"Thank you, ma'am."

"When is your aunt coming to get you?" I asked.

"Never," he said. "She said that my real father and mother would take care of me from now on. Forever."

Big fat tears plopped onto the half-eaten roll. "Auntie Sweetie said she was finished with me. No matter what I wanted."

I reached across and stroked his fine, soft hair. "Such foolishness. We will find her."

He held up his hand, his palm facing me. "Stop," he said. "She said she would beat me if I came home. She said she was moving to Munich to get away from Thomas's uncle."

I sighed. I had no time to get into a complicated discussion about his mother and her whereabouts. If Herr Neumann did not get a story I would lose my job. But what would I do with Anton? "I have to go to work today."

He scrutinized me as I stood there in my old scruffy bathrobe and bare feet. "Where are your boots?"

"There are many kinds of work," I said. "I write stories for my job."

"Like Little Red Riding Hood?"

I thought of the stories of serial rapes, murders, and beatings I cranked out for my newspaper. "A little."

He stood and walked into my bedroom. The wardrobe door creaked open and closed.

I opened the door. There he sat on the bottom of the wardrobe, holding his bear. My black dress shoes and winter boots were pushed neatly to one side.

"We're ready," he said.

"For what?"

"For you to go to work," he said. "We will be very quiet."

"I will never lock you in a wardrobe," I said. "I will take you to a friend's house. She has other children for you to play with."

We cleaned the kitchen and got dressed. I wore a long-sleeved gray dress, too warm for the weather, but it covered the bruises on my arm. Anton looked pathetic in the too large shirt, a pair of Ernst's childhood lederhosen, and his own dirty shoes with no socks.

We hurried down the stairs to catch a bus to Bettina's apartment. I felt the eyes of Schmidt the news seller on me as we ran to the bus stop. He'd never seen me with a child.

Bettina lived on the ground floor of her apartment building. Built about ten years ago, it had elegant, clean lines, unlike the sooty brick of my own building. A young mother dressed in a fashionable short gown rolled a pram by and nodded politely.

I lifted the polished brass knocker and rapped on the front door.

"Hannah," Bettina said, answering the door at once. She wore an immaculately pressed blue dress and a white apron. "It's wonderful to see you. Come in, there's tea."

"Thank you," I said.

Anton clung to me with one hand and to his bear with the other.

"This is Anton," I said. "Anton, this is Aunt Bettina."

Bettina raised her perfect brown eyebrows. "Nice to meet you, Anton. Please do come in."

We stepped through the front door into the hall. Her apartment was bigger than mine and much more homey. The furniture was new and comfortable, and the open curtains let friendly morning light stream in. I took a deep breath. Bettina's apartment always smelled good enough to eat. Today it smelled of cinnamon and vanilla.

"Sophia," she called. "Aunt Hannah brought you a playmate."

Bettina had three children. Her youn gest, Sophia, was four. She appeared, perfectly dressed and brushed, like a doll in a shop window, with long brown curls and round blue eyes in a porcelain face. Underneath her charming exterior she was impish and strong-willed.

"I have a tea party." She held out her plump pink hand. "You and your bear can join. My doll Claudette is pouring."

Anton took her hand in his bony white one and followed her out of the room, his pointy chin held high.

"Well?" Bettina said. "Feeling better? Fritz said you were ill on Monday at the station."

"I'm fine," I said. "Except for this." I waved my hand in the direction that Anton had gone.

"Yes." She led me to her tiny kitchen and poured me a cup of tea. "Tell me."

I smiled. We'd been friends since childhood. Her father was in the army too, but at a higher rank than my father's. He was not a screamer, or a beater, or a drinker. Bettina's husband, Fritz, was funny and thoughtful. She had always lived the life I wanted.

"He may be Ernst's son," I said.

"Ernst?" she said, shocked. "But wouldn't that mean that at one point he had to . . . with a woman?"

I nodded. "That would be my understanding."

"But that boy looks four," Bettina said. "Ernst would have been sixteen!"

"Biology and mathematics," I said. "You are a genius. But Anton is five, almost six, which means Ernst would have been fourteen when he was conceived."

Bettina smiled. "You'd better ask Ernst." She placed a warm scone onto a plate and handed it to me.

I took the scone. I wanted to tell Bettina everything, but I knew that she might tell Fritz. And Fritz, being Fritz, would start an investigation immediately, before Sarah and Tobias reached safety. I could not ask Bettina to lie to her husband for me.

"Is little Anton visiting his aunt Hannah for long?"

"I have no idea." I handed her the note and birth certificate and ate the sweet raisin scone. It was warm from the oven, and I was hungry from my half breakfast. "His mother left him on my doorstep yesterday."

She gasped when she read the birth certificate. "Is he yours?" She looked at me with wide eyes.

"Of course not," I said impatiently, taking a sip of strong black tea to clear my throat. "You have known me all this time. You would not have noticed a pregnancy and child?"

Bettina laughed. "You've always been such a slender little thing."

"I'm grateful that you remember."

She ignored me. "My goodness. What are you going to do? Drop him on Ernst? He can't raise a child. He's up all hours. And the people he associates with-"

"I cannot raise a child either." I sat the teacup down in its delicate saucer with a clink. "I am an unfit mother."

"Nonsense. Where did you get that idea? You are not an unfit mother."

"Of course I am. Look how Ernst turned out." I wanted to add, "Dead in a gutter."

"He's a fine boy, Hannah." Her eyes snapped in anger. This was a familiar argument. "He loves you, and he takes care of himself."

"Does he?" I thought back to his photograph in the Hall of the Unnamed Dead. He did not take care of himself. And I had not helped him.

"Of course he does. He's a headline singer at El Dorado. That's a good job, and he lives in a wonderful apartment and he never has to ask you for money."

"Rudolf pays for the apartment."

"And? Fritz pays for this apartment, my dear."

I laughed. "You're married."

Bettina shook her head. "Well, maybe Ernst would be married too, if it were allowed."

"I cannot raise this child, Bettina," I repeated.

"What about his mother?"

"She's a prostitute," I said, and told her everything I learned from Anton.

"I can't believe Ernst impregnated a prostitute when he was fourteen. He was always precocious, but not in that way."

"There was one time"-I cleared my throat-"he said he was going to go find a female prostitute and try . . . try to be normal."

"Oh, that poor boy," Bettina said. "You didn't let him go, did you?"

I shot her an angry look. "Certainly not. But I also did not follow him every second of his life. If he had wanted to go, he could have done so without my knowledge."

We ate scones in silence.

"Well, no matter who his father is, you can't send him back to live with some prostitute." She began to clear the table. Bettina never sat still for long.

"I cannot find her to send him back," I said. "But there are orphanages."

"My God, Hannah." She took another tray of scones out of the oven. I inhaled the comforting scent. "Those places are terrible. Let Ernst raise him before you do that."

"Ernst is missing," I said.

"He's always somewhere." She scooped each perfect triangle onto the counter to cool. "He'll turn up before long."

I dared not trust even Bettina, but oh how I wanted to. I bit my lip. Who knew what she might let slip to Fritz?

"May I leave Anton here today?" I said. "I may need to leave him here off and on until I get a few things sorted out."

"He needs continuity," she said. "Not shuttling around between houses."

"I will only have him for a few days. Perhaps a week. By then I should find some place for him to go."

"And if you don't?"

I looked down at my hands, my fingers interlocked, as if in prayer. "I will."

She sighed and shook her head. "You can't promise something like that."

"Will you take him today?"

"To keep the wee one from being dragged around to Peter Weill's favorite haunts?" She smiled. "I will."

"Thank you." I headed for the front door. "I must be going."

"Oh no, you don't," Bettina said. "That boy has been through too much already. You are not abandoning him."

"I think it will be easier if I leave quietly."

"Easier for you, perhaps. Now go tell him good-bye and promise you'll be back." She put her hands on her rounded hips and glared at me.

I opened my mouth to argue, but Bettina folded her arms across her chest and gave me her stubborn look. "Hannah," she said, sounding like her mother.

"I'll do it." I followed her to Sophia's room, tucking Sweetie's note and the birth certificate into my satchel.

Anton sat in a tiny white chair in Sophia's room, turning her doll over and over in his hands. I think he'd never seen one before. Winnetou sat on the floor by his feet. Caramel, the dog, stretched out near the door, keeping watch. He stood when we entered and wagged his tail. I petted his thick brown fur, comparing his calm demeanor now to his ebullient puppyhood. Anton had none of that ebullience.

"Anton," I said, and he dropped the doll and jumped to his feet, looking sheepish. He picked up his bear. "I am going out for a while, but I will be back before dark to pick you up."

His eyes filled with tears, and he hugged his bear so hard I thought the stuffing would come out.

I leaned down to give him a hug. He dropped his bear and wrapped both arms around my neck. He held me so tightly I could barely breathe.

Bettina peeled him off me gently and held him in her arms instead, rubbing his back with one strong hand.

"I will see you soon," I said.

He looked at me with his big eyes and shook his head.

"You do not believe me?" I asked, surprised.

He shook his head again.

I looked at Bettina for help.

"She will be back, darling," Bettina crooned, rocking from side to side as if he were an infant. "She would never let me keep a sweet thing like you all to myself. And she'll want some cookies."

"Cookies?" Anton looked at her suspiciously.

"The cookies we are going to bake right now." Bettina ran her hand through his hair, straightening it out. "Butter cookies. Hannah's favorite. She stops by to get them every time I bake them."