Читать книгу Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle - Sylvia Maultash Warsh - Страница 37

“This is the man?” Rebecca said, gaping at the picture.

Nesha, who was about to take a sip of tea, sat up to attention. “You recognize him?”

“It’s him,” she said. “This is the brother-in-law.”

“I don’t understand,” Nesha said in a flat voice. “Chana’s husband?”

“This is Leo Feldberg,” she said, incredulous herself.

“Is it possible?” he said, staring at the picture as if for the first time. “Steiner has hidden himself in plain sight all this time by masquerading as a Jew?”

“You lost me,” she said. “Who’s Steiner?”

“Oberscharführer Johann Steiner. The Nazi in the square that day.”

“But you said you were too far away to see his face.”

“I would never be able to recognize him. That’s why it took me so long to find him. He wasn’t one of the major ones. Maybe he only killed five hundred instead of ten thousand. Maybe no one was looking for him except me. I had to do research — it was just luck — I found a file with documents, papers with his signature. And this photo.” He couldn’t take his eyes off it. “Why would the photo be in his file if it wasn’t him?”

“Where did you find the file?”

He observed her. “You know, most people don’t want to hear this stuff.”

“Please, I want to know.”

He stared at her another moment, then went on. “As soon as I arrived in America I started looking for him. I didn’t know his name; I didn’t know what he looked like. Every year on the anniversary of that day in April, I went to the Jewish Congress searching for information. Then the Wiesenthal Center opened and I kept looking. For anything. Names, documents. Anything. Other boys my age played football and lied to their parents about where they took their dates. All I dreamed about was finding the murderer. It was as if...,” he struggled to find the words, “as if there was a fire burning in me. Like the fire I’d seen consume my family. It won’t be put out until I get him.” He pulled the towel tighter around himself.

“They got to know me at the Wiesenthal Center. I always asked for Louis. He showed me whatever they got that year that might’ve helped. Up till now there was almost nothing. But finally I got lucky. A man named Greenspan, a survivor, died recently and his children sent them his research in boxes. His son said he didn’t want it in the house. That he had to listen to it all his life and now he was glad to get rid of it. So the poor schnook spent half his life collecting this stuff, maps, photos, all kinds of goodies, and his children couldn’t give it away fast enough. Louis just left me in the room with all these cartons. Most of the stuff was labelled. But this one box I came across, it was some kind of a grab bag: photos, affidavits, old passports. And no labels. It was as if he had things left over he didn’t know what to do with. So he threw them into a box until he could get to them. Only he never got to them. And there it was, just sitting and waiting for me after all these years. A very slim file with Steiner’s name scribbled across. I photocopied what was in it, two photos and two documents.”

He pulled more paper out of the small plastic folder he’d retrieved from the deep pocket of his sweatpants. Unfolding the sheet carefully, he held it up so that she could see the meticulous small script.

“I can’t read German,” she said.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll translate.” He took in a quick breath before starting.

“’ We entered the village of Dobienk on Sunday, April 6, 1941, where my men rounded up 140 Jews with the help of local informants. Some locals helped us take them into the synagogue, which we set on fire. Also burned down the Jewish quarter. Rescued whatever silver pieces found, as instructed. Unterscharführer Johann Steiner.’ ”

Rebecca had barely grasped the horror of what he’d read when Nesha pulled out a second document from his little folder. She stared at it a few moments, realizing she didn’t need a translation to figure it out. It seemed to be a day-by-day report in list form of the activities of Group 3 of the Ordnungspolizei for a period of a week in April 1941, beginning with the sixth. The flowing methodical hand of Rottenfü hrer Ernst Waldhausen noted the town, date, and number of Jews killed in each, starting with Dobienk. Obviously this sheet represented only a quarter of the month. Somewhere lay the rest of the month, followed by the next month, and the next, all neatly recorded within the lines. A ledger of bones.

“Oh, my God!” she murmured. She looked up, wishing she could say something comforting to him, but he had already taken out the last thing in his plastic folder. She stared at the other photo he had copied from the file. A group shot of men in greatcoats standing in front of a fence of barbed wire. One man wore the peaked hat of an officer, the others cloth caps, his subordinates. Underneath was written “Skarzysko.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Is this him, too?”

“I think what happened was that he was given this position at the camp — Skarzysko was a labour camp — as a reward for his services in the Ordnungspolizei. Probably promoted to Oberscharführer then. It must’ve been later in the war.”

She examined the picture of the man. It had been taken from far away, all the faces blurred with time and distance. It could’ve been Feldberg. But then it could’ve been anyone.

All of a sudden Nesha came awake. “Where is he?”

She was startled by his newfound energy. “You don’t know it’s him.”

“I’ll ask him.”

“Then what?”

He rubbed both eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “That has nothing to do with you.”

“Let the police deal with him. If he’s a killer.”

He leaned his head forward toward her, his jaw set beneath the stubble starting to shade his skin. “Do you have the death penalty in this country?”

She looked away, understanding his drift and uneasy with it.

“Is it enough for him to go to jail?” he said. “You didn’t know my family. But you knew Goldie. You know how if feels when someone you care about meets a violent end. Is it enough for that monster to go to jail and sit comfortably watching TV for the rest of his obscene life?”

“I’m only concerned for your safety,” she said, impressed with the emotions he was raising in her. No, it wasn’t enough.

He sat up stiffly. “I’m sure your concern is admirable, Doctor, but I neither need nor want it.”

His attention turned to the letters in her lap. All at once he reached across the space between their chairs and lifted one of the empty envelopes from the top of the pile. His dark eyes travelled from the address on the envelope to her face.

“He didn’t have far to go,” said Nesha.

He rose abruptly, pulling the towel from around his shoulders, and headed for the examining room.

She stood in the hallway, watching him shuffle something from under the heap of his sweatshirt. Facing her, he took pains to manoeuvre it into his waistband out of her sight. Who did he think he was fooling? He pulled the still damp shirt over top.

“I can’t let you go like this,” she said alarmed. “Don’t you care what happens to you? You could spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“It means nothing to me. I’ve been in one kind of jail or another since I was ten years old.”

“You must’ve had moments of happiness since then.”

His full lips curled up in an ironic smile. “I know what you’re trying to do, and I almost appreciate it. But it’s too late to save me, Doctor. I have nothing to lose.”

She stood in the doorway, blocking it. “I can’t begin to understand what you’ve been through. To be honest, I don’t want to understand. It’s too painful. But that’s why I can see the whole picture. You’re too close. You can’t see that you’re about to ruin any chance for peace you may have.”

“You’re right — you can’t begin to understand. It’s my fault Goldie’s dead. If I hadn’t sent her the picture —”

“Don’t fall into that trap. Let me help you.”

“There’s nothing you can do.” He hovered near her impatiently. “Let me by.”

“Let’s sit down and talk.”

“It’s too late for that.”

The quietness of his voice belied the turmoil underneath, the rage that fed the fire in his eyes. She was not going to convince him of anything.

She stepped backwards into the hall. He barely glanced at her, then squeezed past her out the door and downstairs. She couldn’t call Wanless, there was no time. Besides, what would she say? Someone else believes in the murderer and plans to kill him? That sounded ludicrous, even to her.

She closed up her office and sailed down the stairs. From the front door she could see him getting into a blue car parked on Beverley Street. She lost sight of him for a minute while running to the back lot to get her car. It couldn’t have been more than a minute, but by the time she turned north up Beverley, he was gone. That was all right. She knew where he was going. She just had to get there in time.