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Back The Tribe Save as PDF
Chapters (33)
  1. Cover
  2. Introduction by Grady Hendrix
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. Prologue
  6. Part One: Roger Hawkins
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. 6
  13. Part Two: Rachel Levy
  14. 1
  15. 2
  16. 3
  17. 4
  18. 5
  19. 6
  20. Part Three: Belzec
  21. 1
  22. 2
  23. 3
  24. 4
  25. 5
  26. Part Four: The Rabbis
  27. 1
  28. 2
  29. 3
  30. 4
  31. 5
  32. About the Author
  33. About the Cover

Part Four: The Rabbis

PART FOUR: THE RABBIS

1

Chapter 1

Chaim Garfield lived in an old ersatz-­Tudor apartment building that hung out over the river. Rachel carried Leah and followed Hawkins into a paneled elevator that was oiled to hide graffiti. Garfield’s apartment was on the fifth floor, at the end of a long hall that was carpeted like the hall in Rachel’s old building on Seventy-second Street. It even smelled the same, and she thought of the families who lived behind the doors of that hall: the Kleins, the Farbers, the Bernsteins—it was a family building, like this one was; and she knew they were in their kitchens having breakfast. Eggs without bacon, lox, cream cheese, bagels, olives. She wanted to grab her daughter, take her lover’s hand, and drag them both out of there onto the neutral street, but the door opened, and Chaim Garfield smiled at them.

“Inspector . . . Mrs. Levy.” He took Rachel’s hand, bowed Hawkins into the apartment. “Ah . . . your daughter?” he asked Rachel. She nodded dumbly and he kissed Leah on the cheek. “Please, please, sit down. No, wait! The kitchen.” He led them down a hall to the kitchen. Other doors they passed were closed and behind one Rachel heard a woman talking on the phone. Mrs. Garfield, she thought, the reason the line was busy. The kitchen was big, all its windows were on one wall facing the river, and in the gray light they could see sailboats, barges, the Day Line cruiser, and past the boats, the Palisades. “West Point’s up there,” Garfield told them proudly. “Sit,” he said, pulling chairs up to the table. “I’ll get coffee . . .” Leah whimpered, and Garfield put his hands to his face as though he were witness to a tragedy. “A toilet . . . oh my. Let me take her?” he asked Rachel.

“No, I couldn’t,” she said.

“Please. I had little girls once. Oh, they’re grown now. I’m a zayda,†††† but how I miss those days.” He laughed. “You can’t imagine it, can you. Oh, but it’ll happen, I swear. Let me take her? You make the coffee . . .” He lifted Leah out of Rachel’s arms, and Leah stopped crying. “See?” Garfield said. His arms were long and thin and he was almost as tall as Hawkins, but much thinner. His nose was long and thin like the rest of him, and the end of it turned down. His hair was thin, wispy, but still very black, and a black yarmulke covered the top of his head. Hawkins stared at the man as he relinquished Leah and Garfield laughed. “Nu?” Garfield said, “I should look like my brother?”

“More like him,” Hawkins said.