This Terrible Beauty: A Novel

by Katrin Schumann

  34

  Werner has just finished writing up his notes when there is a rap on the door. He checks his watch: four thirty in the afternoon; no wonder his eyes are heavy, the numbers in his columns swimming. This is the time of day when he usually stretches his legs and makes himself a cup of Kaffee mix. “Come in,” he calls out, stifling a yawn.

  Irmgard Bandelow smiles as she enters and bows her head apologetically. She is wearing a small straw hat perched at an angle on top of a collection of white-blonde buns. “Herr Nietz,” she says. “I do hope I’m not bothering you. I was just at the market, getting our weekly allotment.”

  “Please, call me Werner,” he says. “We’ve been neighbors long enough now, no?” They have been playing this game for the past few months: Herr Nietz, no, Werner; Frau Bandelow, no, Irmgard. Recently she has taken to wearing a brighter shade of lipstick, which makes her skin look pale and velvety. Once she was fleshy, and now she is gaunt; he finds it not altogether unbecoming. He motions for her to take a seat. “How may I help you?”

  “I wanted to thank you.” She pulls at the tip of each finger and slides off her gloves, which she lays, one on top of the other, on her lap. Her eyes take in the room, the etchings on the wall, the plaque on his desk, his fountain pen, and the large worn oriental carpet. “We were finally able to declare Ernst a casualty of war; they agreed! So I’ve been assigned my widow’s pension. I know I have you to thank for that. You’ve been so very generous.”

  Werner taps on the table. Actually, he neglected to speak to Supervisor Helgendorf about Irmgard’s war benefits, but he is loath to admit this oversight, and he smiles instead. “Frau Bandelow—”

  “Call me Irmgard, please.”

  “Irmgard, yes, well . . . ‘honor for the party and strength for us all.’”

  “Of course, but thank you all the same. I was hoping I could entice you and your wife to come for dinner one night so that I might thank you properly.”

  It’s funny with women, how you cannot force them into friendships, Werner thinks to himself. These two have lived side by side for more than ten years, and yet there is no easy familiarity between them. Half a year ago he spoke with Irmgard about his wife, admitting how very concerned he was, and she promised to keep an eye out for her. But Irmgard avoids his eyes now as though there is another person in the room, someone invisible to him.

  “We’d be delighted; thank you,” he says.

  She flushes lightly, and with a start he understands that she is impressed by the office, by his position. He wonders whether she has been with another man since her husband died. Leaning back, he smiles at her without opening his mouth. Her regard for him gives him the urge to be chatty—ask her personal questions he knows are not appropriate—but it’s best for him to be quiet now, he thinks. To let this moment speak for itself.

  As she prepares to leave, she hesitates with one hand on the doorknob. “Your wife—she’s not doing that double shift anymore, at the factory? Not since before the baby, isn’t that right? When we talked, she and I, she was worried about that. She said she was very tired.”

  “Yes, she likes the extra time off, now that we have a family. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I was just wondering.” Irmgard’s eyes are skittish, her face washed out in the fluorescent overheads. Her jaw is square and set, as though she’s girding herself for an unwelcome chore. To encourage her, he leans forward with his elbows on the desk and rubs his fingers over his upper lip: thoughtful, earnest.

  “I sometimes see her in the afternoons now; that’s all. She’s busy, it seems? But I’m sure you know she’s quite sociable—hurries off . . .”

  “In the afternoons? With the baby?”

  “And she’s become quite a beauty recently. Motherhood must agree with her after all.” Irmgard swings the door open and blinks rapidly a few times. “If I were you, Werner, a man of your stature, your importance? I suppose I might just keep a bit of an eye on her.”

  Everything on the square looks quite normal, just the way he would expect on any day of the week. The front door of the house is shut, the top window over the thatched eave propped wide open, a sliver of yellow curtain shifting languidly in the breeze. When he puts the key in the front lock, he is surprised to find the house is unlocked. Quietly, he edges the door open and enters the hallway. Eberle mews and twists himself around Werner’s ankles, and he pushes the cat away with his foot.

  He pokes his head into the living room: empty. In the kitchen, a plate with bread crumbs from breakfast still stands by the sink. A pitcher with some scrawny meadow flowers sits on the windowsill, the delicate yellow heads kissing the marble countertop, leaving behind a sprinkling of pollen. The air in the house is turgid. Perhaps Bettina decided she felt better or needed some fresh air and took the child for a walk by the fields, or maybe even to the beach. The back door into the garden is ajar.

  That’s when he hears the sounds—of what, grunting? Or is that crying? By the time Werner gets to the bedroom door on the second floor, he is certain his wife has taken a lover. Why else does she rebuff him so steadily? He can count on one hand how often they have made love in the past few years. He throws the door open and bursts into the room. Bettina’s clothes lie in a heap by the bed, and she is wearing only her undergarments. The eiderdown from the bed is spread on the floor, and Bettina is kneeling on it. Annaliese is propped up beside her. Her dark hair sticks out at the back of her head as though she has only just woken up from a sweaty nap. Widening her liquid eyes, Anna looks at her father. Her toes are fat as potato chunks.

  “What are you doing?” he yells at Bettina.

  Annaliese stops her sounds and drops the book as Bettina jumps to her feet. “We’re playing! What do you think we’re doing?”

  Werner strides over to the closet and rips the door open. “I thought you were ill? Why are you undressed? You should be in bed, resting.”

  “Annaliese, she, uh . . . she wanted to play.” Bettina’s neck and shoulders are rosy, the creamy skin of her stomach and thighs smooth and beautiful.

  The baby stares up at them both and starts to wail. “Where are your clothes?” he asks Bettina. “What’s going on?”

  Bettina grabs a blanket and holds it in front of her body as though embarrassed to be half-naked in front of her own husband. “I was just about to wash up. I—I was sweating so much. My cough is better. I think the fever broke.”

  Werner is offended by her false modesty. His confusion tips over into rage. “Put the child back in her crib.”

  “But she just woke up, Werner. She won’t be—”

  “Put her in the crib!” He wishes he could subdue the brutal beating of his heart; he wishes she did not have this dreadful power over him. She only has to give him a small piece of herself; he is not asking for so much! And yet it seems he is always asking too much.

  Watching her rise and then stoop down to pick up the baby, he feels certain that he is losing her, that he cannot hold on, that no matter how hard he tries, she has already slipped away from him. She leaves the room, and when she comes back, he is ready for her. It has been so long, too long; he is fed up with her moods. He will show her who is in charge.

  35

  In the early mornings as dawn breaks and Bettina packs up Annaliese for a day at the crèche, Werner pretends to be asleep, and when the pram begins its squeaky ride over the cobbles, he dresses hastily and follows them all the way to the factory. One day he calls her supervisor under the guise of needing to check attendance records and is given access to everyone’s shifts for the next two weeks. Bettina cannot go to work or leave work without him knowing. He thinks back to her vivid cheeks, the wide-eyed look she gave him upon returning to the bedroom that afternoon, and he is driven onward by something that feels like anger but is more like fear. He is accustomed to this—all his life he has lived with fear. Fear of being taunted, of being alone, of being unloved and unappreciated. Fear of doing something wrong and not being good enough. Of being abandoned. I
t’s over, this way of living.

  But it is not his watchful eyes that lead to the last piece of the puzzle falling into place: it is Irmgard’s ward, Alma, the young politician and fiddler.

  The girl comes over from next door sometimes to watch the baby while Bettina goes to the market on the weekends. This morning, Werner wrote a long list for his wife that would keep her far too busy to go off and cause trouble. Working on the vegetable patch in the back garden, he shoves the trowel into the black soil, upending worms and beetles, and as they writhe in an endless chain of impending destitution, a sense of futility overwhelms him. He’s sent his wife on unnecessary errands, and she has not complained once, and this acquiescence only serves to deepen the gulf between them.

  He will clean himself up. He will make tea and await her return, and they will talk again, like normal human beings. After coming inside, he begins playing Kanasta with Alma in the front room as he waits. The deck of cards is scattered over the low wooden table, and the girl’s hands flutter uncertainly as she tries to decide on her next move. In her youth group uniform, she appears so confident and admirable, but in a drab gray dress with plastic sandals, she seems rather ordinary. “You are so good at playing this game, Herr Nietz,” she complains. “I’m going to lose again.”

  “Don’t give up yet. Keep trying.”

  “Oh, but I can’t think straight. I’m flustered.” Alma’s hairline is darkened with sweat. “Frau Bandelow’s just awful, as bad as I am. She can’t concentrate for a single minute. Is your wife a good player?”

  He laughs aloud. “No, no, I’m afraid Bettina’s terrible at cards.”

  “Really? She’s so imaginative, though, isn’t she? And sort of patient . . . all that photography and drawing. She gave me some lovely stuff for my notebooks.”

  This intrigues him; as far as he knows, it’s been years since Bettina picked up that old camera or pencil and paper. “You keep journals?” he asks the girl carefully. The dim light in the room makes her eyes flash like coins in a pool. “That’s very creative of you.”

  “Thank you. I love to write and sketch—I’m way better at that than I am at numbers.”

  “It doesn’t have to be either-or, you know.”

  Her pleasure at his interest in her is almost tangible and binds them like a song they both recognize. “Want to see?” she asks him. “I’ve got some sketches and poetry too.” From a satchel behind her, she extracts a spiral-bound notebook. Flipping through the pages, she lands on a poem and reads it aloud.

  He nods, encouraging her, and she then reads him the slogan Junkerland in Bauernhand, extolling the virtues of collectivizing the estates in East Prussia. “How do you even know about that business?” he asks. “Way before your time, isn’t it, right after the war?”

  “From the Young Pioneers, of course.” She’s paging through her notes, showing him the odd scrap of a landscape or a half-completed portrait, and—glued to one of the pages—there’s a sketch that is far more sophisticated: Subtle shading using a black pencil, shredded clouds that waft in the sky above the textured thatch roof of a house. A strong sense of perspective that makes the image appear to pop from the creamy page.

  “This is your house?” he asks. “The one next door?”

  “Yes, Frau Nietz drew that—and she’s so good at the portraits too. Everything. See? Isn’t it amazing?” Alma points to a sketch, in fat layers of colored pencil, of a woman who resembles Christa Kellermann and, on the next page, a drawing of a man Werner doesn’t recognize. Light hair, unkempt, a fine, long nose that dominates a narrow face. Keen eyes encircled with lines crosshatched with a sharpened pencil.

  The energy apparent in the sketch is startling. “Do you know who this is?” he asks, pointing.

  “Oh, him. That’s Elise’s teacher. Literature. Nice, isn’t it?” Alma giggles. “Half the girls are in love with him!”

  Werner is aware that he must tread carefully. “He teaches writing, does he?”

  “Things like plays and poetry. Herr Brenner. He never taught me, but I wish he had! He runs the after-school program at the youth center too. I went there a few times.” She wrinkles her nose. “I prefer my meetings, though. I like singing more than activities.”

  Brenner . . . wasn’t Pfarrer Brenner the pastor from that ancient church in Bobbin who was ousted, some time ago? Werner had been involved in an audit of the rectory’s financial status. The old man had one son who came back from the war. Two who were killed. Questionable allegiances.

  Bobbin church.

  Bettina used to walk to Bobbin all the time.

  And Irmgard—she said something about Bettina having become so radiant. That she was more sociable.

  The day he found out Bettina was pregnant, where had he found her? In the damn church in Bobbin, looking out the window at something Werner could not see.

  The sketch has been executed in astonishing detail. Why would Bettina spend hours drawing a stranger? Werner rises, startling the girl. Who else knows about this man, this Peter Brenner? Does Bieder know—is that why he’s been snooping around so much lately? If Werner could, he would head over to Bobbin and squeeze the teacher’s neck between his two hands until he hears the bones cracking under the pressure. But even in his moment of torment, he is aware of how weak and pitiable he is, that he can achieve little through violence.

  “Herr Nietz?” the girl asks. “Are you all right? Are you angry she gave them to me? You can have them back if you want.”

  It is the guileless look on the girl’s face that helps him catch his breath, that cranks back the forward-churning train of emotions that would have him stumble into something foolish and thereby lose the upper hand. Nothing can be gained by revealing anything. If he can just be a blank slate, as dull and predictable as a piece of cardboard, he will make a plan. He will prevail. Reveal to those who doubt him just how formidable he can be.

  He places a hand on the girl’s and pats it gently. “Alma, can you stay for a few hours longer?” he asks. “I’ve just remembered I have some urgent business to attend to.”

  36

  If it were just the two of them, they could buy themselves a train ticket and get as far away as possible, build a new life in the farmland to the east or perhaps south near Leipzig. But they have a child to consider, one whose babbling will soon turn to words; one day she will be full of questions. Anna may remember Werner and miss her little home on the island. And Bettina and Peter need work papers. If they wish to marry and have children, Bettina must secure a divorce. Is it even feasible for them to stay in East Germany but escape Werner’s purview, his petty and maybe not-so-petty machinations? Perhaps she can persuade Werner to be a gentleman, to let her go, though this seems highly unlikely given his erratic behavior. Talk of the future brings with it a heavy dose of uncertainty and fear, mixed with the thrill of impending change.

  And their situation has changed—Werner is terribly on edge. Bettina doesn’t know what’s gotten into him recently, but he has started demanding intimacy, and she must submit to him or arouse suspicion; she can’t afford that now. Since he came home early and surprised her, she’s caught him staring at her disconcertingly, his underwater eyes astute and piercing. What is he thinking? She dares not ask. Instead, she is careful. Even her footsteps throughout the house are tentative. Washing up at the sink, her movements are deliberate and slow, and when she calls her husband to dinner in the evening, her voice is modulated to suggest calm. But there is tension in her muscles that urges her toward wildness, toward being loud and insisting on snatching what she wants from life. She tells herself that she must be patient.

  For three days in a row she places the tin watering can by the Rosa rugosa to the right of the front door—a sign that she cannot meet Peter at the youth center. If she places it by the front gate, it means they can meet in the late afternoon, and if she takes the can away entirely, it means she will come to him in Bobbin. But today, once again, she comes home after work to find that Werner has returned e
arly from the office, this time with the Tatra. It’s parked in the pebbly area between their house and Irmgard’s, sitting there like a gargantuan beetle or perhaps a bullet. Annaliese clasps her mother’s hand, and with the other one Bettina pushes the pram. The watering can stays by the bush.

  There’s a honk on the square as a truck rounds the corner, pulling behind it a contraption piled high with wooden crates. The vehicle pulls over, idling the motor, and her old friend Johann climbs down from the cab. A portly man in his early sixties with enormous scarred hands, he’s been their butcher for decades. Now his land is part of the LPG, the new agrofarm. He holds out a package wrapped in brown paper and smiles at her. When she was little, he would offer her bits of bacon when he delivered cuts of meat to her mother. A smooth, bleached apron stretches over his belly and still retains soft brown echoes of blood. “Fräulein,” he says, even though she’s been married almost a decade. “Just returned from the big city. My sister, you know?”

  “Oh, Berlin,” she says. “You were able to cross the border into the West?”

  “I was granted a day visa. Can you believe Nele has a grandchild now? Haven’t seen her in more than four years. Hallo, Maus. Wie geht’s, meine kleine?” How are you, little one? With one giant paw he tousles the black hair on Annaliese’s head. “I’ve got to go, but I came home to find this letter. For you, I believe.”

  “Thank you for doing this, Johann. I know it’s risky.”

  “Family,” he says. “We need them, don’t we?”

  It’s another letter from her sister. Bettina tucks the package of meat under her arm, waves goodbye, and heads for the house, parking the pram next to the car. The front door opens.

  “Who’s that?” Werner calls out. “Is it Johann?”

  “He brought us some pork,” Bettina answers. The truck rumbles to life behind them. “We can have it tonight. Come, Anna, let’s wash your hands, shall we?”