The Mumbler’s tongue darted out of his mouth, quick as a lizard, wet his lips, and curled back into his open mouth.
I still had hold of his forearm, and now I moved my grip to his hand. It was clammy and cold like a dead fish; I had to force myself to keep my hand on his and give him an encouraging squeeze.
"It’s all right,” I said. "We won’t judge you. We know what a terrific host you are."
The Mumbler looked at me and smiled. "We did have a wonderful meal together, didn't we? Mother was thrilled.”
"Yes. Yes, she was. She’s very proud of you. You’re a terrific son. Now tell us what you saw."
The Mumbler gulped. An expression of such profound sadness settled over his shrunken features that my heart threatened to break. Beside me, I heard Vilmos sniffle.
"He was lying at the rear of the garden,” the Mumbler said, "on the soft earth past the edge of the lawn, near a long row of flowers that Mother had planted herself. Such beautiful flowers.”
A better place to die, I thought, than an empty ditch in Auschwitz.
"His eyes were open,” the Mumbler said, gazing at some vacant spot over my shoulder, at the picture he had painted over his memory, a picture only he could see. “They were blue. And around him the earth was red."
"Did you and he have a fight that night?” I asked. I did not think the Mumbler had the strength to kill anyone, but I still needed to rule him out. "Did he say or do something that upset you?"
The Mumbler frowned, his forehead wrinkling like crumpled paper. “I never fight with my guests. That would be inhospitable."
"Did you see anyone else fight with our friend?"
"No. We’ve never had fights at any of our dinner parties. Everyone has such a wonderful time. That was the first time anyone ever got hurt." He screwed his eyes shut and then opened them. They were wet and fearful. "It was as if the world had gone mad, that such a thing could happen.”
For a second or two, I couldn’t speak, silenced by this poor man who had lost his connection to reality. A man who had ceased to be aware of the tragedy in which he lived and would soon die. A man who had escaped into the comfort and safety of his imagination, and whose little peace I had disturbed with my questions.
But I had no choice. If I wanted to live, I needed to find this killer.
"Did you see anyone else in the garden?" I asked, knowing that if he hadn’t, this had all been a waste of time.
"Just the knight," he said after a moment, his voice barely audible and once more devoid of accent. His shoulders were hunched, arms squeezed tight to his chest. He looked small, like he was trying to fold into himself.
"What was that?" Vilmos asked, craning forward.
“The knight in shining armor I saw coming out of the rear of the garden."
Vilmos and I exchanged a look. Was this a true memory distorted by the Mum-bier’s delusion or a complete fantasy born in his failing mind?
"What knight?" I asked.
"He had a sword in his hand. It glinted in the moonlight before he sheathed it."
"You mean a knife? Was it a knife he was holding?”
"He had been to war before. Now he was our guest. I didn’t know him, but everyone there was our guest.”
"What did he look like?"
"He was resplendent in his armor, outshining all the other guests. Mother would have been impressed."
I strove to keep my frustration out of my voice. "Come now, this is a dinner party we’re talking about. There was no knight there.”
"He didn’t see me. Just quickly walked away on the other side of the house. Then I saw the boy near the flowers.” The Mumbler blinked a few times, tears dribbling down his cheeks with each blink, and when he stopped his eyes were dim and vacant. He started to rise from the ground. "Potato salad, triple-cream cheese, meat patties, onion pie, star cookies...”
I jumped to my feet and put a hand out to stop him. “No. Don’t! Come back! I need to know what you saw.”
But the Mumbler didn’t hear me. He brushed off my arm and began trudging forward. "Noodles with melted cheese, sheet cake with a chocolate topping, veal sausage...”
I matched the Mumbler step for step, begging him to describe the man he saw, at one point grabbing his arm so hard it was a wonder his bones didn't crack.
But the Mumbler was oblivious. He continued shifting his feet, walking in place when my grip prevented his progress. My hold on his arm did not register, nor did my raised voice and anxious tone. The Mumbler had fled to a happier place, and this time he was determined to stay there. Neither my pleas nor my attempts to once more paint myself as his guest could coax him back out.
I glanced at Vilmos, who shrugged with a look of hopelessness on his face. “He’s gone, Adam. You can’t reach him anymore.”
"I have to know what he saw," I said, my voice vibrating with desperation. “That man might have been the killer."
"Yes, but look at him. Going back to that night has taken too much of him.”
"But what the hell does it mean?”
"I don’t know. Maybe nothing. It could all be the fruit of his delusion.”
I looked at the Mumbler. He was still treading in place, his gaze leveled at nothing, the river of words spilling from his lips sounding like a swarm of hovering bees. There was no intelligence in his eyes. He could have been a crude prototype of a machine that had malfunctioned. I let go of his arm, and he made his way forward, step by agonizing step. Vilmos and I watched in silence as he continued onward along the fence until his mumbling ceased reaching our ears.
20
I let out a long exhalation. “That’s it. I’m a dead man."
"Don’t say that," Vilmos said forcefully. “It’s not true."
I didn’t answer. I was tired and filled with a sense of doom. I had talked to two men who had seen the dead boy shortly after he was killed, and neither of them could provide me with any useful information—not even the man who might have seen the murderer leave the scene of the crime.
Vilmos said, "You’ll find the solution, Adam."
I turned on him in anger, my frustration spilling over. "Really? What makes you so sure, huh? There’s no physical evidence, no police report, no clues, and the only witness is a blathering moron who can’t tell fiction from reality. It’s hopeless, don’t you see that?"
"There’s always hope, Adam."
"Oh, come on. Look around you, Vilmos. Do you see any hope around here?"
Vilmos did not shift his gaze. “I don’t need to look around to see it, Adam. I need only look at you."
"What are you—’’
"And you need only look at me to see it, too. What else do you think keeps us alive in this place? God knows it's not the food, or the conditions, or the generosity of the Germans. So why aren’t we dead? Why do we keep struggling? Why don’t we follow Gyuri’s example and jump at the fence?” He did not wait for me to reply, but pushed on. "It’s hope, Adam. Don’t you see that? We still hope, despite everything; hope that there’s a future outside these fences; hope that one day we’ll be out of here, that we’ll be free again and could live a life worth living."
He looked so earnest, so imploring. He so wanted me to believe in this fantasy. In this lie. He didn’t understand me at all.
I said, “Do you know why I want to survive this place, Vilmos? The real reason? It’s not to live a life worth living, as you put it. Because my life ended there.” I pointed at the smoke rising from the crematoriums. “It’s over and done with. It can’t be rebuilt. The reason I want to survive is not to live, but to kill. Kill as many of these Nazi bastards as I can. Not just the guards and the SS doctors, but everyone who had a hand in building this place, in sending our people here to be murdered. That's what I want. The only thing.”