by Helen Grant
I saw her standing by the fountain in front of the photographer’s shop. The fountain is a curious gunmetal gray creation with a statue of King Zwentibold of Oberlothringen gazing benevolently down from the top. Although it was February, and uncomfortably chilly, the sun was shining and Katharina was bathed in its cold pale glow. The memory is so sharp that sometimes I doubt myself-did my mind create this image because I wanted to see her, or was she really there?
She was dressed as Snow White-an instantly recognizable outfit because it had been based on the Disney costume: blue bodice, yellow ankle-length skirt, red cloak, a high collar, and a little red bow in her dark hair. I think that was why she or her mother had chosen that costume-Katharina had thick wavy hair that was almost jet-black, so she was the perfect Snow White, with her rather pale skin and dark eyes. When she vanished, it almost seemed like something from a fairy tale, as though she were one of Grimms’ twelve dancing princesses, who somehow got out of a locked bedroom every night and came home in the morning with their shoes worn to flinders. But Katharina never came home at all.
I don’t know who first realized something was wrong. The procession started-as is traditional-at eleven minutes past two. All the Karneval floats were lined up in the road outside the Orchheimer Tor, the great gate at the southern end of the town. Full-volume Karneval music crackled through enormous speakers, competing with the shouts and cheers of the crowd.
As the first float passed under the Tor, Stefan and I with a dozen other children darted forward to gather up handfuls of the sweets and little trinkets being thrown out. The haul was always good and we were well prepared, with canvas shopping bags to carry our loot in. The actual floats themselves were of less interest than the gathering of the booty, but I remember there were several very impressive ones that year-a pirate ship with real cannons belching forth dry ice, and an undersea scene with fish and octopuses, surmounted by Neptune on his throne, attended by bare-shouldered mermaids shivering in the February air.
Nearly everyone was in costume: Marla Frisch passed by, dressed as Red Riding Hood, studiously failing to notice me. Thilo Koch appeared as an overweight pirate, his potbelly straining at the satin of his shirt. Much as I hated him, I could not help feeling envious: at least his mother had bought him a costume, a proper one.
My mother had never quite grasped the Karneval concept. She seemed to think that some kind of extra merit points would be awarded to parents who made their children’s costumes. Buying was cheating, in her book. She didn’t see how much I longed to be like Lena or Eva from my class, dressed up in a Barbie Princess costume or a fairy dress from Kaufhof.
This year she had dressed the family up as characters from the Wizard of Oz: she was the Tin Man, my father was the Scarecrow, and Sebastian was the Cowardly Lion (though you might have mistaken him for Toto, so vague was my mother’s representation of leonine anatomy). I was Dorothy, dragooned into a blue-and-white-checked pinafore dress with a frilly white blouse underneath and a pair of old pumps painted red and peppered with sequins. After Daniella Brandt had stopped, her head on one side, and asked me whether we were supposed to be the Von Trapp family, my cup of bitterness overflowed and I resolved that next year I would buy a costume, even if I had to save up my entire pocket money between now and then.
Stefan was slightly better off; he had a clearly recognizable Spider-Man costume complete with face mask. We made an odd pair, Dorothy and Spider-Man, scuttling through the cobbled streets with our bags stuffed with candy, popcorn, and plastic toys. Still-Karneval is a time for strange sights, when sour-faced neighbors turn jolly for the day, and straitlaced old ladies dress up as vampires or French maids. It was also, as it turned out, the ideal time for someone-or something-else to stalk the streets, someone whose strangeness and inhuman intent went unnoticed in the general mayhem.
As the procession moved through the town, Stefan and I followed it, threading our way through the crowds together. I remember seeing Katharina Linden at the fountain as we reached the junction in the center of town. It must have been at about a quarter to three.
A little farther on I remember seeing Frau Linden, who was dressed as a clown in a kind of multicolored romper suit and a green curly wig. She was holding Nils-the younger of Katharina’s two brothers-by the hand. Nils was dressed as a ladybug, and looked thoroughly disgusted at the whole proceedings; he was swinging on her arm and complaining vociferously about something.
Perhaps that is why Frau Linden failed to notice her daughter’s disappearance at first; she was preoccupied with the much younger Nils. And, after all, Bad Münstereifel was a small town-everyone knew one another, and even during Karneval there were enough friendly faces around that you needn’t worry about your children. Or so everyone thought.
When the procession had reached the Werther Tor, we wandered back to the fountain where we’d passed Katharina Linden, and sat on the edge of the stone basin, full of candy and feeling contented in a slightly queasy way. The crowds were dispersing, and the floats had been replaced with a squat street-cleaning machine that growled over the cobblestones like an oversized vacuum cleaner, followed by a team of bored-looking men dressed in orange overalls and armed with trash bags.
I looked away, up toward the archway leading into the St. Michael Gymnasium, and saw a flicker of color as someone dressed in a clown suit came hurrying out. It was Frau Linden, minus Nils. She moved quickly across the Salzmarkt and out of my line of vision. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I was a little surprised when several minutes later she appeared from the alley at the side of the Rathaus, and came hurrying down the street toward us. I dug Stefan in the ribs with my elbow to make him look up.
“What?”
I nodded in the direction of Frau Linden, who was now making a beeline for us. I was formulating some silly remark when I saw her expression. Her face, normally warm and kindly, had a frigid, set look to it that sat oddly with her emerald-green wig. Instinctively sensing that something was wrong, I got to my feet as she came up to us.
“Have you seen Katharina?”
Her voice was taut, vibrating as though it would suddenly break and shatter her composure. I looked at her uncertainly.
“We saw her earlier on,” I told her.
“Where?” There was an unstable urgency in her voice. I found myself leaning backward, thinking that she might take me by the shoulders and shake me; she had that sort of look.
“Here,” I said. “By the fountain.” From her face I could see this was not the answer she wanted; I suddenly felt hot all over, as though I had told her a lie.
“Did you see where she went?” snapped Frau Linden.
“No,” said Stefan, and Frau Linden shot him a look, as if she had only just noticed him.
“No, sorry,” I said, echoing Stefan. We looked at each other uncomfortably.
Frau Linden suddenly seemed to sag a little, as though the energy that had drawn her toward us had drained out of her. Now she did reach out with one hand and touch my shoulder.
“Are you sure?” she asked me. “Are you really sure you didn’t see where she went?”
“No,” I said, then, realizing that this sounded ambiguous: “No, I didn’t see where she went.”
“She’s probably gone around to Marla’s or something,” suggested Stefan, trying to be helpful.
“She hasn’t,” stated Frau Linden bluntly. She looked about her in a preoccupied manner, as though she had left Katharina somewhere like a forgotten bag of shopping.
Then her arm dropped to her side, she turned and hurried back up the Marktstrasse, without even bothering to say goodbye. Stefan and I exchanged glances. This was odd behavior from an adult.
“Komisch,” observed Stefan.
“Yes,” I agreed, shrugging.
It was getting chilly standing there in my gingham dress, and the curt exchange with Frau Linden had dissipated my holiday mood.
“I’m going home,” I said, and after a pause, “Do you want to co
me?”
Stefan just nodded. We picked up our bags of loot and set off for my house. I was sliding my key into the lock when my mother opened the door from the other side.
Typically for my mother, she did not waste time greeting Stefan and asking him all those mundane adult questions such as How is school going? or How is your mother? She launched straight in with “Has either of you seen Katharina Linden?”
We looked at each other. Had all the adults gone mad?
“No,” we both said in unison.
“Are you quite sure?”
“We saw her at the fountain earlier on, but she’s gone now,” I said. “We told Frau Linden that.” I looked at my mother doubtfully. “Why is everyone looking for her, anyway? What’s she done?”
“She hasn’t done anything,” said my mother. “She’s just disappeared.” She eyed me and Stefan dubiously, obviously reluctant to say anything that would alarm us. “Well, she’s probably just gone home with a friend,” she said eventually. “I’m sure she’ll turn up.”
“Frau Linden said she’d already tried Marla Frisch’s house,” I pointed out. There was a silence. “Where’s Papa?” I asked.
“He’s out,” said my mother. She sighed. “He’s helping the Lindens look for Katharina.”
“We can help too,” suggested Stefan. He pulled the Spider-Man balaclava off his head to reveal sandy hair sticking up every which way in untidy clumps. His face looked eager; I wondered if he was letting the Spider-Man outfit go to his head. “We can look for her. We know loads of places, don’t we, Pia?”
My mother shook her head. “I think it would be better if you both stayed in now,” she said. “Let the grown-ups look for Katharina.” Her voice was mild, but the tone was unmistakably firm. Abruptly, as though changing the subject, she said, “Do you two want some hot chocolate?”
Five minutes later, Stefan and I were contentedly enthroned on the long bench behind the kitchen table, our mouths ringed with chocolate. For the time being, Katharina Linden was forgotten.
Chapter Seven
It was fully dark when my father finally came home. He was still in his Scarecrow outfit, although his brown face paint was all smeared, as though he had been wiping the back of his hand across his face like a little child. As he stood stamping his feet on the doormat, my mother came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel.
“And?” was all she said.
My father shook his head. “Not a sign of her anywhere.” He bent to unlace his shoes, breathing heavily. When he straightened up, he said, “Someone thought they saw her up near the Orchheimer Tor, but it was another child in a similar costume. Dieter Linden’s still out looking, but I don’t think he’ll find much now it’s dark.”
I was listening to this from the kitchen table, where I was working my way through my supper: gray bread, a slice of cheese, and a smear of Leberwurst. My father’s choice of words struck me as odd even at this stage: he didn’t think Herr Linden would find much, as though he were not looking for a person but a thing, or worse, pieces of a thing.
“I wonder what-” my mother began, then glanced back into the kitchen to where I was sitting and hastily added, “I expect she’s gone home with one of her friends and forgotten to call her mother.” Then she and my father went through into the living room and closed the door.
Their voices resumed, but at such a low level that I couldn’t have made sense of any of it unless I had pressed my ear to the door, which would have been far too risky. I looked down at my piece of Leberwurst-coated bread, with a neat semicircle bitten out of it in the shape of my teeth. I wondered whether Katharina Linden really was at a friend’s house. If not, where was she? It didn’t make sense. People don’t just disappear, I thought.
The next morning being Rosenmontag, there was no school. My parents had half promised to take Sebastian and me to another parade some kilometers away, but when I got up at half past nine it was to discover that my father had already gone out. My mother was in the living room, dusting the furniture with a grim expression. I didn’t need to ask whether our excursion was off. My mother was attacking the cleaning with the zeal of someone gritting their teeth and undergoing some particularly unpleasant therapy.
“Where’s Papa?” I asked.
“Out,” said my mother tersely. She straightened up, rubbing the small of her back. “He’s gone to help someone with something.”
“Oh.” I wondered whether he was going to look for Katharina Linden again. “I think I might go around to Stefan’s after breakfast and see if he can come out. Is that OK?”
My mother paused for a moment. “How about you stay here today, Pia?”
“But, Mama…” I was dismayed.
“Pia, I really think it would be best if you stayed home.” My mother sounded weary but firm. “If you can’t think of anything to do, you can help me with the cleaning.”
“I’ve got homework,” I informed her hastily, and beat a retreat to the kitchen before she could rope me into anything.
The day dragged by horribly slowly. I wondered what Stefan was up to. Was he outdoors somewhere, or had his parents also imposed a curfew on him? I wondered if it had anything to do with the Katharina Linden thing that seemed to be sending all the adults temporarily weird.
At five o’clock, when it was dark, my father came home and almost instantly disappeared into the living room again with my mother. They were in there for about half an hour, after which my father went upstairs for a shower and my mother came looking for me, with a serious expression on her face. I recognized this as her here-comes-a-little-talk look. I was sitting on the living-room floor with a magazine; she came in, sat down carefully on the sofa, and patted the cushion next to her. With an inward sigh, I got up and went to sit next to her.
“What?” I said.
“Don’t say ‘what?’” said my mother automatically.
“Sorry,” I said, equally automatically; it was an exchange we had had a thousand times. “Is it about Katharina Linden?” I asked immediately.
My mother cocked her head on one side. “Yes. I’m telling you about this because you’re bound to hear about it when you get back to school,” she began.
“They haven’t found her, have they?” I said.
“Well, no, they haven’t, not yet,” said my mother, laying emphasis on the last word as though to imply perfect confidence that Katharina would be found at any moment. “But I hope they will find her, very soon.” She sighed. “There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. Perhaps she went home with a friend and didn’t tell anyone.”
She stayed overnight and still didn’t tell anyone? I thought skeptically.
“All the same,” my mother was going on, “we should all be just a little… careful for a while. We don’t really know what’s happened.” She reached out and rubbed my arm almost absently. “I’m sorry we even need to have this conversation,” she said. “But you never know… Pia, you must promise me not to go anywhere with anyone without telling me first. You remember that book you had in the second grade?”
“Ich kenn dich nicht, ich geh nicht mit,” I quoted, then looked a little askance at my mother. “Do you think someone’s taken Katharina, then, like in the book?”
“I hope not,” said my mother. She seemed momentarily at a loss how to proceed. “Just be careful,” she said at last. “And if you see anything odd, Pia, you come and tell me or Papa, understand?”
“Hmmm,” I said noncommittally. I was not sure what she meant by odd. “Sebastian’s crying,” I pointed out, tuning in to a muffled wailing from upstairs.
My mother got to her feet. “All right, I’ll go and see to him. Just remember, won’t you?”
“Yes, Mama.” I watched her leave the room and start up the staircase. I didn’t move from the sofa, but sat there swinging my legs against the front of it and thinking over what she had said. Anything odd.
Now that I’m older, I can see what my mother meant by odd. Adults think something is
odd if it doesn’t fit the normal routine. The person who puts down a package on a railway platform and walks away from it. The car that’s still behind the lone woman driver even when she’s made four or five turns and maybe even doubled back on herself. Things that don’t fit the usual pattern. Danger signs.
But to me, when I was ten, odd, or the word my mother actually used, seltsam, which means “odd, peculiar, strange, weird,” could signify a great many less tangible things. It could mean, for example, the deserted locked-up house by the Werkbrücke, which the schoolchildren always scurried past at top speed, deliciously afraid of seeing some unspeakable face pressed against the dusty window glass.
It seemed to me-if not to the adults-that Katharina Linden’s disappearance could be attributed to some supernatural agency. How otherwise could she have been spirited away from under the very noses of her family, in broad daylight too, in a town where everyone knew everyone else? I did not know-I did not know yet, I told myself, for I was determined to find out-who or what it was that had taken Katharina. Still I was now convinced, correctly as it turned out, that she would never be seen alive again.
Chapter Eight
That icy February, when Katharina Linden vanished, the entire town was in a state of shock, and yet nobody thought it would happen again. During Karneval, Bad Münstereifel was full of people from goodness-knew-where, and there was so much mayhem going on that anything might happen. Once Karneval was over, and the town was quiet again, nobody really expected another child to disappear. All the same, my mother began to take rather more interest in my comings and goings than was comfortable. There was to be no more roaming around the town on my own, and she was reluctant to let me go off to the playground in the Schleidtal, even if Stefan came as well. Going to Stefan’s house was out too, since it meant being smoked like a herring in the fumes of his mother’s chain-smoking. It was a relief for me and Stefan to be able to escape to the more agreeable environment of Herr Schiller’s house, where nobody asked about homework and we could beg him to tell us old stories of the town. That was how he came to recount the tale of Unshockable Hans.