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Monk held his patience with difficulty. It was the passion of feeling that stilled his interruption rather than any regard for the words.
“We have been strangers in Europe for more than a thousand years,” Jakob went on. “And still we are strangers today, hated by many, even behind their smiling faces and their courtesy. We have lost some of our people to the fear, the exclusion, the unspoken dislike.”
Frau Jakob leaned forward a little as if to interrupt.
“I know,” he said, looking at her and shaking his head a little. “Herr Monk does not want a lesson in our history, but it is necessary to understand.” He turned to Monk. “You see, many families have changed their names, their way of life, even abandoned the knowledge of our fathers and embraced the Catholic faith, sometimes in order to survive, at other times simply to be accepted, to give their children a better chance.”
In spite of himself, Monk understood that, even if he did not admire it.
Jakob saw that in his eyes, and nodded. “The Baruch family was one such.”
“Baruch?” Monk repeated, not knowing what he meant.
“Almost three generations ago,” Jakob said.
Suddenly, Monk had a terrible premonition what Jakob was going to say.
Jakob saw it in his eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “They changed their name to Beck, and became Roman Catholic.”
Monk was stunned. It was almost too difficult to believe, and yet not for an instant could he doubt it. It was monstrous, farcical, and it all made a hideous sense. It was a denial of identity, of birthright, of the faith that had endured for thousands of years, given up not for a change of conviction but for survival, to accommodate their persecutors and become one of them.
And yet had he been in the same circumstances, with a wife and children to protect, honesty told him he could not swear he would have acted differently. For oneself. . perhaps. . but for the parent who had grown old and frightened, desperately vulnerable, for the child who trusted you and for whom you had to make the decisions, with life or death as a result. . that was different.
One question beat in his brain above all others. “Did Kristian know?” he demanded.
“No,” Jakob said with a rueful smile. “Elissa knew. Hanna was the one who told her. She had a friend whose grandfather was a rabbi, and interested in all the old records. I think she wanted Elissa to know that it was she who was the one who did not belong, not Hanna. But no one told Kristian. Elissa protected him more than once. She was a remarkable woman. I am very sorry indeed to hear that she is dead. . still more that it was the result of murder, not accident. But I do not believe that Kristian would do such a thing.”
Monk took a deep breath. Hanna’s family did not know of the betrayal. His throat was suddenly tight with relief and his next words were hoarse. “Not even if she told him this now, without warning, perhaps to heighten the obligation to her?”
Jakob’s face darkened. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I think not. But people do strange things when they are deeply distressed, out of the character we know, even that they know of themselves. I hope not.”
Monk stayed a little longer, enjoying the comfort and the strange, alien certainty of the room with its millennia-old rituals and memories of history which was to him only faint, from old Bible stories. It was like a step outside the daily world into another reality. He envied Herr Jakob his belief, dearly as it had been bought. Then, at about nine o’clock, he thanked them and he and Ferdi excused themselves. Tomorrow, Monk must face Max Niemann.
Outside in the street, it was freezing. The pavements glistened with a film of ice in the pools of light from the street lamps. Monk glanced sideways at Ferdi and saw the emotion raw in him. In a few hours he had been hurled through a torrent of passion and loss beyond anything his life had prepared him for, and seen it in a people he had been taught to despise. It had been installed in him that they were different, in some indescribably way less. And he had been touched by their dignity and their pain more deeply than he could control. Even if he could not have put it into such simple words, he was inwardly aware that their culture was the fount of his own. It stirred a knowledge in him too fundamental to be ignored.
Monk wanted to comfort him, assure him. But more than that, he wanted Ferdi to remember what he felt this moment as they walked, heads down in the darkened street, feeling the ice of the wind on their faces. He wanted him never to deny it within himself, or bend or turn it to suit society. It would be yet another betrayal. He had not the excuse of ignorance anymore.
He remained silent because he did not know what to say.
By the time Monk was face-to-face with Max Niemann at last, he had decided exactly what he was going to ask him. He already knew a great deal about Niemann, his heroism during the uprising, his love for Elissa, and how g
enerously he had reacted when she married Kristian instead. From his outward behavior it was not difficult to believe he had largely got over his own passion for her and it had resolved into a genuine friendship for both Elissa and Kristian. He had never married, but that could have been due to a number of reasons. It was not so long ago that Monk himself had been quite sure that he would never marry, or if he did it would be someone quite unlike Hester. He had been certain he wanted a gentle, feminine woman who would comfort him, yield to him, admire his strength and be blind to his weaknesses. That memory prompted in him a wry laughter now. How little he had known himself. How desperately lonely that would have made him, like a man staring into a looking glass, and seeing only his own reflection.
But then he did know himself little, only five years, and those were strands worked out by deduction and sharp, sometimes ugly, flashes of disconnected memory.
He followed Max Niemann from his work as he strolled along the Canovagasse towards the open stretch of the Karlsplatz. It was not an ideal place for the conversation he needed to have, but he could not afford to wait any longer. In London, the trial might already have started. It was that urgency which impelled him to approach Max Niemann in the cafe where he sat listening to the chatter, and the clink of glasses.
It was discourteous, at the least, to pull up a chair opposite a man who was obviously intent upon being alone, but there was no alternative.
“Excuse me,” he said in English. “I know you are Max Niemann, and I need to speak to you on a matter which cannot wait for a proper introduction.”
Niemann looked only momentarily startled, his face set in lines of mild irritation.
Before he could protest, Monk went on. “My name is William Monk. I saw you in London at the funeral of Elissa Beck, but you may not remember me. I am a friend of Kristian’s, and it is in his interest that I am here.”
He saw Niemann’s expression ease a little.
“Did you know that Kristian has been charged with the murder, and is due to stand-” He stopped. It was apparent from Niemann’s wide eyes and slack mouth that he had not known, and that the news distressed him profoundly. “I’m sorry to tell you so abruptly,” Monk apologized. “I don’t believe it can be true, but there seems to be no other explanation for which there is any evidence, and I hoped I might find something here. Perhaps an enemy from the days of the uprising.”
