The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

“So what happened?”

I looked away, searching for a friendly face in the milling crowd of schoolchildren. Where was Stefan? He should be here. I risked a look back at the boy’s face; he was still looking at me, waiting to hear what I would say; you could see the avid spark of prurient interest behind those heavy features like a tea light burning in a jack-o’-lantern. I threw caution to the winds.

“It was a hand grenade.”

“A what?”

“A hand grenade.” Now I had recovered my courage. Um Gottes Willen, I thought; it couldn’t make things any worse, whatever I said. “My Opa kept it from the war.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” I warmed to my theme. “He kept it in a box under the bed. When he died, Oma Kristel started carrying it around with her as-as a reminder of him.”

“Unbelievable,” said the boy incredulously. He looked as though he were about to start dribbling with excitement. The cigarette was burning down unnoticed in his fingers. “How did it go off?”

“Well…” I thought about it for a moment. “It was in her handbag. She always carried it around in there. She put her hand in to get her keys out, and instead of the key ring she put her finger in the ring on the hand grenade, and pulled the pin out.” I put my head on one side. “And then it went off. Boom! Just like that.”

“Scheisse.” I had succeeded in impressing a teenager. “Was there anything left of her?”

“Only her shoes and her left hand. That’s how they could tell who it was afterward, by her rings.”

“How could…” He shook his head. “That’s incredible. Wasn’t anyone else hurt?”

“My cousin Michel had his nose blown off.” How I wished that were true. “They had to make him a new one in the hospital.” I put a hand gently to my lips as though feeling the words as they came out, checking them for truth. “It looks as good as new, you wouldn’t know.”

“Did they find the nose?”

I shook my head. “A cat ate it.”

There was a long silence. The boy looked down at me, and I up at him. He flicked the long column of gray ash from the cigarette, took a last deep drag, and then dropped the butt on the ground, where he extinguished it under the sole of one grubby sneaker.

“Du bist pervers,” he said at last: you’re sick. He turned and shambled off, leaving me standing there alone, with the sound of the school bell ringing in my ears.

That was my first day at the big school.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Pia,” said Herr Schiller, peering around the door. “How kind of you.” He stepped back to let me into the house. Herr Schiller had been unwell; that was why he had declined my mother’s invitation to come and share coffee and cakes with us to celebrate my transition into the big school. Instead I had brought him a slice of cheesecake in a box.

“I’m sorry you had to miss the party,” I said shyly.

“I am sorry too, Pia,” said Herr Schiller. He raised his hands in a gesture of regret. “What can I say? The years are catching up with me.” Certainly he did look as though every one of his eighty-odd years was weighing him down today. Although his clothes were as dapper as ever, they seemed to hang off his broad shoulders; even the flesh of his face seemed to hang loosely, as though he lacked the energy to smile.

I looked up at him doubtfully.

“I brought you some of the cake.”

“Danke, Pia.” He held out a hand to indicate that I should go into the living room.

“Do you want the cake now?” I asked, plumping myself down in one of his armchairs.

“No, thank you.” Herr Schiller subsided into his favorite chair with a seismic effect on the springs. We regarded each other for a moment. He did look pale, I noticed.

“Herr Schiller…?” I said uncertainly.

“Yes, Pia?”

“You’re… I’m sorry you’re sick. You’re not…?”

“Dying?” supplied Herr Schiller in a dry voice. He chuckled slightly; in my imagination I saw puffs of dust coming out with each wheezing breath. “My dear Pia, we are all dying.” He must have seen my face, because his tone softened as he added, “I’m sorry, Pia. But when you are my age, you will see that everything comes to an end. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s nature.”

He patted the arm of his chair with a gnarled hand. His eyes were focused elsewhere, not on me; he was thinking. “The important thing to do,” he said eventually, “is to live every day as though it were your last one.” He looked at me. “I expect they tell you that at the children’s Mass, don’t they?”

I nodded, not liking to say that I never went to the children’s Mass.

“Live every day as though it were your last one,” he repeated. “You know what that means? It means if there is something you want to do, something you have to do, you should do it now, before the chance has gone away forever.”

“Mmmm,” I concurred uneasily. I could not think what else to say.

There was a long pause, and then at last Herr Schiller said in a brighter tone, “And how are you finding the Gymnasium, Pia?”

I stopped myself from saying Scheisse just in time. “It’s all right,” I said noncommittally.

“Just all right?” Herr Schiller raised his eyebrows.

“Well…” I hesitated. “School is all right. But some of the other kids… they’re mean.”

“Oh?”

I heaved a great sigh that sent strands of hair floating about my face. “They want to know about Oma Kristel. About… you know. Why can’t people just forget it? Why does everyone have to keep going on about it? Well-not you,” I added hastily.

“People have trouble letting the past go,” remarked Herr Schiller. He leaned over to the coffee table that stood between us and pushed the box with the cheesecake in it toward me. “Perhaps you should eat this, Pia. I think it will do you more good than me.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“No.”

I opened the box and extracted the plastic fork that my mother had laid neatly alongside the slice of cake. Licking smears of cheesecake off the handle, I said, “Herr Schiller, would you tell me another story… please?”

“Well…” Herr Schiller seemed to consider. “What sort of story would you like?”

“Something really scary,” I announced. “Something…” I pondered, then with a sudden burst of petulant inspiration: “Something with a boy who says something stupid, and then something horrible happens to him.” I thought of cigarette ash drifting to the ground at my feet, grubby sneakers grinding out a butt on the stones. “Something really horrible.”

“Something really horrible…” repeated Herr Schiller. He leaned his head back against his chair for a moment and looked upward as though seeking inspiration. Then he looked at me, and his eyes were bright. “Did I ever tell you about the Fiery Man of the Hirnberg?”

“No,” I said. “Is it horrible?” I felt in the mood for a really terrifying story today: one with lots of rending and screaming. The fact was, I felt like doing some rending and screaming of my own.

“Pretty horrible,” said Herr Schiller drily, and I had to be content with that. Settling himself more comfortably in