The Last Witness (36 page)

Coal nodded.

“You wear a crucifix to identify yourself as a Catholic but do you even know what it means?”

Jack switched to Latin.

“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc ete in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

Coal wasn’t moving a muscle. He was as still as the rock he was carved from.

“I’ll tell you what it means,” Jack said. “You praise Mary and God and Jesus and then you ask Mary to pray for you. As a sinner. You have sinned but you can still save yourself.”

Coal looked confused.

“Let me help you,” Jack said. “I can help you. But only if you let me. You have to let me.”

He extended his hand and thought Coal was about to take it. But Jack would never know with the rustle from the stairs and the sudden sound of stomping feet.

“
Uhhh!”

The pocket taser was a powerful weapon. It zapped Coal in the middle of his chest. Hodgson had aimed from three steps down and his aim rang true, but then the target was a big one. Still, Coal somehow stayed on his feet.

Hodgson got up on the platform and was going to taser him again, this time from up close, but Coal was a man who always did the unexpected. Anyone else would have stepped back to avoid absorbing more voltage. But not him. His arms in front, he dove straight for Hodgson. Right through the air. He was a big man who could cover a lot of space quickly. He would take Hodgson’s legs out from under him and even with this he used the element of surprise. He wouldn’t strike with his stronger hand. His right. No. Coal would lead with his left.

With his body in full flight, Coal’s left hand clipped Hodgson’s knee with just enough force to topple him. But it was Hodgson’s right knee. His titanium knee.

Coal’s hand was broken.

There were bodies all over the floor. Creeley was still down and not moving a muscle. Hodgson’s right leg had crumpled and he was on his side. Coal was flat on his chest, gripping his left hand, the fingers hanging like putty.

The only one standing was Jack.

Coal tried to get up, but his hand wouldn’t support him. Hodgson, on his feet now, pointed his taser at Coal yet again. Then he thought better of it, took out his gun and cocked the trigger.

“That guy is a monster,” Hodgson said.

“You know, you didn’t have to do that,” Jack said to him as he looked down at Coal. “I had him. I had him.”

Hodgson shook his head from side to side. There was a trace of a chuckle.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“I’m a little tired. Can you help me find my coin?”

52

The doctor pushed the bigger weight, the three-hundred-pound marker, to the far end of the old balance scale. Then he gave the smaller weight a little poke with his finger.

“Congratulations Lieutenant. Three hundred and eighteen pounds. That means you lost nine pounds since your last visit. Another forty-three pounds and we’ll be at our goal of two-seventy-five.”

“Why is it always we?” said Hodgson.

“We learn that in medical school. First thing they teach you is identify with the patient. So how did you lose those nine pounds? Are you following the chart?”

“You mean fruit and vegetables? Easy on the red meat?”

“What about exercise?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of stairs.”

The doctor told Hodgson to get off the scale. He asked if he’s been to the gym. Hodgson said no.

“Doc, you ever been to the top of the Statue of Liberty?” Hodgson said.

“As far as the elevator takes you.”

“That’s not what I mean. To get to the top you have to climb a hundred and eighty-six steps and it’s a winding staircase. I ran it.”

“You ran it? What was it? A police fundraiser?”

“If it was my fundraising days are over.”

“Well Lieutenant, whatever it was I suggest you do it another five times.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Five more times will get you down to our goal. As far as your knee is concerned it’s just fine but you pulled something. A ligament. Try to stay off it as much as you can. When it heals I suggest you hit those stairs again.”

Hodgson sat down and slipped on his size fifteen shoes. He had a cane beside him, the same one he used after the knee replacement.

“Doc, believe me when I tell you this but I’m never going up those stairs again as long as I live.”

Armed with the good news about losing some weight, Hodgson left the doctor’s office and went outside the building where a police car was waiting for him. Kathy Sottario was behind the wheel.

“We have to hurry, Lieutenant,” she said. “The Port Authority is expecting us with their boat in twenty minutes. Shall I?”

“Go ahead.”

She turned on the siren and they sped down to the docks.

Jack was already on the ferry with Emily Silver at his side. It was the day of the big rally and he was the man of the hour. When they first boarded the ferry, she had introduced him to all the members of her group. One woman whose grandparents died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz wanted to touch him and even kiss him. And she did. She said she could feel the presence of her grandparents in Jack. Jack didn’t know what to say. Everyone kept peppering him with questions. They wanted to know what it was like in the ghetto and the camp.

“It’s funny how people are interested all of a sudden,” Jack said.

“You’re the last survivor,” said a woman who wasn’t even part of Emily’s group. She was just a person on the ferry. But she saw Jack on television.

“Until a few weeks ago no one seemed to care,” said Jack.

The woman asked him what he thought about the government of Poland wanting to close Auschwitz and what he thought of the anti-Jewish incidents fomenting in that country.

“What are you going to talk about at the rally today, Mr. Fisher?”

Emily stepped between the woman and Jack. “Please,” she said and took him by the arm.

Flying overhead was a helicopter carrying the Mayor of New York City. He would be speaking at the rally. There was a rumor going around about Jack receiving the key to the city, but Jack didn’t know anything about that. Besides, he wasn’t even thinking about the rally. He was thinking about Christine.

The ferry pulled in to Liberty Island. Emily took it upon herself to be Jack’s escort and today he needed one. She had all her papers with her, including the speech they had prepared for him. One of her group had met with him at the Greenwich Village Seniors Center to get the necessary background. The speech was written, Jack approved it and it was even printed in big type, so he could read it at the rally. Tables were set up with refreshments at the east side of the monument, and over a hundred chairs were arranged with a special section reserved for dignitaries and media. There was a lot of media. Emily also brought some bottled water, so Jack’s mouth wouldn’t get dry.

They had thought of everything.

Jack was introduced to the Mayor, who shook his hand, and the two of them posed for pictures. Then everyone sat down and the Mayor marched up the steps to the podium. He got behind the lectern they had set up. There was polite applause and he started to speak.

He talked about Ellis Island and the millions of people who began a new life in America at this very spot. He said many of them were Jews. He said the lucky ones were those who
arrived before the Second World War in the last century to set down roots. He spoke of their contributions to American society and rattled off prominent names from science, medicine, the arts, business, even politics. Then he spoke of the horrors of Nazi Germany and the great crime committed against the Jews of Europe.

“Today one hundred years after the beginning of the Second World War we are honored to have with us a man who is also a hundred years old.”

There was light applause, which began with Emily’s group, and then it spread through the crowd. The Mayor smiled and with a nod acknowledged Jack, who was sitting next to Emily on the podium. Jack was uncomfortable in the spotlight, but he had something to tell these people. Something important. The Mayor continued.

“Jack Fisher whose real name is Jacob Klukowsky was born on December 1, 1939 in the Polish city of Lodz. Earlier this month he turned one hundred and I want to take this opportunity to wish him a belated happy one hundredth birthday.”

Another nod to Jack and more applause.

“Two months before Jack was born Nazi Germany marched into Poland, beginning the war. As a little boy Jack lived in the Jewish Ghetto in that city. All Jewish citizens of Lodz were confined to a special area and deprived of the basic necessities of life. Many of them were notable people from the community. But now their businesses were taken from them. Their valuables were taken from them. Their very life and freedom was taken from them. This is what happened to Jews all over Europe. Jack spent the first years of his life living as a hidden child in the ghetto because if he was found he would have been taken from his family and they never would have seen him again. But they couldn’t hide forever and soon he and his family along with many other Jewish families were sent to Auschwitz, the biggest death camp the Nazis
established. It was a place where countless numbers of people … numbers we can’t even imagine … were sent to their death. Such camps were set up all over Europe in the countries that Nazi Germany invaded. At the time the United States was not yet in the war but after Pearl Harbor we did enter that war and we entered it for good reason. To fend off the evils of Nazism and Fascism. We sacrificed many young American lives in that conflict so we may live with the freedoms we enjoy today.”

The Mayor introduced the president of Emily’s organization, who said a few words before introducing Emily. She talked about all the camps shutting down, first the museums and then the sites themselves, and how most of them have since been razed by bulldozers and in her words “removed from the face of the earth forever.” The only one that still remained, she said, was Auschwitz and now it, too, was in danger of being torn down. She told Jack to come forward.

Jack stood up. He had his cane. He was wearing his best shirt, the French cotton one with the long, button-down sleeves and the gray lines running up and down. He hadn’t worn it since his birthday. He also had a jacket. It was a special day.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this man beside me was a friend of my grandfather in the Jewish Ghetto of Lodz,” Emily said. “My grandfather was also a survivor of the Holocaust. He died in 2017 and I miss him terribly. He often spoke to me about this brave little boy Jacob and I must tell you right now I can feel the presence of my grandfather as I stand next to this man. Please welcome Mr. Jacob Klukowsky.”

There was a spattering of applause and then all was quiet.

The microphone was inches from Jack’s mouth at exactly the right height for him. The speech they wrote with the big type was laid out across the lectern. Everything was just the way it
was supposed to be. He looked at all the people who came. He didn’t know who most of them were. He looked out to the water and the skyline of Manhattan.

“Thank you Emily,” he said with an appreciative nod. “And thank you Mr. Mayor. For the past ninety-five years of my life … ever since I was one of a handful of children who were liberated at Auschwitz in 1945 … I have not lived as Jacob Klukowsky but as Jack Fisher. I agree with everything the Mayor and Emily said. That the camps should remain open so the world will know what horrible things really happened there. It is a crime to remove them. A terrible crime. But I’m afraid I can’t read the speech they want me to read to you. You see a few days ago I had an article published.”

He raised his head.

“Imagine having your first article published at the age of one hundred.”

There were chuckles.

“I have this article with me now and instead of the speech I want to read it to you.”

Jack pulled out a newspaper from inside his jacket. Across the top of the front page were the words
The Reflector
. He opened it, adjusted his glasses, and began to read.

“My great-granddaughter Christine Fisher was born in 2014 in the town of Kitchener, Ontario in Canada. She was the second daughter of Will and Emma Fisher who are long-time residents of the community, the younger sister of Tiffany, and the proud aunt of Tiffany’s little girl Rebecca.”

Jack looked out at the crowd. There were so many people.

“Rebecca who is here today is my great-
great
-granddaughter.”

He went back to his article.

“The Fisher family has lived in Kitchener since I arrived there in 1947 as an eight-year-old boy with no family. Christine’s grandfather Bill is my son. I want to tell you about Christine. When she was a little girl she loved to read anything she could and her favorite subject was always history. That’s why she became a history teacher. Christine grew up in Wellington County which is a beautiful area with a lot of history and she knew its history. She knew about the first mill that was built in the 1800s and she knew who built it and how much it cost. Even when she was a little girl she knew how to do research.

“She was fifteen when I first told her what happened to me. About being a hidden child in the Jewish Ghetto in Lodz and being sent to Auschwitz. A death camp. When you’re a little child death should be something that only happens to old people but for me growing up the way I did death was a constant companion from my earliest memories. I saw more death as a four-year-old than anyone should see in their lifetime. I’ve never talked in public about this before because the memories were too horrible and raw and I wanted to forget them. Some things I did forget. But I was wrong not to tell Christine about this. I was raised as a Catholic and all my family in North America is Catholic. And then Christine found out I was born a Jew and that Jews were persecuted and murdered in the most horrible genocide the world has ever seen. Six million lives were lost and many of them were children. The only thing Christine knew about what happened to Jews during the Second World War was what she learned in school. Which was nothing.