No Cherries in This Orchard

by Marina J. Neary

part 1

Alginas village, General District Lithuania,
Nazi occupied — July 1941

“Believe me, you don’t want to burn down this village,” Emilia K. said in her adorably accented German. “It would be needlessly harsh, not to mention impractical.”

Officer Hermann B. regarded the local girl with a mixture of admiration and embarrassment. She looked delectable in her blue linen dress, with thick flaxen braids wrapped around her head. After the June carnage, Hermann could use a pleasant visual for a change.

Truthfully, he did not expect to be smitten when he barged into her yard on his Zündapp motorcycle. Without any curses or pleas for mercy, Emilia greeted him at the door of her farmhouse and invited him inside.

The kitchen smelled of pumpernickel bread, cucumber brine and baked potatoes, which made Hermann hungry and homesick. The smells were alarmingly similar to those of his native Pomerania. His stomach growled at the sight of pork sausages hanging from the ceiling. When was the last time he’d had a decent meal? The army rations consisted of canned meat, which was mostly oversalted lard with a metallic aftertaste, and bland biscuits.

There he was, standing in a cozy kitchen full of delicacies, in the presence of a bosomy twenty-year-old blonde. All in all, she treated him as an undesirable but expected guest, with minimal hospitality. She even offered him some porridge with butter and honey, which Hermann hastily declined, before temptation got the best of him.

He was leaning towards not burning down the village. At the same time, he could not let her think him soft-hearted, so he decided to keep up the menacing façade a bit longer. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t set the whole village aflame?”

Emilia had her answers ready. You see, this this was not her first invasion. Two years earlier, she had been having a very similar conversation with a Russian officer, when the Soviet army snatched the area from Poland. The bloody Bolsheviks wanted to tear down the church to the ground, and Emilia managed to negotiate a compromise. The building was left standing and turned into a diner for the soldiers instead. If she could employ her diplomatic skills with a commie, she could do the same with a Nazi.

“You won’t find here what you’re looking for.”

“And what is it that I’m looking for?”

“Those certain people... Juden? They are lousy farmers, as you know. Decent tradesmen but lousy farmers. They bring droughts and crop failures, as my mother used to joke. They don’t live in villages. They live in towns. When your men sacked Asmena, they got all the Jews. No need for you to rummage through our cellars. It would be a waste of time.”

Emilia thought back to an incident in her childhood, when she was trying to talk her brothers out of raiding the neighbor’s orchard: There are no cherries in this orchard.

“There are no Jews in Alginas,” she concluded. “As you can tell from the name of our village, most people who live here are of Lithuanian stock. Russians and Poles have fought over this patch of land for centuries. They call it Belarus now. It’s not even a real name! We may have lost our language, but not our blood. Balts are practically Aryan.”

Nice try, little girl. Balts were by no means a dirty race, just a dying one. Over the centuries they had allowed themselves to be run over by Slavs and Jews. They were doing a good job dying out on their own. There was no need to make a deliberate effort to exterminate them. Still, a few specimens could be salvaged, and Emilia was a prime candidate for Germanification. She was halfway there already. She certainly had the physique: the right height, the right ratio of muscle and fat. She had the fair complexion. And she spoke the language.

“Where did you learn German?” Hermann asked.

“From my employer, a Polish aristocrat, a very fine lady. She ran a theater on her estate and entertained very important company. Her cellar was filled with French and Italian wines. She had many lovers, men in high places. One of them was a local bishop, who practiced black magic. He had an enchanted book full of snakes. My lady forbade me to open it, but I did anyway.

“I was her housekeeper, and so much more. She never had children of her own, you see, so she was going to leave the whole estate to me. She played several instruments and spoke several languages. She taught me how to play piano and speak German. She was a great admirer of Goethe.”

Emilia turned towards the stove and started stirring the potatoes and bacon in the pot. Bewitched, Hermann watched her hips sway beneath the blue linen.

“Why do you speak of the lady in the past tense?” he asked, trying to remain focused.

“She died of a heart attack two years ago, when Russians trashed her estate. When she saw them smash her beautiful grand piano, she fell on the floor and never got up again. Thank God, she didn’t see what happened next... what they did to me. Such a shame. She was only forty-five.”

Hermann caught himself slipping into the perilous zone of sentimentality. After everything he had seen and done over the past months, stories of violence against blonde girls still disturbed him. He had to remind himself that it was not his job to enforce chivalry on conquered territory.

“Well, you’ll never need to worry about that happening again. No Lithuanian woman will be assaulted by a Russian. This is our territory now. As long as you don’t pull any pranks... I know you won’t. That would be pure stupidity.”

Emilia turned to face him, holding a spoonful of steaming stew to his lips.

“I know it’s too late for my people. We may never get back our language, our customs. But if we must choose between the Union and the Reich... the choice is obvious. If you keep your part of the deal, you can eat this well every night.”

Feeling he had no choice, Hermann opened his mouth and swallowed the stew. The savory mush scalded the inside of his mouth. He had to admit, the taste was worth the burn. The traditional Lithuanian recipe did not disappoint. Hermann could get used to eating it every night. He would not mind trying the famous honey cake shaped like a Christmas tree.

“I’m still alive,” he said. “The stew isn’t poisoned.”

“Why would I poison my German liberator?”

Hermann found it hard to keep a straight face, while the hostess sneered.

He surveyed the house. It could easily fit a dozen of his men.

His wandering gaze fell upon a pair of buckle shoes in the corner. The shoes looked too small to belong to Emilia. Clearly, there was another person inside the house.

The part of the kitchen was separated by a linen curtain. With one sweeping motion, Hermann pulled the curtain aside and saw an adolescent girl sleeping on a long bench underneath a patchwork quilt. “You didn’t tell us we had company,” he said. “Who’s that?”

“My cousin Monica. Please, keep your voice down. She’s ill.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Typhus.”

“All the more reasons for me to burn down the house after all.”

“Then you’d have to set yourself on fire too. You’ve been here long enough to catch the disease. You’re safe. Her fever’s broken. She’s no longer contagious, just tired.”

It was clear that Emilia was not taking his threats seriously. “You say, she’s a relative of yours? She looks nothing like you.”

“A distant one. Our great-grandmothers were half-sisters, if that counts for anything.”

Hermann poked the sleeping girl between the eyebrows and traced her nasal bridge with the tip of his finger.

“That’s not a Baltic nose. Not a Slavic one ither. Where did the bump come from?”

“She got kicked in the face by a horse,” Emilia replied. “A very funny story, actually.”

“You do tell very funny stories,” Hermann agreed. “I cannot wait to hear more. It’s a comfort to know that my men will be fed and entertained under your roof.”

“You can count on that. Have your boys bring produce, if you expect me to cook for your whole crew. I cannot make soup out of stones. I’ll expect barley and canned beef. And grab some chocolate bars while you’re at it. I hear you get them with your rations.”

They were already discussing the menu for the week! Hermann was overjoyed. He could not ask for a better hostess.

“That can be arranged. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

* * *

When the sound of Hermann’s motorcycle engine faded, Emilia pinched the sleeping girl’s knee through the blanket.

“Get up, Hettie. Show’s over. Did you hear me? Get your God-chosen behind out of my bed.”

Hester Margolin kicked the blankets off and leaped to her feet. “Are they gone?”

“For now. They’ll be back by nightfall. Look, you can’t stay in my house.”

Hester exhaled and began buckling her shoes. “I must say, that was quite a show, Millie. When the war is over, you should become an actress.”

“Why wait until after the war? It may never end. I’m acting now, aren’t I?”

“And doing a brilliant job! It’s true what they say. If you find yourself cornered by a man, tell him a sad story. That bit about Russian soldiers? The stupid Fritz ate it up. Speaking of eating, is your stew ready? I’m hungry.”

“It has bacon in it. I thought you didn’t eat bacon. What would your daddy say?”

“Daddy isn’t here.” Hester’s tone changed from giddy to businesslike. “However, he was curious if you were planning on paying back that loan. You know, the one your parents took out back in ’38? Or was it ’37? No rush. Just a gentle reminder. You remember, don’t you?”

How could Emilia forget her parent’s last business transaction? It had happened a year before the Soviet invasion. Over the course of one summer, the crops failed and the horse died. Emilia was seriously contemplating leaving the farm and moving to Vilnius, where she could get a job at a grocery store or a dental clinic. That was what her cousin Monica — the real one — had done. She had taken a cleaning job at a clinic and within six months was married to the head oral surgeon.

Emilia could have easily pulled a similar stunt. But then her father had fallen ill, and she did not have the heart to leave her mother, who was also ailing. Then Jacob Margolin stepped in and offered a rescue loan, with a low interest rate. Now, with both of her parents gone, Emilia was on the hook for their debt. Jacob’s daughter, the little ginger-haired troll, would periodically pop up out of nowhere and remind her of that in her high-pitched voice.

“Hettie, get out. Before I change my mind. If you don’t leave this instant, I’ll tell our German guests that your name isn’t Monica. I’ll also tell them about your brother Benjamin hiding in the hayloft in Varnas.”

“No, you won’t. You’d be admitting you lied the first time. And you know what Germans do to liars.” Hester looked down at her feet. “How am I supposed to run in these shoes?”

Emilia came out with a pair of boiled felt boots and threw them on the floor in front of the Jewish girl. “Try these. My brother’s.”

“These are too big,” Hester said, shaking her fuzzy tendrils. “My feet will slip right out. Look, if you want me to get out of here on time, I need proper footwear.”

Emilia took two dirty dish towels and handed them over to Hester.

“Wrap your feet with these, so the boots fit more snugly.”

“Where do you want me to go?”

“No idea. Into the woods, perhaps. Link up with the partisans. Commie boys are trying to put up a fight.”

“But I don’t know how to shoot.”

“They’ll teach you. They didn’t know either until two weeks ago. They’ll find a way to make you useful. You just cannot stay here.”

“The German will wonder what happened to me.”

“I’ll tell him I kicked you out to make more room for his men. It’s the truth.”

“I see. And what... what if the commies come back? If they find out you’ve been feeding Germans, they’ll shoot you. No, first, they’ll rape you and then they’ll shoot you.”

“They’re not coming back, Hettie. Commies are old news. The Reich is here to stay. I’d better start teaching German to the villagers. I’ll have my hands full.”

Hester’s eyelashes moistened and fluttered. “Oh, Millie... So, we’re on opposite sides now? How did it come to that?”

“We’ve always been on opposite sides, Hettie. I’ve always despised you and yours. It’s no big secret. You are a greedy, scheming lot. You latch onto folks who’re down on their luck and suck their blood to the last drop. You and I were never friends. Now it’s in the open. If we want to survive. And you do want to survive?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then you go find the commies in the woods, and I stay here with the Germans. That’s just the way it must be. This is our life now.”

“If you say so.” Hester emitted an awkward chuckle that turned into a sob.

“What now?” Emilia asked. “Why are you crying? What else is there to cry about?”

“Don’t worry about the debt. My father doesn’t need the money anymore.”

“Since when?”

“My father is dead, Millie. I didn’t tell you right away. He was there when the Germans sacked Asmena.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s dead. He’s a clever, resourceful Jew. He could be hiding in someone’s basement or in the woods. I have faith in him and your brother. Now, get out. I mean it.”

Hester opened her arms with the intention of giving her rescuer one last hug, but Emilia had already turned her back to the Jewish girl. There was porridge to cook, silverware to polish. She had a big crowd coming for dinner.

* * *

Proceed to part 2...