The Warsaw Anagrams

by Richard Zimler

  ‘Indulge me,’ I told him, enjoying my power over him. ‘I need to ask you something.’

  Tears flooded his eyes. ‘What… what have I done?’ he stammered.

  ‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ I answered.

  By now, all the bakery workers except Ewa had gathered around us. Ziv still didn’t move, but he glanced away for a moment, which was enough time for a skilled chess player like him to plan a strategy.

  ‘Get into your room!’ I told him harshly, determined to interrupt his thinking.

  Taking the paper bag from his head, the boy turned and shuffled ahead of Izzy and me. Sacks of flour lined the back wall of the storeroom he lived in, and the wooden shelves were stacked with tins and jars. I shut the door behind us and turned the bolt to lock it.

  Ziv’s cot was topped by a bright yellow blanket. His alabaster chessboard rested on top of his pillow. A photo of a dashing young man in a tuxedo was tacked to the left wall, and it was signed in blue ink by the chess champion Emmanuel Lasker. Below it was an old wooden chest. I started looking there.

  ‘What are you searching for?’ Ziv asked in a thin, apprehensive voice.

  I made no reply. I began looking through his underwear.

  ‘If you tell me,’ he continued, ‘I’ll give it to you. Do you want the money I’ve saved up? I’ll give you everything I have.’

  I continued hunting for evidence, tossing the clothing I’d already examined to the floor.

  ‘I… I think I understand now,’ the boy told me, but in so unsteady a voice that I looked at him. He sat down on the edge of his bed, gently, as if afraid to make any noise. ‘God, what an idiot I’ve been, Dr Cohen.’

  That comment surprised me. Fixing my gaze, he said, ‘I should have known. I’ve played this all wrong.’

  ‘What should you have known?’

  ‘What you’re looking for is behind there,’ he said gloomily, pointing to his photograph of Lasker.

  Ziv was crying again – and silently. He was an excellent actor, but I already knew that.

  One of the bakery workers must have summoned Ewa. She began pounding at the door and yelling my name.

  ‘Go away!’ I shouted back. Turning to Izzy, I said, ‘Hold the gun on him.’

  Taped to the back of the photograph was a white envelope. I ripped it away. Out of it spilled a slender gold chain holding a small enamel medallion of the Virgin Mary.

  I would have expected a surge of righteousness or rage on finding the man who had betrayed Adam; instead, holding Georg’s pendant gave me a sense of having been moved around Warsaw by a will that was not my own.

  I leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath. My mouth was metallic tasting, as if I’d swallowed rust.

  Ewa was still banging at the door and calling out to me. The noise and heat pressed down on me. I hated Ziv for making me kill him.

  ‘It’s not mine, I swear,’ the young man told me, shaking his hands wildly. ‘You have to believe me!’

  ‘I know whose it is!’ I hollered. ‘It belongs to a boy named Georg – a street juggler. You remember him, I’m sure.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he replied, moaning. ‘I discovered the pendant in my room two days ago.’

  ‘Who left it here?’ Izzy demanded.

  Ziv faced him and joined his hands together. ‘I don’t know. I asked everyone in the bakery about the pendant, but no one had lost it. You can ask them. Ask Ewa! I decided to keep it until someone claimed it.’

  ‘Is that the best story you can come up with?’ Izzy demanded.

  ‘What did you get in return for Adam?’ I asked.

  Ziv looked helplessly between me and Izzy. Finding no sympathy in our faces, he gazed down and squeezed his head between his hands as if to hold his thoughts inside. His skilful performance only enraged me further.

  ‘What did you get for my nephew?’ I demanded again.

  ‘I didn’t hurt Adam! Oh God, I’d never have hurt him! Stefa loved him more than anything.’

  ‘Give me the gun,’ I told Izzy. He handed it to me. I pointed it at Ziv’s head. ‘Tell me the truth!’ I ordered.

  ‘Let me think!’ the young man pleaded. ‘Dr Cohen, now that I know I’ve been set up, I can figure this out. I’m good at figuring things out. You know I am!’

  I put the barrel of the gun up to his temple. ‘This is no game, you little bastard! Who have you been working with outside the ghetto?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone outside the ghetto,’ he insisted, and he reached for my arm to implore me, but I batted it away.

  A key turned in the door. Ewa opened it and faced me. ‘If you hurt Ziv, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.’

  ‘I have no rest of my life,’ I replied.

  ‘Still, you should be pointing that gun at me, not him.’

  CHAPTER 26

  ‘After Papa and I moved into the ghetto, we had difficulties getting insulin for Helena,’ Ewa told me and Izzy. Seated next to Ziv, she was rubbing his hand to calm him – and to give herself the strength to tell me what she knew. Her lips were trembling, and she couldn’t look at me. She kept gazing off; she would have preferred to be anywhere but where she was.

  ‘And it became more expensive, too,’ she continued. ‘We were getting desperate, but in early January Papa told me that his German supplier had promised to get him insulin for almost nothing. All we had to do was find him Jewish children to photograph. Papa’s friend was a medical researcher who’d just moved to Warsaw – a German doctor my father had known in Zurich. He told Papa he had theories about the Jews involving their skin, but I never found out exactly what he meant.’

  Ewa – the quietest among us – was opening the final door of this mystery.

  ‘Did your father mention this man’s name?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve tried to remember. I think I must have heard it.’

  ‘It has to be either Rolf Lanik or Werner Koch. Think, Ewa.’

  ‘Those names, they seem close, but… Could it have been Kalin… or maybe Klein?’

  Ewa gazed at me questioningly, but I closed my eyes – out of gratitude, because I suddenly realized why a string had been put in Adam’s mouth and a piece of gauze in Georg’s hand. And how they identified the murderer. Though I still didn’t know who had given me those clues. Might Irene or her mother have been brilliant enough to leave them behind?

  Knowing who the murderer was also made me understand why his helper inside the ghetto hadn’t been persuaded by our note to go to the Leszno Street gate.

  Yet it was then that a first regret pierced my excitement: if only I’d figured out earlier that the Rolf who’d signed the photographs of the Alps hanging on Mikael’s office walls had been Rolf Lanik, a talented little boy who’d juggled socks to earn his supper would still be alive.

  ‘Are you all right, Dr Cohen?’ Ewa asked me, and Izzy reached for my shoulder.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Go on.’

  ‘The researcher friend of my father’s wanted to photograph skin defects, particularly on children,’ Ewa continued. ‘We were both so relieved to have his help! So when Papa examined Anna and noticed a blemish on her hand, he told her to go to an address outside the ghetto, where she’d receive a hundred and fifty złoty for letting a doctor there photograph her. Papa didn’t know that she’d be killed.’ Ewa held my gaze. ‘He didn’t know. He swore to me he didn’t.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I told her, but I didn’t believe her father.

  ‘Anna told Papa she was going to sneak out of the ghetto anyway, so it seemed all right,’ Ewa continued. ‘He only began to think that something bad might have happened to her when she didn’t show up for her abortion. Later, he learned from her parents that she’d been murdered.’

  I faced Izzy. ‘After Anna was turned away by Mrs Sawicki, she must have gone to the address Mikael had given her.’

  ‘She risked everything because she needed money to pay back her friends,’ he observed regretfully.

  ‘Papa
confronted his photographer friend,’ Ewa continued, ‘but he swore that he hadn’t hurt Anna – that she must have been murdered after being photographed at his office and receiving her payment. Papa was sure he was telling the truth. Then Rowy chose Adam for the chorus, and my father noticed his birthmarks at his check-up – though I didn’t know that then. Apparently, Papa visited backstage at a rehearsal one afternoon, and he told Adam that if he ever left the ghetto he should go to have his leg photographed because he’d get a hundred and fifty złoty.’

  That made sense; Adam would have trusted Mikael because of the horseradish the physician had given him.

  ‘With all that money,’ I told Ewa, ‘Adam must have thought he’d be able to buy enough coal to keep Gloria warm till spring.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she told me, and she began to cry.

  I felt nothing for her; her tears were too late to do any good. ‘What was the address?’ I asked her impatiently.

  She wiped her eyes. ‘I’m not sure. Somewhere on Krakowskie Przedmieście.’

  Izzy looked at me knowingly. ‘We have to find Jesion,’ he told me.

  Ziv put his arm over Ewa’s shoulder, which only made her tear up again.

  ‘Please go on, Ewa,’ I pleaded. ‘Every moment we wait puts another life at risk.’

  ‘After I found out what happened to Adam,’ she resumed, ‘I remembered seeing his birthmarks once, when Stefa was getting him dressed for school. To think that my father might have been responsible… A black terror took hold of me.’

  Ewa gazed down into her guilt. ‘On the morning of Stefa’s funeral, I finally confronted my father. At first he lied and said he hadn’t spoken to your nephew, but then, when I threatened that he’d never see Helena again if he didn’t tell me the truth, he admitted that he’d suggested to Adam that he go visit the photographer on Krakowskie Przedmieście – but only when he was still under the belief that his friend was innocent. Papa promised me he’d never tell another child about the photographs – and that he’d never speak to his friend again. That’s why I didn’t go to you or the police. I should have. I know that now. I’m sorry, Dr Cohen.’ She turned to Ziv and squeezed his hand. ‘And I’m sorry for risking your life,’ she told him. ‘It’s my fault that you were almost killed.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Ziv told her. ‘I’m fine now. And you were just trying to protect Helena and your father.’

  Ewa shook her head as if he was too kind to her. Turning back to me, she said, ‘After Stefa died, I couldn’t face you. I’m sorry. And Papa… I couldn’t entirely trust him, so I told him I no longer wanted his help in getting insulin. But it was hard to find another regular supplier, and Helena went into shock and nearly died. So Papa began helping me again – though he promised he wouldn’t get insulin from his friend any more. He has another source now – a good, reliable source.’

  ‘No, that can’t be true,’ I told her. ‘And I think your father has lied to you all along.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Another boy was murdered more recently,’ I told her coldly, wishing she’d come to me sooner. ‘He was murdered after Stefa’s death, and skin around his hip was sliced away.’

  She shook her head disbelievingly. ‘Which boy was killed?’

  I held up the Virgin Mary pendant. ‘The owner of this,’ I told her. ‘His name was Georg – Rowy or Ziv must have recruited him for the chorus. He juggled socks and sang old Yiddish songs.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Ziv told me urgently. ‘Dr Cohen, you have to believe me. Rowy must have found him.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I replied. ‘I’m sorry for ever doubting you. And I should never have put you through this.’

  ‘It’s all right, I understand,’ he said, smiling sweetly.

  I’d nearly killed him, and he smiled at me as if our friendship was stronger than ever.

  ‘Ewa, your father must have decided that he couldn’t risk Helena going into diabetic shock again. He’s still sending kids to his photographer friend.’

  ‘No, he swore to me he wouldn’t do that!’ she replied, moaning.

  ‘There are other things you should know about your father,’ I told her bitterly. ‘He must have realized I was close to learning what he’d done, so he paid someone to shoot me. But he didn’t know that new tenants were sleeping in my room. So the killer shot the wrong man.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem-’

  ‘Possible?’ I cut in harshly. ‘Don’t you see? He’ll do anything to keep Helena and you alive – and to keep from being caught. He’s even tried to frame Rowy and Ziv – he didn’t care which one. He left Georg’s pendant here, and I’ll bet he left Anna’s pearl earrings with Rowy. Ziv says he noticed the Virgin Mary pendant two days ago, which means your father has known for at least that long who my main suspects were. Though I don’t know how.’

  ‘Maybe I let something slip at Stefa’s funeral,’ Izzy observed apologetically.

  ‘It could just as easily have been me,’ I told him. ‘And just before we came here, your father brought me a note – a threat that he said he’d received. The note said that if he ever revealed anything about the murderer, he’d never see Helena again. That was part of his plan to shift the blame. He even implied that he was being followed by the same man who had tried to shoot me.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she replied. ‘Who was the note from?’

  ‘He led us to believe that it was from Rowy, but it wasn’t. Your father wrote it himself.’ I turned to Ziv. ‘Once he realized I suspected you as well as Rowy, he cleverly revealed that you’d told him you needed extra money to send to your mother outside the Łodz´ ghetto. He let that slip as though he didn’t understand the implication. The perfect touch was letting Izzy and me jump to the obvious conclusion about you.’

  ‘So you thought I needed a lot of extra cash,’ Ziv observed.

  ‘Yes, and that you had a contact outside the ghetto helping you get it to your mother.’

  ‘Which is why we came here,’ Izzy told him. ‘To search for evidence of who you were working with outside the ghetto.’

  ‘But my mother died a month before I came to Warsaw,’ the boy insisted, as if righting an injustice. ‘I never told Dr Tengmann that she was alive. I promise.’

  ‘So she’s not hiding in Łodź?’

  ‘If she had found a place to hide, why wouldn’t I be with her? Or at least be hiding elsewhere in Łodź, where I could be nearer to her.’

  ‘But can you prove she’s dead?’ I challenged him.

  ‘Why would I have to?’

  ‘Because if Ewa hadn’t told me the truth, it would have been your word against her father’s. I would have believed him, and you, Ziv… you’d be dead.’

  The boy gazed down and smiled fleetingly, as if in admiration of Mikael’s strategy. Looking up, he said excitedly, ‘You sent me that note, didn’t you, Dr Cohen? You wanted me to go to the Leszno Street gate!’

  ‘Yes, we were trying to trap the killer, but no one showed up.’

  ‘So Ewa’s father must have known that your note was a trick, but how?’

  ‘Because he knew that the German he was working with wasn’t in Warsaw and couldn’t have sent him that note.’ I turned to Izzy. ‘He knew that Lanik was out of town. They must have found a way to communicate with each other fairly regularly. Maybe Mikael has access to a working phone.’ To Ewa, I said, ‘Your father must have had someone leave Georg’s pendant here secretly. He knew that when Izzy and I came here, we’d be sure to find the evidence we were looking for. He improvises well.’

  ‘If that’s true, then who left it here?’ the young woman asked.

  ‘Your father must have had a copy made of the key to the bakery and could have paid a streetkid to leave the pendant under Ziv’s door.’

  ‘But it wasn’t left under my door,’ Ziv told me. ‘I found it under my pillow. It had to be someone with the key to my bedroom, or a person I let in.’ His eyes opened wide with astonishment. ‘It must
have been one of my chess students.’

  ‘Are you teaching anyone who knows Ewa’s father?’

  ‘That woman who came for her first lesson two days ago – Karina.’

  ‘Who’s Karina?’ I asked.

  Ewa replied for Ziv. ‘She and my father… They’ve been seeing each other since late November.’

  Izzy understood before me. ‘Describe Karina,’ he requested of Ewa.

  ‘Pretty, in her fifties, with silver hair and…’

  ‘Enough!’ I said, angry at myself; I didn’t need to hear more; Melka – whose real name I now knew – had told Mikael who my suspects were. I had to give her credit; she’d convinced me that she was hardly paying attention to all that I’d revealed to her after we’d shared her bed.

  Mikael had used my vanity against me. He must have even told her to offer me a sugar crystal for my tea. He was a coldly observant and resourceful man.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ I told Izzy.

  Ewa jumped up and reached for my arm. ‘What’ll you do to my father?’ she asked, terrified.

  CHAPTER 27

  Could I kill Mikael? I wasn’t sure. So Izzy and I spoke instead of how we’d murder Lanik. He sat on Stefa’s bed, curled over his angry ideas, and I stood by the window, cooler, but also more perverse – Mr Hyde creeping through the underbrush of his mind.

  We decided we’d go to Lanik’s office and shoot him there if he was unprotected. If he had soldiers or guards with him, we’d wait until he left for lunch.

  I wanted to strip him, as he’d stripped Adam, and make him beg for his life while kneeling in the filth of a Warsaw backstreet, have him weep for all the springtimes of Germany he’d never see. I wanted a hungry-for-vengeance crowd of Poles to learn what a wrinkled, shivering coward he was minus his uniform, gun and guards, and without his beloved, dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf in his hands, justifying his murder of the most defenceless among us.

  And once he was dead?

  Izzy and I would flee across the river for the suburb of Praga; Jaśmin Makinska lived near the tram depot on Street. We would either stay with her or, if she could, she would drive us to Lwów, where we’d hide out in a rooming house or small hotel for as long as it took to sell my remaining jewellery. We didn’t have Christian identity papers, but a couple of hundred złoty stuffed in an innkeeper’s pocket would win us his grudging silence for a few days.