The Baker's Daughter (17 page)

Her waist was slim and bent easily without the bulge of full womanhood. He could have fit one hand around.

She returned with a roll and a pat of butter. “The butter costs extra. 30 Reichspfennig or the equivalent in ration coupons.”

Hub set coins on the counter, but he halted her hand before she took them. “Hazel?”

The girl frowned then and swept the coins into her palm.

“My name is Captain Hub. I was a soldier with Peter Abend,” he explained and waited for her reaction.

She gave none. Cool and steady, she deposited the coins in the till and closed it with a shove. “I am Elsie. Hazel's sister.”

He nodded. Yes, of course. If Hazel shared this fair skin and light hair, it was no surprise they took her into the Lebensborn Program. Even the bones of Elsie's cheeks and nose showed classic signs of Nordic descent. He'd spent hours researching the scientific legitimacy of Aryan supremacy, hoping to further validate his actions and the hooked cross he wore.

He took the plate. “I've come from the Abend home and paying my respects to his family. They said Peter was engaged to Hazel.”

Elsie moved sticky cinnamon-swirled buns from a metal tray to a glass cakestand. “Is that why you've come?” she challenged.

“Why I've come?” He looked down at the brötchen, the cracked top split into four quarters by a baker's cross.

She finished arranging the cakes and wiped away a dribble of icing with her finger. “Ja, they were engaged. He died, and she went to Steinhöring with Julius, their son.” Elsie sucked her finger clean, pursed her lips, and ran her eyes from his collar insignias to his boots. “If you want to ask questions, you will have to speak to my father. It is not my place to discuss our family matters with a strange man. Nazi officer or Winston Churchill, I do not know you.” She flipped the fishtail of her braid over her shoulder and took the tray back to the kitchen.

She was bold, a trait both championed and admonished by the statutes of the Bund Deutscher Mädel. Right or wrong, Josef found it refreshing.

“Doch, I came for breakfast,” said Josef with a shrug. His headache was receding.

He sat at one of the two small café tables and tore the roll apart with his fingers, exposing tender, white flesh, slightly gummy in the center.

A woman and her son entered the shop arguing over a sugar roll versus a cheese pretzel. The woman told the boy he'd grow fat as a cow if he ate nothing but sweets, while she herself was round and soft as a baked apple. Exasperated by the cold walk and prolonged argument, she wheezed through her mouth and yanked the boy to the counter.

“Pick something healthy,” she instructed. “How about a bialy?”

The boy pressed his nose against the display case, leaving a greasy smudge.

His mother crooked her head toward the back kitchen. “Elsie!” she called. “Max—Luana! Did you decide to take a holiday?”

The boy stuck out his tongue at her while her attention was deviated.

Josef crunched his crust, amused by the child's disdain and eager to see Elsie again.

She returned clapping flour from her hands. “We are here, Frau Reimers.”

An older man with a ruddy complexion and hair the color of sea salt followed close behind. “Grüs Gott, Jana! And Herr Ahren. How are my best customers?”

“Gut,” said Frau Reimers curtly. “I need a loaf of bauernbrot and Ahren will have—” She looked down at the boy. “Well? Tell Herr Schmidt what you want?”

“A cinnamon roll,” he said flatly.

The woman sighed and adjusted her hat. “Of course you pick the most expensive thing. Fine, but remember, the Hitler Youth doesn't take fat boys.”

“I don't want to go to Hitler Youth,” he spat back.

The mother smacked his cheek. “Stupid. Look—” She turned to Josef and pointed. “All good Germans want to be officers. But you've got to fit the uniform.”

Josef continued to chew without acknowledgment. The boy was far too young to worry about joining the military ranks or the consequences of a sweet bun.

“Oh, Jana. Let the boy be. Look at me! I grew up on sugar bread and pastries and the doctor says I'm fit as a fiddle.”

“One cinnamon roll?” asked Elsie.

The woman shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose. But Max, at these prices …”

“Sugar is hard to find. Supplies aren't what they used to be.”

“And wouldn't it be God's punishment to give me a child who eats nothing but sugar and butter!”

Elsie bagged the bread and boxed the pastry while her father changed the discussion to that of the cold weather's effect on his dill plant by the windowsill.

“Here you go, Ahren,” Elsie whispered to the boy. “I like these, too.” She winked.

He gave a quick smile.

“Wunderbar!” Frau Reimers peered into the bag. “Max, you are the best baker in the Fatherland.” She pulled shiny coins from a velvet change purse and clinked them on the counter. “Now come, Ahren.”

The boy followed her out. In the absence of the woman's loud breathing, the bakery seemed too quiet. Herr Schmidt's footsteps thudded the tiled floor as he approached.

“Hello, Officer,” he said. “My daughter says you have some questions about my eldest, Hazel, and Peter Abend, God rest his soul.”

Josef respectfully stood and wiped crumbs from his lips. “That is partially true—I came to see the Abends and stopped here for breakfast.”

“Ack, ja. And we are happy you did.” Herr Schmidt extended his hand for a firm shake. “The Abends are good Volk. Losing Peter was terrible for us all.” He took a seat at Josef's table and gestured for him to do the same. “Elsie, bring us black tea.”

“All we have is chicory root,” she replied.

“Then brew the chicory,” instructed Herr Schmidt.

“But, Papa, we don't have much left and—”

“Do what I say, child,” he firmly commanded. “It is not every day we have an officer and a friend of the family as a customer.”

Elsie obeyed and left the room.

“She misses her sister,” explained Herr Schmidt. “She's young and doesn't fully understand politics, war, patriotism … But we are very proud of our Hazel.”

Josef swallowed a last bit of brötchen caught in his cheek.

“Sag mal, where are you from?” asked Herr Schmidt.

“Munich,” replied Josef.

Herr Schmidt leaned back in his chair. “Ah, the capital of the movement.”

Josef nodded with a smile and pushed away his plate, a lump of the sweet butter left unused.

“C
arol's making spaghetti with meatballs for dinner, Rik. You sure you don't want some?” asked Bert, pulling on his coat.

“Thanks, but I picked up Taco Cabana.” Riki pointed to the large takeout bag on the minifridge. “Figured the kids would like it, too.”

“I don't know how you do it!” said Bert. “I tried your Taco Cabana diet and gained six pounds in a week. That's almost a pound a day!”

“Must be genetics.” Riki flexed an arm. “A body knows the food of its heritage.”

Bert laughed. “Or more likely, when I have a meal with Carol and the kids, I only get to eat half of my plate. There's always too much going on.” He shrugged with a smile and rapped the schedule board with his knuckles. “Tomorrow, you're taking them over?”

“Bright and early.”

Bert cleared his throat and fished his keys from his pocket. “Have you talked to Reba?”

Riki propped his feet up on the desk. “I'll probably call later.”

“ 'Cause I could drive by for you. Check, since she's by herself.” He scratched his stubbly jaw with a large, square-headed key.

It was a considerate gesture, but Bert didn't know the Reba he did. “That's how she likes it.”

“Right.” Bert paused. “You don't have to stay here, you know. Carol and I can put you up until you find a new place.”

“Thanks, Bert. I appreciate the offer.”

Bert mimed a tip of his cap and left.

A handful of officers milled in and out, but the station was still too quiet. Riki turned on his desk radio. A catchy pop tune bounced over the airwaves. He hummed along while surfing Internet destinations. It was his kind of travel. He visited the vineyards of Northern California, the bayous of Louisiana, lobster boats in Maine, the White House and Lincoln Memorial, the rolling Blue Ridge Mountains, and the oceans on either end; moving from place to place in the click of a button without his body leaving the comfort of his chair.

Riki was a homesteader by nature and had only been north as far as Santa Fe and east to San Antonio. That was partly what drew him to Reba. She was from “beyond.” She'd walked into his life with the world on her shoulders, and through her, he'd hoped he could see everything he ever wanted without stepping outside his door. It wasn't that he was afraid of leaving so much as it seemed more natural to stay where he felt he belonged—with the people he belonged to.

His parents had imbued this sense in him. While brave in their endeavors to cross the Rio Grande and become US citizens, they never let Riki forget exactly who he was: the son of Mexican immigrants, set apart by culture and tradition, race and religion.

Even in Riki's father's final days when tuberculosis crippled his body and tired his spirit, he'd turn on CNN and watch as broadcasters, politicians, and common men debated immigration laws.

“They're stealing American jobs from
real
Americans,” one protester said to the camera.

“Stay on your side!” yelled another.

“See, mi hijo, see,” his father said before his breath would turn to coughing. “You must be cautious. Only trust your own people.”

It pained Riki that on his deathbed, his father still regarded himself and his family as aliens in a foreign land. Riki had been determined to prove him wrong when he'd applied for a CBP job. He'd show his father how American he was by working to protect his fellow citizens; then no man could call into question his national allegiance, no matter his racial profile or ancestral line. He was a devoted countryman of the United States of America, a loyal resident of El Paso, Texas, and he was content to stay right where he was, or so he'd thought. But coming up on his third full year as
a CBP officer, he'd seen enough to know that behind the glitzy carnival show were callused men pulling puppet strings. These were more than borderlines, sides of the fence, American versus Mexican. These were people, closer to him in Mexico than any of the politicians dictating edicts from the US Capitol thousands of miles away.

He pulled up the tourism pages for Washington, D.C., and its sister suburbs in Virginia. Nothing but names. Reba never spoke of where she came from except in isolated uncensored moments. Once when a rare storm swept over the city in waves of angry rain, she'd stared out the window, briefly transported across the miles, and said, “Virginia's weather was like this. Sunny and clear one day, thunder and lightning the next. I used to cry when it rained.” She'd hugged her arms tight to her chest, and he could clearly imagine what she'd looked like as a child.

“It's just one storm,” he'd comforted.

“Yes, but it reminds me that they'll still come.”

That was the first time he felt it—that sense of secret insecurity and distance. It worried him. He loved her. So in an effort to prove his fidelity and her sanctuary with him, he'd proposed. But the impending union only seemed to make the distance between them expand, filling up their house like a balloon ready to burst and leaving little room for him. He wanted to be with Reba for the rest of his life, but what should have been devotion manifested as resentment on both their parts. He imagined her again in the steamy tub, cheeks and nipples flushed, drinking wine like she'd won the lottery, and his ring, dangling in the suds.

A smiling blond family in a garden of tulips stared back at him from the computer screen with the tagline:
Virginia Is for Lovers
. He sucked his teeth.

“Señor,” a woman's voice called from the detainment room. A series of knocks followed.

“Yes.” Riki got up and opened the door. “What can I do for you?”

“Puedo tener una manta mas para mi hija?” said the woman.

He'd moved a small TV into the detainment room. The children watched an episode of
The Simpsons
. The girl, cuddled beside her brother, sat up at Riki's voice and pulled the green blanket from the boy's back. He groaned and yanked hard, whipping the blanket completely from her. She said nothing but gave a swift kick to his spine.

“Ay! Mamá,” cried the boy. “Ella me pateó.”