The Shadow Man by John Katzenbach Page B

for the simple answer first, because in almost every case, that is the truth of the death.’
    ‘So what you’re saying is—’ Irving Silver broke in.
    ‘Let him finish!’ Frieda Kroner said, exasperated. Again she jabbed at Irving Silver’s ribs. ‘You rude old man!’ she chastened him.
    ‘Thank you, Mrs Kroner, but I have.’
    The rabbi was nodding his head. ‘You’re saying yes - it could be exactly what it seems. A suicide. A murder by some animal off the street.’
    ‘Correct.’
    Again silence occupied a chair.
    ‘Do you have an opinion, Mr Winter?’ Frieda Kroner asked.
    ‘I have questions, Mrs Kroner,’ Simon Winter replied. ‘And, I think, it is wise to remove doubts where there are so many. Regardless of how Sophie and Mr Stein died, I think it will be difficult for the three of you to go about your business if every second you think you are being stalked by this fellow. If he exists.’
    She nodded, as did the rabbi.
    ‘I still want a gun,’ Irving Silver muttered.
    They all remained silent. Winter watched tears form in the corner of Irving Silver’s eyes, and the man started to shake his head, slowly, almost imperceptibly, as if trying to loosen and discard all the thoughts that had emerged.
    The rabbi leaned forward, pushing the fingers of each hand through his tangled mass of hair. He puffed out his cheeks and let his wind slowly seep through pursed lips. Then he looked up at Simon Winter.
    ‘You will help us, Mr Winter?’
    Winter felt a rigid toughness within him. He looked at
    the three faces of the elderly people in the room, and he remembered the shaky hand his neighbor placed on his own, as he’d interrupted his own death to let her enter his apartment. He took a quick glance and saw a similar blue tattoo on the rabbi’s forearm, and suspected that beneath Mrs Kroner’s bulky white sweater and Mr Silver’s loose, checked shirt, he would find the same. He thought: I promised to help her, and then I didn’t. He realized that promise was still lingering about within him, and so he replied:
    ‘I will try, Rabbi. I’m not certain what I can do…’
    ‘You know things we do not. Many things.’
    ‘It has been a long time.’
    ‘Does one ever forget these things? These techniques?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then, you will be able to help.’
    ‘I hope so.’
    The three elderly people took quick glances at each other.
    ‘I think we are in need of help,’ Mrs Kroner said. ‘Maybe even more than we even want to say out loud, Mr Winter.’
    ‘I still want a gun,’ Irving Silver muttered. ‘If we’d had guns back then—’
    “Then the Nazis would have shot us on the spot!’
    “Maybe that would have been better!’
    ‘How can you say that, you old fool! We lived! And now the world does not forget!’
    Maybe it doesn’t forget, but what has the world learned?’
    Irving Silver and Frieda Kroner glared at each other. The rabbi sighed.
    ‘They are frequently like this,’ he said to Winter. ‘We Ťre all once, when we were so young, caught up in these
    immense events, and now we argue. Even the scholars argue. But we were there, and we were a part of something that is maybe more than just history.’
    ‘So was he …’ Irving Silver grunted.
    The rabbi stopped speaking, and looked at the others.
    ‘That is true. He was as much a part of it as any of those who either died or survived.’
    ‘And he hasn’t forgotten either,’ Irving Silver added.
    ‘No. I think not.’
    Frieda Kroner started to dab a napkin at the corners of her eyes. ‘If he is here …”
    ‘And he finds us …’ Silver joined in.
    ‘I think he will kill us.’
    Simon Winter held up a hand. ‘But why? And why would he kill or want to kill Sophie and this Mr Stein? You haven’t explained this.’
    As soon as he asked this question, Winter realized he had entered a realm ruled by history and memory, dark at the edges, pitch-black at its core.
    ‘Because,’ the rabbi started after a moment’s silence,