A few weeks after the first article on Pastorius, he read that a few of the agents on the beach in Amagansett had gotten drunk in a bar in Brittany the night before the U-boat was set to depart and blabbered out their whole plan. At a much later date, he read that one of the agents had gone to the FBI after their arrival and ratted out all the others. He was in the middle of reading about this when suddenly there stood Schmuederrich behind him. He was sitting upstairs in the gallery with a view of the Statue of Liberty.

“What are you reading?”

“Newspaper.” A sigh. Fidgeting behind him. Then Schmuederrich ripped the paper out of his hands. “Ugh, this Lahousen. A traitor! A swine! Just wants to save his own ass. Now that the war’s over anybody can claim whatever he wants!”

Ellis Island. The windowpanes foggy and opaque. But in there the Third Reich still hadn’t fallen.

When time started to drag, he tried to be a monk, tried to be someone who could focus all his attention and become fascinated by the smallest things—it was all God’s creation, after all: the honeycomb-shaped white floor tiles, the water pitcher on the table, the two columns in the room, the tiles on the walls, veined with tiny cracks and missing in a few places, the “Heil Hitler” that echoed through the hallways like a ghost.

Stay on the margins till it’s all over. It could happen any day.

When they had to leave they called out, “Till next time in Buenos Aires.”

And now Buenos Aires seems like the only option for him too.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

“I’ll put it right back together again, Carl. I just wanted to get a look at the mechanics of it.”

“You’ll put it back together now, immediately! For God’s sake! Do you know what that thing cost?”

He knows. He gets right to work. Even though he would have liked to have a bit more time to check out the inner workings. But Carl stands behind him and waits, stern and silent, until eventually he says, “Right, you have to concentrate, maybe I’m in your way,” and leaves.

Piece by piece, screw by screw. In an hour the Linhof is back in one piece. Except for one screw. It’s leftover.

Should he hide it? No. He decides to come clean. To his amazement Carl just laughs. “That one’s yours, kid. There’s no doubt you’ve got a screw loose!”