Christian was about to respond when they saw a beam of light circling the watchtower nearest to the orchard, on the edge of the north fence.
“Time to go,” said Emi, moving quickly toward the southern boundary with Christian behind her. “Let’s wait until the light passes again and then run toward the pool.”
“You go there. I’ll make it home,” said Christian. He reached for her hand and she let hers rest inside his. He waited another moment to gauge her reaction and brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it.
“Let’s watch each other swim again tomorrow,” he whispered.
“I can’t speak to you there,” she replied, bringing her face closer. “You know people will talk.”
“I know. Let’s meet underwater then. Where no one can see us. You swim one way, and I’ll swim the other, and for just a few seconds, we’ll meet in the middle.”
Emi smiled. “Okay. Tomorrow evening. Head to the pool right after roll call.” She squeezed his hand just as the light shined over their feet and then they both took off running.
CHAPTER 11
EMI KATO
JUNE 1943
For the next week, Emi and Christian met underwater every evening. Emi would do her flawless dive into the pool, with her legs pin-straight and her toes pointed, and then she’d swim four lengths. When she did her second flip turn, Christian would jump sloppily in on his side before doing a messy breaststroke toward her. Their eyes open, they’d watch each other approach, then brush hands quickly under the water, making it look like an accidental touch in a crowded pool. Then Emi would swim through the groups of laughing children, gliding through with very little splash, before getting out to lie on her brown towel, bleached in so many places that it looked polka-dotted, and watch the sun melt over them, their orange and pink painting.
After seven days of touching hands in the pool, without any mention of them meeting again in the orchard, Emi decided it was time she bring it up.
She had wanted to see him again, alone, since the night he kissed her hand under the orange trees, but her longing for Leo kept her from doing anything more than brushing Christian’s fingers in the pool. It was June 1943 and she had not had a letter from Leo since December 1941. The lack of any communication with Leo had made her so much lonelier and the camps even harder to bear.
And now, there was Christian. He had come into her life at a time when her depression had started to feel permanent. There he was, standing in the hospital with his movie star looks and raw desperation over his mother and dead sister. He had looked at Emi in a way that made her blood go warmer, just like it used to with Leo. She realized she was desperate for companionship, and for the feeling of being wanted, rather than all the hate and apathy she’d been surrounded with since Pearl Harbor. Really, since they’d come to America.
The next time they were at the pool together, nine days since meeting in the orchard, Emi pushed her thoughts of Leo away and motioned to Christian as subtly as she could. She pulled her wet hair over her right shoulder, wrung it out, and stared at Christian until he turned and looked at her. She mouthed orchard, like he had done the first time they’d gone, and made the outline of an orange with her hand. She quickly flashed nine fingers and then put her hands behind her back, lying back down on her towel, propped up only high enough to see Christian’s reaction. He looked up at the clock near the bathhouse, which read seven thirty, then nodded yes and left the pool. She watched him go, his tall, tan body bathed so perfectly in an American summer. She wished that she were observing him somewhere else, on a beautiful beach or a neighborhood pool without curfews and patrols.
She breathed in deeply. Somewhere in the camp, something was burning. It smelled like smoke in winter, refreshingly out of season. She inhaled again, thinking of how fresh the air used to smell in Europe when it was cold. Stale and old. The best air in the world.
There was something different about that night. Something was going to happen, something more than touching hands in the pool. The fire in her nose felt like it matched the rest of her. It was desire—she admitted to herself as she breathed slowly in and out, transported by the smell of burning—the kind of physical craving that could stamp out misery in any circumstance.
After the darkness started to take over, and it was almost nine, Emi got dressed slowly and walked carefully toward the orchard, feeling like someone young and beautiful for the first time in so long.
Alone, in their corner, Emi waited for Christian, sitting on the ground in one of the homemade camp dresses with seams that looked as if they had been stitched by knitting needles, her back against an orange tree. She smiled when she heard him coming, and was very aware of how her pulse had quickened. When he was in view, a small flashlight in his hand, he extended his other hand, calloused from his hours of dishwashing, to help her up.
“Are you looking at this ugly dress?” she said, as his light shined on it. “I used to wear my nice clothes when I got here, but I realized there was no point. I might as well save them for when I return to Japan, since I doubt I’ll have anything new for a long while. My father has informed me that I won’t need my nice clothes there, but at the very least, maybe I can sell them. So for now, this.” She looked down at her dress, the outline of her body just visible in the lamplight. She had lost ten pounds the month after she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, but working at the camp hospital was helping her gain it back. Being on her feet all day was building muscle and she was finally feeling strong again.
Christian started to protest about her dress, but she hushed him.
“One day we’re going to get in trouble for being here. It’s more a matter of when than if. But let’s just keep enjoying it until we do. It’s invigorating to be doing something a little risky, don’t you think?”
Christian took a step closer, keeping the flashlight angled down toward the ground, making sure the guards could not see the light.
“Even if you’d said we’re going to get shot instead of we’re going to get caught, I don’t think I could stop coming here with you,” said Christian. “Not after these past few days spent underwater.”
“Really?” Emi said, playfully. She knew from the first time she walked to the pool with Christian that he might fall in love with her. It was like Leo. She could tell that her differences were interesting to him, even pretty.
“Touching my hand was enough to make you fall in love with me?” she said, reaching out for his hand, which he gave her eagerly.