The Baker's Daughter

by Sarah McCoy

  ELSIE’S GERMAN BAKERY

  2032 TRAWOOD DRIVE

  EL PASO, TEXAS

  NOVEMBER 10, 2007

  A Friday wedding kept the bakery busy the rest of the week so Reba came back Saturday, determined to get her quotes and, perhaps, a few more lebkuchen.

  When the bell over the door jingled, Jane turned from the shelf of hot loaves and rolls. “Well, lookie here. Good to see you.” She came round the register and hugged Reba.

  Shocked stiff at first, Reba quickly relaxed in her embrace. The scent of Jane’s perfume—honeysuckle and sandalwood—reminded her of childhood summers at the beach. She and Deedee spent whole days snacking on sweet flower stems and building driftwood castles on the dunes.

  “You too,” she said and rocked back on her heels, eager to shake off the nostalgic ache.

  She hadn’t returned any of Deedee’s calls since Riki’s proposal. Each time Deedee rang, Reba convinced herself the timing wasn’t right; she was too busy to chat; she’d call back later, then didn’t. The weeks added up, and soon so much had happened that it seemed a daunting task to talk at all—too much to cover in a single conversation. I’ll e-mail Deedee tomorrow, she promised herself.

  “You’ve been busy?” she asked Jane.

  “Yep, a little gal we’ve known since she was in diapers hitched up with a feller in Cruces. We do wonderful wedding cakes.” Jane winked. “Give us the date of yours and we’ll have it ready.”

  “It’d be stale by the time I got around to it,” said Reba.

  “We’ll double the fondant. Locks it up airtight. The inside keeps light as a feather. Honestly. One of our brides kept a piece in her refrigerator—not even the freezer—until her third anniversary and said it tasted as good as the day she married! And that’s no bull.”

  A laugh popped up Reba’s throat, and she liked the sound of it. “I bet they had wicked stomachaches that night.”

  “Maybe so, but they sure as heck didn’t go to sleep empty.” Jane turned to the kitchen. “Mom! Reba from Sun City is here for the interview.”

  A Mexican man sat at a café table with a gooey chocolate twist and a cream coffee.

  “This is Sergio,” introduced Jane. “He’s a regular.”

  Sergio nodded.

  “You need any more sugar, suga’?” she asked.

  “I got all the sweetness I can handle.” His heavy Spanish accent made the sentence musical.

  Reba felt a sudden undercurrent in the room like when she rubbed her socked feet along the carpets in the winter. “How long has he been coming?” she asked Jane and took a seat.

  “Hmm—how long have you been eating my rolls, Serg?”

  “Since you started counting your mama’s nickels and dimes.” He dipped his pastry in the coffee.

  Jane laughed. “That was a test, and he did a good job slipping the noose.”

  Reba’s muscles tensed slightly at the idiom.

  “Since I was nineteen,” Jane continued. “I remember the first time he walked in—didn’t speak a lick of English, never mind German. He pointed at a roll and handed me change, half of which was in pesos.” She slapped her thigh.

  “That’s a long time. I’ve never known anybody outside my family that long,” Reba said.

  “Time sneaks up on you. You’re still young, you’ll see.” Her gaze drifted to Sergio, then quickly back to Reba. “Mom will be out in a minute.”

  On Jane’s way to the kitchen, she stopped to hand him a napkin. Though he hadn’t asked for one, he took it with a smile and wiped melted chocolate from his lips.

  Reba set the table. Steno pad, pen, recorder. While she waited, she tried to imagine the young girl from the photograph over sixty years later.

  Then, through the door frame came Elsie. Her snowy hair was bobbed short, the sides pinned back with brown bobby pins. She was cozy plump through the hips but narrow in the waist and wore a contemporary pair of khaki pants with a cream blouse rolled up at the sleeves. Even at seventy-nine, she was stylish and determined in her gait. She carried a plate with two slices of cinnamon raisin bread and set it in the middle of the table.

  “Hallo.” She stuck out her hand. “I am Elsie Meriwether.”

  Reba shook. “Reba Adams.”

  Elsie’s grip was firm but warm. “Nice to meet you. I apologize for not being able to speak the last time you visited.” She spoke clearly despite the German clip.

  Elsie sat and nudged the plate closer to Reba. “Jane says you do not eat milk, so I made this without. It is good.”

  Reba didn’t want to start the interview on the wrong foot. “Thank you.” She picked up a slice and ate. “Yes,” she mumbled. “It’s very tasty.” And she wasn’t lying.

  “Gut,” said Elsie. She broke off a piece and popped it in her mouth. “So you would like to talk to me about being old.”

  Reba swallowed too fast and choked a little. “No, no. I’m doing a Christmas story.” She composed herself. “A cultural profile on holiday celebrations around town.”

  “Germans celebrate like everyone else. Christmas Eve we eat and drink. Christmas Day we do it again. I think this is how the Mexicans and Americans do as well, correct?” Elsie arched her eyebrow at Reba, challenging her.

  Reba tapped her pen on the steno. It wasn’t exactly a quotable statement. At least not for the angle she wanted. “Do you mind if I turn this on?” she asked and thumbed the recorder button.

  Elsie shrugged. “As long as you promise not to put it on the Internet. I’m not so old that I have not seen the horse manure they put there. Nothing but naked bosoms and foul language. I was looking for sticky buns, and you would not believe what came onto my computer screen.”

  Reba coughed.

  “In all my years, I have never seen such a thing.”

  “Mom,” said Jane from behind the register. “Reba doesn’t want to hear about that.”

  “I won’t mention what happened when I tried to find a chocolate jelly-roll recipe.”

  Reba turned her face to the steno pad to hide her smile.

  “Mom!”

  “I’m just telling Missus Adams, I don’t want anything to do with such things.”

  Reba cleared her throat. “I promise. No Internet. And, please, call me Reba.”

  Reba pushed the button on the recorder. It was time to get answers. “So you’re from Garmisch, Germany, correct? Jane talked to me a little about that photograph over there.” Reba pointed across the room. “The one of you on Christmas Eve.”

  Elsie broke off a raisin-laden corner of the bread. “That old thing. I’m surprised the sun has not faded it to nothing. Probably best if so. That was a lifetime ago. I left Germany soon after.”

  “Did you ever go back?” asked Reba. “Didn’t you miss home?”

  Elsie met her gaze and held it. “People often miss things that don’t exist—miss things that were but are not anymore. So there or here, I’d still miss home because my home is gone.”

  “Do you consider the United States your new home?”

  “Doch! Texas is where I am, where my daughter is and my husband is buried, but it is not home. I won’t find home again—not on this earth. That is the truth.”

  Reba inhaled deep and licked her lips. She needed a new approach. This was not coming easily. “Could you tell me about a typical Christmas in Germany?” She decided to be direct, cut and dry, get the information.

  “I could not.” Elsie popped another piece and chewed. “I grew up during the wars, so there were never typical Christmases.”

  “Okay.” Reba drew a circle on her pad—a bull’s-eye she needed to hit. “How about that Christmas.” She nodded to the photo. “Can you just tell me about that one?”

  Elsie’s gaze moved past Reba to the wall and the photograph hanging slightly askew on its nail.

  NAZI WEIHNACHTEN PARTY

  19 GERNACKERSTRASSE

  GARMISCH, GERMANY

  DECEMBER 24, 1944

  Back at the banquet table, Elsie tremble
d beside Josef.

  “Here, eat something hot. It will help,” he offered.

  Though they served her favorite cinnamon reisbrei, she could barely swallow the steamy spoonfuls. They burned her tongue tasteless and left her chest stone cold.

  Josef didn’t ask her about Kremer in the alley, and she was glad. She couldn’t have spoken of it, even though she wanted to—wanted to stand, point her finger, and scream out his offense. But he was an admired Gestapo officer, and she, a baker’s daughter. With Hazel in the Lebensborn Program and her family’s resources dependent on Nazi patronage, she had responsibilities beyond her honor. Her silence protected them all. For now.

  The waiters cleared the dessert plates. The musicians played a jazzy number, and couples rose from their seats to take the dance floor.

  “Please, I’d like to go home,” Elsie whispered. She collected her gloves from the back of her chair and slid them over her newly ringed finger. The diamond and rubies bulged the once perfect silhouette.

  Josef pulled her chin gently toward him and inspected her face. She averted her eyes. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Of course, Fräulein Schmidt.”

  Minutes later, he escorted her out of the banquet hall, down the silver corridor, and into the black car, humming warm and waiting. A short drive across town and they parked outside the bäckerei. A light flickered in the upper window. Mutti waiting up, no doubt.

  Elsie and Josef hadn’t spoken since leaving the table. Made paranoid by Kremer’s slander and still in shock, she worried Josef might be angry with her or blame her for the disgraceful incident with his colleague. She played with the buttons on her gloves, loose on their threads.

  “I’m sorry to have made you leave early.” It was all she could say without her panic mounting. She had to remain calm. Exhibiting too much emotion might cause him to suspect Kremer’s espionage accusations to be true.

  “I’m not one for late parties anyhow,” Josef said and looked away from her, out the window. “I apologize for what happened. I hope you were not hurt.”

  Elsie fingered her lip. It had stopped bleeding but had begun to swell. “Nein.” She swallowed hard.

  Josef exhaled, but his attention remained fixed in the opposite direction. “Kremer is a good officer. He had too much to drink tonight. Unacceptable behavior.” He cleared his throat. “His marriage is one of convenience, not love. So sometimes he goes searching for it in places he oughtn’t.”

  Elsie nodded, her body rigid as a nutcracker soldier.

  He drew in a long breath before facing her. “You never gave me an answer, Elsie.”

  Then it was she who looked away, to the bakery front door; she wished she were already safe inside with the yeast rolls sleepily rising. She had to tell him how she felt. She wasn’t Mutti. It wasn’t enough for her to simply be a good wife, and she bristled at the thought of Kremer’s “marriage of convenience.” She wanted much more. She wanted the effervescence she felt when Myrna Loy asked William Powell to marry her in Libeled Lady. “To the moon,” Powell had said right before he kissed Loy. That’s what Elsie wanted—the moon.

  Emptied, the snow clouds hung low, shrouding Zugspitze Mountain and the stars above and ensconcing the valley in a globe of endless winter.

  “I—” She forced herself to meet Josef’s gaze. “I can’t,” she began, but Josef interrupted.

  “I understand. Your first Nazi party, Christmas Eve, an engagement proposal and …” He stroked his thumb over her hand. “So much in one night.”

  His hand was warm against hers, and she wished it were enough to heat her whole body, melt her into liquid sugar. He unlatched the door, and a chill swept through the inner cabin. “I’ll come to wish your family a Happy Christmas.”

  She shivered. He was right; there was enough heartache this evening. On Christmas they all deserved a little peace. She’d make him understand later. She nodded good night and stepped out.

  Josef pulled her back. “Elsie?”

  She turned slowly, afraid of the question she imagined to follow. Instead, Josef kissed her. Unlike Kremer’s wet mouth and sharp teeth at her neck, Josef’s lips were soft and precise, like a springerle mold on cookie dough. She dared not breathe for fear the imprint would be ruined.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” Elsie whispered.

  She left the car, worn T-straps slipping on new snow. The door handle was frozen and took a good push and pull before turning. In the dark car window, Josef’s shadow watched and waited until she was inside before driving on.

  Elsie shut the door. After the sharp click of metal, all was quiet. No violins or Jewish songbird, no gust of wind or screams, nothing but the peaceful cadence of the cuckoo’s pendulum. She put down her purse and slipped out of Mutti’s shoes, the cold tile floor warmer than her toes.

  “Elsie,” Mutti’s small voice called. “Is that you?”

  Elsie wrapped her cloak tight around her body and went to the base of the staircase. At the top, Mutti stood in her nightgown holding a waxy chamberstick. The candle flickered light and shadows down the steps.

  “Your papa is asleep, but I couldn’t. Was it a nice ball?” she asked, sprightly for the late hour.

  Elsie longed to collapse at Mutti’s feet and cry herself to hiccupping, but she was no longer a child and the gravity of adulthood weighted her to the spot.

  “Did you do as I said? Were you good and proper? Was Josef pleased?” She waited with bated breath for Elsie’s response.

  “Ja.” The lump in Elsie’s throat grew harder. She swallowed, but it stuck.

  Mutti smiled down at her. “You are lucky, Elsie. Josef is a handsome man.”

  Elsie nodded. “Please, go back to bed. It’s late. You’ll catch your death.”

  “Ja, good night. Happy Christmas, dear.”

  The light of Mutti’s candle grew dim and finally disappeared. Elsie went to the kitchen, lit the stove, and put on a kettle of water. Lebkuchen gingerbread hearts lay on the floured wooden table, their icing hardening into neat curlicues and dots. Papa made five: Max, Luana, Hazel, Elsie, and Julius. Per tradition, he’d rise before them all to hang the hearts on the strongest branches of the Christmas tree.

  The kettle steamed. She undid the buttons of her gloves and began to take them off. The ring snagged the satin. She pulled the material free, then examined the hole and loose thread. Not even Mutti could fix that. The ring glinted in the light of the stove’s flame. She took it off and searched the underbelly for the Hebrew letters. Though she couldn’t see them, she knew they were there. She set the ring on the table and rubbed the tight indention on her finger. She’d think about that tomorrow. The night was already too long. Her head throbbed, her eyes burned; all she wanted was something hot to drink and the eiderdown of her bed.

  In the dark, the kettle steam rose like an angry ghost. Elsie took it off the heat and picked chamomile from Mutti’s collection of hanging herbs. A frigid gust swept under her. The back door was chained but left open. A carp, no bigger than her outstretched hand, lay in a tub of ice beside it. Families traditionally kept their carp outside on Christmas Eve. Some said it was for the blessing of Saint Nikolaus; others claimed it was to flavor the fish with Alpine air. In the last few years, the practice had ceased. People were desperate. A scrap of bacon fat left out for a dog was snatched by hungry hands. Elsie guessed Papa had bargained a great deal of their bread on the black market to acquire this small fish. Mutti’s attempt to keep tradition by leaving the door ajar seemed a frivolous relic of happier times, but Elsie couldn’t reproach Mutti for something she did in her own ways every day. Burning pine lingered in the night air. She inhaled deeply.

  Needle-thin icicles had formed on the metal links of the door chain. She broke them off and tossed the blades out onto the backstreet. Just as they darted the snow, something shifted in the dark. Elsie stopped. Her breath caught.

  “Who’s there?”

  The snow fell. The wind crackled the stiff
trees.

  It was the snow playing tricks on her, she decided. She hadn’t eaten much that night and had her first champagne; it was a wonder she didn’t see purple polar bears. She touched the back of her hand to her cheek. Without having drunk the chamomile, she was hot—feverish. Straight to bed, that’s what she’d do.

  “Please.” A thin, pale face appeared at the bottom of the door.

  Elsie jumped, knocking the chamomile buds to the floor.

  “Please,” it said again and reached a hand through. “Help me.”

  Elsie scrambled away, crunching on dried blooms underfoot. “Go on,” she hissed. “You—you ghost. Get out of here.” She lifted the simmering kettle.

  The hand retracted. “I followed your car.”

  “What?” Elsie’s heart beat fast. Her arm, raised high, trembled with the weight of the water.

  “They’re going to kill me.” He leaned into the crack and turned his eyes up to her.

  And then she recognized him, the singing boy, the Jew. “What are you doing here?”

  “He broke the cage open, so I ran,” he said.

  “You ran away?” She set the kettle down. “Oh, God.” She rubbed the growing ache in her temples. “If they find you here, they’ll arrest us all. Go on!” She shooed him from the door. “Get out of here!”

  “I helped you. Please, help me.” He stayed pressed against the frame. His breath came in short spurts; his skin was tinged blue from the frost.

  He was just a boy, nearly the same age as Julius and as dangerous and evil as any—Jew or German. He’d die out there, by nature’s will or man’s force. She could save him, if she unlocked the chain.

  The wind blew across his face. Fat snowflakes stuck to his eyelashes.

  She thought of Kremer’s allegations. Obviously people were talking about her and her family. If the boy stayed, died on their doorstep, the Gestapo would surely think she had a role in his escape. She closed her eyes. Her head pounded. He was only a child. Nothing of importance or threat. She could turn him out tomorrow; take him to the wooded Eckbauer trail and let him loose like Hansel and Gretel. What did it matter? One boy. One Jew. She wished he would simply vanish.