“It’s the fatty who ate the grilled cheese!” Bejo parroted Korczak’s British accent. Everybody started laughing again except Sakal, who seemed intrigued by the suggestion.

“A minute and you’ll prove he didn’t do it?”

“Korczak, knock it off,” Yanai whispered to him. “It’ll just make them angrier.”

“Cut it out already,” I said, backing Yanai.

“I don’t want it!” Yanai yelled, but Sakal wasn’t interested. “You should’ve thought about that before you chose him,” he told Yanai and sat on the couch with the other seniors. He picked up the megaphone that lay on the floor beside him and announced: “One minute, advocate, give it to us.”

“You’re a fucking screwball,” Yanai hissed at Korczak and looked at me helplessly.

With one hand behind his back, Korczak took a few steps toward the seniors.

“Who saw him leave this room?” he asked.

The three raised their hands again.

“And you were sitting outside the canteen, right? So what you saw was in fact his back?”

“Sweetheart, we may be old but our vision’s still twenty-twenty,” Bejo said.

Korczak took a step back.

“Okay.” He stood next to Yanai without saying another word.

“That’s it?” Sakal’s voice blared through the megaphone.

“Yup, that was my only question.”

“Wow, they got real geniuses at Oxford, huh?” Sakal said, and the rest of the soldiers behind him snickered like a well-rehearsed choir.

“Now if you could only open the door and turn off the light,” Korczak added casually.

“What did you say?” Sakal asked.

“Turn off the light and open the door,” Korczak repeated in a slow, clear tone. “It’s really rather simple actions. I can do them myself if you’d like.”

Bejo raised his hand in protest.

“Enough, he’s turning this into a circus,” he said. Sakal persisted in his silence, looking at Korczak with curiosity.

“Give me one more second, I’ll prove it to you.”

Sakal leaned his weight against the seniors’ stick to pull himself up, then walked toward the advocate.

“I’m giving you one chance. But so help me God if either of you try to make a run for it,” he said. It was only when their faces were inches from each other that I realized there was more than a show of kindness there; that maybe Sakal was seeking validation from Korczak. He wanted the company’s intellectual to acknowledge his status.

Before any of the seniors managed to protest, Korczak had already turned off the light and opened the door. A streetlight from the other side of the outpost cast a faint glow on the two blurry figures that entered. Korczak closed the door, and the room was filled with complete darkness. I felt a pair of hands pulling me forward.

“Don’t move,” Korczak whispered, turning me around and positioning me somewhere in the room.