. “Only three have red faces. One officer and two prisoners, one male, one female. The officer is the SS guard in her letter. What if she was the female and the young orthodox boy was the male?”
“Why are their faces red?” he said.
“When I was here before, she called the dolls kinder. But then when I tried to hold one of these, she shouted “Nisht kinder!” You know, maybe it just means innocent. She said in her letter, children are the innocents. Maybe these three are not. Red is for blood. They’re guilty of something.”
“That makes sense for the SS and even her, considering she felt responsible for the boy’s death. But the boy, himself. She wouldn’t consider him guilty of anything.”
“There’s another thing,” she said.
“If the guard has the hand, that means the boy’s dead already.”
“So who’s the third doll?”
“What about Vogel?” she said.
“The guy in the fish store?”
“He’s involved in Feldberg’s business. From both ends. He’s supplying fish to the club and he’s selling a painting he has no business owning. And we know they were in the camp together.” She dug the catalogue card with Vogel’s home address out of her purse. “And I know where to find him.”
Before they left, Nesha approached Chana’s bed. “You should’ve seen them when they were young. Knock-outs, both of them. Shiny
