Her gaze hardened again, though. I would have been worried for myself if I had been anyone else.
“Be careful where you say that,” she said, her voice deathly quiet.
I tilted my head. “You use those children to help you?”
Her hand balled into a fist. Before she could reach me, both Zees tumbled from the sofa, standing in her way. She stopped. I did not move a muscle. Still as stone, radiating calm. Maybe I was as good an actress as she.
Around us, shadows moved, glinting with sparks of red. Aaz appeared—mine, I thought, though I could not say why. He carried two plates filled with a delicate shrimp salad. Raw swung a basket of rolls and butter.
My grandmother and I stared at the food, and then each other.
“Don’t think this is any less bizarre for me,” I said quietly.
She looked away, and reached up as if to rub the back of her neck. Except her hand was still balled into a fist. She uncurled her fingers, one by one, so stiffly I almost rubbed my hand in sympathy.
“Well,” she said in a low voice, and took the proffered plate of salad. “Come on.”
I did not move. “My name is Maxine.”
Again she flinched, swearing softly to herself, and then sat down hard on the sofa. Dust particles flew into the air around her, and I backed up a step, trying not to sneeze, watching her through watering eyes. Her head remained ducked, shoulders bowed, toes turned inward toward each other. Like a kid.
I hesitated, took my own meal from Aaz, and perched gingerly in one of the red chairs. Raw placed the basket of rolls on the floor between us.
My grandmother picked at her shrimp. Seemed like a crime to eat so well with people starving around us, but I forced myself to take a bite. Tasted good, but not enough to distract me from watching the play of emotions across her face. Anger, still; and grief.
“Hey,” I said softly.
“Maxine was my mother’s name,” she whispered, and shoved a forkful of salad into her mouth.
I had to call her Jean. Grandmother was out of the question. She had not asked how many generations removed we were, and I did not want to tell her. Less I talked the better.
“I was almost eight when we left the States,” Jean said, over an entire apple pie, still warm and placed on the spare chair, which we had dragged close. Each of us held a spoon, taking turns digging directly into the tin. The crust was buttery and flaky, the apples full of cinnamon. Guilt and odd circumstances aside, it had become a lovely meal.
“It was after the market crash. I don’t know why we left. But we landed in France, traveled through Germany, and then took a winding path through Yugoslavia, Greece, down into Turkey. Finally ended up in Iraq. I was thirteen by then. My mother had never been to China, but she made friends with people who had family there. Sephardic Jews, big-business types. By then, there were rumbles coming out of Germany. My mother remembered the first war, and wanted us far away from it. She thought China would be that place.”
Jean stabbed the pie a little harder than necessary. “I’ve been here ever since. Got tied up when the Japs did their number on Pearl Harbor, and then the damn Krauts had to get involved because of that fool Hitler. Someone needed to play cloak-and-dagger on this side of the Pacific. Better me than anyone else.”
Her mother could not have been dead that long. “So you pretend to be Jewish.”
She shrugged. “Dark coloring is all the same over here. Makes you one way, even if you’re not.”
“You can’t be fooling the people in this neighborhood.”
“Only the baojia stick their noses in business that doesn’t belong to them. Jewish tattletales, hired by the Japs. Some of them are stand-up, though. Especially if you pay them.”
“You missed an appointment with one tonight.”
Jean went silent, studying me again. I debated telling her about meeting Ernie, but she spoke before I could say a word—her tone cautious, careful. “His idea. He told me the Krauts were coming in for dinner at the White Horse. He thought if I waited on them, I might hear something.”
“Did you?”
“Not enough. As far as Hilter is concerned, most of the hard action is in Europe. Won’t waste good intel on the officers out here. But you never know. Little bits help.”
“And the kids? I saw Samuel pass you a note.” And Ernie seemed to have made himself her unofficial protector.
“They also help,” Jean said quietly. “They’re in a…unique position.”
“With this…Black Cat. Who tattoos young boys and calls them her…men.”
Jean said nothing. I leaned back, staring at the ceiling, which was covered in black patches of mold. It was still hot, but maybe I was getting used to it. I could breathe more easily. I heard gunshots again, in the distance. Jean looked at the window, drumming her spoon on the edge of the pie pan.
“Black Cat,” she said quietly. “Russian whore. But she’s got her hooks in the local underground spy network. Happened right after Richard Sorge got checked out in ’41. He was a piece of work. Left behind a hole that needed filling, and the whore was in the right place. She had been one of his favorites, and knew some of his contacts. Except she’s no patriot. Not for Russia, not for anyone except herself.”
“Have you met her?”
“No.” Jean hesitated. “She’s dangerous.”
“And you’re not?” My tone was sharper than I intended; for a moment, I sounded like my mother.
Spots of color touched her cheeks. “You don’t understand what’s at risk.”
“I understand she uses children to do her dirty work. I guess you all do, to some degree.” I ignored the flicker of guilt and outrage that flared in her eyes. “What was on that boy’s wrist?”
She sat back, jaw tight, glancing from me to Zee, all the boys sitting quietly in the shadows of the room, watching us, and each other. All of them, so quiet. So solemn.
“I don’t like this arrangement,” she finally said, ignoring my question. “I tell you everything, you tell me nothing.”
I stood, dropping my spoon into the pie pan. “I’ll find out what I need on my own, then. Wearing your face should count for something, I think.”
She swore softly. “It was a tattoo. Of a rose. She brands all her…men…with them.”
“Samuel doesn’t look a day over eleven.”
Jean said nothing. She did not need to. I looked down at my gloved hands. “I need to meet this woman.”
“And do what? Kill her?”
“Whatever it takes.” My voice sounded tough, decisive. It was a good act. Good enough to fool my grandmother, who, in this place, this time, was almost ten years my junior. I was the old guard here. It gave me new respect for my mother. And for Jean, for accepting my presence as well as she had. If my own descendant showed up one day to boss me around, I think I might suffer an aneurysm.
Jean stood, utterly grim-faced. “There are circumstances—”
A crashing sound interrupted her. It was from downstairs, like a door getting kicked in. Shouts followed: a frail male voice protesting in German, swallowed by louder, guttural Japanese tones. A woman screamed. I ran for the door.
Jean got there first, blocking me. Below us, more shouts, and the crunch and crash of furniture being broken. The woman’s voice broke into a piercing wail. I could still hear the man speaking in German, but in ragged fits and gasps. The floor beneath my feet vibrated. I smelled smoke.
She grabbed my arm. “You intervene, you’ll make it worse.”
“Really,” I muttered, trying to shrug her off. “You sure about that?”
“You’ll make it worse for them,” she clarified. “And for me. I can’t afford to be noticed. Not like that, and not now.”