The first night Christine had heard Maria weeping, she’d gone to her bedroom and slipped beneath her bedcovers, trying to get Maria to turn around and face her by tugging gently on her shoulder. But Maria ignored her, staying in the same position, on her side, facing the wall.
“What’s wrong?” Christine whispered. “Why are you crying?”
Maria shrugged, sniffling.
“Tell me,” Christine whispered. “It’s all right. I’m your sister. That’s what sisters are for, remember?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Maria said in a small voice.
Christine rubbed Maria’s upper arm, trying to think of something to say, wise words of an older sister to take away the pain. Nothing came to her. “I understand how awful the middle of the night can be,” she said. “All those horrible memories are bad enough during the day. But at night, I don’t know what happens. It’s like evil forces have free reign when it’s dark. They get inside your head and try to make you crazy. Sometimes I can barely stand it when the memories come. I try to remind myself that the sun will come up in the morning and it will be easier to push those thoughts away. It will be a new day, a new beginning.”
With that, Maria curled into a fetal position, shoulders convulsing. Christine’s stomach tightened; she wished she’d said something different. What, she didn’t know. After a minute, Maria turned on her back, wiping her cheeks. In the inky moonlight coming in through the windowpanes, Maria’s face looked swollen and purple, the color of a bruise. Christine’s breath caught, but then she realized it was just an illusion. “Maybe you feel like it’s a new beginning,” Maria said. “But I don’t.”
“But why?” Christine said. “You . . .” She bit her tongue, afraid she would say something wrong again and that her sister would refuse to talk.
“Who is going to want me now?” Maria said, her voice breaking. “I’m filthy and disgusting! I wish I’d died with the others!”
“Don’t say that!” Christine said. “What happened wasn’t your fault! It doesn’t change anything about you! You’re a beautiful, loving young woman, with a kind heart and a good soul. Someday you’re going to fall in love, and that man will be lucky to have you!”
Maria shook her head, fresh tears surging down her cheeks. She looked at Christine, her face contorted. “Do you know why the Russians killed some of the other women?” she said.
Christine thought of a hundred horrible answers, none that would help. “Nein,” she said, bracing herself. “Why?”
“Because they resisted,” Maria said.
Christine reached for Maria’s hand in the dark. Her fingers felt thin and cold, and they were trembling. “Wanting to survive doesn’t make you a bad person,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“I just know,” Christine said. “I think everyone is born with the will to survive. It’s just stronger in some than in others. Listen, I know it’s hard, but try to remember how lucky you are. You’re here, with your family. We’re all together, with a roof over our heads and food on the table. It’s perfectly understandable what you’re feeling, and you’ve got good reason to cry. But, bitte, try to be grateful for the little things. That’s what I have to do every day.”
Maria put her hands over her face and started crying again. “It’s not that simple,” she said, her words distorted.
“Bitte,” Christine said. “Talk to me. I just want to help.”
Maria wiped her nose, then lay motionless for what seemed like forever. Other than the occasional sniffle, she was silent. At first, Christine thought she was falling asleep, but then, finally, she said, “I told you. There’s nothing to tell.” She turned on her side and pulled the covers over her shoulder. “Right now I just want to go to sleep and forget about everything. I’m sure you’re right. Things will look better in the morning. I’m sorry I woke you.”
Christine’s heart dropped. Instead of helping, she’d caused her sister to withdraw.
“Is there someone . . . I mean, are you in love with someone?” she asked. “Someone who came home from the war? Are you afraid he’ll find out what happened? No one has to know!”
Maria let out a sputtering chortle, as if that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Nein,” she said. “I’m not pining away for a secret love.” Christine said nothing. After a minute, Maria turned around again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I know how much you miss Isaac.”
“It’s all right,” Christine said. “I know you didn’t mean anything. I’m just upset because I want to help, that’s all. I don’t like hearing you cry.”
“I don’t mean to make you worry,” Maria said. “You’ve been through enough.”
“I’ll stay here if you want me to. I need you to be all right. You’re the only sister I have, you know.”
Maria wrapped an arm around Christine. “I need you too,” she said. “But I’m fine, really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ja, now go back to bed.”
Reluctantly, Christine gave Maria one last hug and went back to her own bedroom, hoping she’d helped in some small way. But when she heard Maria crying again the next night, her chest flushed with fear. She couldn’t explain it, but hearing her sister cry made her anxious, as if they were never going to get past all they’d been through. But every time she made her way along the hall to her sister’s room and opened the door, the crying stopped.
Now, in the dining room, Mutti put the lid back on the soup, and Christine sat down next to Maria.
“What do you think is in the tin?” Christine asked Maria.
Maria shrugged and sniffed, running a pale wrist beneath her nose.
“Karl,” Mutti said. “Get the can opener.”
“And the chocolate bars,” Christine said.
Karl retrieved the can opener from the kitchen and handed it to Christine, who opened the silver tin to reveal a smooth, light brown paste. Mutti got spoons out of the sideboard, dipped one into the can, and handed it to Karl. Karl cautiously sampled the strange, sticky substance. His eyes grew wide, and he took another lick, beaming. Heinrich grabbed a spoon and joined in.
“What is it?” Christine asked them.
“I don’t know!” Heinrich said. “But it’s delicious!”
Christine scraped a spoon along the edge of the creamy brown paste and took a hesitant nibble. It tasted like the hazelnuts that grew wild in the hills, only sweeter, and soft like butter. It was the most delicious thing she’d eaten in years. “Mmm . . .” she said. “It’s good!” She handed a spoon to Maria, then opened two of the chocolate bars and gave everyone a piece.
Soon her whole family was dunking their spoons and chocolate into the smooth paste, just like they had dunked boiled potatoes into a vat of sour milk when there was nothing left to eat. Even Oma couldn’t get enough. Mutti and the boys sucked on their utensils as if they were made of sugar. And even though Maria’s cheerful expression looked forced, Christine was delighted to see everyone smiling and laughing. Years of fear and uncertainty had formed a permanent hardness in their faces, a look of buried pain that changed their eyes and the way they held their mouths. But today, their features were soft and relaxed, their grins wide and real. Christine was glad Jake had left the tin and chocolates, and she felt a little guilty for thinking the worst about him. Even at Christmas, she thought, my brothers never looked this excited.
“Wait until Vater tastes this!” Karl said.
“We need to eat some real food now,” Mutti finally announced, putting a plate over the tin. The boys groaned.
After they finished eating, Christine took the dirty dishes to the kitchen, realizing she hadn’t thought about her own heartache in nearly an hour. So that’s how it happens, she thought. I’ll get distracted by life. The wounds will be covered by pleasant moments, moments that I used to take for granted. Hopefully, the pleasant moments will become more frequent, and longer lasting. Because if I keep living in the past, I won’t survive.
/> But when she rolled up her sleeves to wash the dishes, she stopped. Her hand flew over her wrist, her thumb pressing hard on the tattoo. At first, she couldn’t figure out her reaction. Then it came to her. For just a little while, she’d forgotten about the camps and the war. But then, with a sick twist in her gut, she realized for the first time that the mud-colored number would be there for the rest of her life. Every day she would see it and be reminded.
CHAPTER 30
By the second week in May, a small number of surviving men and boys had returned to the village. The lucky ones came back sane and whole. Most came home to destroyed houses and missing relatives: mothers, grandparents, or siblings who hadn’t made it to the shelter in time.
The sounds of hammering and sawing echoed throughout the spring days as every able-bodied man, woman, and boy worked together to rebuild the war-torn village. They filled the winding alleys like a swarm of worker ants, dismantling centuries of masonry and intricate stonework, knocking down unstable walls of gabled shops and remnants of barns. Using picks and hammers to chip the residual mortar away from the remains of half-timbered houses, they salvaged stone and undamaged beams. They cleared rubble-filled basements, piling the charred lumber and shattered bricks along the edge of the streets until they could be loaded onto wagons and taken away. Patched together with alternating layers of fresh mortar and gray fieldstone, the gaping hole in the church across the street from Christine’s house gradually disappeared.
Vater and the boys assisted with the restoration of the village, and because Vater helped with the reconstruction of the school, he earned a small amount of money. If their ration cards allowed it, the first supplies the family tried to purchase were meat, sugar, or flour. But the butcher shop and grocery store received fewer and fewer deliveries, and the everyday staples were even harder to come by than during the war. If Christine’s family was lucky enough to hear about a delivery ahead of time, Mutti or Maria went early to stand in line, because it took only a few hours for everything to sell out.
Once a week, as they had throughout the last months of conflict, Heinrich and Karl worked at the flour mill, in exchange for a half burlap sack of flour swept from the floor. Christine helped Oma separate the pieces of wood, clumps of dirt, and bits of wheat chaff from the usable flour, shaking it through the sieve until it felt clean and smooth between their fingers. But then the flour mill closed down too.
Christine’s family was forced to trade Oma’s last pieces of hand-printed cotton—her only material for making clothes—for sugar, and Ur-Ur Grossmutti’s cherry regulator for a wagonload of firewood. Karl and Heinrich got chocolate from the Americans, traded it for cigarettes, then traded the cigarettes for cooking oil.
On the first Saturday of June, Maria and Christine sat side by side on the kitchen bench shelling early spring peas, chewing on the empty pods while they worked. The deep emerald pods snapped open effortlessly, the red ceramic bowl between them filling quickly with tender green pearls. Christine never used to understand why Maria always ate the peapods, but now the shells tasted especially sweet. Ever since her return from Dachau, sugary plums and sweet berries, salted pork fat and milky potatoes, pickled onions and vinegary cabbage, every flavor exploded on her tongue as if she were tasting food for the first time.
Out on the kitchen balcony, Mutti was hanging laundry. The girls worked without talking, listening to their mother sing as she pinned clothes to the line. On top of the woodstove, kettles of leeks and a rare pork hock filled the kitchen with the sweet, tart smell of onions and vinegar.
The breeze through the open balcony doors was mild, but still, Christine shivered. Each sun-filled day since her return was longer and warmer than the one before, yet she felt the remnants of winter hidden within each current of air, like the cold, thin hands of ghosts touching her skin. No matter the temperature, she wore winter stockings and an extra sweater. The only time she took off her sweater was when she sat in the backyard in the direct sun, where the chicken coop and the house blocked all drafts. Only then did the chill that radiated from deep inside her bones seem to retreat.
Christine glanced at her sister out of the corner of her eye, suddenly picturing the two of them as little girls, running down the hall on their way to bed, in a time before they knew about war and rape and bombs and concentration camps. But she was determined not to wallow in self-pity, so she pushed the thought from her mind, concentrating instead on the perfect round peas in her hand.
Along with keeping Christine up-to-date on who had returned from the war and who hadn’t, Maria knew which local girls were seeing American soldiers on a regular basis.
“Helgard Koppe is going to America with her Ami,” she told Christine.
“I guess I can’t blame anyone for looking for romance wherever she can find it,” Christine said. “There aren’t many German boys left.”
Just then, Mutti came inside and crossed the kitchen, then hurried downstairs and outside to the enclosed backyard, where a load of whites dried in the sun. All of a sudden, Christine heard Maria sniffing, and she turned to see tears streaming down her sister’s cheeks. Maria’s arms were shaking, her fingers trembling as she struggled to open a peapod.
“What’s wrong?” Christine asked, a cold eddy of fear opening up in her chest. She was used to Maria being weepy, but this was different. She looked on the verge of breaking.
“I saw starving women and children living in cellars under heaps of rubble,” Maria cried. “With nothing but a mattress and an empty pail for a toilet. They fought so hard to stay alive! Then the Russians came and . . .” She choked on her words, sobbing now. “But I survived, and I know I’m supposed to be grateful. . . .”
Christine took the peapod from her sister’s hand, moved the bowl from between them, and turned Maria to face her. “I still hear you crying at night. And I understand! But we’re strong, remember? We’re survivors! And we have each other! The war is over, and our slate is wiped clean. We get to start over!”
Maria’s expression tightened, and she stared at Christine with bloodshot eyes, her face getting redder by the second, like a kettle ready to burst. “I’m pregnant,” she said, spitting the words out as if they were poison.
Christine stiffened, a greasy mass of nausea seizing her gut. “Ach nein,” she said. “Are you sure?”
Maria nodded, her tears a bitter flood.
“What are you going to do?” Christine said. She tried to put her arms around her sister, but Maria pulled away.
“I’ve heard there are ways,” Maria said, her voice quivering. “Knitting needles, or throwing yourself down a flight of stairs . . .”
Like a jolt, a series of images flashed in Christine’s mind: a boy being ripped from his mother’s arms; babies being sent to the left with their grandparents while their howling mothers were sent to the right; couples with newborns being pushed into gas chambers.
“Nein,” Christine said, gripping Maria’s arm. “You can’t do that.” Maria buried her face in her hands, shoulders convulsing. Christine leaned forward, speaking in a soft voice. “Maybe you can give the baby to someone who lost a child in the war.” She paused, overcome by the inadequacy of her words, knowing she had to say them anyway. “And I know it seems impossible right now, but maybe you’ll feel differently once you see your baby. We’ll all love it, no matter what.”
Christine waited for Maria to get angry and tell her she had no idea what she was talking about. And she would be right. But Maria said nothing, instead disappearing into her pain. Christine reached out to hug her again, and this time Maria gave in, arms limp at her sides. When they heard Mutti’s footsteps on the stairs, the two sisters straightened, returning to the chore of shelling peas.
CHAPTER 31
With regular meals of garden vegetables and stewed chicken, homemade bread and plum jam, Christine’s bony elbows and ribs began to recede. Eventually, Mutti relented and let her take lunch to her father at the school construction site. Christine was relieved
to get out of the house, to stretch her legs and feel the wind in her face. She begged Maria to go with her, but Maria refused, going through her days with her hair unwashed, her clothes un-ironed. She’d made Christine swear not to tell anyone about the baby until Maria felt strong enough to share her secret.
Walking alone inside the village, Christine felt watched from behind parted curtains, by people wanting to look at the girl who had survived the camps. Sometimes, she took the long way home, through the wide-open spaces outside town, where her pace slowed and she took long, cleansing breaths, feeling free enough to hold her chin high and look out toward the hills, remembering when the fields had been yellow with sprouting wheat, and row after row of sugar beets had spread toward stone fences like the long, green ribs of a sleeping giant.
Once, she climbed to the highest point in the forest. where she looked down on the valley and saw hundreds of American tanks and jeeps crowded around the two-story control tower at the air base. From there, the Allied path of destruction revealed itself, the outer edge of the village scarred with bomb craters, blackened patches of flat, scorched earth, and splintered, overturned trees. Between the tiled rooftops of surviving buildings, the ruined houses and shops looked crushed, as if a giant, lumbering ogre had trampled through the valley and left massive footprints across the town.
Two weeks after Maria’s confession, Kate stopped by to see Christine. It was her first visit since Christine’s return. During the last months of war, as the air raids had increased and the other girls were being sent off to bigger cities to become air raid wardens or auxiliary firefighters, her parents had sent her to her uncle’s farm in the countryside, in the hopes of keeping her safe. Christine wondered if Kate had any idea how lucky she was.
Kate entered the living room in slow motion, her hands clasped in front of her, as if visiting someone who has suffered a long, disfiguring illness.
The Plum Tree Page 34