“Haven’t I told you already?” asked Christian. “My dad’s vice president ratted us out, I’m sure of it. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. He’s probably praying that we die here or that we all get blown apart in Germany, then the whole thing can be his. Greedy ass. But you’re the Jew. Your story has to be more interesting.”
“The beginning, you can probably guess,” said Kurt. “My father came to America to escape the anti-Semitism in Germany—it was already getting worse in the twenties—and then in ’42 he gets arrested here for suspected Nazi activity. Him. Who was raised Orthodox. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so depressing.”
“What was he doing that got him arrested? I know those FBI agents are stupid, but that’s a whole new level.”
“From what I know it was just fear. And that canceled out reason,” said Kurt, propping himself up on his elbow. “My dad was a math teacher in Germany but he couldn’t find work in the United States. He looked for almost a year while we lived with his sister above a laundromat in Queens—two bedrooms for six people and a kitchen that always smelled like burning rubber—but nothing. So he took a job delivering newspapers to the German-speaking community in New York. Not great pay, but steady. We moved into our own place at least. Then war broke out, and I guess some of those Germans he was delivering the paper to were FBI suspects, which made my father suspect by association because he dealt with them every day. They thought he was hiding messages, running information.”
Kurt sat up and wrapped the towel around his feet, pushing it in between each toe. “I don’t like the bugs crawling in there, makes me paranoid,” he explained, not seeming to mind the bugs near his head. “It was that or some asshole just ratted him out for fun,” he said. “Maybe they said he was a fake Jew. Who knows? When was your father arrested?”
“Five months ago.”
“Only? Mine was arrested right away, like the Japanese. He was cuffed during the raids after Pearl Harbor. Me and my mother and sister just joined him this year when they opened this family camp, but we aren’t repatriating like most of the people here. For obvious reasons. At least the United States knows not to send their Jews to Germany right now to die on arrival.”
“Do you believe what they say is happening to the Jews in Europe?” asked Christian. “That Hitler wants to kill every single one?”
“I believe every word,” said Kurt. He pointed to Emi, who was watching them, but she turned away as soon as Christian looked at her.
“I do, too,” said Christian.
Kurt squinted across the pool again and nudged Christian. “You’ve got happier things to think about. She’s looking at us again. You,” he said, this time nodding subtly in Emi’s direction. “I’m going to go before I have to observe your embarrassment. Tell me later about how your marriage proposal failed.”
Kurt stood up and headed to the German changing room while Christian looked at Emi. She stared back at him and motioned with her head in the direction of the large citrus orchard east of the pool. Christian mouthed the word orchard and she gave a tiny nod, which caused him to jump up fast, leave his only towel on the pavement, and push his way into the changing room as fast as the children coming out of it would let him.
Hoping to get there first, he put on his clothes hastily, threw his wet bathing suit over his shoulder, and started toward the orchard.
He knew that instead of going to the orchard to meet Emi, he should be going home to check on his mother, to sit with her. The day before when he went to see her, she was staring intently at a blank wall, reaching her hand out to it. When he asked her what she was looking at, she’d simply answered, “Lora.” “Let her be,” his father had said, motioning for him to leave again. When they had first arrived, his father had spent many nights at the German beer hall, trying to charm his way to the top of the internment camp heap as if he were still at the River Hills Country Club, but since the baby’s death, he had stayed with Helene. Christian stopped for a moment to look at the sky, thinking of his beautiful, quiet mother.
When he started for the orange trees again, he was immediately stopped in his tracks by a pair of big green eyes, shining in the dark like an animal’s. They belonged to Inge.
“Big kraut!” she said, rushing up to him and throwing her thin arms around his waist. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“Really? I thought I saw you yesterday after school,” said Christian. “Where is your mother?” he asked looking for her.
“Oh yeah,” Inge said smiling, ignoring his last question. She let go of his waist and slipped her hand in his. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you,” he said, watching her happy face cloud over.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not supposed to be going there.”
“Oh good. Can I come too, then?” she asked, jumping up and down, her brown curls springing like a doll’s.
“Absolutely not.”
“You were more fun in Wisconsin,” she said, but kept her hand in his as they stood on the dirt road. Together they listened to the faint sounds of their desolate corner of Texas, so different from the booming noise of the children’s home where they’d met.
“I saw your mother at the hospital,” Inge said finally. “The baby died, so she was crying.”
“You saw her?” asked Christian, surprised.
“My mutter went to visit and I went with her. She told me the baby died and that I should hug your mama tightly.”
“I’m sure she appreciated it,” said Christian, noticing how much happier Inge seemed now that she was with her mother again. Perhaps, he thought, there was some good in pushing families back together in Crystal City before expelling them from the country.
“Oh, she did. She braided my hair for me, too, because it looked messy and I like it to look neat. She cried while she was doing it, but it was a really nice braid, the kind that starts at the very top of your hair. Then I gave her a shoelace to put on the end like a bow.”
“It’s remarkable what we’ve done with shoelaces these past couple months,” said Christian, smiling and thinking about Inge with the shoelace around her neck in Milwaukee. It already felt like so long ago. “The baby was a little girl,” Christian explained. “So I’m sure my mom appreciated you letting her braid your hair.”
“That’s sad. Little girls should never die,” said Inge.
“I agree,” said Christian, starting to worry about the time. He didn’t want Emi to be alone in the orchard. “I have to go, Inge,” he said, putting his other hand on her head. “And you should get home, too.”
She gripped his hand tightly, before finally relenting and giving him a hug.
“Good night then, little kraut,” he said, giving her a push toward her house.
“Good night, big kraut,” she screamed before running away.
Christian hurried to the orchard, which wasn’t fenced in. He slipped easily inside the line of trees and waited by the corner where he could see the swimming pool. He was wiping away the chlorinated water still dripping down the back of his neck when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Emi’s perfect hand.