Mila 18 - Leon Uris [123]
“Continue,” Sauer said.
“So, I came to Warsaw.”
“Why?”
“Why not? It’s the biggest city in Poland. I figured I’d have the best chance to stay hidden because I don’t know anybody here and wouldn’t get recognized.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Three days.”
“Where have you stayed?”
“I found a loose window in back of the men’s room at the railroad station. Anyhow, it’s like a storeroom for mops and buckets and stuff and I’ve been sleeping there.”
“What were you doing standing in front of the Old Town Square statue?”
“The Madam Curie Museum,” Wolf corrected. “Waiting for someone.”
“Who?”
“Well, you can imagine. I’ve got to figure something out. I start prowling around. My money is running low and stuff. So, pretty soon you hear talk and stuff, and so I went to the Solec because they said you can get fixed up there for just about anything. I went to the Granada Club. Sure got tough guys in there, and I met this—well—whore.”
Sauer was entranced.
“So, I find out she is Jewish. Selma is her name. I’m sure it is a fake name. So, anyhow, I’m cautious at first because I think she may be helping look for runaways like me, but it’s kind of funny how two Jews can spot each other. So, Selma says she knows someone who can help me but for me not to come back to the Granada because the hoodlums in there are looking for hidden Jews and to meet her next day at the Old Town Square.”
“What were you doing with violets?” Sauer snapped.
Wolf scratched his head and blushed. “This whore was sure nice to me, sir. I just wanted to buy her violets.”
Sauer talked softly to Wolf for two hours. The questions were masked in huge traps. Every so often Wolf would whimper, “Sir, if you are trying to confuse me, you sure are succeeding. I’m getting mixed up trying to remember the honest truth.”
That night Wolf Brandel spent alone in a cell. The screams of torture pierced his eardrums from down the hall.
Gunther Sauer, in his meticulous, grinding way, listened to wire playbacks of the interviews with the four Jews. He was oblivious of the cries of pain coming from Rebecca Eisen in the main interrogation room.
In the morning Sauer called Gestapo in Bialystok. In the afternoon they phoned him back. Yes, there was a gift shop run by a half Jew named Wynotski who had disappeared. There was record of a schoychet from Wolkowysk who was sent into the ghetto and who had a son who had escaped. Edelman was, in fact, famous for his hand-carved chessmen.
The whore in Solec? Untraceable. The moment the Nazis approached the Granada Club no one would know anything. Even their informers could not be counted upon. Whores had dozens of names. Selma could be Elma or Thelma.
The weeks of meticulous training were put to the acid test. Each of the underground assumed an identity of an actual person who could not be traced. The identities were taken from information supplied by Bathyran runners in other cities. Wolf Brandel’s story had been carefully worked out for weeks before he was given the name of Hershel Edelman. The real Edelman was obviously masquerading as someone else, somewhere in Poland.
“Bring back Hershel Edelman,” Sauer said.
The boy seemed no more frightened than a night at Gestapo House would demand. Sauer played for the one possible loophole. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a chessboard and a set of chessmen.
“Sit down.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Black or white?”
“Your preference, sir.”
“I have seen you defend yourself, Edelman. Now I should like to see your attack. Take the white.”
“Sir,” Wolf said haltingly. “Sir, this is very awkward. I mean, under the circumstances, I’m rather afraid to win.”
“You had better win, young man.”
Wolf did. In nine moves.
He was sent into the main interrogation room to sit alone on the single chair beneath the spotlight. There was nothing else in the room. Gunther Sauer had hit a dead end. His only choice was shock identification—or resort to torture. He was puzzled by the boy and not certain he would break down. Even if he did break down, he might have been