Peripheral Visions: The Final Question

They take form in the shadows and shape in the corner of your eye. Peripheral Visions: You won't see them coming... until it's too late.

The Final Question

"You did interview him, right? I mean, vet him, make sure he's..." Pam hesitated

"He's the real deal," Sofie told her. "Parents both died in the Nazi assault on Warsaw. He escaped to the States after the war."

"Yeah, but that's not what I mean," Pam said. "Are you sure he's up to it? He looks like he might fall over any minute."

The old man was frail, but he seemed alert, sitting in a chair in the middle of the stage The church basement was once used for children's plays, for ceremonies... now it was the site of the occasional drag show for charity. Or, as this afternoon, a guest speaker.

"He's stronger than he looks," Sofie said. They were whispering to each other, but now Pam cleared her throat – a harsh, loud sound against their quiet conversation.

"Sorry," Pam said. Then: "Is he all there upstairs? Mentally>"

"What do you mean – is he senile? No, he's fine," Sofie said.

"He won't go off on tangents, or forget what he's saying?"

"He was perfectly lucid when he and I spoke in my office," Sofie said. "What, you don't think I pay attention to these things?"

"I think we've all had a shock to the system lately, and no one knows what the hell is going on anymore," Pam said.

"Pam! Language! This is still a church."

Pam rolled her eyes.

"He's got a story the community needs to hear."

" 'The community?' What community is that?"

The room had filled up with audience members while they were talking. Sofie glanced up at the clock that hung on the wall: It was one minute past five o'clock." "We're late," Sofie whispered to Pam, standing up and smoothing her skirt. She made her way to the podium that stood in the middle of the stage, right at its lip. Sofie looked out over the expectant faces. About forty people had shown up, which was better than she's expected. Not as many as she'd hoped, of course, but to judge from what was happening in the country it as time to get realistic.

"Good afternoon, everybody," she said. "As we look around at our country and our world, it's never been more apparent that the idea of a just society is slipping into something different. We used to talk about God's plan for the world, for how things were getting better. Now we see that the arc of history might not bend toward justice after all. We might even wonder if justice – or democracy for that matter – is an aberration in a world that is not, despite our fondest wishes, essentially good in nature."

There was a short, quiet murmur among the people who sat in the folding chairs, looking toward the stage, listening to her.

"You've got that right," she heard a man's low voice – Dennis Rand, she thought. His voice was the sort that carried, even when he was speaking quietly.

People around the room chuckled. So did Sophie.

"This afternoon it's our pleasure to give the podium to Mr. Tomek Walczak. He was born in Poland, where he was still a boy when the Nazis invaded his country and brought their program of state-sanctioned hatred with them. Mr. Walczak saw with his own eyes how quickly his country changed. Overnight, friends and neighbors who had been part of Poland's communal life for centuries were othered. Friends were labeled as enemies; neighbors were looked at as intruders. And because this was imposed from the top down, many people simply went along with it. Others resisted, but they were put down as cruelly as the Jews themselves were."

Sofie paused. Half the people in the chairs looked sad or scared. The other half seemed to be waiting for her to get to some sort of point. She decided they were right: There was no need to drag the introduction out.

"But I'll let him tell you his own story,": Sofie said, looking over at where Tomek sat. The old man was already struggling out of his chair. Sophie wondered why Pam didn't go help him; but then the old man was on his feet and headed toward the podium. Once on his feet he was steady and strong, Sophie yielded the podium as he approached, leaning in for one last moment to say into the mike, "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Tomek Walczak."

There was a ripple of polite applause. Tomek, standing behind the podium, looked out over the audience. "What I have to tell you may seem beyond belief," he said. "A story of a peaceful nation, a prosperous people, an orderly city... and a civilization marked for the most brutal conquest imaginable. A conquest based on weapons, yes, and tactics, but also on man's unerring capacity to hate his fellow man. An aspect of human nature that the invader can use all too easily for his own ends..."

***

Dragomir's family had money and connections, otherwise Tomek would probably have starved.

Tomek's mother had died two years earlier, in 1939, when the Nazis first besieged the city. By the time the Germans took control of Warsaw, Dragomir's father had disappeared – old man Symanski, who lived across the hall from the family's apartment, had told Tomek that his father had run away and left him behind. But old man Symanski had also told him his father died while plotting to assassinate Göring. He also said that Tomek's father had drunk himself to death, or gotten killed in a bar fight, or was living across the city with a woman who once ran a brothel. Old man Symanski's story changed all the time, and Tomek had stopped listening to him by the time Dragomir's family, the Sobczaks, took him in. Dragomir's uncle was grocer; his father was a tailor. Tomek's first thoughts, when they invited him to live in their house, was that he would not starve or be left in rags. He soon gained an appreciation for how The Sobczaks knew who to talk to, how to make deals. They also knew a business opportunity when they saw it.

Life was hard under the Germans, but the Sobczaks navigated this new reality better than most. Tomek and Dragomir had been friends before, but now they lived like brothers. They celebrated their birthdays two days apart. In 1941 Dragomir turned 15; two days later, Tomek turned 14. The Sobczaks celebrated both birthdays in the day that fell in between. Tomek worried that Dragomir resented waiting a day and then having to share the occasion, but he forgot those concerns in the glow of family happiness and safety – a temporary oasis in what was, for everyone, a time of turmoil and uncertainty.

"Do you think they'll ever leave?" Tomek whispered once to Dragomir as the boys stood with Mrs. Sobczak and watched a group of Nazi soldiers go goose-stepping past.

"No," Dragomir whispered back. "My father says they mean to destroy the city and kill all of us."

"All of us? Why?"

Dragomir glanced at his mother; she didn't like political talk. She had not heard them over the noise of the Germans' stamping boots.

"Maybe not all of us," Dragomir said at last. "Father says they mean to make some of us slaves to work in the factories and fields."

Tomek tried to image what working in a factory or a field would be like under German overseers. Dangerous, he thought. He's seen German soldiers shoot people in the streets.

In mid-October of that year, the Germans ordered a section of the city to be emptied of its Gentile inhabitants and then forced the city's Jews – including the influx of Jewish refugees who had arrived in Warsaw before the Germans invaded – into what was now officially a ghetto. Soon after, Polish laborers, and a few Jewish ones, began building the wall that would seal the ghetto from the rest of the city.

It was a crowded area. Dragomir's father seemed to have a grasp on all sorts of tallies and figures; he told them that the ghetto now contained more than 350,000 people, whereas before only about 13,000 had lived there.

Tomek didn't know why this bit of information was important until a moment later.

"Where will they get their food?" Dragomir's father asked the boys. "Where will they get their water?" he smiled at them broadly.

Tomek understood that Mr. Sobczak was, as always, looking for business opportunities. But he wasn't sure of the answer Mrs. Sobchak wanted.

Dragomir knew, though: "From us!" he said.

At first, Tomek and Dragomir simply walked into the ghetto and stood on street corners. Tomek was frightened of the place – frightened of the Jewish inhabitants, some of whom had strange accents; frightened of the very streets and buildings; the sky above them seems dark, the air oppressive with dread. Most of all, he was frightened of the German soldiers.

"Don't worry about them," Dragomir said with more confidence than he could possibly have felt.

"But if they want our papers?"

"Show them," Dragomir said.

"But if they tell us we can't be there? We can't sell to the Jews?"

"They won't say that," Dragomir told him. "And if they seem at all hostile, offer them a discount, or even a free bottle of water."

"We can't give anything away," Tomek argued. "We're there to sell!"

"It's best to let the Germans know they can count on us," Dragomir replied. "That's what my father says. We'll be safe if they like us, and they will like us if we're useful. But," he added, his face darkening, "never forget the cardinal rule: We don't eat or drink our own stock."

"What about when we get hungry? Or thirsty?"

"We each have a bottle of water and bread for ourselves. That's not stock. Stock is what we well. You understand the difference?"

"Yes," Tomek said. In truth, he had hoped they might eat a little of the bread. Even a family as well off as the Sobczaks found times were tight, and the rations the Germans allowed Poles were skimpy. One could buy extra food through official channels, of course, but it was expensive: Ten time as much for a Pole than a German.

Jews had it worse, though. For them the official cost was twenty times more. Dragomir's father had said so.

"that's why they need us," he said.

So, the boys began spending a few hours each afternoon in the ghetto, selling water for 15 zloty per bottle. Dragomir kept a tally of the bottles, requiring a five-zloty deposit or else the return of an empty bottle before he would surrender a full one. Bread was more expensive; a square (or three slices, depending on the day's inventory) went for 20 zloty. The boys quickly began to recognize their regular customers, including a tall man – he must have been almost two meters tall – who wore an unusually heavy overcoat. Tomek thought he knew why, even when the afternoons were temperate, he wore that overcoat: Its pockets were stuffed with money.

"Do you notice how he always pulls out a handful of two-zloty coins?" Tomek whispered to Dragomir as the tall man walked away with three bottles of water and a slice of bread. Dragomir, who always drove a hard bargain, had sold him the lot for sixty zlotys; the man had surrendered thirty coins without hesitation, counting them out in an almost offhand manner.

Where did he keep all is money? Was all of it in his pockets? How did they have so much room? Certainly, he would run out of money, Tomek thought.

But he didn't.

Tomek remarked on tis to Dragomir in an awed tone of voice.

"Haven't you heard what the German soldiers say?" Dragomir scoffed. "All the Jews carry huge sums around with them. They stole it from everyone else."

"Do you believe that?" Tomek asked. He had heard such things about Jews before, but he remembered his mother telling him, when he was younger, that he should discount the hateful things people said about Jews – about everyone, for that matter. "It's easier to believe a story with no proof than to figure out what's really true," she had told him. But, she had added, it was more important to...

Tomek didn't remember the rest. He assumed she had told him that it was more important to pursue the truth, no matter how convenient the lies might be, or how many people believed it.

His father had been less thoughtful. He had railed against Jews, and socialists, and trade unionists, and all sorts of other people. Tomek had a dim memory of his father's tirades – he realized now the old man had been drunk when he started raving about such things, which meant he must have been drunk often – and he recalled his father once saying he hoped the Germans would come in and fix Poland, save it from the socialist and Jews.

Tomek wondered if his father were still alive., He wondered if the old man regretted making that wish.

The next time they saw him, the tall Jew had asked if it would be possible to obtain some meat.

"Forget it, Jew," Dragomir told him. "We can't even afford meat for ourselves." As the tall man walked away, Dragomir complained about him to Tomek: "Greedy Jew," he muttered.

That became the man's nickname. The Greedy Jew did not buy from them every day, but he did show up reliably – twice, sometimes three times per week.

When the wall was finished and the points of entry to the ghetto were significantly fewer, Dragomir and Tomek began selling on different street corner, closer to the new point of entry. Tomek thought they would no longer see the Greedy Jew, but he found them. His order remained the same: Three bottles of water and a single slice of bread. He either didn't realize, or didn't care, that for the same eight zloty he could have purchased at least half a slice more. For that matter, since he had so many coins to spend, he could have surrendered a few more and gotten two slices. Surely a man so tall, and with such broad shoulders, would need more than a single slice of bread every other day?

Other regular customers came and went. Their faces grew gaunt; they developed coughs or started walking more slowly or became stooped with hunger and despair. Many of the regulars disappeared after a few months. But not the Greedy Jew; he remained a steady and unchanging presence, never seeming to grow thin or weary.

The winter passed, became spring; the spring warmed into summer. In July, the Germans began removing Jews from the ghetto. Tomek and Dragomir had to show their papers to frowning Germans, who told them to go home and stay away.

"They're taking the Jews to a camp," Mr. Sobczak told the boys that night. "Treblinka."

Everyone knew what that meant. Everyone knew about the camps. The Jews that were being taken away were never coming back.

"I want you to be careful," Mr. Sobchak told them. "Don't get taken away with the Jews." He said this while drawing on his boot sand his jacket. He was going, he told the boys, to show the Germans that he was useful to them. Only later did Tomek realize that he was going to join a manhunt for Jews who had escaped from the ghetto, panicked by the deportations

The next morning Dragomir prepared as usual to visit the ghetto and sell water and bread. He hoisted his rucksack full of bottles onto his shoulders and handed Tomek the bag containing the bread.

"Didn't you hear?" Tomek protested. "They told us not to come back! They might deport us, too. Your father told us to be careful."

"Yes," Dragomir said, his tone surly. "He said to be careful."

Tomek followed Dragomir through the streets, drawing closer to the ghetto. "I heard there's a hold in the wall, near the abandoned butcher shop," he said.
"Maybe we can sell from there."

"That was my plan," Dragomir said, "but you're not coming with me."

"Do you want me to find some other hole in the wall?"

Dragomir reached over and took the bag of bread that Tomek was carrying. "You can go wherever you want," he said, "but you're not coming with me, and you're not to return to our home. Do you understand?"

Tomek stared at him in shock.

"Go back to your family's apartment," Dragomir said. "The building is still standing."

"Is this what your father said?" Tomek asked, growing angry. "He told you to leave me int eh street?"

Dragomir punched him in the face. Tomek staggered backwards. Drago mire punched him again and Tomek tripped backwards, sprawling on his back.

"I didn't want a little brother," he said, "but we felt badly for you. Now things are getting tougher, and we don't have room for you."

"But I work," Tomek protested. "I help provide!"

"Provide for yourself," Dragomir said coldly, before turning his back and walking away.

Tomek thought about running back to the Sobczaks' house, but then he thought about what it would feel like to hear Mrs. Sobczak tell him the same things Dragomir had just said. But Mr. and Mrs. Sobchak had never made any indication that he wasn't welcome. On the other hand, Mr. Sobchak was, above all else, a businessman. If he thought, it was too expensive to have Tomek as part of the household...

No, Tomek told himself, angry at Dragomir, and angry at himself for feeling so helpless, for the way tears ran down his face. This was Dragomir. They'd been friends once, but it was Dragomir has said: He never wanted a little brother, and that was what Tomek had become. Tomek began marching angrily back to the Sobchak house.

Then his doubts overcame him: Maybe Dragomir's parents wanted him gone, too. His father certainly had wanted to be rid of him. Old man Symanski had told him that many times.

Tomek hesitated, then changed direction and started toward the old apartment building. He had been back to the place a few times recently; he knew that the apartment was still there, its windows broken, its door broken off the hinges, its modest contents ransacked, but no one was living there. He could make it his home again.

If it was just Dragomir, Tomek thought, then surely Mr. or Mrs. Sobchak would come looking for him at the old apartment. He nursed that hope for a week; but no one came looking for him. He was on his own.

Summer faded to autumn and then the winter cold was back. Tomek hoped for a time that he might find a new family to live with, but the city had a different air about it now – distrustful, feral. The rations the Germans provided were becoming less reliable, and scantier. Sometimes older boys or men – even a woman, on one occasion – attacked him and stole his provisions. Tentatively, Tomek reached out to a few of the contacts he had made working with Dragomir. A few of them agreed to provide him with scraps but insisted that he pay up front for them; Tomek had no money. Finally, one man, Ludek, had agreed to front him some bread and a couple bottles of water, trusting Tomek to pay him.

"Old man Sobchak gave you the boot, did he?" Ludek said, packing a dismal few items into a bag that he then handed to Tomek.

"I guess," Tomek said.

"I can't say I'm surprised. People mean nothing to him."

But Mr. Ludek made no offer of shelter or additional assistance to Tomek, either.

It was hard to resist the temptation to eat the bread Ludek had fronted him, but Tomek knew he had to think in the long term if he was going to survive. The deportations hadn't completely emptied the ghetto; there were still people living behind the wall. He found his way to a spot int eh wall where the stones had been knocked out, making for a tiny aperture through which exchanges could be made. He knew he would have to be careful: If he handed bread or water through the hole before collecting, he probably never would be paid.

But the first face he saw at the hole, after a wait of a quarter hour, we a familiar one: The tall Jew with the bottomless pockets.

Tomek had barely enough water for the tall Jew's usual order. He collected the thirty coins and then passed the bottles through one at a time, followed by a slice of bread. One by one, the tall Jew accepted the items. Then, a moment later, his hand reappeared with a few more coins.

Tomek stared at the hand. He wondered again how the tall Jew had managed to bring so much money with him into the ghetto. He must have had a huge trunk stuffed with coins, but how had he gotten it past the Germans? They stole everything. For that matter, how had he held onto his money with starving, desperate people all around him? What ferocity or strange power did the tall Jew have, that he could manage such a miracle? Tomek stared at the coins in the man's hand, afraid of them, but also needing them.

"Take it," the tall Jew told him, is voice muffled by the wall.

Tomek took the coins, his fingertips scraping along the skin of the man's palm. He imagined a heat, an electrical tingle, a malevolent power surging from the man's skin into his body... but he made sure to collect every single coin. Then he sprang back, turned, and headed back to Mr. Ludek's shop as quickly as he could. He considered eating the few slices of bread he had left over, but then decided against it. He had to show Mr. Ludek he was trustworthy... or, as Dragomir would way, he was useful. Anyway, Mr. Ludek had promised him some soup if he returned as agreed, with money in his hand.

New Year's Eve saw the arrival of 1943. Tomek got by, day by day, surviving cold and hunger and the other people in the city. No one came into the apartment; certainly, everyone in the neighborhood knew it had been searched for anything useful long ago. No one else seemed to remain in the building. Even old man Symanski was gone.

Tomek and Mr. Ludek continued their arrangement, and Tomek showed up every other day at the small hole in the wall. It was too dangerous to go more often than that; at least, Tomek was too afraid to risk it. Anyway, the tall Jew only came every tother ay, as he had done before. It was always the same procedure: Three bottles of water and a single slice of bread. Mr. Ludek pressed him sometimes to take more, but Tomek was too frightened. Mr. Ludek shrugged and accepted the thirty coins and gave Tomek soup. Between that and what the Germans provided, Tomek managed.

Then spring returned. It was April – lovely, despite hunger and a growing sense that the world was reaching its end. Trees began to bud with new leaves. Then the end did arrive – or at least, what seemed like it: The Germans began to attack the ghetto. Tomek overheard different stories in the street: The Germans were killing off the rest of the Jews, not even bothering to take them away this time. The Jews were fighting back. There had been an outbreak of cholera in the Jewish ghetto and the Germans were putting them all down.

Whatever was happening, Tomek knew it was the end of the tall Jew. He lingered by the small hole in the wall for more than forty minutes and the tall Hew never arrived. Tomek was afraid to stay and wait, but he did, something like pity clashing with his fear.

Then a harsh voice called: "You! What are you doing there?"

Tomek looked up to see a German officer staring at him, his eyes ice cold and is look lethal.

"I... I only want to see what is the happening on the other side of the wall," Tomek said in his broken German.

The German smiled. "Little Polish boy, it is a great day for Germany, and a great day for Poland. The Jews inside decided they would defy us. They even had guns. Guns! Where did they get guns?" The officer scowled again suddenly. "Not from you?"

"No! No, I – "

But the officer weas smiling again, even laughing. "No, come now, boy. You look too innocent to be an arms dealer. But maybe you want some work? Yes? A few mlynarki?"

That was the word for the paper money the Germans issued in Poland.

Tomek hesitated, unsure if he was facing a trap.

The Germen grew impatient, and his good humor fell away. "Well?" he shouted suddenly, angrily. "Do you want some honest work or not?"

"Yes, sir, I do like to have the work," Tomek said.

"Then come!" The officer led the way to a vehicle that was parked a couple of blocks away. They climbed in and then drove to a checkpoint and entered he ghetto.

Tomek gaped at the scene. Bodies were scattered everywhere, and buildings lay in ruins. He had heard the gunfire, or course, and the explosions, but... still, the sight of it, and the stench of it, took him by surprise.

"Quite a mess, isn't it?" the German officer said, grinning again. "You aren't afraid to help clear up the bodies, are you?"

Tomek shook his head, afraid to do anything else.

The officer parked the vehicle and they got out. The officer approached a cluster of German soldiers, then addressed their commander. The other officer looked toward Tomek, shook his head, and said something in reply. Then both officers walked back to where Tomek stood.

"He thinks you are too small to do the work. But why don't you show him? Drag a body to the pile over there," the German officer said.

The other officer intervened. "You can go, Hans," he said. The first officer shrugged, then walked back to his vehicle and drove away. The new officer looked at Tomek, sizing him up, and then said, "WE can use you for stripping eh bodies and searching the clothes. You look strong enough for that."

"Yes, sir, I would like the work," Tomek said.

The officer led him to a nearby building that, Tomek saw, had been turned into a makeshift morgue. Bodies were piled outside the building, on the street; they were piled inside, too. German soldiers and Polish workers attended the piles, stripping off clothing, searching pockets, and then sorting the clothing into stacks and placing any valuables into boxes.

"These vermin had nothing when they came into the ghetto, and yet they still manage to have occasional goods... watches, rings, guns," the German said. "You put any jewelry or other valuable metal in that box there. You put watches there; wallets, there; and if you find a weapon, you come and tell me."

"Yes, sir."

The German pointed to an unattended pile of bodies, and Tomek went to work. He alternated searching the pocket first and then taking the clothing of the bodies; it was difficult work, because he had to slip jackets, shirts, dresses, and trousers off limp limbs. Some of the bodies were stiff, rather than limp. All were heavy – heavier than human bodies ought to be, Tomek thought.

Then he turned a large body in a blood-soaked overcoat onto its back and gasped. It was the tall Jew. He had been shot twice in the chest; the bullets had torn out of his back, leaving holes in the thick overcoat. The garment was ruined. Tomek wondered if the overcoat's pockets were still stuffed with coins. He paused for a moment, looking at the man's dead face – closed eyes, clack mouth – and, giving him a silent thanks, Tomek shoved a hand into the overcoat's left pocket, which was always the pocket from which the tall Jews drew coins.

There were no coins. But there was a small box. No, Tomek saw, drawing the object from the pocket and inspecting it; not really a box. It had sides, like a box, but two of the sides were open. It had more than the six sides of an ordinary box, too, and was shaped in a way that was more complicated than, say, a match box... not that it was as small as a match box. It was a good deal larger, and a good deal heavier.

Tomek's trousers had large pockets – barely large enough to accommodate the box as he concealed the object after a furtive glance around. No one was paying him any attention. Everyone was too busy with their own tasks. Tomek checked the right-hand pocket, wondering if the tall Jew had switched hiding places for his supply of coins, but all he found was something long and slender, white, and gleaming like porcelain. The object was smooth and fragile looking. It looked like nothing Tomek had ever seen; like a twig, but smooth and graceful. Like a comb, but with no teeth. Tomek shoved that hurriedly into his other pocket, then finished checking the overcoat. There was nothing more. The man's trouser pockets likewise contained nothing.

Tomek wondered if the two objects he had found would be of use. Perhaps he could sell them? He was considering what they might be as he worked to get the overcoat off the big man, Tossing the ruined garment to the side – it wasn't even worth folding and putting onto the stack – he started to work on getting the man's shirt off.

Then he stopped, his body growing cold with fear.

Tomek ran screaming to the German officer, who looked almost amused. "What is it? Did a body move? That's nothing to be afraid of."

"No, sir, I... I..." Tomek couldn't remember the words he wanted in German. "He – "

"All right, let's look," the German said, not unkindly. He followed Tomek back to the body and looked down at it in shocked silence. Then, bending down, he ripped the shirt brusquely from the body. The short tore, but the officer simply tossed it aside and kept staring.

The tall Jew's face and hands were perfectly normal – dirty, weather-beaten, but normal. But his arms... and his chest... the skin was different, reddish-orange and scaly, hard to the touch. There were protrusions, too – darker, some of them coming to black points; protrusions all around the man's chest, then a cluster on each shoulder. His belly had no protrusions, but there seemed to be extra ribs under the skin.

"What sort of demon is this?" the German officer gasped.

Tomek understood him well enough. He knew the word demon; his father had called Jewish people that, too, and said they had horns. Was that what these dark protrusions were? Horns?

The German officer turned to Tomek and said, "Go home, boy. Go home and stay there. But be ready to come in and answer any questions about this."

Tomek ran across the room, attracting the attention of a pair of soldiers who stood, weapons at the ready, by the door. The soldiers started to raise their guns and Tomek feared they might shoot at him, but the German officer barked an order and they ignored him after that, approaching the officer with quick steps.

Tomek threw himself into the sunlight and then walked quickly up the street. He wondered if anyone would ask for his papers, but no one did; even as he walked out of the ghetto at the checkpoint the guards there barely gave him a glance. He was a Polish boy running errands for the officers, that was all...

Back at his family's apartment, away from the noisier parts of the city and with afternoon sun streaming through the windows, Tomek sat on the floor and stared at the image burned into his mind: The tall Jew's ordinary face, his large, grimy hands... and yes, the hard, scaly skin of his arms and torso, his chest and shoulders sprouting black, pointed protrusions... horns, but weren't horns usually orientated upwards? These curved and bent toward the tall Jew's feet; some were simply pointy mounds, jagged, like some sort of armor...

Demon, the officer had said. Were Jews really demons? Then why had the tall Jew been so different? The room had been full of naked corpses; Tomek had not wanted to look too long at any one of them, but his eye had not been caught by any strange color or skin texture.

So, just that one man. He was different. Jews looked like anyone else... except for this unique case. That was why the German officer was so shocked and surprised. Surely if other Jews looked like the tell Jews, the German officer would have seen it? He wouldn't have been so troubled. But he had been so taken aback he simply dismissed Tomek, forgetting that he didn't know the boy's name or address. "Be ready to come back and answer questions," he'd said. There would be questions, but how would he know where to look if he wanted to ask them of Tomek?

Another thought came to him. This Jew had horns; this Jew was a demon. Was he really a Jew at all? Could he truly have been a devil? But demons were immortal. Weren't hey? How could they be killed with two gunshots to the chest? If they were living beings like any other, why such fear when people talked of creatures from Hell?

This Jew had a perpetual supply of money. But all Jews? Was that another lie? Was this... tall man, this creature, whatever he was... simply a being that people associated with Jews? Had the Jews been guilty by association? Was the German mania for murdering Jews a mistake of some kind?

Thinking of the tall Jew's supply of coins, Tomek remembered the objects he'd found in the dead man's pockets. He drew them out of his own pockets, suddenly fearful that they might bite him, cut him, or so something else strange. But they were simply two inanimate objects; a slender, tapered object that seemed to be made of white porcelain, and many-sided, open-faced box.

Tomek held the box, studying it. It was white, like the slender porcelain object, but seemed to be made of metal. There was a large gray area on one end of the box. Balancing the box in one hand, he pressed on the gray area with his fingers. Suddenly, coins fell from the box in a gleaming profusion, striking the floor and each other with metallic clinks. Tomek, startled, dropped the box and the cascade stopped; the coins lay on the floor, solid and unremarkable. Two-zloty cons, every one of them.

Tomek picked one up and looked it over. Was this some sort of counterfeit? Or was it real? Had it been stored inside the box? That wasn't possible; the box wasn't enclosed, there nowhere to conceal coins or anything else.

Tomek put the box into his cupped palm once more, gave it a good hard look, and then pressed down again on the grey area.

The cascade of coins commenced anew. They were falling from the middle of the box – the open middle, not from some sort of compartment. They were simply coming into existence. Tomek watched, trying see ow it happened, but he couldn't. It was too fast. All his eyes could perceive, and track was how the coins toppled from the box and fell to the floor. By the time he gathered is wits and stopped pressing on the box, he had a sizeable pile of coins.

Tomek picked up several and looked them over carefully. They were shiny and perfect; not a scratch, not a nick. They were absolutely new, and absolutely identical.

That was how the tall Jew always had so many coins. Somehow, he was making them on the spot.

Tomek set the coin maker to the side and picked up the other object. The other question he'd often thought about came to mind: Anyone could see how the tall Jew produced coins from his pocket without a second thought. He wasn't parting with his money reluctantly. He seemed like a man with an endless supply, which, Tomek saw now, he was. So why hadn't pothers stolen the coins from him?

Because of this, Tomek told himself. This had to be a weapon of some sort.

Gingerly, Tomek turned the object in his fingers. Then he tried to hold it like a knife or a pencil, but the object was gently curved so that it felt more comfortable resting against his index finger' pinned in place by his thumb. Was it like a gun? Would lit shoot a bullet? Could he be sure where the bullet would come from? There were no gaps in the shiny white surface, but if a device could crate coins in an instant, why not a bullet in flight?

Tomek tried to hold the object so that neither end was pointing at him. A gun had a trigger. Did this?

He squeezed, ran his thumb along the smooth surface. And finally gave the object a quick, sharp shake.

There was a popping, cracking sound across the room. Tomek looked up and saw a dark, smoking hole had appeared in the wall. Setting the weapon down and moving carefully toward the hole, he saw that it was small – but it looked scorched. A scorched smell hung in the air; so did another smell: Ozone, as during a thunderstorm. Was this weapon electrical in nature? Tomek drew away from the hole in the wall, imagining a similar hole in human flesh. He was sure that such a wound could be deadly. The other in the ghetto had to have known about this weapon, he thought, and what it could do.

But if he had a way to create numberless coins and a weapon., why was he in the ghetto? Why had he not bribed or fought his way out? Why had he not fled the ghetto, or even fled Warsaw before the Germans took it over?

For that matter, where had the man come from? Tomek had never noticed him speaking with an accent, but they had only ever exchanged a few words. How had he come to possess these strange instruments? While living with the Sobchak family, Tomek had read a few of their books, including a Jules Verne novel about a man called Captain Nemo and his marvelous inventions. Captain Nemo had built a fantastic undersea ship, among other technological marvels. Was the tall Jew an inventor, like Captain Nemo? Could one of his inventions have gone wrong and disfigured him? Was his reddish-orange skin burned in some way?

Tomek set about gathering the coins from the floor. He found a water pitcher, still intact, and large enough to hold all the coins. He realized with a sense of joy and relief that now he had a way to buy food. Even though the Germans had killed everyone in the ghetto, and there would be no more nosiness there, he could still hope to survive.

And if anyone tried to rob him again, he had the weapon. He would need to practice...

There was a sharp knock and a voice from the hall ordered, "Open up!" Tomek had managed to repair the door so that it worked passably well, but it would never hold up to a good kick. Tomek tucked the pitcher full of coins in a cupboard, calling out, "I'm coming, just give me a moment..."

The door opened, and three men stood there. They were wearing German uniforms.

How had they found him?

"Are you here to ask about the strange dead man?" Tomek asked, crossing the apartment. He deliberately avoided looking at the weapon, which sat on a small table, next to the coin maker. "The commandant said you might have questions..."

It occurred to Tomek he might try asking the question again, in German, but one of the men answered before he could: "We know about the dead man. We're here about the things you took from him."

Tomek knew that, for all their looting and theft, the Germans thought of any Pole who took something to be a criminal. He knew what they did to those they thought were stealing from them.

"The man had strange things in his pockets," Tomek said, still speaking in Polish since the men seemed to understand him. "I didn't mean to steal them. I didn't know what they were, so I put them in my own pockets to ask the commandant about them later... but then the man's body was..."

"Stop talking," another of the men said, and Tomek, looking at him, forgot what he was saying. The man – tall and broad shouldered like the two German soldiers, like the tall Jew had been, was dressed as a rabbi.

"It doesn't matter why you took them," the first man said, crossing the room and heading straight for the table where the strange object sat. "We need them back."

"I, I didn't make any... I didn't do anything with them," Tomek said, feeling frightened and light-headed.

The men glanced at each other and then looked at him and laughed.

"We know you made coins," the first man said. "About seventy of them. And you discharged our companion's weapon, too."

Tomek waited, terror-stricken, to see what they would say and do now.

They seemed to be leaving, ignoring him.

"Wait!" Tomek cried out, confused. Questions ran through his mind: Why were the Germans working with a rabbi? How did they know he'd made coins and fired the weapon? "Your friend, was he an inventor? Like Captain Nemo?"

"Like who?" the third man said, speaking for the first time.

"One other their books," the first man said, sounding dismissive. He looked at Tomek. "You want to know who he was? A loser. He lost. Now mind your own business."

The three men left.

***

"Eventually, the Soviets liberated the city," Tomek told his audience. "But I didn't trust he Soviets. I didn't trust my fellow Poles. I didn't trust anyone. After the war there was a lot of confusion. It was dangerous, but also a time of opportunity. When I saw my chance to leave, I did, and I made my way here, to America."

"Not to Mars?" someone in the audience called, and laughter rang through the room.

Tomek raised his hands. "It's a strange story, I know. I thought the same thing you're thinking now: They were aliens. But I believed it, because I had seen it. And I can tell you that they didn't come to Earth to conquer us with their sophisticated devices. They came for other reasons. I'm not entirely sure what those reason are, but this much I know: We humans must focus on our common humanity and put our trivial, invented differences aside. Whoever they are, wherever they come from, there are cosmic forces that want to exploit those divisions."

"If the monsters came here to exploit our difference, why the role playing? And why did they role play on both sides?" the heckler called.

"I can't speak to their motives with any certainty, but I've noticed patterns," Tomek said. "And as I have watched and waited and thought about it over the years, I've realized that the propaganda that demonized the Jews and turned society against them might not have been entirely the work of men. As I've watched over these many years, and seen other campaigns of propaganda and grievance, I've realized that they're still here. They're still playing whatever game they like to play. When the German officer said their companion was a loser, he meant just that: They had come here to create an extreme situation for their own amusement. They throw themselves on both sides of a conflict, but they have secret advantages. We're the ones who suffer and die while they... they treat the carnage they create as an entertainment."

"Planet Earth: The amusement park ride," someone else called.

"Maybe, yes," Tomek said.

"This is stupid," a heavyset man remarked loudly as he got out of his chair and pulled on his jacket. All around him, others from the audience were doing the same.

"No. No, I'm telling you. All this happened, just as I'm describing it," Tomek said. He held up a coin. "I needed all the others to survive, but I kept this one. This... this is evidence."

"It's an antique," the man who had asked about Mars responded.

"But a good story," someone else called. "Let's give the man a round of applause."

There was a smattering of clasping hands. Everyone was getting up to leave.

"But it's true!" Tomek cried. "Can't you see for yourselves? Don't you read the papers?"

"Fake news," the loud man said, walking out of the room.

"That's exactly my point!" Tomek cried out. "Serbia, Rwanda, all the places around the world were one side fights the other... It's human nature to disagree, but to the point of genocide? Do we really go so far on our own?"

No one remained in the church basement to hear his argument.

"Don't let them do this to us again!" Tomek cried to the empty room.

Sofia put a hand on his arm. "Mr. Walczak," she said. "It's over. Thank you for speaking to us tonight, but I didn't expect your story would be so... so wild."

Tomek looked at her, his rheumy eyes sad. Those haunted eyes, that white hair, his gaunt face – they all spoke to his 87 years of age. What was remarkable was the vitality that remained in his bod. Only now, exhausted from the story he'd told, from the passion of his speech, he seemed to have lost some of that vitality.

"Thank you for the interesting story, and I agree that it's relevant to the times," Sofie added. "But maybe something a little less like 'The X Files' would have been suitable. I mean, we're trying to foster reconciliation. It's one thing to have a sense of humor, but..."

"But this was utter bullshit," Pam said, standing by Sofia's side, her hands clasped. She was angry and not trying too hard to hide it. "I'm sorry, Mr. Walczak, but we really needed something more substantive, something more serious and rooted in actual history. I guess Sofia thought that as a survivor of the Nazi horrors you'd be able to give us some perspective, but..."

"It wasn't a story," Tomek told her. "I wasn't being literary. It wasn't an allegory. I told the absolute truth. And, as always, no one believed it."

"Imagine that," Pam said drily.

"Pam," Sofie said. "Come on, now. I don't expect this from him, but I think he means well."

" 'The X Files?' Isn't that a little dated?" Pam asked.

"They just had a revival last winter," Sofie said.

"No 'X Files,' " Tomek said. "I really did see them. And they really did have technology that couldn't have come from here. They're still here. How do you think we got to the point we're at now, with this vicious, vile election, and the vicious, vile things people are saying and doing? Do you really think people have it in them to be so evil on their own?"

"That much, I believe without a doubt," Pam said.

Sofie patted Tomek on the arm. "It's okay, Mr. Walczak. Let's get you home now." She glanced at Pam. "I told him I'd give him a ride after his... um... presentation."

Pam walked away, waving a hand. "Whatever. Don't forget your phaser or whatever."

"Come on, let's get you up the stairs..." Sofie helped Tomek across the room, thought he didn't need her assistance. The air was tense. Sofie tried to lighten things. "So, these aliens... why do they bother? I mean, why come all the way to Earth from wherever they call home just to rile us up against each other?"

"That," sighed Tomek, "is the question we need to ask, and to answer. The question everything else depends on, if we ever hope to fight them."

"The final question," Sofie said.

Tomek stiffened at the phrase, but chose not to speak further on the genocidal evils the Nazis had unleashed, not the parallels he saw in America as the country neared the 2016 election.

***

In another basement, in Portland, Oregon, two men sat side by side at a long table. They tapped furiously at their keyboards, an air of glee about them.

"There," one of them said at length. "I've set it up at Facepalm – a rally for Free and Fair Inclusion. Saturday at 2 pm."

"Yeah? Well, I've set up the They Won't Erase Us rally for the same place and time," the other man replied. "And I let I them know, wink wink, that weapons might be fine to bring."

"I didn't, but I suspect there'll be plenty of weapons in play by the end of the party," the first man said.

"Yeah? You gonna be strapped?"

"Oh, yeah. I'll be bringing bear spray, a Taser, and my .45."

"Hah! Too much gear spoils the fun. I'll have a buck knife. Oh, and brass knuckles. Keeping it simple, that's how I roll."

"You'll roll all right, when I drop you with one right between the eyes."

"That's a little high profile, isn't it?"

"Not when I'm standing my ground."

"They don't have that in this state."

"Give it time, our guys are working on it."

"Tell ya what," the second man said. "Whoever loses this round, he's got to throw in with the victims when the game really gets going."

"And we know who they'll be," the first man said. "So, I guess if it's you, some tweaks to the background story will be in order. No more 'Patriot Jim,' former Marine and now a big MAGA head. Nope, you're gonna have to go be an 'antifa,' whatever that is. Or be an SJW. Or maybe a gay. Someone liable to end up in the camps."

"Camps? Think we can drive it that far?"

"You kidding? This country's so stuffed with self-pitying, violent idiots that we barely have to work to get a good civil war going."

"Yeah, but camps?"

"If we want to, sure. It would take a little finesse, that's all. But we could manage it."

"God, I loved the camps."

"That's because you're both a sadist and a masochist."

The two men laughed like hell, one of them leaning back in his chair, rolling up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. His hands were completely ordinary, but the forearms he exposed were reddish orange, with hard, inhuman scales.

For Jack