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specimen.
 I d love to, he said,  but first I ll teach you
not to play chess with me.
I put up a bit of a fight, but he beat me pretty
quickly. I thought about quitting, but it would be
better revenge to get so good I could beat him.
He d never believe a Jew could be smart enough.
On my way home from school, Bill and two
of his friends, just as big as he was, stopped me.
They could kill me if they tried, but I didn t care.
Bill was too chicken to fight by himself; I could
see that.
 Need some help? I taunted him.  Can t fight
me alone?
I was on the ground before I knew it, sucker-
punched in the jaw. I struggled to get up.
 I don t need any help, he said as he walked
away.
Mother fussed over me something terrible
when I got home.  Who did this? I ll go to the
principal! To the police!
 No! I can take care of myself.
 Sure looks like it, Marta said. They were
almost the first words she d spoken to me since I d
returned from John s house. Just before I went to
sleep the night I came back, she had whispered,
 You are crazy, Ben. We re okay here. It s you that s
not okay. You. She was so mad at me for worrying
everyone she wouldn t speak to me after that.
T he W h i rlw i nd 55
Didn t she remember the roundups in Berlin?
Didn t she remember anything? Didn t she hear
them calling us dirty Jews?
But she was just a kid. I couldn t blame her. I
could only blame Father.
56 Ca rol Matas
à Chapter Nine à
I played Bill again on our second meeting, and
he beat me again, but it wasn t quite so easy for
him. My plan was simple: first, beat him at chess
and then beat him up. He had a problem with me
being a Jew? Just wait. I d give him a problem.
When I got home there was a letter sitting on
the kitchen table.  That s for you, Mother said.
My heart leapt in my chest. Elizabeth? I scooped
it up, looking at the name and return address.
John. I sat at the table.
Dear Ben,
We re in a town called Puyallup. It s only
twenty-five miles away from Seattle, so you
might have heard of it. We have been put in
the Assembly Center. It s where they hold their
state fair. They call this place Camp Harmony.
No one here thinks the name is funny. It is
surrounded by barbed wire. Soldiers patrol the
fences. We are prisoners. I begin to worry that
T he W h i rlw i nd 57
you were right all along. Perhaps we really
are in danger from our own government.
We are living in shacks. The ground is just
covered with boards, and grass grows between
the cracks. We had to stuff straw into sacks
for mattresses. There is mud everywhere.
The toilet is a board with holes cut in it.
Every morning they check us with a roll
call. They barge into our rooms whenever
they want and search our things. They took
away all our Japanese books.
The adults are trying to make it seem
normal. They ve put street signs up, elected
a mayor, and they call the mess halls names
like Jackson Cafe or Spice s Cafe, but they re
still mess halls. The food is not bad, though,
because it s all cooked by chefs who had their
own restaurants. There are even special
meals for kids. We had a dance on Saturday.
We tuned all our radios to the same station
and everybody danced. Pretending it was just
a regular Saturday night. But it wasn t, was
it?
I am an American. Why is this
happening?
We do get the papers, so I ve decided that
since it s spring I m going to start to follow
baseball more closely as a hobby. My brother
Michael suggested it. He says he ll play chess
with me too. He says we have to make the best
58 Ca rol Matas
of it, there s no point in getting blue. He is the
head of the family now, so I will try to listen
to him.
Hope you and your family are well.
John.
I wondered if I should go there and try to help
him escape. But what was the point? He wouldn t
come with me; he wanted to be with his family.
A lot of the boys working at the paper were
using their money to buy war bonds, but not me.
My plan to run away was gaining steam. After that
letter, it seemed like the only sane thing to do. I
decided that I d save every penny so eventually I
could go to Canada and live with Uncle Isaac. He
knew what was what. I d stick with him.
The next time I sat down across from Bill to play
him, he said to me,  I ll tell you what. You pay
me a buck and I won t beat you up after school.
Jews always have lots of money. That shouldn t be
a problem.
 I ll tell you what, I said.  You pay me a buck
and I won t beat you at chess right now.
He threw his head back and laughed.  Hey,
don t make me laugh too hard, he said.  I won t
be able to think straight.
I tried to remember everything I d learned
about chess. I concentrated so hard I felt like I d
burst, but in the end he still beat me.
T he W h i rlw i nd 59
 Checkmate, he said, the biggest grin in the
world on his face.  See you later.
I took a deep breath and started the walk home.
Sure, I could have run. He d never catch me. But [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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