S

he would have walked past the police station a thousand times had Nissim and Fortuna not led her there, opened the door, and beckoned her inside.

It is dim inside, with a strange smell of rich coffee and smoke. Her eyes have barely adjusted to the gloom when a voice calls out in Turkish. Such a strange sensation, to hear a language that you have no connection with, and cannot comprehend. Oh, she learned a few phrases. But maybe it’s not the words which confound her, but the music of it all that she can’t get used to.

Hannah talks a lot about loneliness. Maybe this is how she feels. Becca shivers, despite the heat, despite the smoke that burns her eyes and seems to cling to the back of her throat, scratching it. She straightens her back. Yes, she is in a different country. Yes, she had better get used it. But do the work and then think.

Nissim is talking to the officer. The man sits behind an old wooden table. Next to him is a bright red and orange cloth. Looking closer, Becca sees that it is in the shape of a long-barelled gun.

The policeman addresses her. To her surprise, he talks in badly accented French. “So you have lost your passport.”

“Oui.”

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

Two more policemen walk in, chewing something that can only be tobacco. As the door opens from the inner room, a smell of coffee washes through the room, heavenly and noxious at the same time.

She replies in French. “You are the arm of the law. Will you not find it? I can describe to you the children who took it.”

The man gives a short, sharp laugh. “Do you think that they took it for themselves? True, they will be paid something for the job. But these kids are managed by an agent, who is managed by another agent, up through the ranks.”

“And do you know who is at the top of the ranks?”

“Of course.”

“Well? Reel him in and the whole structure will fall down.”

The policeman laughs again; this time the sound is not fake but real.

“Oh, how precious is a trusting disposition.”

Becca stiffens.

She has been to police stations before. In Paris, the Jews are treated with respect. Deference, even. There are some powerful Jews in Paris. In Prague, they tend to avoid the police, unless there is a pressing reason. They fight things out between themselves.

In Poland, she has heard, it is worse. A Jew can’t step into a police station without the fear that as innocent as his claim may be, it will be turned on him and he will end up in jail. Here, it seems that the police are not police at all, but like fulcrums, the balance of the city.

“We treat him with respect, and he treats us with respect.”

“But why…”

“That’s the way we keep the city in order.”