“I didn’t say that,” said Christian, his change of tone showing his embarrassment.
“You wouldn’t have wanted to know me a few months ago. When we were in Seagoville, I was the worst version of myself. I was anything but optimistic.” Emi leaned against his shoulder, her thin frame against his broad one, and tilted her head back, exposing the length of perfect skin on her neck. Christian leaned down and kissed it, causing a rush of warmth to shoot from her heart up to her head. It was hard to keep quiet from the joy it brought her.
“Look at the camp lights, they’re almost pretty,” she said in response, trying to calm herself. “Let’s try to imagine they are stadium lights or theater lights. The bright lights of Texas.” She turned to him. “When my father told us we were moving to America, I never thought it would mean this.”
“Of course not,” said Christian.
“I still think about the boat ride over here. I wasn’t convinced I would like America yet, but it was one of the most glamorous experiences of my life. Beautiful cabin, well-dressed women mingling happily on deck. I loved that boat. I’ve done some of my best thinking on the deck of a ship, but especially that particular ship.”
“I think the nice things, the memories, matter even more during war,” said Christian.
“Aren’t you sentimental,” said Emi. “What are you holding on to, then? Besides my hand,” she said, looking down at their fingers, interlaced again, both their nails short and brittle, their skin dry and his sun tanned.
“Well . . . as juvenile as this may sound, I’ve been thinking a lot about how much peace I’ve had at home with my parents all these years,” said Christian, holding her hand tighter. “That I’ve been lucky, because I know so few people have what I’ve had. My mother didn’t. My dad, maybe, but there was a strictness that came with his privilege growing up in Germany. My parents have done a good job giving me more than I need while not sacrificing the time they spent with me. They’ve coddled me too much, I understand that now, but always with good intentions. As a boy, I was practically sewed to my mother’s hand, and she still makes me feel that way. It’s weird, but some of the happiest times I’ve spent with her have been sitting in our kitchen—we have this big kitchen in Wisconsin. Even on rainy days it feels like it’s sunny. Anyway, we didn’t do anything special. It was just a very warm room and my mother always made me feel like it belonged to the two of us.”
“Your poor mother,” said Emi, thinking of the day she’d helped discharge her. “I hope you have that sense of happiness with her again soon. Even if it’s in Germany.”
“Germany. I won’t have any freedom there,” he said flatly, “but we have freedom here. Not real freedom,” he clarified as Emi looked at him questioningly. “But here with you, hiding among the trees, it feels something like freedom.”
“Do we have something?” she asked, her blood going warm again. She looked up at his face, less and less visible as the sky went from dark blue to black, and put her arms around his back. Without letting reason start to hum between her ears, she tilted her head up and kissed him. Caught by surprise, his lips were stiff at first, but in seconds they had relaxed into hers and the kiss turned into the perfect moment she hoped it would. She had kissed him, and he had kissed her back, but soon after that initial touch of flesh, it was him, desperately moving his mouth against hers, holding her firmly, and more confidently than she thought he would. She wanted to write off his age, but she was even younger when she’d first kissed Leo and she’d felt very grown up.
“I don’t know,” he said, his face very close to hers. She could still make out the stubble on his chin, very pale, but there, and the small freckle he had under his right eye. His face, she realized, had become very familiar. He ran his hand across her cheek and said, “Kiss me again so I can see what we have.” Emi, who even in flat shoes was only a few inches shorter than him, tilted her head up and kissed him. “Emi,” said Christian, holding her bare arms, her skin sticky with the evening humidity. “We definitely have something.”
CHAPTER 12
EMI KATO
AUGUST 1943
Emi rolled over in bed, hugging her flat pillow and thinking about the orange orchard and the hours she was spending there with Christian. Night after night, after they finished dinner on their respective sides, they would escape to the trees, lips and bodies against each other as soon as they came together in the dark. Emi flipped over on her back, wearing, against her will, her nice cotton nightgown, far too well made for the Texas heat. When she went to the orchard that first night, thoughts of Leo had accompanied her. They’d promised each other, when they separated in 1939, that they would find a way to be together forever. What was she doing then? Running off after dark with someone else?
But now, when she went to meet Christian, no thought of Leo came with her. Leo who had become a ghost—and perhaps one who no longer needed her.
Maybe it wasn’t right, but she was happy. She was finally happy. Not wholly and completely, like she had been in Vienna—she would never again be that innocent and na?vely in love—but at least she wasn’t always looking over her shoulder, relying on her memories to get through each day. For the first time in four years, the present was more important than the past. Happiness now, guilt later, she told herself as she got out of bed.
Back in the orchard that night, life felt like it was normal again. The new normal. One where danger seemed a little further away and intimacy was unbreakable. So it didn’t surprise Emi when three days later, Christian didn’t just brush her hand in the pool, but grabbed it and pulled it above the water for everyone to see. “I’ve decided it’s time to stop caring about getting into trouble,” he said as she lowered her hand back under the water.
“Really?” she said smiling. “Because you sure are courting it right now.” She was happy that Christian wasn’t ashamed of her, but she was scared that the gossip would get back to her mother, who had yet to say a thing about Christian. Emi assumed she knew, that some in the camp had seen them together and had told her. But Keiko seemed to be erring on the side of discretion, probably thinking more of her daughter’s happiness than her own.
“I have a surprise for you,” Christian said, just above a whisper. “But you have to come to the German side to get it. Meet me by the water tower on Airport Drive. Just past the Japanese market at the usual time.” The usual time didn’t have a number attached to it. It was thirty or so minutes after roll call was completed, when the sun was starting to sink low in the sky.