The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

by Helen Grant

“What was Julia wearing?” cut in the policeman as Frau Diederichs continued to count.

  “A dark-blue jacket, a pink hat…” Frau Mahlberg screwed her face up as if the effort of staying calm was almost killing her. “… white woolen mittens…”

  I turned to Lena, to say something about Julia, to ask her whether she had seen her, so for a moment I didn’t notice that Frau Diederichs had stopped counting. “Isn’t that her?” she said suddenly in a voice made tremulous with excitement. I looked up and saw that she was pointing at me. I looked at Lena and then half turned to look behind me. There were no children behind me, only the dark bulk of my father in his winter coat. I swiveled back to look at Frau Diederichs. She was still staring at me, and her hand was still outstretched.

  “The pink hat,” she said.

  Suddenly all eyes were upon me. The next second, Frau Mahlberg had stepped forward and with a sharp jerk of her hand had pulled the pink hat from my head, almost taking a handful of hair with it.

  “Ow,” I said, but nobody heard me. Frau Mahlberg was screaming at the top of her voice, screaming like a stuck pig. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me until my teeth chattered. “She’s not Julia! She’s not Julia!” she was shrieking, centimeters away from my face.

  I froze in her grip like an animal caught in the lights of an express train, unable to move as doom bore down upon me. My head snapped back; as the hurricane of Frau Mahlberg’s fury swept across me, I imagined my eyes popping from their sockets and bouncing across the cobblestones like marbles.

  “Hör auf!” boomed my father’s voice. For a moment, insanely, I thought it was me he was telling to stop it, whatever it was that I had done to outrage Frau Mahlberg. Then he was pulling me away from her, and the granite-faced policeman was holding on to her while she struggled in his grasp like a madwoman. His face still looked impassive.

  Frau Diederichs was standing beside this tableau, looking white-faced and shocked. She kept looking from me to Frau Mahlberg and back again, as though she could not really believe what she saw.

  “I counted them,” she kept saying. “I counted them.”

  “You counted this child,” the policeman said, nodding at me. “Is she from the class, or isn’t she?”

  “No,” said Frau Diederichs. “I don’t know…” She approached me tentatively, as though she suspected me of some criminal act, of having spirited Julia Mahlberg away in order to take her place. Then she said, “It’s Pia Kolvenbach. The girl whose grandmother…” She faltered.

  “The girl whose grandmother what?” said the policeman, but I didn’t hear any more.

  My father was pulling me into his embrace, as though I were a kindergarten child and not a great big girl of eleven. I buried my head in the front of his coat; I could still feel the vibration of his chest as he spoke determinedly to the policeman, but mercifully the words were muffled. I thought I would go mad if I had to listen to Oma Kristel’s accident being dragged up all over again. I clung to my father until finally he stopped speaking and prized me off.

  “Pia, you can go home now.”

  My mother had surfaced from somewhere in the crowd, with Sebastian in his stroller.

  I didn’t bother to listen to the brittle exchange between her and my father, nor did I bother to look around for my lantern, which I had dropped while in Frau Mahlberg’s tempestuous grip, and which was almost certainly trampled beyond repair. I let my mother lead me away from the row that was still continuing, her arm around my shoulders while with her free hand she negotiated the stroller over the cobblestones.

  My father remained with the policeman and Frau Mahlberg; I glanced at him over my shoulder as my mother walked me away from them, my chest tight with the horrible conviction that I had somehow got us all in trouble, that my father was having to face the music for me.

  “What’s happening?” I asked my mother.

  She looked at me, and her face was grim in the low light, but she only shook her head. People were milling all about us; the man with the bullhorn was standing on the steps with it in his hand, looking startled. No one seemed disposed to leave the square, but the usual buzz of excited voices was replaced with curious looks and whispers. The policemen who had been stationed at intervals along the procession route were all coming back into the square; I had never seen so many policemen in Bad Münstereifel before; it looked as though they were expecting a riot. Some of them were speaking into walkie-talkies.

  My mother increased her pace, pulling me along. When we reached the corner, I looked back to see whether St. Martin was still there. But the ramp at the side of the square was empty. He had gone.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  That was not the end of it for me, of course; later in the evening Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf called at the house and spent a long time going over what had happened during the procession. I was glad it was him and not the granite-faced policeman whose impassive gaze made me feel as though I were guilty of absolutely everything you could name.

  Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf was his usual kindly self, but unimaginably meticulous; he went over everything again and again, asking questions in an unvaryingly gentle voice, until I was too tired to answer them properly. Why had I decided to walk with Frau Diederichs’s class? Had someone suggested it? How did I know Lena Schmitz? Did I know Julia Mahlberg? Had I noticed her at any time during the procession?

  My mother put Sebastian to bed and then she came down and sat next to me, stony-faced, silently holding my hand. At half past ten she simply said, “Enough.” She got to her feet.

  “Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf, Pia has to sleep.”

  “Frau Kolvenbach-” He didn’t get any further.

  “Don’t tell me it’s important. I know it’s important. But she’s only a child and she’s exhausted. Look.”

  I tried to look alert, but I could barely keep my eyes open. “I’m not tired,” I started to say, and ruined it with a massive yawn. My eyelids felt as though they would slide shut under their own momentum like the roller shutters we had on our windows.

  “She can’t possibly tell you anything else. You’ve asked her the same things at least twice, anyway.”

  “Frau Kolvenbach,” began Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf doggedly, “I am sorry that your daughter is tired, but you must understand, the Mahlbergs have a daughter too. We must do everything possible to find her.”

  “I know that,” snapped my mother. “So why don’t you get out onto the street and help look for her?”

  At this piece of rudeness I was suddenly wide awake again. I was used to my mother’s occasional volcanic outbursts, but still I was stunned at her daring, telling the police their business. I looked at her; her face had a drawn-in look to it, with deep furrows between the brows and at the corners of the mouth. She looked suddenly older, witchlike.

  Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf’s avuncular expression froze over in an instant. When he stood up, his movements were stiffly formal. “I will have to come again tomorrow,” he informed my mother coldly. She merely nodded, making no move to show him out. Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf looked at her for a moment, then picked up his cap and made his own way to the door, closing it softly behind him.

  My mother took me upstairs in silence and helped me to get ready for bed. Her face still had that oddly puckered look, as though she was keeping something tightly under control. Still, she was gentle with me, brushing my teeth for me as I stood before her swaying a little with tiredness, and helping me into my nightdress. She even let me leave the bedside lamp in my room on, as though trying to keep off the night monsters that very small children fear. She sat by my bed for a while, and I think she was still there when I fell asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  I don’t know exactly what time it was when I woke. I was lying on my back on the bed, with my comforter half on, half off my body, and my head flung back so that the light from the bedside lamp was shining directly on my face. I was dreaming of a wailing sound like a siren, rhythmic pulses of sound, an
d the light was so bright that it seemed to pulsate too, in time to the rising and falling of the wailing.

  I opened my eyes, then shut them again instantly, dazzled. The siren sound was still going on, and for a moment I thought it was still part of a dream, that I was not properly awake. But it was real. As I sat up, blinking, I could hear my parents moving about outside on the landing, speaking in low voices.

  “Mama?”

  I felt strangely disoriented. Was there a house on fire or something? I slid my legs off the side of the bed, intending to get up and go to my parents. My mother forestalled me by opening the bedroom door; she was in her dressing gown, her hair spread over her shoulders in a dark mass.

  “Pia, what are you doing awake?” she said, but her voice sounded vague rather than annoyed.

  “I heard a noise.” My bare feet touched the floor; the boards were cold.

  “It’s nothing.”

  My mother came right into the room and picked up my comforter, intending that I should lie down and she should cover me up with it. But now I was wide awake. I glanced at the doorway and saw my father standing there. Unlike my mother, he was fully dressed in outdoor clothes-dark cord trousers, boots, and a down jacket.

  “It sounded like the fire brigade-or the police,” I said.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” said my mother. She shook the comforter a little as though to encourage me back underneath it. “Get back into bed.”

  “Do they want to ask me some more questions?” I wanted to know.

  “No.” My mother glanced at my father. She plumped up my pillow, thumping it savagely. “Not tonight. Get in,” she added. I did so, reluctantly.

  “Why is Papa dressed? Is it nearly morning?”

  “He had to go out,” said my mother, then added tartly, “He thinks I don’t have enough to do, so he thought he’d tread mud right through the house.”

  “I will clean it up,” said my father in an irritable voice.

  “Good intentions,” snapped my mother. She pushed her hair back behind her ears, but it wouldn’t stay; unruly strands immediately fell forward over her eyes again. She looked different from the daytime Mama with her habitual ponytail: this mother looked younger, but somehow slightly wild.

  “Did you find that girl, Papa?” I asked.

  My father shook his head. “No, Pia. But the police are still looking.”

  “So where did you go?” I was starting to feel sleepy again, but this was too interesting to miss: all three of us up in the middle of the night. I hoped Sebastian would not spoil it by waking up and howling.

  “Castle Dracula,” snapped my mother. “That’s where he went.”

  “Castle Dracula?”

  “Kate-” started my father, but my mother interrupted him.

  “Well, he might just as well have been there. That’s where crowds of screaming peasants carrying pitchforks usually go when they want to lynch someone, isn’t it?”

  She clawed her hair back from her face again and regarded my father mutinously.

  “We didn’t want to lynch anybody, and they are not peasants,” he said in an ominous voice.

  “Did I say-” started my mother sarcastically, and then stopped short, shaking her head in frustration. “Why do you always take everything so bloody literally?”

  “And why do you say things if you don’t really mean them?” he countered.

  “Well, that’s what it was, wasn’t it?” she demanded resentfully. “A lynch mob? Or did you knock on his door and try to sell him encyclopedias?”

  “Whose door?” I asked, but the question was lost somewhere in the atmosphere crackling between my parents like electricity arcing between two points.

  “If you want to know the truth,” said my father portentously, “we went there to make sure he didn’t get lynched.”

  “That’s very good,” said my mother, nodding vigorously. My father looked at her suspiciously. “No, do go on,” she added. “I’m interested.”

  “There are some people in this town who make very quick judgments,” began my father doggedly.

  “You don’t say?”

  “Kate, this is why you find it difficult here, if you always think the worst of people.” My father had become rather flushed in the face. He shook his head. “All I am saying is, there are some people who might jump to conclusions before they know the truth. We cannot just take the law into our own hands.”

  “So you went there to make sure nobody did try to take the law into their own hands?”

  My father nodded.

  “And the thirty or so other concerned fathers, they were just some sort of UN peacekeeping force?” said my mother.

  “You have to make fun,” said my father.

  “I’m not making fun. I just can’t believe it. What, did you think he’d look out his front window and see you lot arriving and think, Hey, I’m safe now?”

  “Kate, that boy Koch, the one who had a brother in Pia’s class, he had already broken a window.”

  “And where were the police?”

  “Looking for the little Mahlberg girl. But they are there now, you know that.”

  “Are you sure they didn’t take their time on purpose?”

  “What do you mean?” asked my father.

  “Breaking windows… it seems to me that some people in this town have been having their own little Kristallnacht,” said my mother.

  There was a very long silence. The two of them were motionless, my father filling the doorway, my mother standing by my bed, one palm resting on the surface of my little dressing table as though for support. The silence was broken by the sound of her fingers rubbing back and forth across the painted wood.

  “Sorry,” she said eventually.

  My father looked at her, but his face was so still that I could not tell whether he was angry, or upset, or indifferent.

  “There are good people in this town,” he said quietly.

  “I know-”

  “They don’t deserve insults like that-comparing them to Nazis.”

  “I said I’m sorry, isn’t that enough?”

  “No,” said my father. He turned away. “I will go and get a broom, and clean up this floor.”

  “I can do it.”

  “Not necessary,” said my father.

  For a minute or so after he had disappeared downstairs, my mother continued to stand by my bed looking toward the doorway, like a person on a quay watching a ship disappearing into the distance. Her fingers brushed the surface of my dressing table again, making a whispering sound. When she spoke, it was from the corner of her mouth, her voice soft, her eyes never leaving the door.

  “Go to sleep, Pia. Go to sleep.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The following morning when I came downstairs my father had already left for work. My mother was in the kitchen making waffles, a rare treat for breakfast. Sebastian was chomping happily, a heart-shaped waffle with a crescent bitten out of it clutched in his chubby fingers. My mother closed the waffle iron with a hiss and a little puff of steam.

  “Yours will be ready any second,” she said, and smiled at me. She sounded bright this morning, like a mother in a TV commercial, the sort who smiles cheerfully when her son gives her the whole team’s muddy football uniforms to wash.

  I slid into my habitual place behind the table.

  “Where’s Papa?”

  “He had to leave early.” She opened the waffle iron and slid a frying fork under the waffle to lever it out.

  “Oh.” I was disappointed; I had wanted to ask him about the night before. “Why did he have to go so early?”

  “Oh, you know.” She put the waffle on a plate and set it on the table in front of me. “Work.”

  “Hmmm.” I tried the waffle; it was warm and delicious. For a while I gave myself up to the enjoyment of it. Eventually, however, when the edge of my hunger had been dulled and I was starting to think that perhaps waffles were not so wonderful after all, in fact more than six of them was p
ositively off-putting, I said, “Mama? Where did Papa go last night?”

  “Oh, Pia.” She yanked the plug of the waffle iron from the outlet before answering the question. “If you must know, and I suppose you’ll soon find out, considering what a hotbed of gossip this town is, your father went round to Herr Düster’s.”

  “Herr Düster’s? Was it his windows that were broken?”

  “Not windows,” said my mother. “One window. And yes, it was his. It was Jörg Koch who did it. Why am I not surprised?” she added with heavy irony.

  “Why did Jörg Koch break his window? Was it an accident?”

  “No.”

  My mother picked up a cloth and began to wipe down the countertop, which was splattered with waffle batter. With her back to me, and her elbow working like a piston, she did not look very approachable. All the same, I persisted.

  “Why did he break it?”

  “Because he…” She paused, turned around, and looked at me. “Because some of the kind citizens of this delightful town have decided that Herr Düster is a criminal.”

  “Hmmm.” I thought about it. “Frau Kessel says it was probably Herr Düster who took Katharina Linden and the other girls. She said some girls disappeared in Bad Münstereifel when Papa was at school too, and it was Herr Düster then as well.”

  “Pia.” Now my mother’s gaze had acquired a laserlike intensity. “Frau Kessel is a poisonous old-well, never mind. I don’t want you listening to her stories about who has done what in this town, and I particularly don’t want to find out you’ve been passing them on to anyone else. If it wasn’t for her and her cronies, we probably wouldn’t have had a bloody lynch mob on the streets last night. She’s a witch.”

  The literal-minded side of my personality, inherited from my father, struggled to digest this last nugget of information.

  “Didn’t Herr Düster do it? Take the girls, I mean?”

  “Oh, Pia. I don’t know. Nobody knows. And even if he did, it still wouldn’t be right for people to just go round there and attack him. In civilized places,” she added more to herself than to me, “people are innocent until proved guilty.”