Even in his sickly state, the man emanated cruelty. He narrowed his eyes and shrugged. Where would you have her take me? To her new husband’s home? To some American hospital? They were more like threats than questions.

But maybe this was what Ania deserved? She had lied to Marianne, to Carsten, to everyone in her life. She had thrived under their misconceptions, abused Marianne’s generosity, and taken advantage of her desire to help. She had married a man under false pretenses. And now she had brought this stranger to die at Burg Lingenfels. For this, she should be exposed.

But there was Carsten to consider. Surely the knowledge of his wife’s deception would kill him. And he deserved better, even if she did not. He deserved to end his life in the upstanding and peaceful way in which he had lived it. And those poor boys, Anselm and Wolfgang, whom Marianne had never liked—suddenly she felt compassion for them. They were harnessed to their mother’s lies.

So Marianne summoned her largest self and walked away. She left the man, this Rainer Brandt, whoever he was, to die in Burg Lingenfels. And she left Ania, who was not really Ania, who was in fact a liar and a false friend—a woman who had pretended to be something she wasn’t—shackled to his death. Whoever Ania really was, Marianne did not care to know. Let her rot with that man in the castle.

The only thing Marianne could do was turn her back on them.

PART III

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DORTMUND, JANUARY 11, 1923

One of Ania’s earliest memories is of the day the French soldiers arrived in Dortmund.

She is twelve years old and her father has forbidden her to leave her room.

But from outside, she can hear the rumble of the troops. First the tanks, then the horses, then the African soldiers the French have brought from the colonies to help with the occupation. Frau Richter, the Fortzmanns’ cook and housekeeper, says they are bloodthirsty men, ready to spear and eat German children at a signal from their French overseers. She says the shortest of them is nine feet tall, that they can breathe fire and throw flames, and will march half-naked across the continent, their heads bald as bladder balls. In comparison, the French soldiers will look like milkweeds—seedy, slender little men with devious faces, here to make off with the first valiant sputters of output from postwar German industry.

Ania is old enough to understand that Frau Richter is an irrational, superstitious woman with no education. But also that her husband and son died in the war, which they will all come to think of as the First War, but for now is still simply (optimistically, really) defined by a finite the. This loss grants Frau Richter a certain authority about all things military.

The French are here to commandeer the coal factories that employ much of the city. It is the finest industry in all of Germany. Reparation is the bad word on every German’s tongue. Just like in the schoolyard, Frau Richter says, rolling her eyes. We took their lunch money, now they must take ours. Last month, eight men were arrested—fancy men in top hats and tails, the owners of several local factories. For shame, Frau Richter said, looking at their picture in the paper. Is it not enough to take away their businesses? Do they also have to take their dignity?