This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II

But no one at school seems to care. All anyone wants to talk about is the dance. And about Friday’s football game, of course, an exhibition charity game against archrival West Seattle High to raise money for war bonds. The perfect community event for a town where football fever and patriotic fervor are one and the same.

Except there is one inconvenient fact. The new curfew law will keep Frank Maki, their star quarterback, at home, away from the stadium.

But that fact is never brought up. A day goes by, and another. Alex waits with trepidation for the unwanted news that Ernest Schwinn, the second-string quarterback—a nervous, twitchy sophomore—has replaced Frank Maki as quarterback. On that day, Frank will stomp home disconsolate and moody, and refuse to speak or eat.

But that day never arrives. Frank comes home on Wednesday and Thursday in a freshly muddied uniform, carrying his helmet, his hair damp and disheveled. He’s regained a ravenous appetite, and is constantly reaching for another helping, taking chicken drumsticks off Alex’s plate.

On the morning of the game, Alex wakes to find Frank already up, sitting on his bed cradling a football. His eyes are alert but lost in the Xs and Os of offensive schemes.

“Are you playing tonight?” Alex asks.

Frank blinks with surprise. “Huh?”

Alex raises himself on one elbow. “Are you playing tonight?”

“Of course I am.” He tosses the football from one hand to the other, back and forth, pendulum-like. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“What about the curfew?”

“What about the curfew?” He gets up and walks to the bathroom.

Later at breakfast, Mother asks Frank the same question.

He skirts the question, a little more practiced this time. “Coach said don’t worry about it. It’s a special night, the team gets a charity exemption.” He speaks quickly, using English occasionally, knowing Mother won’t understand. He rams a piece of toast into his mouth, chews loudly. Crumbs go spraying out of his mouth across the table, and Mother scolds him, tells him his manners are atrocious, and just like that, he’s successfully evaded the question.

But when Mother is noisily washing dishes at the sink, Frank looks at Alex. “You’re staying home tonight. You hear me, Alex?”

“But the game—”

He glowers at Alex. “Can it. Don’t even think about going.”

“But if they’re letting you—”

“Stay home, Alex! I’m not kidding around.” He’s using his football-huddle voice now, his natural authority humming off him like bands of heat from a sun-baked freeway. Alex thinks of all those times he’s admired his brother from afar, those broad shoulders slightly stooped in the center of a huddle of white boys, commanding their respect, directing their next move, their blue and green eyes fastened on him, their ears tuned to his voice. His brother like a Greek god.

“You hear me, Alex?”

Alex drops his eyes to the table. He gives a small reluctant nod.

But of course he doesn’t stay home that night. He’s never missed any of Frank’s games.

Alex waits for Mother’s closed bedroom to go dark. She’s exhausted from all that needs to be done before the evacuation in only three days, and Alex knows she’ll fall asleep quickly. To be safe, he waits another ten minutes before creeping out of his bedroom. It’s already seven forty-five. The football game begins in fifteen minutes. He shuts the front screen door slowly, steps carefully over the two creaky planks of the front porch, then sprint-tiptoes across the cold grass.

Hero comes bounding toward him from behind the house. Somehow he knows not to bark. Alex reaches down to scratch the underside of his chin. “Stay, Hero.”

Hero whines, paws the dirt ground.

Alex retrieves his bike from behind the shed. Quietly, he back-heels the kickstand up, guides the bike off the grass and onto the dirt road. Swaying left to right, right to left, he pumps the pedals, coaxing speed into the bike. The surrounding fields become spinning plates of earth lined with neat cultivated rows. Nearby trees rush past, while those farther away, gray silhouettes against the darkening skies, glide slower or hardly at all. A tractor left out in the middle of the fields is an iceberg in a black sea. Wind flows past him, rustling his jacket.

He cuts across the neighbor’s fields—a shortcut his parents have forbidden. Not that the Marshalls would mind. They’re good, hardworking people, and the two families have always gotten along. When Alex was born, the Marshalls celebrated with a shivaree—a traditional serenade accompanied by clanging pots and pans and jubilant shouting that shocked his parents. Sometimes during picking season when Filipino itinerant workers are hard to find, the fathers help each other out, working well into the night.

A stir in the fields. Something darting through the rows of crops, running alongside him.

“Hero!”

Hero barks once, twice, a joyous sound. Alex throws his head back and laughs. “You silly dog, Hero!”

He rides on, Hero racing by his side now. The stars beginning to emerge out of the darkening sky.

Fifteen minutes later, Alex crests the last hill. Below on the valley floor is his high school. The football field is lit up, shimmering like a snow globe. In that miniature world, bleachers are packed with townsfolk, and cars swing headlights into the last empty spots in the adjacent parking lot. On the field, he sees dots of players lined up in formation; a second later, like a swarm of wasps quickly scattered, they break apart. A distant ooah sounds from the packed bleachers.

Something about this sight—his whole town, all the people of Bainbridge Island contained in that small globe—catches him. A feeling twists in his rib cage, hard to identify. Even a minute later, coasting down the slope toward the field, Hero bounding next to him, he’s still unsure of the emotion. If it is a deep affection. Or its opposite, a resentment.

* * *

Something is wrong. He senses it almost as soon as he pulls into school. He dismounts his bike, slants it against the brick façade of the gym. Staying in the shadows, he studies the scene. The bleachers are teeming with people, their cheerful din lifting into the night. Nothing out of the ordinary. Children running beneath the stands, high-school couples off to the side nearer the baseball diamond holding hands, people chatting in long lines at the concession stand. A festive atmosphere. But he still can’t shake the feeling that something is off.

Charlie’s words from her most recent letter come to him: Even the familiar places somehow feel threatening.

“Stay, Hero.”

This time the dog obeys. He’s a rural farm dog, and all the noise and lights and people spook him. Hero sits on his haunches, ears pinned back. Tense. A whimper as Alex walks away.

Through the bleachers, past the legs of the seated spectators, Alex catches blurs of movement on the field. The gleam of light reflecting off football helmets, the mash of bodies smacking into one another, the crack of shoulder pads in violent collision. The play ends; the crowd groans. The collective sound, a gargantuan roar that transforms the crowd into a beast, unnervingly alive.

Ahead, two boys are returning from the concession stand, hands full of licorice and Zagnut bars and bags of Cracker Jacks. Off to the side, a group of men, nursing bottles of beer, are laughing good-naturedly. They’re West Seattle High Indians fans, judging from their sweatshirts emblazoned with the team mascot, an Indian Chief.

Alex steps on some discarded peanut shells. The cracking sounds seem inordinately loud, shotgun blasts. The group of men turns to him, their gale of laughter suddenly cut short. Or is he just imagining this?

Behind him, a car comes to a stop, its tires crunching on gravel. A few people turn to look, curious.

He keeps walking, his legs mismatching stilts, one shorter than the other. Suddenly unsure of how to swing his arms, like they’re new appendages just hung on him. Certain that everyone is watching him. He thinks, I am not supposed to be here. He heads between two sections of the bleachers, the field opening up before him.

Ba

inbridge High’s offense has taken the field. He sees the players huddle, then break into formation, the linemen crouched and ready to pounce. A running play, by the looks of it.

Alex sees Frank step back from the center, and call out a last-second change in the play. Every eye in the packed stadium is focused on him. This is Frank’s sanctuary, a world in which he’s always found respect and order. Where the lines don’t shift, the rules don’t change, no matter what’s happening in the outside world. And where, hidden behind his helmet, his exotic face has never mattered, where he gets to be hero. Frank has come to lose himself in this world one last time, to breathe in its good, decent, affirming air.

He starts shouting out play calls, pointing—

It’s not Frank. Too small, too short. And the voice too high-pitched, too eager to please. It’s Ernest Schwinn, the second-string quarterback.

Alex frowns. Did Frank get injured? He hurries forward, is about to walk into the stadium proper when he hears the sound of a dog barking.

The play starts. The running back takes off but is quickly swallowed up by the defense in a crash of helmets and pads. The crowd groans with disapproval.

As players pick themselves up and rehuddle, the dog’s barking reemerges. Only now the barking is more urgent, insistent. Alex frowns. It’s Hero. Several people are turning to look.

Alex hurries back to his bike. But Hero’s not there. He’s at the edge of the parking lot. Barking at a car, hackles raised.

The car is a Bainbridge Island police cruiser. An officer is leaning up against the trunk, arms folded, cup of coffee in one hand.

Someone walking toward the cruiser, escorted by another officer. This person, in football uniform, still in pads, wearing his helmet. As if not wanting to be recognized.

It’s Frank. He gets into the back seat of the car, sits in the middle, away from the windows. Hero barking, growling at the officers. The group of four men from earlier gaze smugly, one or two grinning, bottles of beer pressed against the Indian Chief mascot on their sweatshirts. Several onlookers, hushed in these few seconds, observing. No one asking questions, no one objecting, no one raising their voice.

The officer shuts the back door before getting into the front passenger seat. The car backs up, then starts to pull away. Alex searches for Frank’s eyes. But inside the darkness of both car and helmet, his face is enshrouded, unreadable. The car takes off in a cloud of dust.

From the field, the crowd roars with delight.

Alex grabs his bike, chases after the police cruiser, Hero by his side. When it becomes obvious that the cruiser is headed not to the local precinct but to his farm, Alex carves a new shortcut through the woods. About twelve minutes later, chest exploding, he crests a hill overlooking his farm, and that’s when he again catches sight of the police cruiser.

It’s about a half mile from home, approaching the final turn into the dusty road that leads home. Its brake lights burn red as it pulls over, coming to a stop. A few seconds pass. Then the rear passenger door swings open, and Frank steps out. He leans over to say something to the driver before stepping away. The cruiser turns around, is about to drive off, when it stops. One of the officers steps out, cradling a football helmet, and jogs over to Frank. He hands the helmet over, lightly patting Frank on the shoulder as he does. He returns to the cruiser and drives away.

Frank stares at the disappearing car, then heads up the long dusty road to home.