For decades Gerta Wahljak has been haunted by a photograph of ten Nazi officers taken in the concentration camp where she was imprisoned during the Holocaust. Since emigrating to the United States, she has carefully traced and recorded the fates of nine of these men. But there is one whom she has been unable to track--until now. While Gerta waits in her Boston cardiologist's office, she sees another patient who she is almost sure is the last man. She will not be at peace until she knows.
After interviewing Gerta, assistant U.S. Attorney David Keegan is shocked to learn that he is closely linked to the man he's investigating. For the man accused of being a former Nazi is none other than Frederick Schiller, married to a renowned Jewish activist and the father of the woman Keegan loves.
Poised to become U.S. attorney, Keegan suddenly finds his life maliciously uprooted. Someone envious of his rise to power will stop at nothing to ruin him . . . leaking the volatile story to the press and hoping Keegan's reputation is blackened in the firestorm.
David Keegan is a man also haunted by the past, obsessed by his quest to uncover the facts behind his mother's death when he was a child. But as he pursues the truth about his mother, he must deal with the explosive case of Frederick Schiller. As newspaper headlines hurl accusations about Schiller and his wife, the two are forced to relive a dark history that was meant to be buried forever. Now Keegan must decide whether to risk his career to help the parents of the woman he loves.
A gripping, relentlessly plotted story about the ambiguity of morality, the power of an unresolved past, and the necessity of forgiveness, The Last Man twists like a thriller, but has the truth-seeking depth of great fiction. Profound in theme and peopled with characters that possess a refreshing vitality, it is a novel that will breathlessly race you to its stunning, climactic finish.
Release date:
December 16, 2009
Publisher:
Ballantine Books
Print pages:
352
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When Gerta Wahljak glanced across the waiting room and saw Friedrich Schillinghaussen she felt a sudden pressure in her chest, a ferocious pressure that made her feel as though she had been stricken with another heart attack. When she saw Schillinghaussen, she clutched the arms of her chair, grasping them so tightly her knuckles turned white. She drew back instinctively, recoiling from him. Gerta Wahljak was seventy-eight years old, and when the color drained from her face and her eyes widened, her companion, a young woman named Amy Scott, glanced at her and thought, for the briefest moment, that she was on the verge of death. Amy Scott, a licensed practical nurse who worked for the Wahljaks, reached out in alarm and placed her hand on Gerta's forearm.
"Gerta?" Amy asked quietly. "Are you all right?"
Gerta did not respond. She sat stiffly, pushed back in the chair, silent, stricken.
Amy moved out of her chair and crouched next to Gerta, whispering to her with sudden urgency.
"Gerta? What is it?"
"To on," she said, speaking Polish. "Ten czlowiek." This deepened Amy's concern, for Gerta reverted to her native Polish rarely, and then only when extremely agitated. Amy wheeled around and moved quickly across the waiting area to the receptionist's desk.
"There's an emergency," Amy said, motioning toward Gerta.
The receptionist, accustomed to such occurrences in the cardiac gerontology unit, glanced over at Gerta, then summoned a nurse. The half dozen other patients in the waiting area watched as the nurse strode to Gerta and began an examination.
Gerta was uncommunicative. She shook her head no in answer to a number of diagnostic questions. All the while, Amy noticed, Gerta's gaze was fixed on something across the room. Amy glanced over and saw a man who appeared to be in his late sixties, early seventies. He watched the quiet drama unfold. He was a slim man and strikingly handsome, in spite of his years, with deep-set eyes and an aquiline nose. He possessed a full head of hair, gone gray now, but it remained thick and was neatly combed back.
A nurse appeared and spoke to him. He nodded and walked with her down the hallway. He moved slowly and with a noticeable limp that favored his right leg. He soon disappeared down a corridor where various cardiac tests were conducted. Amy watched as Gerta's gaze remained fixed on this man, following him until he was out of view.
"Gerta? What is it?" Amy asked.
The nurse, having determined that Gerta was in no immediate physical danger, stood back.
Gerta closed her eyes and shook her head in great sorrow.
"What?" Amy asked.
Gerta shook her head no. She would not speak. She was brought back in her mind to the makeshift wooden structure at the edge of the place, just inside the auxiliary gate to the left. She recalled it so clearly. She remembered the dust when the drought had come in summer and the ground had turned to a powder that blew in the slightest breeze and covered everything--the jeeps and trucks and staff cars, and the barracks, of course, and the wooden structure in which she worked. The wind would blow in from the east, from out of Poland somewhere, and whip the dust up so that everything was covered, sullied. Nothing stayed clean for long.
She thought of the photograph she had kept all these years. When the photograph had been taken it had been her responsibility to insure its distribution, and she had performed her task well. And she had managed to secrete away an extra copy for herself. The photo, in black and white, showed ten men together in the officers' dining area. She had accounted for nine of the ten men in the photograph. She knew what had become of them--knew who had died in the war, who had defected to the underground, who had been placed on trial. She knew who had served time in prison, who had since died of natural causes, who had been executed. She knew the fate of all except one: Friedrich Schillinghaussen.
Gerta suddenly noticed that Amy's face was only inches from her own. She was calling out to Gerta but Gerta had not heard. The nurse was there, as well, and someone else, a young man in a white jacket. The others moved aside for him, and he shined a light into her eyes. She turned and looked away. The doctor examined her further but found nothing. Suddenly, Gerta insisted upon going home. Her appointment with the cardiologist could be rescheduled. She had no energy for that now. She wanted to get home where she felt safe, where she could lock the door and draw the shades and keep the world away.
Amy guided Gerta through the hospital lobby and out to the parking garage. When finally they reached the car, Amy, by now exasperated with the old woman's behavior, turned to confront Gerta.
"What is it, Gerta?" she asked, her frustration obvious in her tone.
"To on, ten czlowiek."
"Gerta!"
"It's him!" Gerta said. "It's him. The one from the picture. The last one."
And with that, Gerta Wahljak broke down and sobbed.
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