“Who did this to you and why?” Oma had asked, but Lillian refused to tell, not wanting to call Oma a liar and afraid to hear the truth come from her mouth. It pricked her deep within, the way the truth does, and she didn’t want to believe until she had facts to back it up.
But from that day forward, Richelle’s accusation remained in the back of her mind—“You’re not supposed to be here.” This became her quest: to find out exactly who she was and where she was supposed to be. Lillian made few friends in school, preferring the company of her oma and opa, the friendly customers of the bakery, the faraway characters in her storybooks, and her tante Elsie’s letters.
Elsie and Albert lived in the United States, a place called Texas where cowboys rode white stallions and Indians made colorful shawls dyed with berry juices. Those were the stories from Elsie’s letters. They were full of adventure and word pictures: the desert sun oozing into the horizon like a giant fried egg; lizards with iridescent green scales lounging in the shade of porcupine cacti; the Rio Grande River snaking through the sand dunes, alive with reptiles and water fowl come to quench their thirsts in the only basin for miles. When she was very young, Lillian begged Oma to read from the letters at bedtime. Under the whispered spell of storytime, she dreamed of Elsie and wondered how the small vanillekipferl moon hanging over her Zugspitze could possibly be the same great spotlight in the Texan sky.
Everything Elsie described sounded bigger and more wondrous than anything she’d ever seen in Germany. Sometimes Lillian could barely contain her excitement when Elsie wrote about galloping on horseback across the plains, a dust storm at her back and thunder clapping above. She’d squealed aloud under her eiderdown, and Oma would shush her not to wake Opa. Early on, Oma warned Lillian not to mention the letters to anyone. “Some things are secrets,” she explained and Lillian agreed. She treasured this confidence between them.
Opa never spoke of Elsie, and before her brother Julius went off to boarding school, he told Lillian that he doubted Elsie would ever set foot in Germany again. A stern young man, she’d always been afraid of crossing him. He rarely came home from Munich anymore, and though she’d never say it aloud, Lillian didn’t miss him. She did miss Elsie, though. An aunt she’d never met in the flesh. She confessed to Oma that one of her nightly prayers was for Elsie to walk in the bäckerei door. Oma said she prayed the same thing.
Whenever an unknown woman entered the shop, Lillian’s heart would pitter-patter so that she could barely take the order; inevitably, the customer would smile at her flightiness, pay, and leave. Lillian wished she knew what the adult Elsie looked like so she could avoid such crescendos of hope. There was only one photograph of her mother and aunt in the house—a picture Oma kept of the girls sitting beneath the branches of a cherry tree. Lillian had studied the image so thoroughly that she knew the exact count of freckles on her mother’s cheek, the exact number of teeth in Elsie’s smile. For the rest, she relied on the letters.
In them, Elsie was kind, loving, and fearless; and she knew more stories about her mother than anyone in the world. She wrote about the cherry tree photograph, sharing Hazel’s secret wishes and how they came to be; of Hazel’s love of music and beautiful dresses; how she was the most graceful woman in Garmisch and the most faithful sister. It made Lillian long for a sister of her own, and she often pretended the Toni doll Elsie sent from America was her younger sibling. Oma told her to be grateful for her brother Julius, and she would’ve found that easy to do if he had shown an ounce of sibling affection. So she clung to what she knew for certain: half of her was unquestionably Schmidt.
Opa put cheesecloth over the cutouts and set the tray aside. Though he never spoke their names, Elsie and Albert appeared on the tree branches every year, reminding Lillian and everyone else that despite it all, they were family.
Opa turned. “Ach, Lillian! You surprised me.”
“I’m sorry, Opa. Oma told me to help you.”
“Doch!” He clapped his hands together. “As you can see, I’m finished. We just have to put away these scraps.” He began to pull the remnants of the gingerbread into a ball. “Come, help me.”
Lillian went to his side. He smelled of cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom, and she leaned close to his side; he smelled like Christmas.
“Here, have a taste.” He pinched a piece of dough and popped it in her mouth.
Molasses sweet and spicy. Lillian let it dissolve on her tongue and slip down her throat. “It’s good.”
He kissed her forehead. “Don’t tell Oma. She’ll be cross with me for giving you treats before bed.”
She smiled. She was good at keeping secrets.
That night, Oma sat up in Lillian’s room darning her wool school stockings. Lillian’s feet were cold beneath her bed covers, and she wanted to hear a story.
“Would you lie with me a little, Oma? I can’t sleep yet,” pleaded Lillian. She knew she was too old for bedtime stories, but hoped Oma would relent.
Oma sighed, set down her needle and thread, and slipped beneath the covers.
Lillian laced her feet between hers.
“You’re freezing, child!” Oma fluffed the blankets around them.
“Are you excited for Christmas?” asked Lillian.
“Ja,” said Oma. “Are you?”
Lillian tucked the covers under her chin and nodded. “Do you think we’ll get a letter from Tante Elsie?”
Oma pulled Lillian into the crook of her arm. “She always writes on Christmas.”
Lillian knew that to be true but wanted Oma’s reassurance.
“I bought the carp today. Fat as a giant pinecone. Did you see?”
Lillian shook her head. “But I did see Opa making our lebkuchen hearts.” She giggled and buried her face against Oma.
“Did you now.” Oma took a deep breath, her body rising and falling heavily.
“Do you think Julius will mind if I have his, since he’s staying at school this year?”
“You’ll have to ask Opa,” replied Oma. “Now, all warm. It is time for sleeping.” She leaned forward to stand, but Lillian stopped her.
“Don’t go yet, please. Would you read to me—the letter about the day Tante Elsie helped Onkel Albert at the hospital? The one where she gave a candy stripe to the boy with a broken arm.”
“Candy striper. In America, they are like nurses, but their job is to comfort the sick,” explained Oma. She reached beneath the mattress for where they kept the wad of letters. “What was the date?”
“It was summer,” said Lillian. “Because she said they had their first summer storm that cracked flaming icicles across the sky.” Her heart sped up reciting Elsie’s words. “The boy had been so scared, he fell off his chair and broke his arm.”
“Ack ja,” said Oma. “It was August, I believe.” She flipped through the envelopes until she found the one. “August 3.” The pages crinkled against her fingers. “Dear Mutti and Lillian,” she began.
Lillian closed her eyes, snuggled down close, and let her imagination drift across the ocean.
Chapter Forty-six
56 LUDWIGSTRASSE
GARMISCH, GERMANY
OCTOBER 5, 1967
Dear Tante Elsie,
Thank you again for the McCall’s dress pattern and the Beatles album you sent. We got a new radio station here. It is called the British Broadcasting Corporation. Have you heard of it in America? It plays all the good music, even Jim Morrison. And today, Tony Blackburn (the announcer on Radio 1) was talking about everything that’s going on over there with you. Is it true that American mobs are protesting in the streets? It is hard to imagine, but Oma says it’s the way of war. She worries about you. I explained to her that Vietnam is where the fighting is and that is far away from Texas. Still, she tells me to write you to keep baby Jane and Onkel Albert close by and the doors locked tight.