“Because it is a necessary procedure. We are not barbarians.”

“Did his kind ever hold trials?”

“Would you place yourself in his class?”

“It is not the same thing.”

“My dear Zvi, it is precisely the same thing.”

“Bah.” Zvi turned his back on Gershon, who had been upholding the principle of law and order. “You can see the folly of it, can’t you?” he asked me. “Among other things, the butcher does not speak Hebrew. What does he speak? Slovak?”

A few other languages as well, I thought, but Zvi had given me an idea. “Only Slovak,” I told him.

“So! How can we have a trial?”

“Evan speaks Slovak,” Haim said.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Then we might as well have this farce of a trial. You will interrogate him, do you understand? We will give the questions, and you will repeat them to him and translate his answers for us. Is that all right with you, Evan? It should not take long.”

“I’m willing.”

“And then,” Zvi said, “we take the rope and stretch his neck.”

“Providing he is found guilty.”

“You are joking, Haim.”

“Well…”

We were in the basement. Kotacek, wholly incapable of understanding what was going on around him, sat in the same chair in which I had regained consciousness a night ago. Greta was near the door motioning to me. I went to see what she wanted.

“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “He insisted on coming with me.”

“I know.”

“I couldn’t get rid of him. I told him he should stay at his post, but he wanted to come with me. Do you want to change your clothes? I brought your clothes.”

“I’ll change later.”

“You look very pretty in your uniform. At least we got the car, but it is no good now, is it? I am sorry. He wanted to make love to me; that is why he came with me. The one time in my life I had something better to do, and he wanted to make love to me!”

“It’s all right.”

“What do we do now?”

“We’re going to try him.”

“For what?”

“For killing Jews.”

“Him. He couldn’t kill a gnat. What is going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

They were readying the scene for the trial. Kotacek’s chair was moved to the far wall, four other chairs grouped in a semicircle facing him. I moved toward them all, scooped the pencil-beam flashlight from the table top. I hefted it in one hand and slapped it against the palm of the other hand.

“Talk to him,” Ari said.

“What should I tell him?”

“Explain that this is a court of law, and tell him the charges against him…” He went on to give me a long message for our prisoner. “Make sure he understands what is going on,” he added. “He does not look particularly intelligent.”

I stood in front of Kotacek. “Be very calm,” I said in Slovak. “Look only at me and do not say anything just now. We are in very dangerous trouble right now. These men you see here are Jews.” His lip curled in a sneer. “Don’t say anything. Listen to me. You have to trust me. Nod if you understand.” He nodded. “Good. If you cooperate, I think I know a way to get out of here. But you will have to do as I say. Do you understand?”

“If you are quick with your revolver,” he said, “you can murder all of these Jewish swine before you know it.”

Gershon touched my arm. “What did he say?”

“He says that he is sorry for whatever may have happened in time of war, but he was only following orders.”

“They all followed orders,” Zvi said. “This is a farce. Why is it that no one ever gave an order? Ask him if he signed the order consigning the Jewish population of Bratislava to Belsen.”

I looked at Kotacek. “I have a flashlight in my hands,” I said. “I am going to shine it in your eyes. You must look directly into the beam. Do not take your eyes off it for an instant. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“He admits it?”

“He does. What else shall I ask him?”

I pointed the pencil-beam light at Kotacek. I moved the switch to the middle position, for sending code, and I worked the little button rhythmically, a nice steady tempo, flashing the light monotonously on and off, on and off, and keeping the beam directed right between Kotacek’s eyes.

“Ask him about his role in the extermination of the ghetto of Spisska Nova Ves. And the ghetto of Presov.”

I said, “Stare at the light, straight at the light, keep your eyes directly on the light.”

“But what is the point?”

It wasn’t getting to him. I flashed faster, upped the tempo. The frequency of the flashes was supposed to have something to do with it. I didn’t really believe it would work, but I considered it a slightly more realistic prospect than divine intercession, and without one of the two we were lost. Of course he would get a shock when they put the rope around his neck, but it might be too late by then. And it might not send him into a seizure anyway.

“Ask him if he also ordered the extermination of the Gypsies, and the Slovak Socialists, and of thirty-five thousand Ruthenians, and…”

I speeded up the frequency of flashes again as Haim completed his question. When I saw Kotacek’s eyes glaze I knew I had him. I held the tempo steady, worked my thumb in and out on the flasher button, and his eyes rolled and his mouth dropped open and I had him, I had him. He tried to stand up and barely got halfway out of his chair before his hand flew to his chest and a moan escaped his lips and he pitched face forward onto the basement floor.

“What has happened?”

“It looks like his heart. Is he all right?”

I eased my way backward, away from Kotacek. I wanted to get out of the center of attention and put the flashlight aside before someone thought to wonder why I had been flashing it in his eyes. I could bluff it off as an investigative technique, but I was as happy not to have to do it. Meanwhile, they could examine Kotacek and assure themselves that he was good and dead.

“He is dead!”

“Are you sure?”

“You think I have not seen enough corpses to tell? No pulse, no heartbeat, no breathing. I would say that he has had a heart attack. Perhaps a coronary thrombosis, but I could not tell for certain.”

“Not poison? All of them carry it, you know. A capsule of cyanide in a hollow tooth…”

“Cyanide leaves them with a blue face. I would say a heart attack, but who knows? It could be some other poison.”

“So he has cheated the rope?”

“Does it matter? He is dead.”

“But not by our hands, under sentence of our courts.”

“Not under a Czech court either. And he died in our courtroom. Is that not the same thing?”

“It is not the same thing at all.”

“Why not? Show me the difference.”

“He had not been found guilty, sentence was not passed, and he was not executed. Otherwise” – palms spread sarcastically – “otherwise you are quite correct. Otherwise it is precisely the same.”

“Then we shall continue,” Gershon said solemnly. “The defendant no longer is required to play an active role in the proceedings-”

“Which is fortunate,” Zvi said dryly.

“Please. His role is finished, as we have all heard his testimony. You will bear me out, Evan, that he has pleaded guilty to all charges leveled against him?”

“He did mention extenuating circumstances…”

“But he admitted his guilt?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Good. Now it is upon us to reach a verdict, and then to pass sentence. I vote guilty, for my own part, and advise the death penalty. Zvi?”

“This is absurd. Guilty, death penalty.”

“Ari?”

“Guilty, death.”

“Evan?”

“Guilty, death.”

“Haim?”

“If I said twenty years in prison, what would you do? I’m sorry. Guilty and death, yes, by all means.”

Gershon smiled. “You see? It is unanimous. The prisoner has been found guilty and has been sentenced to death. Sentence will be carried out now by means of hanging. You, Zvi, get the rope, and we will hang him from that beam there just as we had planned. Ari, give me a hand with him. Evan…”