Behind her, in the square, the Wild Boar began setting its outdoor tables. Mothers pulled their children home to supper, shop workers closed shutters, lovers strolled hand in hand. And there were men on the streets again, smoking cigarettes and hurrying home to their families, happily returned to everyday life. She felt a pang of sadness for Albrecht, for Connie, for all those who had not lived to see this new life.
She could not go upstairs to the kitchen she had once shared with Benita and make herself a lonely egg and toast. She could not sit in the twilit parlor and sort through Albrecht’s papers. She could not pass by all those empty rooms—Benita’s, Martin’s, her own children’s. And she could not go visit Ania, sit in her warm kitchen, remember Benita together, and be comforted.
Marianne left her bag behind the stairs in the foyer and walked toward the river at the edge of town. At least she could sit here and mourn, among the bones of all the poor souls who had died on its banks. She could lie on the grass and look at the stars and be lulled by the rush of the river’s poisons. But as she neared the riverbank, she realized she was not alone. A figure, half obscured by shadow, stood with his back to the water, swaying a little on his toes. His lips moved slightly, and she could hear his low, murmuring voice, speaking a language she did not understand. Eventually his words came to an end.
“Excuse me,” she said as he turned and took in her presence.
He was a young man, maybe twenty-five, even if his face was much older. He wore a black hat and his hair in long curls: a Jewish DP from one of the few remaining camps.
“It’s allowed,” he said. Marianne stared at him, confused. “It’s allowed to pray here,” he clarified.
“Of course.” She stepped back, startled that he thought she would question this. “Did you know someone? Among the dead?”
The man scowled and then squinted at her as if trying to read her intent.
“I knew them all,” he said. The words hung between them.
“I also came here to pray,” Marianne said, realizing as she spoke that this was true.
Above them, the first stars of evening were suddenly visible, like holes in a thin cloth, revealing a great light behind the darkness. The river shone a pale and otherworldly violet.
The man regarded her intently, and Marianne found herself awaiting some sort of verdict.
Finally, he ducked his head.
“Well, go on then,” he said. “You can be here forever with that task.” He turned to go.
“And you?” Marianne said.
He looked back at her. “I leave tomorrow for America.”
And looking at him, this young stranger with an old face, Marianne felt the truth of his words and his weariness. But through this, she heard the word America, as if for the first time. Not as the name of an enemy nation or as an Ally. Not as the originator of bombs and oranges and chocolate or as the creator of all the paperwork she had so tirelessly filled out for so many refugees. She heard it as the name of a place where a person could begin again.
Long after the man had departed, the word blew around in her mind, like a scrap of paper, alluring and brightly colored, hinting at another life.
Part IV
Chapter Thirty-Two
Deer Isle, Maine, July 1991
The road to Marianne’s home on the coast of Maine was as winding and lovely as the name von Lingenfels, which Martin had always thought beautiful, though it lost some of its lightness on the American tongue. But Martin was not an American, even after so many years living in New England. He was a German, as this visit reminded him. A German who was more than an hour late, which was not a promising start.
His tardiness was fitting, though. As a boy he had always been late. He could feel the old pattern of behavior rising, his tendency to fulfill other people’s narratives, usually at a cost to himself. So he was to be the hapless teenager, Marianne the overbearing parent, picking up his mother’s slack. Never mind that he was now in his fifties and she was eighty-three, and he had not seen her for God knows how long. She had written him to say she had a proposal. And while he wasn’t generally up for proposals since his most recent divorce, he could not refuse Marianne. It had always been that way.
The turn off Route 114 onto Marianne’s little clamshell strewn “Way” was marked by a profusion of beach plum blossoms, which she had not mentioned in her directions. Possibly because at her age she did not venture far enough to have seen them, but more likely because a thicket of flowers and shiny purple berries was not the sort of thing Marianne made note of, while the sturdy aluminum mailbox, now all but obscured by the bushes, was.
Her house was the last of the seven or eight that lined the road, and when Martin pulled around the corner, he was struck not only by its loveliness—a little gray shingled cottage, with a peaked roof and wraparound porch—but by its utter Americanness. It was rough-hewn and impermanent looking. Its wide sliding glass doors lent it a quality of carefree openness. Such a great contrast to Burg Lingenfels. Americans can face the world with open arms, Marianne had once said, because the world hasn’t yet come to knock it down.
Before he could climb out of the car, the front door opened and there she was: Marianne von Lingenfels—at once totally recognizable and completely changed. She walked with a cane and wore a pair of thick, squarish glasses, but her gray hair was pulled back from her face in the same practical manner it had always been, with a clip on each side, just above her ears. And her voice, barking his name, rang straight from his past.
“Marianne,” Martin said, slamming the car door behind him. A broad, pure smile spread across her wrinkled face. Here she was, unmoored from the circumstances that for him had always defined her—in America, in Maine, for Christ’s sake. Yet unlike Martin, who was a chameleon, an adapter to even the strangest situations, Marianne remained completely herself.
From the shore came the sound of the surf, and overhead the seagulls screeched. The front door of the house swung open again and a mournful-faced black woman with her hair braided close against her skull emerged. “You all right, Marianne?” she asked softly.
“Oh, yes,” Marianne said, keeping her eyes on Martin. Her smile remained fixed—an outpouring of happiness. “Alice, this is my dear friend Martin.”
Martin climbed the steps and extended his hand, which Alice accepted shyly. Then he turned to Marianne, grasped her gnarled fingers between his, and kissed her delicate shriveled cheeks.
“Ach, Martin,” she said, clinging to his hands. “Du bist das Ebenbild deines Vaters.” You are the picture of your father.
Martin continued to smile, but the words resurrected the old, familiar dismay. His father the resister, the great man, the almost-liberator of Germany and almost-saver of so many millions of lives. Marianne had always shone a bright light on the chasm between Martin and this man.
“Come, have a cup of coffee. Or maybe you would like something stronger—a glass of schnapps after your journey,” Marianne said, speaking in English now.
“Coffee would be fine,” Martin replied.