shook her head. “I’m waiting to know what he’s actually accused of. After that we’ll see. I’ve got a few names.” She smiled. “Strange to meet again in such circumstances. Are you still living in New York?”
“Yes.”
“Still a banker?”
“Still a banker.”
Josée looked him over carefully for a long moment. Behind her Max saw Tatiana leaving with the two Italians.
“We’ve got to get Kevin out of this mess,” Josée finally said. “I’m convinced he’s innocent.”
Max nodded. It was imperative they help him, and quickly. But probably not using the methods the young lawyer was thinking of.
5
Auschwitz-Birkenau, September 19, 1943
Three men, all dressed in white, were standing in front of a sort of workbench, their backs turned to him, working in silence. They weren’t paying any attention at all to Emil Rosca, who was lying on the operating table. Among the men, Dr. Hans Leibrecht. Emil hadn’t taken his hands off his precious ears since he’d been brought into the room, especially after a nurse had come to measure them that very morning. Sure, they weren’t the prettiest ears around: they were a bit thick, slightly folded at the points, and stuck out from his head a little. But they were his ears, and the Nazi doctors were preparing to take them away from him for no reason at all.
His whole life Emil hadn’t thought of his ears twice, like the rest of his body, really. It was his and he lived in it, and that was all. And yet today here he was envying the men and women sent directly to the gas chamber. At least their deaths were painless. Would he still be able to hear? The guards’ orders? The music from his accordion? Last night Samuel seemed to have been able to hear his voice. Or perhaps Emil’s movements had jolted him awake. In the dark, Emil hadn’t dared to ask how the boy was feeling without his ears. By the time light returned to their dormitory, Samuel was dead. Two orderlies took his body away, leaving a brown stain on the boy’s pillow in the shape of a butterfly.
Absorbed by their work, the men spoke among themselves in a German Emil could barely understand, despite his fair knowledge of the language. In 1940, when the Wehrmacht had come into Ploesti to secure its oil wells, the Roma had begun trading with the soldiers. Out of necessity, Emil had learned basic German, which he spoke as well — or as poorly, really — as he did Romanian. But he couldn’t read or write either language. Nor his own language, Romani, the tongue of the Roma. And yet he enjoyed its musicality, its intonations. Every day in the camps he felt nostalgic for the paramíchi, the stories that had enthralled him as a child. And soon, maybe, he would never be able to hear anyone speaking his own language again. Or any other. A pang of anguish overtook him. He thought of his parents, who ’d vanished. The SS had chosen not to split up Romani families in the camps, but his own family, for a reason Emil didn’t know, was scattered to the four winds. The young Rom had discreetly asked around. He was the only Rosca in Auschwitz.
“As long as we don’t have a solution for transporting specimens,” Emil overheard Dr. Leibrecht say, “we’ll face the same problems time and time again.”
“The institute is supposed to take care of it.”
“Dr. Josef refuses to ask anything of them.”
“We’ve got the same issue with eyes.”
Dr. Leibrecht turned around, adjusting his glasses on his face, then leaned over Emil without ever looking at him. Emil felt like an object, a piece of furniture, about to be repaired. Or broken. Leibrecht pulled a lever under the table, sending it upward suddenly. The movement surprised Emil, and he dropped his hands from his ears. The two others, orderlies of some kind, quickly grabbed his arms. Emil was far too scared to cry out. Within a few moments, he was tied to the table, his back uncomfortably pinned against the flat, hard surface. Leibrecht muttered something to one of the orderlies, who quickly went off to grab a metal tray on which were placed surgical instruments — all Emil could make out was the glint of the scalpel’s blade.
The doctor put the tray on a small panel he’d pulled out of the table like a drawer. He examined his instruments, as if unsure which one he should use. Panicked, Emil struggled pathetically as one of the orderlies held his head firmly.
“Is the phenol ready?” Leibrecht asked.
A syringe appeared in the hand of the other assistant.
“Draw the sample as soon as the specimen’s vital signs indicate death.”
“As you say, Herr Doktor.”
With a fidgety little gesture, Leibrecht daubed Emil’s ear with a liquid. It smelled horrible. But he’d put on too much, and swore as the young Rom felt the liquid slowly run down his neck and slip under the collar of his gown. A cold, sticky, viscous trail. Emil had never been so afraid in his life.
Leibrecht picked up a scalpel and placed a hand on Emil’s forehead, preventing any movement at all. “Rainer, phenol.”
The orderly was about to stick the needle in Emil’s thorax, right above his heart, when Dr. Josef’s voice sounded from across the room.
“Hans, can you come here a moment?”
“Just give me five minutes,” Leibrecht answered.
“Now!”
The doctor sighed as he placed the scalpel back on the tray and left the laboratory, closing the door behind him. Abandoning the syringe filled with phenol on the tray, the orderly sat down at the edge of the table, the way you might sit on the hood of a car, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering one to his colleague. Soon, acrid grey smoke filled the room, making Emil dizzy. Because of the liquid the doctor had daubed on his ear, he couldn’t feel anything on the right side of his face. Emil kept glancing toward the phenol syringe, just out of reach. What would be the point, anyway? In a few moments, Dr. Leibrecht would return and finish his operation. It was the end. Death was coming. Death, which Emil had naively thought he could avoid in the camp, among his people. He saw in his mind’s eye his father repairing a pot, face covered in soot. His father with a gormónya on his knees, teaching him how to play. He could see the celebrations of the kumpaníya when the Kalderash, the Lovari, or the Tshurari met on the road. He remembered the feast of hedgehog served on long tables around which children ran, laughing, shouting. The pavika, the rejoicing, where wine ran more freely than water under the kind supervision of the bulibasha.
Suddenly, the doors to the operating room flew open. The two orderlies jumped to their feet, as if caught dawdling. A young woman walked in, her step straight and energetic, followed by Dr. Josef. She was a redhead with delicate skin in a tailored floral suit. She seemed lost, out of place in the midst of all this horror, though not surprised by what she saw. A German woman, without a doubt. Directly from the Kommandantur. The wife of an officer, perhaps. Emil saw Leibrecht gesture for his attendants to disappear. A guard stood near the doorway behind the doctor and the woman. He’d likely accompanied the redhead in.
“You’ve just arrived here in Auschwitz,” Dr. Josef said, his voice stiff. “I understand that in Berlin, high society might have looked kindly on your initiatives …”
“High society has nothing to do with any of this.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“With
