“This is a personal matter?” the woman said.
Ania colored. “It’s not—” she began and broke off. What did it matter? “Personal, yes,” Ania said. “Rainer Brandt.”
The woman’s eyes glanced briefly at the name without recognition. Rainer had always been the sort to slide by unnoticed, a man with an unremarkable manner and face. The woman shrugged. “There is no one by that name here anymore.”
“Did he leave a forwarding address?” Ania asked.
The woman cocked her head to the side. “What would I do with that?” she asked. “Go on.” She shook her head and her voice softened slightly. “Finding him won’t be worth much.”
So Ania was forced to wait for Rainer to show himself. She went about her daily life half-present, botching her usual tasks. She cut herself pitting cherries, burned the potatoes she was boiling, left a pail of milk to sour in the barn.
“Are you all right?” Inge asked.
“Just wait until you are this pregnant,” Ania replied, more harshly than she intended. It was a convenient excuse. The weeks passed, and with each one she grew more irritable. Daily, she was tempted to confide in Anselm and Wolfgang, and then stopped herself. Anselm was locked in his studies, and Wolfgang spent his days with Carsten, preparing for the harvest, feeding the livestock.
Carsten himself noticed nothing. He treated her with embarrassed caution, darting glances rather than direct looks her way. During their half hour after supper he made a great show of turning on the radio for her, helping her to her chair. It would have driven her crazy if she weren’t so distracted. As it was, she barely registered his ministrations.
And she saw Rainer everywhere: outside the bakery, driving Herr Darmler’s gleaming new combine harvester, walking up the road from town. Every time the dog barked, Ania was certain it was at him. What would she do and say when he arrived? She had a million thoughts and none. She could see his hard, slight body, and the jerky way he looked over his shoulder, the firm set of his mouth when he embarked on unpleasant tasks. He was a body washed up in her mind, dragging the tangle of her own bad choices like so much kelp.
One day, Marianne came to visit with a basket of fine rolls from Bemmelman’s. It was still strange to receive her as Frau Kellerman, farm mistress rather than tenant. Ania was embarrassed at the disorder of the kitchen and her own rumpled dress. As she looked at her familiar friend’s face, she was oppressed by her own secrets. Dear, difficult Marianne, who had been so generous and optimistic from the start. She had taken in Ania and her boys without hesitation, without question, and never looked back. This blessing had turned into a burden. At any moment, it would blow up in Ania’s face.
Awkwardness made Ania formal. She pulled out Carsten’s precious supply of tinned cookies and arranged them prettily on a plate.
“Don’t make me feel a visitor,” Marianne said, waving them away. She seemed distracted herself. “I have to ask you something,” she blurted, and Ania’s heart raced.
“Have you ever known me to be cruel?”
Ania almost laughed. “Never.”
Marianne sighed.
“Why do you ask?”
Marianne turned from the window she had been staring out. “Did you know Benita stayed in touch with Herr Muller? The prisoner? Do you remember him?”
Herr Muller. In Ania’s mind, an image presented itself. A tall man, square jawed, pale eyed. She saw him as he had been the morning of the Russians, carrying Benita: a man with a guarded, uncertain face. A fellow keeper of secrets.
Marianne waited.
“I remember him. Why?” she asked, glancing out the window. The barnyard was empty. Her constant checking had become a nervous tic.
“Apparently she has been seeing him. All this time—writing letters and visiting—he lives nearby—in Momsen! And she imagines she loves him!” Marianne stopped. “I never even heard a word about it. All this time.”
Ania poured a cup of coffee and set it before Marianne. She was surprised but not shocked. She had wondered whether there was something between them at the time. But she had not imagined that their affair would have continued from that life into this. Benita, unlike the prisoner, was no keeper of secrets.
“When did she tell you this?” she asked.
“Just this week. As if I would be happy!” Marianne stared down into her coffee and then up at Ania. “She never told you either?”
Ania shook her head.
“All this time she was lying!”
Ania hesitated. “She didn’t lie,” she said. “She just didn’t share the truth with us.”
Marianne frowned. “She concealed what she was doing. What’s the difference?”
Ania busied herself with drying dishes, feigning nonchalance. “It could be like a photograph with the faces blacked out. What you see is true; it’s just incomplete.”
“But who are people without their faces?” Marianne was impatient. “How could you know a man if you can’t see his face?”
When Rainer finally came, it was mid-July, and the weather was hot. Ania sat in the shade under the chestnut tree shelling peas. Sweat dripped down her sides and made her thighs sticky. Heat rose from the limestone of the barnyard in slippery, distorting waves.
He was halfway across before Ania saw him. She had imagined this moment so many times that the reality was strangely flat. A single burst of adrenaline shot through her, followed by something like relief.
It was clear that he was unwell. He was thinner than ever and walked with a limp. His face was waxy, and there were dark hollows beneath his eyes. His breathing was labored.
At about four meters away, he stopped.
Staring at him, Ania saw a stranger. Not someone she loved, not someone she hated. Just someone she no longer knew. It was frightening but uncomplicated.
For a long time neither of them spoke. There was the sound of his breathing, the buzz of bees in the branches, and the mild rustle of leaves.
Rainer stared at her round belly. She placed a hand over it.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Removing a dirty cloth from the pocket of his even dirtier jacket—much too hot for this weather—Rainer wiped his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. He looked like a man who needed to lie down. He looked like a man who was dying.
And suddenly, after all the time she had spent dreading this moment, Ania knew what to do.
He opened his eyes again and regarded her. “Am I speaking to Ania Kellerman or Ania Brandt?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Momsen, July 1950
Before Benita awoke, Marianne rose and took the train to Momsen to see Franz Muller.