The Plum Tree

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  “Guten Tag, Fräulein,” the man said, his voice low and gritty.

  Christine didn’t move. He put a hand under her chin and turned her face toward his, looking her over with blue, heavy-lidded eyes. His eyebrows were too far apart, as if stretched to opposite sides by his wide, high forehead. His nose was broad, his lips full and shapely, like a woman’s. He wasn’t old, but he was well on his way, with the thick, soft middle of overindulgence.

  “My name is Jörge Grünstein,” he said. “But you must always call me Herr Lagerkommandant. Just so you know, you have nothing to fear from me. If you do as you’re told, and you’re careful, this job could save your life.” He took off his hat and unbuttoned his jacket, then removed it and put it over his arm, his medals jingling like miniature wind chimes in the quiet kitchen. Sweat had flattened his graying hair to his forehead, and his hat had left red lines on his skin. His uniform was SS black, the silver skull and crossbones shining on the lapel and hat, but oddly, Christine felt her heart slow. He seemed and looked harmless, like someone’s Opa. To her, his eyes seemed troubled.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Christine. I’m not a Jew. My father fights for our beloved Führer.” Self-loathing twisted in her gut.

  He shook his head as if he didn’t want to hear it. “The only thing I can do is share a bit of my food. But you have to be careful. Don’t make it obvious. And I don’t want to know about it. The other officers here would turn on me. They shot an officer just yesterday, because he dared question one of their procedures. I know it’s no excuse, but I’m too old to fight back. If that makes me a coward, so be it. But I have a family I’d like to see again.”

  Christine said nothing, but the woozy feeling started to fade.

  “I’m sure you couldn’t care less about my problems,” he went on. “You’ve got yourself to worry about. But I’m only going to say this once. The better you do your job, the longer you’ll live. You’re to keep this house clean, cook, and tend to the garden behind the house. The garden is not just for me. It’s for the other officers who work here during the day. Do you know how to garden?”

  Christine nodded.

  “Gut. I’ll wait at the table for my dinner.” He walked out of the kitchen, his jacket and hat under his arm. To Christine, his weary body language seemed that of a man tormented.

  As she finished cleaning up the counter, her heart returned to a steady rhythm. She drained the potatoes, covered them with fresh parsley and real butter, put the steaming pork on a serving platter, and took the carrot salad into the dining room. The Lagerkommandant watched her every move. She brought in the rest of the food, trying to think only of what she needed to do next: take away the unused soup bowl, slice the meat on the platter, refill his water glass, put one foot in front of the other without falling into a mess on the floor.

  “I would like wine with my meal,” he said, pointing toward the cellar door between the dining room and kitchen. “A Riesling, bitte.”

  “Ja, Herr Lagerkommandant.”

  She went down the steps to the cellar, where hundreds of dust-covered bottles lined wooden shelves. The musty scent of concrete, earth, and potatoes flooded her senses with memories of the root cellar in Hessental—memories of wonderful times with Isaac and frightening times with her family. Her chest constricted. At least back then she hadn’t been alone. She took a bottle of wine from the top of the nearest shelf. LIEBFRAUMILCH, it said. She knew nothing about wine, if Riesling was white or red, so she pulled out one bottle after the other, until she found one labeled RIESLING. Then she clutched the bottle to her chest and started up the cellar stairs, gripping the banister with her free hand. She didn’t trust herself with the easiest tasks, and dropping the wine was a chance she didn’t want to take. I’m safe for now, she thought. But where is Isaac? What’s happening to him?

  “I promise I’ll survive,” she whispered. “I’m not going to let them break me.”

  After his dinner, the Lagerkommandant finished the bottle of wine and lit a cigar. Christine cleared the dirty dishes from the table, feeling his eyes on her as she made several trips between the dining room and kitchen. Earlier, before she’d delivered the pork, she’d eaten a few slivers of the juicy, tender meat. Now, as she placed the dirty dishes in the porcelain sink, she ate the scraps from his plate, shoving the meat and potatoes and carrots in her mouth with her fingers, chewing and swallowing as fast as she could without choking. Then, running hot water over the white china, she noticed something she hadn’t before. A blue edge rimmed the plates and bowl, and the SS insignia, like blue lightning bolts, decorated the center. While the prisoners of Dachau were starving, the SS were eating meat and vegetables from their own specially designed china. The stolen food soured in her stomach.

  She washed the dishes, wondering what would happen next. Where am I supposed to sleep? she thought. Hopefully, not here with him. She wouldn’t be able to tolerate it, his withered, age-spotted hands on her skin, his breath on her face and neck, his sweaty body crushing her. Was that what she would be forced to endure to survive? Would giving herself to him be her final sacrifice? A hot flash of panic rushed across her chest, and she prayed she was only there to cook and clean. Just then, the Lagerkommandant came into the kitchen behind her.

  “You will sleep in the barracks with the other women,” he said. “Someone is coming for you now.”

  CHAPTER 24

  A rapid knock on the door preceded the female Blockführer, who was there to lead Christine to the barracks. Despite her fear, Christine was taken aback when she saw the Blockführer’s flawless skin and precisely coiffed hair below her peaked cap. The woman was pretty enough to be a model or an actress. What on earth was she doing in a place like this? But her beauty disappeared when she scowled, grabbed Christine by the arm, and dragged her into the night.

  Christine had no idea what time it was, but the stench of burning flesh still permeated the air. She looked up at the starless sky, wondering how God could look down on this atrocity and allow it to continue. In the black night, the gray moon seemed to smolder at the edges, as if the whole world were on fire. The Blockführer walked fast, leading her past long rows of shadowy barracks, only looking back to make sure she followed. Christine could hear the hammering pistons and screeching iron wheels of an incoming train, and the fleeting violins of a distant, mocking waltz. When they came to the last windowless barrack, the Blockführer unlocked the door and shoved Christine inside, plunging her headlong into the pitch-black space.

  Christine stumbled and nearly fell before she found her footing. The stench of feces, vomit, and urine made her gag and cough. She reeled backwards and clamped a hand over her mouth. Then she felt hands, on her face, neck, arms, legs—groping, searching, feeling. She could only stand, paralyzed and blind, waiting to see what would happen next. Hoarse female voices floated out of the dark. Thin, icy fingers gripped hers, pulling her forward.

  “It’s all right,” a raspy voice said. “Don’t be afraid, we won’t hurt you.”

  “There’s not much room,” another voice said. “But we’ll squeeze you in.”

  Little by little, Christine’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. She could make out bald heads floating above and below her, hundreds of pairs of eyes looking her way. The barracks was crammed full of women and girls lying together on bunks made of wood, three and four layers high. With barely two feet between them, the bunks were more like bookshelves than beds, the women stacked like cordwood.

  A hand led Christine toward a rack, then pulled gently to guide her in. Christine felt her way, groping in the dark, accidentally touching bald heads and emaciated ribs, wasted arms and scrawny legs. She climbed in and lay down on her back, cramped between two bony women, her arms folded across her chest. For the next few minutes, voices murmured all around her, hushed whispers in German, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, French. Then it was quiet.

  “What’s your name?” a voice said in the dark.

  “Christine
Bölz.”

  “Are you Jewish?”

  “Nein. They found my Jewish boyfriend hiding in my attic.”

  “Did they shoot him?” someone asked with enthusiasm.

  “Of course they did,” another said.

  “Nein, they probably strung him up by his neck!” the enthusiastic voice said. “Or slit his throat!”

  Christine squeezed her eyes shut. They’ve all gone mad!

  “So?” the enthusiastic voice said again. “Is he dead?”

  “Nein,” Christine said, her throat burning. “He came here on the train with me.”

  “You’ll never see him again,” the same voice said.

  “Don’t listen to her,” the woman next to her whispered.

  Christine turned toward the voice, trying to make out the features of a face. It was no use. It was too dark. “Is there any way I can find out where he is?”

  There was no reply.

  Christine lay motionless, staring into the darkness and listening. The only sounds were coughing, mumbling, sniffling, and soft crying. Every breath was seasoned with the bitter aroma of death. With increasing alarm, she began to realize there were hundreds of women within the vast darkness of this one building. And in this part of the camp alone, there were countless more buildings just like this one.

  “Does anyone know a woman named Nina Bauerman?” she asked. “Or her daughter Gabriella?”

  “When did they come in?” someone asked.

  “Last fall,” Christine said.

  “Jewish?”

  “Ja,” Christine said.

  “I’ve been here a year and a half,” a new voice said. “Some of the Jewish women get together in the back of the barracks for Kaddish. I remember a woman named Nina Bauerman. She was sent to the quarantine camp a few months ago. Typhus.”

  “Was her daughter with her?” Christine asked.

  “How old?”

  “Twelve.”

  “You won’t find her,” the first woman who spoke said. “Or her mother.”

  Christine closed her flooding eyes, trying to shut out the sounds of human suffering. She struggled to breathe, feeling like she was trapped in an enormous, black coffin, the dead and dying all around her. Every thud of her heart made her head pulsate against the hard wood beneath her skull. She prayed for exhaustion to overtake her mind, to release her into sleep. Hours later, when it finally did, she dozed in fits and starts, alternating between furious nightmares and dreams of home. At times she felt like she was floating, drifting in and out of consciousness, not sure where her dreams ended and the all-too-real nightmares began.

  The next morning, dawn brought her worst fears to reality. She opened her eyes to the sight of a dead woman next to her, lying on her side, the skin of her skull stretched tight over her face. The woman’s mouth drooped open; only four rotted teeth were left in her gums. Her broomstick arms were folded up under her head like a pillow, her naked knees like oversized knots in reedy saplings. But then, suddenly, her lips sucked in a ragged breath and she started to stir. Christine scrambled out of the bunk.

  The other women crawled slowly out of the wooden racks, wheezing, coughing, whimpering. Christine didn’t recognize anyone from the train. Most of the women were bald, and others had short, ragged hair. Several were naked except for their shoes. A few came over to Christine to smile or take her hand. The rest just walked by, wearing the shocked, blank expression of the insane. Scattered throughout the immense building were a handful of women who didn’t get up. Other women sat next to them—friends and sisters, mothers and daughters—crying and begging for them not to quit, not to give up, not to die.

  As the prisoners walked out of the building, a woman in line behind Christine moved close and started talking.

  “You’re safe for now,” the woman said. “But in a few months you’ll be as skinny as we are. Then you’ll have to be careful. When the SS hold “Selektion,” the doctor shows up at morning roll call to weed out the weak and the sick. He walks up and down the ranks, writing numbers down. If your number is written down, into the ovens you’ll go!”

  Christine recognized the woman’s voice as the one who had said she’d never see Isaac again. She turned to look at her. She was short but tough looking, her face and frame slightly more filled out than those of the rest of the prisoners. Her head and one arm twitched as she walked, and her eyes were red and crusty.

  The women lined up for roll call in the frigid morning air, mud sucking at their bare feet and shoes. A Rapportführer, or roll-call leader, walked back and forth in front of them, shouting, “Stand up! Eyes straight ahead! Straighten that line!”

  An older woman in front of Christine was having a hard time standing up, her thin arms hanging useless as she swayed side to side. A guard pulled her out of formation, pushed her to her knees, put his gun to her head, and pulled the trigger. The woman fell face-first into the mud, the hem of her uniform flying up to expose her white buttocks. Christine jumped and put a hand over her mouth, but the other women didn’t flinch. Ach Gott! she thought, they’re used to it!

  “Put your hand down!” someone whispered beside her. “Don’t draw attention to yourself!”

  The woman next to her had uneven tufts of dark hair on her head, enormous brown eyes, peeling lips, and a bruise near one temple. It was hard to tell with her pronounced cheekbones and gray skin, but Christine thought they were around the same age. Christine looked forward.

  “I’m Hanna,” the woman whispered.

  Christine nodded, her eyes fixed on the Rapportführer and guards.

  “I can find out what happened to your friends. Nina Bauerman, ja? And Gabriella?”

  Christine nodded again. Then, when the guards weren’t looking, she whispered, “And Isaac. Isaac Bauerman.”

  “Only the women.”

  After the head count, the women were led off to their various labors. Hanna gave her a small wave as she plodded away with a large group. Christine was left standing there, shaking in the cold, not sure if she was supposed to go to the Lagerkommandant’s house on her own. Besides, it’d been dark last night when she had been led to the barracks; she couldn’t be certain she knew how to find her way back. A guard came over to her.

  “Go to work!” he screamed, then slapped her across the face.

  Christine reeled sideways. Then she recovered and hurried in the direction of the house, her hand to the right side of her face. To her left, a high barbed wire fence split the camp in two. On the other side, there was block after block of identical wooden barracks, and male prisoners standing in formation. A Rapportführer walked back and forth in front of them. Christine looked at the sea of pale faces. There were thousands of them; it would have been impossible to spot Isaac. As she neared the house, she saw great waves of dark smoke rising from somewhere deep within the camp. The Lagerkommandant was standing on the front porch, smoking a cigar.

  “Guten Morgen, Fräulein,” he said.

  “Guten Morgen, Herr Lagerkommandant. Is there anything specific you would like done today, Herr Lagerkommandant?”

  “Just breakfast for now, and anything else you see that might need doing.”

  She put a hand on the door handle, ready to go inside. But she had to take the chance. “Excuse me, Herr Lagerkommandant?” she said, her voice shaking.

  “Ja?” He turned to face her and leaned against the porch railing, the cigar sticking from one corner of his lips.

  “I came here with someone.”

  His brow furrowed. He pulled the cigar from his mouth and flicked the ash over the edge of the porch. “And you want me to find out what happened to him,” he said, his eyes hard to read.

  “I’m sorry, Herr Lagerkommandant. I know I shouldn’t have asked, but . . .”

  Then he was in front of her, grabbing her, his fingers digging into her upper arm. “You’re right. You shouldn’t have! What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you listen to a word I said?”

  “I’m sorry, Herr Lagerkommandant. It won�
�t happen again, Herr Lagerkommandant.”

  He shoved her away, his temples pulsing. She waited, legs trembling, until he had turned and moved to the other side of the porch to stand at the top of the steps, like a mad king surveying his nightmarish kingdom, before she went into the house.

  In the kitchen, she made coffee, boiled an egg, and sliced brown bread for his breakfast, her own stomach rumbling. The Lagerkommandant drank his coffee and ate the bread, but didn’t touch the egg. After he left, she watched out the front window and wolfed down the egg. She felt like an animal, chewing and swallowing as fast as she could without choking. The fear of being discovered, coupled with the guilt of having food while so many others were starving, rendered the food tasteless. She wondered if Isaac had had anything to eat since they’d arrived.

  After washing the dishes, she went out the back door to find and inspect the garden. A wide rectangle of poorly tended, weed-choked earth, the vegetable patch ran the length of the fence and took up nearly the entire backyard. She walked to the rear of the overgrown plot, trying to decide where to begin. Standing next to a yellowing row of parsnips, she could see part of the compound she hadn’t seen before.

  In the center of the camp stood two brick buildings, one with solid, windowless walls, the other with a mammoth red chimney. Waves of smoke billowed out from the flue. Army trucks idled next to the first building, their exhaust pipes connected to makeshift ducts in the building wall. Trapped in a corridor made of high barbed wire, long lines of people were being driven into the building by the leather whips of the SS: old men, young women, children, entire families. In between the two buildings, prisoners used wooden carts to transfer lifeless cargo from the first building into the one with the billowing chimney.