Helene and Christian were allowed to change into day clothes, though when Christian emerged from his room without socks, it was clear his nerves had gotten the better of his dress sense. Helene, her red hair hastily pinned up, handed the taller man their alien registration cards, their German passports, and Christian’s American one.
“He is an American,” she said of her son, echoing her husband. “And we are legal residents.” She pointed at their photos and the round stamps embossed years ago in a bland government building in Milwaukee. “My husband is a pillar of this community,” she declared. “Franz Lange. Everyone here knows Franz Lange.”
Christian put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze, sure that trying to defend themselves was not the right course of action with such men. But Helene continued. “We are members of the country club,” she said, waving in its general direction. “The one on Range Line Road. The best in Milwaukee.”
Christian wished his mother would stop. She sounded desperate, and desperation made her sound guilty.
Jakobsson took the documents from her and flipped roughly through the small stamped pages, his fingers playing with the edges, then turned to study the expensive Karl Caspar drawing on the wall. The black-and-white depiction of Christ’s crucifixion, expertly framed in gold-painted wood, had been given by the artist to Franz’s wealthy parents years ago. “Your golfing habits,” Jakobsson said to Helene coldly, “are of no interest to me.”
To Helene, who had never succeeded in diluting her thick German accent, being a member of the Milwaukee Country Club was the ultimate badge of Americanness. The club was where she and her family celebrated the Fourth of July, where she and other housewives browned themselves—or reddened themselves, as in her case—by the large swimming pool. It was one of two at the club, she had written to her mother when they were first accepted as members. Her husband went as often as she did, playing golf and making important connections to build up Lange steel.
Franz had lost his accent much faster than Helene, had assimilated more rapidly, too, and she admired him almost too much for it. He had grown up in cosmopolitan Berlin and had started studying English much younger than she had, and in the right schools. He spoke German like an aristocrat, English first like an Englishman and now like an upper-crust American, and was even proficient in French. She was the daughter of a baker and had spent her childhood and adolescence in a rural town with chickens and a donkey named Aldo. She would never lose her accent.
Franz’s easy command of English was something he’d liked to show off when the two had started dating in Berlin. He was a young engineer, and she was a violin student at the Stern Conservatory.
Because of her reserve, Franz didn’t seduce her in the forthright way he had used—many times successfully—with other women. Instead, he went the playground route and teased her about the color of her hair, calling her Mrs. Tomato Soup in his proper English. The nickname stuck, and even years later he would use it when he had had too much wine and they were rediscovering each other in bed at night.
Their son had picked up on it, too, even though it was supposed to be reserved for private moments, and for some reason that silly name came to him now as he watched his mother standing rigidly under the light of the dining room chandelier. Tomato soup—that was as American as it got, wasn’t it? So why were the agents there?
The Lange family didn’t live in the predominantly German area of Milwaukee, Franz didn’t belong to the German Club, and he didn’t frequent beer halls full of immigrants. And while the three spoke the language to each other when alone, they always spoke English outside the house. Still, here were two brusque men walking around their home as if they were planning to measure the walls and move in.
Christian and his parents had talked about such visitations in whispers since the bombing of Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941. Since then, they had heard of some German nationals being arrested in Milwaukee, had been told how their houses were scoured by agents, but they weren’t their kind of people. And so few of them were being arrested in proportion to their numbers. There were millions of German-Americans in the United States. Surely, the Langes thought, the odds would protect them.
The Japanese were the ones being targeted, everyone said. Christian had heard the news reports, had seen pictures of white children in magazines holding up placards that read “Jap-hunting season” and “yellow peril.” Signs like that were all over California. Those people were at risk, not his parents. Not him. The images had made him feel sick, but part of him had been relieved it was them, thinking that it meant he had been spared. The Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese were all the enemies of the United States. The Axis, all allies.
Franz and Helene were so confident of their safety that they never shielded their son from their conversations. He should know what was happening in their country, in their state, and in the world at war, they thought, and he should trust that it would have almost no effect on him. No one would come for Franz, since he employed more than one hundred people, almost all American citizens. So by the time 1942 had wound down, the three Langes were sure they would safely ride out the war.
But here they were, and Christian was having trouble not thinking the worst. The draft age had been changed to eighteen the year before, but just a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday, he hadn’t been concerned. He had college ahead of him, not war. His parents had assured him that he would not be drafted, just as they assured him that the FBI would not knock on their door. Perhaps, thought Christian, they were wrong about both.
Christian watched the two men open the drawers in his father’s office, knocking about the wooden desk that he’d loved sitting at as a boy. They riffled through Franz’s papers as he stood there, looking foolish.
“What is it you are searching for?” Franz finally asked. “Surely the fact that we are German citizens is not enough reason for you to tear apart our home in the middle of the night.”
Christian looked away from the men, relieved that his father was finally standing up for his family.
“That’s more than enough, Mr. Lange,” said Jakobsson, the blue veins in his neck protruding with excitement. “We are at war with your country. Your rights, or these rights you assume incorrectly that you have, no longer exist. We can search whomever we please, whenever we please, if they are citizens of a country we are fighting against. If you’ve got a problem with that, take it up with J. Edgar Hoover.”