The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies And Their Century-Long Mission To Infiltrate The West, Walker - B+

         The leaders of the revolution all spent time abroad under aliases as they plotted against Tsarist Russia. A man in London known as Dr. Richter was later Lenin. Similarly, Trotsky and Stalin also lived at home and abroad for decades under assumed names. Deception was an inherent part of the movement. “Konspiratsiya” was in their blood. After the successful conclusion of the civil war, Lenin put the Cheka in charge of spies in foreign countries.

         Felix Dzerzhinsky tasked Meer Trilisser with foreign operations known as INO. By the end of the 1920s, “Trilisser had built the foundation of a unique espionage program that would endure in one form or another for a century.” His most successful agent was Dmitry Bystrolyotov, who throughout the twenties and thirties adopted numerous identities and spied on the French, Germans, and British with ease and charm. He was particularly adept at bedding young women with access to classified material. Upon his return to Moscow, he was an obvious target for Stalin’s purge, as he was a sophisticated Russian who had spent years abroad. He was fortunate to be sent to the Gulag and to survive. “Soviet intelligence would never fully recover from the destructive impulse of the Stalinist system to punish its brightest servants.”

          In the late 30s, the Center, now known as the NKVD, turned to recruiting young ideologues for the long term. They also took up wet work and assassinated Trotsky in Mexico in 1939. Innumerable illegals told Moscow that Hitler would attack in June 1941. It took Stalin days after the attack began to believe it was happening. During the first three years of the war, the NKVD sent 190 illegals to foreign countries and 15,000 operatives behind German lines. They killed eighty-seven high-ranking Nazis, including the Gauleiter of Minsk.

          The advent of the Cold War led to the creation of the CIA and heightened sensitivity at the FBI, thus requiring the USSR to adjust its foreign activities. They began to pursue placing long-term illegals overseas, which required extensive planning and training. For example, Yuri Linov was identified as a possible illegal because he had done well in high school English. Five years of university studying English and German were followed by years of KGB training. He lived in Kyiv for a while before going to East Germany. Yuri was sent back to Moscow after Berlin for more training. Provided with an Austrian passport, he was assigned to Vienna, then Dublin and Prague. Yuri was next sent to Israel, where he was arrested, tried, and sent to prison. He was exchanged a year later and went home to Moscow, but his career was essentially over in his late thirties in the mid-1970s. He continued to work for the KGB in Kyiv, but never again in a sensitive role.

       Intense surveillance by both countries meant that legals were incapable of spying in America or the USSR. Both sides turned to third countries, and the Soviets continued to hope for illegal success. A Czech couple, renamed Rudi and Inge, with West German passports, moved to Canada, where they succeeded and became naturalized Canadians. In 1968, the Center ordered them to move to the US. After a few years, Rudi told his sixteen-year-old son the truth. Peter agreed to work for the USSR and went off to McGill in Canada for university. The FBI eventually confronted Rudi, and he worked as a double for a few years. He and the family went into the witness protection program. He didn’t really accomplish much in his time in the West, but the FBI knew that one good recruitment by an illegal could have a vastly different outcome.

        In 1984, a Siberian couple who had just married and graduated from Tomsk State University were recruited and brought to Moscow. The two young ideologues were Elena and Andrei. They were coming into their own as the Soviet Union collapsed. Gorbachev’s reforms were followed by the Wall coming down and the end of the USSR in 1991. By then, Elena and Andrei were comfortably in Canada when they realized they were on their own. They had funded themselves by building a delivery business and had two sons. Andrei received an economics degree and moved the family to Paris for graduate school. Upon a return to America, Andrei attended the Kennedy School at Harvard and landed a consulting job in Boston. They stayed in touch with Moscow and were now reporting to the new SVR. By 2000, the FBI was on to them thanks to a Russian they had turned. Every action they took for the next decade was closely monitored. In 2010, after the US double agent in Moscow fled to the West, the FBI arrested* the five illegal couples they were following. They were quickly swapped, honored in Moscow, and provided with good jobs. Andrei and Elena's boys lost their Canadian and American citizenship and have lived most of their lives in Asia with a Russian passport. “Moscow pivoted to a new kind of illegal, adapted for the digital world. Instead of simply watching and analyzing American political life, these new illegals would be tasked with influencing it.”

        The Internet Research Agency is in a nondescript four-story building in St. Petersburg. Its mission is to use false social media posts to subvert elections in the West, particularly the US. They interfered in the 2016 presidential election, although “measuring the real-life impact of these illegal trolls is difficult.” It is known that 120 false Facebook accounts posted eighty thousand times, reaching 29 million Americans and reposted to another 97 million. Two years later, the US indicted thirteen Russians. The SVR has continued to pursue assassinations around the world, including at least one the FBI stymied in the US.

          At all points in time over the last century, it does not appear as if the illegals accomplished very much. Nonetheless, the Russians (particularly their KGB president) remain attached to the allure and romance of it all and are believed to still be trying.

*The 2010 arrests inspired the TV show “The Americans.” I’m not quite sure what led to the 1991 BBC production of “Sleepers.”

Midnight In Memphis, Dann - B+

         This superb police mystery is set in 1955. Burdett Vance knows he's on the wrong side of the chief when he's put in charge of the city's first Black homicide detective. It turns out that Eustace Johnson is very smart, hardworking, and a natural at police work. Out of the blue, he’s faced with what could become a major homicide investigation. Well-off young white women are being murdered, and the killer’s taunts imply he’s Black. Burdett isn’t so sure, particularly because the victims have connections to the city’s corrupt cabal of business and government men running Memphis. Eustace helps him see that all of the young women were involved with cocaine and spending time with the Black underworld on Beale Street. Good police work and a bit of luck lead them to the killer’s home, but he’s already gone. Eustace and Burdett keep at it and ultimately sort out who is responsible. Well done.

          I doubt I’ve read a novel set in Memphis since The Firm over thirty years ago. What makes this an intriguing read is its insightful presentation of racial tensions in the South during the final years of Jim Crow.

Fateful Hours: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, Ullrich - B+

         As the Great War ended, violence, mutiny, strikes, and revolution came to Germany. Elections in January 1919 led to a convocation in Weimar, a city chosen because of its historic connection to Goethe and Schiller. Nonetheless, violence spread around the country, particularly in and around Munich. Expecting some Wilsonian consideration, the country was offered the draconian terms of the peace treaty in May. It was signed on the fifth anniversary of the Sarajevo assassinations. The Weimar Constitution was adopted that summer. The following year, a right-wing revolt known as the Kapp Putsch marched on Berlin and occupied the offices of government. The putsch failed because the workers of the country called an effective general strike, as the return of Wilhelmine militarism was completely unwanted.
           In June of 1922, Foreign Minister Rathenau was assassinated. His offense was that he was wealthy, Jewish, and the man who signed the Treaty of Rapallo recognizing the USSR. The center and the left mourned. The right rejoiced. In early 1923, France occupied the Rhineland because of Germany's failure to pay reparations. German resistance was met with harsh French retribution. The financial pressure put on Germany exacerbated the already spiraling inflation. "The bottomless pit that was hyperinflation defied rational explanation, leaving Germany veritably stunned." Toward the end of the year, Chancellor Stresemann was able to resolve a few issues with France, enact currency reform, agree to the Dawes Plan to reduce reparations, and set the stage for the ensuing economic recovery. The center held.
           In June of 1925, seventy-seven-year-old Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was sworn in as president, committed to "serving the cause of nonpartisan unification of our people." Nonetheless, it was "a tacit constitutional change, a conservative refounding of the republic." During his first five years in office, he slowly increased the power of the presidency at the expense of democracy and the Reichstag. Black Friday on Wall Street led to a withdrawal of American loans and pushed Germany into a serious fiscal crisis. The following March, the grand coalition cabinet failed. This was "a major turning point in the history of the Weimar Republic. It marked the last time a government would be based on a parliamentary majority." The chancellor was given emergency powers and was able to appoint his own cabinet. In the Reichstag elections later in 1930, the Nazis received a quarter of the vote, second to the left-centre Social Democrats.
          Ironically, it was in Thuringia, whose capital was Weimar, that the right-wing fascists first achieved office. Wilhelm Frick, a fellow Beer Hall putschist with Hitler, held two ministries for a mere fourteen months, but "delivered a foretaste of what could be expected if the National Socialists came to power nationally."
         Hindenburg appointed von Papen chancellor in May 1932, a month after defeating Hitler in the presidential election. He quickly moved to replace all of the Social Democrats in ministerial offices in the Prussian state. Hitler twice requested the chancellorship from Hindenburg and was twice denied. At year's end, journalists pronounced the country saved from the Nazis. After an opponent maneuvered Papen out of the chancellorship in December, he met with Hitler in an attempt to find some common ground to present to Hindenburg. He was able to convince the president that, between the two of them, they could manage the man the Field Marshal called the "Bohemian Corporal." Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor and Papen vice chancellor. On January 30, Hitler was sworn in.
          Those around the president were comfortable with the Nazis' desire to overthrow Versailles and their disdain for Weimar.  Papen told people he would "push Hitler so far into a corner that he'll squeak." "Germany's governing elites could not have more negligently underestimated Hitler's craving for power." The Reichstag fire four weeks later led to emergency decrees gutting the constitution. Jews lost their equality under the law in April. By the summer, Hitler had complete and total control of the country.
          The author has published some truly excellent books on the Third Reich. My takeaway here is that the hateful rhetoric, vicious disparagement of people, and endless lying cast a not-so-distant mirror.

One Minute More, Rotenberg - B +

            It’s 1988, and Ari Greene has been on the Toronto PD for five years. He is assigned to a Quebec–Vermont border town for its annual Fourth of July parade, where he is told to keep his eyes open: Intelligence has reported that an assassin is headed for the G7 meeting in Toronto. While walking the perimeter, he discovers two bodies. The highly trained assassin is an attractive young woman who makes her way to Montreal. She is adept at soliciting the help of men and then disposing of them as she proceeds toward Toronto. Once word is received that a woman committed the murders, Ari realizes he saw her on a bus and escalates the manhunt. She remains elusive, killing as she goes, and eventually slips past the authorities. A police sketch leads to a university student who is shot by Ari’s partner twenty-four hours before the summit. However, her identical twin is still free. In the end, she does not.

          This is fine, but a genre switch in the eighth book of an almost two-decade-old series is a bit off-putting. I’ll look forward to the next straightforward police procedural.

John Doe Chinaman: The Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law, Lew-Williams, B

         When the Chinese came to America, they “endured a racial regime every day. This book is the story of that regime and the lives it touched.” They arrived in the 1850s, and the western states regulated “their ability to work, operate a business, own property, testify in court, seek education, and form families.”

          Chinese laborers—whether miners or workers in lumbering or agriculture—were subjected to violence and taxed because of their race. When over 20,000 arrived in 1852, the California legislature implemented the miner’s tax. Over fifteen years, the state collected $5 million, 99% of it paid by Chinese laborers. Many, however, realized that the tax “provided a path to conditional inclusion.”

         This Bancroft Award–winning academic history is structured so that each chapter focuses on one aspect of Chinese immigrants and the pushback from whites. Thus, the chapters on aliens and predators focus on laws targeting non-white foreigners and those vigorously opposing interracial intimacy.

          In the 1880s, a major effort was made by the Pacific Coast states to expel the Chinese. The federal government promised laws at the border, but vigilante justice “dislocated tens of thousands.” “The anti-Chinese expulsions that swept the West from 1885 to 1887 ushered in a new period of racial retrenchment.” Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1888 (not repealed until 1943), banning all laborers from entering. Local authorities initiated segregation but confronted constitutional roadblocks. Individuals committed consistent violence to keep Chinese communities out and often turned to arson. Oftentimes, entire neighborhoods were torn down under public health pretexts. Courts approved of “separate but equal” public schools. However, “whether they liked it or not, both lawmakers and the public had come to rely on Chinese workers, traders, consumers, manufacturers, businesses, and taxpayers.”

          Early in the 20th century, “exclusion laws gave federal officials broad authority over Chinese migrants, power that state and local officials lacked.” Chinese arrivals were required to pass through Angel Island, the West Coast equivalent of Ellis Island. The threat of refusal of entry and the risk of deportation were part of everyone’s experience. The San Francisco earthquake in 1906 destroyed the city’s birth records, leading to endless claims of U.S. citizenship, as an 1898 Supreme Court case confirmed that birthright citizenship applied to the Chinese. Because for decades white America paid little heed to the proper spelling of Chinese names, many slipped into an in-between space where they were allowed to stay but not exercise all of their rights. They lived in fear of government bureaucrats. Such insecurities affected every aspect of life. “By rendering the Chinese as perpetually precarious, exclusion restricted economic mobility, restrained Chinese political power, devalued Chinese lives and culture, and separated Chinese from white communities.”

         The prohibition of Chinese immigration was extended to the Japanese, Koreans, and other Asians. “The Chinese continued to live under specific economic, political, cultural, and spatial restraints.” Matters changed slowly over time, and it was not until the 1965 immigration law that all restraints on Asians were lifted. Today, there are 24 million Asian Americans in the United States. It should be noted that this law was pioneered by Jewish Congressman Emmanuel Celler, who served in Congress for 50 years and had seen the 1920s restrictive laws implemented. Although prejudice and tribalism still exist in America, Chinese Americans are free to pursue the American dream and have been quite successful in that effort.

         I am very familiar with the history of immigration on the East Coast, particularly the plight of the Irish, Italians, and Jews who came to America in the 19th century. They were all treated badly because of their foreign languages and non-Protestant religions. But compared to the Chinese, they were welcomed with open arms. This story is not surprising, but it is shocking in its severity. 

Predicament, Boyd - B+

          Gabriel Dax, a travel writer and occasional agent for MI6, is sent to Nicaragua in the spring of 1963. His task is to interview a leftist politician who may become the country’s next president. The meeting is arranged, but Dax is blindfolded and driven for hours to reach Tiago—who then refuses to speak with him. The next day, Tiago is assassinated and a military coup takes power.  Dax heads to New York to continue research for his book, only to be stabbed and hospitalized. Back in England, MI6 sends him to Berlin to 'bump into' a dangerous figure he previously encountered in Guatemala—now believed to be planning an attack on JFK during an upcoming visit. Working alongside the CIA, Dax conducts surveillance and confirms that an assassination is indeed in the works. On the day of JFK’s 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech, he spots the would-be assassin and alerts the local police. Then, noticing an open window above, he intervenes in time to stop a second gunman.

        Hints of police complicity, as well as possible Mafia and CIA involvement, linger in the background—alongside the specter of a lone gunman—matters that weigh on Gabriel’s mind on the 22nd of November.  Excellent.

Downfall, Rotenberg - B+

          A homeless man is found found dead by the river. On a cold, dark morning two days later, a Somali immigrant bicycling to work is clipped by a truck, falls down a hill, and lands on top of a dead homeless woman. Ari Greene is back on the Toronto PD, and he and Daniel Kennicott have the case. They begin their investigation. Then there is a third homeless victim. This woman had once been a famous lawyer—beloved and admired—married to a city councilman and the mother of an eleven-year-old daughter before turning to the streets. As they dig deeper, the detectives learn a great deal about homelessness in their city, including the fact that a great many people profit from it, in particular the drug companies that sell the drugs to the city that keep many people tranquil, if not sedated. The obvious possibilities fall by the wayside when they arrest the most unlikely suspect. A tour de force.

Blood And Treasure: The Economics of Conflict from the Vikings to the Modern Era, Weldon - B-

       The intent of this book is to “show both how economics can help understand war and how understanding war can help explain modern economics.” As I do not believe the author achieved his stated goal, I have posted only brief comments on some of his better examples.

       The Vikings were superb raiders, but later became conquerors and occupiers. The “Danegeld” tribute in East England and the taxes collected in Normandy were reinvested locally, establishing them as “excellent state builders.”

        A strong case may be made “that Genghis Khan’s economic legacy dwarfs that of almost any other individual.” His Mongols conquered from China to Hungary, and a century later his heirs extended their reach to Iran and the Baltics. Khan established a true meritocracy, and they saw fit to share all of the booty extracted from conquered tribes. They standardized money, weights, and measures, and provided a primitive safety net in hard times. The Pax Mongolia was the first era of globalization. The Khan showed the Europeans the advantages of opening up and trading far and wide. But the devastation wreaked in China made them wary of outsiders.

         Both the longbow and the inexpensive crossbow changed the face of European warfare around the millennium. The longbow had an extraordinary rate of fire and propelled England to victory after victory. England succeeded where others did not because of a “state-driven agenda to create a culture of archery.” England’s throne was more stable than Scotland’s or France’s, affording the monarchy the chance to employ a more democratic weapon, as they feared uprisings less than their enemies.

          During the Renaissance, soldier of fortune Federico de Montefeltro made so much money that he “assembled the most comprehensive library outside the Vatican and paid for Raphael’s training.” He was not alone, and the warriors of the era “helped fund the flowering of knowledge which transformed medieval Italy into Renaissance Italy.”

         Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War was achieved in battle, yet ably assisted by the Bank of England. It was achieved as much through financial strength as raw military power. Although France’s population was over twice Britain’s, the British commanded more wealth because they were more industrialized and incredibly more efficient at collecting taxes. The creation of the Bank of England meant that Britain could also borrow money responsibly. It was a modern state which simply functioned better than its competitors.

          When the southern, states’ rights, debtor-friendly states seceded in 1861, it gave the North the chance to strengthen federal government borrowing, which is what occurred when the United States passed the Legal Tender Act. “The modern US dollar was created by the pressures of the American Civil War.”

        World War II saw the introduction of total war, making the tasks of domestic administrators as important as those fighting overseas. In the UK and the US, the ability to outmanage and outproduce the Axis is what led to eventual triumph.

Heart Of The City, Rotenberg - B

           After the stress of being indicted and acquitted, Ari Greene left Toronto and went to London for a year. A barrister there got in touch to tell him that he had a twenty-year-old daughter from a long-ago relationship with a woman who had just passed away. He welcomes Alison into his life and they fly to Toronto.

           In his new job as a construction worker, he stumbles across the body of a noted and despised condo developer and calls 911. Soon he is face to face with the Toronto PD again. He is also helping the lawyer who defended him without charge, and believes that the lawyer’s client—who is the police’s number one suspect—is actually innocent. He begins to look into the case himself. As he and the police focus on different likely suspects, the construction manager is found murdered in exactly the same manner as his boss. Ironically, Alison helps Ari and the police solve the case. This one is simply not as good as the others in the series.

Lawrence In Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly And The Making Of The Modern Middle East, Anderson - B, Inc.

        In 1914, a handful of Orientalists were traveling through the southwestern reaches of the fading Ottoman Empire, seemingly engaged in innocuous pursuits. They were not. An American, William Yale, claiming to be on a grand tour, was actually scouting for oil on behalf of the Standard Oil Company of New York. A German, Curt Prüfer, supposedly updating a Baedeker’s guide, noted British outposts along the Nile while cruising south. Aaron Aaronsohn, a Jewish agronomist, was planting the seeds of Zionism, and Thomas Lawrence of the Palestine Exploration Fund was quietly preparing for war on behalf of the United Kingdom. The Ottomans were on the cusp of a decision that would “bring on their own doom and unleash forces of such massive disintegration that the world is still dealing with the repercussions a century later.”

         Lawrence grew up in Oxford, read history at Jesus College, and toured Syria while researching his thesis. Yale applied to Socony’s foreign service upon completing college. Prüfer came of age in a newly unified Germany where Wilhelm II encouraged what some have called “a toxic nationalist mythology.” His remarkable ability to pick up languages, including both Turkish and Arabic, led to work at the German embassy in Cairo. By his twenties, Aaronsohn was a renowned agronomist who sought to demonstrate that Palestine could support a far larger population, as it had in the past, than it did in the early twentieth century.

         When the Ottoman Empire joined the war, Lawrence was sent to Cairo to join a military intelligence unit, where he began to argue for the advantages of encouraging an Arab revolt. For Aaronsohn and Palestine’s Jews, Muslim hostility, Turkish looting, and deportations threatened their very existence. Major Prüfer was assigned to work with the Turks on an assault on the Suez Canal. The Germans and Turks successfully crossed the 120-mile-wide Sinai and, in January, reached positions only a few miles from the canal. The British repelled them by moving warships into the waterway.

          During a major locust infestation, Aaronsohn traveled the length and breadth of Syria and Palestine and came to two conclusions: there was no future for Jews under Arab sovereignty, and the region was largely undefended. He sent his brother to speak with the British in Egypt. At about the same time, Yale achieved an important goal for Socony—obtaining drilling concessions in Arabia. Throughout 1915, both sides tried to secure the support of Emir Hussein, the guardian of Mecca and Medina. Britain prevailed by promising independence for Arabia. In June 1916, Faisal committed to a revolt against the Turks.

           The Arab revolt was somewhat slapdash and got off to a poor start. In October, the British Oriental secretary traveled to Medina, with Lawrence tagging along out of sheer boredom. He eventually persuaded Hussein’s eldest son to allow him to travel inland and assess the situation.

           At a little over two-fifths of the way through the book—just as the narrative seemed ready to wander into another diversion about the other three minor characters, without Lawrence and Faisal yet meeting or a shot being fired—and knowing this author’s tendency to roam widely around a subject, I reluctantly stepped away. I have been fascinated by Lawrence since I first saw the 1962 film, one of the half-dozen movies I admit to having watched probably six times. I have learned a great deal about the Middle East since I was thirteen years old and am still amazed at how badly the British and French mishandled this part of the world more than a century ago. When they eventually stepped back from their roles as imperial powers, the United States jumped in and clumsily stirred the pot a bit more. I would have liked to read the details of the Hejaz revolt and perhaps gain some insights into the Paris Peace Conference, but I do not have the staying power.

The Impossible Thing, Bauer - B +

           Guillemot birds lay five-inch eggs by the hundreds of thousands on the cliff ledges along England's North Sea coast. Each egg is completely different and unique. The eggs were poached by men hanging off the cliffs in harnesses. Most of the eggs were blue or brown, and occasionally green. During the summer of 1926, a young girl was lowered down by a stronger lad and came back up with an all-red egg that a broker paid ten pounds for. The broker, George Ambler, was prepared to auction the egg, but became so enamored of it that he kept it for his own viewing pleasure. As the birds return for their entire lives and lay the exact same egg every year, Ambler committed to buying them all, and history suggests there may have been as many as 30. In 1940, Ambler either fell off Metland Cliff or was helped off; either way, no one mourned him. His staff sold the eggs, kept one, and quickly forgot him.

            A century later, the surviving red egg is sitting in an attic and is robbed almost immediately after Nick puts it up on eBay. Nick and his buddy Patrick, an autistic medical student, begin to search for the stolen egg. They have only a vague understanding of its history. They narrow in on a museum director who is a world authority on birds' eggs. With some deft maneuvering, they find not only the egg, but the other 29 as well, which they joyfully liberate in order to put a century of greed to rest.

           This is a very different, yet intriguing read. And yes, there were 30 red Metland eggs, although no one knows what happened to them.

Canticle, Edwards - B

          A canticle is a song of praise. This novel is set in medieval Bruges in the last years of the thirteenth century. The world of the Church is unsettled: concerns about the endless selling of indulgences are rising, and, more importantly, some in Europe are translating the Word of God into the languages of the people. The Church must maintain its role as the interpreter of holy matters for an uneducated populace.

          Young Aleys is a holy child, enthralled by the beauty of her mother’s psalter and by her daily experience of God’s love. After her mother dies, her father requires her help in managing his woolens business and teaches her to read and write. Having spent so much time poring over the Latin in her mother’s book, she becomes uniquely skilled in both Latin and the local tongue. When her father pledges her to the man in charge of the drapers’ guild, she runs to the Franciscans, who readily accept her.

          Friar Lukas settles her with the holy women in the begijnhof, as she is the Franciscans’ first convert in the Low Countries. The begijnhof has attracted the attention of the bishop, who believes the Dutch translations of the Bible may have originated with the reclusive women known as beguines. He believes he must stage a dramatic suppression of heresy to please the pope. When Aleys prays over the sick in the hospital, some are reported cured. The bishop does not want the people focused on miracles when he needs heretics. He convinces Aleys to surrender to a life of holy seclusion in an anchorhold attached to the cathedral. Her only exposure to the outside world is through her maid, Marte, who tends to her needs, and Lukas, her confessor. When a crazed Lukas unlocks her door and attempts to attack her, she flees. Breaking her vow of seclusion should lead to excommunication.

         The papal legate clearly has no desire to condemn her at trial, and the matter is set aside. However, the bishop then presents Marte as a heretic responsible for the widespread translations circulating in the city. Knowing that Marte and the entire begijnhof will be burned, Aleys steps forward and proclaims that the translations are hers. She pays the ultimate price at the stake.