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every few seconds, so we heard the shaky voice of the announcer: “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that the war in the Pacific has begun.”
    America was in the war.
    Suddenly, it was not just Hongkew under Japanese occupation but all of Shanghai, including us in the once-safe foreign settlements. We poured back into the frosty streets. I saw Liu hiding behind a garbage bin. I didn’t know if he was watching for pickpocket prey or whether he was just as scared as the rest of us hounding one another for information on how our lives were going to turn.
    I cried bitter tears, lost in the horde of frightened people. Father was stunned, and Mother had to rush off to the bakery, so Erich tried to comfort me awkwardly. I shrugged him off. Why, I don’t know. Maybe it was because of his smug look that said, I warned you all; you didn’t listen .
    Asian countries all around us were reeling under Japan’s atrocities. If before Pearl Harbor we were hungry, after Pearl Harbor we would surely be starving. In weeks we would feel the effects of the war in the Pacific right where it hurt us Jewish refugees most. Once the United States had declared war on Japan, and days later the Germans had declared war on the United States, we’d get no more American movies, no more packages from Molly O’Toole. All American money for the refugee settlement, all Red Cross money, all Hebrew Immigrant Aid money, would be cut off cold.
    That night after we found out about Pearl Harbor, Erich didn’t come home. Mother and Father were frantic, and I was no help. I pictured him pierced through by a Japanese bayonet or drowned in the Whangpoo. Then something clicked for me. Those men at the Little Vienna Café who’d recognized Erich and turned away—maybe they were some of the Resistance fighters Erich had hinted about. And my brother was working with them.
    They were the ones who’d given Erich the bicycle. I was sure of it now. What had only been talk—talk among Erich’s friends in Vienna—was turning into dangerous action in Shanghai. Who they all were, where they headquartered, I didn’t know, but that night I vowed to find out.

CHAPTER SIX
    1941–1942
    â€œWhere were you the whole night?” Mother patted Erich’s face, his arms, his chest, to make sure he was all in one piece. “We were worried sick, your father and I.”
    â€œWith friends,” Erich said, slipping out from under Mother’s probing hands and eyes.
    Father was practicing. The Violin was one string short, and he was making do. The music vibrated a filling in my back tooth.
    â€œWho are these friends?” Mother asked, closing Father’s studio door.
    â€œYou don’t know them.”
    â€œYou spend too much time with them,” Mother said sternly.
    â€œThey use the time well,” he retorted. He’d gotten very sassy with Mother in that new deep voice he so eagerly showcased for us.
    Her back was to Erich as she stirred a pot of soup. “Where do you go every day with these people?”
    â€œHere, there.”
    â€œWhere?”
    Ilse to the rescue: “He plays soccer, Mother.”
    Mother’s spoon scraped lazily across the pot. “You play soccer all night? And the bicycle—”
    â€œWhy are you interrogating me?”
    â€œSo many hours, and I don’t know where you are?” She turned around and offered Erich a spoonful of the potato-and-leek soup—a peace offering.
    He shook his head. “I go to meetings.”
    â€œMeetings, Erich?”
    â€œWhat do you think, everyone sits around like you do waiting for the Japanese to take over every corner of the city?” He paced the room, drumming his fingers on his thigh. “Some people act, Mother. Action.”
    Mother pulled her shoulders together in resolution. She handed me a Thermos and some bamboo chips, which we used as currency at the hot-water shop. “Go down