Page 136 of Hell to Pay
“Wait,” Alix said, frowning. “You used the forgedKennkartefor your passport and marriage license and everything?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So …” she said slowly. “How old are you? Actually?”
“Actually,” I said, “I’m ninety-two.”
“So a spring chicken,” Alix said, and I laughed.
Ashleigh had barely been listening. “OK, tell about the wedding and everything. Oh—and if it’s a little racy? That’s good.”
I was about to answer—andnotto say anything “a little racy”—but a bell dinged on her phone, and she was scrolling and reading again while we all waited. Really, the rudeness of these telephones!
She looked up at last, her eyes bigger and her face more still than I’d ever seen them. “Uh … guys?” she said. “I think we’re about to change our plan for the day.”
57
THE PRODIGAL RETURNS
The woman who walked into the suite an hour later was unknown to me. Of middle age, with dark hair and eyes of deepest brown, her cheekbones and her manner most decisive. I offered tea, she accepted, and I prepared her cup while introducing the others. Her name was Rachel Levy, and she had a curious accent I couldn’t place.
“I’ve come,” she said in German, one hand on the pocketbook in her lap, “because of your story. I wasn’t following it—I don’t use social media, nor do I watch television—but one of my patients told me about it.”
“Your patients,” I said, after translating for the others. “You’re a doctor, then.”
“Yes,” she said. “Like my father. Gerhardt Becker.”
She’d said as much to Ashleigh, but hearing it from her lips was making my heart race, and I put a hand over it. “Oh,” I said. “Dear Gerhardt. Is he still alive?”
“No, I’m afraid not. He died almost ten years ago; his health was never the best.”
“I’m very sorry. I’d have loved to see him again. And your aunt? Andrea?”
“She’s gone as well. For five years now. She became a professor of biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science.” Dr. Levy smiled. “She said that she wasn’t interested in poking about in people’s insides.”
“Where is that?” I asked. “The Institute?”
“In Israel. Where my grandfather moved with his children in 1948.”
“Oh, I’m glad,” I said. “He deserved a refuge.”
“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.” Her mouth firm, and her voice as well. “But he told us about you, too. About you and your parents. He was very grateful always.”
There was such a lump in my throat! “And I was grateful to him,” I managed to say. “Did he also resume teaching? I believe he was a very good teacher.”
“Oh, yes,” Dr. Levy said. “He became rather eminent, in fact. He tried to write to you, you know, after the war, but the letter was returned. Obviously because you went to America.”
“One lost track of many people in those days,” I said. “There was a great deal of disruption. Tell me, did he marry again?”
“Yes. To a survivor.” Of the camps, she meant. “I believe he felt some guilt. He was surrounded, you see, by those with the tattoo on their forearm. He became quite devout as a result. My father—Gerhardt—married as well, obviously, but my Aunt Andrea did not. She was a very reserved woman. Kind, but reserved.”
“She was that way when I knew her, too,” I said. “I sometimes wondered whether she resented me. It wouldn’t be a surprise; I’d lived in relative luxury, after all, while your family was living in poverty and terror.”
Dr. Levy frowned. “I don’t think that was why. I think she felt guilty, and perhaps a little awed. You were like an adult, she said, deciding what to do and where to go, while she could only follow behind.”
“So,” I said, “she resented me. I’ll accept that. And here you are in Dresden again. How did that come about?”
Dr. Levy smiled. “I met my second husband when he traveled to Israel for a conference. Like me, he wasn’t Jewish by birth. You aren’t, you know, if your mother isn’t, which has always struck me as ironic. He was practicing here, and I thought—why shouldn’t I go back? Why shouldn’t I help make this a place where Jews can live at peace again? So we married four years ago, and here I am.”
