CHAPTER NINE
November 2, 1956
I might have screamed, but Jakub, who had seen the body first, quickly put down our suitcase and pulled me into his arms. “Shhh, it’s all right. I’m here.”
Gray was kneeling by József with his back to us, searching for a pulse. “His throat’s been cut,” he said, straightening up and stepping away from the corpse.
“Oh, God. No.” I buried my head against Jakub’s chest, sobbing into his camel hair overcoat. József was our friend. No, he was more than that: he was our compass, our light, guiding us through the morass.
I’d been entertaining a little fantasy about rescuing him and his family. The idea had come to me the night before, while killing time in the bar. I was thinking about József’s despair over Péti—his terror, really, that his son might end up in pr
