The Baker's Daughter (14 page)

Reba crunched a malted milk ball. Maybe she'd surprise Riki and make Momma's southern-fried chicken, she thought. She popped another Whopper. But then, she didn't know if Riki liked southern-fried chicken, and she hadn't a clue what went into the recipe besides the obvious—chicken. She was pretty sure you couldn't microwave it either. Reba took a sip of wine, closed the cupboard. No, preparing a bad meal would merely make matters worse.

She went upstairs, peeled off her clothes, and slipped into the bath. The piping hot water dissolved the pink and blue sugar dye from her palms. Her breasts bobbed and looked bigger in the clear water, but so did her thighs and stomach. She considered it a fair trade-off. She set her tumbler on the tub ledge and dipped down deeper until she was eye level with the pirouettes of steam rising off the water like dancing phantoms. The chain around her neck glistened below the surface. She held the silver band up and swung it back and forth like a hypnotist pendulum.

“Don't sit under the apple tree,” she hummed to herself.

She thought of Elsie all dressed up to spend Christmas with the Nazis. She said some were “even good.”
Good
Nazis? Wasn't that an oxymoron?

“Sounds like someone's had a good day,” said Riki. He leaned against the bathroom door.

Reba dropped the ring with a plunk and brought her knees to her chest. “I didn't hear you come in.”

He sat on the tub's edge. “It's nice to see you …”

“Of course it is. All guys like naked chicks.” She wrapped her arms around her shins. A wave of hair stuck to her cheek.

Riki pulled it behind her ear. “Well, that's true, but I was going to say
happy
. It's nice to see you happy.”

He had brought the metallic coolness of November in with him. Her skin goose-bumped. She let go of her legs and stretched them out long to the spout side where the water was piping hot. Her toes tingled.

She offered her tumbler to him. “Got old chard on tap.”

“I'll pass. It's been a long one.” He yawned. “We have a young mother and her two kids in detention. Found them over on the Westside. A resident called—some lady from North Carolina.”

“God, I miss their pork. Have you ever had Carolina barbecue? It's nothing like Texan. More sauce, less smoke,” said Reba, trying to head the conversation off at the pass. Every day, Riki walked in the door with another heartbreaking story; she didn't want to be weighed down by any more sadness tonight.

“The kids were so scared,” Riki continued. “I know it took that woman all she had to get across.” He shook his head. “This is one family I wish to God I didn't have to send back.”

Reba toed the spout. “It's your job. It's for the good of our country.” She repeated what he'd said to her a hundred times before.

“I know but lately …” He thumbed a twitch between his eyes. “It isn't the same as it was a couple years ago—groups of men sneaking over to make some money and then go back home. Now it's families. Women and children. They're all really no different from you or me, only they were born on the wrong side of a river.”

“You
are
different.” She sat up too fast, and water sloshed over the side of the tub. “You're an American with a college education. They're illegals breaking the law. You can't categorize yourself the same. You've got to … I don't know, emotionally distance yourself. It's like me with my interviewees. I can't get my job done if I make it personal.” Her nipples grew hard from the cool air, so she slid back down in the bath.

The faucet
drip-dropped
. She sipped the wine.

She'd done her research on immigration legislation. That was how she'd met Riki, after all; and hadn't he been the one to go on record that the law could not be bent for anyone? He was a man who saw the world in black and white, and she'd always found security in that. Suddenly shifting to gray scale was discomforting.

“You've got to step away. You can't get all touchy-feely with people,” she
went on. “
You're
the one who ends up hurt in the end—or at least that's been my experience.” She squeezed liquid soap into a pink sponge. “Get my back for me?”

He took the sponge. “That's a bit naive, never mind insensitive, don't you think?”

She pushed a barge of bubbles to the side. “It's the truth.”

“Is it?” He scrubbed her shoulders in circles. “Sounds more like fear. If you put up fences around yourself, you're doing more harm than good. Everybody needs somebody, Reba.”

“Very John Wayne of you,” she said and turned completely around so her back was to him. “Sure, everybody needs somebody, but it doesn't mean
you
have to be their hero.” She swallowed hard.

Part of her wished it could be that simple—to ride off into the sunset without fear of disappointment—but she'd learned a long time ago that trust was made of fragile stuff. The heroes galloping across the horizon appeared tarnished and mediocre at best in the lamplight of their living rooms.

“Maybe I want to.” Riki dipped the sponge in the water and squeezed it down her spine.

“Then you're in the wrong line of work.” Reba blew out all the air inside her chest, then took the sponge from his hand. She didn't want to get into this tonight. She hadn't the energy. “That German lady I interviewed today at the bakery.” She changed the subject and scrubbed her ankles. “She told me she was involved with a Nazi during the war.”

Riki sat back. “She's a Nazi?”

“Is? I don't think so.
Was?
I'm not sure.”

“Either you're a racist supremacist or you aren't. There's no in between.”

Here was the Riki she knew. “There isn't?” She'd said it as a statement, but it came out more like a question.

Riki turned her to face him. “No,” he said firmly.

“Right, I totally agree.” She nodded. Her head was fuzzy warm. “But doesn't everyone kind of hold their own above the others?” She swam her hand through the suds.

“We're all human, Reba. We're all people.”

“People betray each other.”

The diamond solitaire glinted in the bathwater. Riki hooked his finger through the chain. “It'd look better on your finger, you know.”

She pulled away, and it fell back into the soapy water. “I don't want to get into this again.”

“I'm just saying—”

“I
know
what you're saying.” She washed her legs, the stubble snagging the loofah sponge.

“I think I've been pretty understanding, Reba.” He stood. “But there comes a time when we all have to make a choice, like you said.”

She kicked the water. “I made my choice. Look! I'm here. Why do you keep pushing?”

She scrubbed hard until a pink rash bloomed on her kneecaps; her breath came fast.

“It's been almost four months and we haven't set a date, haven't even talked about setting a date. Shoot, I don't even think you've told your family.”

She ignored him and continued. The water splashed up the sides of the tub.

“Talk to me, Reba.”

She stopped. What could she say? She loved him, but this wasn't the life she wanted. He said not to put up fences, but that was exactly what he'd done
to
her. He'd anchored her to this border town, trapped her inside his barbed-wire perimeter. From the moment she'd accepted his proposal, she'd felt the urge to leave, to run as fast as she could. She might've abandoned the old Reba in Virginia, but this new Reba didn't feel right either. It was like Jane said: she was stuck between. Her mind bounced from east to west, from who she was to who she wanted to be. The only thing stopping her crossing was Riki and that ring roped round her neck.

“I need a Motrin,” she said instead and rubbed her temples.

Riki sighed. “You need to make a decision. We can't go on like this.”

Reba counted the popping bubbles on the water surface, feeling as heavy as a stone.

Dear Elsie
,

A proposal from an officer! Of course you'll accept. Elsie, I am so proud. And jealous, I'll admit. I know it's all for the good of the nation, but I don't think it's disloyal to wish I'd meet a man (whatever age) looking for a wife. We're making Germans not love, so they keep reminding me. But I do miss the latter and often wonder how different my life might be if Peter were alive. I would have been like you, an SS bride. Of course, if I had known then that I was pregnant with Julius, I would have insisted we marry before he left for Munich. But that kind of thinking does me no good. He is gone. No use fighting fate's will. Everything happens for a reason. Isn't that what the minister used to say?

I haven't been to church in some time. The Program doesn't approve of religious sentimentalities, but I stil wear my pewter cross. The ones Papa gave us that Easter when Herr Weiss accidentally threw his mother-in-law's table in the
Osterfeuer
bonfire. Though we all know he did it out of spite because she wouldn't let him smoke his pipe in the house! I laugh still remembering her face
.

That's when I met Peter, too—–at the spring festival. He was so handsome in his Hitler Youth uniform and so eager to show all the girls his medal for best class marksman. What a wolf in sheep's clothing! In Gymnasium, he was the quiet boy who always smelled of his mother's breakfast oranges. Then he went off to the Hitler Youth and came back… changed. A man, ready to conquer the world. It's odd how you can be with someone day in and day out and never notice until lightning seems to strike their face. Then you see what you never saw before, and no matter
how hard you try, you can't go back to seeing nothing again. Listen to me. I'm rambling. Yes, I loved Peter, but there's so much more to it than that. At least that's been my experience. It's nice that Josef and Papa are friends. Mutti is right. This is a good match, Elsie
.

Today, I bought beautiful fabric for a new dirndl. My friend Ovidia works at the merchant shop, and she says it's handwoven from Italian lamb's wool. I've sent a portion of it to Mutti to make the skirt. She's so good at embroidering. I haven't decided which I'd like, red poppies or white edelweiss. Which do you think? Perhaps Mutti should choose, though she's always said red is my best color. For my part, I'm sewing a brown bodice to match either. I hope to have it done in time for our spring visit. Mutti may be able to sew a dirndl in a week, but I never had her dexterity or your aptitude in the trades. As well, my body is still swollen from the twins, and I want the dress to fit properly. The Program suggests I begin weaning them early, so hopefully that will help
.

The girl is doing wonderfully, rosy and round as a cherub. The boy, however, has not turned out as hoped. He's physically substandard but good-natured. He never cries or fusses like his sister. The nurses say he lies in his crib all day without a sound, and sometimes they forget he's there at all. During feedings, the girl gobbles up nearly all I have to give, but the boy only sleeps at my breast. They are such opposites. It's hard to believe they shared the same womb. The doctors are concerned about the boy. While I know he is not mine but a child of the Fatherland, I can't help wanting to protect him. I feel every bone in his body when I hold him. I named him Friedhelm until he is well enough for the Program to christen him with a new one
.

I'm sorry to hear that a Jew spoiled your Christmas. I wonder why they had him come at all. Why not a German youth? We have many boys here who can sing like larks. But I suppose they didn't want to risk transportation at such a time
.

Word from the Ardennes reached us with more news of lost Program fathers. They have closed down many of the other Lebensborn homes and brought the children here. I now share a room with a mother from Luxembourg named Cata and one from Stuttgart named Brigette. Though Cata is new to Steinhöring, Brigette has been here since the Program's inception
.

Awarded the Silver Mother's Cross last year for her abundant fertility, she's a favorite companion for many admired SS officers. She's had seven perfect children and calls them by number rather than name. I'm uncertain if that is because their christened names pain her or if she is so wholly committed to the nation that the names do not matter. Brigette used to have the largest private room on the compound, but it has since been turned into a nursery for incoming children
.

We are not friends. Our relations were strained after Julfest when Major Günther chose my companionship over hers. He was one of her regulars, apparently. So I am making the best of this difficult time. I try to stay out of Brigette's way and make Cata as comfortable as possible in her new surroundings. She has a skittish personality, speaking her thoughts when she oughtn't. Brigette says she's as pestering as a magpie. But if Cata is a magpie, then Brigette is a griffon vulture
.