No Cherries in This Orchard

by Marina J. Neary

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

July, 1944

Once again, red flags were flying over the streets. Tanks with red stars. Russian melodies played on button accordions resounded over the barren fields.

Emilia was watching the wild parade from her sinking porch.

“There we go again,” she muttered to the blond toddler clinging to her hip. “Look who’s back. We’re so screwed, Andrius.”

The Reich that was supposed to last for a thousand years had only lasted three. The Soviet Army’s massive offensive known as Operation Bagration resulted in the destruction of the enemy forces. As Germans were retreating, they were burning down farms and settlements. But not Alginas. The small village near Asmena remained intact. All because of the somber, broad-boned girl, who managed to negotiate a fragile truce with the German officer. Because of her crude, unprincipled diplomacy, hundreds of lives had been spared.

A supply truck pulled up to the barn, frighting away the chickens. The driver jumped out and headed towards Emilia.

“Hey, woman! Got food?”

Emilia did not reply. Her silence infuriated the soldier. “What’s wrong? You don’t speak Russian?”

“Not eagerly,” she replied. “What did you expect to find here in terms of food? The ones who came before you took everything. You know? The other ‘liberators.’”

The Russian was not satisfied with the level of hospitality he was receiving. His gaze shifted onto the child, quickly assessing his age and likely paternity.

“Cute kid,” he said with a wink. “Looks a little bored. Maybe he needs a brother or sister.” He squatted in front of the boy and pulled out a caramel from his pocket. “Does it taste as good as German chocolate?”

The child glared at the bait suspiciously and hid behind his mother. The soldier stood up and chuckled.

“Your mama didn’t teach you Russian, did she? You know, there’s a place for children like you. They’ll teach you Russian. There’s a place for the likes of your mama, too. Once the authorities find out what she’s been doing for the past three years, the company she’s been keeping, they’ll send her far, far away, to a frozen kingdom.”

A young female soldier leaped up the stairs. She pulled off her side cap and slapped the soldier on the neck with it.

“Bugger off, Novikov!”

The girl soldier looked about seventeen. She had ginger curls pinned in a bun and a sharp, prominent nose. She must have had a strong hand too, because Novikov winced in pain.

“What was that for?”

“All good things. Mind your business.”

“You know her?”

“She’s my best friend, moron.”

“She’s a Nazi whore. She’s got a kid by a Fritz. You’re friends with a Nazi whore? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Shut your mouth. I’m serious. If you don’t leave her alone, you’ll be the one on a train to Siberia. That’s right, I have enough dirt on you to have you jailed for life.”

Novikov growled a profanity and went inside the barn where his men were rummaging for grain.

Emilia surveyed her freckled defender and let out a hoarse laugh. “Hettie, you sneaky Jew.”

“In the flesh!”

“I knew you’d survive. You found your way in the woods all right? The wolves didn’t eat you?”

“After a few days of wandering. The partisans scooped me up and put me to work.”

“Told you. Come inside. Don’t mind the smell.”

After three years of sleeping outside, Hester was accustomed to the smell of the marshes, burning wood and gunpowder. She was not prepared for the aroma of German occupation: the mixture of musky aftershave, industrial soap, leather and tobacco. The occupants had departed in haste, leaving behind a heap of belts, socks and boots. There was even an open gramophone with a record sitting on the turntable.

The toddler immediately released his mother’s hand and started playing with an empty bowl, completely at ease in his habitual environment.

“Why are you limping?” Hester asked when they were sitting at the table, an apple basket between them.

“My Baltic hips failed me.”

“What do you mean?”

Emilia pulled up her loose blouse to expose a giant vertical scar on her belly.

“Let’s just say, they didn’t perform to the expectation. The bone on the left side cracked. Things... stalled. I was bleeding, and not much else was happening. Hermann called a field surgeon, who held a rug with chloroform over my nose. It didn’t fully knock me out. I could still feel things. I could hear the surgeon. He said everything had to go. He only knew how to cut things out, not how to put them back inside. I’m as hollow as a gutted hen. I’ll never have to endure it again. That’s the good news. I have no use for men, and they have no use for me.”

“Same here,” Hester said, fanning herself with her side cap. “After what I’ve endured in the woods, I’ll never look at another man. Imagine the likes of Novikov around you day and night?” She spat and shuddered.

“What... what exactly is happening around us?” Emilia asked. “What is this land called now?”

“Belarusian Republic, if I heard correctly. Maybe they’ll give us back to Poland someday.”

“If there is a Poland!”

“For now this land is Soviet, and the language is Russian.” Hester reached for a wrinkled apple in the basket. “I guess we have to live by their rules. The old church will be used as a public diner again, unless, of course, the Germans have already destroyed it.”

“No, they didn’t. The church still stands. They tried praying there. Yes, there were a few Catholics among them. They liked the stained glass.”

Hester reclined against the back of the chair, increasing the distance between herself and Emilia. “You know a lot about them, don’t you?”

“Yeah, after three years... you get to know them.” Emilia scanned the joist covered in photos of naked Aryan beauties, then looked Hester in the eye. “What should I expect, Hettie? I heard comrade Novikov babble something about orphanages and camps. What will they do to me? I’m not afraid. I just want to be prepared. What’s in store for Andrius?”

“Nothing bad. I won’t let it.”

“You can’t promise that, Hettie. Maybe it would be better to send Andrius to an orphanage. He’s young enough to forget. Some things are better forgotten. How’s the food in those places? They must have penicillin... in case he gets sick. Medicine is hard to come by around here. You have to scramble for everything. It’s a burden... Not much room for anything else.”

“Don’t talk like that, Millie. It won’t get worse. Not much will change for Andrius. He grew up surrounded by Germans, and now he’ll be surrounded by Russians. Different language, same boorish antics.”

“I could’ve sent him to Germany,” Emilia said, shaking her sloppy braids. “That was an option. He looked good, I was told. Suitable for... you know... assimilation. They’d put him in a boarding school and raise him as one of them. He’d be golden. But Andrius was sickly. He wouldn’t survive the trip. So, he’s stuck here. This is no place for a child.

“I don’t like it here, either. I don’t care if they take me away. I saved the village. What for? I catered to Germans, so Russians would have a place to return to. This isn’t my land anymore. Let them send me to Siberia. I’m not cooking and laundering for them in this house. I’d rather face the firing squad. Let Andrius go to the orphanage. Maybe some Red Army officer will adopt him. If this is the new regime, if it’s here to stay...”

Hester could not argue. The grim scenario Emilia had outlined for herself was all too likely. She had an idea of what was done on the exposed collaborators on the liberated territories. She also had a feeling that Emilia would not mind being separated from her son. At least, she would not fight terribly if the authorities took him to the orphanage.

“Millie, if it makes you feel any better... I buried my daughter in the woods,” Hester said, compelled to share her own tale of maternal ambivalence. “She was born at six months. Took a few breaths, whimpered, and that was it. I was relieved. The belly slowed me down.

“Novikov dug the grave. One useful thing he did. Maybe he felt guilty. You have nothing to fear from him. He’s all bark and no bite. If he gets out of line, I’ll smack him on the nose. That’s the only language he understands. Bloody Russians...”

“Bloody Russians,” Emilia echoed.

There was work to be done. The house was waiting for the new tenants. The stuff left over from the Germans would have to be put away. There were some perfectly good belts in the pile. Leather knows no political affiliation.

Emilia stood up on a chair and started peeling off the photos of Aryan girls.

“Maybe you should leave them,” Hester said. “They brighten the place. Make it a little festive. Look at their undergarments. Can you imagine wearing black lace? Wouldn’t it scratch your skin?”

“I don’t want this filth here. I’ve been looking at it for three years. I think I’ll toss them in the furnace.”

“No, don’t burn them. I’ll take them to the barn. I’m sure Novikov and the boys will want them.”

* * *

Frankfurt University Hospital, 1984

Sixteen-year-old Johanna B. was waiting outside the surgical unit, waiting for her grandfather to be wheeled out. Unlike her older sister, she was not afraid of hospitals. She did not mind doing her algebra homework in the waiting area. The apple strudel in the cafeteria was pretty good. The jolly fat lady behind the counter always let Johanna pick the slice with the most filling.

“Kids are so selfish these days,” the lady growled. “You’re not like the rest. I like you. I like your grandfather, too. He has nine lives, like a cat.”

Hermann B. was a frequent visitor at the Frankfurt University Hospital. Cancerous lumps kept popping up in random places, and the surgeon kept cutting them out. This time a section of his liver was removed.

When they wheeled him into recovery, the seventy-year-old patient demanded chocolates. Good chocolates, damn it. Scho-Ka-Kola brand, the original formula. Not the waxy garbage they put out now, with nuts and strawberry filling. He wanted the old-fashioned chocolates of his youth: hard, bittersweet, caffeine-infused, in a red and gold canister, just like the ones he got as part of his military rations in the 1940s.

Johanna did not like it when her grandfather brought up his past. And he usually did not, at least not in a sober state. Only when alcohol or opioids removed his inhibitions.

“Where will I get you these chocolates, Opi?” Johanna asked. “They don’t make them anymore.”

“Too bad. Back in my day, they were currency. I bribed many whores with them. Luftwaffe pilots lived on Scho-Ka-Kola. Tank crews. U-Boat crews. How else do you stay awake and alert? How do you expect to defeat the enemy?”

The fidgety teenager glanced over her shoulder, making sure nobody was listening. “Don’t get worked up, Opi. Your stitches will pop.”

Hermann gave her a look of contempt. “You’re useless. What are you even doing here? Go home.” He closed his eyes and fell back against the flat hospital pillows. “Sometimes I wonder...”

“About what, Opi?”

“I wonder what happened to those two Eastern girls.”

“What girls?”

“The Balt and the Jew. They hated each other... but they hated me a little more. They were around your age. The Balt protected the Jew. She thought I didn’t know. I had a canister of Scho-Ko-Kola in my pocket. I could’ve it given it to the Jewish girl, for the road. I wasn’t going to shoot her. God knows, I’d shot enough of them. If more people discovered Scho-Ko-Kola, there would be no war.”