The Other Traitor (25 page)

No, Julian. Don’t go there.

“I wonder if the Slugger code name wasn’t a reference to the bat, but to the smokestack where Yitzy and my grandmother were supposed to meet.” He took in an abrupt breath as though startled by something. “Damn,” he said. “Yitzy may have been Slugger.”

“I don’t think so.” She didn’t want to say the words. Saying things aloud could make them true and the repercussions of this truth would be devastating. But she knew it was only a matter of time before Julian arrived at the possibility himself. “If my grandfather was Yitzy,” she said. “Then your grandmother was Slugger.”

“Nana?” he said, shaking his head. “Slugger?”

Annette felt the sting of her words just before they dropped from her mouth like hailstones. “Yes, Julian. And she was also very likely the mystery woman in black.”

Slugger. The mystery woman in black.
That person couldn’t be Nana, Julian thought. And Yitzy couldn’t have been Isaac Goldstein.

They had to be mistaken. Because if they were right, that would mean Isaac Goldstein had been in love with Nana and had sacrificed himself for her. And it also meant his grandmother had been the traitor.

“It’s impossible.” His voice sounded too loud in his own ears. “There has to be another explanation.”

Annette looked at him with sad-urchin eyes. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” he said, standing up to get dressed. “But I have a feeling my grandmother does.”

Julian could tell that Nana was perplexed when they arrived at her apartment. She smiled at him uncertainly. His gaze brushed over the crimson sofa, the turquoise chairs, the sculptures in front of the windows. It was all familiar, yet everything seemed slightly off, as though he was viewing it through a hangover.

Annette squeezed his hand.
Whatever the truth turns out to be, we’re in this together,
she had said as they walked over from his apartment. It was almost exactly what he’d said to her yesterday when she was confronting her grandfather’s demons. And now, they certainly would be in this together if their theories turned out to be correct. The truth hinged on whether Nana’s old flame, Yitzy, was in fact Isaac Goldstein.

A record was playing on the old Victrola. Over the scratches, a young man’s voice sang, sweet and trembling.

Believe me, deceive me

Darling, just don’t leave me.

Nana reached up and touched Julian’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s sit down, Nana.”

She gave a little nod, then wobbled to her favorite chair, so shaky it seemed she would topple over. She hoisted herself into it. Her black sweater and black stretch pants hung on her tiny frame.

The woman in black? Impossible. Nana would explain everything.

You are the apple of my soul

If you love me, don’t let me go.

He and Annette sat close together on the sofa, their hands intertwined. He thought he could smell their lovemaking from a few hours before. Could Nana have had a love affair with Annette’s grandfather? Impossible.

“Nana.” His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat. “Nana, who was Yitzy?”

She started, like a bird hearing a loud noise. “Yitzy. I told you. He was the boy I met at camp. Then we met again in college.”

“What was his real name?”

She looked from Julian to Annette, then back to Julian. “He was a young man from my past. That’s all.”

“Did you stay in touch with him after college?”

Nana rubbed the arthritic bump on her pointer finger. “What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “If it doesn’t make a difference, why won’t you tell us?”

One promise I will make to you

Wherever I am, whatever you choose.

“That’s Yitzy.” She gestured with her chin toward the Victrola.

The voice on the record. The boy from summer camp, and then from college. Why was she still playing his record? Unless she was the woman in black.

He could hear Annette’s strained breathing next to him. He didn’t dare meet her eye.

“What was Yitzy’s real name?” he asked his grandmother again.

“Certain things are better left unsaid.”

“Like what you didn’t tell me about Saul?”

His grandmother flinched, then turned to stare at the sculpture of
Boy Playing Stickball
. The boy seemed forlorn in the dull light coming from the window.

“I went to my mother’s house last night,” he said, his voice gentler. Attacking Nana wasn’t the best way to approach this. He was sure she’d have a logical explanation for all the half-truths she had told him. “We talked about the painting, Nana. The writing on the back. We also talked about the fact that Saul was sabotaging U.S. bombs after the war.”

His grandmother closed her eyes and became utterly still.

“Nana?”

She slowly opened her eyes.

“Did you know Saul was modifying the sensors of American bombs so they’d fail during detonation?” he asked. “That he’d incapacitated hundreds, maybe even thousands, of them?”

“Yes.” The word came out as a whisper.

“Whose idea was that?”

She didn’t answer. The radiator clanked off. “It was Saul’s,” she said. “I had no idea what he was doing until he told me shortly before he died. He also told me he deliberately exposed himself to radiation.”

“It wasn’t exactly deliberate,” Julian said. “The radiation was a consequence of modifying the bombs.”

“But he knew he was exposing himself,” Nana said. “Saul knew it would kill him. He did it anyway, even after all I’d sacrificed for him.”

After all Nana had sacrificed? What had she sacrificed for Saul?
And then an unsettling possibility came to him. “What about during the war?” he asked. “Had it been Saul’s idea to alter the formulas in the documents he passed on to the Soviets?”

The record ended, the needle scratching around and around in the run-out groove.

“That was my idea,” Nana said finally.

Annette let go of his hand. He could feel her tense up beside him. “Your idea?” she asked.

“Yes,” Nana said. “I didn’t want the Soviets to have such a powerful weapon. I hated what the communists had become. I didn’t trust them. I persuaded Saul to modify the documents in a way that would make it impossible for the Soviets to build a working bomb from them.”

“But how do you know Saul did this?” she asked. “He could have lied to you about what he was passing on to them.”

Nana narrowed her eyes at Annette. “I’m telling you the formulas and data were wrong.”

“Did you see the documents Saul gave the Soviets, Nana?”

She rubbed her pointer finger. “Yes.”

He tried to keep his voice matter of fact, though his heart was pounding. “Were you working with the communists?” He waited a beat. “Were you Slugger?”

The needle scratched around and around the run-out groove.

“Yes. I was Slugger.”

Even though he’d been expecting her answer, he felt a jolt. It was one thing to speculate about it, another to hear it confirmed. His grandmother had been a communist spy, the go-between running atomic-bomb secrets from Los Alamos to the Soviets. Maybe her intention had been to protect the U.S. by passing the Soviets bad info, but the magnitude of her revelation was overwhelming. And a bigger issue was gnawing at him. Did this mean his grandmother had been the woman in black? Impossible.

Annette leaned forward on the sofa. “Even if you’d seen the documents, you couldn’t have known Saul had modified the information. How can you be so certain?”

“I told you the formulas and data were wrong,” Nana said. “The Soviet bombs wouldn’t have worked.”

Why was his grandmother being so defensive? And then it hit him. “Saul wasn’t the one who altered the documents, was he?”

The phonograph needle went around and around.

Nana stared at her swollen fingers. It took her a long time before she answered. “No, it wasn’t Saul. I lied about that.”

He felt Annette squirm beside him. Essie had been right. Nana was a liar.

His grandmother met his eye. There was desperation in hers, as though she was begging him to believe her. “Saul insisted that I pass the original documents he’d stolen to the Soviets,” she said. “He believed science should have no barriers and all our allies should share scientific information.” She shook her head. “But I couldn’t let that happen. I knew this bomb of ours was a terrible, terrible weapon. I couldn’t let the Soviets build one, too. I was afraid we would all destroy each other.”

Interrogating his grandmother like this, causing her so much obvious pain was as difficult for him as it had been to let his father wash off the burned skin caused by the firecracker explosion when he’d been a little boy, but just as then, Julian had to do this.

“So if Saul wasn’t willing to change the formulas, who was?” he asked. “You didn’t have the expertise.”

“But Isaac Goldstein did,” Annette said. “He was an engineer with a strong physics background. He could have altered the formulas and measurements credibly. Were you and Isaac Goldstein working together?”

His grandmother didn’t move. She stared at the three sculptures.

“Nana, did you take the documents Saul stole from Los Alamos to Isaac Goldstein, ask him to make the data unusable, and then pass them on to the Soviets?”

His grandmother took in a deep breath. “Yes.”

Heroic, he tried to tell himself. Nana and Isaac Goldstein had been heroes.

“
Mon dieu
. You could have saved Isaac,” Annette said. “You knew he wasn’t a traitor.”

“Perhaps I could have saved him, but if I had, my own brother would have been sent to the electric chair. It was an impossible choice.” She shuddered. “Impossible.”

“So you chose to let Isaac Goldstein die?” Annette asked.

Julian reached for her hand. “Isaac could have saved himself, Annette.” He turned to his grandmother. “Why didn’t he, Nana? Why did he keep your secret?”

Nana eased herself out of her chair and went to the phonograph. She lifted the tone arm and picked up the old record. Her hands trembled as she held it. The gesture reminded Julian of the moment before the boy had thrown the firecracker at him.

“Who was Yitzy, Nana?” he asked. “Was he Isaac Goldstein?”

Nana looked at him with such tenderness that Julian wasn’t prepared when she answered. “Yes. Yitzy was Isaac.”

Annette’s fingernails dug into his palm.

Yitzy was Isaac, which meant his grandmother had once been in love with Isaac Goldstein. But that didn’t mean their love had continued after they were both married to others.

Nana pressed the record against her chest. “I went to see him in prison the day before he was executed.”

Oh god
, he thought.
No please. Don’t be the woman in black.

“He told me he was sick over what the publicity and upcoming execution were doing to his wife and daughter,” she said. “My heart went out to Betty and Sally. I knew how much they were suffering. Betty was especially tormented about how this was affecting her little girl.”

He could feel Annette cringe beside him.

“But then, Yitzy told me that he’d decided to report my brother to the FBI.”

Annette let out a tiny gasp, but Nana didn’t seem to hear it.

“I begged him not to turn Saul in. ‘Tell them I’m the spy,’ I said. But Yitzy refused. He didn’t trust the government. He was certain they would make me the scapegoat regardless of the truth.” She wet her lips. “What could I do? I had to take care of my brother. I had promised my parents.” Her cheeks drooped like a melted mask. “So I told Yitzy that if he exposed Saul, I would turn myself in.”

Julian dared not look at Annette. Her grandfather had died and gone down in history as a traitor because of his grandmother. It was no longer possible to deny it. Nana was the woman in black.

“So you saved yourself and your brother.” Annette’s quavering voice was monotone, but Julian could hear the undercurrent of rage. “I get that. What I don’t get is why my grandfather was willing to sacrifice himself and destroy his family.”

Nana put the record down on the credenza and teetered back to her chair. Was she buying time, trying to make up a fresh lie to tell them?

She settled herself in the chair and gazed at the photo of Julian, Rhonda and their parents on the coffee table. “Yitzy wasn’t sacrificing his entire family,” Nana said, staring at the photo. “Maybe I did the wrong thing, but I was determined to protect her at all costs. And so was Yitzy.”

“Protect her?” he asked, bewildered. “Protect who?”

Tears ran down Nana’s wrinkled cheeks. “Our daughter. Mine and Yitzy’s.”  She looked directly into Julian’s eyes. “Your mother.”

“My mother?”

He felt Annette’s hand pull away. A chill invaded the room.

“What are you saying, Nana? That Isaac Goldstein is
my
grandfather? But that’s impossible. Isaac Goldstein is
Annette’s
grandfather.”