Mary had been stubborn as a girl. Ania remembered this much. More nuance, more understanding she had not granted the child. She had been born in the beginning of the Wirtschaftswunder—that somnambulant time of sudden plenty that had swept Germany like a dream. They had been poor in comparison to Mary’s classmates in town, but compared to Anselm and Wolfgang, Mary was raised in the lap of luxury and good fortune, with milk and eggs and chocolate to eat, new shoes to wear, and even, when she turned five years old, a car to share with the Glebers. Unlike her half brothers, Mary had grown up without typhoid and diphtheria and rape. She had not been pressed into overcrowded trains and transport vehicles and fetid, swarming, waterless DP camps full of war-hardened souls. She had always had school, and clothing, and medicine, and a roof over her head.
And most of all she never had to lie.
Had Ania held this against her? Was this why, so many years later, when Mary was an ordinary eleven-year-old who wanted a pair of fine shoes for dancing class or complained about the slow bus ride home from school, Ania would rage about her spoiledness? Once, she had locked her daughter into the pitch-dark smokehouse for a whole afternoon among the gory, half-cured hams and sides of bacon hanging from the ceiling. Many times, she had shouted and threatened absurd punishments for minor infractions. It made Ania sick with regret to think back on those days. Her meanness haunted her in the soft, innocent faces of Mary’s children.
But somehow she and Mary had come through. Somehow, they had even become close. It was as if the five thousand kilometers Mary had put between them had given her the space she needed to forgive her mother. They spoke on the phone every Sunday evening. And each fall, for three weeks, Ania flew across the ocean to stay with her daughter. Who loved her, improbably enough.
Mary sent her large-print books and special reading lights, photos of her children, homeopathic remedies for her bad back and arthritis. When she visited Germany, she took Ania to the movies and introduced her to chamber music and drove her to the cemetery where Carsten was buried. She was Ania’s most thoughtful and attentive child. Anselm and Wolfgang were dutiful sons, but neither ever thought about what might make Ania laugh or feel less lonely or more comfortable or better informed. Mary, on the other hand, tried to understand her. She tried to do for her mother what her mother had never done for her.
Mary did not mention the package again until after dinner, when the children had been elaborately and painfully put to bed (there was homework to help with, night-lights to leave on, snacks to bring upstairs, as if they were being prepared for a frightening and arduous journey rather than the luxury of sleep). It was nearly nine thirty when Mary emerged, looking haggard. Ania sat at the dining room table sewing a skirt at the sewing machine she had given Marianne so many years ago and that she used, every time she came to visit, to make some new dress or article of clothing for her granddaughter.
“Another schnapps?” Mary asked her mother hopefully as she poured herself one more half glass of wine from the open bottle on the counter. Ania agreed, even though the schnapps did nothing for her anymore—too many old-age medications had dulled her receptors, even her taste buds. But her poor tired daughter should not have to drink alone.
Mary refilled Ania’s glass and started to sit before jumping up again, her hands thrown into the air. “The package! I almost forgot!”
She disappeared into the front hall and reemerged with it. The sight sent a small, prescient shiver through Ania.
“So.” Mary slid the package toward her mother and collapsed into her chair. “Put away your sewing. Enough work for one day.” She waved her hand as if the project were frivolous nonsense. This condescension was the price Ania had to pay for their years of fighting. It was a small one.
Obediently, she folded the piece of skirt she was sewing and turned off the machine.
“Okay, so let’s open it!” Mary said.
“You want me to?” Ania asked.
“Go on. I know what it is already!” Mary took a sip of her wine.
Ania fumbled with the puffy envelope closure until Mary finally snatched it away and tore what turned out to be a neat pull-tab made expressly for this purpose. She pushed it back across the table to her mother.
Inside was a note folded over a large, formal-looking white envelope addressed to Ania Kellerman in an alarmingly familiar hand.
Dear Ania, it read.
It would be a great honor if you would join us at this event. It has been too many years. I would like to invite you to come to Burg Lingenfels as my guest so we could spend time together and know each other again.
Yours,
Marianne von Lingenfels
Ania felt the room swim and her hands begin to shake. It had been nearly fifty years since she had seen her once dearest friend.
“Look inside, Mother—go on,” Mary ordered.
Inside she found a photograph of Marianne, just as she remembered her, in rubber boots with tweed trousers ballooning over them. Ania recognized the bucket she was holding, too—what a precious object it had been then, metal, and dented on one side; they had used it for everything. Even in shadow, you could see the bright intensity of Marianne’s expression, daring whoever saw the picture to laugh at her—the young countess in washerwoman’s garb.
A party to celebrate the launch of Marianne von Lingenfels: Moral Compass of the Resistance. A book by someone named Claire Weiss. Five o’clock in the evening, the 21st of October 1991, the Falkenberg Institute, Burg Lingenfels, Ehrenheim, Germany.
“Frau von Lingenfels is inviting you—and me too, if you want my company—as her guests. And Martin will be there as well. I’ve spoken to him.” Mary’s excitement was palpable.
Ania stared at the photograph. The smell of limestone, stagnant water, and chestnut blossoms rose up around her, the particular bounty of a head of cabbage.
Involuntarily, she pushed the envelope away.
“Oh, Mutti!” Mary’s face fell. “I think we should go, don’t you?”
She grabbed the card and studied the photo. “I never understood why you and Frau von Lingenfels fell out. It was such an important time of your life!
“Oh, Mutch!” she exclaimed, looking at Ania’s face. “Never mind.” She pushed the card back into its envelope. “I thought you would be excited! Your long-lost friend . . . it was supposed to be a nice surprise.”