The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

by Helen Grant

  “Which was?” My father was now sounding as angry as she did.

  “That it isn’t an easy decision for them to leave.” My mother brushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes with an impatient flick of her hand. “They both loved it here. But Tom was offered this job and, well, with everything that’s been going on, they thought maybe this was the time to leave.”

  “Well, I think you have missed my point,” responded my father stiffly. “Tom is British. He trained in England and he works for a British company. He can move back to England at any time he likes. It’s different for us.”

  “Why?” demanded my mother. “Your English is good enough, we could manage.”

  “I would have to retrain.”

  “So, retrain.”

  This time my father’s hand hit the table so hard that we all jumped. “It’s not as easy as that, and you know it.” My father saw Sebastian’s face crumpling as though he was about to burst into tears, and with an effort he lowered his voice. “Be realistic, Kate. We have to live on something.”

  “I could go back to work.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be so-”

  He cut over her. “And we couldn’t afford to buy a house in England. Not like this one.”

  My mother shot a poisonous glance around the room as though to say, what’s so great about this one, but she didn’t say anything. She picked up her fork again and turned it idly in the mess of spaghetti on her plate. There was a long silence. Then she got to her feet with a great scraping of the chair legs against the floor.

  “Ah, fuck it,” said my mother, and stalked out of the room.

  Sebastian and I looked at each other round-eyed.

  “Children,” said my father portentously, “your mother is upset. But I never wish to hear that sort of language in the house again.”

  “Yes, Papa,” I said.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Winter came early that year. I always used to think of St. Martin’s Day, November 11, as a high point in the approach to Christmas. That year, the year when Katharina Linden and Marion Voss vanished from the streets of the town, it was a cold St. Martin’s.

  My mother dressed us in layers and layers of warm clothing: sweaters, down jackets, thermal boots, scarves, and mittens. I had a pink fluffy hat with a bobble on the top and Sebastian had a little navy-blue fleece hat with earflaps. We looked like a pair of fat gnomes. All the same, it was necessary; during the short walk to the Klosterplatz we could feel the biting cold on any centimeter of exposed skin. Even through the thick insulation of my mittens, the cold was seeping into the hand that held the lantern.

  As a grown-up Gymnasium pupil, I would normally have dispensed with a lantern as being seriously uncool, but at the last minute my mother had bought me one and I hadn’t the heart to refuse it. It was a round yellow sun face made of crimped paper. Sebastian had a much grander lantern, constructed by my mother along with the other parents at his playgroup. It was a green caterpillar with pink and purple spots, made of tissue paper on a skeleton of black cardboard. The caterpillar had an insane leer on its face because my mother had cut the pink mouth out as a wiggly line. She said it was “a blow against uniformity;” my mother never could stand the German fad for sitting in a group and all making exactly the same item. In fact she hated arts and crafts. Sebastian should probably have been grateful that my mother had made a lantern for him at all, considering the agonies she had to go through to do it.

  When we got to the Klosterplatz it was already full of people milling around, stamping their feet and blowing on their hands. The fire brigade was there as usual, the firemen hanging around the gleaming fire engine parked at one side, and doing their best to look nonchalant. An enormous bonfire had been built in the middle of the square. It would be lit by the firemen when the procession was under way around the town, so that it would be burning merrily when we all got back.

  As well as the firemen, there was an unusually high number of policemen. Normally Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf and perhaps one of the other local policemen would be in attendance, just in case anything went awry, like the time Thilo Koch’s brother Jörg set off a fire alarm and the firemen had to abandon their posts by the bonfire and dash off to the rescue. This year, however, the police seemed to have dragged every spare officer from here to Euskirchen into the town for the evening, including the granite-faced one from outside. They were being discreet, but they were everywhere.

  I noticed Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf talking quietly to one of the schoolteachers who was supervising the Grundschule children. All the teachers and the police officers had a grim look to their faces, as though about to undertake a military maneuver; only the children were as unconcerned as usual, waving their glowing lanterns about and jumping up and down with excitement. I saw Frau Eichen, who was now in charge of a new class of first-graders, counting her charges, her finger stabbing through the air as she did so. She counted them once, and two minutes later she was counting them again.

  Now the penny dropped. The adults were all so twitchy because they were afraid something might happen again, like it had at Karneval. Nobody wanted to be the one who was in charge of a child who vanished.

  “Is anyone from your class here?” my mother asked suddenly. I guessed she was wondering whether things were going any better in the new school than they had in the previous one. Dutifully, I scanned the square for familiar faces.

  “No,” I said. It was a relief in a way; Stefan was the only one who would have spoken to me, and I knew he wasn’t coming.

  “There’s someone waving,” said my mother, pointing. She sounded pleased. I followed her gaze. It was Lena Schmitz from the fourth grade, the year that had been below mine in the Grundschule. The Schmitzes lived only a few doors away from us and Lena’s mother worked in the hairdresser’s where my mother periodically had her gray roots covered, so we knew each other slightly. I waved back enthusiastically, conscious of my parents’ eyes on me.

  It was almost time for the procession to begin. The local brass band, resplendent in hunter-green uniforms and peaked caps, was assembling at the corner, hoisting trombones and trumpets and horns, which glittered in the light of the lanterns and torches. Someone tried out the opening notes of one of the songs, a song so familiar that the words formed themselves inside my head as I listened: Sankt Martin, Sankt Martin, Sankt Martin ritt durch Schnee und Wind… It finished with a squeak that sent a ripple of laughter through the crowd.

  Someone from the town council had climbed the steps at the side of the square and was talking inaudibly into a bullhorn. Then we heard a clatter of hooves on the cobblestones and St. Martin rode into the square.

  Of course, all the spectators except the very youngest knew that St. Martin was really someone from the town, dressed up in a red velvet cloak and Roman helmet; in fact my parents even knew the family who lent the horse. But there was always something magical about St. Martin; he was real in a way that St. Nikolaus and the Easter Bunny weren’t. For one thing, he was undeniably solid, and so was the horse: if you followed too closely behind it you had to look where you stepped.

  As we watched, St. Martin wheeled the horse around and began to ride slowly out of the south side of the square, the crimson cloak undulating on the horse’s hindquarters as it moved, the torchlight making the great golden helmet glitter. The band fell in behind him, and struck up with the first bars of “Ich gehe mit meiner Laterne,” the signal for the schoolchildren to follow. As the rest of us surged forward, I could see Frau Eichen counting the children again.

  “Can I go on ahead?” I asked my mother hopefully, seeing that she was making woefully slow progress with Sebastian in his buggy. I was afraid we would be stuck right at the back, where we could hardly hear the band, and we would be last back into the square to see the bonfire.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Pia.” I didn’t bother to ask why.

  “I’ll go with her,” said my father, turning up hi
s collar. He looked at me sternly. “And stay where I can see you, Pia. No running off.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  I fell into step beside him; with his long legs we made good progress, and were soon pushing our way further up the procession. First it wound up the Heisterbacher Strasse and past our front door, then it followed the line of the medieval defensive walls west toward the great gate, the Orchheimer Tor. I looked about me at the excited faces, the flickering torches and glowing lanterns, and the ancient stones of the walls, interspersed with arrow slits. We could have been back in the Middle Ages, on our way to a coronation-or a witch-burning.

  Trotting along beside my father, I found that we were overtaking the fourth-grade children, who were swarming along with their three teachers running around them distractedly like sheepdogs. I picked out Lena Schmitz from the sea of faces. At the same moment she saw me. “Hallo” was all she said, but it was enough. It was such a relief to be treated even with that courtesy after nearly a year of being the class pariah. I slowed my pace a little to keep level with her.

  “Hallo, can I see your lantern?”

  She showed it to me. It was made of papier mâché, and I think it was supposed to be an apple, but somewhere along the way it had been dented or crushed. Now it looked more like a plum tomato.

  “Schön,” I said anyway.

  She peered at my lantern. “My mother bought it,” I said hastily. “Oh. What has your brother got?”

  “A caterpillar.”

  Up ahead, the band had finished “Ich gehe mit meiner Laterne” and started on “Sankt Martin, Sankt Martin.” Dutifully, I glanced behind me to check that my father was still there, and then I fell into step with Lena’s class. The procession was reaching the little intersection where King Zwentibold stood atop his fountain, now drained for winter in case the pipes froze and cracked.

  “Do you like it at the new school?” asked Lena, who would be moving up herself next year.

  “It’s great,” I lied. Actually, the school was all right; it was the past that kept hanging around me like a bad smell, but I didn’t want to raise that with Lena. “Are you coming to Sankt Michael next year?”

  “Probably Sankt Angela.”

  “Oh.”

  We passed out of the town walls through the Werther Tor and back in again by the Protestant church, its starkly modern design strident against the traditional form of the buildings that flanked it. A couple of minutes and we would be back in the Klosterplatz, warming ourselves around the bonfire and watching St. Martin reenact his good deed with the beggarman.

  “Mein licht ist aus, ich geh’ nach Haus,” we sang. “Rabimmel rabummel rabumm bumm bumm!”

  “Hurry up,” called Frau Diederichs, Lena’s class teacher; she was no doubt keen to get back into the Klosterplatz and unload her charges back into the care of their parents. She moved up and down the line of children, patting a shoulder here and there or stooping to peer into a well-muffled face. She jabbed me in the upper arm as she went past but did not see my look of indignation; she had already moved on.

  As we turned into the square the bonfire was revealed in all its glory. The piled wood and kindling must have been three meters high, and the flames shot into the air above it in a great flaring corona, with sparks peeling off in all directions. I would have made a beeline for it and warmed my hands, which were aching with cold, but Frau Diederichs was shepherding her class determinedly toward the side of the square, where the drama of St. Martin was to take place.

  “Do you want to come?” Lena asked me, and I nodded, glad to be included for once; who cared if it was with a class from the baby school? I glanced behind me. The substantial form of my father was still in tow, shadowing me like a bodyguard.

  I crowded into the ranks of waiting children. St. Martin was before us, astride the chestnut horse, which was becoming a little restless surrounded by flaming torches and the shrill voices of several hundred children. As it moved, the sound of its iron-shod feet rang out on the cobblestones. St. Martin leaned forward and patted its neck.

  The man who had used the bullhorn earlier in the evening addressed us again, not much more audibly than before, though we all knew the story so well that we hardly needed his commentary. St. Martin wheeled his horse about and rode it a little way, ascending the ramp at the side of the square so that we could all see him. He made a big deal of adjusting his fine crimson cloak for warmth; his golden helmet glittered as he moved. We all waited expectantly for the beggarman to appear.

  Someone was pushing through the ranks of children; Lena was shoved into me, and trod on my toes.

  “Ow.” I grimaced, then smiled at her sheepishly, not wanting to spoil the friendly atmosphere that had bloomed between us. Whoever it was who was shoving had created a ripple through the crowd of assembled children, like a Mexican wave. It caught Frau Diederichs’s eye, and she looked up disapprovingly.

  A stout woman with a crop of henna-red hair, teased so that it stood upright like the spines of a hedgehog, was forcing her way through the crowd. I did not recognize her, but Frau Diederichs did. “Frau Mahlberg,” she said in a tone that balanced friendly recognition with mild disapproval; the woman was disrupting the class and blocking the view of St. Martin.

  Frau Mahlberg’s head turned, and she began to wade toward Frau Diederichs through the ranks of schoolchildren as though through waist-deep water; indeed her brawny arms moved vigorously as though she would sweep them out of her way. When she reached Frau Diederichs she did not bother with any niceties.

  “Where is Julia?” she demanded. Her voice was sufficiently strident that several of the children looked around and someone behind us hissed “Shhhh!”

  I could not hear Frau Diederichs’s reply, but she seemed to be saying something placatory, and she made a small gesture, a sweep of her hand taking in the crowd of children.

  I turned my gaze back to St. Martin for a moment; the beggarman had appeared, suitably dressed in rags, and was pantomiming cold and hunger, stooping and rubbing his hands up and down his upper arms. This was the part of the play that we all looked forward to: St. Martin would unsheathe his sword and cut his magnificent cloak in half. I saw him reach to his side and begin to slide the gleaming blade out of the sheath-and then suddenly I couldn’t see him at all, because someone had bumped into me again and I had staggered down on one knee, dropping my lantern in the melee. I snatched it up again as quickly as I could, but it was too late; it had already been trampled and the broadly smiling sun face had acquired an oddly sunken look.

  “Wo ist meine Tochter?” someone was yelling. It was Frau Mahlberg. It was she who was responsible for shoving several of us over; she was wading around among the assembled children like a farmer at a shambles, grasping shoulders and pushing at backs, all the time peering fiercely into the upturned faces, some of them now wearing uncertain expressions, others indignant.

  “Frau Mahlberg, Frau Mahlberg!” That was Frau Diederichs, the teacher, now following behind and wringing her hands ineffectually. Behind us, more voices were raised in protest at the interruption to the play.

  “Shhhh!”

  “Julia!” Frau Mahlberg was bellowing, oblivious to them. I glanced back at the ramp where St. Martin and the beggarman were posed in a tableau, looking rather nonplussed at the racket. I had missed the critical moment when the cloak was divided; half of it was now draped over St. Martin’s hands, which were frozen in the act of handing it down to the beggar. The other half, truncated, hung from his shoulders.

  The man with the bullhorn said something, and then repeated it in a slightly irritated voice. Still St. Martin did not react, and eventually in a departure from tradition the beggar reached up and helped himself to the cloak. There was a crackle of interference from the loudspeaker, but the narrator was lost for words for once, perhaps stunned by the beggar’s rapacious behavior. Someone was approaching us; it was the granite-faced policeman I had seen with Herr Wachtmeister Tondorf.

  “Hallo.”
<
br />   It was a command, not a greeting. Frau Mahlberg whirled around and caught sight of him. She pounced like a vulture. For a moment I thought she was going to physically catch hold of him, but at the last moment he put up a hand and stopped her in her tracks.

  “My daughter!” She gestured wildly at Frau Diederichs, flailing a brawny arm. “She’s supposed to be in charge of my daughter!”

  “Well, I am, I…” Frau Diederichs was flustered; she could see that most of the people within earshot were no longer watching St. Martin and the beggarman, but were all listening to the exchange between herself and Frau Mahlberg.

  “And you are…?” said the policeman.

  “Frau Diederichs. I’m Julia’s class teacher.”

  “Julia is my daughter,” said Frau Mahlberg.

  “Verstanden,” said the policeman.

  “And she’s not here.” Frau Mahlberg’s voice was beginning to rise, hysterically. “This woman was in charge of her, and now she’s not here, and God only knows what’s happened to her.” She made a wild gesture in Frau Diederichs’s direction, as though to strike her. “After all that’s happened! How could she let my daughter wander off?”

  “I didn’t let her wander off,” protested Frau Diederichs. “I’ve been with the children every single moment of the procession. I’ve counted them at least six times.”

  “Where is she, then?” demanded Frau Mahlberg.

  “Are you sure Julia isn’t here?” cut in the policeman. He glanced at Frau Diederichs, who was the less hysterical-looking of the pair.

  “Well…” She pulled her coat closer around her body, as though she wished she could disappear down into it, and then she began to count the children again, stabbing the air with her finger as she did so. “One… two…”