Wolf by Wolf

In 1956, 17-year-old Yael is living in Germania and hurrying home after a visit to a tattoo parlor. She now has five wolf tattoos covering the concentration camp identity numbers on her arm: “They swooped and jostled and howled up her arm, all the way to her elbow. Black and always running, striving against her skin. Babushka, Mama, Miriam, Aaron-Klaus, Vlad. Five names, five stories, five souls” (10). The experiments in the camp have left Yael with the ability to change her appearance at will. When two curfew soldiers challenge her, Yael easily answers their questions and slips out of a tricky situation. She needs these skills since she is a member of the resistance movement.

Back at home, Yael encounters the leader of the local resistance moment. Her name is Henryka, and she is a fierce mother hen to Yael. Germany and Japan have won the Second World War and taken over most of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Each year, to commemorate their victory, the reigning powers sponsor a grueling motorcycle marathon from Europe all the way to Tokyo. This is known as the Axis Tour. The prior year’s winner was a young woman named Adele Wolfe. Because Adele gained a personal audience with the Führer, the resistance plans to have Yael take her place in the current race and once again meet the Führer: “She was going to kill the Führer and spark the death of the Third Reich. She was going to cross the world and change it. Or die trying” (30).

Yael and an accomplice sneak up to Adele’s apartment on the eve of the big race. They intend to kidnap Adele so that Yael can take her place. After gaining access to Adele’s empty apartment, Yael hides in the closet to ambush her. Adele soon returns, accompanied by her twin brother, Felix, who implores her to drop out of the race because it is too dangerous. He reminds her that their elder brother Martin died while racing, and Felix doesn’t want the same fate to befall his twin. Adele refuses and sends her brother away. Yael then ambushes Adele and holds her at gunpoint. Adele “stared past the gun, straight at Yael. ‘Who are you?’ Not What do you want? or What are you doing here? Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Why, of all questions, this one?” (43).

After her accomplice spirits Adele away, Yael stands in the girl’s apartment, pondering the question of who she really is. Her identity has changed so radically because of the concentration camp experiments that Yael can’t remember. She uses the wolf tattoos on her arm to reconstruct her identity. The first wolf represents an old woman she calls Babushka, who was kind to her in the camp.

Yael thinks back to their time together in 1944. Babushka gives Yael her extra bread to eat. She also carves a tiny set of Russian nesting dolls for the girl. Her nickname for Yael is Volchitsa, which means “she-wolf” in Russian. The old woman says there’s something special about Yael; she will grow up to save them all. After Babushka dies from the rigors of camp life, Yael thinks, “But there were some things that would not be left behind. Her friend’s magic, miracle words haunted her ears. Rolled inside the knot of her chest. Burned in her veins. You are special. You are going to change things” (54).

In the Olympic stadium on the morning of March 10, the contestants gather in the rain to start the race under the gaze of a cheering crowd. Yael’s primary competitors are two other youths who have also won a previous Axis Tour, just as Adele has. The first is Luka Löwe—a blond, blue-eyed Aryan youth who hints that he has had a past romance with Adele. Yael is thrown by this information since nothing in Adele’s dossier prepared her for such an encounter: “She might look like Adele. But she could never be Adele. Yael was a cobweb version, composed of gaps and strings and fragile nothings” (65).

Yael’s other chief competitor is Tsuda Katsuo, an intense Japanese biker who seems prepared to fight dirty to win. Adele’s twin, Felix, has joined the race at the last minute. Any of these men might be able to ferret out Yael’s secret identity, she thinks: “Howling secrets. Hidden things anyone could pick up if they listened closely enough. Felix and Luka…they had sharp ears. Yael would not let them hear” (66).

Once the race gets underway, both Luka and Katsuo try to disable Yael by squeezing her motorcycle into a pincer maneuver between them. She brakes to allow them to pass, slowing her own progress as a result. That night, at a checkpoint in Prague, Felix once again tries to persuade her to quit the race by pointing out how fierce the competition will be. He offers her a bowl of soup as a gesture of concern. When Luka arrives to taunt Yael about her day’s performance, Felix punches him in the nose. Luka hurls an accusation at Felix and says that he’s drugged Yael’s soup. When Yael later confronts Felix about this subterfuge to get her to quit, he doesn’t deny the ploy.