The War Outside Read online

  “I don’t see your father,” Mama whispers anxiously.

  I scan the crowd, landing on a fence post. A girl sits on it, frizzy blond hair, bony knees balancing a notebook in which she’s recording something. She looks official like a camp employee but too young, close to my age. I should have realized that the German detainees would bring their own children. She scans the crowd, too, gawking at the new arrivals, and her eyes lock on mine for a brief moment before she bows her head and writes something else. I raise my eyebrows in annoyance. I have had too many people with notebooks check me off their lists. Too many noting when we’ve eaten, slept, used the bathroom.

  “Haruko! Haru-chan!”

  It’s my father. My father. I haven’t seen him in five months. My heart jumps before I remember that I’m not sure how I feel about seeing my father now, that the last time I saw him was strange.

  He seems thinner, gray at his temples, standing near one of the other fence posts and waving a handkerchief over his head like a flag. I hear him before my mother and sister do. When he catches my eye, the handkerchief falters and I see something in his face that looks like uncertainty. “Helen,” he tries again. It’s not uncertainty, it’s hopefulness, willing me to look in his direction. Toshiko was right. Only the other popular girls at school called me Helen. My family never did. He is trying so hard. I should be so happy. “Helen, I’m over here.”

  I nudge my mother. “There’s Papa.” My mother’s eyes scramble until she finds him. Then she breaks into a smile and, with my wrist clamped in her hand, she rushes toward the entrance gates, toward the fence.

  The chain-link fence surrounds the camp on all sides. Ten feet tall, topped with barbed wire, and the corners that I can see are occupied by guard towers and soldiers with guns.

  My father didn’t mention this in any of his letters. It must have slipped his mind. Here in Crystal City, Haruko, we have outdoor movies, a tofu factory, and jagged, sharp fences guarded by men who will shoot you if you try to leave.

  It’s funny the things you can leave out. It’s funny the way you can paint a picture that is both completely true and the falsest thing in the world.

  My father doesn’t come out to greet us because he lives inside this fence. He brought us to this fence. And even though I know that I’m supposed to be excited to see him, I can’t help but think that when my mother said, Your sister is not the enemy, what I wanted to ask was, Is my father?

  Suddenly, my left arm wrenches. While my mother is trying to move us forward, Toshiko is pulling my other wrist back, her mouth a wide O of panic.

  “Stop it, Toshi, you’re hurting my arm.”

  “I don’t want to go in.”

  “Don’t be silly, you’ve been talking about it for days.”

  “Now I don’t want to,” she shrieks. I can feel her about to cry.

  “Toshiko, stop it. If you want to see Papa, you have to come this way.”

  My mother is still trying to press us forward. Through the crush of bodies, her hat tips forward; a sprig of blue petals bobbles like it might come loose. I turn back to my sister, who is still a mule in the mud. “I wish we were all home now,” Toshiko says. “I wish we were picking up Papa, and then we were all going home.”

  She’s crying, wet and sniffly, and as she tries to enlace her fingers with mine, I jerk my hand away. Without meaning to, I pull that same hand back and slap her across the face.

  My fingers sting at the contact with Toshi’s soft baby skin. Her mouth falls open and she reaches to where there are four white finger-shaped lines appearing on the side of her face. “Haruko—” she starts, because I’ve never hit her before, and because I did it hard.

  I’m breathing heavily, we both are, and the regret I feel is mixed with a nauseating kind of relief, because slapping my sister feels like the first true thing I have done in months.

  “This is home now,” I tell her, as she gulps back new sobs. I pull out a handkerchief, waiting while she wipes her face. “No more wishing. This is home.”

  TWO

  MARGOT

  August 24, 1944

  Arrivals:

  Women: 44

  Children: 63 (girls—37; boys—26)

  Total arrivals: 107

  New total in Crystal City: 3,368

  ALL THE NEW DETAINEES ARE JAPANESE THIS TIME. I PUT THAT IN MY notebook, too. Total Japanese detainees: 2,371. Total German detainees: 997.

  Within my totals, there are subtotals: German-born prisoners who have come from Costa Rica. Japanese-born prisoners from Peru. America has agreements with those countries, saying that Crystal City will house their enemies of the state in addition to our own. One of these girls has a Betty Boop decal on her handbag, so they must be American.

  I check my notes from the last arrivals. This is the smallest group since I’ve been here. Smaller train? I write. Not enough housing for more people?

  All the new detainees are inside the gate now. The fathers who have already hugged their families proudly introduce them around. One of the camp nurses, in a white uniform, funnels people through the medical tent for vaccinations and exams. Whooping cough. When my group came, fifty-four of us had whooping cough.

  Mr. Mercer, a head taller than anyone else and looking upset, has taken off his suit jacket. There are circles of sweat under the tan of his shirtsleeves. His shoes are dirty. The bus must have broken down.

  Is this shipment smaller because the country is running out of Japanese people to put into camps?

  “Good morning, Margot.”

  I swivel to a man’s voice, shielding my eyes against the sun. Thin lips, dark hair, a little older than my father. He starts to raise his right arm. “He—”

  “Hello, Mr. Kruse,” I interrupt, because I can tell how his greeting was going to end, and I’m still not used to it.

  “Keeping an eye on everything for us?”

  “Staying occupied. School will start soon,” I say, though he probably knows that already. He has a daughter. “There was a delay, I guess, but they finished the buildings.”

  “The German school for you, correct?” When I shrug instead of respond, he raises an eyebrow. “Not the German school?”

  I wonder if I should have nodded. The camp’s chapter of the Bund advised German parents to send their children to the German school instead of the federal school. It’s been published in Das Lager, spread among housewives. But Federal High School will be certified, with American teachers, like every other school in the United States. The German school will use a curriculum the Bund decides is appropriate. Mutti and Vati would never make me go to the German school.

  “Heidi will be disappointed,” he says. “She still talks about you. I’ll send her to visit sometime, if she won’t be a bother.”

  “Of course not, I like Heidi.” She and I came on the same train; she’d been staying with an aunt until her parents sent for her. I helped unwrap her sandwiches; I told her stories about a girl from the Swiss Alps who shared her name.

  Over by the fence, the newly arrived women straighten their children’s collars and smooth down hair. After vaccinations, the next part of orientation is a family portrait. Every family is given one to hang in their Crystal City hut. Nobody ever expects it.

  “What has your father been up to?” Mr. Kruse takes a cigarette out of his breast pocket and lights it, turning his head to blow the smoke away from my face. It’s so hot it’s hard to tell the difference between his cigarette vapors and the wavy lines of heat on the horizon.

  “He keeps busy,” I say neutrally, but his question has put me on alert. “Mutti got permission for a garden but she can’t be on her feet much. Vati’s building planter boxes.”

  Mr. Kruse looks amused. “Spending money on seeds when the US provides food for free? I wouldn’t. Might as well take advantage of this prison. Drain their resources.”

  “Wer rastet, der rostet,” I say automatically.

  Mr. Kruse bursts into laughter. “He who rests does grow rusty. I’m
glad to hear young people speaking German. Listen, have your father come find me. We could use another man at the swimming pool, especially with his training. We never see him at meetings. Tell him that, too. And your mother if she’s up for it.”

  My insides tighten. Now the conversation has officially changed. Mr. Kruse will never see Vati at meetings. One meeting brought us here. He would never go to another. Why did I not just say I was going to the German school? I pretend to look for something in the crowd.

  Straight ahead of me, a shock of bright blue. It’s the flowered hat of a tired mother. She is tucked into a tall man’s arm, and her younger daughter is wrapped around his waist.

  But she has an older daughter, too, lean and pretty and athletic-looking in a lavender dress. The older girl’s shoulder-length hair is pinned back in a style I could never get mine to behave for. She hangs her arms stiffly by her sides, while her father tries to pull her close.

  Don’t be rude. Look away, I tell myself, but I can’t.

  While I watch, a piece of blue falls to the ground: a few of the fabric lilies. They land by the lavender girl’s foot, silky and cool against her dusty shoe. She looks down but doesn’t pick the flowers up. I would. We don’t see beautiful things here. I would pick them up and bury my face in them, the way I used to with flowers on our farm. The girl’s dress isn’t quite the same color as the lilies, but almost. Another cool, beautiful thing dropped in the dust. I swallow.

  The girl’s cheek is now pressed against her father’s sleeve, and a look flashes across her eyes. Something lonely and defiant that her family isn’t meant to see, that nobody is meant to. Only, I am seeing it. The way her muscles tense. How she keeps her weight on her own feet instead of leaning in to her parents. In the middle of this dust, in the middle of these chaotic arrivals, I feel like I am watching a secret.

  I shouldn’t let myself think like this. Not about the girl, not about how much I miss home, not about any of this, so instead I make myself count the lilies on the ground.

  Eight lilies. My lips are so dry. It’s so hot.

  She pulls away from her father, scanning the camp, and stops when she sees me. She’s noticed me staring. My face flushes red and I quickly look down.

  I don’t understand what it would feel like, to finally be reunited with your father and refuse to acknowledge him. On my arrival day, I was sobbing. Vati, too. Only my mother was not, because she was still too hollow to cry. It had been six months since the two of us had seen my father.

  I can’t understand not wanting to hold on to your family and never let go.

  Mr. Mercer has peeled himself away from the crowd, clutching his clipboard, searching for someone until he spots me and decides I will do. “Miss Krukow, isn’t it? Could you do me a favor?” He wipes sweat from his forehead as he approaches, hesitating when Mr. Kruse coughs next to me. “Am I interrupting?”

  “No, you’re not.” I stand and brush off my skirt, relieved that he’s blocking the awkward stare of the lavender girl, relieved to have an excuse to leave my conversation with Mr. Kruse. “I mean, pardon me, Mr. Kruse. I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “It appears we’ve had a bit of trouble with the arrivals,” Mr. Mercer says. “The luggage is stranded, and meanwhile there was an outbreak of nausea. We need a spare set of clothing.”

  “Do you want me to get some from the commissary?”

  He’s already producing paper from his breast pocket and writing something down. “Here’s permission for one skirt and a set of underthings. I think a women’s size medium.”

  When he leaves, I realize I forgot to ask him which commissary. The Japanese have one, the Union Store, and we have another. Ours, the General Store, has cigarettes, dry goods, American soft drinks, and German beers. The Japanese store must have mostly the same things, but I’ve never been inside. I’ve also never been inside one of the Japanese houses, or even on one of the Japanese streets, not after four months here.

  In the German store, I show the clerk Mr. Mercer’s note instead of the cardboard token I would normally use to buy things. They used to hand us clothes, based on sizes we wrote out on slips. Then they decided that shopping would be good for our morale. Now we get choice, but not too much. Curtains, dresses, tablecloths, all sewn from the same few fabrics. When a new pattern comes in, a line forms halfway across camp: women pushing homemade wooden carts, desperate to look at something new, anything new.

  By the time I get back, the lavender girl’s family is gone. The clothing I’ve just purchased is meant for an exhausted young mother. Her skirt has a blotchy stain and a sour odor rising from it. She dabs at it, embarrassed, with a wet towel.

  “Good. Lovely,” Mr. Mercer says, as I hand the woman the brown paper parcel. “Thank you, Margot, I’m sure that Mrs.”—he checks his clipboard—“I’m sure Mrs. Menda will be relieved to be out of her soiled clothes.”

  After he leaves, the woman holds up the skirt I’ve brought her and looks at me.

  “The nurse can probably show you a place to change,” I tell her, realizing too late from her confused expression that she doesn’t speak much English. “The nurse, that way.” I point toward the vaccination tent and keep pointing until the woman heads in that direction.

  “Margot!” a voice says, and my insides curdle a little. I didn’t realize Mr. Kruse was still around. “Did we make sure to be very helpful for the camp director?”

  “It was just a small errand.”

  “Of course. We’re all looking for ways to be useful. You know, I was thinking that if I brought Heidi around for a visit, I might also talk to your father myself about coming to some of our meetings. Do you think that would be a good idea?” He winks. “I’m asking you, because I know if you have a daughter’s ear you have her father’s.”

  A drop of sweat trickles down my inner arm, past the dusty crease of my elbow and the fold of my wrist before falling to the ground. Do I think that would be a good idea?

  I’m not good at this. I’m not good at saying one thing and meaning another, at knowing how much I can disagree with Mr. Kruse, my elder, a man in an elected position.

  “That’s a lot of trouble for you,” I say.

  “It’s no trouble at all. So could you tell him that? That I’ll stop by? Wonderful.”

  And then he clicks his heels together, raising his arm parallel to the ground and poker straight. The gesture makes me sick. Even when it’s not accompanied by words, which, thank God, it’s not. He waits expectantly, but I can’t return the salute. I can’t look at it. I bury my face in my notebook again, hoping I can pretend I didn’t see it.

  “Good day, Margot,” he says.

  “Good day, Mr. Kruse.”

  I stare down until I think he will be gone. Mr. Kruse has that kind of voice, where even when he’s not speaking very loudly, you can hear it from a distance. When I hear it, it always reminds me of the time when Vati took me into the empty grain silo and had me close my eyes and guess where he was, by the sound of his voice. It was a lesson about acoustics, he explained. Curves can amplify sound, making them seem closer than they are.

  Here in Crystal City, I can always hear Mr. Kruse. It doesn’t matter if he’s shouting or whispering. His voice arrives to me like it’s carried on the curved walls of a silo. By now he must be yards and yards away. Still, I can hear his words.

  “Heil Hitler,” he says to every man he passes, the greeting invented to honor a dictator who lives halfway around the world, but who is why we are here.

  “Heil Hitler,” Mr. Kruse says again, but this time it might be amplified in my imagination. Heil Hitler. Heil Hitler. Heil Hitler.

  THREE

  MARGOT

  “BOOKS?” MUTTI ASKS AS I WALK IN THE DOOR. THAT WAS THE original goal when I left two hours ago: checking whether the books we requested came into the camp library.

  “How are you feeling?” I say, pretending it doesn’t drive her crazy to be asked all the time.

  She waves her hand dismissively. �
��Books?” I give her the volume from the top of the stack I’m carrying, Texas Gardening, and she flips through it. “Good news and bad. Good news: Your mother is not batty. No wonder I couldn’t get flowers to grow from the seed packets I bought here. This climate is all wrong.”

  “That’s the bad news?”

  “No, dead flowers are not bad news, just bad luck. The bad news is this confirms that the clerks ordering for the General Store are incompetent boobs. Maybe we should have yards full of spinach instead of trying to grow anything useful, or God forbid, pretty.”

  “I guess that could work—” I start, but Mutti sticks out her tongue.

  “Joking. Don’t be so literal, Margot.” She presses her lips together as she goes through the pile. “Latin, good. Advanced geometry, good. You and Vati mostly taught yourself back at home anyway, right? That’s how you managed to place a year ahead.” At the end of the stack she looks up. “I thought Vati requested a chemistry book.”

  “It didn’t come.”

  “Maybe next shipment.”

  “No, I mean—it’s not coming.”

  It takes her a minute to understand. There’s usually only one reason for books not to come at all. “Well. You didn’t want to be a chemist anyway, did you?”

  I shake my head.

  She tilts her head and looks at me. “Are you excited about school?”

  This time I nod, but too slowly and my mother notices.

  “It will be fine.” She sets the pile firmly on the table. “At home, they were intimidated. Because you were more advanced. And too serious. That’s why you didn’t have many friends—here it won’t matter. Everyone’s new, everyone will have better things to worry abo—”

  Suddenly, my mother pulls a handkerchief from her dress pocket, pressing it against her mouth.

  “How are you feeling?”

  The moment passes and she swallows. “More morning sickness. Which is actually evening sickness and afternoon sickness, too, as it happens. With you, I was vomiting all over the place. Remember Mrs. Loeb at church? Every week I would smell her perfume and, blech.”