The Plum Tree (38 page)

“What is it?”

“The man I love is here. Find out where Isaac Bauerman is, and if he’s still alive, promise me he’ll stay that way.”

He sighed. “It’s not that simple. I can’t just search for a certain prisoner without arousing suspicion. The other officers are just waiting for me to slip up so they can get rid of me. The previous
Lagerkommandant
used to throw drunken parties in this house. He provided them with liquor and prostitutes and let them have their way with the woman you replaced. They killed the one before her.”

Christine felt the blood drain from her face. If something happened to the
Lagerkommandant
, then what would become of her? All of a sudden, she felt like she had to choose between Isaac’s life and her own. “But I need to know if he’s all right,” she said, her voice catching.

“Even if I was able to find out if he’s still alive without drawing suspicion, there’s nothing I can do to keep him that way.”

Eventually, Christine lost track of how much time had passed. Each long day blurred into the next. A late Indian summer had passed into a chilly fall. She’d cleaned up the garden and tended a second planting of lettuce, chard, and peas. The garden flourished, and the
Lagerkommandant
told her that the other officers were pleased.

While working outside, she tried not to look toward the crematorium, but she always looked once, when she first went out, then vowed not to look again. It was foolish hope that made her look at all—hope that one day she would see empty space where the line of people had been. But day after day, the procession of victims grew longer and wider.

If nothing else, she’d seen the stealthy progression of her time in prison in the mirror above the
Lagerkommandant
’s bathroom sink. Each time she checked, her cheekbones were more pronounced and the purple rings beneath her eyes were darker. Her eyebrows and eyelashes started falling out, and her skin paled to a chalky, ashen gray. She felt it in her body too, in her weakening arms, the ache in her hips and knees, the shake in her disappearing muscles, and the raw sores on her feet.

To make matters worse, there’d been no news of Isaac, from Hanna or the
Lagerkommandant
.

Now, the long, fall days had turned frigid, and she’d already harvested the last potatoes, piling them into crates and taking them into the cellar. Outside the camp, beyond the barbed wire coils and high fence, past the fields rolling out toward the edge of the forest, the leaves were gone from the trees. The sun was high and distant, the skies a brilliant, icy blue. At night, it was freezing, and the women shivered in their bunks. Christine feared the coming winter.

The first hard frost made its appearance in the wee hours of a long night, killing off the last of the garden. The morning after was bright and blustery, and Christine shivered, working fast on her hands and knees, yanking withered tomato vines out of the soggy soil. The leaves were black and dead, and it filled Christine with sorrow to pull them from the earth. It felt like a sign, a terrible omen that Isaac was dead. When she pulled out the last wilted vine, the thought of it suddenly overwhelmed her. She stopped working and hung her head.

Then something hard hit her in the middle of her back. She sat up and looked behind her, the wind stinging her eyes. No one was there. Again, an object hit her. She flinched, then heard a flat plop as something landed in the soil. There, on the ground in front of her, was a small stone, like a round, brown egg, nestled in the mud. She stood and looked around.

A hundred yards away, on the men’s side of the fence, a group of men had started working, carrying boards and pushing wheelbarrows. A solitary man stood next to the fence, looking at her. Like every other prisoner, he was bony, filthy, and bald. At first, she wasn’t sure what to make of him. Then he smiled and gave a quick wave, and her legs nearly gave out. It was Isaac. Her hands flew to her mouth. Inwardly, she shouted his name, her body aching to run over, to reach through the fence and caress his face. But she only raised her hand briefly, then quickly put it back down, aware that the guards could be watching.

Isaac went back to work with the other men, building some sort of structure near the rear of the men’s complex. He bent over to saw a board in half, glancing over at her every few seconds. Christine wiped her hands on her uniform, then walked on shaking legs to the edge of the enclosure that surrounded the house. She knelt, pretending to pull weeds along the edge of the fence. There were two guards with the men, but they were smoking cigarettes and trying to stay warm, their backs turned to the harsh wind, the collars of their jackets pulled up around their necks. Their backs were turned to her and the prisoners.

Christine stood, went into the house, ran to the kitchen, and took off her shoes. She put a slice of bread in one shoe and a wedge of cheese in the other, then carried them out to the front porch. She went into the yard and stood by the front gate, her eyes on the guards, her heart knocking hard against her chest. For a split second, the world reeled in front of her, as if she had just stepped off a spinning carousel and was still dizzy. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now, the guards were building a fire in a barrel, preoccupied with using their bodies to block the growing flames from the wind. She put her shoes in one hand, ready to drop them and put them on again at any second, then opened the gate and walked as fast as she could without running toward the interior fence, her eyes darting between Isaac and the guards huddled around the barrel.

When Isaac saw her coming, he shook his head back and forth. She ignored his warning and pointed at her shoes, then at him, then motioned for him to move closer to the fence. He glanced at the guards, trying to decide, then hesitantly took several steps in her direction, a piece of lumber in his hand. When she was within a few feet of the fence, they were barely three yards apart. Now she was close enough to see the grayish-yellow color of his skin, the scrapes and bruises on his face and hands, the stains on his uniform. But his eyes were shining, and his smile was bright. The other male prisoners saw her too, but they kept working, trying not to draw attention. If the guards were provoked, all of them could pay.

Christine felt a charge course through her body. She pushed the bread and cheese through the wire, then turned away, her shoes held fast to her chest. Glancing over her shoulder as she went back toward the house, she saw Isaac drop the plank on the ground. He bent over, picked up the food with the board, took a bite of cheese, and shoved the rest into the ankles of his boots. Then he turned and went back to work, the guards oblivious, warming their hands over the fire. She returned to the garden and took her time pulling the rest of the dead plants. They watched each other until Christine had to go in to prepare the
Lagerkommandant
’s
Mittag Essen.
For the rest of the afternoon, she checked out the window as she worked and kept finding reasons to go outside.

When she left that evening, the men were gone, returned to their barracks for the night. She could hardly wait to get back herself, to tell Hanna that Isaac was alive. But Hanna was nowhere to be found. Christine climbed on the edge of the wooden rack to ask the women on the top bunk, one of whom worked in the records department, if they knew anything.

“Do you know where Hanna is?”

“Nein,”
the woman from the records department said.

“You didn’t see anything?” Christine asked.

“You’re the
Lagerkommandant
’s whore,” the woman hissed. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Christine felt blood rise in her face. “I’m not . . . I just work there. I . . .”

The woman moved closer, and Christine’s nostrils filled with the sour stench of tooth decay. “The
Blockschreiber
dragged her out of the building. He caught her looking through the male prisoners’ files.”

Christine forgot how to breathe. It took a moment before she could speak. “Is there any way you can find out what happened to her?”

“Nein,”
the woman said. “Leave me alone.”

Numb, Christine climbed down and crawled into her bunk, Hanna’s cold, empty space beside her.

The next day, Christine carried the
Lagerkommandant
’s poached eggs into the dining room, trying to choose her words carefully. Between her elation at finding Isaac alive, and the guilt for whatever had happened to Hanna, she hadn’t slept at all. Now, she didn’t trust herself with the smallest of tasks, let alone trying to ask the
Lagerkommandant
for help. If she made him angry, as she had the first time she’d asked him to find Isaac, the conversation would be over. But that had been months ago; surely their relationship had changed.

He was at the breakfast table, peering over his reading glasses at the newspaper. The morning sun cast rectangles of light across the linen, illuminating the steam from his coffee and the smoke from his cigar, like wispy spiderwebs floating in the air.

“A friend of mine disappeared yesterday, Herr Lagerkommandant,” she said.

The
Lagerkommandant
kept his eyes on the paper.
“Ja,”
he said, moving his head up and down as he skimmed the headlines.

“I wish I knew what might have happened to her.”

The
Lagerkommandant
pushed his glasses back on his nose and looked up, his face hard. “If you haven’t seen her, I doubt you will.”

“I’m sorry, Herr Lagerkommandant. But that’s not entirely true. I saw Isaac just yesterday. After all this time, he’s alive.”

“So. Now you know. Good for you.”

“But Hanna could be alive somewhere too.”

The
Lagerkommandant
shook his head and sighed, disgusted. “How long have you been here?”

“I’m not sure, Herr Lagerkommandant,” she said. “Several months.”

“And have you ever known anyone to return once they’ve disappeared in this godforsaken place?”

“
Nein,
Herr Lagerkommandant.” She lowered her eyes, knowing she had to ask him one more thing. She cleared her throat and went on. “Isaac is working at the new construction site on the other side of the fence.” The
Lagerkommandant
dropped the newspaper and took off his glasses, then rubbed his eyes and looked at her, waiting, his mouth pressed into a line. “I was hoping he could be given a different job. In a factory maybe, or the kitchen, somewhere out of the damp and cold. He’s very smart, a quick learner, and . . .”

The
Lagerkommandant
slammed both hands on the table. The silverware rattled, and Christine jumped. He stood, and his chair fell over. “One more word,” he said, his voice quaking with anger, “and you will be finished here! I’ve told you once, and I’m not going to tell you again! I will not put myself on the line for anyone, let alone someone who wasn’t smart enough to keep out of trouble in the first place! If you say one more thing about you and your friends to me, it will give me a reason to prove to the other officers that I’m a loyal Nazi. I’ll have all three of you strung up by the front gates! Do you understand?”

“
Ja,
Herr Lagerkommandant,” Christine said, stepping backwards. “I’m sorry, Herr Lagerkommandant.”

The
Lagerkommandant
grabbed his hat from the table, yanked his uniform jacket from the back of his toppled chair, and walked out of the room. Christine stood motionless for a long time, staring at the sun-filled breakfast table, tears streaming down her face. Then she picked up the chair, cleared the table, and got back to work.

For the next two weeks, Christine saw Isaac working at the construction site every day. The guards assigned to watch over the prisoners were nearly always distracted. If the weather was cold, they bent over a fire barrel. If it was warmer, they played cards. When they weren’t looking, she threw potatoes over the fence or got close enough to shove more bread or cheese through the wires. They didn’t speak, but seeing Isaac alive reinforced her will to survive. Then, after two short weeks, the project was finished, and the men didn’t return.

By that time, the biting wind spit dry snow, and the low, ashen clouds moved swiftly through the somber winter sky. Within a month, a blanket of white shrouded the countryside, and the world seemed to be waiting in an expectant, hushed silence. The pounding chug of incoming trains echoed off the snowbound hills, amplified by the cold and stillness as if transmitted through a thousand loudspeakers. As the trains drew closer and closer to the gates of Dachau, each mighty, lumbering exhale of the slowing engines sounded to Christine like the final, dying breath of humanity.

Throughout the long, cold months, Christine persevered. If nothing else, the job at the
Lagerkommandant
’s had surely saved her life. The extra food and the warmth of the house made all the difference. She was able to wash the sores on her feet and use the toilet, which meant she didn’t have to wade in the filthy ditches where the other prisoners were forced to relieve themselves. As a result, she avoided the ravages of dysentery that spread through the camp. Even so, her nights were spent in the freezing barracks, and a rattling cough had settled deep in her chest by the end of winter. Her nose seemed to run continuously, and she was exhausted due to lack of sleep. But she wasn’t close to death as so many others were. The majority of the women who had been in the barracks on the night of her arrival were nowhere to be found.