NINE

September 1946

Nuremberg, Occupied Germany

    James reached up and massaged his brow with his fingertips. “How many more pictures are you going to take?” he asked Flora.

    She attached the new portrait lens onto the camera. “As many as it takes to get one that works,” she answered.

    Despite how the overseer had manipulated her, Flora had enjoyed the last month with her Kodak Six-16. The camera was a mechanical marvel, and she loved loading the film by turning the winding key slowly until the bubble indicator showed a ‘1’. She loved opening the front of the box and drawing down the bed until the lens and shutter clicked into position. She loved determining the f-stop and shutter speed, and revolving the lens mount to the right focus.

    Most of all, Flora loved capturing moments within her photographs. Every time she looked through the view finder and pressed the exposure lever, she felt as if she was stopping time in its tracks and recording a piece of history.

    And the photographs she’d taken! She started with buildings and landscapes. Mr. Morgan suggested she practice taking pictures in both bright sunlight and shadows, and she rambled all around Nuremberg’s bombed-out ruins. Sometimes James came with her, and when he did, sometimes he let her drive the Jeep.

    Flora loved going out in the early mornings, when the golden sun cast long shadows from the wreckage, before the weight of the day crept into the homeless Germans’ faces.

    Her black and white photographs covered the walls of her bedroom in the Soul Identity house. She had pictures of the ruins and the reconstruction, of stray cats and dogs, of fields and trees and soldiers and the homeless. And of children. Lots of children.

    James helped her earn some money by selling framed copies of her photos to the American soldiers and VIPs who came to gawk at the Nazis on trial.

    But with all of her picture-taking practice, she had been unable to capture a photograph of James’s eyes detailed enough for Baba to calculate his soul identity.

    For starters, Baba needed color. The war had destroyed the German photography laboratories, and Kodak only processed color film in the States. It had taken Soul Identity’s best procurement team the entire month to pay for and establish a Kodak branch office in Nuremberg.

    Then, the first ten rolls of the Kodachrome film produced fogged slides. Mr. Morgan found another source, and the images had cleared up.

    Now the problem was the detail. To get close enough for clear eye images, the Six-16 needed a portrait lens, but the first lens arrived with a built-in diffusion filter. Its soft-focus effect left Baba unable to see any iris details. Mr. Morgan scrambled to order a replacement, and it just arrived yesterday.

    She and Mr. Morgan planned to pose as a photographer and reporter so they could get into the Reichsmarschall’s cell. She would have just one chance to capture a clean picture of the Nazi’s eyes, because Goering’s lawyer, Dr. Otto Stahmer, could only request a single meeting for any individual. Dr. Stahmer’s message had come this morning: the Nuremberg Prison Commandant, Colonel Andrus, had approved their application. She and Mr. Morgan would meet Goering at noon tomorrow.

    Based on photographs she had gleaned from various news magazines, she had arranged half of the dining room to resemble Goering’s cell: a small table and chair against a white wall with almost no outside illumination.

    Flora pointed at a chair against the wall. “Sit there and lean back,” she told James.

    He sat.

    She placed the Six-16 on the back of another chair exactly six feet from James’s head. The lighting in Goering’s cell would be poor, and the chair would help her keep the camera steady during the long exposure.

    “Now look into the lens and don’t blink,” she said.

    Flora shot all six pictures in the roll, experimenting with the shutter speed and the f-stops. She rewound the film into the cartridge and placed it in its canister. “Let’s get to the laboratory,” she said.

    While they waited for the technicians to develop the film, James took Flora on a walk through Nuremberg’s downtown. The economy had recovered in this district, mostly because of the trials and the money the press and tourists spent. Flora saw construction crews working on almost every building in the square.

    James stood with his hands on his hips in the center of the platz and slowly turned a full circle. “You’d hardly know that over ninety percent of this city was destroyed,” he said. “This old town district is beginning to look pretty spiffy.”

    Flora nodded and they walked on. She grabbed James’s arm as they paused in front of the Grand Hotel. “Can we go in the club?” she asked. She had read about it in the papers, and could only imagine how glamorous it was inside.

    James shook his head. “They only let active duty officers, press, and VIPs in. We don’t have a pass.”

    Tomorrow she’d have a press pass. Maybe she could convince James to take her next weekend.

    They walked another half hour until they reached the Palais du Justice. The articles said that the prison cells were deep in the basement, and the Nazis had their own elevator to get to and from the courtroom.

    “Are you ready to go in there tomorrow?” James asked.

    Playing with the camera and exploring around town with James the past month had been fun, but tomorrow she had to pay for it by confronting the man she considered responsible for her father’s death. Worse, she would help him prolong his memory and bury his loot. She stopped and wrapped her arms around her chest to keep from shivering. “I can’t believe I have to help that monster win.”

    James looked at her. “It’s the price of freedom, darling,” he said. “We may work on the train, but somebody else decides where it stops.”

    Flora just shook her head.

    They were quiet on their walk back to the laboratory, where the technician handed them six mounted 2x2 color transparencies. They remained quiet as James drove back to the Soul Identity house.

    In the dining room, Flora pulled the drapes shut and James readied the Kodaslide projector.

    While the projector warmed up, she looked over at Baba and the overseer. “It should work this time, Mr. Morgan,” she said.

    “It had better work-we are out of time,” he replied.

    James dropped in the first slide and projected the first image of his eyes onto the wall. They looked no better than the ones she had taken through the diffusion filter.

    “Can you focus it any clearer?” Flora asked.

    James turned the projector lens. “That’s as good as it gets.”

    “Try another one,” she said.

    James had blinked in the next three slides.

    “How many pictures did you take?” Mr. Morgan asked.

    “There’s two more.” Flora held her breath.

    This time James’s eyes were clear. Baba stepped over to the wall and peered at his projected irises. “Can you make them any bigger?” she asked.

    James slid the projector back to the far wall and refocused.

    Baba stood looking at James’s projected eyes. She ran her fingers around the irises. “Flora, get me a proof sheet,” she said.

    Flora tacked a blank proof sheet against the wall, aligning the projected eyes with the two top circles. She handed Baba a pencil and stepped out of the way.

    While Baba spent the next half hour tracing the lines from James’s irises onto the proof sheet, Flora squeezed small amounts of blue, brown, black, white, and yellow oil paint from their collapsible tubes onto a palette. She mixed in some turpentine, and when Baba was done, she handed her the palette and a tiny paint brush.

    Flora moved the proof sheet to an easel. Baba stood next to the projected image and mixed the paint on the palette into shades matching James’s blue irises. She walked to the easel and filled in the colors on the proof sheet. After an hour, she had completed painting the first eye.

    “What the-” James said as he pointed at the wall.

    His projected face was crumpling. A growing white circle engulfed first his nose, then his whole head. The room went dark.

    Flora opened the drapes.

    Mr. Morgan stood holding the end of the projector’s electrical cord. “The bulb melted the film,” he said. “This is not going to work.”

    “We have one more slide left,” Flora said. “Let’s let the bulb cool off, and then keep going.”

    The overseer nodded. “Let me know how it turns out.” He left the room.

    Another two hours crept by. Baba finished the second painting, then used her gold reader to calculate the soul identity. Mr. Morgan was pleased when he saw it matched James’s identity on file-the camera was going to work after all.

    In the morning, to fulfill her duty to Soul Identity and to get Baba to the States, Flora would face the Nazi monster. She just hoped she had the nerve.