“How beautiful!” Benita exclaimed.

“Isn’t it?” Marianne said. “Like a fairy tale. Countess von Lingenfels has a talent for the amazing.”

Benita nodded, staring wide eyed.

“So tell me about yourself before we are swarmed with admirers,” Marianne said. “Was your trip all right? Have you found your room?” She hurried through the necessary questions, half listening to the girl’s replies.

From all around, she could feel people’s eyes. “Remind me how you met Connie.” Marianne plucked two champagne flutes from a table and handed one to Benita, who accepted it without thanks.

“We just met in the town square, really,” the girl said. “I was there with my troop—my BDM troop—”

“Good grief! The BDM? How old are you?” Marianne exclaimed.

“Oh no—not the one for little girls—for the older girls, Belief and Beauty. I’m nineteen.”

“Ah.” Marianne patted her arm. “Positively ancient.”

The girl glanced at her.

“Aren’t these lovely?” Marianne pointed at the white chrysanthemums and dark autumn anemones arranged in pots along the balustrade. High above, pale clouds scudded across the dark sky. And in the distance, the woods were inky in the twilight. “So the town square . . .”

Benita sipped her champagne and coughed. “It’s not much of a story. We met and talked and then later we went out for dinner.”

Marianne rested her glass atop the courtyard wall. “And now you are to be married.”

“When you say it like that”—Benita hesitated—“it sounds odd.”

Marianne smiled and cocked her head to the side, knitting her brows. She had learned this scrutinizing expression from the countess and found it proved helpful at drawing out confessions and explanations from children and family members, even grown men.

But it did not have the desired effect on the girl. Instead, she seemed to find her mettle, squaring her shoulders. “There were a few things in between.”

“Of course,” Marianne said. Why had she taken this interrogative tack? The girl was to become Connie’s wife. It would do Marianne no good to have started off this way. “I’m sorry—I don’t mean to pry.

“Come.” She glanced around the rapidly filling courtyard for an opening and, with relief, spotted Herman Kempel, one of the rubes who had been so smitten with Benita earlier. “Let’s go talk to your latest admirer.”

As the night wore on, a kind of giddy, reckless energy took over. A comical figure in lederhosen and kneesocks played an accordion—was he someone the countess had hired or a local guest?—and people began folk dancing on the uneven cobblestones. Women even kicked off their shoes, despite the cold. And inside, the American jazz trio the countess had invited finally arrived. They played ragtime in the great hall while a number of the bolder, more cosmopolitan guests demonstrated dances with silly names like the Big Apple and the Lindy Hop. Somehow, despite the improvised stove and lack of running water, the chef presented a steady stream of delicacies: traditional pork meatballs with a delicate parsley sauce, plump white steamed dumplings, and silver-dollar sausage rounds. But also novelties—asparagus wrapped with paper-thin ham, jelly molds, pineapple flambé, and caviar toast . . . like the music, the food spanned the gamut of German cultural life.