The Jew walked up to the Aryan in black and came to a lurching stop. The effort of walking ten yards had brought the breath hissing in his mouth, and his rib-cage pulsed beneath the skin that hung from the bones like loose yellow silk. I heard him ask Zossen if it were allowed that they all might chant the Khaddish, the prayer for the dead. The Obergruppenfiihrer did not knock him down for his impudence, as I had expected. He was an officer. He looked at the watch on his wrist, considered a moment, and shook his head. "There is not enough time. The roads are bad and I am due back in Briicknerwald in one hour, for luncheon." He signalled his Stiirmbannfuhrer and the machine-guns opened up.

Heinrich Zossen. I remembered him.

Normally one would keep such a memory to oneself for the sake of decency but as a leading witness for the prosecution at the 1945Tribunal I was obliged to recount this event, among many others. The others were no better, but it was mentioned afterwards that throughout my testimony totalling fifteen weeks I spoke calmly and objectively, with one brief lapse. This was when I spoke of Heinrich Zossen. Even now, twenty-one years later, in a Berlin where you could hear the singing from the synagogue rising freely, I was unable, when in a restaurant, to open a menu headed with that word, Mittagessen. Luncheon.

Pol was still silent, knowing that he'd played the ace. Zossen was in Berlin.

"Then I hope you get him," I said.

Still silent. Playing my own game. I said:

"But I think you're wrong. They say he's in the Argentine."