This Terrible Beauty: A Novel

by Katrin Schumann

  Peter still hasn’t noticed her in the youth center, and she realizes with dumb clarity that what they are experiencing is an illusion, or at the very least a reality that cannot continue its trajectory, that will take a turn of some sort, at some point. If and when they are caught, Peter will lose his position; he’ll have to leave Rügen. Will he be allowed to write, to be published someday? And if she is caught, then what—will Werner beat her, throw her out? And would that be so terrible?

  “Peter . . . ,” she begins.

  He startles, but it takes him a moment to raise his head. He massages his eyes. His worn wool pants are slightly too short, and he’s got on a well-washed cotton shirt. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “Peter,” she says, remaining in the shadows. “I don’t think we can go on like this.”

  He puts down the notebook and approaches, slipping behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. He smells of pencil shavings and warm skin. “Is he leaving you alone, Werner? Everything’s okay?”

  Turning, she rests her head on his shoulder. Her legs want to buckle under her. Lately she has been so very tired. “Don’t you feel sometimes that we’ve been trapped—like, if there’s some God up there, he’s actually just playing with us, seeing how much we can handle?”

  “Ach, God doesn’t care about us as individuals.”

  “I like to think that we matter.”

  “Did the Jews matter to God? Is there even a God? I’m not so sure.”

  “So says the son of a preacher man.” She pulls away and begins to wander around the room, absently touching various objects scattered around. A ball, an errant pair of shoes on a shelf, the record player. A surge of pressure thumps against her chest: she remembers so well the photos from the concentration camps, the stacks of bones, the dark eyes, hollow yet full of unheard stories. Maybe Clara was right to leave this place whose people could do such things. “When will we stop having to pay the price for Hitler’s transgressions? Do we have to actually leave this country in order to leave it all behind?”

  “We were all part of the party, stained by it one way or another, and we all bear a responsibility in addressing its legacy. No one should be leaving, not now. We have work to do.” Peter’s boyish face, with the square chin and dark eyes, is grave.

  The burden of all this guilt, this endless search for meaning and redemption, is more than she wants to bear. She wants love, children, a family—a simple life, and yet even that’s too much to ask. “You fought and killed for Hitler,” she says. “Don’t push your own guilt onto me.”

  “I’m just saying I wish she hadn’t left, your sister. For her sake, for yours.”

  Red faced, they stare at each other.

  “But I don’t know what the future holds—for anyone.” She is thinking of her early-morning sickness, her weary muscles. The swampy feeling in her stomach. If she is with child, that will force a decision. It’s not clear to her how to move forward.

  “You have to leave him,” Peter says. “You can petition for a divorce.”

  But she can’t leave Werner. Each day he drops yet another fact into her lap like a boulder intended to crush, each day accumulating more power and with that the ability to control her. He tells her that the Stasi wants his opinion on a procurement procedure, letting her know that as a member of the secret police, his actions will become exponentially more impactful. Last month he was working on a balance sheet for surveillance funds: he has access to money; she has none. A week ago her old school friend Nils Wolf was called in for questioning, and Werner had the audacity to gloat about it at the dinner table. Anti-Soviet agitation, he said, propaganda against the state. She wanted to ask if he had something to do with this, if that was why he left that piece of paper with the list of names on it for her to find.

  Is he trying to scare her? At the very least he is testing her; he wants her to take sides. At times like this her fury weighs on her so heavily she feels as if she’s turned to stone. If only she could yell, throw a tantrum, but this won’t change a thing! Werner wants to get a rise out of her, and she cannot give in to this.

  “I chose to marry him,” she says to Peter, “even though I didn’t love him and I knew it.”

  This is an argument they’ve been having again and again since Clara left. Finally Bettina sits down heavily on a wooden chair. Another pang in her stomach makes her wince. She does not want Peter to know that she feels unwell, that she has been vomiting for days and is unable to eat even the driest, most tasteless home-baked bread.

  “You’re pale, Bettina. This is going to be the death of both of us.”

  “I’m fine . . . ,” she says, though she is not. She can’t bring herself to accept this, not yet. “I’m all right.”

  Peter kneels in front of her and slips his hands under her skirt. He regards her with an expression that brings tears to her eyes. His fingers reach her thighs, and she parts them for him as a rush of fire makes its way through her chest and into her throat.

  22

  The doctor’s office is in the back of an old house on the outskirts of town, a compact room with a large table and a few medical implements scattered around, leather-bound reference books stacked on the floor. Bettina stands behind a wooden privacy screen and pulls on her stockings. Her hands are rough as she yanks at the coarse material, clipping it to her garters. She struggles to do up the waistband on her skirt.

  “So, Doktor,” she calls out, affecting nonchalance. “Is it good news or bad?”

  Old Doktor Kreefeld has been the Heilstrom family practitioner since he was a young man, fresh from medical school in Hamburg. He attended to Clara’s home birth and to Bettina’s. “Excellent news, my dear. Please, remind me; you are twenty-six years old—is that correct?”

  She hesitates. “Yes . . .”

  “It’s about time, then; isn’t it? Baby is about three months, give or take. You’ll be due in April, if all goes well.”

  She continues to adjust her skirt, as though these movements, the fulfillment of this ordinary need, can stave off the reality that she is indeed pregnant. The idea is so enormous, so shattering, she cannot quite register it. It’s like holding a gem in her hand and knowing that it is valuable yet feeling not even a flicker of excitement. After a moment she slips on her shoes and emerges from behind the screen. The doctor looks at her with a deeply creased brow. Tidy vertical scars mar both sides of his handsome, broad face, and he has vivid eyes under bushy brows that give the impression of gregariousness. He waves to her to take a seat and makes a note of something on a piece of paper at his desk. “Your blouse, my dear . . .”

  She looks down to see the white of her breasts exposed by gaping clothing. The memory of the cold metal contraption between her legs, prying her open, brings shivers to her skin.

  “You look concerned. There’s no need to worry, if you handle this correctly. Just because your sister has had trouble carrying to term does not necessarily mean that you will too,” he says as she fumbles while buttoning up. “But I want you to be cautious, yes? Nothing too vigorous, lots of rest. Minimal stress. Everything is good at home? Just keep calm and healthy, and this baby will be fine.”

  Bettina’s silence fills the room with uneasiness.

  “Frau Nietz? Do you have any questions?” He glances at the black-framed clock on the wall. He is probably accustomed to farmer wives and garrulous peasant folk, energetic secretaries, childbearing housewives who enjoy flirting harmlessly with him. “Well. Let’s see, shall we? You should set up your next appointment in about six weeks’ time. Fill out these forms, here,” he says, handing her some papers. “Your prenatal visits will of course be handled by the state.”

  Bettina stands up. Her body is stiff, as though her brain is unable to send the right signals to her muscles. She cannot think straight—maybe, maybe she shouldn’t have the baby at all? How can she even know whose child it is? These realities are not adding up to anything that gives her a vision of how to proceed. “Uh, Doktor, I wonder�
��has the time passed when, when . . . ? Are there other, mm, alternatives?”

  “My dear.” With deliberation, Doktor Kreefeld puts down his pen on the desktop. She is on a precipice, looking at the only person who knows this truth of hers—that she carries the beginnings of a child in her stomach. A child she has longed for since she was old enough to understand that she, too, could become a mother one day. The proteins and fats and vitamins she ingests are feeding her blood, which in turn feeds this baby, every second growing bigger, every day becoming more of a human being.

  The doctor is talking, but she’s only half listening. “. . . not encouraged. Population growth, you see. Ulbricht wants to stimulate production, and for that we need young people . . . unless there are mitigating circumstances, I’m afraid I cannot be of help. Excuse me for being bold, but I would think this could bring your family great joy. Your mother, na ja . . . you know that I knew your mother rather well? She often said to me when she was ill how she dreamed of you marrying one day.”

  A vision of her mother comes to her: those cool fingers of Doktor Kreefeld’s gently exploring her chest, asking her to breathe in, breathe out—deeply now—a stethoscope recording the shuddering efforts. The old man had delivered the news to Bettina of Mutti’s death; had it touched him to deliver such a dire blow? He had told her about Papa’s illness, too, how it could not be fixed. And now he is delivering the news to her about the child she has been waiting for these past seven years. It is then—thinking of death and life, of her mother, of becoming a mother herself—that Bettina is flooded with the bright, shocking thrill of reality: She will have a child. If she’s careful, if she’s lucky, this baby will be hers to raise.

  “Then my mother would be happy now, wouldn’t she?” Bettina says. A child; this is a good thing, a gift. She stands up and reaches out a hand to shake the doctor’s. “I did end up marrying, finally, and it seems that I will become a mother after all.”

  But as she thinks of her dead mother—and of the ignoble reality of her own situation: an adulterer, pregnant—something heavy settles around her heart, calcifying as she stares at the doctor. There is a fearful truth that is glaringly obvious: There is no way she can leave her husband when she is with child, especially if the child might be his. She has no means, and Werner’s been so ornery, possessive; while he always seemed predictable, lately there’s been a kind of wildness in him. Leaving would put this child in danger. She knows now for sure that she wants this child more than she wants her freedom from Werner.

  Doktor Kreefeld takes her hand in both of his and gives her a long look. The two prominent slashes—one on his cheek and the other a deep scar on his chin—are dueling scars that he probably wore with pride decades ago but that now brand him a dinosaur, a relic of an era that has been snuffed out, discredited. He was a Junker, old nobility. It’s hard now to even imagine a time when university students jabbed at each other’s faces with weighted fencing swords, allowing themselves to be branded in this way, the slashes telling the world a story of class and education that commanded respect. No longer.

  “Good luck,” he says. “You must be sure to take good care of yourself, and then everything will be well; I promise.” His warm touch on her skin is a passing of the baton; he is the old guard, and her child is the new.

  Clara and Herbert had been gone a month when Werner begins peppering her with questions.

  “Shall we all go for a walk again together, along the beach in Binz on the weekend? What are Herbert’s plans—hasn’t he lost his employment? Will they stay on the island or try to get jobs in one of the new factories on the mainland?”

  Werner’s eyes strafe her face as she weighs her answers. But she hesitates a moment too long, trying to relax the muscles of her jaw.

  “When will they return? Weren’t they supposed to be gone a week?” he insists. Then, after a pause, brows raised, “Tell me they weren’t serious about wanting to leave. Bettina!”

  She is supposed to tell Werner they are just on holiday and will be back shortly. But they have already been gone far too long, and as he glares at her, the words catch in her throat like fish bones; he can tell she is afraid, and so she turns away from him. They are both headed to work, and he already holds his hat in his hands.

  He grabs her by the elbow, his thumb pressing so hard against the bone it bruises her thin skin. “If you’re lying to me . . . ,” he says. His burning stare tells her that he already knows they won’t come back, but he wants her to admit it to him. “You will only make things worse. You cannot lie to me, Bettina; I will not allow it.”

  She can’t betray her sister, and so she tells Werner one thing while they both know she’s thinking another thing entirely. Then, on a Tuesday morning, Werner drops a letter in front of her on the kitchen table as she is cutting up the potatoes for an early dinner. Her stomach presses lightly against the wooden edge, and she’s reminded of the child, as well as the net Werner has cast that’s encircling them.

  “What is this?” she asks.

  “I told you this would happen,” he says. “You’ve been summoned.”

  It is a letter from the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, the Stasi. The letter is addressed to her and has not been sealed.

  “My God, did you tell on them, Werner? Did you?”

  “Of course not. But this only makes it more complicated. That—well, that I didn’t say anything . . .” Two patches of red appear on his cheeks, and a gleam of sweat covers his brow; he is furious.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “You will tell them exactly what you’ve told me,” he says, his face grim. “That we knew nothing. You will not make a fool out of me; do you hear me?”

  Putzkammer grudgingly gives Bettina Wednesday off so she can go to Bergen for the interview. By the time she arrives, her dress is drenched through with sweat, and she is winded from bicycling up and down the hilly roads. To the west of town an entire area is being razed to the ground—homes demolished by growling tractors, piles of brick and sand cast off at the side of the road. Trees lie toppled, cleared to accommodate some kind of industrial development. The dust from the debris sticks to her skin. She climbs off the bike and walks it the last few minutes until she nears the town square, trying to force her breathing to slow down.

  It is important that she is measured and calm. The back of her hand, wiped over her forehead, comes away gray with dust.

  She has not yet told anyone about the pregnancy. It’s possible that the baby won’t flourish, as the others didn’t; if this is the case, then she may not have to tell anyone about it, ever. Even though this would simplify things considerably, the very idea sends her into a panic. She wants this child, and she wants it so badly. The baby is Peter’s—she feels this in her bones, in her blood. It is a result of their love; it must be. But she doesn’t know this, of course—she can never know. A feeling means nothing. The child could just as easily be Werner’s; her fevered calculations have proven this. She is delaying what she knows must happen soon: she must leave Peter.

  She arrives at the old Gestapo headquarters in Bergen, home of the Stasi headquarters, where Werner has been working for the past five months. He is in there somewhere. The hulking edifice, five stories high, dwarfs the older buildings on either side and casts a slab of shadow over the square. Rows upon rows of windows, small like beady eyes, glinting even in the shade as though covered with a sheen of oil. Bettina takes a step forward and then another and another until she finds herself on the third floor, ushered into an interior room by a middle-aged woman who takes little heed of Bettina’s anxious gestures.

  “Frau Nietz,” says a man with slicked-back hair, rising slightly from behind a large wooden desk and gesturing for her to take a seat. “Karl Joachim Lederer.” He nods by way of introduction, quickly sits down again, and opens a folder, stroking the skin of his chin with his fingers. His insouciance seems calculated to make her nervous.

  Bettina takes a seat opposite him, clutching her handbag on
her knees. It is as though her torso has become a furnace; perspiration trickles down her neck, and she wills herself not to wipe it away. Perhaps he won’t notice. Perhaps this is normal.

  “Coat?” the man asks without looking up.

  “No, thank you. I’m . . . I’m just fine,” she answers, though sweat has soaked great dark semicircles into the worn-out cloth under her arms. Taking off her outerwear would expose her, reveal her figure, her everyday clothes, and she wants to be undifferentiated, unmemorable.

  “Right. Let’s get to business.” He raises his eyes to meet hers. Like all men confident of their superiority, his gaze is dispassionate yet penetrating; he feels no need to look away or put her at ease. “You know why you have been called here?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” she says. Werner has instructed her to answer in simple sentences. To avoid embellishing. To let silences sit.

  “Well, let’s get things straight, then. We are a new concern, separate from the local authorities, with distinct and separate powers. Part of an organization, centrally mandated, entrusted with the protection of the citizens of our country. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” she says. “My husband, Werner Nietz? He, uh, he works here. I’m aware of the new organizations and ordinances.” As soon as she says these words, she regrets them. Werner told her categorically to stay quiet—he doesn’t want to be drawn into this!

  “Yes, Werner Nietz. That’s right. We’ve already spoken.” Lederer is silent for such a long time that Bettina begins to wonder if she is supposed to say something in response. He snaps his gaze back down to the sheaf of papers on his desk and continues. “At any rate, your husband is beside the point. I have the authority to ask you anything I wish to know and to detain you at will. You must answer my questions truthfully and to the best of your knowledge. Is this clear?”