The Women in the Castle

by Jessica Shattuck

  Dedication

  In memory of my mother, Petra Tölle Shattuck, and my grandmother, Anneliese Tölle

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part II Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Part III Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Part IV Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jessica Shattuck

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Burg Lingenfels, November 9, 1938

  The day of the countess’s famous harvest party began with a driving rain that hammered down on all the ancient von Lingenfels castle’s sore spots—springing leaks, dampening floors, and turning its yellow façade a slick, beetle-like black. In the courtyard, the paper lanterns and carefully strung garlands of wheat drooped and collapsed.

  Marianne von Lingenfels, niece-in-law of the countess, labored joylessly to prepare for their guests. It was too late to call off the party. Now that the countess was wheelchair-bound, Marianne had become the de facto hostess; a hostess who should have listened to her husband and canceled the party last week. In Paris, Ernst vom Rath lay in a hospital bed, the victim of an attempted assassination, and in Munich the Nazis were whipping the country into a frenzy for revenge. Never mind that prior to the event no one had even heard of vom Rath—an obscure, midlevel German diplomat—and that his assassin was a boy of seventeen, or that the shooting was itself an act of revenge: the assassin’s family was among the thousands of Jews huddled at the Polish border, expelled from Germany, barred entry by Poland. The Nazis were not deterred by complex facts.

  All the more cause to gather reasonable people here at the castle, away from the madness! Marianne had argued just yesterday. Today, in the rain, her argument seemed trite.

  And now it was too late. So Marianne supervised the placement of candles, flowers, and table linens and managed the soggy uphill transport of champagne, ice and butter, potted fish and smoked meats, potable water and canisters of gas for the cookstove. Burg Lingenfels was uninhabited for most of the year, with no running water and a generator just strong enough to power the countess’s Victrola and a few strings of expensive electric lights. Hosting the party was like setting up a civilization on the moon. But this was part of what kept people coming back despite yearly disasters—minor fires and collapsed outhouses, fancy touring cars stuck in the mud, mice in the overnight-guest beds. The party had become famous for its anarchic, un-German atmosphere. It was known as an outpost of liberal, bohemian culture in the heart of the proper aristocracy.

  By midafternoon, to Marianne’s relief, the wind began to blow, chasing away the day’s gloom with gusts of clear and promising air. Even the stone walls and the moat’s sinewy water looked fresh and clean scrubbed. The mums in the courtyard glistened under racing patches of sun.

  Marianne’s spirits rose. In front of the bakehouse, an architect acquaintance of the countess’s had transformed an old carriage horses’ drinking trough into a fountain. The effect was at once magical and comic. The castle was an elephant dressed to look like a fairy.

  “Albrecht,” Marianne called as she entered the long, low library, where her husband was seated at the imposing desk that had once been the count’s. “You must come and see—it’s like a carnival!”

  Albrecht looked up at her, still composing a sentence in his head. He was a tall, craggy-faced man with a high forehead and unruly eyebrows that often gave him the appearance of frowning when he was not.

  “Only for a moment, before everyone gets here.” She held out her hand. “Come. The fresh air will clear your head.”

  “No, no, not yet,” he said, waving her off and returning his attention to the letter he was writing.

  Oh, come on, Marianne would have normally chided, but tonight, on account of the party, she bit her tongue. Albrecht was a perfectionist and workaholic. She would never change this. He was drafting a letter to an old law school acquaintance in the British Foreign Office and had sought her opinion on alternate sentence constructions many times. The annexation of the Sudetenland will only be the beginning. I urge you to beware of our leadership’s aggression versus If we are not vigilant, our leader’s aggressive intentions will only be the beginning . . .

  Both ways make your point was Marianne’s response. Just pick one. But Albrecht was a deliberator. He did not even notice the irritation in her tone. His own emotions were never complicated or petty. He was the sort of man who contemplated grand abstractions like the Inalienable Rights of Man or the Problems of Democracy while shaving. It rendered him oblivious to everyday things.

  Marianne restrained herself to a demonstrative sigh, turned, and left him to his work.

  Back in the banquet hall, the countess scolded one of her young disciples from her wheelchair: “Not Schumann,” she said, “God forbid! We might as well play Wagner . . . no, something Italian. Something decadent enough to shock any Brownshirt idiot who comes tonight.”

  Even in her old age, the countess was a rebel, followed at all turns by young artists and socialites. French by birth, German by marriage, she had always been a controversial figure. As a young woman, she had hosted evening salons famous for their impromptu dancing and intellectual arguments on risqué subjects like modern art and French philosophy. Why she had married the proper, fusty old count, a man twenty years her senior and famous for falling asleep at the dinner table, was the subject of much not-very-kind speculation.

  For Marianne, who was the product of an oppressively proper Prussian upbringing, the countess had always been an object of admiration. The woman was unafraid to step beyond the role of mother and Hausfrau into the fray of male power and intellectual life. She spoke her own mind and did things her own way. Even from their first meeting years ago, when Marianne was a young university student dating her professor (Albrecht), she had wanted to become a woman like the countess.

  “It looks wonderful out there,” Marianne said, gesturing toward the courtyard. “Monsieur Pareille is a magician.”

  “He is an artist, isn’t he?” the countess proclaimed.

  It was nearly six o’clock. Guests would begin arriving at any moment.

  Marianne hurried upstairs to the chilly hall of bedrooms where her girls were holed up in an ancient curtained bed, a relic from the castle’s feudal past. Her one-year-old son, Fritz, was at home in Weisslau with his nurse, thank God.

  “Mama!” Elisabeth, age six, and Katarina, age four, shrieked with delight. Elfie, their sweet, mild-
mannered au pair, glanced up at Marianne with a beleaguered expression.

  “Isn’t it true that Hitler is going to take back Poland next?” Elisabeth asked, bouncing on the mattress.

  “Elisabeth!” Marianne exclaimed. “Where did you get this idea?”

  “I heard Herr Zeppel saying it to Papa,” she said, still bouncing.

  “No,” Marianne said. “And why would you think that was anything to be excited about? It would mean war!”

  “But it’s supposed to be ours.” Elisabeth pouted, stopping midbounce. “And, anyway, Herr Zeppel said the Poles can’t manage themselves.”

  “What nonsense,” Marianne said, irritated that Albrecht had allowed the child to hear such talk. Zeppel was the overseer of their estate in Silesia and an ardent Nazi. Albrecht tolerated the man’s nonsense because they had grown up together: Weisslau was a small town.

  “But it was ours, wasn’t it?” Elisabeth insisted. “Before the war?”

  “Elisabeth,” Marianne said, sighing, “you concern yourself with what is yours, please—and that includes the book you are supposed to be reading with Elfie right now.”

  The child exasperated Marianne with her endless obsession with possession. She seemed to have absorbed the national sense of aggrievement, as if she, personally, were the victim of some great unfairness. She had so many advantages but always wanted more—a newer dress, a prettier skirt. If she received a bunny, she wanted a dog. If allowed a bonbon, she wanted two. In her mind, the world seemed to lie entirely at her disposal. Marianne, whose upbringing had been characterized by firm parsimony and restraint, was constantly appalled by this demanding, presuming creature she had raised.

  “Elfie—” She turned to the au pair. “Will you see to it that the candles are out by eight? The girls may come down to the landing, but no farther.”

  “But—” Elisabeth began, and Marianne shot her a look.

  “Good night,” she said, giving an extra squeeze to sweet, quiet, dark-haired Katarina and kissing Elisabeth’s maddening little brow.

  On her way downstairs, Marianne paused on the landing to observe the hall below, its stone archways illuminated by candelabras. The flickering light lent the room an exciting, almost spooky glow. Early guests had begun to arrive: the men in waistcoats and tails, a few in uniforms with gaudy new Nazi insignias stitched on the lapels; the women in fine new dresses. Under Hitler, the economy was growing strong: people had money, once again, for silk and velvet and the new Parisian styles. From a throne-like seat in the middle of the hall, the countess greeted her guests, her wheelchair carefully hidden away for the evening. She was a mountain of blue and green silk, the likes of which no other German woman of her age (or any other) would wear. Her laugh rang out strongly for someone in poor health—had there ever been a woman who loved a party more? And there, bowing before her, was the guest who elicited this peal of laughter: Connie Fledermann. Marianne felt a rush of excitement. Who else received such a welcome? Connie was a great favorite of the countess’s, a star in his own right, a man whose boldness of character, wit, and intelligence rendered him beloved by all—a charmer of ladies, a receiver of men’s trust and confidences. No one, from crazy Hermann Göring to somber George Messersmith, was immune to Connie’s charisma.

  “Connie!” Marianne called as she approached.

  He turned and a grin spread across his face.

  “Aha! The woman I have been waiting for!” He lifted her hand to his lips. “You are looking lovely.” He cast his eyes up to the landing. “Will I get to see my princesses or have you put them away?”

  “Put away,” Marianne said with a laugh. “I hope.”

  “Alas.” He placed his hands over his heart and feigned collapse. “Well, at least I get to consort with the queen mother. Come”—he extended his arm—“meet my Benita!”

  Marianne’s smile stiffened. In the drama of the past week, she had forgotten. Martin Constantine Fledermann was to be married. It seemed impossible. Even with the date set (two weeks from today!), it still had the ring of a lark gone too far.

  But he was earnest, even nervous, as he took Marianne by the elbow. “You must befriend her,” he said. “She knows no one. I told her you would be her ally. And”—he turned to her—“you know she will need one here.”

  “Why is that?” Marianne asked. “You are among friends.”

  “True,” Connie said. “But she is not.”

  Marianne frowned at his circular logic, but there was no time to question it because suddenly there she was, Connie’s Benita, a strikingly pretty woman with the kind of flat, Nordic face that emanated placidity. Her blond hair was plaited and wrapped around her head in the style so adored by the Nazis, a Wagnerian Brunhilde in an honest-to-God dirndl dress. She stood between two young men who worked with Albrecht in the Foreign Office, both of whom looked delighted. Marianne felt an unusual pang of jealousy. It was not that she envied the younger woman’s beauty or palpable air of sexuality (she herself had long ago carved out an alternate road to male regard), but at this moment, in the company of these three men—two silly, overeager boys and one dear friend, childhood sweetheart, luminary of the opposition—the other woman’s beauty left her nowhere to go. At thirty-one, Marianne was an adult in a child’s play, a schoolmarm among excitable students.

  “Excuse me, boys,” Connie said, making a show of elbowing one of them aside, “I need to reclaim her.” He put a hand on Benita’s arm and pulled her toward Marianne. “My love,” he addressed Benita (how odd it was to hear him say this), “meet my—what shall I call you?” He turned to Marianne. “My oldest friend, my sternest adviser, the person who keeps me most honest?”

  “Oh posh, Connie,” Marianne said, trying to tamp down her irritation.

  “Marianne,” she introduced herself, and extended a hand to the young woman, who, she judged, could not be much over twenty.

  “Thank you,” the girl said, blinking like a startled deer. “How nice to meet you.”

  More guests arrived, and Marianne could feel them pressing toward her with hands to shake, welcomes to issue, politics to discuss. There was Greta von Viersdahl, already trying to catch her eye; since Hitler had invaded, Greta spoke of nothing but the winter clothes she was collecting for the Sudeten Germans, so recently “returned to the fatherland,” so long “oppressed by the Slavs” . . . Marianne wanted no part of Greta’s politics. Impulsively, she took Benita’s arm. “Give us a chance to become friends,” she said over her shoulder to Connie, already leading Benita through the back door and into the lantern-bedecked courtyard.

  “How beautiful!” Benita exclaimed.

  “Isn’t it?” Marianne said. “Like a fairy tale. Countess von Lingenfels has a talent for the amazing.”

  Benita nodded, staring wide eyed.

  “So tell me about yourself before we are swarmed with admirers,” Marianne said. “Was your trip all right? Have you found your room?” She hurried through the necessary questions, half listening to the girl’s replies.

  From all around, she could feel people’s eyes. “Remind me how you met Connie.” Marianne plucked two champagne flutes from a table and handed one to Benita, who accepted it without thanks.

  “We just met in the town square, really,” the girl said. “I was there with my troop—my BDM troop—”

  “Good grief! The BDM? How old are you?” Marianne exclaimed.

  “Oh no—not the one for little girls—for the older girls, Belief and Beauty. I’m nineteen.”

  “Ah.” Marianne patted her arm. “Positively ancient.”

  The girl glanced at her.

  “Aren’t these lovely?” Marianne pointed at the white chrysanthemums and dark autumn anemones arranged in pots along the balustrade. High above, pale clouds scudded across the dark sky. And in the distance, the woods were inky in the twilight. “So the town square . . .”

  Benita sipped her champagne and coughed. “It’s not much of a story. We met and talked and then later we went out for dinner.”


  Marianne rested her glass atop the courtyard wall. “And now you are to be married.”

  “When you say it like that”—Benita hesitated—“it sounds odd.”

  Marianne smiled and cocked her head to the side, knitting her brows. She had learned this scrutinizing expression from the countess and found it proved helpful at drawing out confessions and explanations from children and family members, even grown men.

  But it did not have the desired effect on the girl. Instead, she seemed to find her mettle, squaring her shoulders. “There were a few things in between.”

  “Of course,” Marianne said. Why had she taken this interrogative tack? The girl was to become Connie’s wife. It would do Marianne no good to have started off this way. “I’m sorry—I don’t mean to pry.

  “Come.” She glanced around the rapidly filling courtyard for an opening and, with relief, spotted Herman Kempel, one of the rubes who had been so smitten with Benita earlier. “Let’s go talk to your latest admirer.”

  As the night wore on, a kind of giddy, reckless energy took over. A comical figure in lederhosen and kneesocks played an accordion—was he someone the countess had hired or a local guest?—and people began folk dancing on the uneven cobblestones. Women even kicked off their shoes, despite the cold. And inside, the American jazz trio the countess had invited finally arrived. They played ragtime in the great hall while a number of the bolder, more cosmopolitan guests demonstrated dances with silly names like the Big Apple and the Lindy Hop. Somehow, despite the improvised stove and lack of running water, the chef presented a steady stream of delicacies: traditional pork meatballs with a delicate parsley sauce, plump white steamed dumplings, and silver-dollar sausage rounds. But also novelties—asparagus wrapped with paper-thin ham, jelly molds, pineapple flambé, and caviar toast . . . like the music, the food spanned the gamut of German cultural life.

  Marianne drifted in a haze, not of alcohol (the hostess never had more than one glass of punch—this too she had learned from the countess), but of relief. She had managed to continue the immodest tradition of the harvest party, even as the nation was swept up in this wave of rigid and peevish militancy. And she had managed to transcend her own upbringing (how mortified her father would be to see her throw a party featuring jazz dancing and champagne toasts) and provide these people with something lovely, liberating, and ethereal.