The Plum Tree (49 page)

Finally, she was out of the village, in the open fields, where she could see the air base near the mouth of the valley. She hurried toward it.

When she saw the security checkpoint, she slowed, praying one of the guards could understand enough German to let her pass. From behind her, a convoy of trucks and tanks approached, a column of dust and dirt rolling up like a black thundercloud in their wake. Christine stepped off the road to let the vehicles pass, a pale hand held up in greeting, hoping one of the soldiers would take pity on her, or think she was willing to have sex with him in exchange for a candy bar or stick of gum. She had to get inside, no matter what.

The engines roared in her ears, the tanks’ massive tracks rattling and tearing at the earth. Groups of American soldiers sat on two trucks, crowded atop the roof and open bed like a swarm of schoolboys playing on a hill. A few glanced at Christine but didn’t react.

When the first vehicle stopped at the checkpoint, Christine walked the length of the convoy, searching each cab for Jake. No one looked familiar. The driver of the last truck was alone, one arm out the window, a cigarette in his hand, head leaning back against the high seat. She approached the cab and was about to speak, when she noticed the soldier’s eyes were closed. Clearly on edge, he took a long drag from his cigarette and blew out the smoke in a forceful stream, mumbling what sounded like angry words. She hurried toward the rear of the vehicle, praying there weren’t any soldiers in the canvas-covered bed, ready to keep running if she was wrong.

To her relief, the back of the truck was full of wooden crates. She pulled herself up and threw herself between the tailgate and the canvas flap, her heart like a runaway train in her chest. There was just enough room to lie down sideways between the boxes and the sidewall of the truckbed. She crammed herself into the empty space, banging her elbow and forehead in the process, her nose and eyes stinging with the smell of burning diesel.

The gears of the engine squealed and caught, and the truck ambled forward, jostling Christine against the boxes like a sack of flour. She put her arms around her head, praying the vehicles wouldn’t be searched before being let inside. At first the truck kept moving, but then, too quickly, it stopped. Over the growling engine, she heard voices, the driver talking, a loud bang, a series of muted clunks. Someone pulled open the canvas and she jumped. She felt rather than saw a soldier inspecting the packed bed. She held her breath, trying not to move.

Just when she thought the soldier was finished with his inspection, a rough hand seized her by the arm and yanked her up. The soldier yelled, drew his gun, and stepped back. The guards and the agitated driver trained their rifles on her as she climbed over the tailgate and jumped down, knees bent to keep from tumbling forward. A bristle-faced soldier barked an order in her face. She couldn’t understand what he was saying, but she knew she was in trouble.

After the guards patted her down, the bristle-faced soldier dragged her past the checkpoint and across the compound, into a squat brick structure to the left of the control tower. Inside, an officer sat behind a desk, his balding head bowed over a jumble of maps and paperwork. When the soldier addressed him, he looked up. His cheeks and forehead were pale and lumpy, as if his skin were made of porridge. Surprise registered in his eyes. He stood and came toward them, listening as the soldier explained, then sat on the edge of the desk and studied Christine, arms folded across his chest.

“English?” he said to her. She shook her head. He scrutinized her a moment longer, as if searching her mind for devious motives, then said something to the bristle-faced soldier, who saluted and left the building. The officer pulled a chair away from the wall, metal legs scraping across the concrete floor, and motioned for Christine to sit in it. She did as she was told, legs and arms trembling, wondering if the officer could hear the blood thrashing through her veins. When he went back to his desk, she cleared her throat to get his attention. He looked at her, eyebrows raised.

She pulled back her sleeve, pointed to the number on her wrist, and said, “SS.” The officer’s face dropped, and he gave her a stiff nod. “Father,” Christine said in English.

“Father?” he repeated, forehead furrowed in confusion. She nodded, putting a hand over her heart.

“Jake?” she said, silently berating herself for not knowing his last name, angry that she’d painted all Americans with the same brush. Maybe if she’d been willing to be friends instead of believing the worst, Stefan would already be behind bars.

Just then, the bristle-faced soldier returned with a blond man dressed in civilian clothing. When the civilian saw Christine, a look of surprise flickered across his face. Then he smiled, his mouth curling into a smug, satisfied grin. Her blood ran cold.

It was Stefan.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” he said.

Christine stared at the porridge-faced officer, hoping to convey her fear and anger with her eyes. She stood, pulled back her sleeve, jabbed her wrist again, and pointed at Stefan. “This man is SS!” she said, her words rattled by fury. “He is from Dachau!”

“You’re not going to get anywhere with that old trick,” Stefan said to her, his expression calm while his eyes twisted with savage glee. “These men trust me. I came to them, offering my services as a translator. I’m not the enemy anymore.”

The officer said something to Stefan. She understood SS. Stefan shook his head, then went into a lengthy dialogue in English, gesturing with his hands and pointing at Christine. How ironic that they trusted a murderer just because he could speak their language. She thought she understood the words: Jew, Dachau, family, father, dead. The Americans winced several times, as if parts of Stefan’s story were painful to hear.

“Nein, nein, nein,”
Christine insisted, panic twisting in her chest. She pointed at Stefan again, made a stabbing motion with her fist toward her abdomen, and said, “SS. Father.”

Stefan put a finger to his temple, made a circular motion, and whistled. The officer looked at her, eyes filled with pity. All at once, she put it together. He was telling them her family was dead, and that she had gone mad from the loss.

Unable to hold back any longer, Christine lunged at Stefan, swinging at his head, her fists colliding with his jaw, his neck, his temples.

“What did you do to my father?” she screamed. With no more effort than if he were wrestling a small child, Stefan grabbed her flailing arms and held on. She tore at his hands, trying to pry his strong fingers from her wrists. The bristle-faced soldier pulled her away and pushed her down in the chair, then held her there, his hands digging into her shoulders, waiting for her to calm down. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps, the tendons in her neck stretching and pulling as she struggled to get up. She wanted to rip Stefan’s heart from his chest.

“Careful, little Jew lover,” Stefan said, his voice soft, as if trying to calm her. “You’re playing into everything I just told them.”

“Where is my father?” she cried again, the words catching in her throat. Stefan said something to the soldier, and he reluctantly let go. Christine fought the urge to jump out of the chair again, her nails digging into the wooden arms. But Stefan was right; she had to pull herself together or the Americans would never believe her.

“What did you think would happen after your little stunt in church the other day?” Stefan said, kneeling in front of her, his face a mask of feigned kindness. “I told you I’d make you pay.”

“Bitte,”
she said. “Just tell me where he is.”

“Let me see,” he said. “I believe he’s being questioned about his involvement in war crimes.
Ja,
that’s it. I heard someone say he was in trouble.”

“Questioned? Questioned by whom? He hasn’t done anything wrong! The Americans are in charge now! Not you! And not your SS friends!”

Stefan stood and said something to the officer, who nodded, his lips pressed together, as if concerned for her well-being. “You’re right,” Stefan said. “The Americans are in charge now, and they’re holding SS and Wehrmacht alike in Dachau.”

Christine swallowed. “Dachau?”

“
Ja,
and that’s where your father is headed because you didn’t do as you were told.”

“But they won’t keep him there,” she cried. “They’ll find out he was just a regular soldier and release him!” She looked up at the Americans, who gaped as if listening to a doctor explain a terminal diagnosis to a patient.

Stefan shook his head, as if delivering bad news for a second time, his calm confidence as unmistakable as the steel-blue color of his eyes. “Did I forget to mention my old uniform fit him perfectly? Right down to the boot size? He’s going to have a hard time talking his way out of that.”

“But he hasn’t done anything wrong,” she cried. “I’ll go to Dachau and tell them who the real war criminal is!”

“Go ahead and try. Because right now, all Germans are guilty until proven innocent. They’re holding women in Dachau too. Maybe if I’m lucky, they’ll lock you up and my troubles will be over. Try to remember, I’m the one with the power right now. I’ll throw your mother or little brothers in a hidden room or underground vault somewhere, and the Americans will never find them. This is still our territory, remember? These old villages are full of tunnels, and the alleys and houses are nothing but a maze. Whoever I take next will just rot away. Like you should have.”

Christine glared at him, hatred hardening inside her chest.

“Jake?” she tried again, looking up at the officer. With the mention of an American name, the officer’s face went dark, and he said something to Stefan.

“Now he thinks you might be here to cause trouble for one of his men,” Stefan told her. “The American soldiers have a strict no fraternization policy with adult German civilians. He wants to know if you’re aware that all Germans aged fourteen to sixty-five in the occupation zone are required to register for compulsory labor, under threat of prison or withdrawal of ration cards.”

Christine nodded, pretending she had complied. It was no use; she wasn’t going to get anywhere with the Americans, especially with Stefan here. The officer went to the wall behind his desk, where he pulled half a dozen cans from a shelf. He put the cans in a cloth sack and held it out to her, like a dead animal hanging between them. On trembling legs she stood and took it, her burning eyes glued on Stefan.

“I don’t know how,” she said to him, “but I will make you pay.”

Stefan made a move to put his arms around her and she shoved him backwards, spitting in his face. The officer stepped between them, scowling and motioning for Christine to leave. The bristle-faced soldier grabbed her by the arm and led her out of the building.

Christine held the sack to her chest as the soldier dragged her across the air base, trying to figure out what to do next. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he would help. His face was set, his brows furrowed in determination.

“Help?” Christine said. The soldier ignored her and kept moving. She stopped and yanked her arm from his grasp. “Help,” she tried again, firmly this time. He grabbed her arm and wrenched her forward.

Halfway across the compound, she saw two jeeps at the security checkpoint, one carrying three soldiers, the other carrying two. She squinted, trying to pick out a familiar face, but they were too far away, and the soldiers’ helmeted heads were turned in the other direction; they were talking with the guards. Then the jeeps entered the air base, drawing closer. In the second jeep, Christine saw a white grin and a line of blond hair.

“Jake!” she shouted, pulling away from the soldier. She tried to run but wasn’t fast enough. The soldier caught her by the shoulder and pushed her down in the dirt, the sack of cans colliding like rocks with her chest, knocking the wind from her lungs. She gulped for air and tried to stand, watching the jeeps as they sped past. The soldier yanked her upright and pulled her toward the exit, leaving the cans of food scattered like a child’s building blocks in the yellowed grass. She twisted her shoulders, trying to get away, but he yelled and tightened his grip, his blunt-ended fingers digging deep into her upper arm.

“Christine!” a voice shouted behind them.

She craned her neck and saw Jake sprinting toward her, a rifle in one hand, his forehead crumpled in concern. The bristle-faced soldier stopped and waited for Jake to catch up, his face a sour mixture of irritation and uncertainty. When Jake reached them, he said something to the soldier. They argued for a moment. Jake rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket, pulling out several pieces of folded green paper that looked like money. He slid two bills from the fold and held them out to the soldier, who glanced back at the officer’s building, then took the money and shoved it in his pocket. Scowling, he started walking again, still gripping Christine by the arm.

Jake took Christine’s other arm, and the three of them hurried toward the security checkpoint. When they neared the stone ruins of a small outbuilding, Jake pulled her behind it, glancing around nervously. The bristle-faced soldier kept going. Jake said something she didn’t understand. Then, certain no one was watching, the same German words he had first spoken at the train station: “May I help?”

C
HAPTER
35

T
he creaking train, overflowing with women, children, and either very old or wounded men, shuddered and lurched to a stop, wheels screeching and whistles shrieking, like the dying screams of a giant, tortured animal. Christine woke with a start, her heart thundering beneath her ribs, her neck stiff. Again, she had to remind herself that she was on a real passenger train, with glass windows and cloth seats, nothing more.

The other passengers peered out the windows, wondering why they were stopping in the middle of nowhere again. Not that they’d be able to see the cause of the delay, but it was an automatic reaction every time the train came to an unexpected stop. With each holdup, rumors traveled through the overloaded cars about what had caused the setback. First there was a disabled tank on the tracks, then a group of refugees with a broken wagon. Once, the tracks needed repair; another time, they were out of coal. The passengers had no way of knowing what was true. The last stop had been the longest, when two American soldiers had gone through the cars with their rifles drawn, examining every face as if they were looking for someone. Luckily the problems were always resolved and the train started moving again, but no one had expected the trip to take this long.