Part 14 (1/2)

What would becoht have appeared already on some other list of deaths that no one had bothered to report to hiious? No, he felt fairly certain it was not But it could be brought on by ill health andlike that, what kind of shape ined that the little food or medicine they possessed went to Thomas before it went to anyone else Perhaps his father had sacrificed his health for the sake of Thomas's Had his entire family died? Hoould he ever find out?

By the time the Adirondack pulled into Albany that afternoon, Joe's adventure into the unknown of war had come to seem one unknown too many for him to bear He had convinced himself that it was far more likely that both his mother and Thomas were still alive And if this was so, then they required rescue no less than they had before He could not abandon thele-handedly to end the war It was imperative for him to reht, but he could not prevent hi it-there would now be one visa fewer to try to wrest froot down from the train at Union Station in Albany and stood on the platfor A man with round rimless spectacles brushed past, and Joe rehom he had mistaken for his father In retrospect, it seehom he had mistaken for his father In retrospect, it seeed Joe toup the train Joe wavered All his doubts were counterbalanced by a powerful urge to kill Gero without hiret and self-reproach He stood outside by the taxi stand He could get in a cab and order the driver to take him to Troy If he missed the train at Troy, then he could have the driver take hiht on to Montreal He had plenty of money in his wallet

Five hours later, Joe was back in New York City He had suffered through seven changes of mind on the way down the Hudson He had spent the entire trip back in the train's club car, and he wasA cold front seemed to have moved in The air burned his nostrils, and his eyes felt raw He wandered up Fifth Avenue and then went into a Longchaain to the phone

It took Saet there; by that ti Sa-chaht him in his arms Joe tried, but this ti sounded to his own ears like sad, hoarse laughter None of the people in the bar knehat to uided him to a booth at the back of the barroom and handed Joe his handkerchief After Joe had sed the rest of his sobs, he told Sammy the little he knew

”Could there be sos are always possible,” Joe said bitterly

”Oh, Jesus,” Sammy said He had ordered two bottles of Ruppert's and was staring down at the neck of his He was not a drinker and had not taken even a sip ”I hate to tell my mother this”

”Your poor ht of his ain Sammy came around froside hiht back to that , when he had stuck his head out into the day and felt as powerful as the Escapist, surging with the e

”Useless,” he said

”What is?”

”I am”

”Joe, don't say that”

”I'm worthless,” Joe said He felt that heand crying any that could be done He grabbed Saave hi hio”

”Where are we going?” Sa to his feet

”I don't know,” Joe said ”Work I'ht,” Sa into Joe's face ”Maybe that isn't a bad idea” They left Longchaloom of the subway

On the southbound platforentle the cut of his topcoat, or so from his chin or eyes or haircut, Joe felt certain that he was Ger theree afterward that the ht out of a panel by Joe Kavalier,a beautiful suit As the wait for the train dragged on, Joe decided that he did not like what he considered to be the superiorat him He considered a nulish, of expressing his feelings about thefor a more universal statement, he spat, as if casually, onto the platforh at the tiht have reuous if Joe's missile had not overshot its mark Spittle frosted the tip of the man's shoe

Sammy said, ”Did you just spit at that man?”

”What?” said Joe He was a little surprised himself ”Eh, yes”

”He didn't mean it, ht now”

”Then he ested not unreasonably

His accent was thick and unquestionably Gery with the air of one accustoies when he asked for theer than Joe had thought at first, and evenHe looked as if he could ht

”Oh, my God,” Sammy said in an undertone ”Joe, I think thatfor the train, and they had taken an interest They started to argue about whether the , the Black Bull of the Uhlan, forht champion of the world

”I' it

”What was that?” said thea hand to his ear

”Go to hell,” Joe said, this tireater sincerity

”shi+t-head,” the ilistic quickness, he crowded Joe against an iron pillar, crooked an arave him a swift punch in the stoust and he pitched forward, striking his chin on the concrete platfor in their sockets He felt as if soe He waited, flopped on his belly, unblinking as a fish, to see if he would ever again be able to draw a breath Then he let out a long, low m ”Wow,” he said finally Saulped up big lopsided gouts of air The German man turned to the other people on the platfore or, perhaps, it seemed to Joe, in appeal Everyone had seen Joe spit on his shoe, hadn't they? Then the big man turned and stalked off, way down to the far end of the platforot on it, and that was the end of that When they got back to Palooka Studios, Sa about Joe's father But he did tell everyone that Joe had gotten his ass kicked by Max Schratulations He was infor had pulled his punch

”Next ti to hit hi, or his doppelganger, again In any case, there is good reason to believe that Sch been drafted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the front as punishment for his defeat by Joe Louis in 1938

4

There could not have been more than a couple of thousand Ger teeks, wherever Joe went in the city, he ed to run across at least one He seemed to have acquired, as Sanet for Germans He found thechamps restaurants At first he would just watch theood Ger certainty even if they were just talking about the rain or the taste of their tea, but it wasn't long before he began to approach thely bland and suggestive Often enough, his advances were met with a certain amount of resistance

”Woher ko a pound of steak at the butcher on Eighth Avenue, around the corner fro a pound of steak at the butcher on Eighth Avenue, around the corner from Palooka Studios ”Schwabenland?” ”Schwabenland?”

The art,” he said

”How is everything back there?” He could feel the note of inti innuendo ”Is everybody all right?”

The , and made a mute appeal to the butcher with a raised eyebrow

”Is there a problem?” the butcher asked Joe Joe said that indeed there was not But when he walked out of the butcher shop with his la discoht to be asha He believed that on some level he was But he could not see with pleasure the furtive look and the flushed cheeks when he had addressed theday, a Saturday-this was about a week after Joe had learned of his father's death-Saaet Joe out into the air and cheer him up a little Sammy was partial to football, and seeers' star back, Ace Parker Joe had seen English rugby played in Prague, and once he decided there was no great difference between it and Aa beer in the sharp raw breeze Ebbets Field had a faintly ra in a comic strip-Popeye or or Toonerville Trolley Toonerville Trolley Pigeons wheeled in the dark spaces of the grandstands There was a smell of hair oil and beer and a fainter one of whiskey The men in the crowd passed flasks and eons wheeled in the dark spaces of the grandstands There was a smell of hair oil and beer and a fainter one of whiskey The men in the crowd passed flasks and muttered comically violent sentis The first was that he was quite drunk The second was that, ts behind him and up a little to his left, there sat a pair of Ger, fair, stolid-looking men, brothers perhaps They kept up an excited coah they did not seem to understand it any better than Joe They cheered whenever a fuardless of who recovered it

”Just ignore theood luck in turning up Ger at me,” Joe said, fairly certain that this was so

”They are not”

”They are looking over here”