The Plum Tree (46 page)

“She’s mad at me.”

“Why on earth would she be mad at you?” Mutti asked. She folded the dough over and over on top of itself, pushing it against the floured cutting board with strong, work-worn hands, the table below creaking in protest.

“She thinks I’m making up stories about Dachau.” Christine slid into the corner nook, one elbow on the table, one hand behind her ear, rolling downy hair between her fingers.

“Maybe it was too much all at once,” Oma said.

“But I never imagined someone wouldn’t believe me,” Christine said. “Especially someone who used to be my best friend.” She put her hands in her lap and hunched forward, trying to ward off the chill despite the fire-warm room. Before her thumb found the numbered skin on her wrist, she felt something soft between her fingers, like pieces of thread. She looked down and saw delicate strands of blond hair in her hand, then reached up and felt the sore, tender spot behind her ear.

“Don’t worry,” Mutti said. “She’ll be back. She just needs time to let it sink in. People aren’t going to be ready to hear what happened. They’ve got their own tragedies and hardships.”

A stab of guilt twisted in Christine’s chest. For the hundredth time, she wondered if news of Maria’s pregnancy would fracture or reinforce Mutti’s regained vigor. For an instant, she considered not saying anything more, but she couldn’t keep quiet. “Kate won’t be back,” she said. “She’s going to tell everyone I’m crazy.”
Maybe I am crazy,
she thought.
I just pulled my own hair out of my head.

“Why would she do that?” Mutti asked.

“Because I told her I saw her fiancé working as a guard in Dachau.” Beneath the table, Christine let go of the hair, imagining the fine, wispy filaments floating toward the kitchen floor like plucked chicken feathers. She pressed her thumb into the number on her wrist.

Mutti and Oma stared at her in silence. Christine looked back at them, a rigid thickness growing in her chest. She thought she’d scream before one of them said anything.

“You might want to keep that to yourself,” Mutti said finally. “This family has had enough trouble. Kate will have to decide for herself about him.”

Christine bit down on her tongue, and when she spoke she tasted blood. “I won’t sit back and do nothing.”

Mutti frowned and turned toward the stove. She pulled browned loaves from the oven, using the edges of a dishcloth to protect her hands. Christine knew Mutti didn’t dare let the precious bread burn, but she wanted her to say something, anything to let her know she understood. Mutti set the loaves on the counter to cool, her face unreadable. Oma sat down beside Christine.

“The truth has a way of coming out,” Oma said. “If Kate’s fiancé did anything wrong, then someday, he’ll pay for it. Maybe not soon enough to suit us, but God makes the final judgment on us all.”

By evening, Christine realized the heaviness in her chest wasn’t just frustration and anger. The black pull detaining every heartbeat came from the reminder that she would never be with Isaac. Kate and Stefan were together again, while her own chance at true love had been destroyed. Isaac was gone. She wanted him alive, smelling lilacs and tasting bread with jam. She needed to show him the shimmering feathers of the rooster’s tail, the purple and white blossoms of the plum trees.

Sometime after midnight, Christine woke up feeling as if someone were sitting on her chest. A picture formed in her mind of her and Isaac, a bouquet of white freesia in her hands, her mother’s old wedding dress flowing behind her in a soft fan of lace. In a black suit and tie, Isaac linked his arm through hers, his brown eyes and dark hair as clear as if he were standing right in front of her. Then he smiled at her.

In bed, Christine turned on her side, her shoulders heavy and rigid, as if her body were turning to stone. Tears slid down her cheeks and fell on the white pillow, tiny dots that bloomed gray. In the dim light coming from the beech oil lantern, she ran a finger over the brown, crinkled number on her wrist.
I’m still back there with you,
she thought.

C
HAPTER
32

T
he day after Kate’s visit, on her way home from taking lunch to her father, Christine took the regular shortcut through a cobblestone alley that ran between rows of gabled, five-storied houses. It was unusually hot for June and she walked slowly, grateful for the quiet coolness of the narrow, shaded corridor. Above her, fresh laundry hung damp and unmoving in the still air.

Near the middle of the long passageway, the high giggles and excited exclamations of conversation floated down from an open window. She couldn’t make out every word, but could tell it was two young women, laughing about an “Ami” asking one of them to go to America. It made Christine think of Jake. Maybe she should try to find him. If she could figure out a way to tell him about Stefan, he could tell his superiors, and they could arrest him.

Deep down, she envied the laughing girls, excited about going to America. She wished Maria could be one of them, instead of hating the Russian baby growing inside her. She wished it for herself too, because there were still days when she woke from nightmares filled with dirty barracks and dying prisoners, when she scrubbed the ink on her wrist until it was raw. On days like that, when Germany felt like a country filled with nothing but the remains of war-ruined people, bombed-out houses, lines of hungry, fatherless children, and empty houses once filled with Jewish families, she thought about finding Jake and begging him to take her away.

And now, with the knowledge that evil men like Stefan still roamed free, it felt as though the events she was trying so hard to put behind her would never end.

Leaving her family and going to America was out of the question, but now, as she walked, she let her mind wander, imagining herself as she boarded a ship. Would she already feel homesick? Or would the sense of adventure and excitement of a new journey overshadow any immediate regrets? Seeing America sounded wonderful, and it might be an opportunity to help her family by sending money, but she knew that missing them, and marrying someone she barely knew, was a sacrifice she wasn’t willing to make. When she pictured herself saying good-bye to her mother, a painful knot formed in her stomach. But it was the thought of spending her life with someone other than Isaac that burrowed its way into her chest and settled there, like a secret wound inside her heart.

Just then, quick, hollow footsteps echoed in the corridor behind her. She turned to look, but it was too late. Someone grabbed her from behind, knocking her against the alley wall with a bone-jarring thud. A hand seized her wrist, twisting her arm against her back.

“Remember me, Jew lover?” a man breathed in her ear. He shoved his body against hers. She thrashed beneath him, using every ounce of strength to push him off. It was no use. His full weight, nearly twice hers, pinned her to the wall like a moth beneath a rock. She could barely breathe.

“What do you want?” she asked, panting.

“I want you to keep your mouth shut,” the man growled. “That’s what I want.”

It was Stefan.

Christine twisted her shoulders and kicked at his shins with her heels. “Why should I?”

He wrenched her arm higher. Pain shot through her wrist and elbow as muscle and bone were pulled in opposite directions. “Because I’m not the only one,” Stefan hissed. “There are more of us. And if you don’t keep your mouth shut, we’ll make sure you pay. I know where your father and your brothers work. Ruins can be dangerous. Anything could happen.”

She grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut.

“And stay away from Kate,” he said. “We know how to find you. You’re marked, remember?” He dug his thumbnail deep into the number on her wrist, pressing harder and harder until she was certain the skin would break. Then, grunting, he shoved his pelvis into her buttocks and grabbed her breast.

“What a waste to have a fine German girl like you spoiled by a Jew,” he whispered. Then he gave her one final shove and let go. She felt him move away, the weight and heat of his body leaving her. She waited, forehead against the painted plaster, until she heard him running down the alley before daring to look up. She put a hand to the side of her face. There was no blood, but her cheek was scraped and sore. On her wrist, the red imprint of his nail divided the tattooed numbers in half.

She looked up to see if anyone had witnessed what had happened. The windows of the surrounding houses were open, but there were no shocked faces peering down, no children looking on with curious eyes. The cobblestone alley was as silent as a cemetery.

She checked behind her, to make sure Stefan wasn’t coming back, then started toward the slice of sunlight on the opposite end of the alley. After a few steps, her breath caught in her chest. She stopped and raked her hands down the sides of her head, tears of rage building up in her eyes. Then, refusing to let him win, she clenched her teeth and threw her fists down to her sides, taking long, even strides until she was out of the alley, into the bright, open street.

On her way home, awareness swirled like a snarled knot of chaos in her mind, making every man suspect, every narrow alleyway a trap. Hanna’s brother had seen SS guards running into the woods at Dachau. Her own father had seen SS stealing uniforms from regular Wehrmacht soldiers. How was she supposed to know who was who?

C
HAPTER
33

T
he next day, a Sunday, the sky had a smooth, shiny quality to it, as if a sheet of glass hung above, spreading from one end of the horizon to the other, like a vast, translucent glacier. Lilacs perfumed the air, and the occasional breeze carried the aroma of freshly turned soil.

During the war, the pastor of Christine’s church had been arrested, the congregation had been afraid to assemble for fear of being labeled traitors, and the church itself had suffered a hit that weakened the front wall and destroyed the steeple. Mutti said that the bomb had missed destroying the entire building by mere inches, exploding in a colossal brown shower of earth and grass that created a deep crater in the lawn. After the initial blast, the front wall had collapsed, spraying primeval fieldstone and mortar into the street. But through it all, the ceiling and back three-quarters of the church had remained unharmed.

From the market square, in honor of the first day in five years that service would be held in the partially restored church, the ancient carillon of St. Michael’s rang high in the cathedral’s towering sandstone steeple. For a full hour, the town’s only remaining church bells’ melody looped over and over, echoing through the sun-drenched streets with the soaring peals of celebration.

Christine wanted the bells to stop ringing. How could anyone celebrate, when it felt like nothing had changed? Her cheek had turned purple and crimson while she slept. It felt hot and swollen, fluid jiggling beneath the skin when she moved her head too fast. Knowing her parents couldn’t do anything, and deciding not to worry them until she had a plan, she’d forced herself to laugh when she told everyone how she’d tripped and fallen in the middle of the street, her skirt up over her legs for everyone to see. Oma prescribed vinegar and honey, followed by plenty of sunshine, then checked Christine’s elbows and knees for further injuries that might require her medical expertise.

“I’m fine, really,” Christine had told them. “I don’t know how I managed it, but I landed on my face.”

Hurrying so they wouldn’t be late for church, the family gathered between the garden fence and the house, the narrow corridor dappled gray and white by the sun coming through the branches of the plum trees.

“Where’s Maria?” Christine asked when she noticed her sister missing.

“She’s not feeling well,” Mutti said, her forehead furrowed with concern. Christine knew what her mother was thinking: typhus or tuberculosis. With the ongoing shortage of medical supplies and lack of food, disease had become epidemic; either infection could be a death sentence. Christine’s first instinct was to ease her mother’s anxiety by telling her the truth, that Maria probably had morning sickness. But she couldn’t betray her sister’s trust. Maria was still too fragile.
We’re going to have to tell everyone soon,
she thought.

Christine thought about going back to see if Maria was all right, but she didn’t want to walk into church alone. This would be her first public appearance since her return, and her arms and legs already vibrated with nervous tension. Oma was halfway across the street, anxious to find a seat before the service started. Christine hesitated, looking up at the windows of the house, hoping to see Maria looking out, but the shutters were pulled closed.

“Hurry up, Christine!” her mother called. Christine rushed around the garden fence to catch up.

Clusters of people dressed in their Sunday best gathered like blooming sprays of wildflowers randomly sprouted in the green churchyard. Christine kept her eyes on the walkway, sensing numerous heads turning in her direction as she walked with her family toward the entrance.

Inside the sanctuary, the murmur of people talking gave way to silence, as every head turned to watch her come in. Christine looked down at her feet, painfully aware that her blue Sunday dress still hung loose on her frame. To hide her short hair and any bald spots she might have created, she wore Oma’s red scarf around her head, tied tight at the nape of her neck. She kept the edge of her sweater sleeve clenched inside her fist, to hide her tattooed wrist.

Because of the construction, the first rows of pews were kept vacant for the service. The new minister stood at the head of the center aisle, the raw, freshly-mortared façade rising high above his head. At the front of the church, a dozen wrought iron candelabras stood behind a string of lilac-filled vases. The smell of burning candles and the wet odor of fresh mortar overpowered the lilacs, making the inside of the church smell like a mausoleum.

Several people left their pews and came over to Christine, some speaking a soft “Welcome home,” and “We’re glad to see you’re all right.” Others smiled briefly at her, then turned their attention to Vater and Mutti. They put their arms around her mother, kissed her cheek, and shook her father’s hand. The elderly men and the few returned soldiers grasped her father by the shoulder and thumped him on the back. With trembling hands, nearly every woman held a handkerchief beneath her nose and watery eyes.