The Diplomat’s Daughter Read online

CHRISTIAN LANGE

  JUNE 1943

  When the calendar flipped to June, a heat wave engulfed the camp that astonished even the Japanese from Southern California. It made life behind fences even harder to bear, with the only relief being the swimming pool, and that became so crowded after school and work hours that it was often body-to-body.

  The next time Christian saw Emi was on a day like that. He had started to go to the pool every night after the evening roll call, but he never saw her and instead had to pretend to be reading the German books assigned to him in school. On his fourth visit, in mid-June, she was there, too.

  He had almost given up looking for her and was about to jump in the water when she walked out of the Japanese changing room wearing a navy blue bathing suit. Her long, thin legs, her small breasts, her straight, athletically built torso, and the balletic grace with which she carried it all turned heads as she eyed the deep end, but she looked at no one in particular. She bent over, her long hair sweeping down her shoulder, and dropped her towel before diving cleanly into the pool.

  Christian could see her hair flowing behind her as she swam underwater, the German and Japanese children in the pool parting for her, something they never did for him. At the end of the pool, despite the fact that it was a circle instead of a rectangle, she executed a precise flip turn and swam back to the other side. She only made it halfway before she had to come up for air. Inhaling deeply, she pushed her hair out of her face and took it around to one shoulder, finally letting Christian inspect her back, her vertebrae showing when she arched. He imagined running his hand down her spine, pushing away water droplets until they evaporated from the heat on her very pale skin. He thought about what she would smell like when he first leaned over her, the way her arms would feel as he pulled her close to him, what she would think when she first felt his lips on her skin. He imagined her eyes closed, her body smelling of chlorine and the sweat that came from the eternal summer days of Texas.

  When she got out of the pool after readjusting her suit, he badly wanted to follow her, to sit near her, but none of the older Germans sat near the Japanese, so he stayed put at the rear of the pool’s thin concrete surround, his eyes fixed on her despite the sun’s glare in his face.

  Suddenly, he felt a wet slap against his back.

  “Hey, Lange. You got a crush on someone? That Jap over there? Sure looks that way to me,” said Kurt, coming around from behind him.

  Christian looked up to see Kurt in his bathing suit, his skin still a pink-tinted white. He was pudgy in all the wrong places, but his cheerful, pleasant face made it easier to forgive his ample midsection. He took out a glass bottle of water and drank a few swallows before pouring the rest on top of his head and shaking it out like a dog, spraying Christian.

  “You’re the kind of person that says ‘Jap’?” Christian asked as Kurt arranged himself on his towel.

  “Nah, I just wanted to piss you off. Because you have a crush on that Jap. You should see your face.”

  “I definitely do,” said Christian, lying down again. “Have a crush on that Japanese girl. Know anything about her?”

  “I know she’s a rich kid,” said Kurt with his eyes closed against the sun. “Real high-class. Her dad is a diplomat or a general or something. I also know you’re not the only one to have a crush on her—on the Japanese or German side—and that she’s what . . . twenty? Twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “Fine. Twenty-one. Well, that means she’s not going to want anything to do with an American kid like you. Look at all those eyes on her. You should give up now. There are plenty of girls at the high school who are in love with you.”

  “Are there?” Christian asked, surprised.

  “Sure there are. Are you really that stupid or are you just being humble?”

  Christian shrugged, still looking at Emi.

  “You’re just bad at reading women,” said Kurt. “Lucky for you, I have a gift for it. Now things aren’t great for me because I’m in fourth-grade Deutsch, but who am I not to help out my fellow man, especially my interned fellow man of pure German stock? But that one,” he said, raising his head and looking at Emi, “is not in your orbit. Plus, they separate the sides for a reason. I bet O’Rourke will come running if you try something with a Japanese girl. Mixed-race anything is mighty illegal in Texas.”

  “There are mixed-race people here,” said Christian.

  “Then they are illegal,” said Kurt. “Texas probably doesn’t even acknowledge them as human beings.”

  They watched Emi as she dove into the water again, this time making it down the pool and back without coming up for air.

  “I forgot to say before, but I’m real sorry about your mom,” Kurt said when Emi had climbed out of the pool again, silently greeted by her coterie of Japanese admirers. “Real bad luck.”

  “Is that what it is?” asked Christian, still watching Emi.

  Kurt shrugged and tried to kick a passing lizard. He kicked the concrete instead, making his toe bleed. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

  Christian nodded his thanks and they watched the kids playing in the deep end; the youngest seemed to have forgotten that they were fenced in, simply enjoying being in cool water on a hot summer afternoon.

  “Maybe it’s easier to be here if you’re young,” said Kurt. “But at our age? Have you ever been more bored? Now you’ve got your crush to amuse you, but even that’s not enough, is it? I want to drive a car. Run on the road. Go to a school where I’m in eleventh grade. For Christ’s sake, I’m in a German class full of nine-year-olds. Can you imagine? I want to be in a class where I can stare at pretty girls. Instead, all I daydream about is jumping that fence and running as fast as I can from this place.”

  “They’d kill you,” said Christian flatly.

  “That doesn’t happen in my dream. Instead I sprint right out of town like Jesse Owens, I’m never caught, and I’m hailed a hero. Also, there’s a girl out there waiting for me. An innocent American of pure Irish origin who doesn’t even know about these camps and would never think that a dashing fellow like myself could find himself trapped like cattle.”

  “Instead you are hailed a hero by Herr Beringer and his dishrags,” said Christian. “I’ve seen how many bottles you can get through in four hours. You’re the Jesse Owens of dishwashing.”

  “Lucky me,” said Kurt, rolling onto his well-padded stomach, his cheek on the rough concrete.

  “We all need a skill,” said Christian. “At least tomorrow’s Saturday. I need the weekend to figure out how to get Emi Kato to fall in love with me. You can help me brainstorm at work.”

  “No, I won’t be there tomorrow,” Kurt mumbled, his mouth half-open. “I don’t work for Herr Beringer on Saturday. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Don’t you?” said Christian, thinking back. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m Jewish,” Kurt said, his eyes closed. “Beringer lets me work Sunday instead.”

  “What?” said Christian, sitting up. “You’re Jewish?”

  “Yeah,” Kurt said. “And I’m the kind of Jew that doesn’t work on Saturday. Is that a problem?”

  “Of course not,” Christian replied. “I’m just wondering why someone Jewish would be stuck here with us. I thought they were imprisoning us to protect the rest of the Americans, especially the Jews.”

  “Bad luck is why I’m in here,” said Kurt, seemingly appeased. He closed his eyes. “Like everyone else. Well, most everyone else. There are definitely a few Nazis among us, but I try to stay far away from them.”

  “Yeah, you don’t have to be Jewish to know that.”

  “And what about you? Why did the feds flag the picture-perfect Lange clan?” asked Kurt. “Too good-looking and successful?”

  “Haven’t I told you already?” asked Christian. “My dad’s vice president ratted us out, I’m sure of it. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. He’s probably praying that we die here or that we all get blown apart in Germany,
then the whole thing can be his. Greedy ass. But you’re the Jew. Your story has to be more interesting.”

  “The beginning, you can probably guess,” said Kurt. “My father came to America to escape the anti-Semitism in Germany—it was already getting worse in the twenties—and then in ’42 he gets arrested here for suspected Nazi activity. Him. Who was raised Orthodox. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so depressing.”

  “What was he doing that got him arrested? I know those FBI agents are stupid, but that’s a whole new level.”

  “From what I know it was just fear. And that canceled out reason,” said Kurt, propping himself up on his elbow. “My dad was a math teacher in Germany but he couldn’t find work in the United States. He looked for almost a year while we lived with his sister above a laundromat in Queens—two bedrooms for six people and a kitchen that always smelled like burning rubber—but nothing. So he took a job delivering newspapers to the German-speaking community in New York. Not great pay, but steady. We moved into our own place at least. Then war broke out, and I guess some of those Germans he was delivering the paper to were FBI suspects, which made my father suspect by association because he dealt with them every day. They thought he was hiding messages, running information.”

  Kurt sat up and wrapped the towel around his feet, pushing it in between each toe. “I don’t like the bugs crawling in there, makes me paranoid,” he explained, not seeming to mind the bugs near his head. “It was that or some asshole just ratted him out for fun,” he said. “Maybe they said he was a fake Jew. Who knows? When was your father arrested?”

  “Five months ago.”

  “Only? Mine was arrested right away, like the Japanese. He was cuffed during the raids after Pearl Harbor. Me and my mother and sister just joined him this year when they opened this family camp, but we aren’t repatriating like most of the people here. For obvious reasons. At least the United States knows not to send their Jews to Germany right now to die on arrival.”

  “Do you believe what they say is happening to the Jews in Europe?” asked Christian. “That Hitler wants to kill every single one?”

  “I believe every word,” said Kurt. He pointed to Emi, who was watching them, but she turned away as soon as Christian looked at her.

  “I do, too,” said Christian.

  Kurt squinted across the pool again and nudged Christian. “You’ve got happier things to think about. She’s looking at us again. You,” he said, this time nodding subtly in Emi’s direction. “I’m going to go before I have to observe your embarrassment. Tell me later about how your marriage proposal failed.”

  Kurt stood up and headed to the German changing room while Christian looked at Emi. She stared back at him and motioned with her head in the direction of the large citrus orchard east of the pool. Christian mouthed the word orchard and she gave a tiny nod, which caused him to jump up fast, leave his only towel on the pavement, and push his way into the changing room as fast as the children coming out of it would let him.

  Hoping to get there first, he put on his clothes hastily, threw his wet bathing suit over his shoulder, and started toward the orchard.

  He knew that instead of going to the orchard to meet Emi, he should be going home to check on his mother, to sit with her. The day before when he went to see her, she was staring intently at a blank wall, reaching her hand out to it. When he asked her what she was looking at, she’d simply answered, “Lora.” “Let her be,” his father had said, motioning for him to leave again. When they had first arrived, his father had spent many nights at the German beer hall, trying to charm his way to the top of the internment camp heap as if he were still at the River Hills Country Club, but since the baby’s death, he had stayed with Helene. Christian stopped for a moment to look at the sky, thinking of his beautiful, quiet mother.

  When he started for the orange trees again, he was immediately stopped in his tracks by a pair of big green eyes, shining in the dark like an animal’s. They belonged to Inge.

  “Big kraut!” she said, rushing up to him and throwing her thin arms around his waist. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

  “Really? I thought I saw you yesterday after school,” said Christian. “Where is your mother?” he asked looking for her.

  “Oh yeah,” Inge said smiling, ignoring his last question. She let go of his waist and slipped her hand in his. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I can’t tell you,” he said, watching her happy face cloud over.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not supposed to be going there.”

  “Oh good. Can I come too, then?” she asked, jumping up and down, her brown curls springing like a doll’s.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You were more fun in Wisconsin,” she said, but kept her hand in his as they stood on the dirt road. Together they listened to the faint sounds of their desolate corner of Texas, so different from the booming noise of the children’s home where they’d met.

  “I saw your mother at the hospital,” Inge said finally. “The baby died, so she was crying.”

  “You saw her?” asked Christian, surprised.

  “My mutter went to visit and I went with her. She told me the baby died and that I should hug your mama tightly.”

  “I’m sure she appreciated it,” said Christian, noticing how much happier Inge seemed now that she was with her mother again. Perhaps, he thought, there was some good in pushing families back together in Crystal City before expelling them from the country.

  “Oh, she did. She braided my hair for me, too, because it looked messy and I like it to look neat. She cried while she was doing it, but it was a really nice braid, the kind that starts at the very top of your hair. Then I gave her a shoelace to put on the end like a bow.”

  “It’s remarkable what we’ve done with shoelaces these past couple months,” said Christian, smiling and thinking about Inge with the shoelace around her neck in Milwaukee. It already felt like so long ago. “The baby was a little girl,” Christian explained. “So I’m sure my mom appreciated you letting her braid your hair.”

  “That’s sad. Little girls should never die,” said Inge.

  “I agree,” said Christian, starting to worry about the time. He didn’t want Emi to be alone in the orchard. “I have to go, Inge,” he said, putting his other hand on her head. “And you should get home, too.”

  She gripped his hand tightly, before finally relenting and giving him a hug.

  “Good night then, little kraut,” he said, giving her a push toward her house.

  “Good night, big kraut,” she screamed before running away.

  Christian hurried to the orchard, which wasn’t fenced in. He slipped easily inside the line of trees and waited by the corner where he could see the swimming pool. He was wiping away the chlorinated water still dripping down the back of his neck when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Emi’s perfect hand.

  “You beat me here,” he said, as she had come from farther inside the orchard.

  “Of course,” she said, her wet hair tied up tightly on her head. “And you’re loitering by the edge. Not the best idea. The guards patrol here all the time.”

  Christian followed her until they were swallowed up by trees. “I’m glad you asked me to come here,” he said, still feeling the warmth of her hand on his shoulder, though she’d moved it as soon as he turned around.

  “Did I ask you here for those kinds of reasons?” she said, giving him a half smile. “Or did I just nod my head toward the orchard? Maybe I want you to help me pick oranges.”

  “That’s fine,” he said, flushing from embarrassment. He reached up and pulled an orange from the tree, placing it in her hand.

  “We’ll see,” she said, pulling off the thick peel. She let the juice run down her hands before putting a piece in her mouth.

  “I watched you dive into the pool,” he said as he studied her. “It was perfect, like a knife slicing through the water.”

  “Every tim
e I dive in the deep end, I get nervous,” she said. “I can’t help but think about the day Sachiko and Aiko drowned.”

  “Who?” asked Christian, not aware that anyone in camp had died before Lora. “People died here?”

  “No one tells you much of anything, do they?” Emi said, wiping her sticky hands against Christian’s T-shirt sleeve. “You know that some of the Japanese and Germans here were living in South America. Their countries made an arrangement with the United States to have them deported.”

  Christian shook his head yes. His father had explained why a group of the German internees spoke Spanish.

  “Right before you came, two Japanese girls from Peru drowned in the deep end of the swimming pool. I saw it happen. Dozens of us did. But no one could get to them in time. The bottom of the pool is so slippery, it just wasn’t possible. We tried to edge over to them while holding the ropes, but we were all too slow. Even the lifeguards.”

  “They died right there in front of you?”

  Emi nodded. “One of the girl’s mothers tried to kill herself the night it happened, and the other was close to breaking, too. Those mothers are still here. They didn’t even let them go home after that.”

  “That’s awful,” said Christian, his mind going back to the image of dead Lora in his mother’s arms. “Who else has died here?”

  “They were the only ones to die so far. Besides your mother’s baby. At a camp in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, I was told that a man jumped the fence and they shot and killed him, but that hasn’t happened here, yet. Everyone is aware that trying to escape means death.”

  “Is your mother doing better?” Emi asked, reaching up for another orange. She, Christian quickly realized, did not care too much about the camp rules, and as the daughter of someone prominent, she probably had more leeway than the others.

  “Not really,” said Christian. “She’s very angry at the driver who hit her, but she’s angrier at America, I think. If we weren’t here, if she hadn’t gotten run over, then Lora—that’s what she named the baby—would still be alive. She keeps saying that to me. What if, what if. And all her what-ifs end with her holding a live baby instead of a dead one.”