The Baker's Daughter
Page 1
Also by Sarah McCoy
The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Sarah McCoy
Reading Group Guide copyright © 2012 by Sarah McCoy
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Broadway Paperbacks and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York in 2012.
eISBN: 978-0-307-46020-2
COVER DESIGN BY CHIN-YEE LAI
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY MYLES WICKHAM/MILLENNIUM IMAGES LTD.
v3.1
For Brian
Zahlen bitte, mein Schatz.
Ich liebe Dich.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Epilogue
Elise Schmidt Meriwether’s German Bakery Recipes
Acknowledgments
Reading Group Guide
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side
which he never shows to anybody.
—MARK TWAIN, “Following the Equator”
The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light for ever is morning light;
The hills are verdured pasture-wise;
The angel hosts with freshness go,
And seek with laughter what to brave;—
And binding all is the hushed snow
Of the far-distant breaking wave.
And from a cliff-top is proclaimed
The gathering of the souls for birth,
The trial by existence named,
The obscuration upon earth.
And the slant spirits trooping by
In streams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion of what dreams!
—ROBERT FROST, “The Trial by Existence”
GARMISCH, GERMANY
JULY 1945
Long after the downstairs oven had cooled to the touch and the upstairs had grown warm with bodies cocooned in cotton sheets, she slipped her feet from beneath the thin coverlet and quietly made her way through the darkness, neglecting her slippers for fear that their clip might wake her sleeping husband. She paused momentarily at the girl’s room, hand on the knob, and leaned an ear against the door. A light snore trembled through the wood, and she matched her breath to it. If only she could halt the seasons, forget the past and present, turn the handle and climb in beside her like old times. But she could not forget. Her secret pulled her away, down the narrow steps that creaked under weight, so she walked on tiptoe, one hand balancing against the wall.
In the kitchen, bundled dough mounds as white and round as babies lined the countertop and filled the space with the smell of milk and honey, and promises of a full tomorrow. She lit a match. Its black head flamed and licked the candlewick before fuming to nothing. She preferred the candle’s burning ribbons to the electric bulb, buzzing bright and incriminating high above. Armed soldiers patrolled outside their doors; she couldn’t risk inciting curiosity or waking her family.
She bent to her knees beneath the rising bread, pushed aside a blackened pot, and groped in the darkness for the split in the floorboard where she’d hidden the new letter. Her palms, callused from the rolling pin, snagged on the timber planks. Shallow splinters embedded in her skin, but she did not take notice. Her heart pounded in her ears and radiated heat through her arm and fingertips until she heard and felt the crackle of the paper she’d bunched into the crevice earlier.
It had arrived in the day’s mail, sandwiched between a receipt from their local miller and a long-since-forgotten edition of Signal Magazine: its cover torn off; its pages watermarked beyond legibility, except for a pristine BMW ad boasting an aluminum bicycle for the “modern” rider. This tiresome correspondence made the letter’s delicate handwriting and old-fashioned wax stand out. She’d recognized it at once and quickly tucked it into her dirndl pocket before anyone in the post office could catch a suspicious glimpse.
At home, her husband had called to her, “What’s the news?”
“Nothing new. Buy or pay.” She’d handed him the magazine and bill. “Take, take, take, the world never stops.” She shoved her hands into her pockets, gripping the letter tight.
Her husband grunted, tossed the disintegrated magazine into the trash, then slid a pointed blade across the top of the miller’s note. He retrieved the receipt and held it close, summing the numbers in his mind and nodding in agreement. “As long as it keeps on turning, man will wake with hunger each morning. And thank God for that. Otherwise, we’d be out of business, ja?”
“Ja,” she’d echoed. “Where are the children?”
“Out doing their chores,” he’d replied.
She’d nodded, then retreated to the empty kitchen to hide the letter until it was safe.
Now, with the sickle moon hanging high above like a fishbone, she crouched low and brought the candle to the ground. The letter’s waxy seal had been cracked by her earlier clutch. Fragments littered the tiles. She carefully swept them into the base of the burning candlestick, unfolded the paper, and read the familiar script. Her hands trembled with each weighty word, the sentences tallied; her breath came faster and faster until she had to cover her lips to keep quiet.
The candle flame arched and quivered. A blue vein pulsed in its core. The air had changed. She stiffened on the floor an
d listened to a faint rustle of movement on the other side of the kitchen. A mouse, she prayed. A stray dog sniffing at the back door. An alpine gust or passing ghost. Anything but someone. She could not be discovered. Not with this letter in hand.
She scooted farther beneath the countertop, crumpling the paper into her lap and hugging the iron pot that stank of yesterday’s stewed onions. She waited for the flame to curl upright and steady, staring so hard that her eyes began to burn. She closed them for relief and saw scenes like old photographs: girls with matching bows at the end of plaited pigtails sitting beneath a fruit tree; a boy with limbs so thin they looked like bent reeds on the river’s edge; a man with a face marred by shadows swallowing chocolate that oozed out a hole in his chest; a woman dancing in a bonfire without smoldering; crowds of children eating mountains of bread.
When she opened her eyes, the flame had gone out. The black of night was lifting to velvet blue. She’d fallen asleep in the hiding place. But morning was coming, and it would no longer be safe. She crawled out, bones creaking and popping.
She carried the letter with her, hidden in the flimsy folds of her nightgown, and once more took the steps on tiptoe, past the girl’s room; through her bedroom door, she slipped back beneath the covers; her husband abided in dreamlessness. Slowly and with great precision, she reached around the bedside and pushed the paper beneath the mattress, then rested her hand on her chest.
Her heart felt foreign, as if someone else’s thudded within, moving ceremoniously, while the rest of her lay numb and cold. The clock ticked on the bedside table—tick, tick, tick without the tock of the pendulum swing. Her heartbeat filled the balancing pulse. In her mind, she read the letter’s words to the rhythm of the metronome. Then suddenly, the clock erupted in clattering shouts. The hammer struck the bell again and again.
She did not flinch.
Her husband rolled over, pulling the blanket with him and exposing her body. She remained rigid as a corpse. He switched off the alarm clock, turned back to kiss her cheek, and rose. She feigned deep sleep. The kind that, when true, gives glimpse to eternity.
Soon enough she would join him in the day, keeping silent what she knew and welcoming the white-hot sun as blamelessly as possible. She would tend to the children, scrub the dishes, wind the cuckoos, and sweep the floors. She would bake bread and glaze the buns in melted sugar.
3168 FRANKLIN RIDGE DRIVE
EL PASO, TEXAS
NOVEMBER 5, 2007
Reba had called Elsie’s German Bakery every day for over a week without getting through. Each time, she was greeted by a twangy West Texan voice on the answering machine. She took a swig of orange juice to coat her voice sunny and sweet before the beep.
“Hi, this is Reba Adams from Sun City magazine. I was calling again to reach Elsie Meriwether. I left my number in my last two messages, so if you could ring me back … that’d be great. Thanks.” She hung up and threw the cordless onto the couch. “P.S. Get your head out of the oven, and pick up the damn phone!”
“Why don’t you go over there?” Riki pulled on his coat.
“Guess I don’t have a choice. My deadline is in two weeks,” Reba complained. “I thought this would be an easy, fun one to write. An hour on the phone, send the photographer to take some shots, and I’d be done. It’s just a feel-good profile.” She went to the refrigerator and eyed the caramel cheesecake Riki was saving for tonight. “Christmas-round-the-world with a local slant.”
“Uh-huh.” Riki jingled his car keys. “Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. We got Texas and Mexico—what else matters?” He smirked.
Reba rolled her eyes and wished he’d hurry up and go. The happy anticipation of his departure made her sadly nostalgic. Once upon a time, his presence had incited waves of giddiness, like she’d drunk too many glasses of wine. The smart-aleck remarks had been cute in a cowboy way; his dark looks and Spanish accent made everything feel exotic and aflame, brazen and irresistible.
While doing a story on immigration, she’d followed him around his border patrol station, barely able to keep her pen steady enough to take notes; the vibrations of his voice down her spine carried through to her fingertips like a tuning fork.
The station tour and interview ended where it began, at the entrance. “We’re just everyday guys doing our jobs,” he’d said and opened the door for her exit.
She’d nodded and stood for an uncomfortably long moment, unable to convince her feet to move out of his dark, magnetic stare.
“I may need a little more info—would you be available later?” she’d asked, and he’d promptly dictated his cell phone number.
A few weeks later, she lay naked beside him, wondering who was this woman that possessed her body. Not Reba Adams. Or at least not the Reba Adams from Richmond, Virginia. That girl would never have slept with a man after knowing him such little time. Scandalous! But this girl felt shiny new, and that was exactly what she wanted. So she had curled her body around his and leaned her chin on his tanned chest, knowing full well that she could get up and leave anytime she wanted. The power of that made her light-headed with satisfaction, but she didn’t want to leave, didn’t want him to either. There and then, she prayed for him to stay. He had, and now she felt like a migrant bird tethered to a desert rock.
She jiggled her foot anxiously. Her stomach growled.
“See you later.” Riki kissed the back of her head.
Reba didn’t turn around.
The door opened and shut, and a cool, draft of November air swept round her bare ankles. After his white-and-green US Customs and Border Protection pickup passed the front window, she pulled the shelf and to keep them perfectly symmetrical, she cut slivers from each of the three remaining pieces, then licked along the blade of the butter knife.
Midafternoon, Reba parked out front of Elsie’s German Bakery on Trawood Drive. The shop was smaller than she’d imagined. A carved wooden sign hung over the door: Bäckerei. The smell of yeasty breads and honey glazes hovered in the air despite the blustery wind sweeping round the Franklin Mountains. Reba pulled her jacket collar up under her chin. It was a chilly day for El Paso, a high of 63 degrees.
The bell over the bakery door chimed as a dark-haired woman and her son tottered out. The boy held a pretzel, studded with salt and half chewed.
“But when can we have gingerbread?” he asked.
“After dinner.” She took his free hand.
“What’s for dinner?” The boy bit into the knotted middle.
“Menudo.” She shook her head. “Eat, eat, eat. That’s all you think about.” She pulled the boy past Reba. Sweet cinnamon and allspice clung to them.
Reba marched into the shop, ready to finally get answers. A jazzy, big-band tune played overhead. A man reading the newspaper sat in the corner with a cup of coffee and a slice of stollen. A slim but sturdy woman with silver-blond hair worked deftly behind the display case, sliding a tray of crusty rolls into a basket.
“Jane! You put the sunflowers seeds in when I say to put caraway!” yelled someone from beyond the curtained doorway dividing the café from the kitchen.
“I’m with a customer, Mom,” Jane said. She pushed a graying bang behind her ear.
Reba recognized her Texan twang from the answering machine.
“What can I get you? This is the last batch of brötchen for today. It’s fresh.” She nodded to the basket.
“Thanks, but I—well, I’m Reba Adams.” She paused, but Jane showed no flicker of recognition. “I’ve left a few messages on your machine.”
“A cake order?”
“No. I’m a writer for Sun City magazine. I wanted to interview Elsie Meriwether.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I usually check the messages on Sundays, but I didn’t get around to it this past weekend.” She turned to the kitchen. “Mom, there’s someone here for you.” She tapped her fingers on the register to the beat of the jazz trumpets, then tried again. “Mom!”
A pan clattered. “I am kneading!”
Reba examined the golden loaves stacked in baskets on the open shelves: Roggenbrot (Light Rye), Bauernbrot (Farmer’s Bread), Doppelback (Double-baked), Simonsbrot (Whole Grain), Black Forest, Onion Rye, Pretzels, Poppy Seed Rolls, Brötchen (Wheat Rolls). Inside a glass display case were neat rows of labeled sweets: Marzipan Tarts, Amarettis, three different kinds of kuchen (Cake: Hazelnut, Cherry-cheese, and Cinnamon-butter), Almond Honey Bars, Strudel, Stollen, Orange Quittenspeck (Quince Paste), Cream Cheese Danishes, and Lebkuchen (Gingerbread). A paper taped to the register read: “Celebration cakes to order.”
Reba’s stomach growled. She turned away from the case and focused on the willowy leaves of the dill plant by the register. You can’t, you can’t, she reminded herself, then dug in her purse for a roll of fruit-flavored Tums and popped a disk. It tasted like candy and satisfied the same.
Another pan clattered, followed by a stream of choppy German. Jane returned with fresh flour on her apron and forearms. “She’s finishing up some tarts. Cup of coffee while you wait, miss?”
Reba shook her head. “I’m fine. I’ll just take a seat.”
Jane motioned to the café tables, noticed her dusted arms, and brushed the wheat airborne. Reba sat, took out her notepad and tape recorder. She wanted to make sure to get print-worthy quotes now and avoid another trip. Jane wiped the glass case with something lavender scented, then continued to the tables around the bakery.
On the wall beside Reba hung a framed black-and-white photograph. At first glace, she thought it was Jane standing beside an older woman—Elsie, perhaps. But their clothing was all wrong. The young woman wore a long cape over a white dress, her light hair swept up in a chignon. The older woman at her side wore a traditional German dirndl embroidered with what looked to be daisies. She clasped her hands in front and gave a meek glance, while the younger cocked a shoulder to the camera and smiled wide; her eyes bright and slightly indignant to whomever behind the camera.