The Plum Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

around the corner onto the main thoroughfare that intersected the top of her street. Kate was impulsive, so it shouldn’t have surprised Christine to find her kissing a boy she barely knew. But there was something else about Kate’s reckless behavior that bothered her, and, at first, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Then it hit her. Finding Kate alone with Stefan, the two of them acting as if they’d been dating for months, made Christine realize that Kate would never understand how much it had meant when Isaac kissed her for the first time. Maybe I’ll just keep it to myself for now, she thought, turning at the top of Schellergasse Strasse.
    A manure-filled wagon harnessed to a team of oxen filled the steep, narrow street, blocking her way. Christine stopped in her tracks and groaned, thinking about how much time she would lose having to go around the block. The farmer, in overalls and muddy boots, was out of his driver’s seat, pushing against the yoke and thrashing the animals with a leafy branch. The oxen snorted and stomped their hooves, struggling to pull the overloaded wagon up the hill, but they were only able to move it a few inches at a time. To Christine’s relief, the farmer saw her and paused, waiting for her to pass. She nodded her gratitude and hurried forward, worried that her hair was going to stink like manure. She squeezed between the wagon and the weathered barn that abutted her parents’ woodshed at the barn’s back corner, careful to stay as far away from the sour-smelling muck as possible.
    Then she noticed that sometime since she’d left that morning, a poster had been attached to the barn’s dry timbers. “First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Law,” the title said in Gothic letters. After clearing the wagon, she waited for the farmer to inch the oxen forward, then went back to read the black-and-white poster.
    Beneath the title, in bold print: “No Jew can be a Reich Citizen.” The center of the poster showed crude outlines of men, women, and children, below the questions: “Who is a German citizen? Who is a Jew?” The human figures were shaded black for Jew, white for German, and gray for “Mischlinge” or mixed race. Lined diagrams showed family trees, explaining who would be considered German or Jewish by the crossing of blacks, whites, and grays. Beneath that were drawings of banks, post offices, and restaurants, with signs that read: “Verboten!” with black and gray figures standing outside the doors. And then the warning: “Any person who acts contrary to the prohibition of section 1, 2, or 3 will be punished with hard labor, imprisonment, and/or a fine.” Below that was paragraph after paragraph of fine print.
    Isaac had told her that things were changing for Jews, but until now, she hadn’t taken it seriously. Life in their hometown had always been ordinary and peaceful, and she didn’t see how having a new chancellor could change that.
    At first, Isaac’s father and other visiting members of the family—uncles, grandfathers, and cousins—had agreed Hitler was another dirty politician, put into power by President von Hindenburg, Vice Chancellor von Papen, and conservative members of the aristocratic ruling class, along with big bankers and industrialists. These men wanted Hitler in a position to put an end to the republic and to return Germany to the days of the Kaiser. But then the chancellor had become dictator, putting himself and his followers above the law, and now, they were using that power to strip the Jews of their rights. In the past few months, anyone considered a Jew had been required to carry an identity card and register all wealth, property, and businesses. And as a result, in the Bauerman household, the loud exchanges had changed into hushed whispers, because it was too dangerous to discuss such things out loud.
    Christine stared at the poster with clenched teeth, feeling angry pressure beneath her jaw. The manure wagon had crested the