My brain reels for what seems like forever. I try to convince myself I’m hidden and safe. Maybe this soldier isn’t really talkin’ to me. Could be that ignoring the order is my best choice. On the other hand, if I explode through the tarp, I can surprise attack and push these evil men into the freezin’ water. The starburst from the risin’ sun beams through the canvas hole. It blinds me. l lose control of my own free will. In that moment, I push the canvas aside, crawl between the man’s legs, and search my father’s steel eyes. Papa flicks his eyebrows, signaling me to calm. I stiffen my trembling legs.
The officer rotates me with the tip of his gun. The medals on his chest rattle. “You could pass for a German lad with your blond hair and blue eyes,” he says as he runs the barrel through my hair. “A shame you have the dirty blood of a Jew.” He props his other leather-gloved hand on his silver swastika belt buckle.
The strappin’ soldier standin’ on the dock spreads his legs. The wood thumps below his heel. “You know who we are boy?”
My eyes roll up at him. “You are Americans in the German Nazi party. Like Hitler is in Germany,” I say as steadily as I can.
“Well said.” The man’s stiff iron grin stamps his cruel manner down on me. “And you know what American-Nazis are going to do for this great country?”
“Build an Aryan movement under the swastika,” I answer.
The three Nazis laugh. One almost chokes. “Your father has been filling your blond head,” the leader next to me says. “So, mein junger Freund. What does this mean?” He stomps his foot and water splashes up my wool pants. The freezin’ wet doesn’t cool my searin’ body.
“We true Americans are going to take our country back,” he continues and leans in close. As he speaks, his face muscles move his wiry eyebrows. “We’re going to clean up America. Because our country has gotten all mixed up with all these different colored Jews, Niggers, Catholics, the unclean gays. They have muddied our pure white blood.”
“When we mix blood, kid, we lose common morals,” his cohort from the boat ledge adds. “And civilization falls. That’s the last thing any of us would want to happen to America. Don’t you agree?”
The Nazi from the wharf extends his skin-tight gloved hand to me. “Get up here, boy!” he orders.
Pop nods to me. “Do as they say.”
The German soldier from the boat ledge yanks me by the collar. My throat gags and gasps at the same time. My fingers claw at his hands and my legs pedal against his hips. He shoves me toward the Nazi on the wharf and lifts himself up on the dock. The soldier on the dock locks his arm around my neck, but not before I fill my lungs.
“Chop nicht—take it easy!” my father says.
The leader from the bow waves his luger. “Why don’t you show us what you know we want. Maybe we can make a deal?”
The gun cocks and my pop finds himself starin’ down the iron barrel. He stands. “Of course. My choice,” Pop says as he raises his hands. He wags his head at Ruby. They wrap their chapped hands around the spiky ropes hangin’ over the side of the boat. They pull up a long, steel torpedo. Pop unscrews the warhead and extracts canisters of booze hidden inside.
The leader reaches in his pocket and removes a small metal box. He plucks a rolled-up cigarette from it and pinches it between his lips. He strikes a match against the side of the box and lights the cigarette. “Ingenious!” he says as he bares his teeth. “The bombs are rigged with air so they can float.” He inhales and then holds the cigarette between his two right fingers. “See, now we can be Freunde,” he says to my father. He blows the smoke and stabs it with his right hand. “Heil Hitler!” He waits for Pop and Ruby to return the salute. They refuse. He grins and neighs like a horse.
The American-Nazi leader rubs his leather-covered palms together. He throws Pop’s worn suitcase onto the dock at my feet. He springs from the boat onto the wharf and joins me. “Shnell!” the leader barks at Pop and Ruby. “Get the merchandise out and into the truck at the end of the dock.”
Then he orders his soldiers. “We don’t have all morning. Get these vermin working.” The soldiers aim their guns at my father and Ruby and watch them labor.
The leader sits down on the edge of the dock next to me. “Junge! Open the suitcase,” he says as if he’s celebrating his birthday. “Show me the goodies you brought us.”
I click the latches and hand him my mother’s homemade food from the bag. His cigarette flips off his fingertips and sails into the gnashin’ water below. He chomps into the thick bread that sandwiches my mother’s lamb from Friday night. Crumbs flip everywhere. He pats the dock. “Relax with me, Junge,” he says.
Burnin’ with outrage, I raise my chin and watch Pop and Ruby unload the bottles.
“I said sit!” he shouts. My insides curdle like milk with lemon as the foreign beast chews my family’s food like a horse. But I do as he commands.
His chewin’ pricks my nerves like barbwire, but not as bad as the German tune he hums. I distract myself by watchin’ Pop lift crates. His powerful chest loads with air each time he hoists. His strong back stretches his jacket when he lifts.
When Pop and Ruby finish, they stand on the dock between the two other soldiers.
The Nazi leader pushes himself up and kicks my thigh. I have never been so close to raw evil before, glimpsing its underbelly, reading it’s pockmarks and bulgin’ red veins. The Nazi extends his hand. He tries to overpower me.
“We had a deal,” Pop’s monotone voice warns.
A stillness wafts. I scramble up on my own.
Pop grits his jaw and narrows his eyes.
The Nazi’s breath scalds my neck for what seems like minutes.
“Abhauen!” the commander yells at me to scram. Maybe manmade evil has a soft spot? I’m not sure, but I hesitate. If I flee, my fear will give it power.
My father breaks the stalemate. “Yael, leave.” The sound of my name flutters against my cheek like a moth. “Geyn. My malach.”
I step backwards, heal-first, down the dock, alternating my eyes between the raiders and the footprints my wet shoes stamp against the wood. I strain to hear the voices, but the splashin’ water against the pylons muffles them. My father vanishes and reappears through the smoky fog. I hear the Nazis command Pop and Ruby to strip off their shirts and put their hands behind their backs.
In a moment when the fog clears, father’s chalky torso appears. His arm blurs and he slinks a knife from underneath his belt. He swings it. The fog hinders my view. But the sounds tell the story. I hear the knife clack against the dock. My throat moans.
The haze thins. The soldiers’ licorice-colored coats waft through the mist. Pop and Ruby struggle. The Nazis bind the prisoners’ pink arms behind their backs. I watch, horrified as one of the crow-like men slips a muddy rope-loop around each of the bare necks.
The commander scoops up the knife from the dock and points it at my father’s face. “You dropped your knife,” he jeers. A loud, low fog horn in the harbor bellows. “Hold him still,” I hear him say. The officer twists the blade into my father’s chest. He carves a swastika. The whale-like drone of the foghorn swallows Pop’s groan.
My heart rants at the men. Stop! How could you? My thoughts race in circles like a marble loopin’ down a pipe. Then my heart rants at me. Act! My desperation double-crosses me. My boots nail to the wharf. My feet won’t move.
The two other Nazis push Pop and Ruby off the pier. The early sun paints the sea under them a yellow green. I grasp one last look from my pop’s valiant eyes as he falls. My heart rips like a cotton bedsheet torn for rags. There is a snap. My father and Ruby swing from the pylons. Their ankles quiver. Then