“Of course!” Benita smirked. “Ania can’t very well shock herself.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Ania said, surprising Marianne into laughter that chased away the echo of her old schoolmarmishness.
“That I’d like to see,” Benita said. “Frau Kellerman shocking herself.”
Their laughter subsided into comfortable silence. From outside they could hear the children playing. And with the tablecloths and food unpacked, the library took on a festive look.
“I almost forgot!” Benita said. “I brought us Eiswein!” She reached into her bag and held a bottle aloft. “Herr Reiner said it was the best.”
Benita opened the bottle and poured them each a glass. “To you two,” she said. “And all the hard work you have put into this place.”
“Posh. We can’t drink to ourselves. To the travelers—” Marianne began.
Benita cut her off. “Then to marriage. To love. And to whoever is next.” With a coy smile, she brought her glass to her lips.
Marianne regarded her, suddenly curious. “Why—is there someone—?”
Benita shrugged mischievously. “Who knows? Where Ania goes, we may follow.”
“You don’t mean Helmut.” Marianne frowned, perplexed. The wine had gone straight to her head.
“How do you know I mean me and not you?”
“Benita!” Marianne exclaimed. “What on earth can you be talking about?”
Benita sashayed over to the window and rested her forehead against the glass. For a moment, Marianne was reminded of the girl she had first met. Then Benita straightened, cocked her head, and smiled. “Nonsense,” she said. “And daydreams. Don’t you ever have those?”
“Oh, Benita.” Marianne shook her head. She stabbed a knife into the cake on the table and began slicing. “Isn’t it time for the party to begin?”
“You should.” Benita smiled, ignoring the question. “A few daydreams would do you good.”
Chapter Seventeen
Momsen, June 1950
As far as Marianne knew, Benita was going to visit her sister.
“Bring her this,” Marianne had said that morning, thrusting a bag of expensive oranges into her hands.
It gave Benita a twinge of guilt. Marianne was a good woman. She knew Benita’s sister Lotte had four children and worked long hours in a canning factory. She did not know that Lotte was an ignorant, hard-hearted bitch and her husband was not dead, but locked in some Siberian camp for ex-SS.
Or that Benita was not actually going to see Lotte.
In Momsen, Benita stood for a moment on the makeshift train platform, blinking in the spring sunlight. Then she spotted him: Franz Muller, always taller and broader in person than he was in her mind. It was as if he belonged to another species—all parts of him well proportioned, but larger. A superhuman. She loved this.
When he saw her, a shy smile spread across his face.
“Franz!” she called, and ran toward him.
Circumspect as always, he extended his hand.
“Oh, stop,” Benita said, wrapping her arm around his waist. She turned her face up to his. “You can at least give me a kiss!”
He obliged with a furtive peck on her lips.
“You would think I’d be the one who didn’t want to be seen!” She laughed.
“Come.” He swung her bag over his shoulder, where it perched ridiculously.
Benita thrust her hand into his. Wrapped in the warmth of his calloused palm, her own felt like some small, vulnerable mollusk. She trailed a step behind, enjoying the feel of following, of being led by someone so much bigger and stronger than herself. And of knowing it was an illusion. When they were together, she was the one in charge.
When Franz had been released from the internment camp, he was a thin, hollow-eyed man with an apologetic stoop. He had hitched a ride to Braunschweig—first with a transport of American soldiers, who called him “old man” and offered him a candy bar that later had him retching in a ditch, and then with a friendly Tommy driving a jeep. This was the freezing winter of 1946. Benita knew all this from the letters he had written her soon after his release. Such sweet, simple letters, asking how she was, what Martin was doing, whether the castle was warm enough . . .
At first she had been self-conscious about writing back. She had never been good with words or spelling in school. But then it had seemed cruel not to answer. And she liked Franz Muller. She missed his strong, quiet presence in the woods. So she had made herself respond.
And what fun this turned out to be! It made her notice more, think more, and find the humor and interest in little things. The chickens Marianne was raising proved endlessly entertaining—it was a miracle that they survived under her care! And Fritz and Martin’s mischief became less galling when she wrote about it. Life was so much brighter and more vivid once she had a reason to observe it closely.
Everything was fodder for her letters. Except for the Russian.
But of course he hung between them, their personal ghost. A man she had killed and Franz had buried. To everyone else he didn’t exist. He had simply vanished from the face of the earth. On that day in the woods, Franz had seen Benita’s most hideous self, and still he did not hate her. Somehow it saved her from hating herself.
Through their letters, they learned more about each other. Franz was the oldest son of a carpenter, who made fine cabinets and furniture. At nineteen, he had married the daughter of his father’s partner in order to consolidate the business. She was a sickly girl, five years older than he was. They had one daughter, Clotilde, and his wife died two years later. So Franz and his father had raised the girl, who was now eleven, the same age as Martin. He was not conscripted until 1942; he was older, for one thing, already thirty-five when the war began, and the sole proprietor of a business. But finally he had been sent east as part of a local group of reservists. What it was like there, where he had been . . . he did not write about this. Anyway, she knew where he had ended up: Burg Lingenfels, cutting down trees.
After he was released from the internment camp, he had gathered up his small family. Their flat had been bombed, his business destroyed, and he found Clotilde and old Herr Muller living in a dank, overcrowded apartment with neighbors. So he had packed their things and moved south to the American sector, where there were more opportunities. And there was Benita.
In the city of Momsen, he could find work as a carpenter. Why not Tollingen? Benita wrote. Come back as a free man! But Franz had a cousin who had a friend who owned a coffin-making business in Momsen, and Franz was assured of work there. Demand for coffins was steady, he joked. And it was not far from Tollingen.