Hochman pushed his chair away from the desk and bowed formally, his signal, Eddie knew, to dismiss a client whose time was up. But perhaps he was more than a client, for Hochman unexpectedly reached to shake his hand, an intimacy that surprised Eddie. He recalled when they were visiting the mother of the boy who’d gone missing, after Hochman had opened the door to the boarder’s sleeping area, he had made an excuse to send Eddie away. Go get me a glass of water. Make sure it’s a clean glass. Wash it yourself. But Eddie hadn’t done as he’d been instructed. Instead, he’d stood in the corridor. He’d heard Hochman recite the mourning prayer. At that moment Eddie had known his employer was trying to protect him. He’d known there was evil in the world.
It was almost Passover, the time of year when Eddie made certain to avoid his past, yet whenever he took Mitts for a walk, he found himself drawn downtown. He made his way to the address Weiss had given him. The apartment was the sixth-floor railroad flat of a tenement building on Thompson Street. The stairs were steep and worn, and through the flimsy walls it was possible to hear half a dozen conversations in Yiddish and Russian and English, some in all three languages combined. Eddie was reminded of the room where he’d lived with his father, the lingering odor of cooked cabbage and of stews, the dim hallways, the damp clinging to the walls. All he’d wanted was to escape.
He knocked at the Weisses’ door, expecting to be greeted by the old man, but it was the sister, Ella, who appeared. Their first meeting had been unfortunate, and now the girl glared when she saw Eddie, instantly suspicious. Before she could turn him away, Mitts barked cheerfully and stepped forward. “Oh,” Ella said, delighted. “I didn’t expect you!”
Eddie grinned. More than once, the dog had been his best representative, more lovable and social than he was. Ella turned to him after greeting the dog, less than charmed by his master. “I’m not sure I should speak to someone who accosted me on the street.”
“Your father came to me for help. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”
“I told him there was a man inquiring about Hannah and he asked me for a description. I said tall and obnoxious. Right away he knew it was you.”
Eddie winced, and his discomfort lightened Ella’s expression for a moment. Still, she was wary.
“He told me you have a gift, a special knowledge that will allow you to find my sister. He sits here waiting to hear from you. He has faith in you. So tell me, Mr. Detective, did you find her with your special powers?”
“I’m not a detective. I’m a photographer. He came to look at the prints I’d taken on the day of the fire. I never told him that I had the power to find your sister.”
“What good are you then?” There were spots of color on Ella’s cheeks. “Why did you let him think you could? Do you mean to say you can’t close your eyes and see her in the great beyond?”
“Is that where you think she is?”
Ella looked away, but a sob escaped from her throat.
Eddie reached to pull her into the hallway. At last he was getting somewhere. “A sister is something special. Maybe she told you secrets she might have kept from your father. A boyfriend? A problem?”
“Hannah didn’t keep secrets. She was the kindest, most open person. I don’t think she ever told a lie in her life. You can’t imagine how good she was. If something had been wrong I would have known. We knew everything about each other.” Ella slipped a hand over her mouth, shocked by her own words, almost unable to take in any air. “I’m speaking of her in the past, as though she’s gone.”
“Let’s look at the facts,” Eddie suggested. “You worked together?”
“The supervisor thought we talked too much when we worked side by side, so he separated us. Hannah had me go upstairs because the room was supposed to be better, not as cold. That was the way she was. Never thinking of herself. When the fire began I tried to find her, but the stairwells were filled with smoke. The door to the ninth floor was locked. No one could budge it—several of the men tried. I was pulled along with the crowd, but I should have been beside her.”
“Be thankful you weren’t. It was luck that you were on the tenth floor.”
“It wasn’t luck! It was Hannah who saved me. She sent me to the room she should have gone to. The supervisor was looking at me when he said only one of us could stay on the ninth floor.” Ella fretfully plucked at her own skin. Eddie noticed a dozen self-inflicted marks on her arms. “I should have been in that fire. That’s the reason I can see the other side.”