I'm sorry, he said to the ghosts. Instead of finding the way home I found death.

He took another swig of beer, then held the cool glass of the bottle to his forehead. With his free hand he started to reach into his shirt pocket, where he had placed a page torn from that morning's New York

Times. He stopped his fingers, just as they reached the paper. He told himself that he didn't need to read it again. He could remember the headline: FAMED EDUCATOR DIES AT 77; WAS INFLUENTIAL WITH DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTS.

Now, he said, I must be the last who was there that knows what truly happened.

He took a deep breath. He remembered suddenly a conversation he'd had with his eldest grandchild, when the boy was only eleven and had come to him holding a picture. It was one of the few photos the old man had of that time when he himself was young, not that much older than his grandson. It showed him sitting by an iron stove, reading intently.

His wooden bunk was in the background. Some rough woolen clothes were hanging from a makeshift line. There was an unlit candle on the table beside him. He was very thin, almost cadaverously so, and his hair was cropped short. In the picture, he had a small smile on his face, as if what he was reading was humorous. His grandson had asked:

"When was this taken, grandfather?"

"During the war. When I was a soldier" "What did you do?"

"I was a navigator on a bomber. At least, that's what I was for a while. Then I was merely a prisoner, waiting for the war to end."

"If you were a soldier, did you kill anyone, grandfather?"

"Well, I helped to drop the bombs. And they probably killed people."