She thought of her mother, poor hardworking Ilse Gruber—how she had loved her glass of schnapps before bed. And now she was dead. Benita had never even said good-bye. To you, Mama! she thought as she swallowed the rough, tangy liquid, flinching at the burn. She felt a rush of sadness for her own loss, and for the decidedly unsparkling life of her mother, a woman who had existed entirely outside the reaches of love. And now she, Benita Gruber, would become just like her. She would return to Frühlinghausen in shame and be consumed by her own roots.

Benita finished her first schnapps and ordered another. The world grew less bleak. She caught the bartender eyeing her curiously: a middle-aged woman in a proper dress, drinking alone. Did he see some trace of the girl she had once been? The Benita who Connie had boasted could turn even a blind man’s head? A woman whose smile made Franz Muller blush? Her knees began to feel watery. And the harsh tragedy of the world was enveloped in a soft, forgiving haze. The beer garden was filling up. A small group of teenagers sat at the end of her table. They were boisterous girls and boys, poor kids, workers’ children, the girls in their new American-style full skirts, but their hair still worn in plain farm-girl cuts.

A man sat down beside Benita. He was young, a boy really, and handsome with a particular blooming sort of handsomeness that would not last, was even now beginning to thicken and dissolve. “Another schnapps for the lady,” he called, “and a beer for me.” He had the air of a posturing teenager. How amazing that such an impulse could still exist! That a young man could still care enough to pretend to be something he wasn’t. And the girls, too—she saw it suddenly, these young women, self-consciously sipping their beer-and-lemonades, affecting worldliness. It was at once horrible and marvelous. It made her feel a thousand years old.

“What is a beautiful woman like you doing drinking by herself?” the boy asked. His curls poked out from underneath his cap, small and sweaty and distinct. Under the table, Benita felt the warmth of his leg against hers.

“What is a young man like you doing with a beautiful woman drinking by herself?” she found herself asking, her old sharp-tongued self returning.

In a moment, two other boys joined them—straight from work at a building site, plaster dust on their jackets and under their fingernails. And all of a sudden it was a party! More schnapps and beer and wursts with curry ketchup and crusty Brötchen. When was the last time food had tasted so good?

The night grew cool and when Benita shivered, the boy—the man, now that she was playing along—gave her his jacket. It was warm and smelled of paint and sawdust and, beneath this, of him. It had been so long since she had been drunk. Franz had never drunk more than one, maybe two beers, which was like a thimbleful of water for an ox, and it had never occurred to her to outdrink him. Before that, during the war, with the Russians and their stench of vodka, she had never wanted to touch the stuff. Now she was reminded of those early, heady days of her romance with Connie, when he had filled her with champagne and berries, Sekt and peach juice, and Brandy Alexanders, delicious, exotic drinks. She had the same lovely clumsy feeling, a sort of numbness in her face and jerkiness to her vision. Dear Connie. She felt a swell of warmth for him—he had shown her a good time in the beginning. Once, he had presented her with a fox stole that wrapped around her shoulders with a glimmering, silky softness that made her feel like a movie star. A woman everyone envied. And Connie, confident, sleepy eyed, with one arm draped around her, had enjoyed the attention as much as she did.