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and the greatest anguish Paul had caused his mother wasn’t the day Jürgen pushed him down the stairs and broke his hand; it was the day he stole the photo, took it to school, and showed it to everyone who had called him an orphan behind his back. By the time he returned home, Ilse had turned the room upside down looking for it. When he took it out tentatively from between the pages of his math book, Ilse gave him a slap and then began to cry.
    “It’s the only one I have. The only one.”
    She hugged him, of course. But she grabbed the photograph back first.
    Paul had tried to imagine what this impressive man must have been like. Under the grubby whiteness of the ceiling, by the light of the streetlamp, his mind’s eye conjured the outline of the Kiel, the frigate in which Hans Reiner had “sunk in the Atlantic along with all his crew.” He invented hundreds of possible scenarios to explain those nine words, the only information about his death that Ilse had given her son. Pirates, reefs, a mutiny . . . However it began, Paul’s fantasy always ended the same way, with Hans clinging to the rudder, waving good-bye as the waters closed over his head.
    When he reached this point, Paul always fell asleep.

4

    “Honestly, Otto, I can’t bear the Jew a moment longer. Just look at him, stuffing himself with Dampfnudeln. He’s got custard down the front of his shirt.”
    “Please, Brunhilda, keep your voice down, and try to stay calm. You know as well as I do how much we need Tannenbaum. We’ve spend our last pfennig on this party. Which was your idea, by the way . . .”
    “Jürgen deserves the best. You know how confused he’s been since his brother came back . . .”
    “Then don’t complain about the Jew.”
    “You have no idea what it’s like playing hostess to him, with his endless chatter, those ridiculous compliments, as if he doesn’t know he’s the one holding all the cards. A while ago he even had the cheek to suggest that his daughter and Jürgen should marry,” said Brunhilda, expecting a contemptuous response from Otto.
    “It might put an end to all our problems.”
    The tiniest crack opened in Brunhilda’s granite smile as she looked at the baron in shock.
    They were standing at the entrance to the hall, their tense conversation muttered between clenched teeth, and interrupted only when they paused to receive guests. Brunhilda was about to respond but was forced instead to paint a grimace of welcome on her face once more:
    “Good evening, Frau Gerngross, Frau Sagebiel! How good of you to come.”
    “Sorry we’re late, Brunhilda, dear.”
    “The bridges, oh, the bridges.”
    “Yes, the traffic is just dreadful. Really, atrocious.”
    “When are you going to give up this cold old mansion and come over to the east bank, my dear?”
    The baroness smiled with pleasure at their darts of envy. Any one of the many nouveaux riches at the party would have killed for the class and power that exuded from her husband’s coat of arms.
    “Do please help yourselves to a glass of punch. It’s delicious,” said Brunhilda, gesturing toward the center of the room, where an enormous table surrounded by people was overflowing with food and drink. An ice horse, a meter high, was poised over the punch bowl, and at the back of the room a string quartet added Bavarian popular songs to the general hubbub.
    When she was sure that the new arrivals were out of earshot, the countess turned toward Otto and said in a steely tone that very few ladies of Munich’s high society would have deemed acceptable:
    “You’ve done a deal on our daughter’s wedding without even telling me, Otto? Over my dead body.”
    The baron didn’t blink. A quarter of a century of marriage had taught him how his wife would react when she felt undermined. But on this occasion she would have to yield, because there was much more at stake than her foolish pride.
    “Brunhilda, dear, don’t tell me you didn’t see this Jew coming from the