It is probably best to say this now.
I sought out solitude. Happiness was playing in the whir of grass at the uncultivated edges of our village, listening to the ticking of insects, or plunging my feet into fresh snow until my stockings grew wet and my toes numb. Occasionally, in a spirit of contrition after some misdemeanour and knowing it would please my mother, I would run in the road with the children of the other Old Lutherans. There had been some fun in throwing stones and hanging upside down in trees with the boys, but my brothers’ friends did not enjoy being beaten in their races by a long-legged girl, and their sisters had always confounded me. Even as a young child I had felt that girls forsook on whim and offered only inconstant friendship. Allegiances seemed to shift from day to day like sandbanks in a riverbed and, inevitably, I found myself run aground. Better to befriend a blanket of moss, the slip-quick of fish dart. Never was the love I poured into the river refused.
But I was no longer a child, with a child’s freedoms. Common chores and the expectations of the congregation had thrust me back into the company of girls I had known my whole life, but whom I did not understand, for all I recognised their faces. Christiana, Henriette and Elizabeth all seemed to accept and perform their early womanhood with an ease that rendered me fiercely jealous. Their bodies were soft, like mine, but they seemed contained where I was long-boned and sprawling. They were small and neat, and their faces had shed childish plumpness and become youthful simulacra of their mothers’. I had Mama’s name only. I did not even have the good fortune of resembling Papa, although I alone received his height, which amused him. Christiana, Henriette and Elizabeth knew what to say at which occasion, how to make everyone laugh or smile, how to please their parents and themselves. They came together in a dance I did not know the steps to: I was separate even when in their midst. On the few occasions I had revealed something of my true self, seeking communion or recognition, I had been met with wide-eyed confusion or outright scorn. My interests were not theirs. Another girl my age in the village would be yet one more reminder that I was ill-made.
How do they know how to be? I remember wondering as I ripped feathers that night. How does anyone know how to be?
Mama and I stayed at the Radtkes’ well past midnight, helping to clean up the room. Christiana and I swept the floor of discarded quills and washed the glasses and plates, while Mama and Magdalena stuffed the collected down into calico bags.
‘Did you know she’s a witch?’ Christiana whispered under her breath.
‘What? Who?’ My face grew hot.
‘That Wendish woman they were talking about. Frau Eichenwald.’ Christiana glanced at me, her face solemn, dark hair escaping from under her headscarf. ‘They’re all heathens at heart, the Wends. Very superstitious. Mama told me they believe in unholy things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like summoning demons to do your bidding.’
I stared at her. ‘How?’
Christiana rubbed her mouth where a small puff of down had stuck to her bottom lip. ‘How should I know? I’m no Hexe.’
‘No, I know. I just wondered . . .’ I reached out without thinking and gently unstuck the feather from Christiana’s lip. She stared down at my fingers.
‘Your hands smell horrible. Did you slop Hulda before you came?’
‘No.’
Christiana wiped her mouth where I had touched it. ‘Can you please watch where you’re putting your fingers? They’re all greasy.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Never mind.’
‘Christiana, I don’t understand why a witch would want to go to church. Emile said the family wish to attend services.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Hanne. Here, I’ll do it.’ She took the glass and the cloth from me. Her expression was sly. ‘I’m just saying, don’t be surprised if your beloved pig drops down dead.’ She placed the glass on the shelf, then faced me. ‘Wouldn’t want you to lose your best friend.’
The tears I had suppressed all night sprang to my eyes and I turned away, pretending to pick up stray feathers from the table.
‘Goodness, Hanne! I’m only teasing!’ Christiana patted me on the back. ‘You don’t have to cry.’
‘I’m not crying.’ I clenched my teeth together. I want to go home, I thought, sitting down. Please, Mama. Hurry up. I just want to go home.
Christiana sat next to me on the bench. ‘Look, I would have asked you, you know,’ she said softly. ‘But I thought you wouldn’t like it. You don’t like this sort of thing, do you?’
Her hand was still patting my back. I wanted to push it away.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not much.’
The sky was clear and loud with stars as we walked home. I heard them keening as Mama wound her arm in mine.
‘A wonderful evening, Hanne,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘A tonic for the soul.’
‘Do you mean the wine?’ Her breath was heavy with it.
Mama pretended to cuff my ear. ‘No, friendship.’ She paused. ‘What? Are my lips stained?’
‘Yes. The top one.’
Mama scrubbed hard at her lip with a corner of her apron. ‘Is that better?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah. A wonderful night. I’m glad you came. Oh, look, a rabbit.’
I kicked my shoe against the stones in the road and the rabbit skittered away.
Mama looked askance at me. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing.’
We walked on. It was cold.
‘I wasn’t invited to the Federschleissen,’ I said eventually. ‘Other girls were there.’
Mama sighed. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to go.’
‘It’s not that. It’s about being asked.’
‘Hanne . . .’ Mama leaned her head on my shoulder. ‘Maybe if you put a little more effort in.’
‘I do.’
‘No, you don’t. You prefer your own company and you never want to come with me to visit Christiana and the Radtkes when I suggest it.’
‘Frau Radtke doesn’t like me. She always gives me these suspicious little looks.’
‘Hanne, Magdalena has nine people under her roof. I very much doubt she has the time to think anything of you at all.’
I was silent.
‘Christiana is a lovely, modest young woman. If you were friendlier with her, I am sure she would welcome your company.’
‘She doesn’t like me either.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘She doesn’t! She teased me.’ I held my hand to Mama’s nose. ‘Do I smell?’
‘No.’
‘Christiana told me I did. That I smelled! She hates me.’
‘Hanne, stop.’ Mama drew away from me, dropping my arm. ‘Stop this self-pity. You’re spoiling what has been a lovely evening for me.’
We arrived home. As soon as we turned off the lane, my father opened the door.
‘I thought I asked you to fetch your mother,’ he said to me.
‘Yes, well, she’s here now,’ I replied, walking straight past him through the black kitchen and its row of hooks, strung with Wurst, to my bedroom off the corridor.
My mother’s voice was soft behind my back. ‘Leave her, Heinrich. She’s in a foul mood.’