“They were dead or dying. Some had broken necks and died whole. Some of the heads were torn off and some lingered there on the floor but without some of their parts . . .” Speiser stopped. Bianco’s gorge rose up his esophagus, into his throat. He tasted bile and took a deep breath to keep from puking on the floor.

Speiser leaned close and whispered at Bianco, “You can’t imagine, in the light, in the shadows, what it was like. The look, the sound, the smell of that barracks. Then . . . oh God . . . in the middle of the room, in the spotlight poor Reinhart was holding, I saw what the Jews had built.” He grabbed Bianco’s arm. Bianco tried to shrug him off but he held on. Bianco tried to pull free, but Speiser wouldn’t let go. They tussled back and forth while Speiser raved. “At that moment I saw the future. I saw the Russians in Berlin, I saw my poor son looking in garbage cans for sawdust to eat, I saw my country in ruins . . .” They swayed back and forth on their chairs, Bianco trying to free his arm, Speiser holding on. Bianco saw their shadows on the wall, their reflection on the window. They looked ridiculous and he laughed. Speiser did, too. Suddenly they couldn’t stop laughing. They rocked and swayed, laughing, they held their sides.

“What was it?” Bianco croaked. “Ha . . . ha . . . what was it?”

“A monster of clay.” Tears of laughter streamed down Speiser’s face. “Enormous, smooth, silent, featureless . . . the perfect monster. The hands were mitts without fingers, the feet toeless, miniature barges of clay. The crotch was smooth, the arms were logs that bent without joints, and the face . . . the face had nothing, no eyes, mouth, nose. No ears, nothing. But it saw us . . . Oh God, it saw us without eyes, it heard us without ears. It turned and looked at me . . . Heee . . .” The tea spilled and spread across the table, and they laughed at that. “Then it moved, and the floor and walls shook. Its head scraped the ceiling and left a trail of slime. Its feet hit the wood floor . . . boom . . . boom . . . oh ho.” Speiser stopped laughing and after a minute, Bianco did too.