Emi started to tell her story with Leo, going on about how proud he would be of her right then.
“Fine,” the teenager said, interrupting her. “We won’t come back for a month. When we do, you can come, too,” he said, putting his hand on Emi’s thigh and sliding it down. She rolled her eyes and placed it back on the steering wheel.
“Don’t even think about it, Polish. I’m twenty-three years old,” she said, eyeing him.
“Oh, really?” he said smiling. “My favorite age.”
CHAPTER 30
CHRISTIAN LANGE
AUGUST–DECEMBER 1944
When Jack rolled over and looked at Christian on a hot Hawaii morning, he mumbled, “You look sick, kraut,” and threw him his metal canteen.
Christian opened it, as he was sure his was dry from his night of nursing it, desperate for hydration to counter his alcohol intake and the August heat.
“I’m worse than sick. I’m green,” said Christian, doubling over and putting his feet on the ground of their concrete bunk. “And I’m never going to that slum again,” he said, trying to block out the images of their long night at the Hula Hula. He took a swig from Jack’s canteen and immediately spit the contents on the floor.
“What is this?” he said, smelling the bottle. “Vomit?”
“Whiskey!” said Jack, laughing at Christian’s contorted, pale face. “Or actually,” he said, sitting up, “maybe I did puke in it. I can’t remember. What a night, kraut, what a spectacular night we had at the splendid Hula Hula,” he said with a hip shake. “That place is heaven on earth.”
“Because you slept with a prostitute in a car?” asked Christian, getting up to spit outside.
“Did I?” asked Jack. “That sounds divine, too. I wasn’t thinking of that, kraut. I was referring to our walk on the beach, brother-to-brother, man-to-man. How far we’ve come since the infirmary in Wisconsin.” He laughed and ripped off the white shirt he was wearing. August in Hawaii had inspired Jack to wear as few clothes as he was allowed, his wiry body having gone from Wisconsin white to bronzed or red, depending on the week. “I never thought I’d take a shine to you when you came into the home like a dejected family pet, but you’ve grown on me, kraut.”
Christian had a vague recollection of walking on the beach with Jack in the dark while he sang some sort of schmaltz by Bing Crosby at the top of his lungs and tried to get every girl in their sight line to join them.
“I’m sure it changed my life for the better,” said Christian, the content of Jack’s canteen lingering painfully on his tongue.
“’Course it did!” said Jack. “I should charge you for our conversations. I’ve added a lot to your life, kraut. Even if you can’t see it.”
“Was the car better than the monarchs?” Christian asked, feeling an ache of longing for the simplicity of their days in Milwaukee. Everything there, in one way or the other, was about childhood. Everything in Hawaii was about being a man before your time.
“Nothing will ever be better than the monarchs,” said Jack.
“Poetic,” said Christian, spitting and telling Jack to get him some water before he fainted.
“You are one of the weakest bastards I have ever known,” Jack said, kicking Christian’s foot on his way out the door. “What did your parents do? Let you sleep on a bed of roses in River Hills?”
“Pretty much,” said Christian. He watched Jack as he headed off, his pants rolled up at the ankles, and knew that it would somehow take him an hour to fetch water. En route, he would find a dozen people he had to speak to, and then take a few cigarette breaks before showing up back at the bunk not remembering why he had left in the first place. Christian spent a lot of time waiting for Jack, or being dragged into something he was reluctant to do, like a liquor-fueled night with prostitutes at the Hula Hula. But he knew that without Jack, the nightmares of war would be winning over his sanity, which he’d pulled a little closer in during his R&R months back in Hawaii.
To Christian’s surprise, Jack returned to the bunk after only thirty minutes, his arms full with a large jug of water.
“Is this from the toilet?” Christian asked, pressing his face against the cool glass before knocking it back.
“No, kraut!” said Jack gleefully. “It’s from beautiful waterfalls. The best we have on base. I wouldn’t poison you twice in one day,” he said, reclining on Christian’s bed. “Especially after all your dramatics last night. I really did feel sorry for you when you nearly cried talking about how you still haven’t received a letter from Emi. The intriguing enemy, so pretty, yet so far away.”
“I should cry,” said Christian, not able to eradicate the fear that Emi had never made it to Tokyo, or that if she had, she hadn’t lasted long. “But I’m trying to blame the war. An American’s letters to the enemy nation, the odds aren’t good, right?”
“Kraut, your odds haven’t been good since you got dragged by the ear out of River Hills. But yes,” said Jack, pointing to his watch. They had to be across base in ten minutes and Christian wasn’t dressed yet. “I doubt the Japanese post office is prioritizing mail from lovesick American boys. They’re probably using it as kindling, laughing as your lust goes up in flames.”
“I hope so,” said Christian. “Because if she made it back to Japan only to—”
“Don’t think that way,” said Jack, interrupting him sternly. “Worry about staying alive in the Philippines. You’ve started to break out of your gutless state of terror since we’ve been back on American territory, but I worry about you on Leyte,” he said of the Pacific island they were heading to in two months. “You could snap again.” He threw Christian’s shoes at him and said, “You scared the soul right out of me on Kwajalein. Don’t think about doing it again.” Helping him up, he said, “Come on. Let’s go pretend to pay attention in training drills today. It might keep you alive in October.”
By the time the Seventh was ready to ship out that fall, Christian had gone from thinking the Japanese mail service didn’t deliver letters from boys like him, to believing either that Emi had died, or he had died for her. Not in flesh, but in her memory.
“It doesn’t sound like invented, unrequited mumbo-jumbo to me,” said Jack, a week before they were to leave Hawaii again. “Everything she said to you naked in those orange trees. Plus that letter? She’s not blind to you, kraut,” said Jack. “It’s just the mail service that’s against you. That’s pretty obvious. But you’ve got to get your mind off it—off her—now. This isn’t poetry camp we’re going to.”
“I wish it was,” said Christian, pushing away a plate of pineapple that they were eating at dinner. Pineapple, he had learned, was the Army’s version of meat and potatoes for the boys in the tropics.