This Terrible Beauty: A Novel

by Katrin Schumann

  This harrowing fact made her head pound, and she spent half the night in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub, holding a cold washcloth to her face. It had seemed possible, briefly, that she could go back in time and claim what had wrongly been taken from her. But this was not about her.

  Bettina woke up with swollen eyes. Her skin was blotchy, with pale-gray and mauve undertones around the eyes and mouth. It was early, but clusters of people were already gathered in the lobby, standing around or drinking black coffee at the tables; a few men in dark suits and hats, others who looked foreign, one wearing a leather coat. A woman sat in the phone booth in the corner, and Bettina thought she should try to call her sister later, even though calling internationally would cost a small fortune. For the past few days she had been paralyzed, and Clara might help her decide what to do. She would put things in perspective.

  There was a large pharmacy on the corner, and she headed over there without eating breakfast or getting herself a coffee. As she neared the exit after buying a bottle of aspirin, she caught sight of a balding man in a brown linen jacket and a flat cap. He wore sunglasses and was looking away. But when she turned from him, she noticed in her peripheral vision that he immediately turned back toward her. She strode down the street, a sudden hammering in her ears. In the hotel, she slipped off to the right and stood behind one of the pillars, and a minute later there he was again.

  Still wearing his sunglasses, he looked around the lobby before making his way to the back, toward the elevator. Bettina waited a full five minutes before rising to return to her room.

  Later, when she called the Central Registry of State Judicial Administrations, she thought she heard a gentle click on the telephone as she picked it up, as though someone on the line were hanging up, though that made no sense here in the West. Instead of asking her questions over the phone, she decided to go to the office and see if she could meet again in person with Kreisgut or Mannheim.

  On the way there, a tall, rather portly man followed her along the street and onto the bus. He was handsome, wearing a dark windbreaker, his face broad and unlined. She chided herself for being paranoid. Stopping in front of the bureau, Bettina thrust her hands into the pocket of her jeans and waited. There were two men now—the other one slimmer, with a mustache and elongated silver eyeglasses—heading toward her. They were upon her too fast for her to make it through the revolving doors, and the one with the mustache grabbed her Rollei with both hands and tugged as hard as he could while the other man yanked her arm behind her. She struggled and screamed, kicking them, clutching the precious camera.

  They could not have it—they could not take this from her—the photos of her child were all she had left now, and they were hers!

  The leather strap was caught around her neck, and just as it began to slide painfully over her earlobes, another pair of hands entered the fray, and a whistle was blown into her eardrum, and it was like a shriek inside her head, and she covered her ears with her palms and screamed, and the men released her as if she had caught on fire. They began to run, and two uniformed West German policemen gave chase.

  The police at the station near the Spree were alternately bored by her story and incensed. In truth, she was no one special: tens of thousands of people had left someone they loved behind the Iron Curtain. They explained what they knew about the surveillance patterns in the East, emphasizing that once someone was flagged by the MfS, they were pursued until otherwise instructed. It was not unheard of for undercover agents to snatch people off the streets of West Berlin.

  They were in a kind of cold war, they said, where the fighting was secretive but relentless, where the enemies were often from the same country, sometimes even the same family.

  Bettina had few options. She could fight for her daughter through the court system, but given the stature of her husband, his role in the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, it was unlikely this bid would be successful. And even if it was, the ruling would be hard to enforce: Annaliese Nietz was a minor living with her biological father in a repressive political system.

  Stop, stop—she waved a trembling hand in front of her face. Her arms had been yanked in the wrong direction, and the muscles in her upper arms ached. The headache from earlier had descended from the crown of her head and taken up residence around her eye sockets. The fluorescent lights were so bright they made her eyes pulse uncomfortably, and she was having trouble focusing.

  Back at the hotel, she switched rooms to one on a higher floor and lay down on the tidy coverlet, her bag packed and in the corner. Truth was, she was no closer to solving her problem than she had been before arriving in Berlin. Werner had lied to her; he could not be trusted. Any ground she gained would have to be in spite of his efforts to keep them apart; he would not help her. She thought of Peter’s book and struggled to rid herself of the poisonous thoughts about Werner that led only to a black hole of grief and helplessness. She could not change him. He was right that she had made the choice to marry him, she had teased him with the possibility of winning her love, and she’d snatched it away from him in the most shameful way possible.

  And yet. At the café she had seen in him a veiled tenderness, despite his boastful talk when he showed her the photo of his family. Clearly he adored them. He had failed to make Bettina love him, but he had found others who did. Irmgard, as she held the baby, as she talked to Annaliese, had seemed content, relaxed in a way she had not been back in Saargen when she was alone, a widow with no children. Those two had found one another, against all odds, and had built a family together. Did Bettina want to destroy that too?

  That sweet look Anna had given the boy in the wheelchair. The way she had glanced up at Irmgard, asking permission to pick him up. The evident warmth of their bond. If that was broken, it would be almost impossible for her to get back. Anna would miss out on the boy’s childhood, and on the childhoods of her other siblings too. What would that do to the girl—would it harden her soul in a way she would never be able to fix? This went directly against what Peter had been trying to assert in his book. It went against what Bettina knew, in her heart, to be noble.

  She lay fully clothed on the bed, her cheek against the pillow, face toward the wall. Over the past decade, her camera had shown her a world that was vast and infinitely varied, in which people struggled to find their place, whether geographic or emotional, a place they felt at home. Everyone suffered. Everyone was clawing his or her way toward the very same goal.

  We all want the same thing, she thought as she drifted to sleep. And she wasn’t sure if she could be granted her wish if it was at the cost of her child’s happiness.

  49

  Werner watched Peter from behind the mirrored window. Over the years he had been in this prison many times for meetings, participating in endless hours of conversation about budgeting for prisoner maintenance and proper surveillance. Never once had he engaged with the prisoners themselves. He had never even observed them, at least not up close like this. Sometimes they’d be trooping through the prison yard as he was chauffeured into the complex, and occasionally an inmate would be the one bringing in refreshments for longer meetings. In all these interactions, Werner had not said a word to any of them.

  A senior guard turned up with a set of keys and confirmed that authorization had been granted for Werner to enter the interrogation room. Another few minutes till the stenographer arrived. The guard opened the first chamber, let him in, and left. The door clanged shut behind Werner. Werner then used the key to open the second door, and when that one shut behind him, a buzzer sounded.

  Peter was sitting upright on the stool, his eyes open and clear. He was haggard, with graying stubble and a hollowness under his cheekbones that made him look old, though he was younger than Werner by at least a decade. His blond hair, bedraggled, was dark at the sides with streaks of gray throughout, very thick—Werner’s mind went instantly to Anna, to Bettina, to their thick hair. He pushed the thought aside, as he had always done. He could never
know for sure whose child she was, and he had long ago determined that it made no difference to him. The room was like an ice chamber, a tang like wet metal in the air. There was also the pungent smell of a man’s sweat. Werner felt wildly overheated yet had goose bumps on his forearms. He put down the briefcase on a table, got himself a paper cup from a side table, filled it with water from a pitcher, and drank it down in one long sip.

  Peter gazed at him. “Werner Nietz,” he said quietly.

  “Are you thirsty?” Werner asked.

  “Yes,” Peter said. “Thank you.”

  He held a cup of water to Peter’s lips, and after he drank it down, Werner refilled it for him. The air in the room was so close it felt as though neither of them could draw one full breath with the other man there, just centimeters away.

  “Can you tell me, please”—Peter hacked into his fist, then looked up at Werner with reddened eyes—“what happened to her? To Bettina.”

  “I’ll be asking the questions,” Werner said, throwing his cup in the bin. “Not you.”

  “I have to know. Please, I need—I just need to understand. It’s driving me insane. Can you understand? I must know . . .”

  And then, to Werner’s horror, the man’s face crumpled in on itself, and he began to weep unabashedly. Thick blond brows came together, pulling skin with them, pinching his face into a terrible grimace. Until this moment, Werner had thought seeing Peter Brenner in cuffs would be glorious. He had wanted to come here to remind himself who had come out on top in the end. On the way over, anger burbling in his chest, he’d expected a triumphant surge as soon as he laid eyes on him, but that had not happened. Instead, he was baffled: Was the man genuine?

  Werner took a seat at the table and studied his hands. “Brenner, you lack a moral backbone,” he finally said, his voice steady and low. “I’m not surprised you ended up in here.”

  Peter remained silent, and they looked at each other for a long time. Werner thought of the men in the room behind the mirror, listening dispassionately; it bothered him. “You stole a man’s wife. You took what wasn’t yours,” he finally continued. “You’re a pig.”

  But it didn’t feel good, insulting the man in this way. Not while he was crying. Werner remembered when he was a teenager and the boys who’d played on the school soccer team called him a cripple, how he’d bitten back the tears, how they seared the back of his throat.

  “Did she die? I heard rumors,” Peter asked. His lips were cracked and dark in the center, his eyes bloodshot. “Can you at least tell me that?”

  Werner had inadequately prepared for this exchange. It would have been far, far better to have had some sort of game plan. Knowing he was so close by, Werner had been compelled to come see the man in person, but now that he was here, his motives seemed sordid.

  He stood up abruptly. This was not going to be possible: he could not talk with this man in front of other people. He could not countenance the interest or lack thereof on the part of the guards, the stenographer, those listening in. This was his life they were talking about; these things had happened to him. He nodded toward the window, and a moment later a guard appeared at the door.

  “You’re leaving?” Peter asked, wild eyed. He tried to stand, but his arms were attached to the back of his chair, and he could barely rise. “Wait, wait, you—”

  Werner ignored him and left. Once outside the room, he informed the guard that he would be taking the prisoner outside into the yard. He would keep him handcuffed and write the report himself upon completion of the interview. After showing him his badge, he held out his hand for the keys.

  “Comrade, that’s highly unusual,” the guard said, drawing his brows together.

  “You take orders from me, Fuchs,” Werner said, staring at him. “Give me the keys immediately.”

  Something peculiar was dawning on him. There was some of Peter in his little girl; he had seen it as they sat in the interrogation room staring at one another. The shape of their faces, even the lean build of their bodies. The eyes a little wide apart, a malleable mouth. All these years he had understood that it was possible Anna was not actually his, but now, having seen Brenner in cuffs, he was beset with unease that felt not unlike shame. What did this mean, if it was in fact true that Peter was her father? He could have the man sent away for good, and the problem would be erased. Anna didn’t know and need never know. But he thought of Bettina in the Ratskeller, that freighted look they’d exchanged, infused with all the pain they’d caused one another. What happened to Peter didn’t matter to Werner all that much, but he hated that Bettina might think he hadn’t been true to his word.

  After all, he was an honorable man. He prided himself on being rigorous and correct. It was important to him that Bettina understand that he was not a liar and a cheat, as she likely believed. Because, in fact, he was a man who kept his promises, as every good man should.

  Out in the yard, the September afternoon had cooled down considerably, and there was a breeze that blew the clouds above the horizon line, striations of white like cotton candy in a blue, blue sky. Werner had developed the habit of noticing the texture and colors of the sky whenever he was outdoors. It was something Bettina had always remarked on when they were together, and he’d been charmed; he’d never paid attention to these things before.

  Peter Brenner’s hands were still fastened together behind his torso, and he walked beside Werner with his face tipped upward. He squinted hard. The light was very bright, and even Werner had trouble adjusting after the dark of the prison interior.

  “Ahh, the air,” said Peter. The vague sound of the city—cars and some sort of gentle buzzing—drifted alongside them as they walked. “I thought you were leaving. I am . . . I’m so very relieved.”

  “You are relieved?” Werner said. Though he’d once seen Peter from afar, he’d never actually spoken with him, and he was startled by the gentleness of his voice. He had imagined him to be a blowhard. Where was the man’s anger or his fear? It was mystifying to Werner; anger would be so much easier to deal with than this disquieting acquiescence. Some of the reviews of Brenner’s book had puzzled over this same thing: the writer’s apparent lack of bitterness, as evidenced by his protagonist ultimately deciding against suicide. This was thought to be revolutionary, enlightened, revealing a refreshing lack of cynicism. It was hailed as a movement that urged forgiveness over self-righteousness.

  “Oh, yes! Not knowing is the hardest of all,” Peter said. “And they both just disappeared. There were times when I didn’t think I could keep going.”

  “Well, Bettina is certainly gone.”

  Peter stopped walking, his eyes watery holes in a gray face. “So she is—she really is dead?”

  Werner took pity on him and shook his head. He recognized in his expression something of the emotion he himself experienced when thinking of Bettina. “No . . . no. She lives in America. For a long time now.”

  A low groan escaped from Peter. “America! I . . . it’s just, I thought she might have committed suicide.”

  They allowed this to sit between them as they walked along the perimeter wall.

  “So. You wrote a book, and it landed you in prison,” Werner said, indicating the walls and the guard towers with his hand. “Why would you draw attention to yourself in that way; don’t you know better?”

  “Isn’t this your doing, my arrest?” Peter kept shuffling ahead, his shoulders bent forward like an old man’s. There was a guard not that far from them with a gun strapped over his shoulder, and another on the wall to their left, pacing, watching them.

  His anger swooped back in just as quickly as it had dissipated. “Brenner, God dammit. I kept my word. I promised Bettina—if she left, I wouldn’t interfere with you, and I didn’t. You were already in the system; I had no control over that. They’d been watching you for years.”

  “I wanted to kill you when she disappeared,” Peter said. “I should tell you that.”

  “And yet you didn’t, did you? So it seems
we live in a civilized society after all.”

  “The only reason I didn’t . . .” Peter stopped and looked him in the eye. “I couldn’t. I was too afraid. I didn’t know what might happen to her if I hurt you. And anyway, I was the one who’d started it all.”

  “I suppose I should be grateful, then.” Each time Peter spoke, his candor chipped away at Werner’s understanding of who the man was. He didn’t know what he should be feeling, but what he’d thought he wanted to feel was triumphant.

  “And Anna? Where did you two go?”

  The child. The child who was Werner’s—and yet was perhaps not really his. Everything now revolved around her, really. His priority was to protect her, to keep her safe in his family, with her brothers and sister, living the simple routine of her emerging adolescence. “We’re here now, in Berlin. I have a family. She has siblings. She’s a happy child, healthy and inquisitive.”

  Peter made a strange sound in the back of his throat. “After, right when Bettina disappeared, I went back to Apolonienmarkt, you know. I saw you with the baby. I thought, at least . . . I thought, I can see her every now and then, little Anna. I can watch the two of you walking into town or playing in the grass together, or maybe on the beach in the summertime. I don’t know. I comforted myself with knowing that she wasn’t that far away, even if I’d lost Bettina.”

  “And what did I lose? Did you ever think of that?” Werner let out a disdainful puff of air. “Did you think everything you wanted was yours for the taking?”

  “Oh. No, no—I never thought that. I know it’s terrible, a terrible thing for you, but when I met her . . .” Peter stopped once again to readjust his arms behind his back, grimacing. The gray of his prison uniform was stained at the pits and knees. “At first I wasn’t thinking much of anything except, well. That it was imperative I see her again. I knew it was wrong. I knew that from the very beginning. I was always . . . no, I still am very sorry for that.”

  Werner didn’t want to hear it—and yet hadn’t he felt that same magnetic pull when he’d first met Bettina? Wasn’t there something about her that had drawn him in, despite knowing even then that she would likely never love him? “And you had to take what was already mine? Haven’t you had someone else in your life?”