But when Ania tries to keep God close to her heart, she is filled not with warmth and reassurance, but with emptiness. Every night she says her prayers, and each morning she goes to chapel. She feels her habit rough against her elbows, the risers cold and hard against her knees, but she does not feel God. In his place she feels dread and fear of death. And this worries her. She is an earnest girl. She takes the nuns’ admonitions seriously. She is Herr Doktor Fortzmann’s daughter, after all.

On her second Saturday in the convent, Rainer invites her to come see a presentation of a local Landjahr lager. The day is bright and lovely, and the air outside the convent walls seems to crackle with energy. A great many people have assembled outside the city hall, and, unlike the cranky, embattled crowds she remembers from her youth, they are not here to fight or protest. They are here to celebrate. They want to capture a little corner of this new spirit of possibility and togetherness for themselves.

And the presentation is marvelous! The fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds on the improvised stage look happy, healthy, and innocent in their matching short pants and thin dark neckties, their hair cut with a flop of bangs in front. They march in remarkable unison and sing spirited songs and traditional ballads, paeans to the beauty of nature and the joys of wandering. They enact a skit they have written themselves about the great German hero Hermann overthrowing the Romans. The costumes are basic, the lines are not particularly poetic, but the acting is committed and they have even worked in a few good jokes. When it is over, the actors stand straight and tall beside their leader, a handsome young man who can’t be much older than Rainer, as he speaks about pride and self-control and discipline, and, most of all, togetherness—sons of steelworkers and department store owners, fishermen and nobles, all brought together through a year spent living on the land. Behind him, five boys wave Hitler Youth flags with their single, elegant lightning streak. It is, possibly, the most beautiful thing Ania has ever seen.

They close with a devotional song to mother Germany.

We are all connected, under our flag of solidarity

Since we found ourselves as one people

No one is alone anymore, we are all obliged,

God, our Leader, our blood.

Raised in our faith, happy in our work that everyone does

We all want to be as one

Germany, we are brightly standing by your side

We want this high alliance seen in all our glory!

Ania is surprised to find tears filling her eyes. She has not realized, until this moment, how isolated she has been. She has been alone every moment of her life. She goes to sleep alone and wakes alone—she has no siblings since her brother died and no experience of a mother’s touch, nothing more than Frau Richter tsk-tsking about whether she has swallowed her spoonful of cod liver oil. And she imagined herself content in this solitude!