Frameshift

That justice needed righteous guardians there could be no doubt. And there had been one in To Kill a Mockingbird: Jean Louise’s lawyer father, Atticus Finch, who represented Tom despite the calumny of the townsfolk, who gave a spirited, intelligent, dignified defense.

Back then, in the thirties, the courthouse, like everything else, had been segregated. The blacks had to sit in the balcony. Jean Louise and her brother Jem had snuck into the courthouse and found a place to watch from up there, near the kindly Reverend Sykes.

When the case was over, when Tom Robinson was taken off to jail, when all the whites had ambled out, the blacks waited in silence until Atticus Finch gathered up his law books. As he made his way out, the black men and women, knowing in their bones that Tom was innocent, that this was their lot, that Atticus had done his best, rose to their feet and stood in silent salute. The Reverend Sykes spoke to Atticus’s young daughter. “Miss Jean Louise,” he said, “stand up. Your father’s passin‘.”

Even in defeat, a righteous man is honored by those who know he did his best in an honorable cause. Your father’s passin‘…

Supreme court justice Dov Levin and Jerusalem district court judges Zvi Tal and Dalia Dorner — the tribunal that would decide John Demjanjuk’s fate — came into the theater. As soon as the three were seated, the clerk rose and announced, “Beit Hamishpat! State of Israel versus Ivan ‘John,’ son of Nikolai Demjanjuk, criminal file 373/86 at the Jerusalem District Court, sitting as the Special Court under the Law for the Punishment of Nazis and Their Collaborators. Court session of 24 Shevat 5747, 23 February 1987, morning session.”

Avi Meyer folded down a page corner to mark his place.

“My name is Epstein, Pinhas, the son of Dov and Sara. I was born in Czestochowa, Poland, on March third, 1925. I lived there with my parents until the day we were taken to Treblinka.”

Avi Meyer, who had just turned forty and so was particularly conscious of the signs of aging, thought Epstein looked ten years younger than sixty-two. He was tall, with a full head of reddish brown hair combed straight back from his forehead.

The panel of three judges listened intently: bearded Zvi Tal, a yarmulke crowning his thick gray hair; Dov Levin, dour, balding, wearing horn-rimmed glasses; and Dalia Dorner, her hair cropped short, wearing a jacket and tie just like her male colleagues.

“Your Honors,” said Epstein, turning to them, “I remember an incident — I have nightmares about it still. One day, a little girl managed to escape alive from the gas chamber. She was twelve or fourteen. Like Jubas Meyer, Shlomo Malamud, and others, I was forced to be a corpse bearer, removing the dead from the chambers.” Avi Meyer sat up straight at the mention of his father’s name. “The girl’s words still ring in my ears,” said Epstein: “ ‘Mother! Mother!’ ” He paused for a moment and wiped tears from his eyes. “Well, Ivan went after Jubas, and…”

Avi Meyer felt his heart pounding. Epstein had trailed off, and was now looking again from judge to judge, lingering longest on Dalia Dorner, as if intimidated by the female presence. “I’m sorry,” said the witness. “I’m too ashamed to repeat the words Ivan used next.”

Dov Levin frowned and removed his glasses. “If it’s important that we hear the words, then say them.”

Epstein sucked in breath, then: “He beat Jubas, then shouted, ‘ Davay yebatsa’ …”

Levin raised his shaggy black eyebrows. “Which means?”

Epstein squirmed in his chair. “ ‘Come fuck,’ in Russian. He was saying to Jubas, take off your pants and come fuck. And he pointed at the terrified girl.”

Avi Meyer tasted bile at the back of his throat. He’d thought he’d heard all the horrors twenty-seven years ago, after his bar mitzvah. His mother was dead now; he hoped she had never known.

Mickey Shaked, one of the three Israeli prosecutors, had a full head of curly hair and sad, soulful eyes. He placed the cardboard photo spread in front of Epstein. It was a sheet with eight photographs on it: two rows of three pictures and a final row of two. All were of Ukrainian men suspected of war crimes. The first five photos were passport shots; the sixth was clipped from some other document. Only the seventh and eighth were regular snapshots — almost twice as big as the others. Of the eight photos, only the seventh showed an almost totally bald man; only the seventh showed a round-faced man.

“Do you see anyone whose face you recognize among these pictures?” asked Shaked.

Epstein nodded, but at first was unable to give voice to his thoughts. He finally placed a finger on the seventh picture. “I recognize him,” he said.

“In what way?”

“The forehead, the round face, the very short neck, the broad shoulders, the ears that stick out. This is Ivan the Terrible as I remember him from Treblinka.”