LITMIR.BIZ

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American-Nazi waves his Heil Hitler salute at me. Now that I’ve grasped evil, its shadow stands toe to toe with me. I have nowhere to hide. That only leaves me one choice—to fight for my life.

      KRISTA:

      Bookstore. Hawthorne Avenue. Newark, NJ

      Papa shakes me so hard that the hair braid I’m sucking on flicks out of my mouth. When he bellows bloodcurdling threats into my hearing ear, my heart wishes I could erase the upside-down triangle off the damp bookshop window. I drew it so I could see inside through the dark. I promise him I’ll never toy with the Jude symbol again, that yellow Star of David I saw in Papa’s German newspaper. There was a photo of a Jewish shop window near our old home in Berlin. The idea came to me when my older sister, Heidi, stamped her face against the frosty window. The cold made her cheek turn red and hid the bruise under her eye. My father rubs the symbol so hard with his bare palm that it seems like he’s trying to erase my reflection, too. Shivering, I wipe the rain off my face and watch it spring off the glassy sidewalk like it’s afraid of breaking the bricks.

      I know I must not cry or Papa will get madder. He’s already angry at the rain for ruining his new uniform. He’s so proud to be an officer in America for the National Socialist Party under our new leader, Adolph Hitler. He calls his group the Friends of New Germany. Yesterday, he said, “Be grateful that I’m helping the new Führer take back what’s ours.” Heidi told me we are lucky and Papa and the Nazis around the world will finally be treated with respect. She said we might even raise an army even though Germany’s not allowed.

      My father pounds on the bookstore door. “Aufmachen!” he hollers. “I know you’re in there. Open up!” I know my father expects obedience, so I don’t flinch when he dents the wood door panel with his fist. But I don’t like how he treats people, and I guess my face shows it because Heidi blocks his view. I glance at her. Since my mother died giving birth to me, Heidi’s the only mother I’ve ever known. I’m torn between thanking her for saving me from a knuckling and wishing I could stand up to Papa on my own. I see Heidi zip up her jacket to her neck and I copy her.

      There is movement inside the shop. The light waltzes and spills across shelves and boxes and tables of books. A willowy figure appears and bends his wire-rimmed glasses until they hold behind his ears. His alarmed eyes peer through the window at Heidi and me. He scuttles to the door of his store and unlocks it.

      Before the man can speak, Papa forces open the unlatched door. My father shoves the thin man into a pile of books stacked on the floor. The books collapse like the burning Reichstag Building that Führer Hitler blamed on the Communists. Heidi and I crouch down, hiding under Papa’s shadow as the musty smell of the shop pinches my nose.

      The shaken man on the floor adjusts his glasses. “Günther?” his low voice cracks. How does he know our father? He even calls him by his first name, like an old friend.

      My father grabs the top book from a pile on a table. “A Farewell to Arms,” he reads. “Ach! Hemingway. Insolent writer! He insults our Kamerad in Italy, Benito Mussolini.” Last year, when I read this book about the Great War in school, Papa complained the story betrays our German soldiers, making them feel their fight in the Great War was a waste of time. My teacher said the book is just about learning to expect the unexpected. He told us the book’s not about war, but about love, and that feelings just happen to people who connect. I’m close enough to my father to smell a sour belch. Abruptly, Papa rears his arm back like a catapult. I jerk sideways to avoid getting struck. He hurls the book at the shopkeeper’s head, who isn’t as lucky.

      The man rolls, his chin curls against his chest. His elbows hoist him off the ground and he stands on his knees. I imagine he once stood like a statue. His strong cheekbones push against his weathered face as if they’d fought against windy rain for too long. He palms his head. Red ooze paints his light hair. When he sees his blood-smeared hand, his eyes dart from my father to me. His olive eyes graze my green ones. “How did you find me?” he asks Papa.

      “Töchter!” Papa orders my sister and I. “Empty the boxes. Put the filth of the treacherous authors on the floor where it belongs.” He picks up another book. “The Metamorphosis by Kafka,” he reads. “Actually, the man in this story who turns into a beetle is a wonderful metaphor of the Jew, don’t you think, mein Freund?” He chucks the book at his enemy, who ducks just in time.

      I instinctively step to help the man, but Heidi grabs me before my father sees. She’s right, as always. This man must have done something very bad.

      “Papa, can I keep this book?” Heidi holds up Westen nichts Neues.“My friend is thirteen, too, and she read All Quiet on the Western Front last summer.” She nudges me with her eyes to grab a book of my own.

      “If Heidi gets one, I want this one, Papa.” I hold Emil und die Detektive close to my nose and sniff the green apple smell of new ink. Back in Berlin, I used to read this adventure to my imaginary mother up in heaven, about a hero who rallied the city to catch the bank robbers. For a moment, the memory transforms me into a warrior leading the charge.

      Papa marches toward us and whips Heidi’s book from her hand. He backhands me across my arm with it. “This book is dirt written by that unpatriotic author, Remarque,” he exclaims. “He dares to present Germans as cowards afraid of war!” He wings the book at a bookshelf and reams of paper cascade to the floor. The Three Penny Opera, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Bambi. “The German man will throw these books aside, so his character can live!” Papa cries.

      I squeeze my book. When I’m sure no one is looking, I stuff it into the pocket of my jacket. The man kneeling on the floor sees me. I exchange furtive glances with him. His face is unfamiliar. But somehow, I know him. Maybe he was at the school gathering on Sunday for Führer Kuhn’s Eintopf, the one-pot sauerkraut and beans dinner that helps us save money for important donations to the Party. Or maybe I met him the night we all dressed up and went to the New York Philharmonic to hear Hanz Pfitzer because Papa wanted us to experience respectable music that’s everything American jazz isn’t. Plus, he told us, listening to the Party’s music would bring us all together under one roof—Gleichshaltung. I remember Heidi and I wore matching new dresses and Papa wore his white bow tie and long tails. He reminds me of a penguin in that suit, but I don’t dare tell him. After all, he’s my father.

      Papa scolds the man on the floor. “We no longer tolerate vulgar words that criticize German soldiers.” Then he turns to Heidi and me. “Let’s recite Reich Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels’ command for burning books. Mein Freund here has been away from Berlin for a long time now. Not sure if he knows it.”

      We chant the mantra we’ve heard many times before. “From this wreckage the new times will arise from the flame that burns in our hearts.” Papa has told us that burning blasphemous books gives us hope, especially in America.

      “Heidi! Krista!’ he yells. “Gehen! Meet me at home. Schnell!”

      Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it in my bones. “What are you going to do, Papa?” I look down at the stranger and my heart shivers with his. His caked hair sticks to his cracked glasses. His heaving chest stings my heart.

      Heidi yanks me out the front door and hustles me down the slick sidewalk. Moments later, a bellowing roar scorches our ears and nostrils. I turn and see my father preaching to the burning shop. What happened? He tips his bottle of bootleg whiskey to his lips. Then hot orange flames glint in his eyes. As the fire cremates the bookstore, I strain to understand his muffled words above the crackling rumble. My hearing isn’t good enough to hear. He flicks a roasting cigarette into the heap.

      CHAPTER 2

      Shadow Boxing

      1938

      YAEL:

      YMHA Boxing Gym. 652 High St. Newark, NJ

      I bounce out of the corner of the boxin’ ring and throw my body weight behind my right-cross

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