“It looks like snot,” I said when I saw the sea creature’s orange insides up close, regretting my bold move. Everyone looked at me in anticipation. I couldn’t back out. I probed the lumps with my tongue. The sliminess surprised me, but in a good way—like kissing. Like the tongue of the boy from the first floor of our building during the uneventful days of the fallout shelter.
“Delicious,” I said. The grownups lifted their cups and clinked.
They got louder and jollier, making up for the absence of the beach clamor. Bolek took a nap. Mama had another cigarette. Tata got serious again when she lit up, but she grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him into an embarrassingly long kiss. Then everyone went back to laughing and more laughing.
Tata and Lolek went for a swim. Mama braided my hair and kissed me between my shoulder blades. She smelled like smoke and sugar. I looked at Tata and Lolek splashing in the water. My imagination supplied the missing inflatable toys, sun-burned tourists, fishermen’s boats, topless Czech ladies, and the smell of ice cream. When they were out of brandy, the Germans spooned some brown granules into cups. I thought it was cocoa, but Mama explained it was instant coffee, which they mixed with hot water from their thermos. Mama took a cup. They offered her more cigarettes, but she waved her hand no and bit into another peach.
When Tata returned to the shade, he shook his head like a dog, sprinkling us all with sea water that flew off his hair. Lolek joined him. The water drops woke up Bolek, who protested grumpily at first, but then laughed with Lolek. Tata took a cup of coffee and I teased him, “Careful, it’s made out of powder.” As soon as I said it I felt rotten. I remembered the reason he distrusted powders, and I feared that my mockery of his concern was tempting fate, putting Mama in danger. But he just said, “As long as it’s not gunpowder.” He turned to the sun and puffed out his chest, breathed in and out as if inhaling fresh air for the first time.
And then thunder.
An orange explosion. Mama dropped the peach—it fell cut side-down into the pine needles and red dirt. The fortress in the distance was erased, and a cloud of dust swelled in its wake. The Germans jumped off their chairs, toppling them, and ran off to their rental, leaving all their things behind. Mama shivered, her body pattering against mine. Tata hugged her close, but his arms were calm, betraying no urgency.
“Kids, sit around us.”
He stretched his hug to pull us all in. His chest was still puffed out, as if daring the bombs to try and mess with him. Mama whimpered now. Lolek and Bolek kept looking back and forth from Mama to Tata, even to me. Tata took turns palming our heads, the rest of his arm enfolding Mama by the waist.
“This has nothing to do with us,” he said, looking at the smoke and medieval stones falling off the fortress. Mama buried her head into Tata’s neck as tears rolled down her cheeks and neck and chest, disappearing behind her bikini top.
Another boom. Then another.
The jesters started to cry, and so did I.
Mama said, “We need to leave.”
Tata wouldn’t let her out of his grip.
“We’re on vacation,” he said, his eyes glaring with that stubborn fierceness. “The war is none of our business.”
“You’re crazy!” Mama yelled, wrestling out of his arms, grabbing us each by the hand. The Germans motioned for us to come inside. As we ran for cover, I looked over my shoulder.