“WE WILL DYE THE HANDS OF EACH CITIZEN WITH A DIFFERENT COLOR, he said. AND WILL THIS WAY DISCOVER WHO HAS BEEN PUTTING THEIRS BEHIND HERZOG’S COUNTER.
    Lippa R’s were dyed blood red. Pelsa G’s the light green of her eyes. Mica P’s a subtle purple, like the silver of sky above the Radziwell Forest’s tree line when the sun set for the third Shabbos of that November. No hands or hues were exempt. To be fair, even Herzog J’s were dyed, the pink of a particular Troides helena butterfly that happened to have died on the desk of Dickie D, the chemist who invented the chemical that couldn’t be washed off, but would leave smears on whatever the dyed hands touched.”

—Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated, 2002.