The Plum Tree

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in four years,” he said, leaning back to examine her, tears streaming from his eyes. “You’ve grown into a woman while I was away.”

  His hair was grayer than Christine remembered, the circles under his eyes dark as smudged coal. His lips were cracked and dry, his fingernails dirty. His uniform hung loose on his skinny frame, but it was field green, not Nazi black. He was an ordinary German soldier, not part of the SS, and not a Nazi. And now he was here. He was alive. Christine grabbed him by the hand and dragged him into the house.

  “Oma!” she shouted, rapping her knuckles on Oma’s bedroom door. “Get up! Vater is home!” She pulled her father up the stairs. “Mutti!” she yelled. “Wake up, everybody! Vater is home!”

  Together they ran up the two flights of stairs to her mother’s bedroom, reaching the door just as she was coming out, her red hair hanging in long cascades over her shoulders, free of its tight French twist. Mutti clutched her worn bathrobe over her chest, blinking against the remnants of sleep that made her look aged beyond her years. At first, the shock of seeing a soldier in the hall contorted her face, but then, when she saw Christine holding his hand and beaming, recognition transformed her. Her hands flew over her mouth, and her chin trembled.

  “Dietrich?” she said, reaching out to touch him with an unsteady hand, as if he were a ghost. “Is it really you? You’re alive?”

  “It’s me,” Vater said. Then he held out his hand and she grabbed it, her knuckles going white, as if she were afraid he’d disappear if she let go. They threw their arms around each other, and Mutti sobbed. Christine’s eyes filled as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Mutti thanked God over and over as Vater buried his face in her hair, laughing. Maria, Karl, and Heinrich came out into the hall, eyes wide as they tried to make sense of the early morning commotion. When Vater saw them, he knelt on the floor, set his rifle at his heels, and smiled. Finally, recognizing that their long-lost father had come home, Karl and Heinrich ran into his outstretched arms. Maria put her hands over her mouth.

  “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown!” he said to the boys. He stood and caressed Christine and Maria’s pale cheeks. “I have the most beautiful daughters in Germany! I kept thinking of your faces. That’s what kept me going: Christine’s blond hair, Maria’s wide blue eyes, Karl’s freckles, Heinrich’s toothy grin.” He laughed and put his arm around Mutti, kissing her cheek. “And the picture I carried of your mother kept me sane.”

  Oma made her way up the steps behind them, a shawl over her nightgown, one bony hand on the railing. Vater met her at the top of the stairs.

  “Welcome home, Dietrich,” Oma said, her eyes wet. “What a wonderful surprise. Welcome home.”

  He hugged her and led her back toward the family. “And where is Opa?” he asked.

  “It’s not good news,” Oma said in a quiet, shaky voice. “He was killed during an air raid.”

  “Ach nein,” Vater said, shoulders dropping. His eyes filled, and he hugged Oma again. “What happened?”

  “The barn was on fire,” Mutti said. “He saved our house from burning.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Vater said, hugging her. Then he stood back, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers and closing his eyes, as if suddenly developing an excruciating headache. “This damn war. When will enough be enough?”

  “Opa wouldn’t want us to be unhappy,” Oma said. “He’d be so glad to know you’re all right, Dietrich. That’s what he prayed for every night, for you to come home, to look after your family.”

  For the next few minutes, the hallway filled with tears and laughter, until, as one big, noisy group, they went down to the kitchen together. Mutti lit the woodstove and filled the teakettle with water, while Vater scrubbed his face and hands in the sink.

  “I’m sorry, Mutti,” Christine said. “But I dropped the eggs when I saw Vater.”

  “That’s all right,” Mutti said, smiling. “I would have dropped them too.”

  Christine sliced potatoes and a leftover piece of Schinkenwurst, ham loaf, into a cast-iron skillet. Maria added onion, and Mutti set the table. It was the first time Christine had seen her mother wearing her bathrobe in the kitchen, and the first time since her father had left that she’d heard her laugh. Both Karl and Heinrich were talking at once, telling their father about the air raids, asking questions about being a soldier.

  Vater sat at the corner nook with Oma and his sons, a contented smile on his face, talking and watching his wife and daughters prepare breakfast. To Christine, the eyes above his smile seemed changed. The mischievous twinkle was gone, dimmed somehow, replaced by sorrow. In the four years since he’d left, he looked like he’d aged ten.

  But the grin never left his face as he ate and sipped his tea. He looked at each of them with such wonder and gratitude that it almost made Christine cry. For a little while, things felt normal, and Christine let herself enjoy the moment. Her body relaxed, and she felt a minuscule flutter of joy as the love of her family enveloped her, making her feel warm and safe. She blocked out everything else and concentrated on her father, alive and well, her family gathered around her, a cup of hot tea, a warm kitchen, a quiet morning.

  “Where have you been, Vater?” Heinrich asked.

  “Russland,” he said.

  “Were you with the Sixth Army at Stalingrad?” Christine asked.

  “Ja,” Vater said, staring into his tea. “Ja, I was in Russia with the Sixth Army.”

  “What happened?” Heinrich said. “How did they trap you?”

  “Hitler wouldn’t let us retreat. So the Russians encircled us, and there was nothing we could do. We had to surrender.”

  “Did Ivan put you in prison?” Heinrich said.

  Mutti put a hand on Heinrich’s arm. “Shh . . .” she said. “Your father doesn’t want to talk about that right now. He must eat.”

  “Macht nichts,” Vater said, waving a hand in the air. “Ja, we were sent to a prisoner of war camp. But we had to walk there. It took days, in freezing temperatures, and we had to sleep in the snow on the way.” Mutti stood and refilled his cup with hot water, then scraped the last bits of fried potato onto his plate. “Thank you, Rose, I’ve never tasted anything so delicious.” He caught her arm and pulled her down for a kiss, and Karl and Heinrich giggled beside him.

  “Then what happened, Vater?” Heinrich said. “Did you have to live on bread and water?”

  “Nein. Once a day they gave us a little bread, a little thin soup.” He tilted his plate to get the last bits of browned potatoes with his fork. When he was finished, Mutti cleared the plates from the table and filled the sink with soapy water, glancing sideways at her husband, as if making sure he was really there.

  “How long were you a prisoner?” Christine asked.

  Vater wiped his mouth and sat back in the booth, resting his arms on the backrest. “Over a year, I think. We had no way of keeping time. I know it’s nearing fall now, but I don’t know what month it is.”

  “It’s August,” Maria said.

  “The Russians let you go?” Christine said.

  “Let your Vati relax,” Mutti said. “Enough questions.”

  “Ja, ja,” Vater said. “The Kinder are curious.” He sat forward and picked up the saltshaker, examining it as if he’d never seen one before. “They didn’t let me go. I escaped.”

  A collective gasp filled the kitchen. Mutti sat down hard on a stool, a dishcloth held over her heart.

  “What happened?” Heinrich said, his eyes round.

  “Ach du lieber Gott,” Oma said under her breath.

  “Did you dig a tunnel?” Karl said.

  Heinrich put a hand over Karl’s mouth. “Nein, Dummkopf,” he said. “There’s too much snow in Russia to dig a tunnel.”

  Karl squirmed and mumbled, trying to pry his brother’s hand from his face. Vater raised a hand to quiet them, then finished the last of his tea. He set down the empty cup, then scrubbed a hand ac
ross his forehead. Everyone went silent, waiting to hear his story.

  “I think it was right before Christmas,” he said. He picked up the saltshaker again, turning it round and round in his fingers. “Like I’ve said, I can’t be sure. The Russians told the men in our barracks we were being transported. We didn’t know why or when. At first we thought it was good news, maybe we were being moved to a better camp. A few days later, we were on a train, hoping the longer we were on it, the closer we were getting to home. I think I was in the boxcar for five days.”

  “Did you jump off?” Karl shouted.

  “Shh . . .” Heinrich said. “Let him finish!”

  “After three days,” Vater continued, “they stopped the train out in the middle of nowhere and made us get out. They told us to line up in the snow. By that time, some of the men were so weak they couldn’t even crawl out of the boxcars.” He paused, shook some salt into the palm of his hand, and touched it to his tongue. At first, Christine didn’t understand what he was doing; then she realized he probably hadn’t tasted salt in years.

  “What happened next?” Heinrich said.

  “We got off the train and lined up, thinking they were giving us a bit of fresh air, or letting us clean ourselves up in the snow. But then, the Russians went up the ranks and shot random prisoners. Some of the men tried to run or jump back in the boxcar, but they shot them too. I just stood there, not moving. After the Russians were done, they ordered us back on the train. They just left our men lying alongside the tracks, to die in the snow.”

  Karl slid closer to his father, resting his head on his arm. Vater put his arm around him and took one of his son’s hands in his, looking down at the small, pale fingers resting in his large, calloused palm.

  “If you got back on the train, how did you get away?” Heinrich asked.

  Vater kissed the top of Karl’s head and glanced at Mutti, who was still sitting on the stool, folding and unfolding the dishcloth in her lap. She didn’t look up.

  “The second time the train slowed, I could see trees out both sides of the boxcar. We were in the middle of a forest. And I knew what was going to happen. I had no intention of being shot, so I decided that when they told us to get out, I’d duck under the train and run into the trees. My buddy wanted to go too. When the train stopped and the door opened, we jumped down, slipped under, and ran. They were shooting at us, but we kept running. We heard a lot of gunfire, and we’re pretty sure they killed the rest of the men on the train. Some of them were just boys.” He stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, and went on. “We ran until we heard the train whistle blow in the distance behind us. When we heard the engine moving away, we collapsed in the underbrush, trying to catch our breath. We had to wait until sunset to get our sense of direction.”

  “How did you get home?” Heinrich asked.

  “Eventually, we were picked up by another one of our units. They gave us food and firearms. We stayed with them for a few weeks, then left them and walked across the Ukraine and Poland. Back in Deutschland, we parted ways. His family was from Leipzig, so he headed north and I headed south.”

  Christine inhaled and held her breath. It can be done, she thought. The kitchen was silent. Mutti kept her eyes on the floor.

  “And now you are home!” Karl shouted finally, throwing his hands into the air like a magician. Everyone laughed, but the smile disappeared from her father’s face.

  “I have to report in tomorrow,” he said, watching his wife for a reaction. Mutti finally looked at him.

  “Maybe they’ll let you out of the army now,” she said. “You’ve served your time. You’ve made your sacrifices.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vater said. “I wish that was the way it worked. When we crossed the border back into Germany, we had to show our papers. It won’t be long before news of our return makes its way to headquarters. If I don’t report in, they’ll put me in prison. I have no choice.”

  Without a word, Mutti stood, went over to the pile of wood beside the stove, and shoved another log into the fire. As the women washed the dishes, the roar of the growing flames absorbed the weighted silence in the kitchen. Vater sat at the table with the boys playing a game of “Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht,” “People Don’t Get Mad,” with buttons and cloth. After the last dish was washed and put away, Mutti shooed everyone out of the kitchen so Vater could bathe in the metal tub.

  With Maria and Oma in the garden, and Karl and Heinrich occupied in the living room, Christine ran up to see Isaac. The only thing she had to give him was a heel of stale bread that she’d slipped into her apron pocket before her mother chased them out of the kitchen. When she opened the door to his hiding place, he was crouched in the farthest corner of the space, face rigid, eyes wide. He saw her and exhaled loudly, then leaned back against the wall.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, hurrying toward him.

  “I heard a lot of noise earlier, people running up the stairs and yelling. I didn’t know what was going on! I wasn’t sure if it was you coming in just now, or . . .”

  “Oh Gott!” Christine said, putting a hand over her heart. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about you hearing all that and being scared. It was just us. We were shouting because my father came home.”

  “Ahh,” he said. “That explains it then. Good news for a change.”

  “He was a prisoner in Russia. But he escaped and walked across the Ukraine and Poland! That proves it can be done.”

  “But he’s a German soldier. He has a uniform and papers. I know what you’re thinking, but we’d be fugitives without papers, trying to sneak out of the country.”

  “I realize that. But it gave me an idea. We’ve got a pile of uniforms downstairs. Waffen-SS uniforms, Hauptstrumführer uniforms. I’ll find one that fits you, and we’ll pretend I’m your wife. If you’re wearing an officer’s uniform, no one will ask questions.”

  Isaac furrowed his brow, thinking. Then he said, “I don’t know. Maybe I should just go alone.”

  “If you’re leaving, I’m going with you. I can’t stand the thought of . . .”

  “We don’t have identity papers,” he interrupted. “And why would a soldier, much less an officer, be walking cross-country with his wife? We don’t have the money or the permits to take the train.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, lowering her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if you should stay or if we should go. I don’t know anything.”

  Isaac wound his fingers through hers. “Listen, you’ve been through a lot. You haven’t even had time to get used to the idea that your father is alive. We don’t have to figure this out right now. We’ve got time.”

  Christine wiped at her eyes. “I know, and you’re right. If this is going to work we need to think it through. But right now, I’ve got to go back downstairs before anyone notices I’m gone.”

  That evening, after everyone else had gone to bed, Christine and her parents were in the living room, talking about what her father had been through since he left. Christine pretended to straighten the uneven mound of uniforms in the corner, while checking sizes as she moved them from one pile to the next, looking for a jacket and pants that would fit Isaac. Mutti sat on the couch, Vater’s uniform in her lap, a silver thimble and a needle with green thread in her hand.

  “Most of the men in my unit are dead or in the camps,” Vater said.

  Christine left the pile of uniforms and went over to talk to him. “What was it like?” She sat next to her mother, the black jacket of a Hauptscharführer in her hands.

  “You should go to bed, Christine,” he said. “You don’t need to hear this.”

  “I’m an adult now, Vater. I want to hear what you’ve been through. I want to know what’s going on. How will we change things in the future if no one talks about what’s been happening? The old tradition of denial and hard work hasn’t helped anyone.”

  “I keep forgetting you’re . . . how old now?” he said.

  “Twenty-three in a few weeks.”
>
  He caressed her cheek, his eyes sad. Then he began to talk, haltingly at first, but once started, it seemed he needed to purge his memory.

  “Before we were ordered to enter Stalingrad, we felt abandoned in that empty, frozen wasteland. We didn’t have the proper equipment, the right outerwear, the right boots. There were constant blizzards, so our planes couldn’t deliver food or supplies for months on end.”

  “How did you survive with nothing to eat?” Mutti said.

  “Not everyone did. Thousands of men died. We tried to hunt for birds and rabbits, but after a while, they disappeared too. Once in a while someone got a wild boar. If it hadn’t been for our horses, none of us would be alive.”

  Christine felt her stomach turn, the image of Farmer Klause’s dying horse filling her mind.

  “Were you able to build fires to stay warm?” Mutti asked.

  “Ja, we cut down trees, but with ninety thousand men in the area, it didn’t take long for the forests to be used up. Then, we had no fires. We couldn’t melt snow to drink. We couldn’t wash. We became infested with lice. At night, we took off our uniforms to freeze the parasites off. We huddled together, trying to get warm. But every morning, there were dead men on the edges of our group, frozen to death as they slept.”

  “Ach Gott,” Mutti said.

  “Vater?” Christine asked. “Did they tell you what is happening with the Jews?”

  “Nein. I’m just a foot soldier, a pawn in the game. I’ve heard conflicting stories. As we marched from one battle to the next, we saw trains pulling boxcars full of people. Our superiors told us they were being relocated and rehabilitated, but we’ve heard other rumors, horrible rumors. Why? Have you heard something?”

  Christine wished she could tell him the truth. “I’ve heard terrible things too. And the Bauermans have been transported.”

  Vater looked at Mutti, his forehead furrowed. “Is this true?”

  “Ja,” her mother said. “Last year. All the Jews have disappeared from Hessental.”