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waiting. He took a big chance—”
Shimon Mendelsohn shikt mir
,” he called out in halting Yiddish.
    She stopped, looking around for him, frightened but not running. At least, not yet. “Shimon sent you?” She was wary, waiting
     for a trap.
    “I’ve come to see the
rebbe
.” He threw a large bag over the ruined wall behind which he was hiding, and it hit the ground with a thunk. She moved away
     from it quickly, then cautiously approached it again when it was clear it would not explode. “Please, can you help me?” MacLeod
     asked. After looking around quickly, furtively, like a squirrel with a nut, she opened the bag, rifling through bread and
     potatoes and cheeses. She touched them reverently, like manna from heaven, then reached farther in the bag and pulled out
     the sausages. Stunned, she looked around for her benefactor, still wary, but with tears pooling on her cheeks. Looking at
     her gaunt bare legs, red with cold, and her dark sunken eyes, MacLeod wondered how long it had been since she’d had any meat.
    Slowly, arms spread to show he had no weapon, that he was no threat to her, MacLeod came around the wall. She hurriedly stuffed
     the food back into the bag, as if afraid he’d take it away from her. “Will you help me find
Rebbe
Mendelsohn?” MacLeod asked again and held his last treasure out to her—a sturdy woolen coat, lined with fleece. He’d purposely
     gotten one too large for her, so she could still ply her craft in it. But at least she’d be warm.
    She snatched it from his hand and stepped away from him. She considered him solemnly for a long moment, child’s eyes, shadowed
     with hunger and fatigue, searching him. MacLeod met her eyes with sincerity, and realized hers were a child’s eyes no longer.
     He’d seen those eyes before, in many lands, in many wars—eyes that had seen too little happiness and far too much death.
    “Two hours before sunrise,” she finally said in Polish. “Meet me here. I will take you.” Before she had even finished speaking,
     she scooped up the bag of food and, with bag in one hand and new coat in the other, hurried away from him.
    “Wait!” he called after her. “
Vi haist it
?”
    “Rivka,” she called back from the shadows, and disappeared.
    She’d kept her promise, returning in the dead of night to lead him silently to a breach in the Wall, hidden away behind a
     tailor’s shop on Krochmalna Street. Though Rivka could pass easily through the small opening, it was a tight fit for an adult,
     but with effort MacLeod managed to make it through to the Jewish sector.
    More relaxed in the relative safety of the Ghetto, Rivka took his hand and led him through the dark, abandoned streets to
     the rabbi’s home. There she promised to wait outside and lead them back to the Aryan side again.
    “Best lookout in the Ghetto,” she told him proudly.
    MacLeod had smiled at her warmly. “I have no doubt,” he said, playfully tugging at one of her plaited pigtails. He was rewarded
     with the first smile he’d seen from her.
    Now, as he watched her on the corner, there was no trace of that smile. He watched her hunker down in her ragged cloth coat
     as the wind blew against her. A light snow was just beginning to fall. He wondered why she hadn’t worn her new coat, then
     realized with sadness she had probably sold it for more food.
    MacLeod heard Rabbi Mendelsohn coming up the basement stairs and turned from the window. The rabbi was carrying a large metal
     strongbox. “No, no,
Rebbe
, you don’t understand,” MacLeod explained patiently. “We have to travel light. You’ll have to leave that here.”
    “No, Mr. MacLeod, it is you who does not understand.” He pushed the box toward MacLeod, who took it reluctantly. “These are
     my writings, my journals. I keep a history for
Oneg Shabbat
. It is all there—the expulsions, the camps, the hunger, the disease—everything that has happened since the Germans.” The
     old man was adamant. “What