After ordering each of us another cup of coffee, I asked, "You said Esther Grunewald and your son boarded a train from Berlin to Zagreb. How were they supposed to get from there to Israel?"

"Esther said they would take another train to Greece," Henrietta said. "A ship was to take them the rest of the way."

"What's the name of the ship? What was the departure date?"

Henrietta didn't know. Nor did she know which port the ship sailed from. Only that it was somewhere in Greece.

"Esther didn't know herself," she told me. "All she knew was that she and other Jews from all over Europe were to gather in Athens on March 1."

She did not have the names of any of the other passengers, nor those of the people who had arranged for the ship.

"If all had gone according to plan and you had followed Esther and Willie here, how were you supposed to contact them?"

"Esther was supposed to send me a letter as soon as they arrived and got settled. No letter ever came."

I did not voice my thought that this was another indication that Esther Grunewald and Willie Ackerland had never made it to Israel. Instead, I asked Henrietta to tell me about Esther.

"She was the most beautiful girl in our school. I remember being quite jealous of her. Her hair was black and shiny, her face exquisite, her skin like marble. Boys would follow her with their eyes wherever she went."

"She never married?"

"No. I'm sure there were suitors, but no."

"How tall was she? What was her build like?"

"She was tall. Five foot ten or so. And she was slim, but not like—" Henrietta paused to look down at herself, and a shadow crossed her face "—she was slim in a feminine way."

"And what was she like?"

With an abashed look, Henrietta admitted that she and Esther Grunewald had never been close friends. More acquaintances than anything else. I realized that she was embarrassed to admit she had given her son to a woman whose heart and character were unknown to her.

She did tell me that Esther Grunewald had no siblings and that both her parents had died in a car accident in 1937. Esther Grunewald left no one behind when she emigrated from Germany.

By the time I ran out of questions, I had filled little more than three-quarters of one page in my notebook. I flipped it closed so I wouldn't have to look at the dearth of information I had to go on. What did it matter? This was a hopeless case anyhow.