was kicking at the ironwork of the window when the first doubt struck him. Why had he taken Brigadier Smith at his word? If the SOE chief had faked David’s death, would he admit it when confronted?
“That bastard is cold enough to do it,” he said aloud.
Mark knew how improbable the idea was, but a fierce hope overrode every rational objection his mind could conjure. With shaking hands he called the university operator and asked to be connected to the 8th Air Force base at Deenethorpe. He drummed his feet on the floor at the opera-tor’s infuriatingly polite: I’m trying to connect you—then at last he was through.
“I’d like to speak to someone about casualties, please.”
“One moment, sir,” said a young male voice.
McConnell heard several clicks, then a male voice with a Southern drawl came on the line. “Colonel Harrigill here.”
Harrigill. McConnell remembered the name from the telegram. Doesn’t mean anything, he thought. Brigadier Smith could easily get the right names. “Colonel,” he said, surprised by the quaver in his voice, “this is Dr. Mark McConnell. I’m calling from Oxford University. Was there a raid over Regensburg last night?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give out information like that over the phone, Doctor.”
Part of McConnell’s brain placed Harrigill’s accent—the Mississippi Delta—while another made his face flush. The timbre of Colonel Harrigill’s voice held more than official courtesy. The undertone sounded almost like sympathy.
“What information can you give me, Colonel?”
“Well … have you received a telegram today, Doctor?”
McConnell shut his eyes. “Yes.”
“I can confirm that your brother’s aircraft was lost in the line of duty over France. Visual reports from other aircrew led us to classify the entire crew as Killed In Action.”
Mark found himself unable to say anything further.
“Is there anything I can do for you, son? I was about to send a telegram to your family Stateside.”
“Don’t! I mean not yet, at least. There’s only our mother, and she’s seen enough—just—I’ll tell her, Colonel.”
“That’s fine with the Army Air Corps, Doctor. I’ll try to slow down Western Union a little bit. And again, let me express my sorrow. Captain McConnell was a fine officer. A credit to his squadron, his country, and to the South.”
Mark felt a strange chill at this archaic expression of respect from a fellow Southerner. Yet somehow it touched him. It seemed to fit David. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“Good night, Doctor. God bless.”
McConnell hung up the phone. Colonel Harrigill had dashed his last hope. David was gone. And to think Brigadier Smith had believed his death would finally wipe away Mark’s hatred for war.
This time the grief washed over him without warning. His brother was dead. His father was dead. In his entire family, he was the last male McConnell left alive. For the first time since returning to England he felt an almost irresistible urge to go home. Back to Georgia. To his mother. His wife. The thought of his mother brought a wave of heat to his scalp. How was he going to tell her? What could he possibly say?
When he kicked the window latch this time, the iron-bound panes crashed open and a cutting wind stung his face. Slowly, his throat began to relax. He could breathe. He gazed out over a snowy scene that appeared much as it had four hundred years before. Oxford University. His island of tranquility in a world gone mad. What a pathetic joke. He felt the telegram slip from his hand, watched it brush the window casement and then flutter down to the cobblestones three stories below.
The first sound that escaped his throat was a great racking wail that burst from the depths of his soul. Several windows opened across the quad, revealing white faces alive with curiosity. Somewhere a gramophone was playing Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Seeing You.” By the time the second verse wafted across the quad, the tears were freezing on McConnell’s cheeks.
He was alone.
“Your tape machine stopped,” said Rabbi Leibovitz.
“What?”
The old man pointed a long finger at the Sony microcassette recorder lying on the end table beside his chair. I blinked twice, unable to break the vision of my grandfather at that Oxford window, or my thoughts of my great uncle, whom I had never known.
“You need another tape,” Leibovitz said. “And I need another brandy. Pass the bottle, please.”
I did. The rabbi glanced up at me while carefully pouring the amber liquid into the glass. “So, Doctor, what do you think?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Does that sound like your grandfather to you? Does it ring true?”
I pondered the question while I changed cassettes in the Sony. “I guess it does,” I said finally. “I can’t see him compromising his principles simply for revenge.”
“Are you so sure, Mark?”
I studied the rabbi’s wizened face. “I guess I’ll have to wait until you tell me, won’t I? It’s some story, all right. But the detail … How could you know all this?”
Leibovitz smiled fleetingly. “Some very long afternoons with Mac in my office. Letters from other persons involved. Once I learned about this story, it … possessed me for a while.”
“What about the girl?” I asked, reaching down to the floor. “The woman in this photograph? Who is she in the story? Is she the woman who sent that coded message to Brigadier Smith? What the hell was that about, anyway?”
Rabbi Leibovitz took a sip of his brandy. “Be patient. I’m getting to the girl. You want everything wrapped up in an hour, like a nice television movie.” The old man cocked his head and listened to the relentless cheeeep of the crickets in the humid darkness outside the house. “It’s time to shift focus for a little while. All this wasn’t happening in a vacuum, you know. Other people were pursuing their own ends, quite oblivious to Brigadier Smith in London. Some very evil people. Monsters, I would say, if you don’t object to the word.”
I watched the old rabbi’s eyes flick restlessly around my grandfather’s study. It seemed to me that we had come to a part of the story he did not like. “Where are we shifting our focus to?” I asked, trying to prompt him.
“What?” he asked, his eyes fixing on mine.
“Where,” I said again. “I guess you mean Germany, right?”
Leibovitz sat up straighter in the chair. “I do, yes,” he said in a hoarse but resolute voice. “Nazi Germany.”
