All at once Chaim started forward. He took long strides up the orchestra aisle. The policemen at the Assisi Street exit made a barrier out of their batons, but the Chairman burst easily through. Behind him, in the House of Culture, the Jews were wailing and clutching each other. They fell on their knees before the Chief of Police. On the stage, machines made a wind that shook the actors’ beards and made the pasted leaves toss and tremble. Macbeth threw his warlike shield in front of his body. Above his head he raised his wooden sword.

II

The Rumkowsky Geyser—naturally the Others had changed the name to something else—still stood in the Walburska quarter. The big houses there, the Mosk mansion, the Jewish estates, had been occupied by the Men of Valor. They took over the Geyser, too, which became their own private spa. It looked just the same, though, with its brick walls holding up the great whitewashed dome. Steam still came from a hole in the top of the structure, and sunshine, in the shape of a moving yellow ball, came in. It was to the front of this municipal bath that the Elder, on his wonderful stallion, came at a gallop.

The Daimler Double Six was parked there already. Trumpelman pulled up beside it and hopped like a young man to the ground. There were guards at the Geyser entrance, Death’s-Headers, but once more Chaim, gripping his cane, pushed through. Even at such a distance, deep in the Aryan section, you could hear the whistling at the transfer station. A high sound. A low one. That meant two locomotives, both of them keeping up steam.

Just inside the Geyser there was a big curving hallway where you took off your clothes. Chaim walked through it. With his hat on, and his cloak, with the whole outfit from the gala performance, he entered the chamber of steam. How hot it was! How hard to breathe! Impossible to see through the droplets on his glasses. Then a voice, how well he knew it, echoed about him.

“It is the Jew Trumpelman. Born from the union of two other Jews.”

The Lithuanian looked around. Nothing but steam clouds. Plus hot blasts of air. Below him, in a pit, at the center of the rotunda, he could dimly make out the flaming beech logs, the glow of the flat, heated rocks. Water, dripping from water pipes, snarled and crackled over the stones, like the whites of cooking eggs. “Yes! A hundred percent Hebrew, but he acts like a king!” Something moved above Chaim’s head. He took off his blurred spectacles. A left leg, short and thick, was crossed over a right one. The steam parted a second. Wohltat! The native son!

“Chief of the Civilian Authority! I address you as Elder of the Baluty Suburb. An emergency happened! Something must be done!” Trumpelman’s hair was already sticking to the back of his neck. He squinted into the mists. He saw the Volksdeutscher, his bright red lips, his dripping breasts. “The Jewish Police have invaded the House of Culture! They are there at this moment! How dare they do it! What nerve! To threaten our citizens’ lives! Important, influential Jews!”