The Baker's Daughter (43 page)

“I'm sorry, Opa. Oma told me to help you.”

“Doch!” He clapped his hands together. “As you can see, I'm finished. We just have to put away these scraps.” He began to pull the remnants of the gingerbread into a ball. “Come, help me.”

Lillian went to his side. He smelled of cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom, and she leaned close to his side; he smelled like Christmas.

“Here, have a taste.” He pinched a piece of dough and popped it in her mouth.

Molasses sweet and spicy. Lillian let it dissolve on her tongue and slip down her throat. “It's good.”

He kissed her forehead. “Don't tell Oma. She'll be cross with me for giving you treats before bed.”

She smiled. She was good at keeping secrets.

That night, Oma sat up in Lillian's room darning her wool school stockings. Lillian's feet were cold beneath her bed covers, and she wanted to hear a story.

“Would you lie with me a little, Oma? I can't sleep yet,” pleaded Lillian. She knew she was too old for bedtime stories, but hoped Oma would relent.

Oma sighed, set down her needle and thread, and slipped beneath the covers.

Lillian laced her feet between hers.

“You're freezing, child!” Oma fluffed the blankets around them.

“Are you excited for Christmas?” asked Lillian.

“Ja,” said Oma. “Are you?”

Lillian tucked the covers under her chin and nodded. “Do you think we'll get a letter from Tante Elsie?”

Oma pulled Lillian into the crook of her arm. “She always writes on Christmas.”

Lillian knew that to be true but wanted Oma's reassurance.

“I bought the carp today. Fat as a giant pinecone. Did you see?”

Lillian shook her head. “But I did see Opa making our lebkuchen hearts.” She giggled and buried her face against Oma.

“Did you now.” Oma took a deep breath, her body rising and falling heavily.

“Do you think Julius will mind if I have his, since he's staying at school this year?”

“You'll have to ask Opa,” replied Oma. “Now, all warm. It is time for sleeping.” She leaned forward to stand, but Lillian stopped her.

“Don't go yet, please. Would you read to me—the letter about the day Tante Elsie helped Onkel Albert at the hospital? The one where she gave a candy stripe to the boy with a broken arm.”

“Candy striper. In America, they are like nurses, but their job is to comfort the sick,” explained Oma. She reached beneath the mattress for where they kept the wad of letters. “What was the date?”

“It was summer,” said Lillian. “Because she said they had their first summer storm that cracked flaming icicles across the sky.” Her heart sped up reciting Elsie's words. “The boy had been so scared, he fell off his chair and broke his arm.”

“Ack ja,” said Oma. “It was August, I believe.” She flipped through the envelopes until she found the one. “August 3.” The pages crinkled against her fingers. “Dear Mutti and Lillian,” she began.

Lillian closed her eyes, snuggled down close, and let her imagination drift across the ocean.

Dear Tante Elsie
,

Thank you again for the McCall's dress pattern and the Beatles album you sent. We got a new radio station here. It is called the British Broadcasting Corporation. Have you heard of it in America? It plays all the good music, even Jim Morrison. And today, Tony Blackburn (the announcer on Radio 1) was talking about everything that's going on over there with you. Is it true that American mobs are protesting in the streets? It is hard to imagine, but Oma says it's the way of war. She worries about you. I explained to her that Vietnam is where the fighting is and that is far away from Texas. Still, she tells me to write you to keep baby Jane and Onkel Albert close by and the doors locked tight.

She would write you as well, but she's already gone to bed. For the past couple months she's been sleeping much more than is customary. She didn't want me to mention it to you before—claiming it was allergies from the change of season and drinking her teas for this or that—but it's well into fall now and she's more tired than ever. She fights me about visiting the doctor. I tell her they have pills for almost everything these days, but she refuses. Maybe you could talk to her. Ask Onkel Albert what he thinks.

Other than that, we are well here. Opa is good. Still insisting on making the first batch of brötchen himself even though we've hired two trained bakers and one chocolatier. Hugo is the best of the three and the most recently employed. He apprenticed with
a pastry chef in the Bishopric of Liège, Belgium, and has added waffles to our menu. I've gained five pounds since his arrival and loved every bite of it! In a perfect world, I'd enclose one of Hugo's waffles with this letter. I'm positive you would love them as much as the rest of us. Business has increased almost 20 percent, and Opa couldn't dote on the man any more. He loves him like the son he never had.

A gelato shop opened next door—the American tourists and military are crazy for the stuff. So Hugo and Opa are discussing plans to sell waffle cones to the gelateria. Business is booming, and we're all glad for that.

I asked Opa last night if we turn a good profit by the end of the year, if I might go to university in the spring. I believe I would like to study history or literature. I'm not sure which. In either case, I've put it off too long already. In my dreams, I'd come to the United States. There are so many wonderful schools there, but I couldn't leave Oma and Opa. I'll probably apply to LMU Munich. Opa said that was a good plan. So now I just need to get in. Pray for me. I want this more than just about anything.

I must go now. I have to sweep the kitchen before bed. It's not so bad now that I can listen to the radio while I do it!

My love to you, Jane, and Onkel Albert
,

Lillian

P.S. I nearly forgot! Julius has finally wed! He sent us word last month. Her name is Klara and she is from Lübeck. Her father is a banker, and so they have moved to Hamburg for Julius to manage the Hamburg Bank. We didn't get any more detail than that. You know Julius.

Dear Tante Elsie
,

So much has happened in such a short time, I don't where to begin. Opa refuses to let me send a telegram or call long distance, so I am mailing this and pray you receive it as fast as humanly possible. We have just returned from the hospital. Oma took a
turn for the worse. For three days, she lay in bed without a crumb to eat or sip of tea. I was so frightened that I called the emergency Krankentransporte.

They say it is cancer. Oh, Tante Elsie, if only I had done something months ago! If we had caught it sooner perhaps-.-.-. but now, it is too late. They sent her home, and Opa and I are at her bedside every hour.

I am inconsolable and would never ask this unless it was as dire as it is. Please, come home. The doctor says she could be with us for weeks or a handful of days. Opa refuses to accept the gravity of her prognosis. I don't think he can imagine his life without her—or will let himself. It will break his heart and mine. I can't endure this alone. Come back to us.

Faithfully
,

Lillian

A
rriving two hours ahead of schedule, Elsie had taken a taxicab from the bahnhof and had it drop her on Ludwigstrasse. It'd been over twenty years since she'd stepped on that street. The clip of her heels against the cobblestone was a cadence her body took to instinctively. The autumn air was crisp and clean as the evergreens, and she breathed it in as deeply as she could. The sky was piebald with thick, gray clouds shrouding the Zugspitze. A single drop of rain wet her cheek but no more. Soon enough the heavens would open up, and she was glad she'd taken the earlier train from Munich.

A young couple exited the bakery with a fat rye loaf wrapped in brown paper. The familiar sign, Schmidt Bäckerei, above the door rocked gently in the Alpine breeze.

“Guten abend.” The cabby handed over her luggage.

“Guten abend,” replied Elsie. The words felt clunky and hard to her ears. It'd been a long while since she'd spoken German outside of whispered lullabies to baby Jane.

A bell chimed as the bakery door opened, but the smell greeted her far before the threshold. A toasty blanket of yeasty goodness. Papa's recipe. Only his bread made the air so decadent and satisfying. She'd tried to
replicate it for years in her own bakery but never quite succeeded, too much vanilla and cinnamon lingering about.

Despite all the years and a handful of modern updates, the Schmidt Bakery was almost exactly as she remembered. The dill had been replanted in a larger pot but still sat in the front window. The breadbaskets lined the shelf exactly as she had organized them. Formica tables replaced the two wooden ones but in the same cramped spots. Here it was again, like a dream restored, and yet not.

“May I help you?” asked a young man behind the register.

Suddenly, she felt awkward and foreign. Her indigo daisy-print blouse and flip hairdo didn't belong. The part of her that had been Elsie Schmidt remembered this place with tenderness and sorrow, but that girl was like a storybook character in a Grimm fairy tale. Now, she was Elsie Meriwether with a loving husband, a beautiful baby daughter, and her own bakery in the sunny West Texas desert. This was no longer her home, and surprisingly, that realization brought her great comfort and strength.

“Are you Hugo?”

“Nein. I'm Moritz. Hugo is in the back.” He rearranged sweets on a tray—mandelkekse, almond bar cookies, Elsie recognized.

“Is Lillian here?”

Moritz paused, then slid the tray into the glass case. “Are you a friend of the family?”

Elsie felt a twinge. “I am Elsie. Max and Luana's daughter.”

Moritz's eyes opened as wide as the bonbons on display. “Ack ja! You are early! Please, please.” He came round from the register. “I am Moritz Schneider.” He extended his hand.

“Schneider?” Elsie smiled and shook. “Any relation to Bitsy Schneider?”

“My mother!” He put a thumb to his chest. “I am her youngest son.”

“I knew her well,” said Elsie. “You kicked her a lot, as I recall.” She patted her abdomen, and Moritz laughed.