“Is there something you want to tell me?”

Duquesne suddenly stepped toward him out of the darkness.

“Herr Duquesne?”

“Will you quit saying my name?”

He felt stupid and helpless. He could see the whites of Duquesne’s eyes, they were staring right at him, waiting, as if he were counting the seconds. Josef reached for his collar, as if it were too tight.

“No, I don’t have anything to tell you. I want to know what all this is about, what we’re doing. I’ve been pulled into something that could have unwelcome consequences. I want to know if we’re in danger. I’m, I want . . .” He stopped talking. Duquesne had given a surly, involuntary jerk, as if he had no sympathy for him, or at least wasn’t prepared to offer any fatherly guidance, and in the echo of his stammered words he realized that he sounded tearful and confused.

“Do you know what the problem is? You! People like you are going to ruin everything for us!”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t! You don’t understand a thing!”

He saw Duquesne cross the dark street, but now with a careless, shuffling gait that he hadn’t had before. Josef stood frozen. Only when Duquesne was out of sight did he start moving.

By the time he reached the Brooklyn Bridge, the city lay beneath an apricot-brown sky.

25

New York, July 1939

NOTHING. THEY DIDN’T SHOW UP. HE WAITED IN VAIN FOR them on Sunday—not that he missed Max and Ludwig, but their absence, without any explanation, was unsettling. Had something happened to them?

The next morning his sheets were tangled and untucked. When he got up he went through his routine fearfully, taking the utmost care with everything—feeding the dog, putting on coffee—as if this way he could counteract last night’s tossing and turning.

Shortly before eight o’clock he took Princess out. The July sun rose festively over Harlem. The children all tried to pet Princess’s head. She reacted cheerfully at first and then, as the hands started coming from all sides, with mounting uneasiness. He came to her rescue with a whistle. On the weedy vacant lot he threw her a little ball. She leapt after it, nudged it playfully with her snout, and wagged her tail.

Then she trotted over to the water’s edge and looked back at him, waiting for his permission. He threw a stick, and she plowed excitedly through the water. Finally she was swimming; from the bank he saw a dog’s head bobbing on the pale green surface.