Suddenly one of the kidnappers held up his hand. “Stop!” he said. “Listen!”

Poor Faulhaber could hear nothing at all. But his captors grabbed him and threw him into the nearest doorway. One of them put the palm of his hand over his mouth. “Not a word,” he warned. “Don’t you hear?”

There was something, a few streets off. Feet tramping. Shoes shuffling. A noise like pots and pans. All this came steadily nearer. The American heard weeping, too. And dull, soft thuds. Unmistakably blows.

Then, turning a corner, a whole procession emerged from the gloom. The man in the lead—though Faulhaber could not know him—was Officer Turski. Behind him, on either side of the street, were more Jewish policemen. They carried rubber clubs in their hands. In the center, between the two lines, was a mass of some two hundred Jews. They were the ones who were weeping. They had boxes on their backs, or they dragged tied-up bundles, like laundry, over the ground. The line of march passed in front of the doorway where the four men were hidden. Faulhaber was surprised to feel one of his captors tremble.

“The shame! The shame!” this man kept repeating.

Another bandit groaned and bit on the cloth of his stocking. He trembled, too.

There was still a gun barrel in Faulhaber’s wool suit. The person who held it leaned closer and fiercely whispered. “Pay attention. Look carefully. Those are Jews dragging off Jews! It happens every second night. The quota is now eight hundred to one thousand weekly. They are taken to the Radogodsh Station and loaded onto a train. This train takes them to an unknown place. Remember this, Faulhaber. Remember the faces of the policemen. You have to tell the rest of the world.”

“Can such things be?” the visitor groaned, watching the end of the procession move out of sight. The next thing Faulhaber knew someone had pulled a black stocking—this one without any eyeholes—over his head. They led him blinded through the narrow streets.

After ten minutes they went inside. But the journey was not over. They climbed stairs. Faulhaber bumped his head on a doorframe. He had to crawl on his knees through a tunnel. He even, it seemed, stepped out a window. At last, after going into and out of a series of connected low-ceilinged rooms, he was allowed to stand still. He could hear everyone huffing and puffing. A chair was pushed against the back of his legs. Without being pushed he sat down. They took his hood off. Then they removed their own.

“Hee, hee, hee!” They began to giggle wildly, like children. Which is what they were, Faulhaber saw. Three boys.

“Who are you?” the grown man demanded.

The oldest boy recovered first. His face grew stern. “Faulhaber, James,” he declared. “You are the prisoner of the Edmund Trilling Brigade.”

The American glanced around. He was in a small room with a slanted roof—an attic, he thought. There was paper over the windows. In one corner, a wireless machine. In another a hand printing press. Bags of sand were lined up along the floor. There were no pictures on the wall, except for a large poster, with the familiar mustache and pipe of J. Stalin, the Workers’ Best Friend.