The Other Half of Life (4 page)

Priska looked at the sky. “
Night is the other half of life, and the better half
. That's from Goethe too—
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Have you read Goethe, or do you just memorize certain parts for your father?”

“I've read plenty but I don't love it like my father does. He was writing a study on Goethe before the
Reichs-kulturkammer
put an end to any Jew publishing a book. Marianne is named after the actress Wilhelm Meister falls in love with. My father wanted to name me Gretchen—”

“From
Faust
,” Thomas said. He had to acknowledge
that the name might suit her. Gretchen was the one woman whose beauty Faust would sell his soul to the devil for.

Priska nodded. “Thankfully, Mutti insisted I be named after her favorite aunt and not a woman who kills her illegitimate child, goes insane, and is condemned to death! My favorite books are
Gone with the Wind and The Good Earth
. Here my father is a professor of German literature and I love American books!” Priska looked up at the moon again. “By the way, what are
you
doing on deck so late at night?”

Thomas shrugged. “Couldn't sleep.”

“And you don't have anyone to worry if you're not in bed.”

Thomas looked away. He was well aware he didn't have anyone to care for him, but hearing it so plainly stung nonetheless.

“I just mean it was easy for you,” she said quickly. “I had to wait until Marianne was asleep and then tiptoe out. Luckily she sleeps like she eats, like an elephant.” When Thomas didn't reply, she asked, “Did you like having dinner with us?”

“It was very nice of you to invite me,” he answered. He didn't think he could tell her that being with her family made him miss his own even more.

Priska blinked but she continued to hold his gaze. The wind blew her hair around her face. “I can't wait till the pool is up, can you?”

He paused before asking, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Be so happy all the time.”

Priska glanced at the sky. The moon had slipped behind a cloud. “I guess …,” she began, but Thomas heard voices and he stopped listening to her. He turned his head toward the voices so she would understand that he was trying to listen in.

A man asked, “How many ships?”

“What is it?” Priska whispered to Thomas.

“Shh,” he told her.

Another man answered the first. “Two. They both left at about the same time we did, but they're smaller and faster. If they get there first, the quotas for Cuba might be full and then who knows what will happen. We'll likely be stuck dragging these Jews back to Germany.”

Thomas heard footsteps coming toward them. He took Priska's hand and pulled her behind a ventilation shaft. The men walked by. He recognized one of them as Kurt, the officer who had tried to keep him off the first-class deck.

“This is no ordinary tourist cruise, that's for sure,” the other officer said to Kurt. He was dressed in the same Nazi Party uniform as Kurt.

“Not when we're asked to treat swine like royalty,” Kurt answered. “I don't care what the captain says, it'll be quite a feat if I can keep looking at them without spitting.”

Thomas glanced at Priska; her face looked pinched,
as if she were wincing. He was almost glad to overhear their talk. It confirmed what he had known from the start—that they were on a ship with a crew composed of their greatest enemies and that arriving safely in Cuba was not a guarantee.

The men continued across the deck, their voices fading. Thomas realized he hadn't let go of Priska's hand. He quickly released it.

“See,” he whispered. “Everyone acts like we're in the clear. But you heard them, you heard what they said.”

“So they don't like us,” she replied. “After we dock in Cuba, we won't ever have to see them or another Nazi again.”

Certain that the men were gone, Thomas came out from behind the ventilation shaft, and Priska followed him. “What I don't understand is why the charade? Why not just treat us like they did back home?”

Priska pushed her hair back from her face. “Vati says it's the captain's orders. He heard that the captain doesn't believe in any of the laws and as long as it's his ship, he won't have us treated differently than any other passenger. Vati says he isn't even a Party member.”

Thomas clucked, still unconvinced. “I think I'd rather be treated poorly—then I'd know where I stand. And now there are two other ships. Like those men said, what if we get to Cuba and they're over the quota numbers?”

The moon had peeked back out, and it shed enough
light for Thomas to see Priska's hair bounce as the wind blew it against her shoulders. Even her curly hair seemed carefree, not like his mother's heavy, straight hair.

“Other ships are going the same way. I don't see why that's a problem,” she said. “We have landing permits. That means we are
permitted
to land. We don't need to be worried about quotas anymore.”

Thomas remembered how his mother and father had worried constantly about quota numbers. They spent hours discussing how many Jews every conceivable country, from Switzerland to Spain to South Africa, would possibly take.

Thomas sighed. “If it's not a problem, then why were they talking about it?”

“I don't know.”

“Right,” Thomas said, “you
don't
know.”

T
homas was determined to learn his way around the ship, to etch a permanent map of it in his mind. He imagined someday drawing it out for his mother or father to see. He knew this was just a fantasy, that it would likely never happen, but he let himself imagine it anyway. He walked from bow to stern, from starboard to port, from lower deck to upper. He found out that the first-class cabins were closest to sea level— and also farthest, he noted, from the droning of the engine. The best rooms opened straight onto the deck. Thomas passed men and women taking their daily constitutional or relaxing in lounge chairs. A man whizzed by on roller skates, nearly knocking Thomas over. At the stern was the smoking room, where mostly men chatted over coffee and played cards. Everyone on the ship seemed busy doing something normal—no one
seemed concerned with whether they would make it to Cuba.

On the sports deck, Thomas saw a group playing shuffleboard.

“Thomas!”

He heard his name and lifted his head, coming out of his own thoughts. It was Priska, shuffleboard cue in one hand, waving to him.

He had just assumed that after he had been short with her the night before, she would have decided that he wouldn't be a good friend. But there she was, waving like he had never snapped at her in the first place.

He walked over and stood with a few of the other players. “Your turn,” said the girl Priska was playing with. She had brown hair and her face was covered in freckles. Before Priska took her shot, the girl whispered something in her ear that made Priska laugh and shout, “Oh, Ingrid!”

Thomas was content to watch, but a boy who looked about his own age said, “We're playing teams next. You can be on my team if you want.”

“I don't play,” Thomas said. He wondered how they could have formed what seemed like a tight-knit group in just over a day.

“You mean you don't know how?” the boy asked. “It's not hard.”

Priska pushed the disk with the cue. The disk landed in
one of the marked boxes and the boy called out, “That's ten points off!” He turned back to Thomas and explained, “That's the only one you don't want to get it in.” He wiped his hand on his pants and then offered it to Thomas. “My name's Günther.”

“Thomas.”

“Nice to meet you.” He smiled, revealing small, straight teeth. His hair was thick, which made his skullcap sit funny on top of his head.

In the next round of the game, Priska landed in a high-point triangle. Marianne clapped. She stood on the side with another young girl Thomas soon learned was Hannelore. Both girls wore short pants with socks pulled up to their knees. Ingrid knocked Priska's disk out of the triangle with her turn. “Sorry,” Ingrid said, grinning.

Priska tossed her head and stuck out her tongue at Ingrid. The match continued. By the end, Priska had won.

“Now it's boys against girls,” Priska announced, looking at Thomas.

“You sure you won't play?” Günther asked Thomas. “It's easy to catch on.”

“No thank you,” Thomas replied.

“Come on,” Priska cajoled.

Thomas shook his head and Priska stuck out her lips in an exaggerated pout. A part of him did want to join in. A part of him wanted to laugh with them, to not care about whether he knew how to play or not. It was as if chess had
ruined him for casual games in a way. He took everything too seriously.

“Well, it's me and Jakob, then,” Günther said.

Ingrid's younger brother's face lit up and he went to join Günther.

On the first round Günther landed in a high-point triangle, and then Priska sent the disk flying past in the hope of knocking him out of the way.

“She was out to get you, Günther,” Ingrid said.

Manfred came by and must have witnessed the shot, because he called to Priska, “You need a lesson!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him.

Priska shrugged. “It's fun like this.”

“But it'll be more fun if you knock all the boys out of the way.” He moved onto the court. “You need to push more from your body, not just use your arm.” He stepped toward her. “May I?”

Without waiting for an answer, he took the cue.

Günther eased off to the side. Ingrid followed. Moments before, Ingrid had been giggling, but now her face was serious. Marianne and Hannelore stood quietly on the side too.

Manfred demonstrated how to use more body than arm strength, knocking Günther's disk on the first try. Thomas wanted to tell Manfred he was doing nothing but ruining what had been a fun game. Manfred placed the cue back in
Priska's hands. Then he put his hands on her waist. Heat rose up Thomas's neck. He thought of the way the waiter's eyes had traveled to Priska's chest and lingered there. He too would surely have loved any excuse to touch her. Thomas hated how the Nazis could touch and take whatever they wanted.

“Like this,” Manfred said. “Turn your shoulders to face where you want to send the disk. Yes, good. Now pick up your eyes from the disk and use your body to push ….”

“Oh, I see,” Priska replied, offering what Thomas hoped was a fake smile. She stood upright and stiff. “Thank you.”

“You'll be winning in no time, showing all these boys who's in charge!”

He stepped back and the playing tentatively resumed. But still no one smiled or joked.

Thomas expected Manfred to leave but instead he came over and stood next to him. There was that heat again— Thomas wondered if his face was as red as it felt. The foot of space between them seemed much too little, but before Thomas could move away, Manfred came even closer. He elbowed Thomas gently. It would have been a harmless, chummy gesture among friends. But to Thomas it felt like a subtle statement of power—only Manfred could elbow Thomas. Thomas could never have elbowed Manfred.

Manfred said in a quiet voice, “She's very beautiful, isn't she?”

Thomas followed Manfred's gaze to Priska. He swallowed, trying to tame his anger. He remembered a knock at the door of the print shop, a Nazi officer questioning his mother, looking her up and down. Thomas had watched, knowing his father, who was hiding in the back room, would risk his life if he came out. Thomas often wondered what would have happened if the officer had tried to do anything to his mother. Would Thomas have moved to stop him? Would his father have come out, no matter what the consequences?

Thomas looked up to see a man wearing a Nazi uniform coming toward them. He was tall and heavy-set, with a stubby nose and dark rings under his eyes. He limped ever so slightly and walked with a cane. Thomas thought it strange that a Party officer who used a cane would be on board a ship. Didn't you need legs of steel?

The man stopped and saluted Manfred. “
Heil Hitler
. Is everything all right here?”

Manfred straightened. “Yes, sir.”

The man hesitated a few moments before leaving. Soon after, Manfred nodded at Priska and the rest of the group.

“Well, enjoy yourself,” he said, and headed off.