The Other Half of Life (9 page)

Priska whispered to Thomas, “I have an idea.” Before he could ask what it was, or discuss its merit, Priska was on her way out the door. She snatched Holz's cane and quickly switched it with the cane of an elderly woman who was also sleeping nearby. Both were wooden, but Thomas noted that the woman's cane seemed to be made of a different kind of wood. It was mahogany, whereas Holz's was a lighter color.

Priska motioned for Thomas to follow her. They waited on the other side of a large crate. Priska's face was full of anticipation. When Holz woke, he bolted upright, as if he was ashamed he had fallen asleep. He immediately reached for his cane. The moment his hand was on it, he tensed. So much for playing a trick on him for any length of time, Thomas thought. In that one moment, he had realized it wasn't his cane. He jumped out of his chair, searching the area. He located his cane against the woman's chair and grabbed it. He tucked it under his arm and jabbed her leg with her own cane. “
Aufwachen!
”

She startled awake and looked at him with scared and confused eyes.

He barked, “You had my cane.”

“
Entschuldige, mein Herr
,” she said. “I must have gotten confused and taken it by mistake. Please forgive an el derly lady's careless mistake.”

He took her cane and threw it at her. It hit her across the chest and she let out a small yelp. She stood up, took the cane, and shuffled off. The
Ortsgruppenleiter
stepped toward her empty chair. Thomas saw him pick up something from the armrest. It was silver and glinted in the sun. He slipped it into his pocket and headed off down the deck.

“Did you see that?” Priska asked, coming out from behind the crate. “What was that he took? A cigarette case?”

Thomas nodded. “I think so.”

“I didn't even think he'd notice the cane so fast. He must have been disgusted at the idea of a Jew touching his cane.” Priska shook her head. “I feel terrible. I never thought he'd take it out on her, or steal her case.”

Thomas furrowed his brow, replaying the scene in his head. It was true that Holz would likely have been disgusted; but then why didn't he automatically wipe the handle clean with a handkerchief?

“How can we get her case back?” Priska said.

“I don't know. I'm not sure we can.”

Priska sighed.

“Come on,” Thomas said. “I think I found a book.”

Thomas had never slept very soundly. Back in the apartment in Berlin, there had always been too much going on. He would wake in the wee hours of the morning, listening to snippets of conversation. It was late at night that his parents worked on ways to conceal the information they
smuggled out of Germany. They came up with what Thomas thought were ingenious ways to hide papers. They hid them in secret compartments in hairbrushes, mugs of shaving cream, and cigarettes. Once, his father had even designed a way to hide papers in a chessboard. Sometimes when Thomas woke up, his father would hand him what seemed like an everyday object. Thomas's job was to try to find how it opened. If he found it right away, it was not a good-enough hiding place. The next step was making sure the item would fit with the courier's appearance. An unkempt man, for instance, would be unlikely to carry a hairbrush. A man carrying cigarettes should have yellow fingernails. If the item didn't make perfect sense for the person carrying it, it would likely be taken away and the person interrogated.

Once his father went into hiding, there were no more mornings when Thomas found an object to test out. At that point, Thomas was up almost hourly through the night, worrying about his father. And since boarding the ship, he had also woken often, still immersed in dreams of his old life. Even before he would open his eyes, he would smell sweet onions all around him, as if his mother was preparing his favorite meal,
Gulasch
. Or he would see the sun setting over Berlin, like when he and his parents used to take walks, in the years before curfews and the signs saying
NO JEWS ALLOWED
. They would roam the city, walking
by the
Rathaus
and the
Friedrichstadtpassagen
before both were taken over by the Nazis.

On Wednesday morning Thomas was startled awake to find his bunk tilting from side to side. The privacy curtain was swaying. He climbed down from his bunk, did a cursory wash and comb, and went up on deck just as it should have been getting light out, only the sky was dark and cloudy. Between the strong wind and the pitch of the ship, it was hard to walk steadily. Every time he thought that he had found his footing, the deck lurched again, throwing him off balance and nearly to his knees. Nearby, a man had fallen down and a deck boy was helping him up. The wind howled in Thomas's ears. He made it to the railing to see waves crashing against the side of the ship, sending up sprays of water and white foam. Looking out at the swells, he understood for the first time why people referred to the sea during a storm as angry.

After a few moments in the relative safety offered by the railing, Thomas tried to make his way to the dining room. He moved from one solid object to the next, finding stability on a stanchion, a lifeboat, and finally the door to the dining room. He peered inside at the near-empty room. The wooden sides around the tables were up to keep the plates and glasses from sliding to the floor.

He spotted Priska, Marianne, and Professor Affeldt among the few passengers and journeyed across the room
to their table. He slid gratefully onto a seat without waiting for an invitation to join them.

“
Guten Morgen
, Thomas. You're not sick?” Priska asked.

“No. Are you?”

“Not yet. My mother's a wreck, though. She's still in the cabin but we couldn't bear it any longer.” Priska grimaced and held her nose with her fingers.

A waiter approached, cradling a half-filled cup of coffee. He placed it gingerly in front of Professor Affeldt. Nearby, a few other passengers sipped coffee and nibbled on toast.

Professor Affeldt had dark stubble on his face, but Thomas knew it was better than the cuts he would have endured had he tried to shave. This morning Thomas had been especially grateful that his beard was still light and he only needed to shave every few days. Professor Affeldt motioned to the menus that sat untouched on their table. “Girls, have something light if you want, and then we need to go check on your mother.”

“Can't we stay here with Thomas?” Priska asked. “It's so awful in there, Vati.”

“Thomas will keep an eye on us,” Marianne said, smiling at him. She wore her hair in pigtails, tied with red ribbon.

Thomas remembered what Priska had said about Marianne fancying him. Never having had a younger sibling to look up to him, he found himself enjoying her attention.

Professor Affeldt sighed. “Yes, I suppose. I'm going to try to bring your mother up onto the deck—some say it's better to be up top in the sea air. You can meet us there.”

He finished his coffee and got up to check on his wife. Before he left, Priska covered his hand with hers. “We'll meet you on deck soon. We'll give you a break—you must be exhausted.”

“Thank you, dear,” he said, and smiled proudly at Thomas. “This girl is always looking out for her papa.”

Thomas smiled back, but he wondered why Priska was so protective of her father. They watched him walk away, looking like a drunkard as he staggered with the ship's rolling.

Priska ordered plain toast with fruit. Thomas stuck to black coffee. Marianne, despite warnings from both of them, ordered a full breakfast of sausage and eggs.

The food arrived and Priska took a small bite of her toast. The bananas and strawberries slid around on her plate.

The ship came up against a big swell and everything tilted even more. A woman nearby gasped, and then there was the sharp crash of broken glass.

Priska picked at her food while Marianne scraped her plate clean.

“You really are something, Marianne,” Thomas said.

She swallowed the last bite and both Priska and Thomas laughed.

“Vati will be up on deck with Mutti soon,” Priska said. “We better go help him.”

Marianne sighed. “Can't we stay a little longer? What can we do to help?”

“Whatever he needs us to do,” Priska scolded her. “Don't be so selfish.”

Marianne looked away, and Thomas thought again how protective Priska was of her father.

Thomas walked behind the girls onto the deck. At one point Priska lost her balance and Thomas reached out to steady her. Somehow she ended up almost entirely in his arms, her body for a moment pressed against his. He had his hands on her waist and he was close enough to kiss her. He felt all his blood rushing to a part of his body he generally tried not to think about. Flustered that the thought of kissing her had occurred to him and that his body might betray him, he quickly let go.

She straightened her dress and thanked him. Thomas noticed that her face looked red with embarrassment too. “I'm going to fall right on my
Hintern
like Frau Rosen,” she said. “Serves me right!”

He laughed, trying to act as if having her so close hadn't affected him at all, and he hurried up the stairs.

On deck, people slumped in chairs. A few stood clutching the railing. Claudia ran by, her hand pressed to her mouth. Deck boys hurried by with mops and buckets on
their way to swab up a mess. The smell of vomit lingered, despite the strong winds.

Frau Affeldt was lying in a deck chair, her eyes closed. Professor Affeldt sat next to her. Thomas noticed the porcelain bowl in Professor Affeldt's hands, and was grateful that it was empty.

“Are you all right, Vati?” Priska asked.

“She's asleep, I think, which is good,” he answered. “The doctor gave me some wheat wafers for her when she's able to get them down. He also suggested exercise. Apparently the half of the passengers who aren't up here are in the gymnasium.”

The ship lurched. Thomas tried not to look at the water and to ignore the groans of the ship's beams. On the bridge he saw the captain. Manfred was with him and they were surveying the deck, pointing and gesturing to the sick people.

“I'll be right back,” Thomas said. He walked over to where the captain was now descending the stairs to the deck. The captain walked steadily, as if his years on the sea had truly given him sea legs. Manfred had disappeared back inside the wheelhouse.

A few moments later,
Ortsgruppenleiter
Holz came out. He was pale and staggered as he walked. Again, Thomas wondered why a landlubber like him would ever be assigned to a ship.

“I just saw the captain's steward,” Holz barked at the captain. “He said we're switching directions?”

The captain never took his eyes off the deck. “I can't have my passengers this sick.”

The
Ortsgruppenleiter
took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it over his mouth and nose. Thomas realized he himself had grown used to the stench. “It's just seasickness. They'll recover. If we change course, we'll lose time.”

The captain stood erect; Holz was near to buckling over. “I don't want to slow down either,” the captain said, finally turning to look at him. “That's about the only thing we both agree on, but I will not risk my passengers' health either.”

Thomas liked the way the captain referred to them as “my” passengers. It seemed fatherly, as if his job was to protect them. But Thomas also told himself that even if for some inexplicable reason the captain wanted to protect them, it didn't necessarily mean he would be able to.

The
Ortsgruppenleiter
narrowed his eyes at the captain. “This will be in my report.”

“I have no doubt it will,” the captain said.

Holz shook his head and shuffled off. The ship pitched again and he stumbled. Thomas noted that he used his bad leg to steady himself.

“What was that about?” Priska asked, coming up alongside Thomas.

“We're changing course to get out of the worst of the storm.”

“That's excellent news,” Priska said.

“Except it means we probably won't reach Havana on schedule, which the
Ortsgruppenleiter
didn't like. He doesn't seem to like the captain either.”

Even though the captain had returned to the wheel-house, Thomas was still looking at the bridge, puzzling over the interaction he'd just witnessed. Lost in the intrigue, nearly forgetting that Priska was there next to him, he continued, “I don't trust that man and I'm going to watch him. I'm going to watch everything he does from now on.”

“I'll help,” Priska said. At her voice, Thomas turned to her. The sea spray had dampened her thick eyelashes and made her curly hair even wilder. Her cheeks were red from the wind. She added, “We'll do it together.”

“No, this isn't some prank. This is serious.”

“I can be serious,” Priska said. “We'll find out what he's doing …
together
.”

She was so earnest Thomas could hardly say no. He told himself she was daring and fearless. She was willing to take risks. His mother had always worked in tandem with his father. They talked things through, relying on one another to see what the other might have overlooked.

“All right,” Thomas said.