Chapters (43)
“Joe, there’s no point in clinging to something for which there’s no proof.”
Did she really not understand him? He laughed bitterly. He wanted to stand up and leave, as if he were a free man—and in fact he would be a free man for those few seconds in which he left a woman behind, but of course he could only shuffle back to his group cell.
“Lauren, I’ve lost everything. And I don’t know what to think about myself anymore.”
“I can imagine that. But your theory is pure speculation.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. Of course it was all in his head. There it was, clear and radiant; it blazed a glittering path through the gloom of the day. He felt humiliated.
“Joe, even if it is true, that would mean they sacrificed those people. Six months later and you’d be dead now too. You’d have been sentenced by a court martial. The people who could accept others’ sacrifice like that are no heroes.”
“I don’t care about heroism. I care about the truth.” He said it so weakly that he barely believed it himself.
“Yeah? This is the truth.” She took the article, crumpled it, and let it drop back on the table.
He stared at Lauren in disbelief, tried to imagine her treating the girls at the hotel this way when they forgot to change a towel.
She wet her lips, then she scooted her chair forward a bit and said in a conciliatory tone, “You’ll never know what the others’ motives were. But you do know what you did. And if you find you have something to reproach yourself for, learn to live with it.”
He couldn’t remember them saying goodbye to each other, but suddenly he felt her hand in his once more. Yes, she had given him her hand after all, saying, “So long, Joe. Take care of yourself.” The paper bag with the bean pie in it sat on the table in front of him. And that’s where he left it.
When he got back to his cell he saw Carl’s handwriting. He saw that Carl was alive. On his bed was the letter. The way it was lying there it was like his brother was suddenly in the room with him.
And then he read the letter and learned that they were all alive—all the Kleins had survived. Edith, the two children, and all their relatives in Düsseldorf and Aachen.
“You always have a home here with us,” Carl wrote. He knew it wasn’t true. But it felt good to read the words.
He immediately set all the wheels in motion and found an agency to send a care package to Neuss. Chocolate. Coffee. Aspirin. Sausage. Pepper. Jerky. Adhesive tape.