Martin shook his head. “Look, I’m just the UNRRA rep. I don’t set budgets or the policies. I’ll go and beg for it, but I’m telling you the sad truth: there’s no current funding for residential expansion. The solution is to get everyone out of the camp and to their final destinations.”
Harry scoffed. “You can’t emigrate without a visa, Martin. Tell Truman to issue more visas.”
On the side of the room a stocky man with a barrel chest, a square jaw and tousled black hair leaned against a wall. He breathed heavily through his nose, and when he spoke it was in a deep gravelly voice. “I want to say something,” he growled. People turned their heads. “I hear rumors, Bernard. Bad rumors. Someone is out there selling visas.”
“Selling?”
“On the black market.”
“Seriously, Daniel? Visas to what country? Real or counterfeit?”
“From what I hear, they’re genuine visas to the United States. For money or jewelry, this man will deliver a genuine U.S. visa. Pay him what he wants, and you can jump the immigration line.”
Muffled comments skittered through the room.
“Who is this man?” Bernard demanded.
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know him personally. They say he’s tall, has short black hair and he’s a slick dresser. He goes by the name of Max.”
Eli’s jaw dropped. The color drained from his face. “Impossible! He’s dead.”
Daniel shook his head. “The guy I’m talking about is definitely not dead. Frau Helstein knows him. She’s the one who told me.”
“Well, that might explain it,” Bernard said. “She’s a gossiper and she’s always spreading one crazy rumor or another. It’s probably nonsense.”
“I don’t think it’s nonsense, Bernard,” said another man. “I heard the same thing. From Shmuel. For the right price, and it’s pretty steep, you can get a U.S. visa. He’ll even supply the sponsor for you.”
Daniel uttered a gravelly huff. “It’s all true, Bernard, and it’s not good. Cheaters spawn resentment. Anger. People waiting in line don’t want to be passed up by a cheat. It could undermine the stability of our community.”
Eli felt his blood boil. “What else did Frau Helstein tell you about this man named Max?”
Daniel slowly shook his head. “She said he’s arrogant. He has powerful connections in America, and you do business on his terms or not at all. Why do you say it’s impossible, or that the man’s dead? Do you know this Max?”
Eli pursed his lips and nodded. “Maybe. I knew such a man in Lublin—tall, black hair, fancy clothes, arrogant. And his name was Maximilian. But there was no way he survived.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Maximilian Poleski, as crooked as any thief that ever roamed the earth. An unprincipled profiteer. Soon after Lublin was occupied, he cozied up to the Nazis and curried their favor. He was quick to supply them with a bottle of the finest brandy or to pick up the check at a trendy café or to supply some SS commandant with an innocent young girl. He’d bide his time, lie in wait like a predator, waiting for desperate people to come to him. If you needed food, he could get it. You needed housing, you needed to be transferred from ghetto A to ghetto B, you needed a place to hide, you needed an exemption ID card, Maximilian was only too happy to oblige. For a price. He was open for business—the merchant of war.”
“He could do all that during the occupation?” Bernard asked.
“Oh, yeah. He had his own office in Nazi headquarters. But in the end he double-crossed the wrong people. I was sure that they killed him.”
“Did you see the Nazis kill him?”
“No. But he was as good as dead when I last saw him.”
“Then maybe he’s not dead,” Daniel said. “Or maybe this Max is not your Maximilian after all.”
Eli felt his muscles tense. “If Maximilian lives, he and I have unfinished business. He will answer to me for what he did to my family, and he will tell me what I need to know. If Maximilian roams the earth again, I will have my day of reckoning. That is my sacred promise!”
Bernard slowly stroked his beard. “This is all very distressing. We’ve dealt with black market butchers and black market cigarettes, but the illegal sale of an official U.S. visa? That’s a new one on me. Let me know if you find out anything more about this man.”
* * *
After the meeting was adjourned, and as people were filing out, Dr. Weisman pulled Bernard, Eli and Daniel aside. “Please treat what I’m about to say confidentially. I don’t want to raise an alarm, but two more people have come down with symptoms.”
Eli and Daniel were puzzled. “What symptoms?”
Bernard understood. He had an uneasy expression. “Are you sure?”
The doctor nodded. “We’ve put them under quarantine, but we’re fairly certain.”
“What’s he talking about?” Eli said.
The doctor sighed. “Tuberculosis.”
Daniel’s expression froze. “The White Plague.”
“Is there a cure?” Eli said. “Do we have medicines for that?”
The doctor shook his head. “Not in Föhrenwald, not in Europe. There are trials of a new medicine at the Mayo Clinic in America, but the drug is still experimental and not available. We treat the disease with sulfonamides, rest and fluids. Some recover on their own, but not many. I’m proposing that we post bulletins warning residents of a flu-like virus and advising them all to wash carefully, avoid someone coughing or wheezing and report that person to the camp hospital immediately.”
Bernard spoke soberly. “For the time being and until we’re sure, let’s keep the word ‘tuberculosis’ to ourselves. News like this could cause a panic.”
As Eli walked home, his thoughts returned to Lublin, to Maximilian Poleski. And to that first day of September 1939, when the world caught fire.
CHAPTER FOUR
LUBLIN
LUBLIN, POLAND
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
In the predawn hours of September 1, 1939, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein moved silently southward through the Baltic Sea toward the free city of Danzig. At 4:45 a.m. Central European Time, its massive guns commenced firing on the tiny Polish fort of Westerplatte, ushering in what would become the Second World War. Contemporaneously, sixty-two German divisions supported by 1,300 Luftwaffe aircraft crossed the western Polish border. A million German troops invaded Poland from Prussia in the north and Slovakia in the south. The first bombing raids hit Warsaw at 6:00 a.m. The Polish Air Force, caught totally by surprise, was vanquished on the ground within hours.
In Lublin, Poland, not far from the Grodzka Gate, a hand-painted sign over the entrance to a brickyard read ROSEN & SONS BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS. The sun was warm, the sky was clear, and it was forecasted to stay that way all day. No one predicted storm clouds rising in the west. Eli was hard at work in the yard filling an order. Although there had been a lot of noise on the radio—threats, assurances, and still more threats from Adolf Hitler—there was no reason for Eli to think this day would be anything out of the ordinary, which was why he was so startled when Jakob Rosen rushed out of the office, yelling “Eli, Eli, we’re at war!”