by Orca Various
Katya is sniffling again.
“Sweetheart, I’m not blaming your grandfather. But you said you wanted to do this, and it’s the right thing. You know it.”
He puts his arm around her and guides her out of the room. I hear another sound—Noah fiddling with the lock so Curtis won’t come home to find his room’s been broken into. Then I hear footsteps. Then silence. They’re gone.
I wait a few minutes, just to be sure.
When everything stays quiet, I leave the closet and switch on my flashlight. I get the Hitler photo out from behind the trunk and pry the back off. I see writing. It’s in German, I think, in some weird, old-style writing that would make it hard to read even if I understood the language, which I don’t. Then I see the imprint of something on the back of the photographic paper, something that looks like it’s been pressed in there between the back of the photo and the frame for a long time. Maybe for nearly seventy years.
It’s the imprint of a key.
A small key.
It’s way down in the corner, where it would have been hidden by the frame.
The key itself is missing.
The obvious question pops into my mind: the key to what?
It must have something to do with what Noah’s grandfather said—crooks stashing their stuff. Did he mean Nazi crooks?
I take the photo of Mr. Sieg Heil—I don’t care if the old man misses it. I roll it up as best I can and slide it under my jacket. Then I shove the window open and get out of there.
I go straight to Jacques’s café. It’s the only destination I can think of.
Jacques is there, but he’s closing for the night, so I have to knock to get his attention. He lets me in and locks up after me.
“We’re going to a party,” he says, pouring me a drink of something. It turns out to be rum. I almost choke on it. “You come with us. Good food, good music.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s an African party,” Elsie says. She tips her glass to Jacques and takes a sip. “When Jacques says good music, he means it’s got a beat you can really dance to—you know what I mean?”
I don’t even try to understand. I’m thinking about that key.
“What’s wrong?” Elsie says. That’s when I realize I’ve been staring at her.
“You know languages, right?” I say.
“Sure.”
“Is German one of the ones you know?”
She nods.
I reach up under my jacket and shirt and pull out the rolled-up Hitler. She and Jacques both look surprised when they see it.
“That signature,” Jacques says. “Is it real?”
“So they say.” I hand the photo to Elsie. “There’s writing on the back. I’m pretty sure it’s German. Can you tell me what it says?”
She puts down her glass and fumbles under her little waitress apron for a pair of glasses. They have heavy black frames, and when she puts them on, she looks like a professor.
“It’s the old-fashioned style of writing,” she says. “It doesn’t say much. It’s the name of a bank and a number. Whoever wrote it wrote out the numbers.”
Elsie shows me the name of the bank. It turns out it’s in Switzerland, which I know from maybe a million old movies was supposedly neutral during the war. I also know from more recent information that it wasn’t as neutral as it pretended to be. Swiss bankers helped a lot of Nazi types hide things—money and other valuables—and they knew what they were doing.
“Maybe it’s an account number,” she says.
“There was a key,” I tell her.
“Then it must be a safe-deposit box,” Jacques chimes in. “What’s going on, mon ami? What’s in the box?”
I tell him the truth. “I don’t know for sure.”
Something else occurs to me.
“Someone told me that Adler is German for eagle.”
“That’s right,” Elsie says.
“What about Waldmann? Does that mean anything?”
“Waldmann?” She shrugs. “It’s a common name. It’s one of those occupation names.”
“Occupation? You mean like when the Germans occupied Europe?”
She shakes her head. “In English, they’re names like Baker or Carpenter or Fisher. They identified what people did for a living.”
“And Waldmann?”
“It’s the same kind of name, only in German.”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s a guy who probably took care of some nobleman’s forest—you know, making sure the peasants didn’t make off with wood and stuff. I guess in English the equivalent would be something like Forrester.”
Waldmann equals Forrester, just like Adler equals eagle. What do you know? Everything is coming together, and it definitely involves David McLean.
I tuck Der Führer back up under my shirt. “I gotta go. Thanks for the information,” I say to Elsie. And to Jacques: “And the drink.”
Jacques reaches for a takeout menu and plucks a pen from Elsie’s apron pocket. He writes something in the white space on the back of the menu.
“This is where the party is. Come when you can. We’ll be there most of the night.”
I rip off the corner with the address on it and shove it into my jeans pocket. I ask one last question.
“Do you know a restaurant called Selwyns?”
He nods.
“You know how to get there from here?”
He gives me directions. Then he unlocks the door for me and wishes me good luck.
I’m going to need it.
FOURTEEN
I see Gerry’s rusted old truck in the parking lot at Selwyns. They’re still in there. I scan the street for someplace warm where I can wait. It’s a lot colder out now, and I’m starting to dream about the down-filled parka hanging in my closet back home. I’d give anything to be able to slide into it right now.
Plenty of stores and a few other restaurants have a good view of Selwyns’s front door. Unfortunately, none of them look like the kind of place that would welcome someone as grubby-looking as me, whose sole purpose is to hang out. I cross the street and huddle next to a utility pole that cuts some, but not all, of the wind. While I wait—and freeze—my eyes shift back and forth between the restaurant door and the photos in the album I swiped from the old man’s room. I check out the papers too. They’re letters. Two of them. One from a congressman, the second from the State Department. Proof, the old man said. He has it. Boy, does he have it!
I tuck everything back up under my sweatshirt and anchor it in the waistband of my jeans. I hope the Forrester family isn’t going to spend all night in that restaurant.
They don’t. But by the time the restaurant door opens to let someone out, I’m shivering uncontrollably.
It’s Noah.
I hope he doesn’t get into a car or flag a taxi.
I hope in vain.
He hands a ticket to the uniformed guy at the door, who trots to the parking lot, returns a few minutes later in a car and jumps out to let Noah in, but not before sticking out his hand for a tip. I look around for a cab. There aren’t any. All I can do is stand in the dark, shivering, while I watch Noah’s car disappear from sight.
Ten minutes pass, then ten more. I begin not to care about the key or Waldmann or how or even whether David McLean was responsible for him dying in a Soviet labor camp. If the guy was a Nazi, then he deserved it. I begin to wonder why I’m standing here. Someone just shot at me. Again. And killed someone else. Again. And I was right there both times. Either of those bodies could have been mine. My grandma could be coming down here to identify me in a morgue instead of to sign a bunch of papers that amount to a promise-to-appear in a murder case—assuming an arrest is ever made and assuming that Carver, after the latest shooting, feels inclined to let me leave the country.
The restaurant door opens again. The guy in the uniform accepts the ticket Gerry hands him while Katya helps the old man get his walker over the little bump at the door. Eric comes out,
hunched deep in his jacket.
The truck rattles to the front of the restaurant. When the valet approaches Gerry, I see that he doesn’t bother to hold out his hand, but Gerry defies expectations and slips him some bills. I see a look of surprise—pleasant surprise—on the valet’s face. Gerry must have enjoyed his dinner.
Katya helps Curtis into the truck. Eric puts his walker in the back and climbs in beside him. Katya and Gerry stand on the sidewalk, talking. I see Katya shake her head. Finally, Gerry kisses her on the cheek and gets in behind the wheel. The truck drives away.
Katya puts up the collar of her coat against the wind. What’s she going to do? Call a cab? There’s nothing much on the street. Maybe she got the valet guy to call one for her.
But no—she starts walking. Thank you!
She marches briskly down the block. I trail her, keeping to the other side of the street and hanging back far enough that I hope she won’t notice me.
She doesn’t look around. She keeps walking, head down, shoulders rounded, exposing as little of herself as possible as she heads into the wind. I keep her in sight.
Five minutes later she turns up the walk to a small house on a desolate street. It’s completely dark, no streetlights, no Christmas lights, no nothing. It’s hard to picture this place as a once-thriving community with people and kids and snowmen in front yards and Christmas trees visible through living-room windows.
Katya goes around the side of the house. I walk past and hide in the shadows, which is easy because of the streetlight shortage. She opens the door and goes inside. A light fills one window.
I wait a little longer, but nothing happens. I think about what to do. Katya is here to meet Noah—that much I know. If he shows up in his car and they take off together, that’ll be the end of it. I will have gone through all of this for one very large goose egg.
I walk to the door.
It’s unlocked.
I open it and step into a small landing. To my left are stairs down into a basement. Straight ahead, up two steps, is another door.
I open it and see a dark hallway. To my right, toward the back of the house, there’s light.
The place isn’t much. The paint is a kind of beige that—I’m just guessing here—was white thirty or forty or so years ago when it was first applied and, like some fading movie star, hasn’t aged well. The floor is hardwood. I know because I can see lengths of scuffed wood in the places where the scarred checker-board linoleum has broken away. I creep to the back of the house, and peek into the room where there’s light. The furniture—a little table, a couch, a couple of easy chairs—all seems to predate the paint on the walls. Either that or it’s been living fast and hard and has grown old before its time.
“How long do you think we’ll be gone?” It’s Katya. I follow her voice. She’s in the living room, sitting on the couch, which now that I see it up close, has stuffing leaking out of most of its cushions. She still has her hat on. Her purse is on her lap. I can see her breath in front of her face. Noah is in front of the fireplace in his coat, silk scarf and thin leather gloves. I didn’t see his car outside. Maybe he parked around the back. He’s holding a sheet of notebook paper, and he’s reading it. He’s smiling.
“We did it,” he says. “I had to pinch myself to stop from smiling all through dinner.”
“I smiled anyway,” Katya says. She’s still smiling now. “We’re engaged. We’re allowed to smile.”
But her smile evaporates faster than spit on summer asphalt when she sees me.
“What are you doing here?” Her eyes practically bug out of her head. Not only is she wondering what I’m doing here, but I bet she’s also wondering how I managed to find her.
Noah is surprised too. He tenses up and looks around warily—wondering, I suppose, if I’m alone or if someone has come with me.
“I don’t want to keep you,” I say, nice and friendly. “You two are about to leave town, right? Switzerland?”
Katya’s eyes snap to Noah. His smile is taut, like a well-wound spring. Or like a bowstring armed with an arrow and drawn back, ready to shoot.
“Where we go and what we do is none of your business,” Katya informs me.
Okay. “How about your grandfather? Is it his business?”
“What do you want?” Noah demands. There’s no doubt in his mind that I’m here for something. It’s a good thing it’s not the key I’m after, because I have a feeling Noah isn’t about to let that slip through his fingers.
“I just want to ask Katya a few questions. That’s it. I don’t care about the key.”
It’s true. I don’t. Why should I?
Noah’s eyes don’t waver from me. He wants me gone, the sooner the better. “What do you know about the key?”
I turn to Katya.
“I know about your great-grandfather,” I say. But that isn’t right. “I mean, I know who he was. But what I don’t know is how or why my grandfather was involved. Do you?” I’m hoping that if she’s done her research—or Noah has done his—they’ll know exactly what happened to him.
“Your grandfather?” She’s confused. “What does your grandfather have to do with anything?”
“My question exactly.” I tell her about the old newspaper photograph of Friedrich Waldmann, and then I tell her about David McLean—about what I’ve been able to find out, which is mostly just him showing up in Buenos Aires to offer her great-grandfather a job. I also tell her about Mirella.
“That’s the Mirella you were asking about?” she says. “She was married to my great-grandfather?”
“Apparently. She sent a postcard from your grandfather’s address to some neighbors back home. They never heard from her after that. She got a job here. I guess she made a new life.”
“So that’s how my grandpa knew her.” She digests that. “He never said anything about her. He never said anything about his father either. I never knew a thing about him until two months ago.” She slumps down into the couch again and looks me over. “He was a horrible man.”
“He ran a concentration camp,” I say. “Like Noah said.” I glance at him. “Isn’t that right, Noah?”
Noah stares at me. I imagine him as a prosecutor, a district attorney, with an accused murderer on the stand. I imagine him grilling that person.
“I read about him after Noah told me who he was,” Katya says. “I read everything I could find. He was notorious. Not exactly Mengele, but a terrible man. He ran away after the war to avoid getting captured by the Allies and having to stand trial. He hid out for the rest of his life. My grandfather was a boy at the time of the war. Noah says he probably didn’t know everything that was going on, and even if he did, there was probably nothing he could do about it. He was probably brainwashed.”
Maybe, I think. Maybe not.
“That’s why my grandfather changed his name,” she says. “It’s why he never talked about his past.”
“He collected a lot of stuff about the Nazis,” I say.
“We think—Noah and I think—that he was trying to understand them. You know, so that he could understand his own father.”
Maybe, I think. Maybe not.
“Noah’s grandfather was in Waldmann’s camp,” Katya says. “He survived. He told Noah all about what happened there. And then, years later, Noah’s grandfather saw my great-grandfather. He recognized him. He told Noah everything about him. When Noah met me and saw the picture of my grandpa and great-grandpa from when Grandpa was a boy, he almost fainted. I’m not kidding—his face turned white. When he told me why, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. My great-grandfather was a mass murderer. He was a criminal. And I never knew.”
What do you say to something like that?
I turn to Noah. “So your grandfather saw Waldmann and recognized him.”
Noah nods. It’s a tight move, quick, with no emotion behind it except maybe a firm desire to get me gone.
“He spotted him in Mexico,” Katya says. “When he was on holiday.
I keep thinking, what if he hadn’t taken that holiday? What if he hadn’t spotted Waldmann? Would I ever have found out the truth about my family?”
“Katya, we don’t have time for this. And you don’t have to explain anything to him,” Noah says.
“I’m not ashamed, Noah. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? I’m not ashamed. I just want to do the right thing.” She looks at me. “It happened when Noah was just a kid. After that, Noah’s grandfather tried to track down Waldmann. But he died without ever seeing him again.” I notice that she’s trying to avoid describing him as her great-grandfather.
I think about what Carver would call this story—cockamamie.
“That’s impossible,” I say. I guess I sound hardhearted, because Katya stares at me in shock. “What I mean,” I say, “is that Noah’s grandfather didn’t see Waldmann in Mexico. He couldn’t have.”
“What do you mean? Of course he did.” Katya glances at Noah for confirmation. “That’s how I know what I know.”
I unzip my jacket and start to reach up under my sweatshirt. Noah flinches. That should have told me something, but it didn’t.
I pull out the small leather-bound photo album and extract the two sheets of paper from its pages. I hand them to Katya. She skims the first one and frowns.
“Who’s Heinrich Franken?”
“That’s the phony name Waldmann used when he fled to Argentina,” I say. “It sounds to me like the Americans used it too. I guess they didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing.”
“Argentina?” She frowns. She’s still frowning as she reads further.
“The first letter is from a congressman from California,” I tell Noah. “The American government offered Franken or Waldmann or whatever you want to call him—Katya’s great-grandfather—a job. Curtis and Mirella came up first with the family belongings. Franken was supposed to follow. He never showed up. It took Curtis and Mirella two months to find out what happened. They got that letter and then a visit from a government official. They were told that Franken had been kidnapped by the Russians.”
