Pfeifer explains how he didn’t get killed in the cave and how he sold himself to Vévoda.

Also, Eric notes on the margin:

Filomela said there was a manuscript that came to her in 1940 that was terrible, + vms later asked for it back so he could destroy it. Wanted the envelope it had come in, which she said had a legible postmark (which had never happened before): Dublin. She said the ms was in english, but it was riddled w/ errors that she thought sounded like they came from a native german speaker.

In response, Jen speculates:

The Weschler book. A failed Straka collaboration, or a failure of his own?

Couldn’t have felt good either way.

This conversation shows how complicated the links between Straka and other people is, as well as Straka’s determination to conserve his identity and eliminate any clues that could be traced back to him.