A third pause. Then Margolies: “My first post as an apprentice waiter took place at the three-star Scotch Hotel, in Bialystok. This was March, 1900. I was just seventeen. One day, not long after this job began, there was a stir in the grand dining room. All the waiters and headwaiters were gathered around an oval table. I will tell you who was sitting there. With a cigarette in a holder and a dark blue gown: Sarah Bernhardt. Then on a world tour. Imagine my feelings when I, remember a mere apprentice, then leaning against a distant wall, realized that the famous actress was making a signal to me! ‘Un café crěme!’ she demanded.

“In those days my hair was black and curly, and I wore the curls mostly on one side. Also, I had a mustache. That is how I looked when I came up with a cup and a saucer and a pot of hot coffee and a pot of hot milk. I combined these elements without a flaw. Sarah Bernhardt, dear friends! With earrings! With eyebrows! What a terrible blow when I read in the newspaper that they had to cut off her leg.”

Verble: “I suggest we look at things this way. Not who should go but who should stay. The biologically sound material. The socially valuable elements. From this perspective, it’s obvious we should put down the names of the fifty oldest people in the Suburb. They’ve lived their lives. We haven’t!”

The assembly of Ministers groaned, as if they had been awakened. Fried Rievesaltes slapped at the fly on his wrist.

“Dry leaves,” said Nomberg, “must fall.”

Dorka Kleinweiss: “I disagree completely. I have not changed my mind. How can you bring yourselves to do the Masters’ work for them? How do you know it’s not because you’ve been promised an exemption? What if one of us writes down a name because of some private quarrel, to settle some personal debt? We are not, fellow members, the Lords of life and death.”

Paradyz turned to the Minister of Provisions and Supply. “Come, come, Miss Kleinweiss. What an exaggeration. It is not a question of life and death. We are simply deciding who is to continue to live in the Suburb and who shall live on a farm. It’s not as if we were condemning people to prison.”

Gutfreind, of Education: “Minister Paradyz, how can you be so certain? The letters from the earlier deportees, the ones from the hospitals, stopped coming a long time ago.”

Baggelman: “I have a question for the Minister of Provisions and Supply. Suppose you were driving a van down a narrow mountain road. The mountain is on one side, and on the other is a cliff measuring hundreds of meters. Unexpectedly you see before you a child on the right-of-way. No time to stop, Miss Kleinweiss. My question is, what do you do?”

Without hesitating, Dorka Kleinweiss responded, “Swerve over the side.”

Baggelman: “Aha! I thought you would say that! Now, what if the van were to be loaded with people? Then what do you say?”