Elsie wore a brown, fringed skirt with a cobalt V-neck; her hair was swept back in a matching striped handkerchief. A flattering color, Reba thought.
“Jane said you came here yesterday.” She took a seat. Her freshly washed hands were dewy and smelled of floral soap. “I was at the doctor’s—nothing of importance.”
“The slap-n-pap?” Reba’s cheeks flushed hot as soon as the last syllable left her lips.
Elsie laughed. “You have it! Jane told you our little code, I suppose.”
Reba looked round to make sure neither the children nor their mothers heard. The ladies continued to move their hands in casual conversation; the children slid across the tiles on their kneecaps.
“But you are not here to talk about all the cookies you and Jane wolfed down either, correct?” Elsie lifted an eyebrow.
“They were awfully good.” Reba smiled. “I came about the story.”
Reba’s deadline was past, and her editor had insisted that the article be on her desk by morning; otherwise, the local publishing press wouldn’t have time to run it in the holiday issue. Reba had a mission to complete; as long as her mind was focused on that goal, she could forget about Riki and everything else. She needed one good quote pertaining to Christmas in Germany and could already hear what she wanted said: Christmas is a wonderful time; we have many German traditions that we continue wherever we are. BAM—that’d be it. One unambiguous statement that did not involve Nazis. She took out her steno and pen.
“You see, I didn’t do my job last time,” Reba explained. “What I mean is, I didn’t ask the questions I need for the article. I need to know about Christmas, about the holidays, about how you celebrated with family and friends.”
Elsie tipped her chin up and squinted at Reba.
The two mothers beside them discussed hyperactivity, debating if it was a symptom of attention deficit disorder or the effects of chocolate and Coca-Cola.
Reba tapped her pen and waited for an answer.
“To tell you honestly, I cannot remember what we did before the wars. I was very young when the führer came to power and by the time he was gone, it was a new Germany. We had to reinvent ourselves, our traditions, our families. It was not the same. As I’ve told you, those years were … traumatic.” Elsie shrugged. “Even the happy moments are clouded by pain. So you see, I cannot tell you about celebrating with family and friends without betraying.”
Reba shook her head. “Betraying whom?”
“Myself. It would be a lie—a made-up story of what I thought you wanted to hear. Oh, we danced and sang to oompah music, toasted with beer steins, marked the birth of Christ, and waited for Saint Nikolaus to come to our snowy Alpine lodges. Is this what you want me to say?”
Yes, yes, it was. Reba pinched the bridge of her nose.
Elsie shrugged. “I am sorry. Those are not my memories.”
“Then what are your memories? Give me the truth,” begged Reba.
Elsie sucked her top lip then began, “In Germany, I remember Christmases without a lot of food, my father trying to run our bakery on a cup of sugar a week. Cold Christmases. So cold a person could freeze to death. Drunk soldiers in wool uniforms. Dirty boot prints in the snow. Families unable to see each other and secrets that had nothing to do with Saint Nikolaus or reindeer or magic …”
Chapter Twenty-one
SCHMIDT BÄCKEREI
56 LUDWIGSTRASSE
GARMISCH, GERMANY
JANUARY 24, 1945
“Wake up, Tobias, wake up.” Elsie tapped the wallboard lightly but with urgency.
Tobias pushed the plank open, crawled out with a yawn, and extended his legs long on her bedroom floor. The wall cavity was just large enough for a small boy to sit and lie comfortably with bent knees, but she knew there was nothing so freeing as stretching your fingers and toes as far as they could reach. She tried to give him the opportunity to do so as often as was prudent and possible.
Her parents had left for Steinhöring five days before, and Elsie was grateful for their short absence. It gave her reprieve from worrying over every bump and creak. That past Sunday, she’d even been so bold as to put Tobias to work in the early morning hours. He was surprisingly skilled at pretzel making, knowing exactly how to roll and twist the dough for perfect knots.
Elsie huffed and puffed against the cold while Tobias slipped into an old pair of wool stockings that came up midthigh. He pulled a slouchy knitted nightcap over his head and reminded her of the costumed Fastnacht parades of her childhood. She couldn’t help but smile despite the sunrise headache in her temples.
“Come on, little one.” She patted him on his cap. “I’ve already lit the oven. We’re out of brötchen. There aren’t even any stale ones to bulk up the bin, so I have to bake an extra batch this morning, which leaves you in charge of the pretzels,” she explained.
Being the youngest in the family, she’d never been given an exorbitant amount of responsibility in the actual baking process—until now. With the business and Tobias in her keep, she felt older and wiser, and she liked it.
“I know it’s ungodly early, but that’s the life of a baker and those who live with them.” She sighed. “Maybe when you grow up, you could be a singing baker.” She winked at him. “I bet you’d bring in double what we do for sweet rolls and a song.”
Tobias smiled. “I’d make babka with heaps of cinnamon.”
“Excellent,” said Elsie. “Tobias, the great, singing babka baker. That will be your title.”
She turned to make sure Tobias was safely hunched in her shadow before opening her bedroom door and making her way down the steps. Though she rolled the blinds each night, she still feared Gestapo surveillance, so she had designed a system for their morning kitchen routine. She stationed Tobias on the floured wooden table, underneath which they stored the giant iron pot Mutti used for soups. Whenever Elsie perceived any hint of danger, she’d whistle and Tobias slipped into the pot and closed the lid. This was only during the morning preparations. Half an hour before opening, she made sure he was locked safely in her room again.
Rumor had spread that her parents were personally escorted to Steinhöring. No one dared ask what the business was about. Too many had left town already with unknown destinations, and people liked it that way: unknown. So they ordered their usual, ignoring her parents’ absence, and took their bread home where they could eat and whisper among themselves.
Elsie had taken to closing at lunch, something her papa never did. When she locked the door from noon to half past one, she received no complaints. This allowed her ample time to punch down the risen dough batches and check on Tobias.
While he’d been hiding in her room for a month, it was only in the last few days that Elsie finally felt at liberty to speak openly with him. The first time she heard him say more than a handful of words was over a bratwurst the night before.
“It’s forbidden,” he told her and turned away from the plate.
But it was all Elsie had to give. Lamb, beef, chicken, and fish were nonexistent. It was winter and wartime. Had he forgotten he was a Jew hiding in her home? This wasn’t the Romantik Hotel. She would have taken the sausage back and eaten it herself if it hadn’t been for Tobias’s elbows. No matter what he put over them, they stuck out like bird wings, reminding her that while parts of him had plumped since Christmas, he was still painfully frail.
In the last week, he had developed a slight wheeze, no louder than a mouse’s chirp. When it paused, Elsie worried the chill had finally crept under his thin skin and frozen him solid. He needed hardiness. A diet of bread and winter vegetables wasn’t doing the job. She grew up with Jews in the community so she understood the gravity of her offering, but it still frustrated and outright annoyed her that even now, in the midst of bloodshed and death, their customs took priority over his life.