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Back The One from the Other Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. EPILOGUE
  49. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  50. Teaser chapter

“He’s a big boy,” I said, taking the gun from her and checking that it was safe. It wasn’t. I thumbed on the safety. “He ought to be able to look after his own gun. Besides, he doesn’t strike me as the type to kill himself.”

“It’s all an act,” she said. “His cheerfulness. He’s not really like that. Inside he’s very low. Look, I was going to throw it away, but then I thought that wasn’t a good idea. Someone might find it and have an accident. And then I thought, you being a detective, you would know what to do with a gun.” She grasped my hand urgently. “Please. If he has to ask you for it, then he won’t be able to do anything without talking to someone first.”

“All right,” I said. After she had gone, I hid the gun behind the hot-water tank in the bathroom.

As usual, something delicious was happening in the kitchen. I wondered what was for dinner. And I wondered if what Gruen had said about Engelbertina could really be true. I didn’t have long to wait before any doubts I had on that score were removed.

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FOUR

From time to time, Engelbertina would take my temperature, dose me with penicillin, and inspect the scarred stump of my little finger with the same amount of loving concern a child might have displayed for a sick rabbit. When she took to kissing it I knew that her bedside manner implied a little more bed than was usual. I had never asked her the story of her life. I decided that if she ever wanted to talk about what had happened to her, she would. And one day, while examining my finger in the flirtatious manner already described, she did:

“I’m Austrian,” she said. “Did I tell you that before? No, perhaps not. Sometimes I say I’m from Canada. Not because I’m from Canada, but because Canada saved my life. Not the country. I don’t mean the country. Canada was what they called one of the sorting areas at Auschwitz where we girls—there were about five hundred of us—had to look through the belongings of all the arriving prisoners for valuables, before they were gassed.” She spoke without emotion, as if she had been describing any kind of routine factory work. “At Canada we got better food, nicer clothes, enough sleep. We were even allowed to grow our hair again.