The Other Half of Life (8 page)

“Because you are a Jew,” Thomas said.

Priska nodded a little sadly. “Everything changes so quickly. I didn't really notice that much at first. Marianne and I went to a Jewish school, so we didn't have to leave
school like I've heard some others had to. It was
Reichskristallnacht
when I really began to understand. The windows of every Jewish store in our town were smashed. All the goods stolen. After that my father said we had to get out. No more waiting for things to blow over.”

Günther said, “They took my father that night. They broke down our door, ransacked our apartment, and took my father away—just like that. I thought I'd never see him again.”

“What has your father told you about being in a
Konzentrationslager?
” Thomas asked.

At first Günther didn't answer and Thomas worried he'd asked something too private, overstepped boundaries. But he desperately wanted to know what the
Konzentrationslager
was like. They heard rumors all the time but it was impossible to know what was really true.

“They made them work, building something—my father wasn't sure what it even was. They had to carry heavy bags of cement up endless stairs. They were given practically no food and no water, and they were starving and getting sick. My father said it was as if the Nazis were hoping they would die.”

They were quiet for a few moments. Thomas wondered if they were waiting for him to say something about his own father. But he didn't want to, and finally Priska said, “Well, enough gloominess. We're the lucky ones. We made it out. Come on, let's go play skittles.”

“Good idea,” Günther said.

“I don't think I'll come,” Thomas said as images of his father bowed down under a bag of cement trampled through his mind.

“Why not?” Priska asked.

Thomas shrugged.

She shook her head and grabbed him by the hand. “You've been taken prisoner. Let's go.”

Thomas managed a halfhearted smile and he went with them. But especially after what they had just shared with him, Priska's careless words reverberated in his head.
You've been taken prisoner
. Nothing was innocent anymore, not even a casual, joking remark.

T
homas returned to the smoking room often, hoping to find Wilhelm or Jürgen or others playing chess. One day he came in the midafternoon—the time when most people took tea or rested in a deck chair— and the smoking room was near empty. Thomas sat at a table, twiddling his lone pawn through his fingers and imagining it marching down an open board.

“Looking for an opponent?”

Thomas glanced up to see Manfred. “No, just a game to watch.”

“How about you and I play?” Manfred asked.

“No thank you,” Thomas said immediately.

Manfred frowned. “Do you have other plans?”

“Well, I …” Thomas looked around the room. An older man was slumped back asleep in his chair, his mouth gaping open.

“You want to play. I can tell.” Manfred leaned closer and said, “What will the other passengers think of you playing one of us?”

Thomas glanced at the swastika on his armband. He knew Manfred meant others would judge him for playing a Nazi, not just a crew member.

“We're all on this ship together … might as well make the most of it.”

Thomas thought once more of the newspaper clippings he and Priska had seen. So Manfred wanted to play chess with a criminal. Was he that desperate for a partner, or did he just want to prove his racial superiority?

“You're afraid I'll beat you?” Manfred asked.

“No, that's not it at all.”

“Then I'll get the board.”

As Manfred took the board and pieces out of the cabinet, Thomas knew he could have protested further. But the truth was he yearned for a game. His body tingled as he and Manfred set up the pieces of the simple wooden set.

His father's pieces, including the pawn he carried, were made of ivory. The pieces always felt cool, as if they had been stored in an icebox. The black pieces had been stained and were more brown than black; the white had been left the natural bone color. The pawn he carried was white.

Manfred held out his closed hands to Thomas. Thomas pointed to his right hand. Manfred opened his hand and gave Thomas the black piece. Sometimes Thomas's father
claimed he actually preferred to play black. Even though it put a player in a slightly weaker position, he used to say that Black always knew a little more than White. Having to play the second move meant you got a glimpse into your opponent's mind, and then you could react accordingly.

Thinking about his father made Thomas uneasy. The fact that he was here, playing Manfred, made him believe for the first time that his father could actually be dead. He desperately wanted to be in the back room of the print shop, looking at his father across the chessboard. And would his father be disgusted to see him playing a Nazi? Thomas didn't know.

He took a moment to clear his mind, as he liked to do before a game began. Forget everything else—his brother's letter, the other ships, how he found himself hoping to see Priska whenever he went on deck, whether he should even be playing Manfred to begin with—and concentrate on the game.

“Good luck,” Manfred said.

“Yes, good luck,” Thomas replied. But chess had nothing to do with luck, which was perhaps what Thomas loved most about the game.

Thomas was surprised to find that Manfred disregarded one of the foremost rules of chess: that the center has to be controlled by pawns and that you have to work to support this control. Manfred ignored the center, focusing instead on developing his bishops to long diagonals. After the first few
moves, Thomas was confident he'd win. While he took the center with solid pawn pushes, Manfred seemed content to let his pieces merely stare at it from a distance. Thomas followed the lessons he'd learned from his father and from studying the games of the great German chess master Emanuel Lasker. It seemed as if Manfred had never even had a proper chess lesson or bothered to emulate the masters.

Soon Thomas controlled the entire center. He pushed another pawn, grabbing even more space. Manfred moved both his bishops only one square diagonally and then just let them be. “What do you know about Priska?” he asked. His voice startled Thomas.

“What do you mean?” he answered.

“Where's she from?”

“Dresden,” Thomas said.

Thomas moved his knight out, twisting it so that its eyes stared across the board at Manfred's king, whose defending knights were sideways.

“Dresden, that makes sense.”

“Why?”

Manfred invited Thomas to take the center of the board at will, and Thomas counted on its destroying him later in the game.

“She's very cultured,” Manfred said.

Thomas glared at Manfred. “Unlike some other people on this ship?”

Thomas thought how Manfred had a way of saying certain
things as if they were casual and harmless, when really they seemed calculated and cruel. Thomas wasn't going to let him get away with it, no matter what the consequences.

Manfred moved his pieces quickly, letting them thump against the wooden surface. Thomas moved his pieces gently, realizing that it was the strength of the move, not the force of it, that won games. He reminded himself to play the board, not Manfred, and so he kept his eyes locked on the black and white squares.

Thomas moved his pawn. Manfred shrugged and then quickly moved his knight to attack the center that Thomas had built. Thomas was sure it would take just a few additional moves before he won; Manfred couldn't possibly survive without pawns in the center. Manfred was breaking every rule except for developing all his pieces.

“It's clear she's from a good family,” Manfred said.

“You might be surprised to find that many of us Jews are from good families,” Thomas snapped back.

Manfred glanced behind Thomas. “
Guten Tag, Herr Holz
,” he called out.

Thomas turned to see the
Ortsgruppenleiter
raise his arm in salute. “
Heil Hitler
!”

Manfred lowered his eyes and returned a less invigorated “
Heil Hitler
.”

The
Ortsgruppenleiter
took one of the sandwiches from the table at the side of the room and lingered nearby. He chewed loudly and it made Thomas feel nauseated.

“Are you on a break?” Holz asked Manfred.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Do you usually mix with
passengers
on your break?” He emphasized the word
passengers
as if it pained him to refer to them as such.

“I usually do what I please on my break,” Manfred said. “After all, it is my break.”

“The captain does not set rules for his steward? About mixing with
passengers?
”

“We're simply playing chess,” Manfred said.

“I see that,” the
Ortsgruppenleiter
replied.

He stayed awhile longer, methodically eating the sandwich. Finally he saluted again and left. When the door had shut behind him, Manfred sighed.

“You don't like him,” Thomas observed. Manfred didn't answer and Thomas added, “Are you going to be in trouble with the captain for playing me?”

Manfred shook his head. “The captain wants us to be welcoming to the passengers.”

“I hear we have the captain to thank for being treated so well.”

Manfred nodded. “He's a fair man. He has high standards for how he runs his ship, no matter who is traveling on it.”

“And the
Ortsgruppenleiter
doesn't agree with him.”

“No,” Manfred conceded. “
Ortsgruppenleiter
Holz certainly does not.”

Thomas was surprised at how forthcoming Manfred was, and he took the opportunity to find out more. “The officers in the Party uniforms … are they always on board?”

“No, they were only recently assigned to the ship.”

Thomas reached for a knight, about to make a defensive move, when what was happening suddenly hit him—his powerful center was crumbling as Manfred's bishops and knights pressured it into vulnerability. How had he not seen as much? Was it because he was distracted by their discussion? Manfred had seemed as if he didn't know the first thing about chess, but now Thomas realized it might be just the opposite.

Thomas remembered his father telling him about Aron Nimzowitsch, who played very unconventional opening moves that flew in the face of masters like Lasker. He wondered if Manfred knew of Nimzowitsch and Lasker after all. Perhaps Manfred modeled his play after Nimzowitsch and it was all a carefully laid-out plan. Yet Nimzowitsch was a Jew, and it was hard to believe Manfred would aspire to the play of a Jew.

No matter what, it was too late to do anything now, and as Thomas defended, the pressure only grew stronger. Thomas pulled back from the board and closed his eyes. He opened them again, hoping to see things differently, to find a way out. But there in front of him was his disoriented army, and he couldn't get around the fact that there was no point in playing on. He could hardly look up at
Manfred. He tipped his king over. He kept his eyes down for a moment, trying to think through what had just happened. Had there been a method underneath all of Manfred's crazy maneuvers, or had Thomas just let his opponent escape? He wanted to believe the latter, that Manfred really wasn't a good player and that Thomas had just gotten distracted and played beneath his level. He looked up, hoping to see the face of someone buoyed by an unexpected win. Instead he saw the steady gaze of a man who knew just what he was doing.

“A
ll they have is war novels,” Thomas lamented to Priska. Boredom had set in again, and they were looking over one of the shelves in the library. Thomas fingered the spines of the books:
Die Gruppe Bosemüller, Aufbruch der Nation, In Stahlgewittern
.

“It looks like someone from the
Reichskulturkammer
has been here,” he said.

Thomas kept looking as Priska drifted over to the window.

“Here's one that might be all right—” Thomas said, but Priska cut him off.

“Look,” she said, a devilish grin spreading across her face. Thomas came over to the window and saw what she was pointing to—
Ortsgruppenleiter
Holz was fast asleep in one of the deck chairs. Thomas was surprised he had let
himself fall asleep in public. He looked almost helpless with his cane lying against his chair.