She and Ania spent hours talking in the library last night. Ania’s life is three-dimensional now—no, not merely three-dimensional, but three faced. Ania Fortzmann, Ania Brandt, Ania Grabarek—why did Marianne never know of these? In her mind, these faces are no longer broken into good or bad, true or false. They have been laid bare, a collection of choices and circumstances.

Why didn’t you try to tell me all this after Rainer died? Marianne asked her friend. Why didn’t you explain yourself?

Because you wouldn’t have cared, Ania said. And you were right.

Marianne did not protest. She saw herself that day in the castle, standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at Ania and the dying man. She had not been interested in knowledge. It was too close to the war, to Albrecht’s death, to all the deaths. Knowledge would have been too much to stomach.

Benita’s life also has become more whole to Marianne on this trip. Spending time with Martin brings his mother back. He is compelling in the same way Benita was: not just his handsomeness, but something more intangible. His aura, the New Age word comes to Marianne’s mind. Marianne has always scoffed at the idea of such vagaries, but here, against the backdrop of this ancient castle, in this last chapter of her life, the idea of an “aura” or an “energy” feels true and important, as real as action, the gold standard around which she has built her life. This is why people were drawn to Benita, why Connie fell in love with her.

There is a light knock on the door, and before she turns, a child rushes in, followed by her son, Fritz. “Omi!” the little girl calls, her curly hair flying behind her in a wild mop. Nicola, Fritz’s youngest—a little girl as exuberant and incautious as her father was as a child. Of all her grandchildren, Marianne loves her best.

“Nicola,” Marianne exclaims, “what a nice surprise!”

“I brought her with me. Angela is sick,” Fritz explains, crossing the room and bending to kiss his mother. “She promised to be quiet—isn’t that right?” He turns to his daughter. “Quiet as a mouse during Omi’s speech.”

“Like a mouse,” Nicola proclaims, scrunching her face into an approximation of mouseness and tiptoeing delightedly around the room.

“Oh, be however you want,” Marianne says, wishing there was no speech, and no party to attend.

“Aha! Here it is!” Fritz exclaims, catching sight of the hardcover lying on the desk beside her. “Do I finally get a copy of the book about my famous mother?” He lifts it and begins reading the back, which is full of airy quotes from academics and journalists.

For a moment, in his concentration, he reminds her of Albrecht. Tall, slightly stoop shouldered, holding the book at arm’s length.

“Oh, Fritzl,” Marianne says, reverting to his childhood nickname. “I am your mother. You don’t need that book.”

Marianne goes downstairs to the reception in a combination of panic and mental haze. The visit from Fritz and Nicola has kept her from any further preparing of what she would like to say. Though she suspects it was not going to come clear anyway.