“Probably he had a Luger anyway,” Fritz offered. “Do you think he still has it?”
“No,” Marianne said firmly. “No Germans can carry arms. Now, could we sit and eat our supper in peace?” She turned to Martin, who had remained quiet through all of this. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
After dinner, Marianne climbed the stairs to see Benita.
She had moved her to a cot in the warren of servants’ rooms above the kitchen, where they all slept. These were the best rooms in the castle now. During the cold months, they would be warmed by the fire from the giant oven below. The formerly grand bedroom suites at the front of the castle were chilly and dim, littered with the hacked-up remains of ancient curtained beds. Marianne had been appalled to discover this when she arrived. Who would have chopped apart such antiques? In the great hall too the grand piano was mangled, its keyboard stripped of ivory, its wires splayed like a giant spider. Possibly the Nazis had done this; for a short time, before the end of the war, an SS unit had taken up residence in Burg Lingenfels. One corner of the courtyard was still stacked with their empty tins of meat and cherries and white asparagus. But it was also possible that the citizens of Ehrenheim were responsible for the destruction. In the last days of war, after the Nazis had left, many of the townspeople had holed up in the empty castle to hide from the approaching Americans, who they believed would rape and murder them. And Marianne would not put such destruction past the Ehrenheimers. They were an insular bunch, all married to one another’s cousins and uncles and brothers, and locked into the mind-set of medieval serfdom in which the castle folk were their oppressors. They had all been ardent Nazis, as far as she could tell. And to them, Marianne and her children were the family of a traitor, a man who had tried to kill their beloved Führer, in addition to being born von Lingenfels.
Marianne paused and reached into her pocket for the letter she was delivering. It felt cool and soft with wear and sent a rush of adrenaline through her. She rapped lightly on Benita’s door.
Lying in the narrow army cot Marianne had arranged, Benita no longer appeared the rosy German peasant M?dchen she had once been. Marianne had chopped her blond hair to help protect her from germs, and shorn like this Benita looked thin and world-weary—her full cheeks hollowed, the color of paper, and her eyes huge and dark. She was still beautiful, but now in a painful, trampled way.
Marianne placed the tray of broth and water beside the bed, and Benita’s eyes fluttered open.
“Is Martin all right?” she asked, and immediately began to cough.
“Shh.” Marianne raised a finger to her lips. “He’s fine. He and Fritz have been up to all sorts of healthy little-boy things.”
“He isn’t,” Benita began but was again interrupted by her cough. “He isn’t sick?”
“Perfectly healthy,” Marianne said. She did not mention the fall.
Benita nodded, but her eyes remained anxious.
Before the war, Marianne had imagined that Benita would become mother to a horde of children, a robust and placid matriarch. Connie had always wanted a big family: five or six children at least, a different experience from his own as an only child. What had happened in the meantime? Miscarriages? Infertility? Connie had never confided in Marianne about his marriage, and she wasn’t close enough to Benita for her to do so. How ironic that she, bony, flat-chested Marianne, would be the more fertile of the two women.
Marianne sat on the edge of the cot and lifted a spoonful of broth to Benita’s lips, the last of the bouillon they had smuggled out of Weisslau.
Dutifully, Benita opened her mouth.
As Marianne leaned in to spoon the soup, the letter crinkled. It was time, certainly, to give it to her. But it was so difficult to part with! Connie had left it with her the last time she saw him: To my wife, Benita Fledermann was written on the envelope in his long thin script, surprisingly elegant for a man’s. She was supposed to give it to Benita in the event of his death. And this time, when he’d enlisted her help, Marianne had not protested.
But when the plot failed and Connie died, Marianne found she could not deliver the letter. It was too dangerous with Albrecht in prison. Six months passed between the assassination attempt and Albrecht’s trial and hanging. And Marianne had spent those months pleading for his release—visiting high-powered contacts, writing letters, and even, on three occasions, being interrogated by the Gestapo. Her possession of a letter from Connie Fledermann would not have helped matters. And then afterward, when Albrecht was dead, it was impossible to gain access to Benita, who was sequestered in a Nazi prison. So she had held on to the letter the entire journey back from Berlin, waiting for the right moment, which never seemed to come.
“I have something for you,” she made herself say after Benita swallowed the last spoonful of broth.
Benita lifted her eyes.
Marianne pulled out the letter. It was dirty and crumpled. But it had survived—the Russians, the flight from Weisslau, the end of the war.
To her surprise, Benita did not startle at the sight of her husband’s handwriting. She did not even move to take the letter from Marianne’s hand.
“I’ve had this for too long,” Marianne began. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know how to get it to you, and when we were on our way from Berlin, it seemed so—it seemed that you should have a quiet place to read it.”
Still Benita said nothing. From outside, Marianne could hear the sound of the children playing.
“I didn’t even know, you know,” Benita said finally, looking up.
“Know what?” Marianne asked.
“What they were planning.”
“They told almost no one.”
“But they told you.” Benita’s tone was startlingly fierce.
Marianne searched the girl’s pale face. It was both hard and hurt, tinged with petulance. For a moment, she felt the full weight of Connie’s words to her that night after the party. She is a simple girl and she won’t deserve whatever mess I might drag her into.
“It was different.” Marianne sighed. “I was a part of their conversations. If I were a man . . . the Nazis would have hanged me, too.” She paused, considering. It was the first time she had spoken this aloud.
Benita looked away.
Between them the letter lay where Marianne had placed it. She felt its presence like a living thing. Like a child or an animal, waiting to be held.