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she was being interrogated along with her brother Vinzent.
    Not with that thaler alone did she dispute the term arsonist. She produced a series of documents showing that Joseph Wranka had joined the Volunteer Fire Brigade in Danzig-Niederstadt as early as ought-four as a firefighter, in the winter months, when all the raftsmen were off work, and battled blazes large and small. There was also a certificate declaring that during the great conflagration at the main rail factory on Troyl in ought-nine, Fireman Wranka not only put out the fire but also rescued two apprentice mechanics. Similar testimony was offered by Captain Hecht of the Fire Brigade, who was called as a witness. He stated for the record: "How can someone be an arsonist when he puts out fires? I can still see him now, standing there on the ladder while the church in Heubude was ablaze! A phoenix rising from ashes and flame, extinguishing not only the fire but the conflagration of this world and the thirst of our Lord Jesus Christ! Verily I say unto you: He who dares accuse this man in fireman's helmet, who always has the right of way, beloved by all insurers, bearer always of ash in his pocket, be it residue or symbol of his calling, he who dares call this splendid phoenix a firebug, deserves to have a millstone tied about his neck and..."
    You will have noticed that Captain Hecht of the Volunteer Fire Brigade was a preacher, amply endowed with the power of the Word. Each and every Sunday he stood at the pulpit of the Church of St. Barbara in Langgarten and never missed a chance, as long as Koljaiczek-Wranka was under investigation, to hammer home to his congregation in similar terms parables of the heavenly firefighter and the infernal arsonist.
    Since, however, the agents of the crime squad didn't attend church at St. Barbara's, and because the word phoenix would have sounded more like
lèse majesté
to them than a justification of Wranka's actions, the overall effect of Wranka's volunteer firefighting was simply to incriminate him further.
    Evidence was gathered from various sawmills, reports sent in from hometowns: Wranka first saw the light of day in Tuchel; Koljaiczek was a native of Thorn. Minor discrepancies in the statements of older raftsmen and distant relatives. The pitcher kept going to the well; what else could it do but crack? When the interrogations had reached this point, the large raft had just entered German territory, and from Thorn on was discreetly monitored and kept under surveillance wherever it docked.
    It was only below Dirschau that my grandfather first noticed those shadowing him. He'd been expecting them. A temporary spell of lethargy verging on melancholy may well have kept him from making a break for it, at Letzkau, say, or Kâsemark, where, given the familiar territory and the help of a few well-disposed raftaks, as the Polish raftsmen were called, it might still have been possible. Beyond Einlage, as the rafts slowly thumped and bumped their way into the Dead Vistula, an obviously overmanned fishing boat, making a conspicuous effort to be inconspicuous, ran alongside the rafts. Just beyond Plehnendorf, the two motor launches of the harbor police shot forth from a bank of reeds and, tearing back and forth several times, slashed open the increasingly brackish water of the Dead Vistula that heralded the harbor. Beyond the bridge to Heubude the cordon of blue uniforms began. Timber fields facing the Klawitter yards, the smaller shipyards, the timber port spreading outward toward the Mottlau, the landing stages of various sawmills, their own company's dock with their families waiting for them, and blue uniforms everywhere, except across the way at Schichau, where flags were flying, where something else was going on, where something was likely being launched, where a big crowd was stir
ring up the gulls, where some sort of celebration was under way—a celebration for my grandfather?
    Only when my grandfather saw the timber port filled