“Before the war, the castle belonged to my husband’s great-aunt,” Frau von Lingenfels continued. “She didn’t live in it, but she organized parties there, and picnics. She was something of an eccentric. Your father met her once—he was there for one of her parties.” She grew serious. “That was the only time I met him. Did he tell you anything about it? Countess von Lingenfels? Albrecht, my husband? Or Connie Fledermann?”

“No.” Ania shook her head.

“Your husband was in the Polish Foreign Office before the war?”

“He was in the military.”

“Ahhh.” Frau von Lingenfels nodded. “And then in the Home Army?”

Ania nodded.

“Was he arrested by the Nazis or killed in the fighting?”

“He was sent to a camp.”

A look of remorse, even pity, crossed the woman’s face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Albrecht always felt guilty that we were not able to do more to support the Home Army, that he was imprisoned before the uprising.”

Ania was silent. No checkpoints, no strafers, no stomping boots, she reminded herself.

Dinner consisted of potatoes, cabbage, and mushrooms the children had gathered in the forest, and, luxury of luxuries, three boiled eggs. At the camp, the Grabareks had eaten thin gruel and spinach soup every day. This was a more lavish meal than they had seen in half a year. The eggs, apparently, were a gift from the farmer at the base of the hill, a man named Herr Kellerman, whom Frau von Lingenfels referred to as “our hero” with a glibness Ania understood was meant to be kind.

“But the eggs should be for you, not us,” Ania said stiffly, dredging up a trace of manners she had learned in another life. Anselm and Wolfgang looked alarmed.

“Nonsense,” Marianne said. “You need them. We take turns.”

Besides Frau von Lingenfels, there were her two daughters—one dark and solemn, the other lighter haired, tall, and skeptical. And her son, a sturdy boy of about Wolfgang’s age who would not sit still, and another woman and her son. The last two were confusing to her. Benita and Martin Fledermann. They too were refugees, Ania understood. Their husband and father had also been executed by Hitler for his role in the July 20 conspiracy. The rest of the connection was lost: Frau von Lingenfels had grown up with him, or her husband had grown up with Frau Fledermann, or someone had known someone as a child.

The von Lingenfels children spoke too fast. Frau von Lingenfels assumed too much. Their words raced over Ania like water from a hose. They too had come from the east, from Silesia. First, they had gone to Berlin. There had been an illness. There was a list of widows. Other wives of resisters. She, Ania Grabarek, was the second one they had found. The first was Frau Fledermann.

Anselm and Wolfgang kept their eyes down. Ania nodded and ate.

Frau Fledermann and her son were also silent. Both were pale and blond and beautiful—she in the fragile way of an injured bird, and he like a blinking, quietly startled fawn. They were not at ease here either. This made Ania like them.