I was light-headed when I strolled west on Frishman. A woman walking in the opposite direction slowed her steps to study my face, then gave an amused smile and a chuckle and continued past me. It was only then that I realized I was grinning.

How was I to pass the time till evening?

I could buy something to bring with me, but what? Flowers? Or maybe something for dessert? There was a guy on Daniel Street who sold contraband chocolate. It wasn't very good chocolate, but in these deprived times, it was a luxury.

But that would not take me long, and there would still be hours to go till six. Before that I would go see Henrietta to give her my report. To destroy her world. The thought dampened my heightened spirits, and the grin faded from my lips.

There was no escaping it. I had taken upon myself the burden of giving Henrietta bad news when I took on her case. Back then, I'd assumed the bad news would be that I had not found any trace of her son and did not think I ever would. The news I would deliver to her this afternoon would be worse, but it was my obligation to do so just the same.

And then the case would be done, and I would see Mira again.

I ran the talk I'd just had with her over in my mind, pausing when I got to the bit about Esther's and Willie's graves. Mira was right: Henrietta would want her son buried under his real name.

I thought about the two graves, marked with false names, untended for ten long years, and I knew that I was not yet done with this case. There was one last place I had to go, a final goodbye I had to say.

In the next block over was a bus stop. I waited for fifteen minutes till the bus came. It wound a long, circuitous route through the city. Forty minutes later, it discharged me at the entrance to Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery.

By the gate to the cemetery slumped a weary-faced old man on a three-legged chair next to a rickety table topped with fat candles in flimsy metal saucers. Seeing me approach, he pushed himself an inch higher from his slouched position.

"Light a candle for the soul of the deceased," he suggested in a muffled, thickly accented voice.

I shook my head and walked past him into the cemetery. The dead, I believed, could not be helped by the lighting of a flame. They were beyond such gestures. I did not believe in the power of prayer, either. I had seen it fail all too often in Auschwitz.