"Pal)ieren, bitte."

Lebel promptly handed over his papers.The Gestapo man was tall, thin-faced, with piercing blue eyes. It was a facethat was to live vividly in Lebel's head day and night. The eyes flicked slowlyfrom the photograph in the papers to Lebel's face, as if the Gestapo man weretrying to make up his mind about something.

The eyes narrowed. Lebel's hands wereshaking and he guessed the man noticed.

The Gestapo man smiled coldly and said,"Where were these papers issued?"

Lebel could hear the silence in the cafeas the man spoke. He saw his wife glance at him nervously.

"Marseilles, sir," Lebelanswered respectfully, trying to keep his composure. The place of issue wasalready stamped on the papers. Lebel had got rid of his own papers and had beengiven forged ones by the Resistance. His new family name was Claudel. It hadworked for six months. But now Lebel thought the Gestapo man sensed somethingwasn't right.

He continued to scrutinize the papers,then looked up. "Your occupation, Herr Claudel?"

Lebel swallowed. His occupation was typedon the document. "I am a salesman." He paused, decided to be bold andrisk everything. "Is there a problem with our papers? There reallyshouldn't be, you know."

"That's for me to decide," theGestapo man snapped back, then looked down at Lebel's wife. There were tinybeads of perspiration on Klara's upper lip, her hands trembling in her lap asshe clutched her napkin.

The Gestapo man had sensed her fear. Helooked back at Lebel and said, "Your wife, Herr Claudet, she seems afraidof something. I wonder what?"

The question hung in the air like anaccusation. Lebel felt his heart sink. He answered as calmly as he could.

"She hasn't been well, I'mafraid."

The man looked at Klara. "Really?And what has been the matter, Frau Claudel?"

Lebel decided to brazen it out.

"Really, officer," heinterrupted. "My wife's health is no concern of yours. We are both uprightFrench citizens. And if you must know, my wife suffers with her nerves. Andreally, this intrusion of yours is not helping matters. So please be so kind asto return our papers if you have finished examining them." He held out hishand boldly as he tried to keep it from shaking.

The Gestapo man sneered before he slowlyhanded back the papers.

"My apologies, Herr Claudel,"he said politely. "I hope your wife's condition improves. Enjoy yourcoffee and cake."

The Gestapo men left. Lebel could nothelp the feeling of relief and triumph that surged through his body.

It did not last long.

They came later that night.

Lebel heard the screech of tires in thestreet below their safe apartment, heard the pounding fists on the door. As heflicked on the light and went to grab the pistol he kept hidden under thepillow, the door burst in on its hinges.

Half a dozen men in plain clothes crowdedinto the room, the thin-faced man from the cafe leading them, a sneer on hisface.

He smashed Lebel in the mouth with aleather-gloved fist. Then Lebel was on the floor and the man was kicking himsenseless. "Get up, Jew! Get up!"

When they dragged him to his feet two ofhis ribs were broken and his shoulder dislocated. The other men were alreadymoving through the apartment, ransacking the rooms. His wife was draggedscreaming from her bed and bundled downstairs.

Everything after that was a troubling,painful memory. Lebel could never forget the nightmare that followed. Theseparation from Klara. The brutal interrogation in the Gestapo cellars on theavenue Foch. And when they told him his wife had been sent to Poland forresettlement, Henri Lebel knew it was a lie and feared the worst.

For a week the Gestapo tortured him,trying to pry information from him about his resistance connections. Despitethe beatings, the torture, the sleepless nights, he held out and told themnothing. Two days later he was put on a cattle train to Auschwitz exterminationcamp. There he endured almost two long years of painful humiliation, survivingonly because of his will to survive.

And there he first met frena Dezov.

A young Red Army driver in her latetwenties, she had been captured and sent to Auschwitz along with a raggedconvoy of Russian prisoners. She was eventually put to work in the warehousewhere Lebel had to sift through the clothes from the cattle-train transports ofprisoners sent to the camp. lrena Dezov was a handsome woman, and despite theappalling camp conditions she was full of humor and vitality, and with afondness for the illegal vodka the prisoners distilled. But although Lebelspoke fluent Russian he had hardly exchanged a word with her in the two monthsthey had worked together, until, that was, the day he found out with certaintythe fate of his wife.

Since arriving at Auschwitz he had beendriven half mad wondering what had happened to Klara, hoping that somehow shemight still be alive. When he learned that a trainload of French Jews hadreached the camp two days before his own arrival, he gave Klara's name and adescription to a kapo in the women's section he had become friendly with andasked her to help.

The woman came to him a week later andconfirmed his fears. "Your wife was gassed the day she arrived. Thenburned in the crematorium. I'm sorry, Henri."

Lebel had looked at the woman in horror,expecting the worst, but not wanting to believe it. He went to his filthy bunkand lay there, curled up in a ball, weeping.

Images and memories raged like a firethrough his mind. The day he had first met Klara, and how innocent she looked,and how much he had wanted to protect her. The first time he told her he lovedher, and the first time they made love. The grief and anguish that flooded hisbody was unbearable. When he finally dragged himself from his bed he removedhis camp tunic and tied it to the top bunk. He put his neck in the noose. Thenhe let his body go with the fall.

As he slowly strangled, he heard thescream.

"Henri!"

lrena burst into the hut and struggled tofree him, Lebel protesting, wanting to die. But Irena would have none of it,the two of them struggling on the floor, Lebel gasping and punching the youngRussian woman.

"Get away! Leave me to die!"

"No, Henri, no ..."

It took lrena all her might to calmLebel, to help him to the bed. And then he was curled up in a ball again on thebunk, crying his eyes out. lrena put a hand tenderly on his shoulder. "Thekapo told me. I came here to see if I could help comfort YOU."

Tears streamed down Lebel's cheeks,"You should have let me kill myself. Why did you stop me'? Why'? You haveno right ..."

"I do have a right, Henri Lebel. WeJews must stick together. You and I, we're going to survive. Do you hear?"

Lebel looked into lrena's face. "You... a Jew?"

"Yes. Me, a Jew."

"But the Germans don't know?"

"And why should I tell them? Theyhave enough Jews to kill."

Lebel stared back at her, his paindeflected. "Why didn't you tell me?"

frena smiled and shrugged. "Whatdoes it matter what a man or woman is'?

Does it change your opinion of me?"

"No."

"Good. Take some of this."

She handed him a small bottle of illegalspirit. He refused, but she made him drink.

She looked into his face, this cheerfulRussian woman, and he saw compassion in her eyes.

"And now, Henri Lebel, I want us tosay kaddish together. And then you're going to go back to work and you're goingto try to forget your troubles. But for that to happen some of us must survive.Do you understand me, Henri?"

Lebel nodded. He wiped his eyes.