Gerty is hesitant to leave but when she spots us having a quiet conversation, follows Felix into the school.
“Danner,” Emilie says, “you don’t deserve this…even just the thought of it. It’s not fair, and it’s not right. I’ll always stand behind you. I hope you know that.”
I stare at her for a long moment, finding the truth welling up in her pretty blue eyes. “I do. This must be the news you were talking about in my fortune reading last week.”
“No, no,” she argues. She doesn’t want to believe the gut feeling she must have had. Mama tells us to always trust what our gut is saying.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay,” I tell her with words so forced it’s obvious I’m lying.
“Look at me,” she says, pressing her hand against my cheek. “Don’t focus on what the government wants you to focus on. You’ll be making their jobs easier. Whenever you feel like the world is against you, start counting your breaths. One breath every five seconds will show anyone who is watching that you haven’t a worry in the world.”
“One breath every five seconds?” I repeat.
“Yes, it keeps you calm, and no one will spot a hint of your worry.”
“I can do that,” I assure her before turning around and jogging toward the front door of the school.
I walk in through the door and hold my breath to try and slow the rush of air coming and going from my lungs even though I’m convinced even the walls are judging me for my religion. There are teachers in the corridor and every non-Jewish German child who walks in shouts, “Heil Hitler!” Along with their flat hand salute. No one told me I had to do so, which segregates me more, and I’m not just imagining that each one of the teachers I pass gives me a cold glare as I walk by. But no one stops me.
Frau Hunter, my teacher, could be the one with the power to send me away. My heart trembles as sweat trickles down the center of my spine while I walk into the brightly lit classroom. The light of a projector is blaring against the blackboard even though the curtains are open too.
I walk past Frau Hunter’s desk and smile at her, waiting for her mouth to open. “Guten Morgen, Herr Alesky. Have a seat.”
Relief floods through me, my muscles relax, and I lose my grip, unsticking my fingernails from the palms of my hands.
I settle down into my seat and glance around the classroom, noticing empty desks scattered throughout the room. I shift my gaze to the clock just as the bell rumbles.The empty seats belong to the other Jewish kids who were in my class. I’m the only one left.
“Today we’re going to be watching a presentation about the ‘Aryan Paragraph.’ I suggest you all take out your notebooks and pencils to jot down some notes as you will be quizzed on this information later.”
The Aryan Paragraph. The new way of imposing regulations to exclude Jews from German society.
SIX
EMILIE
NINE YEARS AGO, APRIL 1933
Munich, Germany
From my view in the school yard, everything seems as it should be: children from the younger grade levels playing through laughter, bells dinging from the passing trolleys, and bicycle bells wavering against a bouncy ride. Even the faint perfume of the blooming flowers from a nearby garden mixed with the moisture left behind from this morning’s rain shower paint a different picture to what’s in front of me. The Germany I used to know is not the Germany I’m in.
The sun struggles to pierce through the heavy clouds, allowing only a few rays of light to leak through the trees and spill onto the grass. There are far fewer students standing around me than there were yesterday and there are distant echoes of police boots marching along cobbled roads.
It’s no secret that many Jewish children were sent home today and I’ve been waiting for Danner along with Gerty, Otto, and Felix for nearly a half hour since school ended, but there’s no sign of him anywhere.
“He might be home,” Felix says. “No one else has exited the school doors in minutes. We should get going.”
The six of us always walk home together. But not today.
As we start moving toward the sidewalk, I glance over my shoulder once more toward the school doors, seeing nothing more than a couple of papers floating around. Lost in thought, I fall behind the others, worried about what will happen to Danner if he was one of the Jewish students sent home from school. I’m not sure where he’ll go. He loves school.
Otto slows his pace and waits for me to catch up to him. “I’m sure Danner is fine,” he says.
“I hope so,” I say.
Felix waits for us to catch up and yanks on the strap of my satchel, bouncing around as if he doesn’t know what to do with his pent-up energy. “Do you think Danner was sent home?” he asks.
Felix and Danner are close, too. Their parents knew each other long before we were all born and that closeness carried over between the boys from a young age.
