up their Oktoberfest celebration. Would there be an Oktoberfest this year? Peter doubted it. The festival hadn’t been held since 1938, and Peter wondered if it would ever happen again. Perhaps Germany would be defeated, wiped off the map, all its traditions erased. The thought made him sad. He didn’t believe in Hitler’s politics, but he believed in Germany. It was a beautiful country with a beautiful history, and to consider that it all might die because of greed and pride ripped Peter’s heart in two.
Peter liked to think about Germany while he worked. It kept his mind off the backbreaking labor, the blood of the men who’d been careless with their knives, the sunstroke that sometimes took one of them down in a dead faint. It kept him from thinking about the things he’d seen on the battlefield—blood, fear, terrible pain, the horror of young lives snuffed out in a senseless instant. And when he let his imagination wander, he could almost pretend that he was working alongside a babbling river—the Kirchseebach, perhaps—side by side with his friend Otto, close to his family, the Bavarian Alps looming in the background. But when a foreman’s voice or the rumbling arrival of an empty pallet truck jarred him back into the present, he was always dejected to find himself here, in the endless, rolling sugarcane fields on the edge of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee.
Every day, he and his fellow prisoners rose with the dawn, ate a hearty breakfast in the camp’s mess hall, and climbed aboard transport trucks that would take them ten kilometers up the road to the fields of Belle Creek. Their camp was on the edge of the wild Everglades, far outside of town, presumably so the residents would feel protected from the intruders at night. Peter knew that many of the people in the nearby towns viewed the prisoners as enemies, and he couldn’t blame them. But the locals who got to know them one on one—the foremen, the guards, the field hands, even the local doctor and priest—seemed to forget after a while that they were so different. And that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? Take a man’s weapons and put him to work, and he’s just a man, regardless of where he comes from. There were a handful of American Negroes working the fields too, and Peter always thought it odd when the foreman spoke to the foreigners with more respect than to his own countrymen.
“It’s your turn,” Maus said in German, nudging Peter’s shoulder and snapping him out of his reverie. Peter blinked at his new friend, whose nickname, German for mouse, had come from the amusingly white whiskers that sprouted above his top lip whenever he neglected to shave. They hadn’t known each other in Africa, though they had both served there, but they’d found themselves bunkmates here in the wilds of Florida, and they’d discovered they had much in common. They were both from the outskirts of Munich, and they were both skeptical about Germany’s chances of winning the war. While many of the other men in the prison camp were boisterous and sarcastic, Maus was, like Peter, quiet and pensive much of the time. At night, when the others played cards and told crude jokes, Maus liked to sketch on scraps of paper, and Peter liked to read books in English from the small camp library. They had become fast friends.
“Peter, are you listening?” Maus asked now, nudging him again.
“What?”
Maus laughed. “Daydreaming again, are you? It won’t get you home any faster.”
“I know,” Peter muttered. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to go home. Not while Germany was still in the midst of a war. Did that make him a coward? Or simply a realist who didn’t want to fight for a cause he didn’t support?
“It’s your turn,” Maus repeated, pointing to the ground and smiling. “I already got one this week.”
Peter followed Maus’s gaze to a curving, dark line at the base of a pile of freshly cut sugarcane stalks. A water moccasin, more than a meter long,
Peter liked to think about Germany while he worked. It kept his mind off the backbreaking labor, the blood of the men who’d been careless with their knives, the sunstroke that sometimes took one of them down in a dead faint. It kept him from thinking about the things he’d seen on the battlefield—blood, fear, terrible pain, the horror of young lives snuffed out in a senseless instant. And when he let his imagination wander, he could almost pretend that he was working alongside a babbling river—the Kirchseebach, perhaps—side by side with his friend Otto, close to his family, the Bavarian Alps looming in the background. But when a foreman’s voice or the rumbling arrival of an empty pallet truck jarred him back into the present, he was always dejected to find himself here, in the endless, rolling sugarcane fields on the edge of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee.
Every day, he and his fellow prisoners rose with the dawn, ate a hearty breakfast in the camp’s mess hall, and climbed aboard transport trucks that would take them ten kilometers up the road to the fields of Belle Creek. Their camp was on the edge of the wild Everglades, far outside of town, presumably so the residents would feel protected from the intruders at night. Peter knew that many of the people in the nearby towns viewed the prisoners as enemies, and he couldn’t blame them. But the locals who got to know them one on one—the foremen, the guards, the field hands, even the local doctor and priest—seemed to forget after a while that they were so different. And that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? Take a man’s weapons and put him to work, and he’s just a man, regardless of where he comes from. There were a handful of American Negroes working the fields too, and Peter always thought it odd when the foreman spoke to the foreigners with more respect than to his own countrymen.
“It’s your turn,” Maus said in German, nudging Peter’s shoulder and snapping him out of his reverie. Peter blinked at his new friend, whose nickname, German for mouse, had come from the amusingly white whiskers that sprouted above his top lip whenever he neglected to shave. They hadn’t known each other in Africa, though they had both served there, but they’d found themselves bunkmates here in the wilds of Florida, and they’d discovered they had much in common. They were both from the outskirts of Munich, and they were both skeptical about Germany’s chances of winning the war. While many of the other men in the prison camp were boisterous and sarcastic, Maus was, like Peter, quiet and pensive much of the time. At night, when the others played cards and told crude jokes, Maus liked to sketch on scraps of paper, and Peter liked to read books in English from the small camp library. They had become fast friends.
“Peter, are you listening?” Maus asked now, nudging him again.
“What?”
Maus laughed. “Daydreaming again, are you? It won’t get you home any faster.”
“I know,” Peter muttered. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to go home. Not while Germany was still in the midst of a war. Did that make him a coward? Or simply a realist who didn’t want to fight for a cause he didn’t support?
“It’s your turn,” Maus repeated, pointing to the ground and smiling. “I already got one this week.”
Peter followed Maus’s gaze to a curving, dark line at the base of a pile of freshly cut sugarcane stalks. A water moccasin, more than a meter long,
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