Peter bounded up the stairs. “That’s why I came here. But there are no records at all here for Boris Benz. It’s one thing to plug a name into a computer file; you’re only adding one more blip to the screen. It’s more difficult to insert a name on an old, meticulously written school roll. As for work or military records, they don’t matter if you’re not looking for work or a loan from the bank. It only proves that Boris Benz has more money than personal history. Ah, this must have been the master bedroom.”

They looked into a ward with five cots on a side. Some of the beds were occupied by patients attached to IVs. Family photographs and crayon drawings were taped to the walls. The sheets looked clean and the parquet floor was mopped to a shine. Four elderly women in housecoats were playing cards. One of them looked up. “Wir haben Besuch!” Visitors!

Peter nodded approvingly at each resident. “Sehr gut, meine Damen. Schöne Fotos. Danke.” They beamed as he waved and backed away.

The other bedrooms had also been turned into wards and more zinc-lined baths. Cigarette smoke traveled out the open transom of an office. They climbed to the third floor. In the ceiling of the stairwell where a chandelier had once hung was a fluorescent ring.

Peter said, “I asked myself, if Benz didn’t grow up here, how would he know about my grandfather or what he did in the war? Only the SS or Russians knew. So there are two answers: he’s Russian or German.”

“Which do you think it is?” Arkady asked.

“German,” Peter said. “East German. To be more precise, the Staatssicherheitsdienst. Stasi. Their KGB. For forty years Stasi created identities for spies. Do you know how many people worked for them? Two million informers. More than eighty-five thousand officers. Stasi owned office buildings, apartment houses, resorts, bank accounts in the millions. Where did all the agents go? Where did the money disappear to? In the last weeks before the Wall came down, the agents at Stasi were furiously creating new identities for themselves. When people stormed its offices, they were empty and the master files had evaporated. One week later Boris Benz rented his apartment in Munich. That’s when he was born.”

The third floor was servants’ quarters turned into medicine closets and nurses’ rooms. Panties were drying on a line that ran from corner to corner.

Peter said, “Where could the Stasi go? If they were important, they were going to be put in jail. If they were unimportant, with ‘Stasi’ on their papers no one would hire them. They couldn’t all rush to Brazil like a second wave of Nazis. Russia doesn’t want thousands of German agents. What’s this?”