But Ania was suddenly immersed in another time and place—the kitchen of Burg Lingenfels, dimly lit and boarded up. Rainer at the table, the smell of sickness. And the look of innocent surprise turning to shock on Marianne’s face.
From a distance came the thundering, bumping rush of a city bus. Mary picked up her empty wineglass and Ania’s untouched schnapps. Ania heard the sound of the faucet running, the dishwasher opening and shutting. Mary walked around the living space, turning off the lights. Around Ania, the condo became a twinkling landscape of artificial brightness—the flickering green panels of the entertainment center, the glowing red light switches, a stuffed bear with a purple digital screen in place of a heart. Densely packed, mysteriously animated: this was life on the other side of the apocalypse.
Mary sat beside Ania and took her mother’s hand in her own. “I think it would be wonderful to make this trip together—to go back and see these people and that place. I can leave the kids with their dad. You could tell me more about that time of your life.”
Ania leaned back in her chair. The idea was preposterous, really. There would be too much to explain, too many questions to address.
But her sweet daughter was looking at her, asking for answers. Not simply half the story this time, but the whole truth.
“Maybe,” she said. “Let me think about it first.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Burg Lingenfels, October 1991
Burg Lingenfels is now home to the Falkenberg Institute of Moral and Ethical Inquiry. From the start, Marianne has been a great supporter of the institute. The founder is a distant cousin, and the son of a fellow member of the resistance. The gift of Burg Lingenfels was a boon for the institute. Now academics and intellectuals from all over the world apply for its cushy fellowships: a six-month stay in a German castle, access to the significant library, a gourmet chef. What better conditions for contemplating the moral and ethical challenges of civilized life?
Claire Weiss, the author of the biography, was a fellow at the institute some years ago, and the castle was, in fact, where she “discovered” Marianne, as she says, as if Marianne were a starlet, or some sort of rare mineral. Claire is a force of nature—a modern lipstick-and-high-heel-wearing feminist. She was drawn especially to the story of Marianne as a woman in a man’s world, though Marianne herself never felt particularly constrained by this. After all, as she has pointed out to Claire, if she were a man, she would be dead.
In the last five years, the castle has been “redesigned” by a notable architect. Marianne has seen the brochures and pictures, but it is still shocking to stand before it. When she climbs out of the airport shuttle, her knees feel weak. The old bridge remains, thank God, and the moat is filled with remarkably clean-looking water, but the battered, metal-reinforced door has been replaced by a glossy, heavily grained slab of wood. To Marianne, it looks like a marbled cut of meat. Plate glass windows have been cut into the crumbling limestone where the small, deep-set openings used to be, and the grand stone hall features an enormous chandelier of modern Chihuly glass.
“Different, I am sure,” the director says with a nervous laugh. “Shall we allow you some time to rest before I give you the full tour?”
Behind her, Alice clutches her purse to her chest. She did not want to come—Marianne had to wheedle and plead and even promise a church tour: Alice is suspicious of Germans and also very devout.
“Let’s go now,” Marianne says, despite her light-headedness.
“Are you sure?” Martin asks. He has flown with them from Boston, and for the umpteenth time Marianne is grateful for his company. He was meant to come along. Her own children would be too skeptical and full of judgment. And, anyway, Katarina hates to travel and Elisabeth is busy with important prior engagements. Fritz will arrive on Sunday in time to hear Marianne’s speech.
“I’m not tired,” Marianne assures him, although it isn’t quite true.
The grand rooms at the front of the castle are mostly the same, but in the back, where they all lived after the war, everything is changed. The kitchen is gone—no more giant oven, and no more cistern. It has been subdivided into a hive of glass-walled cubicles. The pantry and washroom are the new kitchen, outfitted in a modern institutional style. The bedrooms where they once slept have become offices with plush carpeting and sleek white desks.
Ghosts look on over Marianne’s shoulder, their voices loud in her ears: the countess, Albrecht, Connie . . . and Benita—what would they make of this transformation? After a while, Marianne stops nodding and smiling. Martin can carry on the chitchat. It is more exhausting than she imagined, absorbing all this.
The front rooms upstairs, where the countess once housed her most dignified visitors, are now the “guest accommodations.” The tour ends here, and Alice commands Marianne to rest.
Marianne lies on the bed she has been given, hands folded over her chest. She is tired, but not sleepy—and the air in this sealed and modernized room feels too close, the mattress too soft. Ania Kellerman is due to arrive tonight. The uneasy thrill of anticipation is agitating.
With some effort, Marianne rises from the bed. Outside the window, staff members cover small tables with white cloths. In the light wind, these flare out, reminding her of sheets—unfurled from windows, hung from church steeples, we surrender, we surrender, don’t shoot. That time is so near in her mind these days. Not the war, not the failed assassination, not the time leading up to it, about which she has written and been extensively interviewed—but the end, and the afterward. This is not yet fossilized into a clear narrative.
At quarter to five, Alice returns.
“Time to dress.” She sighs. “But you didn’t sleep.”