ELSIE’S GERMAN BAKERY
2032 TRAWOOD DRIVE
EL PASO, TEXAS
NOVEMBER 10, 2007
A Friday wedding kept the bakery busy the rest of the week so Reba came back Saturday, determined to get her quotes and, perhaps, a few more lebkuchen.
When the bell over the door jingled, Jane turned from the shelf of hot loaves and rolls. “Well, lookie here. Good to see you.” She came round the register and hugged Reba.
Shocked stiff at first, Reba quickly relaxed in her embrace. The scent of Jane’s perfume—honeysuckle and sandalwood—reminded her of childhood summers at the beach. She and Deedee spent whole days snacking on sweet flower stems and building driftwood castles on the dunes.
“You too,” she said and rocked back on her heels, eager to shake off the nostalgic ache.
She hadn’t returned any of Deedee’s calls since Riki’s proposal. Each time Deedee rang, Reba convinced herself the timing wasn’t right; she was too busy to chat; she’d call back later, then didn’t. The weeks added up, and soon so much had happened that it seemed a daunting task to talk at all—too much to cover in a single conversation. I’ll e-mail Deedee tomorrow, she promised herself.
“You’ve been busy?” she asked Jane.
“Yep, a little gal we’ve known since she was in diapers hitched up with a feller in Cruces. We do wonderful wedding cakes.” Jane winked. “Give us the date of yours and we’ll have it ready.”
“It’d be stale by the time I got around to it,” said Reba.
“We’ll double the fondant. Locks it up airtight. The inside keeps light as a feather. Honestly. One of our brides kept a piece in her refrigerator—not even the freezer—until her third anniversary and said it tasted as good as the day she married! And that’s no bull.”
A laugh popped up Reba’s throat, and she liked the sound of it. “I bet they had wicked stomachaches that night.”
“Maybe so, but they sure as heck didn’t go to sleep empty.” Jane turned to the kitchen. “Mom! Reba from Sun City is here for the interview.”
A Mexican man sat at a café table with a gooey chocolate twist and a cream coffee.
“This is Sergio,” introduced Jane. “He’s a regular.”
Sergio nodded.
“You need any more sugar, suga’?” she asked.
“I got all the sweetness I can handle.” His heavy Spanish accent made the sentence musical.
Reba felt a sudden undercurrent in the room like when she rubbed her socked feet along the carpets in the winter. “How long has he been coming?” she asked Jane and took a seat.
“Hmm—how long have you been eating my rolls, Serg?”
“Since you started counting your mama’s nickels and dimes.” He dipped his pastry in the coffee.
Jane laughed. “That was a test, and he did a good job slipping the noose.”
Reba’s muscles tensed slightly at the idiom.
“Since I was nineteen,” Jane continued. “I remember the first time he walked in—didn’t speak a lick of English, never mind German. He pointed at a roll and handed me change, half of which was in pesos.” She slapped her thigh.
“That’s a long time. I’ve never known anybody outside my family that long,” Reba said.
“Time sneaks up on you. You’re still young, you’ll see.” Her gaze drifted to Sergio, then quickly back to Reba. “Mom will be out in a minute.”
On Jane’s way to the kitchen, she stopped to hand him a napkin. Though he hadn’t asked for one, he took it with a smile and wiped melted chocolate from his lips.
Reba set the table. Steno pad, pen, recorder. While she waited, she tried to imagine the young girl from the photograph over sixty years later.
Then, through the door frame came Elsie. Her snowy hair was bobbed short, the sides pinned back with brown bobby pins. She was cozy plump through the hips but narrow in the waist and wore a contemporary pair of khaki pants with a cream blouse rolled up at the sleeves. Even at seventy-nine, she was stylish and determined in her gait. She carried a plate with two slices of cinnamon raisin bread and set it in the middle of the table.
“Hallo.” She stuck out her hand. “I am Elsie Meriwether.”
Reba shook. “Reba Adams.”
Elsie’s grip was firm but warm. “Nice to meet you. I apologize for not being able to speak the last time you visited.” She spoke clearly despite the German clip.
Elsie sat and nudged the plate closer to Reba. “Jane says you do not eat milk, so I made this without. It is good.”
Reba didn’t want to start the interview on the wrong foot. “Thank you.” She picked up a slice and ate. “Yes,” she mumbled. “It’s very tasty.” And she wasn’t lying.
“Gut,” said Elsie. She broke off a piece and popped it in her mouth. “So you would like to talk to me about being old.”
Reba swallowed too fast and choked a little. “No, no. I’m doing a Christmas story.” She composed herself. “A cultural profile on holiday celebrations around town.”
“Germans celebrate like everyone else. Christmas Eve we eat and drink. Christmas Day we do it again. I think this is how the Mexicans and Americans do as well, correct?” Elsie arched her eyebrow at Reba, challenging her.
Reba tapped her pen on the steno. It wasn’t exactly a quotable statement. At least not for the angle she wanted. “Do you mind if I turn this on?” she asked and thumbed the recorder button.
Elsie shrugged. “As long as you promise not to put it on the Internet. I’m not so old that I have not seen the horse manure they put there. Nothing but naked bosoms and foul language. I was looking for sticky buns, and you would not believe what came onto my computer screen.”
Reba coughed.
“In all my years, I have never seen such a thing.”
“Mom,” said Jane from behind the register. “Reba doesn’t want to hear about that.”
“I won’t mention what happened when I tried to find a chocolate jelly-roll recipe.”
Reba turned her face to the steno pad to hide her smile.
“Mom!”
“I’m just telling Missus Adams, I don’t want anything to do with such things.”
Reba cleared her throat. “I promise. No Internet. And, please, call me Reba.”
Reba pushed the button on the recorder. It was time to get answers. “So you’re from Garmisch, Germany, correct? Jane talked to me a little about that photograph over there.” Reba pointed across the room. “The one of you on Christmas Eve.”
Elsie broke off a raisin-laden corner of the bread. “That old thing. I’m surprised the sun has not faded it to nothing. Probably best if so. That was a lifetime ago. I left Germany soon after.”
“Did you ever go back?” asked Reba. “Didn’t you miss home?”
Elsie met her gaze and held it. “People often miss things that don’t exist—miss things that were but are not anymore. So there or here, I’d still miss home because my home is gone.”
“Do you consider the United States your new home?”
“Doch! Texas is where I am, where my daughter is and my husband is buried, but it is not home. I won’t find home again—not on this earth. That is the truth.”
Reba inhaled deep and licked her lips. She needed a new approach. This was not coming easily. “Could you tell me about a typical Christmas in Germany?” She decided to be direct, cut and dry, get the information.
“I could not.” Elsie popped another piece and chewed. “I grew up during the wars, so there were never typical Christmases.”
“Okay.” Reba drew a circle on her pad—a bull’s-eye she needed to hit. “How about that Christmas.” She nodded to the photo. “Can you just tell me about that one?”
Elsie’s gaze moved past Reba to the wall and the photograph hanging slightly askew on its nail.