It was true. The train, after starting, shuddering, stopping, now slowly, by centimeters, began to roll. The orphans moaned and clutched the Elder more tightly. He embraced them.

“Our wonderful adventure begins! Southward we go—to Budapest, to Constantinople, through deserts of Arabia, across the Red Sea! Think of it, my dears! We shall ride high on the backs of camels! We shall sail down African rivers in canoes. Look! A crocodile floats on the water! Yellow leopards are sleeping on the branches of trees! There, on the shore, black men with masks are howling, howling. Do not be frightened. Don’t tremble! The children of the Hatters’ Asylum are under the Elder’s protection. You share his immunity!”

In a corner of the coal car, a shadowy place, two children attempted to speak. Their voices cracked and creaked, as if they had been in the desert already.

“Camels!” said one.

“A crocodile!” said the other.

They laughed together, making an awful sound. Who could this be? Ignacy Bloomgarden, Nachman Kipnis, of the Edmund Trilling Brigade. They had been captured that morning, not long after dawn. Someone else was there, too—someone Trumpelman stared at, with his lips pulled away from his teeth.

Lipiczany stared back, mud-covered, not blinking once. His voice, when he spoke, was dull, flat, toneless. “There is no Madagascar. The train stops at Oswiecim. That’s where they burn. They burn!”

“No! No!” the old man shouted. He rose, so that Citron and Shifter and the other children dropped from him. “Soon we shall be at our homeland!”

Lipiczany: “Oswiecim is the homeland of the Jews.”

Trumpelman stood there, his strong teeth grinding against each other. Then a shudder, like a visible wave, passed over his body. “Outlaws!” he roared. “Lipskyites!” Turning away from the children, he hauled himself to the rim of the creeping car.

The orphans flung themselves at the Elder’s legs. They did not want him to go. Nisel, still on his back, only stared. You could not tell, looking at him, whether or not he was breathing.

“Look! The lights!” cried the Elder, swinging outside, to the ladder, and from the ladder to the ground. Rose Atlas, Blit, Flicker, rushed to the tender wall. From there they could see him, moving along Krawiecka Street, into the Suburb. The smaller children could only hear him shout.

“You think the Judenrat is a gold mine! That we’re rich! But we have to pay for electrical current! Off! Turn them off! It’s brighter than daylight!”

The Elder was going into the houses on Lutomierska. He switched off all the lights. Then he veered into the Marysinska Corner, and the lights began to blink out there, too. “Big spenders! Showoffs! You’ll ruin us all!” The sound of his voice faded away. It was not possible to see him. But wherever he went it got darker. Drenowska Street. Jakuba Street. Soon it began to get dark near the Baluter Ring. Trumpelman was turning off every switch in the Ghetto. He pulled every cord. Of course there were thousands and thousands of light bulbs still burning. Who knows? Perhaps he put out every one.