This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II

Charlie Lévy is a French Jewish girl and a close friend and pen pal of Alex Maki since the age of 10. Charlie’s appearance is notable for the fire in her eyes and for the three freckles by the corner of her eye. Beyond that, Alex is left to piece together her appearance based on her own descriptions of herself in her letters, though Alex’s sketch of her (which he carries with him during his time on the battlefield) can be found at the end of Chapter 35. Charlie has a deep and complicated love of Paris, and she longs to show Alex all of her favorite places. Even under Nazi occupation, betrayed by her countrymen and forced into hiding, Charlie finds herself able to forgive her home city, loving it despite all its flaws. Charlie dreams of studying literature at Sorbonne University; her favorite novel is Jane Eyre, which she frequently references. Charlie maintains her close friendship with Alex for nearly a decade, until she is captured and taken to Auschwitz and unable to write. When Alex visits the Lévys’ former apartment before being discharged from the army, he discovers that Charlie has kept each and every letter and drawing that he has ever sent her. This revelation shows that Charlie loved Alex as much as he loves her.

Charlie’s fiery, rebellious nature is shown by the parting words that she charges Monsieur Shäfer to pass on to Alex: “I am still the leaping frog” (344). Charlie performs small acts of rebellion throughout the Nazi occupation of France, including whistling in a crowded theater during a propaganda reel, leaving graffiti frogs in various parts of town, and sneaking out from Shäfer’s secret hiding place to wander around the empty streets of her beloved Paris. Charlie is a suspect in the Auschwitz Prisoner Revolt in 1944, indicating that she maintains her rebellious nature even as she is starved and subjected to the horrific, inhumane conditions in the death camp. Monsieur Shäfer manages to save Charlie from execution at Auschwitz, but he merely succeeds in getting her on a train to Dachau, another death camp. By the end of the novel, Alex must come to terms with the fact that Charlie is likely dead, though he keeps her memory alive by lighting paper lanterns in her memory many years later.

Daisuke “Frank” Maki is Alex’s older brother. Frank embodies the sense of betrayal and shame felt by the nisei as Japanese American citizens are sent to concentration camps for no reason beyond their ethnicity. Aside from his ethnicity, Frank is the stereotypical all-American teenager; he is popular and outgoing, the captain and star quarterback of his high school’s football team. Frank is beloved by the Japanese American and white residents of Bainbridge Island alike, as is demonstrated by the sendoff he gets from his football team and the principal of the high school. Frank is Alex’s childhood hero, everything Alex wishes that he could be. The years that Alex spends watching Frank practice his throws directly impact Alex’s aptitude for judging distances as an adult, a skill that lands Alex the important position of front observer when he joins the army.

Frank’s optimism and patriotism diminish throughout Part 2; in Manzanar, he becomes bitter, sullen, and withdrawn. As Mrs. Maki deteriorates in the absence of his father, Frank spends more and more time away from his family, instead hanging out with other disgruntled young men. His relationship with Alex becomes strained when Alex tries to challenge Frank because of his anger and his behavior’s effect on their mother. Frank exhibits cognitive dissonance, at times claiming he is a true patriot, and at other times railing against the way America has treated him. He views Alex’s choice to join the army as a form of betrayal. He does not respond to Alex’s letters from the army, but he later reveals that this is due to the shame that he feels for allowing his little brother to be the one to enlist, when it should have been his duty. This indicates that Frank has matured; he and Alex reconcile by the end of the novel, and Frank now looks up to Alex as a hero.

Mutt Suzuki is a Hawaiian American of Japanese descent who fights alongside Alex in the 442nd Regiment in World War II. Like many of the other Hawaiians, Mutt is initially introduced as a minor antagonist. Mutt and the other Hawaiians, dubbed “buddhaheads” by the mainland Japanese Americans in boot camp, appear uncouth and violent to Alex and the others. Mutt is often teased by other soldiers for his strong body odor. Mutt speaks Hawaiian pidgin, an example of which is the word “kotonk,” the sound of striking empty coconuts together, the epithet the Hawaiian recruits give to the mainlanders.

Despite the early friction in the regiment, Mutt and Alex form a close friendship during their time in boot camp and in Captain Ensminger’s battalion. They support each other on the battlefield and off, and Mutt is one of the few people Alex confides in about Charlie and Frank. Mutt is a brave soldier and cares deeply for his comrades. Tragically, this proves to be his undoing. After the horrific battle dubbed Suicide Hill, in which the 442nd rescues the Lost Battalion, Mutt and Alex are granted medical leave due to trench foot. Mutt dies when he sneaks off in the night to recover fallen soldiers’ bodies, not knowing that the Germans have rigged the American bodies with explosives.