slightly different; she had heard that in England you could place a person within thirty kilometers of their birthplace based on speech. Here there were only four or five accents. A slightly different pitch if one came from Brno. And the singsongy lilt adrift on the voices of Prague.
Marta wondered what was being said, but it wasn’t her place to ask. She waited patiently until Anneliese said, “Can you help us out, darling?” She was holding her husband’s wrist loosely in her hand.
Pavel translated the first man’s answer: “Because of the coordination. The timing was so precise, with the shops being vandalized not just in one town but all across Germany.” He paused, working to catch up. “And indeed across Austria, and the Sudetenland. Both of which, of course, now belong to Hitler’s Reich. The—what’s that word? coordinated?—No, the synchronized nature of the pogroms leaves little doubt—I myself would say that it leaves no doubt—that they were planned by a central body.”
The first voice interrupted and Pavel looked at the ceiling, concentrating. “He’s asking if it could just have been a series of lootings by thugs,” he summarized. “And now the other man is answering.” Pavel resumed the direct translation: “Certainly the so-called thugs and low-lifes may have jumped on board without any urging. But the timing of the attacks, in so many different towns and cities, leads us to believe—leads us to conclude that they were coordinated. Also, the violent nature of so many of the . . .” The man speaking searched for the words, and Pavel paused along with him. “. . . of so many of the bodily attacks.”
Pavel snapped the radio off. He tipped his head back so his chin was pointed directly at the copper Art Deco chandelier; he took a deep breath, which he let out slowly. He crossed the room to his rack of pipes, chose one, and began to tap tobacco down into the bowl. The match he took off the mantelpiece was long, meant to reach into the back of the massive stone fireplace, and he misjudged its reach and nearly singed his eyebrows.
Pepik was mashing his dumplings with the back of his spoon.
“Goldstein,” Pavel said, his pipe clamped between his teeth. “They’re talking about what happened to Mr. Goldstein.” He held the pipe away from his face. “It could have been us, darling,” he said to Anneliese.
Marta looked to Mrs. Bauer, but her face was blank, unreadable. “Of course it couldn’t have been us,” she scoffed. “We’re different. He was . . .” She did not need to finish her sentence. Mr. Goldstein had been Orthodox, practising. The Bauers were assimilated, secular.
Pavel shook his head. “Those distinctions don’t matter any more,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘don’t matter anymore’?”
Pavel drew on his pipe; Marta found the smell familiar, comforting. There was something almost sweet about it, like cookies ready to come out of the oven.
“I mean just what I say,” said Pavel. “Things have changed. The Germans care only if you’re Jewish. It’s black and white. In their minds.”
“Really?” Anneliese asked. “How is that possible? We couldn’t be more different if . . .”
But Pavel didn’t answer. He’d been looking at the silver candlesticks in the middle of the table; he now lifted his face towards his wife. “I’m proud to be a Jew,” he declared. Marta shrunk back, waiting for Anneliese’s answer, but she was silent. “I didn’t realize it,” Pavel said, “until now. Until all of this.” He moved his eyes in the direction of the window. The drapes were closed tightly. Behind them someone had taken the old tailor’s body away.
“Proud, darling?”
Marta could see Pavel searching around for what he was feeling, discovering it himself as he spoke it aloud. “It makes me . . . I’ve always been so proud to be Czech, to be a vlastenecký. It’s like I’d forgotten this other . . .” He cleared his throat. “This thing that has happened to Goldstein,” he said. “It’s changed me.”
“I hope it’s not you next.”
“What I mean is, I’m starting to know our own value. As a people.”
“I hope I won’t have to sit shiva and tear my clothes into rags!” Anneliese’s laugh was shrill. “And cover . . . the windows?”
“The mirrors,” Pavel said quietly. Then he added, “I finally understand what’s important.”
“Being Jewish?”
“Teaching Pepik who he is.”
Marta locked eyes with Anneliese. She knew the baptism was fresh in both their minds.
“You see what happened to Mr. Goldstein?” Anneliese started. “You see