The Other Half of Life (5 page)

Bothered again by the ship's vibration and Herr Kleist's snoring, Thomas went back to the upper deck that night. He was grateful for the fresh air and relative quiet. If the
ventilation shafts on the top deck actually fed fresh air to the lower decks, it most certainly didn't reach Thomas's cabin. He breathed deeply, clearing his head.

People came and went: a couple holding hands, a group of young men, including Thomas's bunkmates Oskar and Elias. The night before they had come to bed long after the deck lights were extinguished, smelling of cigarettes and alcohol. Even once they were in their bunks, they talked in passionate yet hushed voices about Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. They spoke of Luxemburg's last words before she was executed for being a founding member of the Communist Party, how she had predicted that the masses would indeed bring a revolution to Germany. Thomas had lain awake listening, reminded of the many nights he'd listened to his parents and their friends in heated discussion. Sometimes they had argued about how best to fight Hitler's regime. Someone would speak up in favor of a plan for sabotage or inform them of rumors of a
putsch
against Hitler, but Thomas's father always said they could never overthrow the Nazi Party without help from outside forces.

At every noise Thomas hoped he'd look up to find Priska. But why should she come up to the top deck again? They had made no promises to meet. He hadn't even been particularly nice to her. Thomas scratched at the top wooden rail. The wood was almost spongy. From the outside the ship had looked flawless, but up close he saw that
the salty air took its toll. He had just about given up on Priska and was considering going back to his cabin when he saw her walking toward him.

“I was wondering if I'd find you up here again tonight,” she said.

She joined him by the railing and looked down at the sea. “I asked my father about the other ships. He said it shouldn't be a problem, but I could tell it made him nervous. When he's nervous, he never looks me in the eye. He just doesn't want me to worry. Have you heard anything else?”

“No, it's been quiet up here. If we really want to find out anything, we have to go looking.”

Priska drew back from the railing. “All right. Where do we look?”

He hadn't really meant for her to join him, and he hadn't even been serious about investigating at all, but now he felt compelled. And at her words a shot of adrenaline rushed through him, like when his mother and father would talk of an operation. After his parents gathered information, they figured out ways to get it to government officials in other countries whom they had managed to contact. They usually asked someone who was new to the group to carry the information. That way, if the person was caught and tortured, he or she would have only so much knowledge to reveal. Thomas had always wished he could take part. He imagined elaborate scenarios where they would need a kid to go where adults couldn't.

Thomas said to Priska, “We would need to go where the crew are. They're the ones who will know about the other ships.”

“Maybe the dining room,” Priska suggested. “They'll be cleaning up.”

“We can try it for a start.”

The last guests were trailing out of the dining room, commenting on the savory dessert of California peaches and raspberry ice cream.

A young couple passed by them. “They're newlyweds, Paul and Claudia,” Priska told Thomas. Paul had his arm around Claudia. Claudia leaned against him as they walked. “They're always holding hands or kissing,” Priska continued. “Don't they make a handsome couple?”

Thomas shrugged. “I guess.”

Priska stared at them as they walked away. She laid her hand across her heart and sighed. “Look how in love they are.”

The tables inside the dining room had all been cleared and looked strangely bare. The only noise came from the staff chattering and dishes clanging. Thomas and Priska slipped inside and stood near the door to the kitchen. Thomas leaned forward and peeked through the round window in the door. He could see the cups and bowls hanging in a line from hooks on the ceiling.

“Some of these Jews didn't touch their food,” a man
said. “I thought they were supposed to be greedy, the type to lick a plate clean.”

“That's only when it comes to money,” another replied, and they both laughed.

Thomas glanced at Priska, who shook her head. The talk continued but it was mostly about everyday things: family, girlfriends, the weather.

After a few minutes Thomas and Priska exchanged another look, and then Priska leaned close and whispered, “What's next?”

Thomas motioned for Priska to follow him. Back out by the stairwell, he stopped. “We need to go where the real crew is. The ones who sail the ship, not the ones who scrub the dishes.”

“Like to their sleeping quarters?”

“Exactly,” Thomas said. He had explored what he could of the ship, but the crew's quarters and engine room were off-limits to passengers, and he had no idea where they slept. He felt sure that their nighttime expedition had come to a close and was surprised by Priska's response.

“I know where they sleep. My mother and I were looking for the beauty salon and we got terribly lost.” She looked at him, waiting for his answer.

“Let's go,” he said, feeling as if he had to live up to her expectations.

As they headed down the stairwell, Thomas wondered
if Priska was as short of breath as he was. For a moment he thought of his parents again, and he imagined them coming to him late at night, telling him they needed him for a very important, dangerous mission. He would need to go to England and deliver information to Neville Chamberlain himself. Would he have been too scared to do it? How could he have when his chest felt tight even now?

Priska led and Thomas followed. He watched her back, waiting for her to suddenly stop and tell him she'd changed her mind. She could say she was worried her parents might come to check on her and notice she was gone, or that Marianne might wake up and find her missing.

But soon they were down in the bowels of the ship, standing in the dimly lit passage outside the crew's quarters. The air smelled of sweat, mildew, and machine oil. They heard laughter and then what sounded like men playing cards. It was hard to make out their words from the far side of the passage.

“We should go closer,” Thomas whispered.

Priska nodded. If she was even the slightest bit scared, Thomas couldn't tell. If caught, they would claim to be lost, but would it be a good-enough excuse? And for Priska, being found outside the crew's bunk room at such an unrespectable hour could have scandalous implications.

Thomas moved closer to the door of the bunk room, trying to ignore his heart thundering in his chest. He reminded himself he was supposed to be the fearless one.
Outside the door was a bulletin board, on which news paper clippings from
Der Stürmer
were posted. “Complete lies devised to defame us,” his father had said about the Nazi newspaper when Thomas had first seen it in one of the display cases put up by the Reich. It had a cartoon depicting a Jew with a grotesquely exaggerated nose and lips, politely asking someone to make room for him to sit on a park bench. The next frame showed the Jewish man shoving the other man off the bench. The text that went with the cartoon explained that this was how Jews behaved in all situations, not just when it came to park benches.

The clippings they looked at now were dated only days before the ship had sailed. Dark, grainy photos showed grim-looking men, heads shaven and scowling.

Priska pointed to one of the men. “Wait, that man—”

“Shh,” Thomas told her.

He read the caption underneath to himself:
Germany rids itself of scourge of the earth. Savage criminals leave on ship headed to Cuba
. Thomas shuddered. He knew what the Nazis thought of them, so why did it always feel like a kick in the gut? Why did it always hurt all over again? Once again he found himself asking why the Nazis put them on this ship to begin with. If they believed Jews were the “scourge of the earth,” why were they serving them caviar and veal? Could it really be on the captain's orders alone?

Thomas had started to read the accompanying article when he heard footsteps.

“Go,” Thomas whispered, and they ran down the passage and back up the stairwell to the top deck. He listened to hear if anyone was following them, but it was quiet. Outside they stood still, catching their breath. Finally Priska said, “That man in the photo … the one with the shaved head? That was Günther's father. I'm sure of it. Günther's mother managed to get him released from Sachsenhausen on the promise that he'd leave Germany within three months. Many on this ship promised the same thing.”

Her words hit Thomas low in the stomach. Why hadn't his mother been able to get his father out of Dachau?

“It said he was a criminal but his only crime was trying to help people. He's a doctor, and when the Nazis said Jews couldn't practice medicine anymore, he kept seeing patients. What was he to do, turn away people who needed treatment?”

“Those papers are full of lies,” Thomas said. “They make us out to be criminals so everyone in Germany will be glad to get rid of us. And people believe it too. They want us gone.”

“Not everyone feels that way,” Priska said.

“
Everyone
,” Thomas said.

“Surely there are still some decent people in the world, and if they—”

“No,” Thomas cut her off. “You can't think like that.
You can't trust anyone. We had close family friends, the Levins. The Levins had neighbors, a nice old couple. When the laws were issued saying that Jews were no longer German citizens, the neighbors came to the Levins and said they didn't care about the laws, that the Levins would always be Germans to them and were always welcome at their home. Frau Levin went over for tea with the old lady almost daily. They were close friends. Then one day the Nazis came and ransacked the Levins' house. The Nazis said there were reports that they'd been out after curfew and that they were Communists. They destroyed their furniture and confiscated their china and their jewelry. Then they took Herr Levin away.”

Priska looked at the deck. Thomas remembered how she had said her father wouldn't make eye contact when he was nervous about something.

“It was that nice old couple that turned them in … their
friends
.” Thomas paused and then said, his voice fierce, “There is no one you can trust.”

T
homas stood among the many other passengers at the railing watching the activity below. They had arrived in the Cherbourg harbor to load supplies. Burly men hauled crates of fruits and vegetables up the gangway. A crane lifted the heaviest crates in netting straight onto the ship.

“The cowardly French,” Frau Rosen said. She stood a few feet down the railing from Thomas, taking a cigarette from its box.

“You can't blame them alone,” Oskar said. He produced a match and lit her cigarette. “Chamberlain signed the papers too.”

Frau Rosen exhaled a gust of smoke and said with a roll of her eyes, “Peace for our time. Hardly.”

Thomas knew they were talking about the Munich Agreement. Hitler had wanted to take the Sudentenland
from Czechoslovakia, and he had been ready to take it by force. The French had an alliance with Czechoslovakia, and Czechoslovakia had counted on France's coming to its defense if Hitler attacked. But instead France and Britain went behind Czechoslovakia's back and brokered an agreement with Hitler. He'd get the Sudentenland and there would be no war—at least for the moment.

Thomas turned to look the other way, down the ship toward the giant funnels. He recognized the ship's captain, who had come to oversee the transfer, by his meticulous uniform. It had eight gold buttons down the front and gold stripes on the sleeves. His pristine white hat had a black brim. Thomas wondered how he kept it so clean, and if he perhaps had several of them. The uniform was missing one very important thing, however: a Party badge on the arm. Priska had been right—he was not a Party member. Thomas didn't quite know how this was possible. Everyone was a member now. Whether they agreed with Nazi ideals or not, it was near suicide not to join. The captain had a thin mustache and a pointy chin. He looked almost severe when, in fact, he was very nice. He said “
Guten Tag
” to every person he passed and even stopped to talk to a few, inquiring how they were finding the voyage so far. As he continued to the gangway, he kept checking his pocket watch.

“How many more crates to be loaded?” he asked one of the crew.

“Not too many. Twenty or so.”

He took out his pocket watch again and tapped it lightly with his finger. “Good. We need to get back on the open sea.”

Manfred strode up the gangway carrying a big bag. “Good day, Captain,” he said. “I've got the mail.”

An announcement was broadcast over the ship's loudspeaker that mail could be picked up outside the social hall on the promenade deck. In minutes, passengers surrounded Manfred. Soon all Thomas could see of him was an occasional glimpse of his hand as he held out a letter. Thomas listened to the voices: