I wanted to say sorry, I wanted to tell her I could not forget the roundup, the camp, Michel's death, and the direct train to Auschwitz that had taken her parents away forever. Sorry for what? he had retaliated, why should I, an American, feel sorry, hadn't my fellow countrymen freed France in June 1944? I had nothing to be sorry for, he laughed. I had looked at him straight in the eyes. Sorry for not knowing. Sorry for being forty-five years old and not knowing.

When would he realize that it wasn't his infidelity I couldn't bear, but his cowardice?

I wanted to cry, but the tears did not come.

The girl wondered: These policemen... didn't they have families, too? Didn't they have children? Children they went home to? How could they treat children this way? Were they told to do so, or did they act this way naturally? Were they in fact machines, not human beings? She looked closely at them. They seemed of flesh and bone. They were men. She couldn't understand.

Zakhor. Al Tichkah. Remember. Never forget.

How was it possible that entire lives could change, could be destroyed, and that streets and buildings remained the same, she wondered.

You're playing with Pandora's box. Sometimes it's better not to open it. Sometimes, it's better not to know.