“They missed! They shot at me but they missed! I fell down and when they weren’t looking I ran away! I’m not a ghost! I’m alive!” The wounded man took Trumpelman’s hand and kissed it. Tears dropped from his eyes. “I know why you were saved! You will be the new Moses! You will lead us out of the land of suffering. Happy am I! To have kissed the savior’s hand!” Smiling, nodding, also weeping, Nomberg ran off, along a perpendicular side street.

The man and the boy—what choice had they?—continued. By the time they reached Krzyzanowsky, Nisel, from the danger, the excitement, was wheezing and gulping. He pushed the air like a pudding into his throat. Trumpelman grasped him under his arms, around his chest. He carried the boy into the Hatters’ Asylum and up the dark stairs. What strength the Elder had! What power! For a man aged three score and ten!

Upstairs, at the center of the hallway, a light was on. At once Trumpelman put Nisel down. The light went out. Then, a moment later, weakly, without many watts, it shone again. The Director moved carefully forward. The beams were coming through the half-open door of a closet for brooms. Inside were Mann Lifshits and Krystal, each in his long sleeping gown. Lifshits had a stopwatch in one hand and the light cord in the other. Myer Krystal was holding a pane of glass, with paper stuck to it, right up to the unshaded bulb.

“Time,” whispered Lifshits, the left-hander, pulling the cord.

In the blackness the boys fumbled their way to the deep double sink, which was supposed to be used for wringing out mops. The water ran there. For a time you could hear it swishing around. Then the boys groped through the darkness again.

“Ready?” asked Krystal.

“Ready,” said Lifshits, and the yellow light, with a wire in it, started to glow.

Trumpelman ripped the door fully open. “What is this?” he demanded. His voice rang through the whole Asylum. “Sabotage? Saboteurs?”

The boys stood petrified, wide-eyed, and silent. But Trumpelman did not give them a slap. And he no longer shouted. Instead he stared in amazement at the ceiling of the little room. There, with clothespins, on clotheslines, hung pieces of paper. These were snapshots, dozens and dozens of them, glossy, dripping, wet. The Director of the Asylum, with his neck craned, walked underneath. Here, a Jew in a top hat, wearing striped pants. There, the white horses. Photo after photo of the slick-haired, thin-faced, eagle-nosed man. Totenkopfers, with the skulls on their caps. Jews upside down. Jews, all blurry, running. Fiebig, in a fur coat, holding a match. A complete record, in short, of the events at the Central Square.

The orphans looked at Trumpelman. He stared back at the boys. At last he asked them, “Where did you get such a camera?”

Lifshits hopped to the corner and picked up an overturned pail. There was a black American Kodak, with a leather strap. Trumpelman took it, pushed at the bellows, and then pulled back his lips in a grin.