In any case, he had obviously returned. And with him, her old life.

Benita stood in the middle of the room and listened, but the house was silent. Her possessions, piled on the small rug, seemed utterly unassimilable. The fine porcelain jewelry box Marianne had given her, the pretty scarves, the high-heeled shoes she had bought in Munich last year, her favorite dresses. The idea of these treasures here, in this house, in Frühlinghausen, depressed her. Who was there to look pretty for? Even if there were someone, she wouldn’t want him. She missed Franz with a physical ache. He had known her—really known her, the best and the worst parts. He was the narrow bridge that connected the two.

A step sounded in the hall outside her room.

“I nearly broke my back carrying all that upstairs,” Gephardt grumbled from the doorway. He was a glowering, unpleasant man, once a catch by Frühlinghausen standards, but he had thickened and calcified over time. Now he had a gut like a pregnant woman’s belly and restive eyes that made Benita shudder—God knows what he had done during his time in the SS.

“I’m sorry.” Benita sighed. “Thank you.” She looked down, feeling the sting of her own dependence. Trude Weseman was right—she was a charity case.

Gephardt did not move from the doorway.

When Benita lifted her eyes, he was staring at her with a scornful, evaluative expression, one arm braced across the door, blocking the exit. It gave her a start.

“Where is Lotte?” she asked.

He made a choked snort. “Where’s Lotte?” he repeated, still staring. With a chill, she recognized this look, with its particular mix of anger and lust.

Benita drew herself up. “Come now,” she said. “There’s no need to be childish.”

“Childish?” he repeated, taking a step toward her, breathing fast.

Mercifully, from downstairs came the sound of the front door opening.

“Lotte?” Benita called in a falsely light tone. “Is that you?”

“Who else?” Lotte snapped.

Gephardt glared at Benita.

“Gephardt?” Lotte exclaimed, apparently noting the signs of his return that Benita had missed. “Are you back?!”

For a moment he didn’t speak. Benita returned his glare. “I’m here,” he answered finally, turning on his heel.

After he left, Benita shut the door behind him and leaned against it for what seemed like an eternity.

That evening, she feigned a headache and did not go downstairs to dinner. Instead she stayed in her room and opened the chest. She did so with a sense of duty rather than pleasure. First there were the creams and perfumes she had collected over the past year, as the stores again began to stock such items. Then the combs for her hair, the scarves, the brooch Franz had given her.

And beneath these, papers—the forms Marianne had helped her fill out as an Opfer, Martin’s notes from school, her marriage license, written in stark indecipherable Nazi script she shuddered to look at. She had half a mind to burn it. And then the shoebox of Franz’s letters, tied prettily with a red-and-white ribbon. She had knotted the packet herself and imagined rereading the letters together with Franz, one day when they were old. She could barely look at them now. But as she moved to replace the lid, she caught sight of something else. A longer, thinner envelope much handled and slightly yellowed.