Inked

would melt off my bones, or stuff my lungs with cotton. Looking at my grandmother was like checking out an inferno that I could not control. I was totally at a loss about how to make contact with her. Wondering if I should. Remembering that I already had, given the note addressed to me on the back of her photograph.
    Just as my grandmother straightened to walk back into the restaurant, her stride faltered, head tilting ever so slightly—as though listening to a whisper in her ear, or just silence. Perhaps the same silence emanating now from Dek and Mal, who had stopped purring and were so still I wanted to look over my shoulder to make certain no one had a gun aimed at my back.
    My grandmother turned slowly, a faint smile on her lips—though it was strained now, more clearly a mask. I did not move. I did not breathe. I was deep in shadows across the road—not close by any measure—but she found me instantly. She met my gaze.
    Her eyes widened, and she fumbled the tray in her hands. The Nazi she had just served patted her ass with a deep chuckle. She hardly seemed to notice. Just flashed me another look, and then walked quickly into the restaurant.
    I sagged against the wall, and waited.
    It took more than an hour. I watched people. Listened to a city that was sixty years in my past, embroiled in a war sixty years dead, and found myself thinking that life here, besides certain obvious differences, was not so removed from life in my own time. The toys might be different, and the clothes, and the setting, but people never changed. Fear and hate never changed, nor did love. Or courage.
    I saw all those things in the courtyard beyond the wall. Jews who sat at tables around the Nazis, forced to pretend there was nothing wrong. Men scooted their chairs so they blocked their wives from sight, and the laughter I had heard earlier grew quieter, and edgier, as the soldiers drank more deeply from their cups. Those who had been eating left quickly. Those who thought about eating stopped at the gate, took one glance inside, and kept going. Some of them tapped the playing children on their heads, and made sure they came along, as well.
    Until almost no one was left. Just the Nazis and Japanese. And my grandmother, who served them. No other waitress came near. The mysterious saxophone player was replaced by a violinist who began playing Strauss. My knees ached, and I settled into a crouch with the boys gathered close. Wondering where the Zee from 1944 might be lingering. Close, no doubt. Close enough to touch.
    When the Nazis left, they tossed paper money on the table—but one of the men slipped something else to my grandmother; an object small and dark, like a twig. Her only reaction was to thank him with a pretty smile, blushing when he chucked her under the chin.
    She stood politely to the side as they filed out, one after the other, into the street. The Peerless sputtered to life. I had almost forgotten it. The driver rolled ten feet forward to the gate, and then exited quickly to open doors. Within moments, they were gone.
    So was my grandmother, when I looked for her again.
    I was patient. Nothing better to do. All the time in the world. Raw pulled a cup of hot unsweetened tea from the shadows, and placed it in my hands, along with a warm sugar cookie that melted in my mouth. Tasted fresh from the oven. I almost asked where it was from.
    I sensed movement on my right. Watched as the Jewish boy and girl who had been playing earlier outside the gate reappeared, kicking a ball between them. The girl was blond and slender, no older than ten or eleven, while the boy was likely the same age, and dark as Ernie. Not siblings. Nor had they returned to the restaurant gate just for the hell of it, though they were pretending hard that wasn’t the case. It was late, I thought. Probably almost midnight.
    My grandmother left the restaurant at a brisk walk, dressed in a simple brown skirt and white blouse, short-sleeved and tucked in. Her heels clicked. No smile on her face. Nothing pleasant at all about the look in her eyes. She resembled, finally, the woman I remembered; but that did not comfort me as much as it should have.
    The kids peered around the gate. My grandmother faltered when she saw them, glancing briefly over their heads at me. A warning in her gaze. I knew how to take a hint. I stayed put, melting even deeper into the shadows.
    “Samuel,” she said to the boy, and then rested her hand very gently on the girl’s head.