Shanghai Shadows by Lois Ruby Page B

…” Dovid pursed his lips to demonstrate.
    â€œWhistle,” Mother said.
    â€œWhistle. He shouts for us all to play again. I should go home right away.” Dovid closed his eyes; his eyelids fluttered sadly.
    â€œBut you didn’t know what they would do,” Mother said gently.
    â€œYes, yes, and so we play soccer. Poorly, no spirit, you can imagine. I don’t remember who wins. After, both teams go to drink beer. I never go with the boys. A Jew in a tavern with so many Catholics? Who hears such a thing? I start the long walk home. Everything feels—how do I say it?”
    He reached for his teacup and gulped the last of the cooled water. He motioned for me to put my hand out, palm up, and then set the china cup on the flat of my hand and flicked the rim. Mother watched nervously, maybe afraid we’d break one of her two remaining cups.
    â€œYou hear?” Yes, I heard a faint ringing that lingered in the air. He flicked the cup again. “What is it you feel?”
    â€œIt’s vibrating, like it could shatter.”
    â€œThat is what the day feels like, like glass will shatter into many sharp pieces. When I am at my home, the glass is already broken. My father, my mother, my sisters, all gone, all the Jews in my village. Vanish like smoke.”
    â€œNo doubt to a concentration camp,” Mother said. “We must believe they are safe.”
    Dovid raised his dark eyes to Mother’s face. “People say no one lives long in such a place. My mother, I don’t know the English word, she has the sugar disease. She needs everyday the shots. My sisters, Shayna and Beyla, are little.” He pulled his head back to have a good look at me. “Younger even than you.”
    He thinks of me as a child! My heart sank like a stone.
    â€œAny age is too young, also too old, for such a place,” Mother said.
    Father was at a disadvantage with English, but he added, “Your father, Dovid?”
    â€œHe is strong. Maybe …” Dovid’s voice cracked. He didn’t need to complete the thought for me to understand him clearly.
    Suddenly Dovid stood up. “Enough for today. Who needs another sad story?”
    â€œYet, we all need to tell them,” Mother said.
    Dovid pushed his chair back and nodded toward Mother and Father. “Mrs. Shpann, understand, please. No more can I come for English. No money.”
    â€œStarting today, lessons are free,” Mother said.
    â€œYou are kind, but I am shamed to take from you with nothing to give.”
    Mother motioned around us. “We stare at blank white walls. Bring me the pictures you draw. In exchange I will give you words.”
    â€œNot enough, Mrs. Shpann, a few drawings.” He seemed to search for some English words to leave us with. “Goodbye, farewell,” he said soberly, and quickly let himself out, leaving such a heavy cloud of sorrow in the room.
    Never mind how Hitler had swooped up European nations as if they were no more than smudges on a map, or his plans for Jews. At that moment—petty, selfish girl that everyone accused me of being—the thing that stabbed at my heart was the fear that I’d never see my Dovid Ruzevich again.

CHAPTER NINE
    1942–1943
    Dovid played like a happy-sad movie in my mind while I waited for my first assignment from the underground. Erich wouldn’t discuss any of it. Days passed without a word, while he was sneaking out at night. When would it be my turn?
    Now that the war in the Pacific was raging, every American, French, and British flag had come down, and up the poles had shot the flag of the Empire of the Rising Sun with its ugly, big ball of blood on a huge white bandage. There were troops and tanks all over the city and Japanese sentries outside the British and American consulates and the cable offices and newspapers. Every scrap of news was censored, so it was pointless to greet friends with the usual, “Have you