This Terrible Beauty: A Novel

by Katrin Schumann

  “Why did you come by the house?” Peter says aggressively. “Vati told me he saw you. I did everything in my power to ignore it, but then . . . then, finally—he said you brought a baby—”

  “Peter . . .” In the darkness she cannot see his expression, but the whites of his eyes flash at her. “I’m so sorry. It was an impulse. I shouldn’t have gone.”

  “We were doing just fine without you!”

  She is stunned by the sight of him, the way his presence fills her up. It is clear how much this separation has cost him; she hears it in his voice. Her legs are trembling. It has cost her too; he must know that. Words refuse to form in her mind now that she needs them.

  “I kept away. I did exactly what you asked me to! Knowing you are so close—I was going insane. And then, with the riots, I was afraid for you. How could you not let me know you were all right? I almost came by—I almost broke down the goddamn door of your house!” He pauses, taking a long breath. When he speaks again, his voice has changed register. “And I discover you have a child?”

  Their confusion is like a foul odor in the air between them. Her eyes adjust to the darkness; the room is exactly as it always was. The equipment tossed into bins, the stacks of books and pamphlets. The posters on the walls and the faint smell of decay. How can these things not change when everything else in the world has shifted? In this moment she is willing to pay any price for their love.

  “I’m sorry. I . . . I honestly just didn’t know what to do.”

  “The baby, it’s a girl?”

  “Annaliese—her name is Annaliese.”

  “She is mine? Is the child mine?”

  “I—listen, Peter . . . I don’t—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he interrupts. His eyes drill into her. “I don’t care. My God, Bettina. What have you been through?”

  She approaches and places her hands on his forearms, unfurling them from their defensive grip across his chest. This loosens something inside him, and he yanks her in, crushing her against the buttons of his suit. She is softer now, after the baby. Burrowing his face in her hair, he whispers, “I don’t care if you leave Werner or not; I have to keep seeing you. And the baby . . . I must see the baby right away. We can figure everything out later!”

  The smell of him, the sweat and the skin and the scratchy jacket. Her lungs expand as she takes in his scent, breathing as though she has forgotten and just now remembered how it is done, as if she has to fill her lungs with him or suffocate. The muscles in her thighs quiver. For so long no one has touched her; she can’t tolerate Werner’s advances, and he finally stopped trying. Now Peter’s hands grip her so hard his fingers will leave bruises on her sides.

  32

  With swift jabs, Werner tucks his shirt into the waistband of his trousers. The buttons strain over his belly, and he gives the material a tug. Some months earlier, when Irmgard Bandelow was asking him about her husband’s pension, the protrusion of his stomach became obvious to him, and he decided that he absolutely had to lose a few pounds. He has started doing sit-ups in the bathroom in the early mornings before heading off to work. At first he was only able to do five. Now he is up to ten, yet his girth doesn’t appear to be shrinking. But he keeps at it. Since he’s the father of a little girl now, the idea of health has taken on an urgency he never quite felt before. There are realities he can do little about (such as the flare-ups of polio that plague him periodically), but there are also things over which he has control. Anna’s green eyes beseech him to play. The trill of her laughter when they are together entices him to roll around on the floor with her. There is nothing he won’t do for this child, including sit-ups.

  He slips his shoes on and glances over at Bettina as she sleeps. Usually she would have been long gone to the factory, but she is taking a sick day today so she can sleep off a lingering cough. Her face is relaxed in repose; the angles, although softened, are regal, swooping from cheekbone to chin. Her lips are slightly parted. He’d like to give her a kiss, but he knows from experience that instead of waking up and smiling at him, she would snap open her eyes, surprised at being disturbed.

  It is hardly her fault. He sighs and rises. Have they said one kind word to each other since the baby was born? They are so exhausted from the child’s nighttime waking that they barely have the energy to be civil. Although, admittedly, these past few months she has been less morose and silent, sometimes even ebullient. Perhaps they are finally on an upswing.

  After grabbing his briefcase and the key, Werner shuts the housedoor behind him and walks to the side gate, where he keeps his bicycle. The Tatra is on the fritz again, having lost a chunk of its muffler this time. Who knows how long it will take to find replacement parts? Instead of riding over the cobblestones, he walks the bike through the square. As he nears the turnoff into the center of Saargen, he catches sight of a rebuilt Opel parked down a side street. It has become rare to see nicely appointed vehicles in the streets; most cars are patched-together relics, their colors dulled by years of sun and wind and salt. A rather tall black-haired man emerges from the vehicle, and Werner is surprised to recognize him.

  “Comrade Bieder,” he calls out, resting his good leg on the pavement and taking a hand off the handlebars to wave as the man approaches.

  “Morning to you,” Bieder says. “On your way to work, are you? What’s with your choice of transportation?”

  Werner smiles, telling himself that he is not blushing; he is not embarrassed. “In the shop. A small hiccup. You’re in from East Berlin again? What brings you back to the island?”

  “Yes, busy, busy. The call of duty.”

  Werner feels this is a little patronizing; after all, he is busy too. Also, Bieder did not actually answer his question. Just the previous week he paid Werner yet another visit. There’s a new man in charge at headquarters in East Berlin, Ernst Wollweber, and changes are beginning to ripple through to the local precincts, even outlying ones such as Rügen. Last week Bieder came and poked around his old Bergen office (which is no longer his domain, and surely it is not quite polite to behave as though it is?). He studied the bronze plaque commemorating Werner’s heroics in the war, examined the clothbound tax books lined up on the bookshelves, shuffled through the stacks of papers being sorted in preparation for the land audit taking place along the borders of the entire country. But this time, instead of delivering good news or treating him like an esteemed colleague, his insistent, too-soft voice kept asking questions, and personal ones at that.

  How long has Werner been married? Are they planning on having more children? Is his wife religious? Does Bettina ever discuss politics with him? And friends, do they have many friends in the neighborhood—married? Single? What about the neighbor, Frau Bandelow—she’s a good socialist? What is the real story about her husband; he was an active Nazi, wasn’t he? Might it be true that he actually killed himself?

  Why all the questions? Werner wanted to ask, but he didn’t. Instead, he responded as best he could, keeping up the pretense that this was merely a friendly chat between one colleague and another. When he tried to divert the line of questioning to ask about the mandate from HQ that required reassessing all deeds for any privately owned property within ten kilometers of the water, he was met with an abrupt and conspicuous silence. When the man finally left, Werner had the feeling that he’d been tricked into giving away some seemingly irrelevant, unacknowledged secret.

  “And what are you doing in my little town again, Comrade Bieder, so bright and early?” Werner asks, determined not to be ignored. “Not stalking me, are you?”

  “Ah, Nietz,” Bieder says, running a hand over his slick hair. He never looks directly at Werner, and this makes him appear high strung and capricious, when he is most likely neither. “Had a visit from someone around here that I’m checking up on. Nothing serious, just keeping abreast of what’s going on around town. How’s that pretty wife of yours?”

  “Very well, thank you,” Werner answers. He wonders what Bettina has to do
with anything. He tries to think back to whether he has broken any rules; perhaps giving Irmgard part of their rations was foolish, but it can’t be that, can it? Perhaps Bieder and Bettina know each other? It crosses his mind then that the man might have taken a liking to his wife from afar. Werner is infused with a sense of irritation so discomfiting that it brings warmth to his cheeks. Truth is, it’s been so long since Bettina allowed Werner to make love to her that all it takes is for a man to glance at her sideways, and he is overcome with jealousy.

  Bieder reads the apprehension on Werner’s face. “Nothing to be concerned about, my man. We like to know what’s what; you know how it is. Have a good day.”

  Thus dismissed, Werner hoists himself on his bicycle and starts pedaling away. In his mind, random puzzle pieces are jostling around without fitting together, and he is developing the suspicion that everyone has some sort of secret that only he is not privy to. People talk too much. Whose business is it what goes on in the square? He thinks of Bettina, who has gone through yet another transformation, as though she is finally settling into her role as a mother. She smiles more often in his presence, and they talk more comfortably—as they did in the old days—and yet she still turns away from him at night. If he tries to insist, she feigns aches and pains or concocts some story about feminine troubles. But what does Werner know about these things?

  What he does know for sure is that he is tiring of lying next to a woman who seems only to tolerate him. He will have to find a way to set it straight: A wife has responsibilities. The way things are, with the baby, the house, their lack of marital intimacy—it simply isn’t right.

  33

  The child: spidery lashes curled on plump cheeks, sips of breath even and shallow. Finally, she is down for her nap. Bettina coughs harshly into her fist, her chest heaving with a thick fluttering in her lungs.

  There is a sound at the back of the house, and she goes to the landing to peer out over their small garden. The shed is sturdy, its shingles graying but solid, and the heavy-headed rosebush curtsies on the slight incline toward the neighbor. Fresh wash is strung up, inert in the uncommonly still air. Herr Hoechsler is working on his vegetable patch in the distance, wearing his red sun hat. It’s nothing. But when she straightens up again, she is certain that she hears the back latch clacking open—that slight distinctive hitch as the metal runner slides over the doorframe. She clutches her dressing gown closer and pats down her hair. “Jemand da?” she calls out—Anyone there?—and then begins to cough again. “Werner?”

  At the bottom of the stairs, she turns to the back entry and lets out a startled cry. How did Peter make it through the square unnoticed? Fear shoots through her, as if she were jumping from a cliff. “Peter—are you crazy?”

  He holds out a makeshift bouquet of wild lupine, honeysuckle clover, and a few sharp pale-green grasses. “I couldn’t wait a second longer,” he says. “It’s killing me having to wait so long to see you.”

  “You shouldn’t ever come here! What if some—”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—I was careful. The bike is gone, and the car too. He won’t be back for hours, will he?”

  “You don’t understand!”

  It is shocking to have him here, filling this space that is so infused with Werner’s presence. They are breathing the same air, walking the same floorboards. She snatches the flowers from him. She has a whole family life that Peter knows nothing about, and she is ashamed of it, as though by having this life she is betraying him, not her husband. “There are a thousand windows with a thousand eyes looking down on us!”

  “I went to the factory to leave you a note, and they told me you were home sick,” he says. “I just couldn’t wait. You’re still not better?”

  His eyes on her skin are like a cool current along the ridges of her bones, making her shiver. She pushes up her sleeves, grabs a small vase from the shelf, and fills it with water. “Old man Hoechsler’s in the garden! Why would you be so reckless?”

  “I won’t come again—promise.”

  He comes up behind her, close, so she feels the slight fold of his trousers on the back of her knee and the puff of his shirt at his waist; it makes her breath stick in her throat and her hands fall to her sides. Gently he presses his body into her until she feels the length of him, the curve of his chest, his hands on her hip bones. His lips come to her neck, so light, warm. Her shoulders relax, and she leans back into him.

  It’s been three months since they got together again, and seeing each other is even harder than before—with the baby, with Werner so prickly and unpredictable. Every moment is precarious. They try to see each other once a week, though that isn’t always possible. Even with the pall of their subterfuge hanging over them, when Bettina is with Peter, all that messiness falls away. It’s an illusion; she knows this, but it brings her back to herself; it seems that she can reveal anything to him, and he will still see her for who she really is. With him, she feels like a good person. She admitted how in the early months of motherhood, she was plagued by the idea that she wasn’t cut out to be a mother, that she would fail at this; she spoke of the black depression that fell over her, the terrible lethargy. The guilt she felt about not telling him that she was pregnant. “I failed everyone,” she said.

  His eyes swam in a film of tears as she spoke. “You are a human being,” he said. “You are both brave and fearful. We are doing the best we can.”

  Now he has taken this terrible risk in coming to her home, and yet she can only feel happiness at seeing him.

  “The baby? Is she asleep? Can I see her?” Peter whispers.

  They climb the stairs and go into the nursery, where the air is thick with sleep. Annaliese has turned over onto her front, her knees tucked under her torso, her padded bottom sticking up in the air. Peter bends over the crib and reaches out a trembling hand to touch her back, the veins popping blue from his deeply tanned skin.

  Bettina spreads the feather duvet out on the wooden floor of the master bedroom by the window. After making love, they lie naked and sweating with the window cranked open to let in a little air, sharing a cigarette and looking out, watching the clouds flit over the rooftops. A jay squawks, and somewhere children kick around a ball and shriek accusations at one another and laugh. Peter will have to find his way out without crossing the square.

  “We’ll have two more children—boys, next time,” he says into the warm skin of Bettina’s upper arm. “A whole soccer team.”

  “No—another girl and then a boy.” Bettina laughs. She likes playing this game.

  “We’ll have a little fisherman’s cottage, just like this one, but right on the water.” They are both silent as they try to imagine where they can live together without Werner’s clammy shadow cast over them. “Once we save enough, we’ll get ourselves a little boat too.”

  “I’ve already got a few hundred marks stored away, you know,” Bettina says. “And you? A bachelor. You must be rich.”

  “Oh, I’m rich in knowledge. I can recite anything—just ask. Old stuff, Rilke, Goethe. New stuff too . . .”

  She prods him. “You know what I mean. We need at least enough money to take a train somewhere, buy a few things. Not much, but enough.”

  “Yes,” he says. “Most of all we need a good plan.”

  Is she imagining it, or does he not sound entirely convinced? She badly needs him to believe it’s going to be possible for them to start anew somehow, somewhere. “Oh, what’s this?” she asks, propping herself up on one elbow. She touches a red welt that runs up the bottom of his arm to the silky hairs of his underarm. “You cut yourself?”

  “Oh, this. It’s nothing,” he says. “It was an accident.”

  “You were working on the house?”

  “No,” he says, getting up from the floor. The fluid lines of his flanks are faintly blue, the skin there never exposed. The physicality of him is arresting; it stops time. It telescopes her world in a way that is comforting yet also exciting in its intensity. He st
oops to peer out the window at the boys playing below. “My father did it. He was agitated . . . I . . . well, he’d had too much to drink. It happens sometimes now. Things aren’t going the way we’d hoped.”

  “He’s been removed from the church?” Bettina asks, rising to stand beside him. “Is that what you mean?”

  “I’m not sure what their strategy is anymore, Bettina. For the whole country. Officials told me the other day I can’t include internal monologues in a play I’m doing with the children. No internal monologue! They’re going to stipulate the form art should take? During the party conference, last year—Greif zur Feder, they said, and yes, it’s all good to bring literature to the proletariat, but no internal monologues? How is it functionaries think they know what literature is supposed to be?”

  “I didn’t know,” Bettina says, thinking of the warren of offices where Werner works. The delight in bureaucracy and order, the desire to control. It doesn’t surprise her, this tightening of the reins, the denial of the scope and freedom of art. “How can you teach, then?”

  “I can’t, not really. And they’ve got me on some kind of watch list,” he says. “As though I’m the enemy.”

  “Do you think—maybe we should think about leaving . . . maybe even leave the country, as Clara did?”

  “No, no, we can’t do that. What would happen if everyone stopped fighting for what’s right and just left?”

  “Sometimes we have to put ourselves first.”

  “We have to find another way. We must do the best we can, here, in our homeland.”

  She’s exasperated. What other way, now? Surely they have already decided they need to be together. He risked being discovered in order to see her. The stupidity and danger of this astounds her, but she cannot imagine it otherwise, not having him near her in this very moment.

  What on earth am I doing? she thinks. To silence her doubts, she kisses him on the mouth, and soon they are back on the floor, entwined, forgetting the rest of the world and its tremendous complexity.