WHEN THE SURGE of rage pushes me to my feet, my chair clatters to the ground. But Fritzsch doesn’t flinch as I produce my pistol. He calms at once, raising an eyebrow while his hand strays toward his own weapon.

“Don’t.”

He places a hand on his gun, but he doesn’t draw it. He waits—as if daring me to pull my trigger—before taking his seat, lacing his fingers together, and propping his elbows on the table. “Does this mean you resign?”

His flippancy ignites the rage again, though it had never completely died. All this time, the pain and anger have ebbed and flowed; now they course through my body, manifesting in every word and deed, every twinge of pain in my head and quake in my voice.

“Stop talking.”

“You’re the one who has been carrying on about your family, and now this.” He waves a hand at the gun before flicking rainwater from his sleeve. “Sit down and shut your mouth. If you get distracted, you’ll get careless, and it would be a shame if you didn’t play your best.”

“I said stop talking.” I grip the pistol with both hands, hoping it will steady my aim. “Put your gun on the ground.”

Fritzsch sighs and rubs his temple. “Can’t we finish the game? It’s your turn.”

Keeping my eyes on him, I take one hand off the pistol and reach for a rook. I recall every play we’ve made and every position on the board, and I don’t need to look at it to know my next move.

Check.

Chapter 26

Birkenau, 20 September 1944

MOST DAYS, I felt as if I’d lived a thousand lifetimes in the camp. Others, it was as if my life were somehow frozen in time and, if I could emerge beyond the barbed-wire fences, perhaps I’d return as that fourteen-year-old girl with a loving family in Warsaw and girlish whims of chess championships.

By the fall of 1944, a new year was approaching and would bring my eighteenth birthday, an unusual and foreign realization because each passing year felt no different from the last. If not for the war, I would have been preparing to attend a university, maybe to study accounting like my father or social work like my mother. My siblings would have been clumsy adolescents, and we would have teased my parents about the streaks of gray creeping into their hair. I would have met friends in cafés and spent romantic evenings at the ballet with a handsome young man by my side. I’d have been a young woman by all measures. Instead my story was a different one.

As I left my block one September morning and readjusted my headscarf, I spotted a Jewish woman lingering outside the building. After making sure the guards weren’t looking, I hurried to meet her.