He was halfway through the hall when it occurred to him, like a flash of lightning.

Norowitz. Mossad.

He sank down onto a bench, a smile quivering about his lips. Could it be? Could it be really? Yes, it could, and oh-ho! Ah-ha! So Shimon Norowitz, Mr. It’s-in-the-queue, was interested after all! Interested enough, let’s put it that way, that he didn’t want anyone else seeing those pages. And he had asked Aharon over the phone if he had any more. Of course Norowitz wanted more! It is written: “A handful does not satisfy a lion.”

After a few moments of feeling gratified that he was neither crazy nor useless, it began to dawn on Aharon that maybe… maybe the Mossad being interested wasn’t such a blessing.

He sat contemplating this turn of events for some time, reasoning through the pros and cons, projecting possibilities, as if he were writing Midrash on the subject. And perhaps it was some of the darker turns in his reasoning that caused him to notice the large photograph right in front of his eyes, or perhaps the photograph subconsciously infused some of his darker thoughts. At length, he found himself staring at the picture.

It was a photograph blown-up and printed on a large posterboard and hung from the ceiling. In the black-and-white image three young Nazis were beating an old Jewish man with the butts of their rifles. He had a long white beard and fedora. The side of his head was bloody. In his hands he clutched a small carpetbag as if it contained all that was important in the world.

Aharon stared at the image for a long, long time. As it settled into him his mind became blank, not thinking, only looking, only seeing, really seeing. Then words crossed that blank space like a funeral procession:

The manuscript. What if the danger isn’t something that’s already occurred, something Kobinski did in the past? What if it’s something that hasn’t happened yet? Some weapon that will maybe come about through the discovery of his manuscript?

Then: And I’m the one who told them about it!

Evil. What is evil? I come back to it again and again. I think I know, and then I realize I know nothing. My equation tells me it is a natural force in the very fabric of space-time. Kabbalah says evil is what happens when the sephirot are out of balance. I once believed both those things were true at the same time. But what does that explain? Is a little imbalance in the sephirot all there is to it? To this hell? To this stinking carnage of pain and piss and death? To our complete abandonment by G-d? To the torment of a beautiful, innocent, precious ten-year-old boy?

And what about the law of good and evil? Where is the good here? Where is the balance? If one place, one time on earth could convince a placid, lifeless, scholarly Jew that such a theory was complete nonsense, that all his work meant nothing, it would be this time and this place.

Wake up, Kobinski! Here are the questions you should be asking yourself: Who is responsible? Who made these snakes?

7.4. Denton Wyle

If Denton could have run past Herr Kroll into the living room of the farmhouse he would have. But he was still debating how weird that would seem when Frau Kroll opened the door.

Denton’s eyes rolled in anguish toward the opening and saw a tiny, frail old man in small wire glasses and a huge overcoat. The coat’s style was thirty years old and it was way too large. It looked like it would bend the man beneath its weight. Black gloves and a hat completed the picture. He might have been dressed for December, and it was a warm August day outside.

The man opened his mouth to introduce himself, but replacing his voice, as though he were a ventriloquist’s dummy, was Frau Kroll, screaming in German. Denton didn’t speak German well enough to know what she was saying, but his mind readily filled in the blanks. “You pig-sucking Nazi hunter,” would probably be high on her agenda and, “You didn’t tell me you were a Jew,” along with variations on the theme. The old man shut his mouth and gazed at her calmly as she roared, but he shuddered inside his coat, like a well-rooted tree in the wind.

“Frau Kroll,” Denton said sheepishly. He had to touch her arm to get her attention. She turned to glare at him. Appropriately shamefaced, he shook his head. “I apologize. This isn’t the… who I thought it was. It was a mistake.”

Frau Kroll’s mouth worked speechlessly.

“I’m, uh, very sorry. There’s this other man who’s been following me. But this isn’t him. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry I upset you.”

Frau Kroll went off some more in German, mostly to her husband. Denton guessed that the main thread this time was his status as a form of life lower than that in the bottom of their cesspool. Meanwhile, the old man waited patiently on the stoop.

The husband argued back, reminded the woman of, oh, the money. She went back to the door.

“Herr Neumann,” the old man introduced himself with a nod of his head.

The Krolls both glanced into the driveway again, confirming that there was only this one old man and not a troop of reporters or Israeli soldiers. Then Frau Kroll took the man’s coat. Herr Neumann gratefully accepted a seat at the kitchen table. Denton wasn’t asked to leave, but the woman’s eyes compelled him to keep quiet. The old man was given the file folder to peruse as Denton had been.

Herr Neumann opened the cover. Denton’s breath caught in his throat. He crossed his leg and jiggled it, put a hand up to press his smiling mouth to keep from screaming.

The old man looked the pages over carefully, his lips pursing with emotion. Denton’s leg jiggled more ferociously. He was thinking about how much cash he had with him and wondering if the Krolls would take a check. He had made a freaking ass of himself, but he would walk out of here with those pages.

It occurred to him that this old man might be an agent of Schwartz, even if he wasn’t Schwartz himself. A moment later, he was convinced of it. Behind his hand his smile slunk away. How much cash did this old fart have? Denton felt a wave of nausea at the thought.

After an unbearable time the old man closed the folder. He took off his glasses, brought a white handkerchief from one pocket, and began to clean them. He looked up at Frau Kroll with tears in his eyes. “Thank you for letting me see it,” Denton understood him to say in German.

Frau Kroll and her husband exchanged a look.

“Do you speak English?” she asked Herr Neumann.

“Yes,” he switched at once, offering Denton a small smile.

“We do business in English, yes? Herr Wyle gived me a price for the papers. Now you please.”

Denton uncrossed his leg and crossed the other one. He had to pee all of a sudden, probably because his insides were gripped so tightly there was no room for any fluids.

Herr Neumann continued to clean his glasses, calmly and serenely unaware of the tension in the room. The Krolls were trying to look businesslike, but her hands gripped and regripped her apron and he was licking his lips like a dog with peanut butter.

“What was the current bid, might I ask?” Herr Neumann said, looking up as though this had just occurred to him.

The Krolls discussed this briefly, in hushed tones. He seemed to be in favor of telling; she was not.

“Four thousand,” she said hesitantly. “In American dollars.”

“It was five thousand,” Denton rushed in, “wasn’t it? I thought… And that was just an opening bid.”

Frau Kroll and her husband exchanged a smirk. Denton didn’t care. He had flinched; he’d admit it. Whatever. Let them milk him dry. Let them retire to the Bahamas.