Obediently, she folded the piece of skirt she was sewing and turned off the machine.

“Okay, so let’s open it!” Mary said.

“You want me to?” Ania asked.

“Go on. I know what it is already!” Mary took a sip of her wine.

Ania fumbled with the puffy envelope closure until Mary finally snatched it away and tore what turned out to be a neat pull-tab made expressly for this purpose. She pushed it back across the table to her mother.

Inside was a note folded over a large, formal-looking white envelope addressed to Ania Kellerman in an alarmingly familiar hand.

Dear Ania, it read.

It would be a great honor if you would join us at this event. It has been too many years. I would like to invite you to come to Burg Lingenfels as my guest so we could spend time together and know each other again.

Yours,

Marianne von Lingenfels

Ania felt the room swim and her hands begin to shake. It had been nearly fifty years since she had seen her once dearest friend.

“Look inside, Mother—go on,” Mary ordered.

Inside she found a photograph of Marianne, just as she remembered her, in rubber boots with tweed trousers ballooning over them. Ania recognized the bucket she was holding, too—what a precious object it had been then, metal, and dented on one side; they had used it for everything. Even in shadow, you could see the bright intensity of Marianne’s expression, daring whoever saw the picture to laugh at her—the young countess in washerwoman’s garb.

A party to celebrate the launch of Marianne von Lingenfels: Moral Compass of the Resistance. A book by someone named Claire Weiss. Five o’clock in the evening, the 21st of October 1991, the Falkenberg Institute, Burg Lingenfels, Ehrenheim, Germany.

“Frau von Lingenfels is inviting you—and me too, if you want my company—as her guests. And Martin will be there as well. I’ve spoken to him.” Mary’s excitement was palpable.

Ania stared at the photograph. The smell of limestone, stagnant water, and chestnut blossoms rose up around her, the particular bounty of a head of cabbage.

Involuntarily, she pushed the envelope away.

“Oh, Mutti!” Mary’s face fell. “I think we should go, don’t you?”

She grabbed the card and studied the photo. “I never understood why you and Frau von Lingenfels fell out. It was such an important time of your life!

“Oh, Mutch!” she exclaimed, looking at Ania’s face. “Never mind.” She pushed the card back into its envelope. “I thought you would be excited! Your long-lost friend . . . it was supposed to be a nice surprise.”

But Ania was suddenly immersed in another time and place—the kitchen of Burg Lingenfels, dimly lit and boarded up. Rainer at the table, the smell of sickness. And the look of innocent surprise turning to shock on Marianne’s face.

From a distance came the thundering, bumping rush of a city bus. Mary picked up her empty wineglass and Ania’s untouched schnapps. Ania heard the sound of the faucet running, the dishwasher opening and shutting. Mary walked around the living space, turning off the lights. Around Ania, the condo became a twinkling landscape of artificial brightness—the flickering green panels of the entertainment center, the glowing red light switches, a stuffed bear with a purple digital screen in place of a heart. Densely packed, mysteriously animated: this was life on the other side of the apocalypse.