Benita loved the flat she and Marianne had moved to in Tollingen, which was practically a city compared to Ehrenheim. It was on the town square, in a gracious turn-of-the-century building somehow left intact by the war. Now, a Danish businessman owned it, and he had polished the honey-colored floors to a sleek, postwar shine, plastered over shell wounds in the fa?ade, and rented the apartments to the town’s most established citizens. Their flat was full of light and space and the air of aristocratic elegance that Benita had once imagined for herself.
Tollingen had come back to life since the war. After years of hunger and shortages, the storefronts once again advertised sewing needles, matches, oranges, and stylish shoes. The bakery windows displayed fresh loaves of bread. The pharmacy shelves were stocked with creams and medicines.
“Oh, but we Germans can work, can’t we?” Marianne liked to say as she observed the new plenty. “Give us a task and we’ll complete it—and waste no time looking back.” She said it with a sort of Marianne dryness, as if it were actually a fault, and one for which she condemned her countrymen. Benita did not understand this. So the Germans were hard workers! So they did not look back! Given the circumstances, why would they? And anyway, wasn’t Marianne one of them?
But, deep down, there was a part of her that appreciated Marianne’s scorn for German industry. Benita’s own dreamy laziness had always been held over her head as a moral failing, and here was Marianne, a hard worker and moral example in all ways, turning the table, imbuing her sloth and imagination with a kind of virtue.
On this particular morning, Benita, Marianne, and the children—Elisabeth, now eighteen; Katarina, sixteen; Fritz, thirteen; and Martin, who, at eleven, was still her baby—were all headed to Ania’s wedding. Ania was to marry Carsten Kellerman, a match that pleased Marianne and depressed Benita. For the rest of her life, poor Ania, thirty years Kellerman’s junior, would have to lie beside his club foot, breathing in his stench of cabbage and tooth rot. Is it what you want? she had asked Ania when she first heard the news. Of course, Ania answered. Carsten is a good man, and my boys can help with the farm. “Can help with” Benita understood to be a euphemism for “inherit.” Herr Kellerman had no children, and Ania Grabarek was a pragmatic woman. She was marrying to create a decent future for her sons.
Marianne, on the other hand, delighted in the match. Herr Kellerman had been a loyal neighbor and the caretaker of Burg Lingenfels ever since she had first arrived. And, furthermore, he had never been a Nazi, which, in Marianne’s opinion, automatically made him good. The fact that he was old and taciturn and unattractive was of no consequence to her when compared to his loyalty and sound politics.
In Marianne’s enthusiasm, Benita detected a double standard. Marianne was a born matchmaker, especially for those she had taken under her wing, which applied to both women. But she had much higher expectations when it came to a second marriage for Benita, whom she steered toward members of her own circle—distinguished survivors of the resistance, for example, vetted already by their politics and social standing. So why was she content for Ania to marry an elderly peasant? Ania’s husband had been a resister, too. Was it because he had been Polish? Or was it something about Ania herself? After all, Benita was no less a peasant than Ania, as Marianne had made clear when they’d first met. Whatever the root of her bias, Benita knew Marianne would be ashamed to acknowledge it.
At times, Benita still found it comical that she and Marianne were roommates. How impossible this would have seemed to her that long-ago night at the countess’s party. The von Lingenfels and the peasant, the odd couple of the castle. It would have made her laugh.
No one lived in Burg Lingenfels anymore—it was too cold, too big, and too remote. And it was still without running water or electricity. Marianne had always hated Ehrenheim; she liked their new home as much as Benita did. It was closer to the DP camp where she spent so many hours, near the train station, and an easy trip to Munich. Their new Bürgermeister was an old friend of Albrecht’s. And there was plenty of space in the flat. What is the point of two widows raising their children alone? Marianne had asked when she first proposed the idea. The children are like siblings now, why tear them apart? Left unspoken was the fact that despite the restitution—finally—of Connie’s pension, Benita and Martin depended on Marianne’s largesse. Left to their own means, they would be living in some colorless and cramped new apartment block on the outskirts of town.
“Benita,” Marianne called, tap-tapping down the long hall of their flat with her particular, Marianne-ish determination. “Benita!”
“Coming!” she called.
Benita folded the letter she was rereading and pushed it hastily into a small wooden chest. What is that? Marianne had asked when she first caught sight of the chest, as if it were one of the mangy feathers or dead butterflies the children used to collect at the castle. Something I picked up at the Christmas market, Benita lied. Marianne had tilted her head to the side in a show of critical bewilderment—it was an odd little thing, carved of rough wood and unpainted—but she had accepted the explanation. Marianne did not expect sound judgment from Benita anyway. And for Benita, the chest had one simple purpose: it locked. She turned the key and slipped it behind the mirror on her dresser.
When she opened the door, Marianne was wearing something Benita had never seen before: a dress with ribbons at the cuffs and throat. It was pretty, but too frivolous for Marianne. Another item resurrected from Albrecht’s sea chest. Marianne was diligent about reusing all her old things. The woman had no vanity or fashion sense.
“Ready?” Marianne asked. “The children are waiting in the foyer.”
“Ready,” Benita repeated. “What a pretty necklace!” she added, noticing for the first time.
“This?” Marianne glanced down. “Here—” She lifted it over her head, a silver fleur-de-lis with a tiny amethyst inset. “You wear it. It will suit you better than me. And”—she turned back almost slyly—“Helmut Kressing and his sister will be there. He always asks after you.”
“Oh no—” Benita began, but Marianne shushed her protests. Dutifully, Benita put on the pendant. She did not attempt to explain that Helmut Kressing would never be more than an acquaintance. Or that the necklace did not match her dress. When it came to defying Marianne’s wishes, it was better to keep a low profile.