“That’s a horrible idea.” Kitty blew out a breath. “Like temptation on a plate.”
“I know. But we’re going to have to do it,” Martha said. “He’s sending someone to inspect it.”
Kitty was put in charge of creating the display of food. “Because you’re the artistic one,” Martha had said.
A sense of shame crept over her as she began arranging the assortment of cans and loose goods. Ordinarily, she would have taken pride in making such everyday commodities into a three-dimensional work of art. But there was no escaping the feeling that what she was doing was baiting a trap.
She shaped the flour into a snowy mountain, flanked by a forest of dried peas. The lard was fashioned into a glistening glacier with salt sprinkled on its surface. Rolled oats formed undulating fields around the flour mountain, while cans of fish and evaporated milk formed something resembling a village nestled at its base.
Martha came to join Kitty when it was finished. “Smile,” Martha whispered. “We have to smile.”
They stood and watched as people filed past the display. The expressions on the faces of the DPs intensified the guilt Kitty felt. Their eyes glittered with terrible fascination at the sight of so much food piled up in front of them. It felt like a betrayal. The effort of maintaining a smiling mask almost paralyzed her.
To the women’s surprise, Major McMahon himself arrived at the camp as the last of the DPs were leaving the dining room.
“Good job!” He beamed at the edible landscape. “I hope it does the trick!”
“I don’t,” Kitty murmured under her breath.
“What’s that?”
“We’re just worried about the news coming out of Eastern Europe,” Martha said. “We don’t feel good about trying to persuade people to go somewhere they might actually be worse off than they are here.”
“Pardon me, ma’am, but did you really expect to feel good about any of this?” He waved his hand toward the open door. Some of the DPs were still standing outside, casting furtive glances at the food mountain. “As I said before, your job is to keep them alive—simple as that. They might not have a ball when they get back home, but the Russkies probably won’t kill ’em.”
“Probably?” Kitty shot him a look of incredulity.
“Is it so wrong for them to want something better?” Martha’s eyes flashed. “If they had the choice, they’d go to America or Australia or Great Britain—anywhere but Poland.”
“But that’s the point. They don’t have the choice. Every other door out of here is slammed shut. They’re talking about letting a handful of Kraut war brides into the States, is all. No sign of things loosening up anytime soon.” He dipped his hand into the floury mound on the table, sifting it through his fingers. “That’s why it’s so important to play up the positives. There are jobs in reconstruction work available, as well as all this food.” He rubbed his hands together as if he wished he were going there himself. “And no one has to go back to the villages on the Russian side of the line. If their homes are there, they can apply for resettlement. They’ll be given a piece of land in one of the places we took off the Germans: Silesia—that’s good farmland. You can make a living there, no problem.”
Martha tried to imagine how she would feel if America were to be divided up in this way, if she were told that New York and every state on the East Coast were suddenly out of bounds. How would she react to being told that, instead, she could become an orange farmer in Mexico?
“What about the people who live in Silesia?” Kitty said. “How are they going to feel about being thrown off their land?”
“They lost the war.” He shrugged. “Now, ladies, I need a list by the end of this week: a minimum of four hundred this time.” With a nod to each of them, he bustled out of the room.
“Four hundred—that’s almost twice as many as last time.” Kitty glanced at the landslide the major had caused in her carefully sculpted landscape. The lard glacier had shifted halfway down the flour mountain, toppling some of the sardine-tin houses. “I suppose I’d better clear all this up now everyone’s seen it.”
“I just don’t understand why President Truman won’t let them in.” Martha’s eyes narrowed as she watched more cans fall like dominoes. “America is a nation of displaced people. How can you close a border that’s been open to the whole world for hundreds of years?”