The Baker's Daughter (24 page)

An ache shot through Elsie's chest, then thudded about like Peter's duck trapped in the wolf's stomach. Her mouth went dry, her fingers numb. Tobias stepped away from them both. His body shook.

Frau Rattelmüller's expression softened. “Don't be afraid, boy.” She reached out a shriveled hand.

He cringed and hid his face against the table ledge.

Elsie put her arms around his shoulders and drew him to her. “If they find him, they'll kill him.”

“Ja, that is certain,” said Frau Rattelmüller.

Elsie closed her eyes a moment to think. Better him than her family, right? In the darkness of her mind, she thought perhaps. She couldn't keep Tobias hidden in her wall forever. But if she turned him in, his blood was on her hands. Could she live with that?

“There are others.” Frau's voice was soft as the crackle of breadcrumbs underfoot.

“Others?” Elsie matched her whisper.

“Why do you think I buy so much brötchen in the mornings?” Her eyes were clear and true. She shrugged. “One cat and an old woman don't eat that much.”

Elsie felt a sudden release inside, like the snapping of a twig, the noose come undone. She took a full breath and tasted the toasting rolls in the oven.

“I have friends in Switzerland. I am trying to get them there—out of Germany.” Frau Rattelmüller turned to Tobias. “What is his name?”

Elsie held his hand firmly in hers. She didn't know whom to trust anymore. “He's a gifted musician, like his mother and father, and a skillful pretzel maker. His name is Tobias.”

First, she'd test Frau with keeping this secret.

Tobias looked to Elsie, ingenuous and grateful, and an overwhelming guilt swelled up deep within her. In a world where everything seemed an illusion and nothing was what it should be, the thought came to her with chilling clarity: Tobias was her responsibility now, and she had to save him.

T
he December holiday issue of
Sun City
magazine arrived in the afternoon mail. Reba sat at the kitchen table examining the layout of her article. She'd sent her editor an altogether different story from her assigned topic. Plucking the American heartstrings at Christmas beat out hard news and educational commentaries. Her editor loved the piece and even made a last-minute cover swap. Reba's story headlined the copy. She smoothed her hand over the slick photo. A young soldier in desert fatigues with a red bow on his rifle held a weathered photograph of his great-grandfather in World War II uniform. The banner read: “Wartime Christmas Carols.” Reba came up with that.

The story virtually wrote itself after one phone call to the Fort Bliss USO and all her visits with Elsie. She was proud of the article's honesty. No saccharine sentimentality to cut the bite. Men and women were away from their families, alone and afraid, the same as they'd been sixty years before. Across cultures and generations, they shared a bittersweet reality: Santa and his reindeer didn't always make it to your rooftop, and war stole even the hope that they might.

Reba and Riki had been playing phone tag for three weeks. They hadn't actually spoken to each other since the night he moved out. He came by the condo with a U-Haul when she was at work and left a handwritten note:

The magazine's office was on Stanton Street across from the Downtown Plaza. When she went in to work, she purposely parked near the Plaza Theater and walked the full length of the historic district, wondering if he might look out his window somewhere and catch a glimpse of her. Not that it would change anything if he did, but she liked imagining. She still wore his ring on the chain around her neck.

The day before, Jane asked why she didn't take it off. Reba came to the bakery often. She genuinely liked Jane and Elsie's company. They felt more like family than her own mother and sister these days.

“I don't know.” She'd shrugged and smoothed the band between her fingers.

“Because he means more than you thought,” Elsie had chimed in from behind the register.

Reba couldn't agree or deny, so she dipped a lebkuchen in hot cocoa and stuffed her mouth.

In the centerfold, the magazine ran a couple photos of Elsie posed with trays of Christmas stollen, nut bars, and lebkuchen hearts. “During times of war, Christmas may mean fewer gifts under the tree but more gifts from the heart.” That was her all-star quote. Reba had pushed hard to get it.

Reba wondered if Riki had seen the magazine yet—in a checkout line, a dentist's waiting room, a local restaurant lounge, somewhere. She picked up the phone and instinctually dialed Riki's cell phone. She got all the way to the last digit before her stomach dropped, and she hung up. The phone in her hand seemed radioactive. She put it down, but her fingertips continued to burn. Did he think of her? And had he ever dialed her number and then hung up? The clock in the kitchen ticked quarter to five. No, probably not. He was busy with work.

She decided to call Jane and let her know the magazine was out, but at near closing time, Reba doubted anybody would answer. Elsie avoided last-minute cake orders by ignoring the existence of any communication technology after 4:00 p.m. Reba thought it better to go by tomorrow. Then she could bring a copy. She put the phone back on the charger stand. Just as she did, it lit up and sang “Jingle Bells.”

In an attempt to be merry, Reba had changed the ring tone on the first of December. Caller ID:
Deedee Adams
.

Reba had sent Deedee a handful of one-liner e-mails and left voice messages when she knew she was at work, thereby avoiding a lengthy phone call but still alleviating her guilty conscience. An attorney by trade, her older sister shared her talent at ferreting out others' secrets, while not giving up any of her own. It was different talking to Jane and Elsie. They chose when and how to divulge their secrets. It was a common factor in their friendship: acceptance without forced confession. But family was different. Reba's momma had a notorious habit of seeing the elephant in the dining room and asking for someone to pass the gravy. She avoided family confrontation and encouraged her daughters to do the same. Perhaps that was why Deedee went into the vocation she had—unearthing others' truths to make up for years lived in personal denial.

The phone's “jingle all the way” echoed through the empty house. Reba bit her cuticles. She couldn't ignore Deedee forever. She was her sister, and underneath all the hurt, Reba loved her more than anybody on earth.

On the last ring before the answering machine responded, she picked up. “Hello.”

“Well, hello, my prodigal sis!” Deedee's voice was as warm and bubbly as apple cider in a Dutch oven.

“Hey, Deedee.” Reba sat down at the table with the magazine open to her article.

“Momma! Reba's on the phone,” Deedee yelled into the background chatter. “Yes, right now! On my cell! Momma says you better call her. She'd be on the line right now if we weren't over at Uncle Vance's birthday party, and she didn't have a mouthful of smoked salmon. Do you still eat salmon? It's not an endangered fish or anything right?”

Reba sighed. “Yes, I do; and no, it's not.”

“That's what I thought. How about pork? Uncle Vance bought himself this new gadget that roasts a pig in less than two hours. So we're all waiting to eat some fancy barbecue. Personally”—Deedee's voice quieted—“I could give two nickels about his silly roaster. He bought it off eBay, for Christ's sake. You'd think he reinvented the wheel the way he's peacocking around. And just so you know, it's already been two hours and that thing is still pink as a baby's hiney. Thank God for Aunt Gwen's toddies—delicious as always. They've saved the day for everyone. You better believe Uncle Vance is already four mint juleps deep and singing ‘Happy Birthday' to himself. You know how Momma is—the drink makes her nervous—so she's pushing hors d'oeuvres in her mouth and laughing like we're at the circus, which of course, we are in a sense.” She gave a strained titter. Reba
knew it well. “Wish you were here with me. I asked Momma if she'd heard from you recently. Said she hadn't. Come to think of it,
nobody
had. So I picked up my phone and dialed. Honestly, I was expecting to leave another message but—here you are!” She paused and Reba couldn't tell if it was to catch her breath or take a sip.

Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon
played in the background. It was the same CD her momma put on for every family gathering—good “ambiance music,” she claimed. A pang of homesickness ran through Reba, and she clasped the ring dangling in the middle of her chest.

“You really can't go this long without calling. I know work and the time zones make it hard, but, honey, you've got people who worry about you,” said Deedee.

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“I miss my little sister.”

“I miss you, too.” Reba leaned back in her chair and tried to keep her voice steady. She could feel something inside rising to a pitch, but she couldn't break. Not now.

“How are you?”

“Doing good, doing good.”

“Yeah, you sound like you're jumping for joy.”

“I'm tired.”

“Take a vacation! Come home early. That's the real reason I called. I wanted to know when you're coming for Christmas.”

“I—well—” She swallowed hard.

Last Christmas, she hadn't gone home, claiming the new job as her excuse, but in reality, she simply couldn't face another Christmas with Daddy's stocking hung next to theirs and Momma trying to be as holly-jolly as ever. At the time, she was newly dating Riki and excited by the prospect of a romantic Christmas Eve with just the two of them. No traditions or expectations to uphold. A clean slate. Momma and Deedee had accepted the explanation with disappointment, but she doubted it would work again this year.

“Don't even start to tell me you
aren't
coming home. I swear to Mary and Joseph I'll throw a fit!”

“Deedee, please.” Reba fingered her engagement ring, rolling it round her thumb.

“Don't Deedee me. I don't want to hear it.” She huffed. “I can't
force
you on a plane.”

Reba relaxed a little. That's right, she couldn't.

“So I guess I'll have to come to El Paso.”

“What?” Reba stood up and knocked the magazine to the floor.

“I suspected you might pull another MIA routine, so I already bought a ticket. I'm coming the week between Christmas and New Year's.”

“This is crazy. I've got work and you've got work and …”

“What're you going to do—lock me out of the house? I'm coming, Reba and that's all there is to it. So unbunch your panties and get used to the idea.”

E
lsie celebrated her seventeenth birthday with a midnight picnic on the floor of her bedroom. Tobias had sprinkled some of Mutti's sweet aniseed into the rye dough and braided it into the shape of a crown. It'd baked off dark and fragrant as candied licorice. They placed a blackout candle in the center. Though small and lacking in the feasts and family of previous birthday celebrations, she had great hope for her seventeenth year and was grateful for Tobias's company in welcoming it. When the cuckoo chimed twelve o'clock, she blew out the flame, and the room snuffed into darkness.