“I’m not tired,” Marianne assures him, although it isn’t quite true.

The grand rooms at the front of the castle are mostly the same, but in the back, where they all lived after the war, everything is changed. The kitchen is gone—no more giant oven, and no more cistern. It has been subdivided into a hive of glass-walled cubicles. The pantry and washroom are the new kitchen, outfitted in a modern institutional style. The bedrooms where they once slept have become offices with plush carpeting and sleek white desks.

Ghosts look on over Marianne’s shoulder, their voices loud in her ears: the countess, Albrecht, Connie . . . and Benita—what would they make of this transformation? After a while, Marianne stops nodding and smiling. Martin can carry on the chitchat. It is more exhausting than she imagined, absorbing all this.

The front rooms upstairs, where the countess once housed her most dignified visitors, are now the “guest accommodations.” The tour ends here, and Alice commands Marianne to rest.

Marianne lies on the bed she has been given, hands folded over her chest. She is tired, but not sleepy—and the air in this sealed and modernized room feels too close, the mattress too soft. Ania Kellerman is due to arrive tonight. The uneasy thrill of anticipation is agitating.

With some effort, Marianne rises from the bed. Outside the window, staff members cover small tables with white cloths. In the light wind, these flare out, reminding her of sheets—unfurled from windows, hung from church steeples, we surrender, we surrender, don’t shoot. That time is so near in her mind these days. Not the war, not the failed assassination, not the time leading up to it, about which she has written and been extensively interviewed—but the end, and the afterward. This is not yet fossilized into a clear narrative.

At quarter to five, Alice returns.

“Time to dress.” She sighs. “But you didn’t sleep.”

First, Alice helps her into the supportive hose Marianne has to wear underneath her skirt to stop her blood from pooling, or seizing, or whatever it is. She holds on to Alice’s strong back while the younger woman rolls the stockings up over her puffy, mottled knees. It strikes Marianne as funny that Alice is now more familiar with Marianne’s body than she is herself.

After the hose, Alice helps Marianne pull on her tweed skirt and gray silk blouse. Before she left, Elisabeth sent her a navy-blue tunic and a buttonless jacket composed of a lovely half-cashmere fabric for the occasion. Something to wear on your big day, the card read, as if Marianne was a child going off to perform in a spelling bee. There is not enough air in a room for Marianne and Elisabeth to share. They have learned this the hard way, but acceptance of the fact has made life easier. Now they see each other twice a year, for a weekend in the early summer and for the American holiday of Thanksgiving. For both occasions, Katarina, Fritz, and their children are present to diffuse the tension. Elisabeth never married. She is now the president of a well-regarded university, a celebrity in her own right. This navy-blue lounge suit is the sort of thing she wears to family holidays or weekend brunch. For speeches or awards or television appearances, she always wears crisp Angela Merkel suits. Marianne can overlook the insult inherent in this, but she will not wear the outfit.