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candlesticks—that Jack caught on to the origin of the treasure on the train. Up to his elbows in a crate his superior officer had instructed him to open, he grabbed hold of a heavy silver candelabra. For a moment he wasn’t sure. But there were four arms on either side, and one in the middle. He disentangled the menorah from the other silver pieces in the crate and then dug out a silver cup decorated with Hebrew writing. A kiddush cup like the one his grandmother had on her mantel. Without seeking Rigsdale’s permission, he grabbed another crate and split it open with a crowbar. In this one he found a silver breastplate and crowns that looked very much like the ones that had decorated the Torah from which he had chanted on his bar mitzvah at Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, nine years before.
    “Everything in this wagon is silver?” Rigsdale asked Avar.
    Avar gazed at him blankly.
    “You know, silver? Wiseman, ask him if this car’s all silver.”
    “Captain,” Jack said, the only evidence of his distress the beads of sweat collecting on his lip. “All this stuff is Jewish, sir.”
    “What do you mean?”
    He held up the Torah breastplate, pointing to the Hebrew words. He picked up the caps for the Torah handles. They were hung with silver bells that tinkled in his trembling hands. “This is from a synagogue.”
    He turned on Avar. “Where did you get this?” he said. “And this?”
    Avar looked blank but not quite blank enough.
    “This is stolen from Jews!” Jack said. He pawed through the pile of silver, yanking out candlesticks and kiddush cups, waving them, piece after piece, at the man.
    Avar let loose with a string of German, but Jack was far too upset to understand more than a few phrases—“civil servant,” “official governmentbusiness.” Avar shrank into himself, like a turtle hiding beneath its bureaucratic shell.
    “What’s this ‘Property Office’ that you work for? What property?” Jack shouted.
    Avar raised his chin defensively and informed Jack that he was an employee of the Jewish Property Office, a division of the Hungarian Ministry of Finance, and that it was in his role as an employee of that department that he had protected this property on behalf of the Hungarian government.
    “Wiseman!” Captain Rigsdale said. “Get down here. Now.”
    Jack willed his body to still, his breath to even out.
    “Yes, sir,” he said and leaped lightly to the ground.
    “Your orders are to translate, Lieutenant. That is all.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Do your job.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Now, what the hell is going on?”
    It was important that the Americans understood, Avar said, that he and the other officials on the train were civil servants, tasked with carrying out the law and protecting the assets under their control. These assets had come from the banks.
    And before that? Captain Rigsdale pressed him.
    Avar admitted that the valuables had been collected from the Jews of Hungary by the commissioner for Jewish Affairs.
    “Why?” Jack asked.
    “Why?” Avar repeated. “To help in the war effort.” He himself was responsible only for the transport of the property, not for its collection. The Jews had turned in their property to the banks; the banks had turned it in to the Jewish Property Office; officials from the office had sorted it and loaded it into the boxcars, at which point it had been turned over to him. He had protected the property, he told them, at great risk to his life.
    As Jack translated this last for Captain Rigsdale, he wondered at Avar’s confidence that the danger to his life had passed.
    Rigsdale said, “Ask him if there’s anything else he needs to show me.”
    “Moment,” Avar said, and spun on his heel. Jack thought how easy it would be to lift his weapon, fire off a single bullet, and send the man crumpling to the ground.
    Avar returned a moment later with a small suitcase, which he balanced in the opening of the boxcar and unsnapped. In