Chapter X

Once I was officiated into Lukas’s band of misfits, I became quite busy juggling many things in my life. I ate lunch with Anton and the others while they were none the wiser to my subterfuge, and three days a week I attended Hitlerjugend meetings.

Meanwhile, I tried to spend as much free time as I could with Lukas, Leah, and the group. The early days getting to know them were full of excitement. While at Lukas’s house, I voraciously listened to every record from his collection, and spent a lot of time goofing around with Leah. She loved to tell jokes and recount silly stories, and I enjoyed the lighthearted bliss of being her friend. It helped keep my mind off things I’d rather not think about, like my father’s death and my worries over Otto’s political convictions. 

When I wasn’t spending time with Leah, I was learning from them all what it meant to be a Swing Guy. Initially, from the outside looking in, I’d assumed it was about exemplifying a state of jazz-like cool. Being aloof and perhaps somewhat lazy, both of which I could be at times but without being cool, obviously. However, it was much deeper, at least to Lukas.

He explained how he’d first become involved in the scene when he still lived in Hamburg. Swing and jazz were popular there, and despite the authorities’ attempts to curtail the music’s influence, young folks persisted. What began as a simple passion for music then became something else entirely. Self-expression was a small resistance, and maybe some did it for teenage rebellion, but Lukas believed it was more important than that.

“You know that old experiment about a frog in a pot of water?” Lukas said to me one day.

“Sure.” I thought I’d heard about it in a science class once. 

  “Well, that’s us. We’re the frog—and the Führer’s the one slowly boiling us alive. Most people can’t see it, or won’t see it. They’re so focused on living day to day they don’t even realize how much everything has changed—the forest for the trees, or what-have-you.”

I nodded, thinking about it. Maybe it wasn’t an original analogy, but all teenagers think they’re the first to come to such conclusions, and Lukas and I were no different. It did make me realize what he spoke of epitomized how I’d felt for a while, though. 

When something on the radio bothered me, I blocked it out. When my brother became more and more involved with the Party, I sighed and kept my opinions to myself. When Anton and the others said terrible things, I did nothing. 

I was the frog. 

“But a real Swing Guy or Gal,” Lukas went on, “they’re hep to things, you know—and I don’t mean hep like cool. Hep really means to know what’s going on. To be aware. Don’t you ever just feel like you know things?”

I stared at him. He was lying down on one of the couches in the parlor, his legs lazily kicked up into the air. I sat on the couch across from him, struggling to understand what he meant. Lukas was simultaneously the most fascinating and confusing individual. 

“What?” 

“You know!” he said, as if I was supposed to. “Don’t you ever get that feeling when you know something isn’t right?” 

“Yes—when you put it that way.”

“Well, that’s your conscience, you know. Most people have one, but too many don’t ever listen to it. A real Swing Guy listens, though.”

“Because he’s hep…” I supplied. 

Lukas smiled wide. “Yeah, now you’re getting it.” 

I fell silent, thinking as I pet Thor, who jumped up on the couch. “So,” I said after a while of stroking the cat’s downy fur, “what exactly is a Swing Guy supposed to do with what his conscience tells him?” 

“I’m still trying to figure that one out,” he admitted. “The guys in Hamburg might tell you ‘be true to yourself’ or some other ‘corny’ Quatsch—and I guess that’s a fine form of rebellion in itself, but sometimes I can’t help thinking we ought to do a little more sometimes.” 

That sounded dangerous, I had to admit, but Lukas was noncommittal to it at the moment, so I nodded. He leaned over onto his elbow to look at me. “Now for a really important question,” he said, “how are your dancing skills?”

With reluctance, I admitted such skills were nonexistent. Maybe I used to dance with my mother as a toddler, but in my adolescence the closest I ever got was tapping my foot. It didn’t take long for me, however, to begin learning to dance the foxtrot. Salomé and Heinrich were touted as the dancers with the most technical skill, so I became their pupil. I would dance with Salomé while Heinrich directed us in the steps. At first it was awkward, especially since Salomé was Lukas’s girl and all, but they all laughed at me for worrying.

“We all dance with each other,” Lukas had said. “You dance with Salomé, Leah dances with Hans, and I’ll dance with Heinrich. What does it matter? It’s for fun!”

From then on, I tried not to take it too seriously, and that was when I realized dancing really was fun—especially when I found that no one put me down for making mistakes.

It was a breath of fresh air to have friends who weren’t judgmental of every small thing, who didn’t seem vaguely annoyed by me, like they merely tolerated my presence. It soon dawned on me that I’d found a true group of friends—that for the first time in my life I belonged somewhere. Once I allowed myself, the uptight feelings I’d become accustomed to melted away, and I began to connect with my friends on a deeper level.