The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman Read Free Book Online Page A

insensitive, but she was too busy, cleaning, cooking, and trying to keep food on the table for a family of eight. Oma would sit with Christine for hours, her soft, papery fingers caressing Christine’s flushed cheeks and brushing stray hair from her furrowed brow.
    But today it was impossible to find relief. Christine stood and looked out the window.
    “Where is everyone?”
    “Maria and the boys went to the railroad tracks to look for coal. And I sent Opa to the fields to find dandelion greens for one last salad before winter.”
    Christine pictured Opa in the countryside wearing his green Tyrolean hat, his hands shaking as he leaned on his hiking pole to pull edible weeds from the cold fall ground. He was probably talking to himself, or singing like he did in the kitchen whenever he fixed a chair or loose cupboard door just so he could be near Oma while she cooked and baked. By the time he finished his repair, there’d be flour on his shirt and nose and cheeks, left there by Oma shooing him out of her way.
    “Should I go look for him?” Christine asked.
    “Maria and the boys will bring him back in time for Mittag Essen, ” Oma said, dropping the wooden darning egg into a tattered sock.
    Christine recognized the sock as her own, one of a thick wool pair she wore to bed in the winter, when she had to wear layers to bed because there was never enough coal to burn through the night. Her Deckbed, bedcover, was getting thin, and would stay that way until they had enough money to buy another bag of goose feathers from Farmer Klause. And if she had to run down the hall in the middle of the night to use the toilet, the frigid floorboards seeped through her socks like ice, making her shiver until she was tucked back beneath her covers. Food was scarcer in the winter too, with no fresh vegetables from the garden, milk from the goats, or eggs from the chickens. Now, without the extra income from their jobs, not only would she be waking up cold, she’d be waking up hungry too.
    She bit her lip and turned away from the window, then went to the sideboard and pulled out eight dinner plates, wondering how long it would be before Isaac read her note. Today at least there was food.

C HAPTER 3
    C hristine took a deep breath and backed up to the dining room door, the oval serving platter full of browned onions and sizzling Bratwurst balanced in her hands. She pressed the handle down with her elbow and entered the noisy room, hoping her mother would be there, home from the Bauermans’ and waiting at the table with the rest of the family.
    In the back of her mind, she knew that Mutti would have come into the kitchen first, to put on her apron and help with the food. But today, she couldn’t be sure of anything. Her thoughts were scattered, and the simplest tasks—setting out silverware, washing the field dandelions Opa had picked, mixing oil and vinegar for the dressing, reheating the meat on the stove—had taken all her concentration. Mutti had been gone twice as long as Christine had expected. What if her mother had changed her mind about giving Isaac the note? What if he wasn’t home? What if he didn’t write back? What if the Gestapo had arrested Mutti for going to his house? What if they found the note, arrested Isaac, and were on their way to arrest her?
    On shaky legs, she carried the serving platter to the dining table. The jumbled clamor of Opa’s deep laugh, Oma and Maria’s banter, Heinrich and Karl’s teasing, and her father’s monotone droned like the chaos of a hundred kindergartners stuck inside on a rainy day. She tripped over Opa’s hiking pole, which he’d propped against the corner of the table, sending it to the wooden floor in a clatter. Clenching her jaw, she set the platter on the table, the din from her family going on and on, as if she were invisible, then she set the hiking pole in the corner and went to the window to check for her mother. Heinrich and Karl were laughing and poking each other, and it