Pages 18-23 Summary

Sisovsky explains Eva cannot return to Prague because she cannot act there. She is better off in New York selling dresses. He says the Czech authorities let them both go because they wanted to leave.

Sisovsky's father was a Jew, but he looks like his mother, who is not a Jew. Sisovsky's father writes hundreds of stories in Yiddish about Jews. He dies in 1941. Sisovsky tells the story of his father. During World War II, a Gestapo officer favors Sisovsky's father because he is a chess champion. Every night the officer comes to his father's house and they play chess. The Gestapo do not bother the family. In another town, another Gestapo officer has a Jewish dentist who fixes his teeth. The dentist lives in peace as well. One night, the officers get into a drunken fight. The father's Gestapo officer...