The Plum Tree (27 page)

“Good morning,” Mutti said. “How many eggs did we get today?” In one efficient motion, her mother put her apron over her head, tied the strings behind her back, and went to the stove to look in the boiling pot.

“Only ten, I’m afraid,” Christine said, hating that she had to lie. “But someone else can have my share. I’m not that hungry this morning.”

Mutti placed a hand on Christine’s forehead. “You do seem a bit flushed. Are you feeling ill? Is that why you’re up so early?”

“
Nein,
I feel fine. I just couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get an early start.” She turned away and reached into the cupboards for the plates, afraid her mother would read the truth in her eyes. “Will we be working outside today?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant. “Don’t Karl and Heinrich need to clean the goats’ pen? And isn’t it time for us to plant a second crop of peas and radishes?”

Mutti went to the sink to fill the teakettle. “
Nein,
not today. Oma wants to transplant some black-eyed Susans onto Opa’s family plot this morning. You know I can’t let her do it alone.”

“Of course not. But I’ll stay here and work in the garden. That way, we’ll be sure to get a fall harvest. The weather is perfect.”

“Maria can stay and help you. But the boys will want to come with me.”

“Nein!”
Christine said, her voice too loud. Her mother turned from the sink to look at her, her eyebrows raised. “I mean . . . Maria will want to go too. You know how close she was to Opa. She might be upset if you don’t include her. You know I don’t mind working alone.”

Mutti sighed. “As you wish.
Macht nichts
to me.”

Karl and Maria came into the kitchen for breakfast, yawning and rubbing their eyes. Oma and Heinrich wandered in a few minutes later. For the next half hour, the kitchen was a flurry of activity, with everyone talking and eating and reaching across the table for bread and eggs and goat’s milk. Christine did her best to act normal, helping Karl peel his soft-boiled egg, passing the salt with a steady hand, joining the conversations about the weather and the latest war news.

“Did you see what happened with the prisoners yesterday morning?” Maria asked her.

Christine nearly choked on her tea.
“Nein,”
she said, coughing.

“But I saw you leave right about that time,” Maria said, frowning.

“
Nein,
I went out to the backyard in the morning.”

“You went out the front door,” Maria insisted. “And you headed toward the street.”

Christine cleared her throat. She’d been certain everyone had been too busy to notice her slipping away. “Oh, I was going to see if I could get flour, but then I remembered we’d already used our ration coupon for this month.”

“What happened with the prisoners?” Heinrich asked.

“That is not breakfast conversation,” Mutti said. She spread jam on her bread, eyeing Maria at the same time.

“I’m not sure,” Maria said. “But I saw women scrubbing blood off the street.”

“That’s enough,” Mutti scolded.

“I heard some of them were shot,” Heinrich said. “But some got away too.”

“Then let’s say a prayer for those poor, unfortunate souls and put an end to this conversation,” Mutti said.

“Ja,”
Christine said, her knees shaking beneath the table. “Let’s say a prayer.”

After breakfast, the others left for the long walk to the cemetery. Christine watched until they’d disappeared around the corner, Mutti and Maria carrying buckets of black-eyed Susan transplants, Oma’s long skirt swaying back and forth as she shuffled along. Karl and Heinrich ran ahead, kicking a rock back and forth, happy to be loose in the streets. The minute they were out of sight, Christine ran up to the attic.

“How was your breakfast?” she asked Isaac, putting the empty tea tin in the basket.

“The most delicious meal I’ve ever had,
danke.
”

“Everyone left. Do you want to go downstairs for a bath? I’ve got the fire going for hot water, the tub is set up in the kitchen, and I’ll get some of my father’s clothes.”

“That would be wonderful. Are you sure?”

“You’ll have to be quick.”

They hurried downstairs, Christine peering over the banisters and down the hallways before motioning for him to follow. In the kitchen, she drew the curtains and put a fresh towel over a chair. Isaac helped her lift the steaming kettles from the stove to fill the tub with boiling water.

“Lock the door,” she said, handing him the key as she backed out into the hall. “Just in case.”

Leaving him alone to bathe, she went to her parents’ bedroom to search through her father’s old clothes, looking out the window a hundred times. She didn’t expect her family back for at least an hour and a half, but she couldn’t stop checking, just in case. It made her think of Herr Eggers, leaning out his window on the day she’d first seen the Nazi poster on the weathered barn. She’d been so worried that he might turn her in if she destroyed Nazi property that she’d stopped herself from ripping the poster down. Now, that, along with the fact that today she was breaking the law by burning extra firewood, seemed like child’s play compared to hiding an escaped Jewish prisoner. She could almost laugh about the irony of it all if she weren’t vibrating with anxiety. She laid out her father’s shirts and trousers, picked out what she was looking for, then put the rest back exactly as they had been. When she came back downstairs, she stood outside the kitchen door.

“Did you find the razor?”

“Ja,”
Isaac said. “I’m nearly finished.”

She heard splashing and imagined his thin body in the steaming tub, how it must feel to be able to use soap and hot water after so long, the dirt and grime washed from his skin, the sores on his feet scrubbed clean. She longed to go in and wash his back and the stubbled hair on his head, to shave the dirty whiskers from his chin. Her heart started to pound as she remembered the heat of their passion in the wine cellar, the hard muscles in his arms and chest, the hunger of open-mouthed kisses.

“I’ve got clothes,” she said.

“
Ja,
I’m coming.” The door opened a crack, and a damp hand reached out.

After a few minutes, he let her in. He stood next to the sink, folding up the sleeves of Vater’s blue button-down shirt, an old pair of work pants hanging from his bony frame. His face was red and shiny, the dirt and stubble gone. Even with his cheekbones and jaw more pronounced, he was still handsome. She wanted to go back upstairs with him, lie down in the attic hiding place, and let him make love to her, so she could forget about everything. Then she noticed something on his arm.

“What’s that?”

He turned his wrist to look at the mark on the inside of his forearm, then dismissed it and started to empty the tub. “It’s a number.”

“Let me see.”

He turned his arm. “They numbered the workers at the camp.” Christine ran a finger over the digits: 1071504.

“Why didn’t it come off in the bath?”

“It’s inked into the skin. It’s permanent.”

She looked up at him, eyes filling.

“It means
nichts,
” he said. “It’s not important. It changes nothing about me.”

She took his hand and wrapped his arm around her waist, feeling heat radiate from his skin, the tight, hard muscles of his stomach pressed against hers. He pulled her closer and touched her face, tracing her hair, her cheekbones, her lips. Then he kissed her, and she kissed him back, pressing her body against his so hard she could barely breathe. A groan came from deep inside his chest. He put a hand on her breast, fingers probing through her blouse. She gasped and started to tremble, the years of fear and separation dissolving into passion and longing. Tears sprang behind her closed lids, and an odd reawakening, like the return of her soul, filled her parched, empty body. Finally he drew his mouth away and looked at her, his eyes wet.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said.

“I’ve missed you too.”

“I love you. I always have and always will.” Then he kissed her again, his mouth open and wet, his hand kneading her breast so hard it was almost painful. She put her hands on the back of his neck and pushed her mouth into his, a sudden warmth stirring deep in her pelvis. Finally, she forced herself to pull away.

“We can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “We have to get you upstairs before everyone comes back.”

“You’re right,” he said, chest heaving. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say you’re sorry. Just promise you’ll never leave me again.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“I know.” She put her head on his chest. “But just promise me, no matter what happens, we won’t let anything keep us apart again.”

“I’d better get back upstairs.”

“Promise me,” she said, looking up at him.

“Don’t ask me to do that. You know I can’t. Nothing is up to us anymore.”

After getting Isaac back to the attic, Christine returned to the kitchen and tidied up, mopping the drips and puddles of bathwater from the tile floor. She burned Isaac’s uniform in the woodstove, trying not to singe her hands as she wadded the filthy, striped material into the fire, a greasy, black stench stinging her nostrils, making her think of death. She gagged and held a hand over her mouth, opening the windows, hoping the neighbors wouldn’t notice the smell. After drying the kettles and tub, she made certain that every scrap of the wretched uniform had been destroyed, then went outside to plant peas and radishes.

After the last of the seeds had been spaced, covered with dirt, and tamped down, first with the hoe and then by Christine taking baby step after baby step over each row, she stuck a stick in the dirt at the end of each line and went to get the watering can. The tin sprinkling can was hidden by the woodshed, behind a stack of firewood next to a rain barrel beneath a gutter that ran from the roof. Christine ladled brackish water from the rain barrel into the watering can, then returned to the garden to soak each row of packed soil.

On her third trip back to the garden with the sprinkling can, just as she was about to open the gate, she heard something and froze. Unfamiliar male voices drifted up the street, and they were getting closer. When she saw the peaked caps and black uniforms of the SS appear at the crest of the hill, she wheeled around and hurried back to the woodshed, where she set down the watering can and picked up some logs, ignoring the scrape of bark on her bare arms. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the blue-eyed
Hauptscharführer
and the fleshy
Gruppenführer
she’d run into on her way home from Isaac’s. They were striding up the street, their eyes raised toward windows and rooflines. After four or five steps, they stopped and pointed with black-gloved fingers. Each time they came to a halt, the
Gruppenführer
wrote something down in a notebook. Then they continued.

Christine hurried toward the front door of her house, two logs slipping from the woodpile in her arms. She ignored the fallen wood and kept going, gripping the remaining kindling to her chest until she was safely inside. On the other side of the door, she leaned against the wall and waited, her heart racing in her chest. Then, she went upstairs, dropped the firewood next to the woodstove, and peered through the living room curtains. To her relief, the street was empty.

C
HAPTER
19

F
or the next two days, as soon as everyone else was preoccupied with their daily activities on the first and second floors, or even better, if they had gone outside to the garden, Christine hurried upstairs to deliver things to Isaac: a slice of bread, a boiled potato, the first yellow strawflower of summer’s end. She’d gone to see him a few times at night, but thought it best to sneak up to the attic only while no one was on the third floor. Throughout the day, she waited for opportunities to escape unnoticed. Washing dishes or sweeping the hallways, she kept one eye on her family, certain that they could sense her impatience. She forced herself to act and move normally, while her breathing felt rapid and shallow, her nerves jittery, like a small bird tiptoeing past a hungry, sleeping cat.

On the third day, she stepped out of the kitchen after breakfast, a hard-boiled egg hidden in her apron pocket, and started up the hall to see him. Three insistent knocks on the front door made her stop. She bent over the railing, peering down the stairs toward the first floor.

“Open up, Frau Bölz!” a man’s muffled voice demanded.

Christine went rigid, fingernails digging into the wood railing. The man knocked again, louder and firmer with every blow. Time slowed to a crawl as the echo of each thud boomed in the quiet hallway. Mutti came out of the kitchen, wiping her wet hands on a dishcloth. Christine pried her fingers from the railing and walked toward the living room, hiding her face from her mother.

“Did I hear someone at the door?” Mutti asked.

“I . . . I didn’t hear anything,” Christine said, trying to hide the tremor in her voice.

The pattern of three steady knocks, followed by increasingly louder demands to open up, continued as Mutti untied her apron and hurried down the stairs. Christine went back to the railing and leaned over to watch her mother open the door. Out on the stoop, the fleshy-lipped
Gruppenführer
and two armed soldiers positioned themselves in the entrance like a blockade, as if expecting someone to flee at any moment. Christine clamped a hand over her mouth and took a step back, her armpits and forehead instantly drenched in cold sweat.

“May I help you?” her mother said in the steady voice of a person certain she has nothing to hide.

“We’re missing a prisoner from the work camp,” the
Gruppenführer
bellowed. “We’re searching all houses and barns in the village.”

Acid rose to the back of Christine’s throat. She edged over to the railing to watch.

“I can assure you, Herr Gruppenführer,” Mutti said. “We haven’t seen any prisoners.”

“Nevertheless,” the
Gruppenführer
said. “We’re here to search your house.”