The Plum Tree (28 page)

“But we would have called you right away, Herr Gruppenführer,” Mutti said.

“I will warn you one time and one time only, Frau Bölz,” the
Gruppenführer
said. “You are not to interfere with matters of the state. One refusal to let me enter your house will result in your arrest, and you will be sent to prison. Is that clear?”

“
Ja,
Herr Gruppenführer.” Mutti stepped to one side.

The
Gruppenführer
brushed past her and stopped at the bottom of the stairs, glaring up the steps as if he could measure the family’s guilt just by examining the color of their walls. With a wave of his hand, he motioned the armed soldiers forward. The young men obeyed, their smooth faces devoid of emotion, their bulky submachine guns pointed forward. They stormed up the stairway, their jackboots striking each step in perfect, deafening unison. Christine wanted to hide, but her legs had turned to stone. At the top of the staircase, the soldiers pointed their guns at her before deciding she wasn’t a threat and moving on. As they advanced into the empty kitchen, she gripped the banister with one hand, for fear her legs would crumple.

The
Gruppenführer
appeared at the top of the landing, one hand on the Luger holstered at his hip. When he saw Christine, he stopped.

“Guten Tag, Fräulein,”
he said, tilting his head and smiling at her with gray teeth, as if he were approaching her at a party or lakeside picnic. “Christine, isn’t it? I see your mother has made a full recovery.” He took his hand off the Luger and put it on her shoulder. She could feel his warm, sweaty palm through her dress. “I’m sure a good German girl like you has nothing to hide.” Christine held one hand over the cool egg in her apron pocket and tried to smile. It felt more like a twitch; her lips seemed to spasm and quiver.

He gave her shoulder a squeeze, then went into the kitchen, his uniform jacket bunched over his ample buttocks. Christine swallowed and closed her eyes, trying not to throw up. When she opened her eyes, her mother was looking at her, brows knitted together, a silent question on her face.

Before Christine could say anything, the
Gruppenführer
came out of the kitchen, the soldiers on his heels.

“Where is your husband?” he asked Mutti.

“He . . . we don’t know for sure,” Mutti said. “He was with the Sixth Army and . . .”

“Did he do the honorable thing and die for his country, or was he captured by the Russians?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Mutti said. “I . . .”

“Macht nichts!”
he shouted, pulling his truncheon from his belt. “Search the house!” he said to the soldiers. He motioned for Christine and Mutti to follow them, then trailed behind, watching and prodding them forward with the end of his club.

In the living room, Oma, Maria, and the boys must have heard the heavy boots on the stairs, because when the soldiers burst through the door, they were huddled together on the couch. Oma gasped, instinctively putting her arms around the children. Karl buried his face in her side and cried out, his eyes squeezed shut. Maria and Heinrich stared with pale faces at the submachine guns pointed in their direction. The
Gruppenführer
sauntered over to them, his lips curled in a sneer. He lifted Oma’s sewing basket and turned it upside down, the contents falling in a tangle of spools and thread and pincushions on her lap.

“Get off the couch!” the
Gruppenführer
yelled.

Oma struggled to get up, then followed Maria and the boys as they scrambled to the other side of the room. The soldiers turned the couch over, crushing the wicker sewing basket beneath its arms. Satisfied that there was no one hiding there, the
Gruppenführer
rummaged through the pile of uniforms in the basket next to it, throwing the pants and shirts and jackets into a heap on the floor. He picked up books and read each title before letting them fall from his hands, then opened the sideboard and peered between the plates and dishes.

“Stay here and keep an eye on them!” he ordered one of the soldiers. “You two come with us,” he said to Christine and Mutti. Christine’s body felt like liquid. The edges of her vision darkened and blurred, as if she were peering out from behind a slowly closing curtain. Mutti looked at her daughter and linked her arm through hers, her forehead furrowed with concern. Christine was certain her mother could feel her trembling.

With the two women in tow, the remaining soldier and the
Gruppenführer
went down to the first floor and into the goats’ indoor enclosure, where the soldier stabbed the piles of straw with his bayonet and overturned buckets of water. In the backyard, the
Gruppenführer
ripped open the chicken coop door and entered the dusty interior with his Luger drawn. Back in the house, they dumped potatoes and apples from bins in the cellar and upended Oma’s bedroom, ripping dresses and skirts and undergarments from her trunks and dressers.

Christine held on to the walls and railings as she followed, certain she would faint with every step. The only thing she could feel was the weight of the egg in her apron pocket, bouncing on her leg as she went up and down the stairs.

The soldier and the
Gruppenführer
went through every bedroom, tossing covers from the beds, ripping open pillows, throwing nightgowns and shirts from dressers and armoires. Christine’s mother stiffened when one of the solders pulled the storage box with the radio hidden inside from beneath her bed. The soldier pushed the box aside so he could explore underneath the bed frame, causing the folded blanket on top to slide slightly to one side, exposing one of the radio’s dials. Mutti’s face went white. Then, by some miracle, the soldier and the
Gruppenführer
left the box in the corner, forgotten as they made their way out into the hall. Christine heard her mother let out a low, shuddering breath.
The radio is the least of our worries,
she thought, guilt twisting with fear in her stomach.

In Christine’s bedroom, the
Gruppenführer
snarled playfully at Christine’s aged Steiff teddy bear, squeezing its stomach twice, then hurled it on her bed when it failed to growl back at him. Christine had to stop herself from picking up the bear to make sure Isaac’s note stayed safely tucked inside.

After ransacking the last bedroom on the third floor, they headed into the hall toward the staircase. Christine was beginning to think she might not fall into a heap on the floor after all.
They’re leaving,
she thought, finally able to breathe, her palpitating heart beginning to slow. Then the
Gruppenführer
stopped halfway to the stairs and pointed at the ceiling.

“What’s up there?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he motioned for the soldier to open the trapdoor.

“The attic,” Mutti said.

For a split second, everything went black. Christine was certain that the men could see her sway as she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, trying to stop the surge of terror that threatened to bring her to her knees. Her mind raced.
What can I do to divert them?
she thought.

The soldier opened the trapdoor, pulled down the ladder, and climbed into the attic, one hand still gripping his submachine gun. The
Gruppenführer
motioned for Mutti and Christine to follow. Christine wasn’t sure if she’d have the strength to pull herself up. For a second, the only diversion she could think of was saying she was scared of ghosts. Then the
Gruppenführer
smiled at her with fleshy lips and gray teeth, offering his clammy hand in assistance, and she scrambled up the steps into the attic, using both hands to hold the ladder. As soon as she stood, the
Gruppenführer
rose up through the trapdoor in the floor beside her, like a putrid ghoul rising from an open grave.
If I kick him hard enough in the head,
she thought for one insane instant,
he’ll fall back down, head over heels, blood running from his skull when he hits the floor
. Before she could act, the
Gruppenführer
walked over and stood next to her, his forearm touching hers.

“What’s this straw all over the floor?” he asked, pointing.

“It’s for baby chickens,” Mutti said.

The
Gruppenführer
gave Christine’s arm one last graze, then he and the soldier walked around the attic, throwing open boxes and looking inside the chest of drawers. He ran a hand over the bookcase in front of the hidden door, looking up at the rafters and dusty beams. Christine tried to keep her eyes on the floor, positive they would read the sheer terror on her face. Finally, convinced that there was nothing up there, the
Gruppenführer
headed back toward the trapdoor. Christine stepped aside as he brushed past her. He motioned for the soldier to climb down first, then he climbed down after the women.

“Let us know if you see anything suspicious, Frau Bölz,” he said when they’d reached the bottom floor. “It’s for your own protection.”

“
Ja,
Herr Gruppenführer,” Mutti said.
“Danke.”

Before they left, the
Gruppenführer
ordered one of the soldiers to go back down to the food storage room, to get the two loaves of rye bread from their hiding place in the old dresser drawer. When the soldier brought them up, the
Gruppenführer
put them under his arm with a satisfied smile, as if he’d just purchased them from the bakery and had every right in the world to take them. The soldiers went outside while he stood in the doorway, looking directly at Christine, his stare intense.

“It’s your duty to report anything out of the ordinary, remember that,” he said. “If you see or know something and fail to report it, that is a crime against the German state.” Then he pulled his eyes away from Christine and said to Mutti, “You wouldn’t want some filthy Jew to come in here and take advantage of your daughters, would you?”

“
Nein,
Herr Gruppenführer,” Mutti said.

“I’ve been given the authority to offer a reward in return for any Jew. They can hide behind walls, you know, just like rats. You might not even know they’re there until it’s too late.”

“
Danke,
Herr Gruppenführer,” Mutti said. “Gott knows we could use the money.”

“
Heil
Hitler!” he said, raising his hand. And then he was gone.

Mutti closed the door and leaned against it. “Are you all right?” she asked Christine. “You’re trembling and white as a sheet.”

“I’m all right,” Christine said, her knees ready to give out from beneath her. “They scare me, that’s all.”

“They scare me too. But we have nothing to hide. Why did he act like he knew you?”

“The day I found out Isaac was being taken away, I ran into him on the sidewalk.”

“You need to be careful. He’s SS and can do whatever he wants.”

“I know. That’s why I was so nervous.”

Christine hated lying, but how could she admit that she’d put the whole family in danger? Since the war had started, every ounce of her mother’s energy had been put toward keeping this family alive. How could she tell her that a split-second decision, which she alone had made, could destroy all that her mother had worked so hard to protect? On the other hand, what choice did Christine have? Was she supposed to just let Isaac die?

Mutti kissed Christine’s forehead, massaging her shoulders with strong hands. Christine’s teeth chattered as the adrenaline left her system, leaving her weak and crying in her mother’s arms. The soft skin of her mother’s cheek and her faint but familiar scent of egg noodles and milky soap seemed in stark contrast to the jagged fits and starts of Christine’s strained emotions.

For the rest of the day they worked together, putting clothes back in armoires and remaking beds, trying to erase the intrusion. Christine felt drained, as if she’d gone weeks without sleep. The realization that everyone’s lives now rested on her shoulders was almost too much to bear. She didn’t see Isaac until that night, after everyone was asleep.

When she entered through the hidden door, he was leaning against the wall, his face a whorl of light and shadow from the glow of the candle and the silhouette of the garden stone she’d given him earlier, going round and round in his fingers.

“Are you all right?” she asked, sitting beside him. “Could you hear what was going on?”

“Ja,”
he said. “Are you all right?”

“I will be, eventually. I might be able to stop shaking sometime next year.”

“When I heard shouting and furniture being thrown around, I knew we were in trouble. I lay flat on the floor, trying not to move a muscle. I think I was holding my breath, because I almost passed out. I just closed my eyes and prayed. I hate putting you and your family in danger.”

“You didn’t do it. I did.” She leaned against his shoulder. “But I’ve thought about it all day, since the soldiers left, and I don’t know what else I could’ve done. I had to save you. I didn’t have a choice. I love you. What good are any of us if we aren’t willing to die to save other people’s lives, especially the people we love?”

“Not everyone is as brave as you are. Fear is what motivates most people. I should leave. I should get out of here.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” She sat up on her knees, facing him. “I feel terrible putting everyone in so much danger. And you’d be safer out of Germany. We could leave in the middle of the night, and we’ll only travel when it’s dark. We’ll walk out of this war-torn country.”

“You’re not going with me.”

“Ja,”
she said, her voice firm. “I am. I’ve risked this much already, and I’ve made up my mind. No matter what you say, you’re not going to talk me out of it. I’ll gather the things we’ll need, some of my father’s warm clothes for you, a little food. I’ll look in Karl and Heinrich’s old schoolbooks for a map, and we’ll figure out which direction to go. If we stick to the woods . . .”

“Wait a minute, slow down. We need to think about this. We need a plan, or it’ll never work.”