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difficult not having someone to confide in, but even “Promise to God, all included, nothing counts” wouldn’t work this time. Christine couldn’t risk it.
    “Just because you can’t work for his family doesn’t mean you can’t see him!” Maria said. “When you’re in love, you can’t let anything stop you!”
    “The Nazis aren’t just anything.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Mutti didn’t tell you about the other new law?” Christine said. “The one that forbids us to be together because Isaac is Jewish?”
    Maria’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open. “Oh nein! ” she said, pounding her fists on her knees. “How is that possible? Who do those Scheisse head Nazis think they are?”
    Despite her heartache, a small, half crazy-sounding chuckle erupted from Christine’s lips. Maria never swore. She tried to be a good Christian in every way, from never missing church to reminding them all to say their prayers every night. And she always admonished Vater for cussing. It was like hearing Oma use bad language.
    “Why are you laughing?” Maria said.
    “I’m sorry,” Christine said. “It’s just, hearing you call the Nazis names . . .”
    “Well, they are Scheisse heads, are they not?”
    “Ja,” Christine said. “They’re worse than that. But be careful. Don’t let anyone outside the family hear you say things like that.”
    “I know,” Maria said, pulling Christine close. “This just makes me so mad! I don’t understand any of it!”
    “Me either,” Christine said. Ever so slightly, Maria rocked her big sister back and forth, and Christine found herself thinking again what a wonderful mother Maria was going to make someday. There was no doubt Maria would smother her babies with love. Of all the members of their family, her little sister was always the first to hand out hugs and kisses. Whether welcoming their father home from work, or kissing her little brothers’ bumps and bruises, she was the most physically affectionate person Christine had ever known. But now, Christine could tell, hugs were the only comfort her sister could offer. Like everyone else, Maria didn’t know what to say when it came to the unbelievable things the Nazis were doing.
    “Don’t worry,” Maria said. “This won’t last forever. It can’t. It just can’t. And besides, love conquers all, right?”

C HAPTER 4
    A t ten forty-five that night, Christine opened her bedroom door and listened, her heart in her throat, Isaac’s lucky stone clenched in her fist. At first, she thought the house was silent, her family sound asleep in their beds, but then, her stomach dropped. The radio was still on in the living room, a tinny, frenzied voice chiding the quiet hours of darkness. For the first time in recent memory, her parents were up past ten.
    Two hours before, she’d gone downstairs to say good night, certain that everyone would be getting ready for bed. To her surprise, she’d found Mutti and Vater in the living room with Oma and Opa. They were sharing a warm beer, another bottle warming on the woodstove, and listening to the new radio, her father and Opa at the table, Oma and Mutti on the couch. Christine stood beside Vater’s chair and listened to Hitler’s brusque voice, wishing he’d end his tirade so her parents and grandparents would go to bed.
    “I am personally taking over command of all armed forces,” Hitler shouted. “We have successfully completed the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria into Germany, and so, my homeland has finally come home. After years of persecution and oppression, ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland have become part of greater Germany. Soon, the master Aryan race will have the Lebensraum, ‘living space,’ we deserve!”
    “That madman wants to take over the whole world,” Opa said.
    Oma shushed him and leaned forward. Mutti looked up at Christine, her eyes tired and puffy.
    “Are the boys asleep?” she whispered.
    “ Ja, and Maria too,” Christine said, hoping