They walked me upstairs, as if I was carrying an unexploded bomb, and back into the office. They had moved the desk so that it now faced the glass doors of the laboratory. There was a man behind it, and a single chair in front of it, like the chair in a witness box. Politely the man behind the desk invited me to sit down. He sounded American. As I did so, he leaned forward with the air of an examining magistrate, his fingers clasped as if he were planning to say a prayer before questioning me. He was in shirtsleeves, which were rolled up as if he meant business. But it could just as easily have been the heat in the room. It was still very warm. He had thick, gray hair that fell in his eyes, and he was as thin as the trail of shit from a neglected goldfish. His nose was smaller than the noses of the other two men, but only just. Not that you paid much attention to the size of his nose. It was the color that distracted you. There were so many burst capillaries on that nose it looked more like a species of orchid or poisonous mushroom. He picked up a pen and prepared to write in a nice new notebook.

“What is your name?”

“Bernhard Gunther.”

“What were you called before?”

“My name has always been Bernhard Gunther.”

“How tall are you?”

“One meter eighty-seven.”

“What size shoes do you wear?”

“Forty-four.”

“What size jacket?”

“Fifty-four.”

“What was your membership number in the NSDAP?”

“I was never a member of the Nazi Party.”

“What was your number in the SS?”

“85 437.”

“What is your date of birth?”

“July 7, 1896.”

“Place of birth?”

“Berlin.”

“Under what name were you born?”

“Bernhard Gunther.”

My interrogator sighed and put down his pen. Almost reluctantly he opened a drawer and took out a file, which he opened. He handed me a German passport in the name of Eric Gruen. I opened it. He said: “Is this your passport?”

I shrugged. “It’s my picture,” I said. “But I’ve never seen this passport before.”

He handed me another document. “A copy of an SS file in the name of Eric Gruen,” he said. “That is also your photograph, is it not?”

“That’s my photograph,” I said. “But this is not my SS file.”

“An application for the SS, completed and signed by Eric Gruen, with a medical report. Height one meter eighty-eight, hair blond, eyes blue, distinguishing characteristic, subject is missing the little finger of his left hand.” He handed the document over. I took it with my left hand, without thinking. “You are missing the little finger on your left hand. You can hardly deny that.”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “But I’m not Eric Gruen.”