The Plum Tree

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  The next night, Christine and her mother were sitting on her mother’s bedroom floor getting ready to listen to the Atlantiksender, a blanket around their shoulders. Neither Heinrich nor Karl would leave their mother’s side. They lay on top of her bed, dressed in layers, watching Mutti and Christine with sleepy eyes.

  Heinrich hadn’t said a word since yesterday, and tonight he’d sat at the dinner table unwilling to do more than nibble on a slice of rye bread. When they had first come home after the attack, Christine had insisted she was all right, moving through the rest of the day in a disjointed frame of mind. Given everything she’d seen, she should have been crumpled in a ball next to Heinrich, crying until she fell asleep in her mother’s arms. But as Heinrich slept the rest of the day on the couch, she’d insisted on hanging out the laundry, pulling up the last of the leeks, and making dinner, so her mother could stay by his side. She was shocked that she felt a bit giddy, as if the fact that she and her brother had survived had ignited some kind of euphoria at the thought of just being alive. The feeling was short-lived however, and afterward she fell apart, spending the night weeping in her bed.

  Earlier that day, the Hitler Youth had delivered a warning of Tiefflieger, low-flying enemy planes that shot at everyone and anything. To avoid being shot, the paper read, people should hide and not run. Maybe if you’d delivered this a day earlier, four people would still be alive, Christine wanted to say to the young boy at the door. And I wouldn’t have taken my little brother with me. And his eyes wouldn’t have changed into those of an old man. She showed the notice to Oma, Opa, Maria, and Mutti, then burnt it in the kitchen fire.

  Now, as they sat on the bedroom floor, waiting for the boys to fall asleep, she whispered to her mother, “Will Frau Klause let you have another rooster?”

  “She might, but I’m going to wait a while before I ask. I’m not going to raise the subject while she’s grieving her husband.”

  Christine crawled toward the bed to turn on the radio, certain that the boys were finally asleep. But then Heinrich spoke. “I thought Vater burned the old radio.” Christine looked up at him, her hand frozen on the dial. He was looking at her over the edge of the bed, his old man’s eyes glassy and red. Mutti got up and sat beside him, stroking his forehead.

  “He changed his mind,” Mutti said. “But it’s a secret. And it’s important that you don’t tell anyone. Are you feeling better?”

  “You’re listening to the enemy, aren’t you?” he asked. “The ones who shot at us yesterday?”

  Mutti’s shoulders dropped, and she looked at Christine, who was now cross-legged on the floor.

  “We’re listening to it because we’re trying to find out everything that’s going on,” Christine said. “Because there are two sides to every story.”

  “Is that why they’re shooting at us and bombing us?” Heinrich asked. “Because they think we’re doing something wrong, but they don’t know our side of the story?”

  “Something like that,” Christine said. “They’re trying to make Hitler put an end to the war.”

  “Because he cares what happens to us?” Heinrich asked.

  “Hush,” Mutti said, pulling the covers over his shoulders. “Go to sleep now. We’ll keep the radio low.”

  “Mutti,” Heinrich said. “Are we bombing them too? The British and the Americans?”

  Mutti hesitated, and then she said, “Don’t think about it, Liebchen; just go to sleep. I’ll keep you safe.” She kept rubbing his forehead, back and forth, back and forth, until he was asleep. Then, she stood in slow motion, sat on the floor, leaned against the wall, and sighed. “How can I explain it when I don’t understand myself?”

  Christine shrugged and shook her head, then turned on the radio. She pulled a blanket over her mother, only half listening to the announcements. “Hitler doesn’t care if we starve. Why would he care if we’re bombed?” she said.

  “It won’t do any good to tell Heinrich that,” Mutti said.

  “I know. But it’s the truth.”

  Then, all of a sudden, her mother’s eyes went wide, and she put a finger over her lips.

  “Conditions on the Eastern Front are desperate,” the announcer said. “German troops are running out of ammunition and have no shelter, food, or medical supplies. At last report, the Sixth Army has been trapped by the Russians in Stalingrad.”

  Mutti clapped both hands over her mouth and stared at Christine. The Sixth Army. Vater’s unit. Trapped by the Russians. For the next hour, they sat frozen, listening to the terrible truth about what was happening in Russia, while the boys slept, blissfully unaware of their father’s fate. Christine hadn’t believed the posters depicting the Russians as barbarians, any more than she’d believed the propaganda against the Jews and Americans, but now, she couldn’t help praying they weren’t true.

  CHAPTER 13

  Over the winter, fear of the Tiefflieger emptied the fields of hungry civilians digging for potatoes beneath the hard earth or searching for coal along the tracks. Inside the village, people still had to stand in ration lines and walk to the farms to barter for butter or eggs, but they all did so with their eyes on the horizon, ready to run and hide at the first sight of a plane.

  Most of the Tiefflieger attacks were at the air base, but the day before Christmas, another incident of civilians being strafed in the street on the other side of town made everyone nervous. Hitler Youth were positioned in steeples and high rooftops throughout the village, working in shifts to keep watch on the daylight skies. With every report of villagers killed, Christine thought of Isaac and prayed that he was all right.

  On the night of January 24, 1943, the Atlantiksender broadcast the news that, despite Hitler’s order to fight to the death, the Sixth Army had surrendered to the Russians. Christine wasn’t sure how to read her mother’s creased face as the announcer said that even before they were trapped, thousands of German soldiers had committed suicide.

  “At least they’re done fighting,” Christine whispered. “Maybe now he’s got a better chance.”

  “If a prisoner of war has a better chance,” Mutti said, pulling a crumpled handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiping her nose. “If he’s still alive.”

  “Of course he’s still alive,” Christine said, wondering again if she was saying the words because she knew it was what she was supposed to say.

  It seemed like just yesterday her mother had been reassuring her about Isaac, and now Christine hadn’t seen him in how long? Had it really been years? To her it felt like last week. She hoped it felt the same for him. But now, she didn’t even know if he was still in Germany, let alone still alive. And the longer this insane war went on, the less hope she had that she’d ever see him again. Was this what was going to happen with her father? Was she going to struggle with opposing bouts of grief and optimism, week after week and month after month, only to wear down until she had to say good-bye forever?

  To add to her worry, no matter how much Christine encouraged her to eat, since they had found out that the Sixth Army had been trapped in Stalingrad, Mutti had lost more weight. She told Christine that the thought of eating while her husband was freezing and starving on the Russian front, or possibly dead and forgotten beneath the snow, made her stomach turn. Now, since the Sixth Army’s surrender, Christine wondered if Mutti’s lack of appetite was going to get worse.

  A few weeks later, Christine found out how skinny her mother really was beneath her layers of winter clothes. As usual, they’d all bathed in the metal tub in the kitchen before Mutti, because, now that wood was being rationed and it was against the law to heat enough water to bathe more than once a week, Mutti always insisted on being last. Christine knew that, besides wanting to give everyone else the hottest water, Mutti cherished the few quiet minutes she had to soak. But that day, what Christine had in her hand couldn’t wait. A letter from Vater had arrived. Christine ran up the stairs and knocked on the kitchen door, fighting the urge to barge in.

  “What is it?�
� Mutti called.

  “A letter from Vater!” Christine shouted, her mouth close to the painted door. She heard a loud splash and imagined her mother bolting upright in the tub.

  “Bring it in,” Mutti said.

  Christine pushed open the door and entered the warm kitchen, the humid air dampening her arms and face. Two pots of water boiled on the woodstove, filling the room with steam. It took a second before it registered, but then Christine realized that Mutti hadn’t added more hot water to her bath. The windows were closed, condensation flowing down the glass in tiny rivers, identical to the tears on her mother’s face, but the steam in the room came from the pots on the stove, not the water in the tub.

  “Give me a towel so I can dry off my hands,” Mutti said, her voice shaking. She was facing Christine, knees to her chest, hair pulled high on the top of her head, wet strands clinging to her thin cheeks. The twin lines of her collarbones jutted above her ribs, and her elbows were bony knobs, her legs like spindles on a chair.

  Trying not to stare, Christine handed her a towel, then felt the cold, filmy water in the tub. “This water is almost freezing!” she said.

  “I forgot to add more after Karl was done,” Mutti said, reaching for the letter. Christine went to the stove and lifted one of the steaming pots.

  “Why didn’t you get out and add the hot water?” Christine said, unable to hide her anger. “Do you want to make yourself sick?” She poured the hot water in the tub, careful to avoid her mother’s legs. Her mother ripped open the envelope.

  “I was just going to wash up in a hurry,” Mutti said, her teeth chattering now. “Besides, I have laundry to do, and it would have saved me from using more wood.” Shivering, she unfolded the letter with trembling hands. Christine got the second kettle of water and poured it in the tub, then watched her mother read the letter to herself. In slow motion, her mother’s face fell, and Christine’s stomach knotted, waiting for her to read it out loud. Finally, she did.

  Dearest Rose and family,

  I pray that you are well. I think of our house and beautiful children often, and look forward to the day when I can see all of you again. The enemy is shooting from the woods nearby, and I often wonder if those men think of their wives and children day after day, just as I do. I don’t know what I look like, but the other men in my unit look terrible, their hands and faces a smear of stubble, dirt, and insect bites.

  I hope you had a peaceful Christmas. At the front every Christmas is sad. On Christmas Eve we tried to keep our spirits up by singing songs and telling jokes around the fire. After that, we told our favorite memories of Christmas at home. We recalled snow-covered villages and rooms filled with laughter and joy. Every now and then a soldier would get up and leave, and we would find him alone, weeping beneath the cold Russian moon.

  The insignificance of everyday life pales against this. Here, we have nothing but the idea and memory of family and home. With that, we are men who can bear everything. Don’t worry, nothing can happen to me any longer. I want you to know how much I love you all. And, if it is within my power, I will do everything I can to see you again.

  Heil Hitler,

  Dietrich

  Mutti looked up at Christine, her eyes flooding. “He’s given up,” she whispered.

  “Nein,” Christine said, taking the letter. “He said at the end he’ll do everything in his power to see us again.”

  “But so many men have died . . .” Mutti said.

  “We can only hope that the situation isn’t as bad as the radio says,” Christine said. “The enemy is bound to exaggerate. At least we know he’s alive!”

  Then, out of the blue, Mutti perked up. “He talked about Christmas,” she said. “If things were so terrible, how could he have gotten a letter out since then?”

  “That’s right,” Christine said. “See, it’s good news.” Christine moved the envelope to one side and looked at the postmark. January 10, 1942. The letter was a year old. She swallowed the sour taste at the back of her throat, shoved the letter back in the envelope, and slipped it into her apron pocket.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother said. “You’re right. He sent it after the Russians captured them, so that means they’re letting them send letters. Which means they’re probably giving them food and clothes too.”

  “That’s right,” Christine said, fighting back tears. She turned toward the breakfast nook and started to pull silverware out of the drawer. Even though the letter is a year old, she told herself, that doesn’t mean he’s dead. What would be the point of telling her, especially if it means she won’t eat? I’ll just smudge out the date with a piece of coal, and she’ll never know. “He’s probably getting more to eat than we are,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “So, now that you know Vater is all right, how about finishing your bath and letting me make you lunch?”

  “Ja,” her mother said. “Let’s celebrate. Get everyone together, and we’ll open the last jar of plum jam.”

  In February, the government finally made the official announcement that the Sixth Army had surrendered. Flags were flown at half-mast, and women wept in the ration lines. At first, Christine thought they were worried about their husbands on the Russian front. But then she found out that men as old as sixty-five and boys as young as sixteen were being drafted into a newly formed division of the army called the Volkssturm, without uniforms. Twelve- to fifteen-year-olds were being sent to man anti-aircraft guns in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Berlin. She thanked God that her brothers were still too young.

  A few weeks later, the papers announced that the German troops were consolidating and realigning on the Eastern Front, but Opa said that it really meant they were retreating and that Ivan was headed their way. Herr Weiler had informed him that Volksdeutsche, or ethnic Germans, were abandoning homes in Prussia and the Ukraine, and now those refugees were heading toward Germany. Christine overheard Opa telling her mother that Russian soldiers were slaughtering and raping German women and children. At first, she didn’t believe it, but when, with their ration cards, leaflets were handed out that showed Russian soldiers standing over the bodies of dead German women and children, Christine felt the cold fear of another threat forming in her stomach. The message was clear: This is what will happen to our women and children if we do not protect our fatherland. Christine couldn’t imagine the point of handing the flyers out in the village, because there was no one left to defend them; the men were gone. She burnt the leaflets in the woodstove so her brothers wouldn’t see them.

  In the middle of the night on the first day of March, Heinrich fell in his rush down the stairs during an air raid. Unlike the old, stoic Heinrich, he limped and wailed all the way to the shelter, certain he was going to die. His injuries consisted only of a bruised elbow and scraped knee, but it just added to everyone’s sense of trauma at having to run for their lives. To make matters worse, they were stuck in the shelter for three days, because every time they thought the raid was finally over, the bombs started dropping again. The potato bins and wine barrels were long empty, and only a few people, including Christine’s mother, had had the foresight to bring food when the sirens went off. Mutti always kept a replenished bag sitting by the front door, and this time it held a jar of pickled eggs and a loaf of rye bread.

  The occupants of the shelter put all their food together and divided the bread, jam, eggs, jarred herring, bits of goat cheese, and dried apples into minuscule meals for thirty-plus people. The men broke a hole in the cement wall of the shelter and dug a tunnel to the outside, so the smallest boy could crawl through to collect water from the creek. At the end of the third day, when the all clear finally sounded, they emerged filthy and hungry, certain the village had been reduced to rubble. To everyone’s disbelief, the immediate area was still standing.

  The next few months went by in repetitive days filled with planting the garden, pulling weeds, standing in ration lines, cleaning, scrounging for food, and running to the bomb shelter. Christine was beginning to wonder h
ow long they could keep it up before losing their minds. Is this the way it’s going to be for the rest of my life? she wondered. How long can a person live in fear of dying before it becomes too much? How long before I find out if my father is dead or alive? How long before Isaac gives up on our relationship? Tired of feeling helpless, she decided she’d give it until fall, until the same day in late September when he’d kissed her for the first time. Then, no matter what, she was going to his house again, to see if he was still there.

  At the end of July, they were in the shelter again, sweating in the middle of the night as they waited for the all clear. It’d been a hot summer, and the air in the cellar was humid and dense. There was a new person in the shelter, a nephew of Herr Weiler’s, a skinny soldier who’d come home from the war missing an eye and part of his left hand. He’d come to Hessental from Hamburg, where his family had been killed in an air raid two weeks earlier. Everyone sat in a semicircle listening to him, silent and looking at each other with worried eyes.

  “Eight-story apartment buildings, cathedrals, museums, schools, shops, theaters, and vehicles,” he said, sweat beading up on his forehead. “All incinerated in a rain of fire. They dropped regular bombs on the most densely populated neighborhoods, Hamburg, Bill-werder, Ausschlag, and Barmbek, to bust open the buildings. Then they dropped the firebombs. In the end, four square miles of the city just disappeared. I was crossing the bridge over the Elbe, coming home from a late night with friends. The bombs the Allies were dropping were like nothing I’d ever seen. When they exploded, chemicals splashed over everything, turning entire neighborhoods into a sea of fire.”

  “Bitte,” a woman said. “The children might hear.”

  The soldier shared a rolled cigarette with his uncle, passing it to him with the remaining fingers of his left hand, the bitter-smelling smoke making him squint. Christine edged closer so she could hear.