Upon entering, I removed my shirt and draped it over one of the chairs. Then I went into the kitchen, filled one of the three glasses I owned with water and drained it in one long gulp. From the icebox I withdrew the little butter I had left from that month's rations. From a cupboard over the sink I got a box of sardines I had bought on the black market.

I sliced two pieces of bread, put them on a plate, smeared them with butter and stacked some sardines on top. I set the plate on the dining table and sat down to eat. Before the World War, this would have seemed like a poor meal. These days I knew it for what it truly was—a feast.

I rinsed the plate when I was done, made some tea, and took the steaming cup with me to the bedroom. I checked my watch. 20:11. There was time to burn before I was to go see Rachel Weiss, as Greta had put it. I leaned my pillow against the wall and sat on the bed with my back to it. On the nightstand lay a dog-eared paperback western by Max Brand and next to it was an English-Hebrew dictionary, in case I encountered any unfamiliar words. I flicked on the reading lamp, picked up the novel, and began to read.

A few minutes later I realized that I had read the same page over and over and could not recall a word of it. My mind kept returning to Henrietta Ackerland and the hopeless case I had agreed to take on. I flipped open my notebook, read through my notes—it took but a minute—and gazed once more at the picture Henrietta had left behind.

Are you still alive, little one? Or is your mother living on a fool's hope? And will she be able to survive when that hope flickers out?

Maybe she would. She looked frail, but looks could be deceiving. In Auschwitz I had seen men continue to live for months even as their muscles dwindled, their cheeks hollowed out, and their limbs thinned to sticks. And had I not survived when everything had been taken from me?

Stop it! Just stop it! You have other business tonight.

It was no use. The memory flooded my mind without warning. I shut my eyes against its assault, but it had already commandeered my consciousness. It was the first day, that miserable cold day, after we had spilled out of the stinking, cramped cattle cars into that hell on earth called Auschwitz, after the men had been separated from the women and children, after the initial selection that determined who would live to see that day's end and who would be gassed and turned to ashes before sundown.