The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Christmas was over. My father, who never could understand my mother’s gallows humor, was offended; but he couldn’t suggest a better time.

One afternoon I came home early and found my father’s car wedged into the paltry cobbled rectangle that served as a parking space for our house. When I saw the car I assumed my parents were embroiled in yet another summit meeting about which music to have, and whether to have white roses or lilies. Discussions could become surprisingly heated on such topics, but even so I was taken aback when I opened the front door and heard my father bellowing like an enraged bull.

I put down my schoolbag very carefully, wondering whether I should simply sneak back out again. The next second a gust of icy wind sucked the door shut, and it slammed with a sound like a gunshot. I was still standing there half stooping with the strap in my hand and a guilty expression on my face when the kitchen door opened and out came my mother. Her cheeks were rather blotchy and her dark hair was very rumpled, as though she had been raking her hands through it.

“What are you doing home at this time?” she snapped.

“Frau Wasser was off sick,” I stammered. My father’s bulk filled the kitchen doorway behind my mother.

“Don’t shout at her.”

“I wasn’t bloody shouting.” Now she almost was.

“You’ve done enough already.”

“I haven’t touched her,” said my mother, as though he had accused her of beating me.

“I’m not talking about touching.” My father was as literal-minded as ever, even in the heat of an argument. “You think it won’t have an effect on the children, when you-”

“Wolfgang!” My mother’s voice cut across his, a clear note of warning in it.

I glanced at the staircase, weighing up my chances of escaping.

“Pia.” My mother sounded calmer but her voice had steel in it. “Come into the living room with me.”

“Pia, stay where you are.” That was my father. He glared at my mother. “I’m not having you telling her your side of the story.”

My mother put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m not letting you do it.”

“Do what?” I asked, bewildered.

“Go into the living room please, Pia,” said my father. Reluctantly I did so, picking up my schoolbag as I went; if they were going to insist I shut myself up in there while they argued, I might at least get on with my homework. I started to spread the files out on the coffee table, but it was difficult to concentrate; the muffled sound of raised voices was too clearly audible from the hallway outside. I selected the English exercise to do first. Opening my exercise book at a clean page, I carefully wrote “A VISIT TO ENGLAND.” Then I stuck the end of the pen into my mouth and stared at the page.

“… you owe me that…!” boomed my father’s voice from the hallway.

My grandmother, I wrote, and stopped again. I had been going to write My grandmother lives in Middlesex, but the raised voices from the hallway had reminded me of the major row that was surely heading my way when Oma Warner got her phone bill. My flesh prickled uncomfortably at the thought. The bill must have come in by now; I had stayed with her in the long summer vacation, and now it was nearly Christmas.

The door opened. It was my mother. “Can I come in?” she said, as though it were my bedroom she were entering, and not the living room. She slid into the room and closed the door very carefully. Then she came over to the couch and sat down beside me.

“Where’s Papa?” I asked.

“Upstairs,” said my mother. “He’ll come down later. Then you can talk to him.”

She looked at me, flashed me a tight smile, and then glanced out the window. An old woman was walking along the street; she kept turning and stooping, and I guessed she was dragging an unwilling dog along with her.

I shuffled in my seat. “I’ve got English,” I said eventually, touching the open exercise book.

“Hmmm,” said my mother, and then: “That’s sort of what I want to talk to you about, Pia.”

“My English homework?”

“No, not that.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Pia, your English is really good, even though I know we don’t speak English at home as often as we should.”

“Charles and Chloe make fun of me when I speak English,” I said.

“Well…” said my mother, “try not to take any notice of your cousins. Your English is good.”

“They can’t speak German,” I pointed out, but my mother was not to be diverted down that route.

“You could manage-in England, I mean,” she said. “You did really well with Oma Warner in the summer.”

“Ye-es,” I said warily, wondering whether in some roundabout way this was leading up to a showdown about the telephone bill. But my mother didn’t seem angry with me; if anything she seemed nervous, as though she was afraid I would be angry with her.

“If you… I mean, if you lived there, you’d soon be speaking it perfectly. At your age, you’d be able to lose the accent. Then people wouldn’t laugh, they probably wouldn’t even notice.”

I picked up my exercise book and stared at the empty page with “A VISIT TO ENGLAND” emblazoned across the top. “Are we going to visit Oma Warner again?”

“Well, no, not exactly.”

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t really like going to England. I really like Oma Warner, but…”

My mother sighed. “Pia, we can’t always choose.”

“What do you mean?” I said. An unpleasant realization was surfacing in my mind like some ghastly waterlogged thing that refused to sink however hard you pushed it under. When Aunt Liz and my mother had discussed our moving to England, the idea had not been hypothetical at all.

“You’re half English,” said my mother, as though that explained everything. “We’ve lived in Germany for years, but there was always a chance… you need to get to know the English side of yourself.” Her tone was pleading.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said stubbornly.

“We’d see lots more of Oma Warner. She is my mother, you know, and I’d like to spend more time with her. It would be nice for you, too, now that Oma Kristel isn’t…” She paused, and rubbed her palms together as though suddenly embarrassed. “You might even find you like your cousins.”

I won’t ever like my cousins, I thought, but I did not say anything out loud. I just looked at my mother fidgeting and smiling nervously. I felt cold, as though she had been a complete stranger offering me stupid lies, lies designed to hurt.

“You know what I’m saying, don’t you, Mauselein?” I registered the endearment with a faint stab of irritation; it was years since she had called me her little mouse-why was she doing it now? “We’re… well, we’re probably going to live in England.”

“Probably?”

“Well, we are going, but there are a few things to sort out first, and-”

“What about Papa’s job?”

“Papa…” My mother paused, and once again she was rubbing her hands together, rubbing and rubbing as though she were trying to brush something off them. “Papa probably isn’t coming.” She realized she had said probably again, and amended it to: “Papa isn’t coming with us.”

“But he can’t stay here without us,” I protested. “And, anyway, I don’t want to go to England.”

“Pia.” My mother sighed. “I know you think you don’t want to go there. But we really can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Because… well, because I need Oma Warner and Aunt Liz nearby. Sebastian’s still very little and I’m going to need help, otherwise I don’t see how I can go back to work.” She sketched a quick smile on her features, and reached out to touch my shoulder. I drew back, still trying to assess whether my mother was in earnest or making some horrible joke. “Why don’t you go back to work here?”