The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

For a moment they looked at each other in silence. Then my mother opened her mouth to say something, but what it was going to be I do not know because at that precise instant we heard someone knocking loudly on the front door.

Now, when I finally come to tell the story of that strange premillennium year, I am years older, almost an adult myself. Even so, people often do things that I struggle to understand. Their motives are hard to fathom.

When I was ten, adult behavior seemed completely incomprehensible. You could say something apparently quite innocent, or repeat something that you had heard adults saying, and find that you had caused horrible offense. You could have something hammered into you by one set of adults and find another set apparently propagating the exact opposite.

Adults: they were so unpredictable that nothing they did should have been able to surprise me anymore. Still, that morning something did.

The knocking was Herr Schiller. My mother, still flushed from the argument, and still clutching the frying fork, opened the door and found Herr Schiller standing on the doorstep, as always looking as though he had been dressed by a personal valet.

“Guten Morgen, Frau Kolvenbach,” said Herr Schiller, making a very slight bow. He lifted his hat and extended a hand to my mother.

“Herr Schiller,” said my mother, sounding surprised, but remembering to take the hand and shake it politely.

Still sitting at the kitchen table, I heard the exchange of greetings and my heart sank. This could mean only one thing: I was in trouble. Herr Schiller must have come to make a complaint to my mother about my offensive behavior. I felt hot with guilt and embarrassment, and also a little indignation: after all, I hadn’t meant to upset him. If my mother had told me about his daughter beforehand, I wouldn’t have asked him about Katharina Linden.

At that moment I almost felt I hated him; it was so unfair, and so typically adult. I slipped down from the bench seat and was brushing crumbs from my trousers when my mother came back into the kitchen.

“Herr Schiller is here to see you,” she announced.

I was incredulous. To see me? I wondered whether this was some sly introduction to the inevitable scene. Did he want to make sure that the complaint was made in front of me? Unwillingly, I followed her into the living room.

Herr Schiller had been sitting in my father’s favorite armchair, but as we entered the room he stood up. As he did so, I noticed with surprise that he was carrying a little posy of spring flowers. For a second, the idea floated through my head that my mother had given them to him as some sort of reconciliatory gesture. Then I saw that he was holding out the flowers to me.

“Fraulein Pia, these are for you,” he said, and smiled. Behind me, my mother quietly slipped out of the room and went to investigate Sebastian’s progress with his breakfast. I merely stood and stared at my visitor, unsure how to react.

“Please, take them,” said Herr Schiller. He took a step toward me and there was nothing to do but accept the flowers. I stood there, bewildered, burying my nose in the soft petals, more to hide my embarrassment than to smell their delicate scent.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out at last, not quite daring to raise my eyes to his face. “I didn’t mean to…” My voice trailed off; I was not sure how I could complete the apology without straying onto forbidden ground. I’m sorry I mentioned disappearances… I didn’t know your daughter disappeared… I didn’t mean to upset you by talking about people disappearing… In the end I said nothing, but Herr Schiller came to my rescue.

“Please don’t apologize, Pia.” His voice was kindly. “It is I who should apologize, for asking you to leave so abruptly.”

I did look at him then, as it was so unexpected, an adult apologizing to a child like that, especially when the adult had reached such a respectably old age, whereas I was only ten years old and the school pariah to boot. Herr Schiller was smiling at me, the map of wrinkles on his ancient face all seeming to turn upward so that they looked like the tributaries of a spreading delta.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to say anything wrong,” I ventured at last. “I didn’t know…”

The words sounded lame to me; in Bad Munstereifel everyone knew everyone else’s business, so ignorance was no defense.

“Of course not,” said Herr Schiller, a little sadly, it seemed to me. “You are a good child, Pia, a kind child.”

A little encouraged, I tried to explain myself: “I only asked you about-you know-because you know so much about the town… and about all the funny stuff that’s happened here in the past.”

“The past?” repeated Herr Schiller. He frowned slightly, and my heart seemed to lurch-did he think I was referring to his own past again?

“The miller and the cats… and the treasure in the well… and the one about the huntsman-all the strange things like that. So I thought you might have some clues…”

Herr Schiller stared at me for several seconds. Then, very carefully, he lowered himself back into my father’s armchair, his hands clutching the armrests for support. When he had settled himself, he said, “So, Fraulein Pia, you think that the witches took the little girl away, or something like that?”

I eyed him; it did not look as though he was making fun of me, as a lot of adults would have. It looked as though he was taking me seriously, actually considering the idea as a real possibility. Still, I replied rather carefully, “I don’t know.”

“But you think… maybe…?”

“Well, everyone-I mean, all the grown-ups-keeps saying to look out for anything seltsam,” I told him.

“Etwas seltsam,” he repeated thoughtfully, tapping the fingers of one hand on the arm of the chair. Then he fell silent again, as though drifting away on a tide of his own thoughts.

“Herr Schiller?” I said tentatively.

“Yes, Pia?”

“You’re not angry with me anymore?”

Herr Schiller made a noise that was something between a snort and a chuckle. “Of course I’m not angry with you, my dear. And you have some very interesting ideas.”

“Really?” I was both flattered and astounded.

“Yes, really,” said Herr Schiller. “You see patterns where other people see nothing.”

I was not sure what to say to this. If I had seen a connection between the disappearance of a little girl and the stories of hidden secrets, terrible fates, and eternal hauntings that Herr Schiller poured into my fascinated ears, it was not a pattern that any adult other than Herr Schiller was likely to take seriously. I was not even sure it made sense myself; and my mother would treat it as the domestic equivalent of wasting police time.

“Herr Schiller? Are there really any such things as ghosts?”

The old man did not even show surprise at the question. He heaved a sigh. “Yes, Pia, there are. But never the ones you expect.”

I pondered this. He had the answer down pat; but did it really mean anything? I had heard my mother with my own ears telling Sebastian that St. Nicholas was going to fill his shoes with presents on December 6, and up until fairly recently she had still maintained the pretense of the tooth fairy. I was reluctant to categorize my old friend with the mendacious majority of adults, but was he just humoring me?

“No, I mean really?” I persisted.

Herr Schiller smiled. “Pia, have you ever seen a ghost?”

“No…”

“Does that mean there aren’t any?”

“I don’t know…”

“Na, have you ever seen the great pyramid of Cheops?”

“No,” I said.

“And does that mean there isn’t one?”

“Of course not.”

“Well then.” Herr Schiller sat back in my father’s armchair with the look of one who has proved his case.