The Women in the Castle

by Jessica Shattuck

  She rose abruptly and went to the desk. She had to write back. If there was one thing she had learned, it was that you had to act. To rise up and meet obstacles thrown in your path. To sit and wait was death.

  She pulled a sheet of airmail paper from her desk.

  I’m afraid you are mistaken, she wrote. I know no one by the names of Ania or Rainer Brandt. Best of luck.

  For a long moment she sat, staring at the words and at the once intimate name, Brandt. Then she sealed the envelope and tiptoed down the hall to the room her boys shared. She stood before their door and listened. She could hear their voices within—Anselm’s low murmur, Wolfgang’s faster, more heated tone. What would they make of the news? Her boys, for whom she had done too little and from whom she had asked so much—total faith, total amnesia, total forgiveness.

  Something made her hesitate. As she stood in the darkness, a new intention formed. She would shoulder this new uncertainty alone. It was hers, after all. So she listened a moment more, allowing her courage to be bolstered by the trappings of this ordinary life she had arranged: homework, supper, chores, bed.

  Then, moving swiftly and quietly, she turned and went back down the hall.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tollingen, June 1950

  Marianne was in the middle of a dream when the doorbell rang. A sweet, long-ago dream from her last life, of sitting in the garden at Weisslau, a picnic under the chestnut tree with her children, the dogs, and Albrecht. And then all the gaiety disappeared. She was not in Weisslau but in her flat in Tollingen. The plot had failed. Weisslau was lost. Albrecht was dead.

  Marianne sat up. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating dust motes and uneven layers of floor wax. It was still day. Without her work at the camp, she found herself napping at odd times and reading deep into the night. It was embarrassing. She swung her legs off the sofa. It was likely Benita, having forgotten her key, of course.

  “Welcome home!” she said, opening the door, hoping there were no telltale wrinkles from the pillow on her face. “Where are your keys?”

  “I’m sorry.” Benita blushed. “I must have left them on the table—or when I was—”

  “Come in, come in,” Marianne commanded. “It’s too cold in the hall. How is your sister?”

  “My sister.” Benita looked surprised. “Oh, yes—she’s well. Thank you.”

  “She’s well?” Marianne asked. “I thought she was ill again.”

  “As well as possible.”

  Marianne studied Benita. She was, as usual these days, in a state of heightened spirits. She seemed overexcited, in fact. Something had happened. She could not step over a dead cat on the sidewalk without it appearing hours later on her face.

  “Here, you must be tired from the trip. Come have some coffee and raisin cake,” Marianne said, starting toward the kitchen. “The children ate almost all of it, but I asked them to save some for you.”

  Benita followed her.

  “Wash up and I’ll make the coffee,” Marianne said, as if Benita were a child. And like an obedient daughter, Benita did as told.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Marianne began as soon as she returned, “that we should take a trip together with the children, show them something of Germany. We could go to Berlin first and visit Georg Bucher—did Connie ever introduce you to him? They were always such dear friends . . . or maybe into Munich to see Marienplatz and the Asamkirche? The boys are getting so old and what do they know of their country? Nothing but all the bad things.”

  “All right.” Benita nodded, poking at her slice of cake.

  “Or,” Marianne ventured, “we could visit Helmut Kressing—What is it?” She broke off at the sight of Benita’s face. “Do you really dislike him so much?”

  “No! No, no,” Benita said, shifting in her seat. “I just—there is something I need to tell you.”

  “Of course,” Marianne said, sitting back. “You look so serious.” She laughed. “Is it a matter of life and death?”

  To her surprise, Benita did not smile.

  Marianne could not sleep that night. She tried to believe it was the nap. But of course it was not. Benita’s news was like a mouse crawling around in her head, nibbling on the wiring, pissing and shitting on her memories, creating electrical storms. Benita Fledermann, wife of Martin Constantine Fledermann, was to marry an ex-Nazi, an ordinary carpenter turned member of the Orpo, a man with God knows how much blood on his hands.

  In Marianne’s mind, he appeared as he had the morning he carried Benita back from the woods: a giant man cradling a girl in his arms, covered in blood. Like some monster from a legend. What had happened that morning was something she had never understood. Benita had ventured out to warn Herr Muller of the Russians camped in front of the stable and had been attacked. She had stabbed her attacker. And the man had run off. Herr Muller had found her and carried her back. This was the garbled story that Benita recited. But Marianne never believed it. The next day, the Russians had come looking—one of them was missing. Marianne had said nothing, but of course she wondered. She could not imagine birdbrained, fragile Benita stabbing anyone. No, Marianne felt certain it was Herr Muller who killed him. Possibly in defense of Benita, possibly not. What was one more murder to a man who had served in Lublin? She had been right to tell Peterman to reassign him. Only she had been too late.

  But now suddenly he was back. This time, even closer, popping up beside the little skiff of a family she was steering. All these years, he had been swimming alongside, beneath the surface. It was a shock and a betrayal.

  I have failed you, Connie, Marianne thought. It sounded melodramatic. But it was true. Take care of my wife, Connie had instructed her. Look out for my son. Don’t let her marry a Nazi pig, don’t let a murderer take my place. That was implicit.

  Marianne swung her legs out of bed, pulled on her dressing gown, and went to the kitchen. To her surprise, light streamed from under the door—the faintly greenish glow of the fluorescent coil on the ceiling. She hesitated for a moment—what if Benita was there? The idea that this would keep her from her own kitchen gave her a righteous surge of adrenaline.

  She swung through the door, grim faced and prepared for battle, but was met with the sight of Martin sitting at the table, reading.

  “Tante Marianne!” he said, his expression guilty. His face shifted as he took in her countenance. Dear Martin, poor Martin, sweet boy—Marianne tried to smile and amend whatever anger he had seen.

  “What are you doing up at this hour?” she asked. “You have school tomorrow!”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he said simply, and it occurred to her that for him this was not an unusual occurrence.

  “Have you had milk? Warm milk?” She padded over to the small icebox and removed the bottle. “That always helps.”

  He shook his head.

  Marianne poured enough for them both and set the saucepan on the stove. “What are you reading?”

  “Karl May.” Martin held up the book; it was Marianne’s own ancient copy of Winnetou, its cracked leather binding and faded gold embossing as familiar to her as an old friend. “I borrowed it from Fritz.”

  “Do you like it?” Marianne asked.

  “I love it.”

  Marianne felt a swell of love for him. He was more like her than her own son, who had pronounced the book unrealistic and dull.

  “It was my favorite,” she said.

  They were silent. The milk simmered on the stove, and the light ticked overhead.

  “You’re happy here, aren’t you, Martin?” Marianne asked. “I mean living with us—all together, you and your mother and my family?”

  “Of course!” The boy looked surprised.

  “You don’t wish”—she turned off the milk, placed two cups and saucers on the counter—“that your mother were remarried, that you lived somewhere else with a stepfather?”

  Confusion crowded across his young face. For a moment, Marianne regretted the question.


  “No,” he said. “Why—do you think my mother and I should be on our own?”

  “Oh, no! No, no,” Marianne exclaimed, nearly scalding herself. “Certainly not. I just wondered how you felt about it.”

  She studied his already shockingly handsome face. He looked away from the intensity of her gaze.

  “Martin,” she said seriously, “you know your father would have wanted it this way.”

  When Marianne awoke some hours later, she was hungry and filled with a sense of resolve. It was nearly eight a.m. Fritz and Martin had already left for school. Benita was sitting stiffly at the parlor table, making one of those hideous stuffed dolls that had become her hobby of late. When Marianne entered, she looked up and her face was pale, her eyes swollen from crying.

  “Marianne—” she began. “I’m sorry I never told you before—I couldn’t sleep. I—”

  “Never mind.” Marianne cut her off. “I cannot give you my blessing to marry Herr Muller,” she continued. “I have thought about it and it is not right.”

  Benita regarded her with a plaintive face. “Why? Because he was a Nazi? But everyone was a Nazi. He is a good man—”

  “Because it isn’t right that you should marry someone who worked for everything your husband died fighting against!” Marianne could hear her own shrillness.

  Benita began to cry. She looked childish and delicate in her distress. It made Marianne feel old. Here she was, cast again as the stable, unemotional foil to Benita’s damsel in distress.

  “Do you even know what he did in the war?” Marianne asked. “Do you talk about it?”

  Benita wiped her eyes. “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “He was in the Orpo. You know that much, don’t you?” she demanded. “But do you know what they did there, in the east?”

  Hastily, Benita rose and moved to the window. When she turned again, her face was illuminated by a new desperation. “Don’t you ever want to put it away, Marianne? To be done with it? I don’t want to know what they did. I don’t want to look over my shoulder forever. It was a horrible time. And now it is past!”

  Marianne stared at her. It was so selfish and cowardly! It made her blood boil. Benita was always looking out for her own interest, her own comfort. “You think the past is like one of your dolls? That you can just—tear it up and begin over again? Like that! And you are the wife of a hero! A man who died to make the past a little less horrible than it is. Don’t you think you owe him at least a little respect?”

  Now Benita began to cry in earnest. Her shoulders shook, and ugly, sputtering sobs escaped from her throat.

  “Do what you want.” Marianne sighed. “But I won’t let you draw Martin into this.”

  At this, Benita looked up. She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “Think it through,” Marianne said, softening slightly. “It is easy to mistake—”

  Benita interrupted. “You are cruel, Marianne. Connie always said so, but I never saw it.” She looked directly at her. “But now I can see it.”

  All day, Marianne felt the words like an ache. When would Connie have said this? It was a betrayal. Tough, she could imagine him saying. Discerning. Even hard. But not cruel. It was an arrow to her heart.

  “Katarina,” she asked when the girl came to say good night, “do you think of me as cruel?”

  Katarina’s dark eyes blinked in surprise. It was not like her mother to ask such a thing. “Cruel?” she repeated. The word shocked her: she was a true von Lingenfels. “Of course not! Why do you ask?”

  Marianne sighed. “Maybe we are all cruel sometimes without intending to be.”

  “Not you,” Katarina said, with such earnestness it made Marianne smile.

  “Even me.” Marianne put an arm around her daughter and rested her cheek against the girl’s side. Despite everything, she was still only a child.

  Marianne longed for the reassuring voice of an adult. She would ask Ania when she saw her next.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ehrenheim, June 1950

  Ania received another letter the following Saturday. This time it was not delivered by the mailman but by Frau Metzger, the woman who brought their cheese.

  “From a man,” Frau Metzger said with a coquettish smile, pulling the crinkly envelope from her bag. “He came to the market last week.”

  Ania stared.

  “Well?” Frau Metzger grinned. “Aren’t you going to open it? . . . Or maybe you already know who it was.” The woman winked.

  “Of course not,” Ania said.

  “Ah.” Frau Metzger sighed, obviously disappointed. “He did not look well. Recently back from the east.”

  “Hmm.” Ania frowned in an approximation of confusion. “Thank you very much.”

  This time there was no return address.

  I forgive you. You did what you felt was best. But you are not finished with me yet.

  The letter, if it could be called that, was wrapped around a photograph. A young man and woman wearing formal clothing, standing side by side at the bottom of an imposing set of steps. Wind blew at their hair and lifted the woman’s skirt. The man gazed off to the side as the woman smiled bravely in a manner that was as openly uncertain as it was direct.

  And Ania was there, with the wind blowing in her ears and her best shoes pinching her toes and a sense of great import leading her, irrationally, toward giddiness. She was like a person jumping from an airplane, experiencing the lightness of commitment to an unchangeable path. It was like remembering a character from one of the novels she had read in her youth.

  Ania set down the photograph. Outside, the afternoon sun yellowed, and bits of dried linden blew in the wind. It was time to prepare Carsten’s coffee and send Wolfgang out to the field with it. In the pasture, the bereaved mother cows bellowed for their babies still. They were not finished mourning yet.

  The next day, Ania visited the return address from the first letter. The trip required a bus, a train, and a long walk. Ania left Inge, the house apprentice, in charge of supper, afternoon coffee, the wash, the cucumber pickling, and tending the garden—and set off.

  It was an uncomfortable journey for a woman six months pregnant. On account of the heat, her swollen feet, and the sharp pain that shot up her spine, Ania had little time to think en route. So when she arrived in front of 19 Mauer Strasse, she was filled with a sense of shock. It was a real place, with real windows, and a real door. There was a front bell and a list of names beside it: a rooming house. The neighborhood was shabby; it stank of urine and cabbage soup.

  An older man emerged from the door of the building as she stood there. Not Rainer, but certainly someone who had fallen on hard times. He scowled at her with blind resentment.

  “Nha?” he said rudely. “Does it look good enough for you?” It took her a second to realize that he mistook her for someone looking for a place to stay.

  Ania squared her shoulders and mounted the steps.

  A hard-looking old woman came to the door. “No children allowed here,” she said, looking pointedly at Ania’s belly.

  “No, no—I’m not looking to stay,” Ania said. “I’m looking for someone—”

  The woman’s frown deepened. She had small, scrutinizing eyes. “I’m not an information service,” she snapped.

  “I’m looking for a man—” Ania withdrew the envelope with the return address and showed it to her.

  “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 o
n.” 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.