Walking around a bit, Grottsch and I found ourselves beside the ruins of the town’s synagogue on Obere-Masch Strasse, burned to the ground in 1938, and I wondered how many of Göttingen’s Jews had met their ends in Treblinka at the hands of Paul Kestner and if nine years in a Russian POW camp really was sufficient punishment for three quarters of a million people. Perhaps there was after all no earthly punishment that was equal to a crime like that. But if not here on earth, then where?

Our footsteps took us back to St. Jacobi’s Church. I stopped to look in the window of a shop opposite, but when I walked away I found I was alone. I stopped and glanced around, expecting to see Grottsch coming toward me, but he was nowhere to be seen. For a moment I considered escape. The prospect of visiting the Friedland refugee camp and being seen by Bingel and Krause was no more appealing than it had been the previous day, and about the only thing that prevented me from walking straight to the railway station was a lack of money and the knowledge that my French passport was back at the Pension Esebeck. I was still debating my next course of action when I found I was closely accompanied by two men wearing neat little hats and short dark raincoats.

“If you’re looking for your friend,” said one of the men, “he had to sit down and rest. On account of the fact that he suddenly felt very tired.”

I was still looking around for Grottsch, as if I really cared what happened to him, when I realized that there were two more men behind me.

“He’s sleeping it off in the church.” The man speaking had good German, but it wasn’t his first language. He wore heavy-framed glasses and was smoking a metal-stemmed pipe. He puffed, and a cloud of tobacco smoke obscured his face for a moment.

“Sleeping it off?”

“A hypodermic shot. Nothing to worry about. Not for him and not for you, Gunther. So relax. We’re your friends. There’s a car around the corner waiting to take us on a little ride.”

“Suppose I don’t want to go for a ride?”

“Why suppose anything of the kind when we both know that’s exactly what you want? Besides, I’d hate to have to give you a shot like your friend Grottsch. The effects of thiopental can linger unpleasantly for several days after injection.” He had my arm now and his colleague had the other, and we were already turning the corner onto Weender Strasse. “A new life awaits you, my friend. Money, and a new identity, a new passport. Anything you want.”