Have you been by the bakery lately? I’ve called a few times, but (no surprise) got the answering machine. Elsie should really open an e-mail account. The spam filter siphons out all the porn and Viagra ads. You tell her that.
Miss you.
Love, Reba
Chapter Thirty-eight
SCHMIDT BÄCKEREI
56 LUDWIGSTRASSE
GARMISCH, GERMANY
AUGUST 2, 1945
Elsie made her way upstairs to change for the night shift. The American R&R Center was preparing for a crowd, a bomb squadron on weeklong leave. The whole unit was busing in from Fritzlar, Germany. Robby asked Elsie to help in the kitchen in addition to her waitstaff duties; she’d reluctantly agreed. She dreaded the busy night ahead. It’d already been a long day in the bäckerei. Papa had gone to Partenkirchen where a flour mill had reopened, leaving Elsie as head baker for the day. She was thoroughly exhausted with only an hour to change clothing and bicycle over to the R&R Center.
She’d sat down with a calendar immediately following the strassenfest. A pregnancy was possible. She hadn’t menstruated in months; a product of being on her feet too much and eating too little, she’d reasoned. Her cycle had stopped often during the war and this, she thought, was no different. There wasn’t time to be pregnant, she told herself, as Monday and another week began. During the day, her mind and hands were busy mixing, rolling, and taking orders. But at night, her fear of carrying a bastard child kept her awake.
Her sleeplessness and physical fatigue made even climbing the stairs to her room a daunting task. Now, she stopped midway and leaned against the wall, fighting the urge to give in to gravity and let the weight of her body pull her back. She steadied herself with arms bridged to either side, then continued to the top.
In her room, she lay fully dressed on her bed—just for a moment, to pretend sleep and perhaps trick her body into rejuvenation, but the pillow was hot. Her ear burned from the friction. She sat up, rubbed her forehead, and prayed for strength she was certain she didn’t deserve.
“You don’t look well.” Mutti stood in the doorway. “Not keeping much down.” She nodded to the basin.
Elsie had been careful to clean it immediately after each bout of nausea and assumed Mutti was too busy and preoccupied with Julius to notice.
“I’ve got something,” she explained.
“Ja.” Mutti stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “So you do.”
The hairs on Elsie’s arms pricked upright. “Is Julius back from school?” She changed the subject.
“He asked to go to his school friend’s house. Rory Schneider. Bitsy Schneider’s eldest son.”
Elsie remembered them well. Bitsy and Hazel had been friends in school. From a poorer family, Bitsy married the blacksmith Henri Schneider, a friend of her father’s and twenty years her senior. They’d all pitied Bitsy at the time: her husband was too old to come to the Hitler Youth parties or join the SS forces. Now, three children later, with a fourth on the way and a husband safe at home, more than a few envied her flourishing marriage.
Elsie’s feet were icy numb in her shoes. “It is good he is making friends.”
“Ja, I gave him ginger and rose hips to take to Bitsy. She says the baby kicks her ribs all night. I told her it’s a sign of a strong boy. A blessing to have in these hard times.”
Elsie nodded quickly.
Mutti sat down beside her. “I’m sorry it’s going so badly for you. That’s normal at the beginning.”
Elsie arms and legs went weak. “I don’t know what you mean, Mutti. I ate bad cheese.”
Mutti laid her palm on Elsie’s abdomen. “I fear it is a great deal more than that.”
Elsie couldn’t stand or move or speak.
“You are with child.”
The bluntness of Mutti’s words turned her to stone. Though she had thought it for weeks, hearing it said aloud made it real. But no, how could it be? She couldn’t have a child; she didn’t want one, not now, not like this. Her shoulders slumped forward, followed by her chest until her whole body lay puddled on the ground. She was too tired to cry. She hadn’t the stamina to produce tears or wail or beat her breast. All she could do was be still.
“God, help me,” she whispered.
Mutti knelt to the floor and put her arm around Elsie. “Do you want this?”
Elsie closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mutti.”
She knew it was a sin against God to not want her child, a sin against everything natural and sacred. She thought of Hazeclass="underline" the pride she’d gleaned from her children; the ragged heartache in her last few letters. They had arrived the week before. Ovidia had been unable to mail them until recently. Elsie read what she could make out through the dirt and water stains, muffling her cries in the dark of night and wondering where Hazel could possibly have gone. She wouldn’t allow herself to consider that she was dead—couldn’t. The totality of her grief was too severe and fresh as an open wound. If she continued to let herself bleed with sorrow, she feared she’d lose herself completely to it. She wouldn’t show the letters to Mutti and Papa. It was the one promise she could keep to Hazel when in the end it seemed she’d failed her—failed Tobias, too, and now, failed her own child.
“Shh. It’s not your fault.” Mutti smoothed the tears from Elsie’s cheek. “Dead or run off, Josef’s gone. He left you unprotected against …” She cleared her throat. “You’re too young to have your life ruined.”
Elsie’s chin fell to her chest. She knew she should tell Mutti about Robby, but she’d never been able to talk to her about such things.
Mutti stared straight. “It is probably three months along. We caught it in time to stop it.”
Elsie had heard of women who nearly died from inserting ice picks, razors attached to cigarette holders, and knitting needles into their wombs. She winced.
“I have a special tea.” Mutti’s eyes remained wide and fixed. “Brewed pennyroyal and cohosh. Six cups a day for five days. On the sixth day, the bleeding starts. As normal as every month.”
Elsie swallowed hard. A tea? It seemed so pedestrian and benign. “Have you used it?”
Mutti pursed her lips. “Like I told your sister before you. Men and war don’t change. Things happen that are out of our control. It doesn’t mean we have no control. Your father was not the first man I was with.” She bit her bottom lip. “What happened to you happened to me, too. During the first war, Russian soldiers came to the house.” She twisted the apron of her skirt. “I had never been with a man, and they took that from me. There was nothing to be done. I never told your papa. Only you and Hazel. When Peter died and Hazel found herself pregnant with Julius, she had a choice. Her baby was made of love. But yours and mine …” Her voice broke. “If only I had come sooner. I should have protected you better. I swore my children would never know that kind of suffering.”
Elsie’s whole body throbbed. Almost thirty years later, and Mutti’s guilt remained. Might the same fate be true for her?
“You did the best you could,” Elsie reassured her, then crossed her arms over her belly.
Mutti sniffed back tears and blotted her eyes with the apron. “It’s summer. Pennyroyal is in bloom.” She kissed the crown of Elsie’s head. “We won’t speak of it again. No one need know. We’ll go on and pray for God’s mercy. That’s all we can do.”