In the last chapter, Ohmie’s father taught him the rudiments of handgun shooting, surprised that Ohmie was a natural. On a train from Warsaw to Berlin, Ohmie’s father killed another assassin. They managed to toss the body, and exit the train unmolested, although they learned that Ohmie’s cancer was a force to be reckoned with.

“I think I’d better eat,” I said. Dad didn’t hear me. He was several paces in front of me and pulling away hard. Somebody grabbed me. I think they felt the gun and let me go real quick. Somebody else eased my way down to the floor of the station. I didn’t make it out before Dad disappeared. People were scattering, giving me a wide berth. They probably thought I had Covid-19.

“He doesn’t need an ambulance.” It was Dad’s voice, I think. I mean I know his voice, but this was a different pitch. Besides, who else would say that I didn’t need an ambulance. “He has cancer is all. I’ll take care of him.”  Dad helped me up and we walked slowly through the parting crowd. “Make way! Gang way!” Nobody said it; I just heard it in my head. It was cool, like I was the captain of a ship and everybody slammed themselves against the bulkhead to make way for me. “As you were, men,” I wanted to say once we were finally out of the station.

I nodded to Dad that I was fine while he got us a taxicab. Inside the cab I could finally tell him that I thought I needed something to eat, a can of tuna, some peanut butter, an egg … any protein. Like I’d accused him, I think he was used to working alone. Especially not having a sick kid to worry about. I wonder if he considered leaving me to the well-wishers at the train station. But then, he did say that he’d go to Hades ahead of me and take care of anyone laying in wait for me. At least I think he said that. Sometimes separating reality from fantasy isn’t real easy for me. And maybe that didn’t have anything to do with cancer.

Dad had the cab driver take us to a restaurant that offered hamburgers.

“Do you need a bed, a hotel room?” Dad asked.

“I can rest in a car, or bus, or train, anywhere,” I replied, though I truly wished for my own bed. “Where are we?”

“We’re in Lodz. Change in plans. We’re going to Lviv.”

“Ukraine! Isn’t that dangerous?”

Dad just looked at me.

“I guess no more dangerous than riding a train.”

Dad nodded. “We’ll get you a Ukraine passport. It’ll be fake, but not a forgery. I’m an Austrian. Your mother raised you in Mariupol. Your family is dead. I got you out. You have no passport. Won’t be any trouble.”

“But I don’t speak Ukrainian.”

“Russian.”

“But….”

“I thought you were a child prodigy? We have time – two days.”

Dad spoke a sentence in Russian. “You speak German and Russian?”

“You think you dropped out of the sky? That your mother and I are birdbrains lucky to have such a gifted child drop from the heavens?”

Dad’s little lip twitch morphed into a smile and then a grin. “My name is Timothy, Tymofiy.”

I had him say it in Russian a few times, but then I came close.

It wasn’t hard to convince the Ukraine officials of Dad’s story. I was having a kinda bad day and didn’t have to fake anything. They took Dad’s application and the photo we had made and sent it off to Kyiv. They promised three days. It was at our hotel in two. With my new passport and one Dad hadn’t used in years, we could go anywhere. But Dad said because of cameras, we would not be flying until we got on a jet for home. But that was still too dangerous. We would take a train to Vienna.

I debated whether to ask questions for a couple reasons. The most important one was the memory of his expression when he told me not to. The second was that I knew that it wouldn’t take hardly any torture at all to get me to talk. And three, he’s a spy. Spies lie for a living. I’d never know if something was true or not.  And too, if he told me anything at all, truth or not, if I were to be caught and questioned, I couldn’t say anything, make anything up, because I might accidentally get him, or someone else hurt. And there was a whole lot of that happening already.

“What’s in Vienna?” I asked.

“Only the best philharmonic you’ve ever heard in your life,” he said. “And a cello master that would make Paul Bunyan cry.”

I smiled. Maybe I do know this man.

Dad bought tourist passes. Meaning we could get on and off at our will for a week. But it was only for coach seats. I’d picked up a train schedule and map when we boarded. “Can we get off in Krakow?” I asked. My uncle Stan, he’s dead now. Lung cancer, nothing like mine. His wife’s entire extended family was killed at Dachau, either starved, shot, gassed, or just plain worked to death. Nobody knew for sure, only that they checked in, but never checked out. Leah was given to Catholic neighbors when they were rounded up.

“You wanna see the camp?” Dad asked. “You know they were at Dachau, not Krakow.”

“Yeah, I know, I just figure I’ll never be back.”

Dad didn’t say anything, probably thinking about all the other places I'd never be back to, not in the two or three months I had left.

I made a mental note to stop referencing anything like never this, or never that.

“Vienna sounds great,” I said, staring out the window.