Abe Dworkin. Golda’s father, who had a full head of gray wavy hair at seventy, about which he was vain, who couldn’t save a dime, and who had a yen for creamed herring.

Rachel tried to see him strangling a turncoat Jew on a late spring night on the edge of a pine forest. But it was hopeless. She saw him at their kitchen table, drinking tea. She saw him showing their book of engraved stationery samples to the blond, tanned Yankee women from the south side of town who always wore tennis dresses or golf skirts, and who were kind to him in the way she imagined they were to hairdressers and saleswomen. What if they knew he’d strangled a man? Not with a scarf, no scarves there . . . she laughed and they stared at her. Hawkins looked worried and Relkin smiled as if he knew what she was thinking. She almost asked Relkin what Dworkin had strangled the kapo with and then she realized that Hawkins would think she was as crazy as Relkin.

“The murdered kapo set it up just right. The Nazis probably figured to have a real night of fun. Shoot us all, and maybe even bugger the little boys before they killed them. Oh, they’d done that before, too.”

Rachel looked away from him.

“I heard a bunch of them come across the compound and I heard them open the door. Nothing happened for a second, then there was the ‘boom’ like a huge rubber mallet pounding the floor, and the Germans started shooting and yelling and then came the whoosh and a man screamed and they were all screaming . . . screaming and screaming in terror, in agony . . . on and on until more came and they were shooting and screaming. Bullets hit the walls and I tried to get out of the box because I thought they’d use grenades and I’d be trapped and burn to death. But the weight was solid and I couldn’t move. The booming went on and the shooting and a grenade went off just outside the barracks. There was a bigger explosion, like a bazooka or antitank grenade, and the booming stopped and I held my breath, afraid that the Germans had stopped whatever it was . . . it was silent a second and then it went again . . . boom, again boom! I cried with relief at the screams and I knew the crashing was their bodies hitting the walls and I waited for the sound . . . crash, another dead, crash, another, and Danny and I hugged each other in the box and rocked with joy as the crashes came faster and faster. Then, above the screams and shots and crashing, I heard Dworkin start to sing.” He finished his brandy and sang to them in a strong clear voice.

O Lord of the world, O Lord of the world!

Where can one find you?

Where can one not find you?