Marianne had spent a good amount of time considering Connie’s marriage. After his wedding, she had seen him together with Benita from time to time—at the Bemelmans’ Christmas party, at a few dinners she had hosted in Berlin, and once at a weekend gathering in Weisslau. It was a difficult match. The girl was quick to seem aggrieved (Connie had not fetched her from the station, or the baby was not sleeping, or no one had helped her with her suitcases on the train . . . ) and Connie was oversolicitous. But even though he was attentive, he remained somehow apart from his wife, disconnected from her in a way that seemed to encourage her complaints. Marianne did not understand what had drawn him to Benita to begin with. She did not normally consider such matters, but this was not just any marriage. Benita was Connie Fledermann’s wife. She was beautiful to be sure, but he had beautiful women all over Germany who fancied themselves in love with him. There was an innocence about her—an inherent lack of wit and sophistication that no amount of money or time in the city could transform, which was endearing in a certain way. But Marianne had never known Connie to be enthralled by this sort of simplicity. It was the Nazis who revered such quaint, unthinking volkishness, not forward-thinking men of the world like Connie. Yet Benita had captivated him.

Marianne had come across them once, alone on the terrace of a mansion in Dahlem, at a party thrown by one of Albrecht’s colleagues. It was in the first years of the war, when there was still plenty of wine and gaiety to go around. She had hesitated in the doorway and something about their demeanor made her stop before calling out. Benita was smiling up at Connie coyly and was without little Martin, which was rare in those days. Connie’s back was to Marianne. As she watched, Benita said something that made him laugh—a real head-thrown-back burst of astonishment, and then he caught her around the waist and pulled her toward him with an intensity that made Marianne catch her breath. It was forceful, even aggressive—a side of Connie she had never seen. Benita returned his laughter and allowed herself to be wholly enveloped in his embrace with a kind of softness and subservience that Marianne couldn’t imagine emulating.

This was the closest she had come to understanding Connie’s marriage: Benita made him a looser, more animal version of himself.

Marianne had felt a stab of sadness at the realization and hastily retreated into the familiar comforts of the party, and the various like-minded people with whom she knew how to converse, but she was like a person masquerading at normalcy after receiving terrible news. And when Marianne found Albrecht, dear steady Albrecht with his soft eyes and stooped shoulders, his thoughtful, deliberate way of speaking, she felt lonely and irritated by the crumb caught on his cheek, the dandruff on his evening jacket. And the fact that he stepped back to make room for her rather than pulling her close.