The Plum Tree

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  Mutti didn’t ask questions, and Christine was grateful. There would be time enough to fill her in on what she’d been through. When her mother saw the number on the inside of her wrist, she stopped and stared. Christine started to pull her arm away, but Mutti wouldn’t let go. She looked at Christine with glassy eyes, ran a finger over the tattooed scar, then lifted Christine’s wrist to her lips and kissed it, just as she’d kissed all bruises and scrapes throughout Christine’s childhood.

  Tears fell down Christine’s cheeks as she realized she was experiencing the exact same things Isaac had after he had escaped. He’d eaten the bread and jam she’d taken to him after months of watery broth and crusts of bread. He’d sat in this very tub full of steaming, soapy water after not washing or changing his clothes for months on end. He’d felt what she was feeling now, this tremendous relief and euphoric elation at being rescued. How devastating it must have been to be captured and imprisoned again. If she woke up right now to discover that this was all a dream, that she’d really been asleep on the hard bunk inside the reeking barracks, she knew she’d die.

  Her mother lathered her grimy hair and rinsed it with fresh water. After Christine had been scrubbed clean from head to toe, she climbed out of the tub and let Mutti dry her off next to the woodstove, a clean towel over her head and around her shoulders, just like when she was small.

  With loving hands, Mutti slipped a long, flannel nightgown over Christine’s head, put her scrubbed feet into thick, cotton socks, then took her up to her room, where she tucked her into a clean, fluffy feather bed. Christine’s bone-weary body felt like it was sinking into a supple, white cloud, her heavy head resting on the soft, goose-down pillow. She needed sleep like a man lost in the desert needed water; every fiber of her being longed for it. Mutti sat next to the bed, caressing Christine’s cheek and humming softly. Christine turned on her side and looked into her mother’s watery eyes.

  “Mutti,” Christine whispered. “Isaac is dead.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Over the next few nights, Mutti slept in Christine’s room, cooling her head with a wet cloth when she was burning with fever, comforting her when she cried out in her sleep. When Christine woke in the middle of the night, pawing at her mother’s face and arms as she tried to figure out where she was, Mutti lit the beech oil lantern on the nightstand. She would have left the lamplight on, but the electricity was still out, and no one knew when it would be coming back on.

  In the morning and whenever Christine napped, Oma sat on a chair in her room, mending clothes or knitting. In the afternoons, Karl and Heinrich came in to play checkers or “Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht,” and Maria read to her at night.

  Through it all, Christine held the sleeve of her nightgown over her wrist with one hand, her thumb rubbing back and forth over the numbered skin. She forgot her turn during games with her brothers and had to ask Oma to repeat herself during conversations. When Maria read to her, Christine saw her mouth moving but didn’t hear the words. Instead, her mind had taken her back to Dachau.

  As the days grew longer and warmer, Mutti threw open the windows of Christine’s room, inviting fresh air, birdsong, and the perfume of plum blossoms to immerse her in the sounds and smells of new life. As often as Christine would let her, she brought in warm bread with plum jam and hot tea, and glass after glass of goat’s milk. There were only a few chickens left, but Mutti plucked an old brown hen to make chicken soup, filling it with egg noodles made from the last of their flour.

  Despite the regular dark detours of her mind, Christine’s constricted lungs relaxed little by little, and she felt her strength slowly returning. After her fever broke, her nightmares were less furious and violent. After a few days, she could take deep breaths without pain, and her coughing fits grew further and further apart. After two weeks, she insisted on getting out of bed for her meals.

  Now that the war was over, Americans occupied the village, their tanks and jeeps rolling up and down the cobblestone streets, making the windows of the house rattle. The roads were free of prisoners, the wailing air raid sirens had been silenced, and the sky was no longer filled with falling bombs. But food supplies were scarcer than ever, and the Allies were continuing the strict rationing set in place by Hitler and Goering. There were no farmers to work the soil, no potatoes to plant, no seeds for wheat, turnips, or beets.

  Christine’s father came home, thinner and dirtier than the first time he’d returned, but he was alive. He sobbed when he saw Christine, the grease and grime on his face mixing with his tears. When he lowered himself to sit beside her, he moved slowly, reaching out to steady himself, as if every bone in his body were stiff and brittle. He held her thin hands in his own, and they talked about her imprisonment. At one point they both stopped speaking, their eyes locked. It was a moment understood only by them, a silent communication that some things were too horrific to say out loud, that they each had seen and done things that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Then Mutti came into the bedroom, and the moment was over. Vater also brought news of Hitler’s suicide in a Berlin bunker, and the dictator’s last plans for the Fatherland.

  “He intended to destroy the whole country so there’d be nothing but ashes when the Allies arrived,” he said. “We heard some of the concentration camps were bombed in an attempt to get rid of the evidence. The men running the camps became targets of our own Luftwaffe because Hitler knew we were losing the war.”

  “The officers and some of the guards at Dachau fled before the Americans came,” Christine said.

  Her father shook his head in disgust. “And most of them have probably already left the country. But not all of them. We saw SS stripping uniforms from dead Wehrmacht soldiers, so they could blend in.”

  Under azure skies, the trees, daffodils, and tulips began to bud and bloom, and despite the continued rationing and food shortages, the village children returned to their carefree games. They referred to the Americans as Schokoladenwerfers, “chocolate throwers,” bolting outside when their jeeps went by, hands outstretched, yelling for more chocolate and gum. Every day, Karl and Heinrich searched for patches and medals in the discarded German uniforms left in the old schoolyard, to trade with the Americans for bread or a strange meat in a blue can called “Spam.”

  For the last few days, the French army had been passing through on its way back to the French-occupied zone, making everyone nervous.

  “Stay away from the French,” Vater warned the boys. “Yesterday they went into some cellars where people were storing what few belongings they had left. They took everything of value, then relieved themselves on the rest. They slaughtered Frau Klause’s spring lambs. We’re lucky to be in the American zone, but avoid the French until they’re gone. I feel sorry for the Germans in their zone. And the Germans in the Russian zone will have it the worst.”

  On the first warm day that her mother allowed her outside, Christine blinked against the bright sunshine, feeling stiff from spending so much time in bed. Standing on the stone backyard terrace, she reached toward the sky, turning and stretching the tight muscles in her back. Her body felt weak where it used to be strong, hard where it used to be soft, bone where there used to be muscle. Her old clothes hung loose, and she had to wear a pair of worn shoes that she’d passed down to Maria ages ago, her own shoes lost forever in the monstrous, heaping pile at Dachau.

  She wrapped her sweater around herself and ducked beneath the branches of the pear and plum trees, heading toward the back fence to look for the plum pit she’d planted over a year ago. She knelt and placed her fingers over the round depression, now nothing more than a circle of dirt and dead leaves. With careful fingers, she pushed back the bits of grass and curling foliage. But there was nothing growing there, not the slightest hint of a tiny twig or unfurling leaf. Her eyes filled with tears. She thought about digging up the pit and throwing it away, then imagined it rotting in the ground, worm-holed and spongy from the long months of snow and rain. Just like Isaac, the plum pit hadn�
��t survived. Instead, she stood, the weight of grief making it difficult to straighten completely, and went back to the terrace.

  Sitting in a cane-backed chair, she watched Mutti dig up a new vegetable patch in the backyard. The chickens were loose in the grass, scratching at the earth, their feathers glistening orange in the sun. Frau Klause had delivered a rooster when she heard of Christine’s return, and now, the handsome bird searched for bugs and worms in the yard, his red comb and high tail feathers bobbing and weaving, his taloned feet pulling and raking at the grass. When he found a beetle or a centipede, he called the hens with a low, cooing caw, then held the squirming morsel in his beak, waiting for them to scurry over before dropping it at their feet. While the hens pecked the insect apart, he crowed and preened, strutting in a circle. Since Christine’s return, the world was alive with color, and even chickens were beautiful.

  She closed her eyes, lifting her face toward the late morning sky, listening to the contented clucks of the hens, breathing in the perfume of plum blossoms and the moist tang of freshly turned soil. Now, every blade of grass, every insect and sparrow, every leaf and tree had become a spectacular gift. And yet, while the skin on her face and hands felt warm in the sun, inside she still felt frozen, like spring thaw running over river ice.

  “Nein!” Mutti screamed.

  Christine’s eyes flew open. Her mother had dropped her spade and was standing next to the house, her hands in fists. A French soldier stood in the next-door neighbor’s backyard, his rifle aimed at one of Mutti’s chickens. Mutti stood her ground. She took off her apron and flapped it in the air, shooing him away, the white material fluttering in the breeze like the flag of surrender.

  “Leave my chickens alone!” Mutti yelled. Christine went to her side.

  “He probably doesn’t understand you,” she said, putting a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “We’re still the enemy. You need to be careful.” Christine forced herself to smile and wave at the soldier.

  Mutti put her apron back on, shaking her head, her hands trembling. The Frenchman lowered his rifle and laughed. He lit a cigarette and stared at them, as if trying to decide what to do. After a minute, he got bored and left. Christine let out a sigh of relief and returned to her chair. Mutti went back to the plot of newly turned earth, lifted the spade high overhead, and brought it back down with a solid swing, hitting the dirt with a clomp.

  After a while, Christine got up to help her mother rework the garden in preparation for planting cucumbers and green beans. Thanks to Mutti’s careful planning, they still had seeds from last year. Earlier, they’d disagreed about Christine’s readiness to return to hard labor, but Christine had insisted, telling her mother that work would make her stronger. She was at the point where too much rest was making her feel listless and weak. She longed to feel her muscles stretch and contract, her heart pound from physical exertion instead of fear.

  Within an hour, they were ready to plant. They worked on their hands and knees, carefully spacing the bean seeds in long, shallow furrows. The dark earth felt silky and warm in Christine’s hands, the fawn-colored seeds flawless and smooth. Black dirt caked beneath her fingernails and lined the creases of her knuckles, making the skin on her hands look bone white. Each small pebble she found in the soil reminded her of the one Isaac had thrown at her.

  At noon, Mutti wiped her hands on her apron and headed toward the back door.

  “Come inside,” she said to Christine. “It’s time to eat.”

  “Ja,” Christine said, sitting back down. “I just want to enjoy the fresh air a bit longer.” Christine’s arms and legs were tired and sore, but it was a content fatigue, the sort of healthy exhaustion that made her look forward to a hot bath and a good meal.

  “I’ll call you when everything’s ready then.” Mutti slipped off her dirty boots and put on her shoes, then kissed Christine on the forehead and went into the house. Within seconds, she returned. Someone waited in the hall behind her, a towering figure with a pale face and wide shoulders. Her mother held the door open, anxiety lining her forehead.

  “The American is here!” she said.

  “What does he want?” Christine said, sitting forward.

  “How do I know?”

  Just then, the soldier stepped out onto the terrace, his rifle hanging from his shoulder, a bulky silver tin in one hand. He gave Christine a quick nod. “Guten Tag. Hello.”

  Mutti remained diligently in the entryway, her sweat-streaked face pale. The American was tall and muscular, blond and blue-eyed, and Christine recognized him instantly. The soldier who had given her a ride home. What was his name? Then it came to her. Jake. She stood, pulled down her sleeves and crossed her arms, pushing her tattooed wrist protectively beneath her elbow.

  “Sind gut? Are you well?” he said. He tapped his chest. “Jake, ja?”

  Christine tried again to remember the few English words she knew. It was too much effort. She nodded.

  “Gut,” he said, smiling. He looked back at Mutti, who was watching from the doorway. “English?”

  “Nein,” Christine said.

  “Alles gut? All is good?”

  She nodded again and he grinned, glancing down at his feet. At the train station, she’d been anxious and sick and hadn’t noticed his handsome features. Now, as he stood here in the midday sun, the blue sky framing his blond head, she could see that he was striking. When he looked at her, his eyes turned silver in the sun. He looked too young to be so far from his family, fighting a war. He was probably Isaac’s age. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the familiar black mass twisted in her chest.

  Jake glanced back at Mutti again, then looked at Christine, a pink hue rising in his cheeks. “Friends?”

  She understood the word but wasn’t sure what to say. On one hand, he’d brought her home, and she felt like she had to be nice to him. On the other hand, she just wanted to be left alone. Besides, he was a soldier in uniform, and she was tired of anything that reminded her of war.

  Before she could respond, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a handful of brown-and-silver-wrapped bars, his dog tags jangling inside his shirt. Christine recognized the word HERSHEY written across the paper. They were the same kind of candy her brothers picked up off the streets, thrown from American jeeps. Jake held them out to her, along with the silver can. She took a step backwards. Maria had told her about the rumors, that American soldiers used their food as “Frau bait” to get German girls to have sex with them. She clenched her jaw and looked away, then forced herself to look back at him. “Nein,” she said, her voice hard.

  He moved toward her, holding his gifts out at arm’s length, insisting. She shook her head vigorously, eyes darting toward her mother to make sure she was still there, and pointed at the back door. “Good-bye,” she said, dragging the unfamiliar English word out too long, clipping it short at the end.

  He understood, and the smile dropped from his face. She was surprised to see hurt in his eyes. Instead of persisting, as she half expected, he put the tin and chocolates on the ground. For a moment, Christine worried he was going to reach for his rifle. But instead of his gun, the soldier held up his hands, like a prisoner conceding surrender, then smiled, nodded, and headed toward the exit.

  “Ma’am,” he said to Mutti, and then he was gone. Mutti glanced at Christine with troubled eyes, then disappeared into the hall to show him out.

  The next day was rainy and cold. Christine found dark days harder than most, the rain and gloomy skies reminding her of every horrible scene she was trying to forget. She sat on the couch, shivering beneath a blanket, trying to read in the dim living room. Oma was sitting next to her, darning socks. Maria and Mutti were in the kitchen cooking dinner. Vater was out looking for work. If only they had coal to burn to take the chill out of the small room, but there was none. And they couldn’t use their dwindling supply of firewood, because they needed every last log for cooking. Trying to concentrate on the words on the page, Christine held the book in on
e hand, her thumb caressing the number on her wrist. Instead of losing herself in the story, she found her eyes drawn to Oma’s wrinkled face, wondering how she continued to exist without Opa. I wonder if I’m that strong, she thought, or will I always feel as if a piece of my heart has been ripped out?

  Just when she felt her eyes filling, Heinrich hurried into the room, the silver, oversized tin in his hands, Karl at his heels.

  “What’s this?” Heinrich asked.

  Christine put the book in her lap. “I don’t know. Now go put it back where you found it.”

  “Mutti said the American left it. We want to see what it is!” Karl said.

  “We should throw it away,” Oma said. “It might be poison.”

  Christine pulled back the blanket and stood. “It’s probably food.”

  Mutti came into the room, a dishcloth wrapped around the iron handle of a steaming kettle in her hands. “What’s going on?” she said. “We need to set the table for Mittag Essen.”

  She set the kettle in the center of the table and lifted the lid. Long strips of brown noodles floated in a thin, yellow broth. It was Maria’s favorite, pancake soup, the noodles made by cutting crepes into strips.

  Heinrich set the tin on the table too, and both boys sat down, their eyes gleaming with anticipation. “Can we open it?” Heinrich said.

  Oma pushed herself up from the couch and waddled over to join them. When Maria entered the living room, eyelids swollen from crying, Mutti looked at Christine, an understanding passing between them. For the past few nights, they’d both been woken by Maria’s sobs.