The Warsaw Anagrams Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked what we needed, so I scribbled a long list beginning with pipe tobacco for me, pepper for Adam and bitter chocolate for Stefa.
    Keeping secrets between us seemed pointless now. ‘May you and Petrina enjoy a happy life together in the land of Homer,’ I ended my letter. ‘Inside this envelope is a kiss from your silly old father, who hopes you forgive him.’
    For years, I had feared giving up my expectations for my daughter, but when I posted that letter I felt a lightness of spirit that left me giddy – as if I’d repaired what had been broken. When I later told Izzy about what I’d written to Liesel, he congratulated me – which I knew he would – and I surprised myself by confessing to him that I was only now becoming the father I’d always hoped to be.
     
     
    That evening, after supper, my nephew and I went for a long happy walk. Our last.
    Know this: Adam was a child born under the signs of both the sun and moon. When he was sad, his unhappiness swept over Stefa and me like a desolate wind, turning our spirits to dust. But when he was happy – dancing by himself to a tango on the Victrola, or stretching his little fingers across Bach arpeggios on his mother’s piano, or just sitting at my feet multiplying numbers – we were certain we would be able to outlast the Nazis.

CHAPTER 3
     
     
    Adam carried Gloria home inside a shoebox during the third week of January of 1941, and the lesson I wish she hadn’t taught us was that even fairy-light creatures can tilt the balance of several lives.
    On lifting the lid off his box, my nephew told his mother and me that the manager of the Roth’s Pet Shop had given him the budgerigar free of charge. As to the reason, all the boy had to do was point; Gloria’s left foot was a lumpy grey mass hanging by a thread – a textbook illustration of the ravages of cancer.
    ‘God in heaven,’ lamented Stefa as she stared at the poor creature, ‘what the hell are we going to do with a crippled budgie?’
    Gloria limped into the far corner of the box, gamely trying to put some distance between herself and my niece. The bird was pale blue, with a bright yellow beak and slender black and white wings. She’d have been pretty, but her breast was gouged with raw-looking empty patches.
    ‘She can’t fly,’ Adam informed us glumly. ‘One of her wings doesn’t work. So I’ve adopted her.’
    ‘She’s going to leave droppings everywhere!’ Stefa declared, her hands on her hips.
    ‘She can’t leave anything if we don’t feed her,’ I joked.
    The boy glared as if I was a traitor, then stuck out his tongue at me.
    I stuck out my tongue back, then tried to pinch his ear, but he ducked away.
    ‘Adam, my darling,’ Stefa snapped, and her darling was a clue that he’d better run for cover, ‘this poor bird is undoubtedly crawling with lice and is going to spread disease, and I want you to get rid of it this minute and then scrub your hands!’
    My niece had begun to rely on run-on sentences to outduel her son. Hoping to broker a truce, I said, ‘I’ll build her a cage.’
    ‘Oh, like you built those lopsided bookcases of yours!’ Stefa observed, pointing to my rickety constructions. She showed me that sneer of hers that was like a boot on your chest.
    ‘We’ll buy a cage,’ Adam interjected, and the little imp produced two złoty from his pocket with a cheeky smile.
    ‘Where’d you get those?’ his mother demanded, certain he’d become a criminal.
    ‘Gambling on horses!’ he shouted. His true wish, perhaps.
    ‘How really?’ I asked.
    ‘I do maths homework for Feivel, Wolfi and some of the other kids.’
     
     
    A few days later, Gloria moved into a conical cage that Izzy made for us out of a wood base and wire spokes. He soldered a swastika to the finial, since provoking Stefa was the key to the vaudeville routine they’d developed over the years.
    ‘Izzy, that’s not funny at all!’ she told him, which made him grin in triumph.
    ‘What you