Free The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman

steps leading into the back of the café, the full moon reflected in a puddle at his feet. He stood when he saw her.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    She ran into his arms. “I am now,” she said, breathing hard. The anxiety-filled hours leading up to this moment melted away as he kissed her on the cheek, the forehead, and finally, the mouth. When he released her, she could barely see his face, his familiar features obscured by the deep gloom. Behind him, a blue shaft of moonlight angled across the alley wall. She pulled him toward it.
    “What are you doing?” he said, resisting.
    “Come into the light. I want to see your face.”
    “ Nein. Someone might see us.”
    “Oh,” she said, moving toward him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that.”
    “Did anyone see you?”
    “ Nein. The streets are empty.”
    “And you didn’t tell anyone about this.”
    “Of course not. Don’t you trust me?”
    “It’s not that,” he said, pulling her close again. “Right after your mother left, the Gestapo came to our house. They asked the remaining help for their identity cards to make sure only Jews were left under my parents’ employment. They took my father’s papers, legal files, letters, addresses, everything.”
    “But it won’t stay this way,” she said. “People won’t put up with it. Things will be back to normal soon.”
    “ Nein, Christine, they won’t. My father is trying to talk my mother into leaving for America. My uncle is there, and my grandparents, aunts, and cousins went back to Poland. But she won’t go. Her parents and sisters are still in Berlin, and her brother is in Hamburg. She thinks because we’re half-Christian and German, they won’t do anything to us.”
    “See, she’s right. Why would Hitler do anything to German citizens?”
    “It’s dangerous just for you to be here with me!” he said too loudly. Then, catching himself, he lowered his voice. “There are laws against relationships between Germans and Jews.”
    “I know,” she said, laying her head against his chest. “My mother told me. But it doesn’t make any sense. Like your mother said, you’re half-Christian, and you’re still German. Your grandparents’ religious beliefs can’t change that.”
    “The Nazis don’t see it that way.”
    “What are we going to do?” she said. “I have to see you.”
    “I don’t know,” he said, the unmistakable chafe of frustration in his voice.
    She looked up, trying to read his eyes hidden in his shadow-covered face. Before she knew what was happening, his lips were on hers again, and she trembled with a confusing mixture of fear and ecstasy. When they parted, she spoke first, breathless.
    “We’ll meet right here, every night.”
    “ Nein, it’s too risky.” She didn’t want to let go, but he pulled away and leaned against the stucco wall of the café. She held her breath, dreading what he was going to say next. Finally, he sighed and said, “Once a week will have to be enough. Even then, we’re taking a big risk. But first, you have to tell me that you realize how much danger you’re putting yourself in. I have to know that you understand. You can’t tell anyone, not your best friend, not even your sister.”
    “I won’t tell anyone. And I won’t get caught.”
    He reached for her, and she leaned into him, her hands gripping his muscular shoulders. “When we’re together,” he whispered, “we’ll only see each other, not the ugliness around us.” Then he kissed her again, with a hungry, open mouth. She wanted to disappear into his arms, carried away to another time and place, back to this morning when she’d thought that everything was right with the world. But then he pulled away and said, “You’d better go.”
    “Wait,” she said, reaching into her pocket. “Your stone.”
    “Keep it. So you don’t forget me.”
    “I could never forget you.” She folded the stone into his hand. “You said it was your lucky stone. Right now, you need