“Do you have regrets?” I asked, after a while. “About staying?” “How could I not?” “Does Emil?” “After what happened to his mother. Of course.” “I’m sorry—that was a cruel question.” “No, it’s natural.” Emil’s mother had been killed in front of the entire family for the crime of not taking off her wedding ring fast enough. She was trying—she’d said she was trying—but she had worn it for fifty years, and her finger had swollen around it, and the Nazi was screaming so loudly. And she had parkinsonian tremors, and it hadn’t taken much to kill her, really. Two blows across the head.
