Summary

In this final chapter of Part III, titled “Leave a Stone,” Dr. Eger asks Magda to go back to Auschwitz with her, but Magda refuses. Dr. Eger says she respects the choice, but remains determined to make a different one. She makes her way through potential bureaucratic blockages and delays with the same determination that got her and Bela and Marianne out of Hungary, and manages to get herself and Bela into Poland, the country in which Auschwitz is situated. As she and Bela travel closer and closer to the camp, Dr. Eger becomes more anxious, but Bela continually reassures her and supports her. She, meanwhile, recalls experiences with other patients – of an obese woman who gradually learned to love and enjoy parts of herself, a fighter pilot who grieved the freedom to do whatever he wanted in the...