“Finally Levy pleaded with the commandant. They were outside. Luria was there, too, and I didn’t hear what they said but Levy actually kneeled to that momzer— kneeled to him. Speiser kept shaking his head, not angry, not contemptuous, but reluctant—like he wanted to say yes to Levy but couldn’t. Luria was disgusted and when the commandant left he faced Levy and yelled at him and sneered like someone had just stuck shit under his nose. Then for the first time, I saw Jacob Levy lose his temper. His skin went white, his eyebrows and beard looked like ink on his face. He grabbed Luria’s hand and with enormous strength for such a small man, he pulled Luria toward the electrified fence. Luria’s a foot taller than Jacob, fifty pounds heavier, but no matter how hard he struggled, Levy was stronger, and he dragged Luria to the fence. Luria screamed and fell to his knees like Levy had done to the commandant, but Levy pulled him through the mud so his knees left a wake in it. He pulled Luria’s hand so it was an inch from the wires. They wanted all the Jews dead by then, so the fence was really juiced up. Levy looked ready to hold that bare shaking hand against the wire until Luria was fried. Then Luria starts weeping. I don’t blame him, we were all weeping. I didn’t care about Luria, mind you, but seeing Levy like that was awful. Levy saw the tears, the mud, his friend’s hand shaking, and like the werewolf turning back into a man, Levy turned back into Levy. He let Luria’s hand go and that was the end of it.

“Of course Levy had pleaded with Speiser for the lives of the others in the camp, and Luria told him he was a contemptible fool to grovel for any reason. Luria was right. You won’t know that until it’s your life or someone else’s. But at night I would wake up and see Levy roaming the barracks, or walking the path at night, his face lit by the glow from the chimneys of the ovens that were going day and night now. After a few weeks he slept better and, by the end of the year, only a week or two before we were liberated, I realized that I hadn’t seen him nightwalking for months. You get used to everything, Inspector.”

“And you never saw what was in the box?”

“Never. One morning Danny and I woke up and it was gone. The floor under it was damp, as if moisture oozed from whatever was hidden there. The box being gone meant the Germans were gone. And I ran to the fence and thought I’d jump it or climb it and walk at last in the forest. But I stopped at it and looked into the woods the way I always had.