Front Lines (Front Lines 1)

“Do they give you gun?” Rainy’s mother demands. “Aryeh, eat some spinach, is good for you blood. If they give you gun it is for shoot, no? Hokay. It is for shoot.”

“They gave me a gun too,” Aryeh says, hiding a smile. “They give them to all marines. It’s something they kind of insist on.”

“Hah!” Rainy laughs, which is a mistake, because this launches a five-minute-long diatribe in a patois of English, Yiddish, Polish, German, and some words that are invented on the spot, all of which culminate in the pronouncement that sons are not daughters, and daughters are not sons, and only a woman can give birth, painful birth, lasting hours, while the man is in some tavern drinking.

“The chicken is good,” Rainy’s father observes once this storm has blown itself out.

“A woman’s place is in the home, respecting and obeying her fool of a husband!” Rainy’s mother cries.

“Yes, Rainy,” her father says in a tone of weary irony. “Why can’t you learn from your mother to be respectful and obedient to men?”

“Very tender, the chicken,” one of the neighbors says.

With dinner completed, Rainy helps clear the table, moving swiftly between the narrow but elegant dining room and the tiny kitchen so as not to be caught alone with her mother.

It’s her father who corners her, drawing her down the hallway to a discreet distance.

“Rainy,” he says.

“Dad?”

He sighs, scratches his head, makes a face like maybe what he’s about to say is a bad idea. Then he shrugs and says, “Listen, bubala, you know your cousin Esther?”

“Not really. Do I have a cousin Esther?”

“She’s your grandmother’s sister’s daughter. They live in Krakow. In Poland.”

“Yes, Father, I know where Krakow is.” She doesn’t mean to sound like a sarcastic teenager and softens it by prompting, “So, what about Cousin Esther?”

“Well, she writes letters to everyone, every branch of the family. Your mother gets a letter three, sometimes four times a year.”

Rainy waits, sensing a revelation, which comes after a dramatic pause.

“Nothing. Nothing for a year now,” her father says. “One letter missed, two even . . .” He shrugs.

“Well, there is a war on.”

“True, very true. I heard something about that on the radio, I think.” Her father is capable of his own sarcasm. “But when I talk to people at temple, it’

s the same thing. No one hears from Poland, no one hears from Ukraine . . . I’m just saying, you’re going to do intelligence work, no? You might hear something . . .” He lets it hang.

Rainy draws back, unconsciously putting distance between them. “Father. Dad. I can’t talk to you about my work. Those are the rules.”

He shrugs and dips his head and squints in a gesture that eloquently conveys his understanding, but also his expectation that rules are not always to be followed blindly. “I understand, and I will never ask you to break a rule, Rainy. I’m just saying you have a responsibility to the army, to this country that we love. But you also have an obligation to our people. Maybe you keep your eyes open. Maybe you see things, maybe you hear things . . .”

“I better finish clearing the table,” Rainy says, bringing the conversation to a halt.

With that awkward exchange and the clearing of dishes concluded, Rainy goes to her favorite place, the roof of the five-story building. The roof is flat tarpaper, with some of the tar still liquid from the day’s heat. Blackened pipes stick up in a seemingly random pattern. Beyond Rainy’s perch is a mile of roofs just like her own, and beyond that, in the distance, the skyscrapers that to most people’s minds defined New York City. The skyline is mostly dark for fear of the German submarines lurking just offshore that use city lights to silhouette vulnerable cargo ships plying the coastal route.

Aryeh joins her, bringing up two cups of hot tea.

“Had to get out of there, huh?” he asks.

His sister is a young woman with black hair, which unbound is so wild that it must be obsessively pinned down. She’s cut it for the army, but even short it struggles to get free. She has an olive complexion untroubled by blemishes. Her face in repose is alert, smart, skeptical, and thoughtful. Her mouth is wide, with full lips. Her eyes are large, dark, and quite beautiful.

“You handled that well,” her brother says. “I saw you about to explode a few times, but you didn’t.” He clinks his cup against hers. “Very mature of you.”

They are more than brother and sister; they are best friends and have been since a seven-year-old Rainy lost patience with her brother’s incessant teasing and broke his nose with a loaf of very stale rye bread.