Shadows of leaves danced across the ceiling in the bright morning light. I lay very still, trying to remember where I was, and why I felt so happy. My head throbbed dully and my side still hurt, but it was manageable. I glanced over at the edge of the bed and remembered Boris sitting there the night before. I ran my hand over the spot where he must have sat.

Stiffly, I climbed out of bed and smoothed the covers back into place. A simple dress of Trudi's hung on a chair next to the bed. The house was empty, but Boris had left a note on the kitchen table telling me to help myself to breakfast. A Berliner Tageblatt lay neatly folded in the middle of the table.

I ate a huge breakfast at the tiny table and read through the paper. Rudolf was still missing, and the police suspected foul play. I was not mentioned. There was a feature on Ernst Rohm's unification with his long-lost son, whose mother was missing. So, did they not want to admit that a former prostitute was the mother of Rohm's son, or was the true mother someone else entirely, someone who was truly missing? The picture accompanying the story showed Anton and Rohm dressed in dark-colored suits staring grimly into the camera. Anton Rohm looked like a boy who had lost his mother.

I paged to the obituaries. Josef Lehmann's obituary stressed his importance to the Nazi party and mentioned that he was survived only by a son, Wilhelm Lehmann. It did not say how he had died. His funeral was scheduled in three days. It would be a grand Nazi pageant. I imagined Wilhelm at the center of such a spectacle, alone. His father had given his life to protect Wilhelm and do his duty for the party. I wondered how Wilhelm felt about being a Nazi now.

After I dressed, I used Boris's telephone to call a taxi. It was extravagant, but I had no strength to find a bus stop or sit on a jerky train. I silently thanked Paul for the money he'd given me in the hospital. Outside it was chilly, and I grabbed Boris's jacket from the hall closet. It was another thing of his that I had to use. I added it to the list of things that I owed him.

I took the taxi to Wilhelm's house, remembering the address he'd written on the beer coaster that first night at the El Dorado. I rang his bell over and over until he opened the door, his face swollen from crying and deep circles under his eyes.

"Hannah," he said. "What more could you possibly want from me?"

"I came to see if you needed help."

He opened the door. "Help me then." The smell of alcohol on his breath was overpowering.

He led me down a narrow dark hall. The wall inside his front door had a large signed picture of Hitler. "To my dear friend, Josef, for your service to the Reich. Adolf Hitler." It was placed so that you would see it every time you entered the apartment.

I turned my back on the picture and walked to the living room. Without being invited, I sat in an austere leather chair. Wilhelm threw himself like a sack onto the sofa across from me. I glanced around at the spare furniture. Nothing hung on the walls. This was a soldier's room, spartan and simple.

"I must apologize for not helping you," Wilhelm said, after several minutes of silence. "I didn't know you were up there, bleeding."

I opened my mouth to speak, but he raised his palm to stop me.

"I'm not the kind of person who would let someone die without helping," he continued. "But my father was dying."

He bowed his head. Tears fell unheeded into his lap. Although I longed to cross the room and comfort him, I stayed put. He would not welcome my comfort.

"I didn't know." He gulped and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "You were up there, bleeding, I would have gone up to help you, if I'd known."

"I know." I believed him. Wilhelm was a good person, still. I wondered how long his goodness would last as he fought and killed with the Nazis.

"I found out when they were taking you down on a stretcher. You were soaked in blood, pale as snow. But the police said you would live, and then they took me."

"Took you?"

"They asked me how my father died. What we were doing there."

"And what did you tell them?"

"I said that we were accompanying Rohm to a meeting, but that I did not know more than that. I barely did know more than that."

"What did you say about your father?"

Wilhelm stared at his folded hands. I listened to the ticking of a clock.

"I said that he shot himself in the chest, when I was only steps away from him."

"Oh, Wilhelm."

He spoke over me. "That I held his head while he was dying, but he never said a word."

I crossed the room and sat next to him. I reached for his hand, but stopped myself.

"He loved me," Wilhelm said, his voice a whisper in the quiet room.

"Yes," I answered softly.

"Ernst. My father. Both of them loved me."

"They did."

Wilhelm sat up straighter, as if my presence reminded him that he needed to act strong. "They both did what they thought was right."

"Yes."

"And both are dead because of it. Because of me."

"You did not make your father take Ernst's life or his own." I spoke more sharply than I'd intended.

"Rohm," he spat the word out. "Rohm made him take his own life."

"Yes, but-"

"Will you defend him?" Wilhelm turned to me, his bloodshot eyes filled with rage. I feared what he might do to me.

"He left me alone in that room to die," I said at last. "He's no friend of mine."

"And he took Anton," Wilhelm said. "They left before the police came."

"He is Anton's father." I stood up and walked back to my chair. Distance seemed a better policy. "It's in the newspaper this morning."

"I haven't read it." He ran his fingers through his brassy hair.

"Anton will be raised a warrior. Like he always wanted." I took a deep breath. "As your father raised you."

"Like your father raised Ernst."

Wilhelm lurched out of the room. I realized that he was quite drunk. I had to be very careful not to anger him. He returned with a tiny object in his hand. The third lead soldier that Ernst had rescued all those years ago.

"Ernst gave this to me . . . on that last night." He held it in his outstretched palm.

"He loved you." It did not feel like enough to say, but it was all I had.

"He said it would free me from my father. He said it freed him from caring what his father thought of him." He turned the soldier over and over in his strong hands. "After my father's funeral, Rohm and Anton are going back to Munich. Rohm has a man there to take care of him. As soon as he can, he'll put Anton in boarding school. I asked after him. Even with my father dead, I hear things."

"A boarding school might be the best thing for him," I said, thinking of the life that Rohm led. The less Anton saw of it, the better.

As if reading my mind, Wilhelm said, "Rohm is having a birthday party for Anton tomorrow. At the El Dorado, at noon, before they open."

"He will be six." My heart turned over in my chest.

"I am invited," he said, picking at his cuticles till they bled.

"Will you go?" I felt a surge of hope.

Wilhelm shook his head and dropped his bleeding hand. "I don't want to see that man again."

"Won't he come to your father's funeral?"

Wilhelm sighed. "Yes."

"Take me with you." I could not disguise the desperation in my voice.

"To the party?" Wilhelm sounded surprised.

"Yes."

"No women. Rohm is very strict about such things." He picked at his cuticles again.

"No women?"

"It said so on the invitation. Men only. The storm trooper parties are often like that. They want to keep the weakening . . . err . . . civilizing effect of women away from them."

"I want to make certain that Anton is well. I want to tell him that I am alive."

Wilhelm looked at me appraisingly, then gave a quick shake of his head. "You will have to be a boy. Come by at ten and I will get you ready."

I made him tea and breakfast before calling another taxi. When I went to my apartment, I insisted that we circle the block twice so that I could look for policemen or Rudolf. After I asked the driver to wait for me, I crept up my stairs. I leaned against my door, trembling, for a full minute before I worked up the courage to go inside. Rudolf could be in there. But eventually I tired of standing in the hall like a child afraid of the dark and pushed the door open.

My beloved apartment was still in shambles from Rudolf's warning. I packed my only suitcase with my clothes, Anton's few outfits, and the smallest family pictures. I was grateful that the police had removed Mitzi's body. Had Kommissar Lang been responsible for that? There was more to him than met the eye.

When I asked the taxi driver to take me to Ernst's apartment, my voice trembled. This time I did not dare wait at the front door, because I feared that more courage would never come. I marched into the kitchen and plucked the ring from its hiding place in the stove with a pair of tongs. Our teacups sat on the table, half-empty.

I steeled myself to walk into the bedroom. My head spun. Blood soaked the mattress. My blood. I had nearly died here. My knees collapsed. A chill ran over me, and I fought down an almost overwhelming urge to flee.

My hands shook as I reached down through my dried blood and pulled the letters out of the mattress. A splash of blood stained the brown wrapping paper, but none had seeped onto the letters.

I looked around Ernst's apartment for the last time, running my fingers along his beautiful dresses. This was the last place that Anton had seen me. I hoped that Rohm had told him I still lived. Back in the kitchen, I cleared the cups and wiped down Mother's table. Then I stumbled down to the taxi in a haze of tears, the letters and ring clutched in my hands.

I had the taxi take me to Herr Klein's shop. I rapped on the door.

"Hannah," said Herr Klein, pulling me and my suitcase into the shop and closing the door. "Paul said that you were in the hospital, guarded by the police."

"I left. I do not trust the police to keep me safe," I said. "A powerful man is after me."

"Is it about the ring?"

"Strangely, no," I said. "But that is why I am here. I want you to cut it in two. Then set them in two buttons, painted black. Quickly."

He peered at me through his round spectacles. "You are asking me to butcher the Mona Lisa."

"Yes."

He took the ring out of my hand with a sigh. "Desperate times these are."

"I want to sell you all the other pieces. I need American dollars. Or gold."

He nodded. "I have the receipt. I will bring it out with the money."

He disappeared in his back room with the ruby. I leaned against the table. Exhaustion seeped into my bones and my aching head, but at least the ring was now secure in Herr Klein's safe.

Herr Klein returned with a cup of strong tea. After I'd had a few sips, he counted out bills into my hand for the jewelry.

"Thank you," I said. "But there is more."

"Isn't there always?"

I handed him the package that contained the letters. "Can you hold this for one week."

"And then?"

"If you have not heard from me, deliver it to Paul."

"And why can't you give it to Paul now?"

I hesitated before I told him the truth. "I do not trust him not to open it. It is dangerous, more so than the ring. Take special care of it."

He shook his head and took the package. "What have you stumbled into?"

"Something I must stumble out of."

Exhausted, I returned to Sarah's apartment and retrieved the extra letter that Herr Silbert had done the forgery from. I hoped I had enough energy for my last two stops: the ticket office and Tegel prison. I would need every precaution I could think of to survive another day. Even that seemed unlikely to pull me through this. Still, my wits were all I had. And a brave needs to keep his wits and his arrows sharp. I stared at the special paper I had bought, knowing that my future rested on it.

29.

Tomorrow I would sneak into Rohm's party and reassure Anton that I was alive. After that, I did not know, but I was ready to do whatever was needed.