Nesha grabbed Rebecca’s hand and pulled her toward the closet in the corner. The side door of the duplex slammed and a woman’s voice joined the man’s. Nesha pushed her inside the closet, then squeezed in front, closing the door. She was pressed tightly against his back; she had to turn her face to the side. She was gagging on the overpowering smell of mothballs. His breathing was remarkably even as his shoulder blades moved softly against her chest. Even if they weren’t discovered, how would they get out? In another second, noisy footsteps began to pound up the stairs. The other apartment. They both let out their breath but waited until the steps sounded overhead. She realized she was leaning her head against the back of his neck.
“Good God!” she whispered, when he opened the door. She couldn’t breathe amid the mothballs. The tenants were moving around in their apartment upstairs.
“Why don’t you go?” he said, once they were back in the den. “It’ll be safer.” His eyes seemed softer when he looked at her.
“If you come.”
He smiled with resignation. “You’re a stubborn woman.”
They headed down the hall. Near the phone on the kitchen counter lay the day’s mail, mostly bills and junk mail. However, one envelope bore an official-looking return address from Germany. Without hesitation, she pulled out the letter on official stationery, heavily typed in German. All she could tell was that Feldberg was being notified about something that involved money.
She thrust the sheet in front of Nesha’s face. “How’s your German?”
He screwed up his eyes and began to move his lips silently.
“The bastard!” he said finally. “He’s getting paid for his so-called suffering. Incredible! This letter says his restitution — he’s getting restitution from Germany! — will go up because of his incarceration at a labour camp in Poland. Which camp was he in?”
Nesha’s eyes shifted quickly along the page. “Skarzysko Kamienna. That’s it!” he cried. “That’s the link. Steiner was in Skarzysko — he was promoted to the labour camp. It’s him!”
She shook her head. “How could he have lived all these years as a Jew? Even fooling his wife?”
“Everything fits. Do you have a better explanation?”
Rebecca was pushing the letter back into the envelope when a ring exploded from the phone less than two feet away, making her jump. Nesha lurched toward her protectively. They stood watching each other, waiting through three rings, then four. Suddenly a machine clicked on. Feldberg’s raspy voice told the caller to leave a message.
“Leo, pick up the phone. I know you’re there.” Rebecca recognized Isabella’s low Hispanic voice. “Please, Leo, I need you tonight. I can’t go on. I called Teresa to take my place at the club but I can’t stand it, can’t stand being alone here.” She’d had something to drink. Probably numerous somethings. “You must forgive your Isabelita if I said something. I can’t remember, did I say something bad? Where are you, I’ve been calling for hours! Please don’t be angry, pick up the phone, please Leo, please.”
When the phone finally clicked off, Rebecca said, “We’ve got to get out of here.” She turned to look into his face. “Now.”
He blinked once, expressionless, but he didn’t argue. “Just a minute,” he said. He vanished into the den and came out a minute later with Feldberg’s ledger and a few bankbooks.
“You’re taking those?” she said.
“I’m an accountant. I’m going to do his books.”
chapter twenty-nine
Nesha, carrying the ledger under his arm, walked Rebecca back to her Jaguar which she had parked on a side street off Bathurst. She was the one looking over her shoulder at the empty street. The people in the houses whose tidy lawns and ornamental trees breathed quietly in the dark were no doubt sunk in front of their TVs by now and paid no attention to two shadows navigating the sidewalk.
“Nice car,” he said. The red coat beamed beneath the street lamp.
“Want a ride to yours?” she asked.
He got in and she drove him one street over to his rental car. He was in no hurry to get out.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. It was nearly nine.
He smiled. “Got any Jewish delicatessens here?”
“Follow me,” she said.
They drove in tandem along Eglinton Avenue, she leading in her Jaguar, he following in his rented Olds. She shifted lanes around slow cars and kept an eye on Nesha in her mirror. Close to Avenue Road, she signaled that she was parking. They were two blocks away from her house. Across the street was Yitz’s Deli, a long-standing Toronto fixture where the robust fragrance of corned beef had decades ago settled permanently into the sidewalk in front of the store.
On their way to their table they passed a cooler filled with jars of dill pickles and pickled red peppers. Nesha flipped the over-long pages of the laminated menu and grinned. “This is my kind of place. We don’t have anything like this in San Francisco. I guess we’ve assimilated too well.”
He ordered a pastrami sandwich on rye and a kishka. She watched him eat in wonder as she nibbled at her salad. She would’ve been up all night with such fare.
“What’s it like in San Francisco?”
The food had relaxed him. His black eyes gleamed in the soft light of the booth. “The most beautiful place on earth,” he said. “Not just the city itself. The bay. All the little towns around it. I can see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance right outside my window. It’s like a misty piece of art. There’s something new each time the light shifts. I read somewhere there was an artist who painted a haystack a hundred times, each time in a slightly different light. That guy would’ve loved the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“Monet,” she said. “It was Monet.” She was reminded of David and the connection made a piece of lettuce stick in her throat.
“I’m a little disoriented here because of the flatness. My house is set into the side of a hill and the eye is constantly moving up. Very exciting, really. You’ve heard of ‘sea legs’? Well, a few times I’ve had to catch myself from keeling over here because I keep expecting a hill where there isn’t one.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” she said, smiling.
“Well, I invite you out west to check it out. Come visit me and I’ll take you up all the good hills.”
“What about your family?”
“My son’s away at college. I’m alone in the house.” Then, “Who’s at your house?”
“I’m a widow. My husband died last fall.”
Nesha shrunk back in his seat. “I’m sorry. Then you’re still in mourning. That’s the sadness I saw.”
“Is it that obvious?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Only to someone else in pain.”
Tears stung her eyes without warning and she turned away. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry in front of people.”
He reached out a hesitant hand. “I’m flattered that you feel safe enough with me.”
He pulled back when the waiter approached. “Would you like some coffee?” Nesha asked.
“You know, my house is just around the corner,” she said. “I can make us some coffee.”
She unlocked her front door and felt him follow her in. It was an odd feeling, bringing a strange man into the house after