For the trip to Herr Kellerman’s farm, Marianne splurged and hired a car and driver. The bus to Ehrenheim was slow and unreliable—another strike against the town—and it was a long walk from the bus stop to the farm for women wearing their Sunday shoes. Besides, it was not every day they went to a wedding! At the smallest extravagance, Marianne put herself through these rounds of justification. It was admirable, but tiresome. If Benita had Marianne’s resources, she would enjoy them without such hand-wringing. And a car would be her first purchase. There was a new Volkswagen dealership on the edge of town with a park full of beautiful, rounded “bugs,” as they were called—row after row, gleaming in the sun, pleasing in their sameness. These were the cars Hitler had once promised everyone. Benita felt a personal spite toward the man. He had duped them all with his promises of cars and jobs and self-respect. Connie had been right to hate him from the start.
Connie had become confusing in her mind. She was not angry anymore. She was embarrassed, actually, by how angry she had been. He had been unfaithful, this was true, but she had been a difficult wife. The last time she had seen him, she had not even looked up. He had come to say good-bye, she now understood. It was the night before the assassination attempt. And she had been sitting at the window of their flat with Martin asleep behind her in the bed. Connie knelt and tried to take her hand. I’m sorry, he said. I’m sorry I have left you alone so much. But she had pulled her hand away. I love you, Connie said. And she had never even turned to look at him.
In the hired car, Elisabeth, now in her last year of school, argued with her mother about politics. Adenauer, their new chancellor, was right to end denazification, Elisabeth insisted; the denazification process was merely turning Germans back into angry nationalists. No, he was wrong, Marianne maintained: expedience could not take precedence over the pursuit of justice.
Benita did not participate. Neither did she play the guessing game with Martin and Katarina and Fritz. She stared out the window at the green fields, the cows, the red-roofed villages, and the jagged mountains rising behind this like a row of teeth.
When they arrived at the Kellermans’, there were no outward signs of festivity. But in recent years, the farm had undergone its own sort of metamorphosis. There was a pungent stench from the new pigsty Kellerman had built, and a red tractor gleamed from the stables where Gilda used to live. Under Ania’s care, the gardens were full of more than mere essentials like potatoes, cabbages, and carrots. There were peas, parsley, and leeks, even a small gooseberry bush. Along the fence, a line of sunflowers bobbed their clumsy heads. When Ania and her boys had first moved to the farm as tenants, she had taken over the gardening in lieu of rent. Well, that rooming arrangement worked out well for Herr Kellerman, Elisabeth joked.
Benita, Marianne, and the children climbed out of the car and carefully removed the serving dishes Marianne had brought: a white soup tureen with lion heads, three platters inlaid with pink roses, and an elegant, gold-rimmed glass punch bowl that had belonged to Albrecht’s grandmother.
“They don’t need any of this,” Elisabeth grumbled, unloading it. “Frau Grabarek is only being polite saying yes.”
“Don’t begrudge,” Marianne scolded, with a cutting look that reduced Elisabeth’s point to one of mere selfishness. Which was not fair. Benita understood what the girl meant: Ania would be embarrassed by her connection to Marianne’s fine things. She would not want to stand out from her guests. Ania did not like to set herself apart. Marianne could not grasp this.
“Guten Tag, guten Tag,” Ania greeted them nervously.
Benita kissed her on both cheeks in the manner of Connie’s high-society friends, which made Ania blush. And, for a moment, her face was transformed into something shy and girlish. Benita squeezed her hand.
“Congratulations!” Marianne said, beaming and hoisting the punch bowl aloft. “Herr and Frau Kellerman!” They were already husband and wife, wed in the town hall that morning. The party was simply a celebration. “Put us to work,” Marianne directed, depositing the bowl on the kitchen table, where it looked completely out of place.
“But you’re wearing such fine clothes.”
“Don’t be silly. What do you think, we can’t roll up our sleeves and work?”
The wedding guests began to arrive around four o’clock: somberly clad farmers and townspeople, like pigeons in their gray and brown suits. They brought strawberry jam and beeswax candles, meat loaves, sides of ham, and fine tortes. Benita knew these people. If she were dropped back into Frühlinghausen right now—God forbid—it would be just like this.
They clustered around the parlor table, drinking beer and local wine and Herr Kellerman’s homemade plum schnapps. Their faces began to come alive beneath their impassive masks. The men loosened their new polyester ties, removed their jackets, and lit cigarettes. It was still remarkable to see so many men gathered in one place. Even the longest absent had returned from their various prisoner-of-war camps—thinner, balder, absent eyed, and closed faced. Benita wound her way through the crowded rooms, nodding and murmuring hellos but mostly keeping to herself.
In the dining room, Herr Fetzer, the local butcher, pulled out his fiddle, and festive music filled the space. Even drunk, the young men hung together in uneasy clumps. Wives and sisters and mothers chattered while keeping nervous watch. There was a sense of latent menace. Who might come undone? Who might turn belligerent?
Marianne sat in the corner with Helmut Kressing, her latest matchmaking case. He was a widowed friend of Albrecht’s who had spent the last year of the war in Buchenwald for his role in the resistance. Poor man. He deserved better than to be dragged into this awkwardness. Benita would never marry him, but she could go sit beside him.
As Benita made her way across the room, a young man with a wild look in his eye pulled her into an aggressive dance. Johannes Kraisler, one of the bad ones. Benita had heard of him: a boy who’d always had one screw loose. He had joined the SA while still in school and had recently returned from a Siberian POW camp.
Thank God Martin had been born when he was! He was scarred, yes, but not corrupted by the war. He had never even marched with the Hitler Youth. Why did Hitler want to make war? he had asked her recently with an earnest, quizzical face.
The vigorous whirling of Johannes’s dance made her sick. “Please excuse me,” she said, but he only tightened his grip.
“Really,” she said, and he grinned, swinging her toward the corner with a hostile yank that made her flinch.
“I know who you are,” he hissed into her ear. “The traitor’s wife.” She could feel his penis hard against her leg through his pants. “I know your secret.”