“You beat me here,” he said, as she had come from farther inside the orchard.
“Of course,” she said, her wet hair tied up tightly on her head. “And you’re loitering by the edge. Not the best idea. The guards patrol here all the time.”
Christian followed her until they were swallowed up by trees. “I’m glad you asked me to come here,” he said, still feeling the warmth of her hand on his shoulder, though she’d moved it as soon as he turned around.
“Did I ask you here for those kinds of reasons?” she said, giving him a half smile. “Or did I just nod my head toward the orchard? Maybe I want you to help me pick oranges.”
“That’s fine,” he said, flushing from embarrassment. He reached up and pulled an orange from the tree, placing it in her hand.
“We’ll see,” she said, pulling off the thick peel. She let the juice run down her hands before putting a piece in her mouth.
“I watched you dive into the pool,” he said as he studied her. “It was perfect, like a knife slicing through the water.”
“Every time I dive in the deep end, I get nervous,” she said. “I can’t help but think about the day Sachiko and Aiko drowned.”
“Who?” asked Christian, not aware that anyone in camp had died before Lora. “People died here?”
“No one tells you much of anything, do they?” Emi said, wiping her sticky hands against Christian’s T-shirt sleeve. “You know that some of the Japanese and Germans here were living in South America. Their countries made an arrangement with the United States to have them deported.”
Christian shook his head yes. His father had explained why a group of the German internees spoke Spanish.
“Right before you came, two Japanese girls from Peru drowned in the deep end of the swimming pool. I saw it happen. Dozens of us did. But no one could get to them in time. The bottom of the pool is so slippery, it just wasn’t possible. We tried to edge over to them while holding the ropes, but we were all too slow. Even the lifeguards.”
“They died right there in front of you?”
Emi nodded. “One of the girl’s mothers tried to kill herself the night it happened, and the other was close to breaking, too. Those mothers are still here. They didn’t even let them go home after that.”
“That’s awful,” said Christian, his mind going back to the image of dead Lora in his mother’s arms. “Who else has died here?”
“They were the only ones to die so far. Besides your mother’s baby. At a camp in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, I was told that a man jumped the fence and they shot and killed him, but that hasn’t happened here, yet. Everyone is aware that trying to escape means death.”
“Is your mother doing better?” Emi asked, reaching up for another orange. She, Christian quickly realized, did not care too much about the camp rules, and as the daughter of someone prominent, she probably had more leeway than the others.
“Not really,” said Christian. “She’s very angry at the driver who hit her, but she’s angrier at America, I think. If we weren’t here, if she hadn’t gotten run over, then Lora—that’s what she named the baby—would still be alive. She keeps saying that to me. What if, what if. And all her what-ifs end with her holding a live baby instead of a dead one.”
“She’s probably right, unfortunately,” said Emi, her voice sympathetic. “The baby would be alive if you all weren’t here. If the Americans weren’t so scared of their own shadows.” She looked at Christian and said, “Not Americans like you.”
“She doesn’t look the same, either,” said Christian. “She’s pale and sick and spends the day staring at nothing. I was terrified to go to Germany when I first heard about it, but am less scared now. My mom needs to get away from this place. She’s already dreaming about Germany, and you know it takes a lot for a person to long for a country fighting a war.”
“Especially because she’s already lived through one,” said Emi.
“That’s strange to think about,” said Christian, realizing that his parents almost never talked about the Great War.
“Japan and Germany fought against each other in the Great War. And now they’re allies. Does a country really go from hate to love in twenty years? I don’t think so. It’s just money, power, expansion by any means necessary, and we all have to sit idly by.”
Christian’s stomach turned at the thought of it. War. They were going to be sailing into war. He, who had up until a few months ago thought hardship was a football game that ended in defeat, a cold winter that you weren’t quite dressed for, or a girl who wasn’t as interested in you as you hoped. Those were the little wars that Christian had waged. Now he was going to be dropped into Nazi Germany. He knew how unprepared he was and that nothing, not even a children’s home and an internment camp, was going to change that.
“And you?” Emi asked, picking up on his anxiety. “Are you ready to go to Germany?”
“Me? Of course not,” said Christian, rolling an orange in his hand. “I’ve heard that Americans who speak German are easy targets. I won’t have to fight for Germany, because I’m American, but the Nazis will probably throw me in prison for that exact reason. That’s what some people are saying, anyway. They worry we’ll be seen as on the wrong side of the war. Or they’ll think we’re spies. Kurt keeps telling me that that’s the most likely scenario, and that they’ll cut off my toes one by one and feed them to me. I’m trying not to believe him. Whatever my fate is though, it’s lose-lose. They hate me here, they’ll hate me there. I can’t think of a corner of the world that would want me, us, the German-Americans, right now. It’s like I want to run somewhere safe but there is no somewhere safe.”
“It might be the same for the Nisei in Japan,” said Emi. “I hope not.”
Christian ran his foot through the dirt and checked over his shoulder to make sure they hadn’t been spotted. It was nearly dark, so he was starting to feel safer. “I’ve only been to Germany three times, so I don’t know my family there well at all. The FBI agents who came to our house accused my mother’s cousin Jutta of being a Nazi. I only remember her looking and smelling like cooked potatoes, but I suppose anyone can change. My father’s family, I don’t know. I assume the Americans did their homework, but maybe they found one Nazi in our family tree and that was enough to arrest us. Maybe my father’s side is littered with them. My dad, he keeps saying that we will live with his family and somehow their lifestyle will shield us from the realities of war, but I don’t believe him. War puts everyone on equal footing.”
“I lived in Austria in 1938,” said Emi. “With my parents. And it wasn’t even war yet, not officially anyway, but it was already horrible. The chaos didn’t put everyone on equal footing. For some it was much worse.”