‘Nothing.’
We walked on. It was cold.
‘I wasn’t invited to the Federschleissen,’ I said eventually. ‘Other girls were there.’
Mama sighed. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to go.’
‘It’s not that. It’s about being asked.’
‘Hanne . . .’ Mama leaned her head on my shoulder. ‘Maybe if you put a little more effort in.’
‘I do.’
‘No, you don’t. You prefer your own company and you never want to come with me to visit Christiana and the Radtkes when I suggest it.’
‘Frau Radtke doesn’t like me. She always gives me these suspicious little looks.’
‘Hanne, Magdalena has nine people under her roof. I very much doubt she has the time to think anything of you at all.’
I was silent.
‘Christiana is a lovely, modest young woman. If you were friendlier with her, I am sure she would welcome your company.’
‘She doesn’t like me either.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘She doesn’t! She teased me.’ I held my hand to Mama’s nose. ‘Do I smell?’
‘No.’
‘Christiana told me I did. That I smelled! She hates me.’
‘Hanne, stop.’ Mama drew away from me, dropping my arm. ‘Stop this self-pity. You’re spoiling what has been a lovely evening for me.’
We arrived home. As soon as we turned off the lane, my father opened the door.
‘I thought I asked you to fetch your mother,’ he said to me.
‘Yes, well, she’s here now,’ I replied, walking straight past him through the black kitchen and its row of hooks, strung with Wurst, to my bedroom off the corridor.
My mother’s voice was soft behind my back. ‘Leave her, Heinrich. She’s in a foul mood.’
I lay awake that night until I heard the persistent rumble of my father’s snores, and then I climbed out my window and found the outdoor ladder to the loft.
Matthias was sleeping. I nudged his leg with my foot, my head bent against the low, sloped ceiling.
He didn’t move.
I crouched and shook his arm.
He sat bolt upright. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘Nothing,’ I whispered. ‘I just wanted to see you.’
Matthias rubbed his eyes and lay back on his pillow. ‘I thought something was wrong. I thought there was a fire. I was dreaming of a fire.’
‘Can I get in? It’s freezing.’
Matthias silently lifted his blanket and I got in.
‘What’s the matter?’ he whispered.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can’t sleep?’
‘No.’
He turned his back to me and I drew close to him, breathing in the smell of the outside world on his skin. Cut grass and horses and earth.
‘Are you sad about Gottlob?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Sometimes I dream about him,’ Matthias whispered. ‘I dream that he’s sitting just there, at the end of the bed, watching me sleep.’
‘Do you talk to him?’
‘No. He just sits there. Once he told me he was hungry.’ He paused. ‘You know what I thought of today?’
‘What?’
‘Remember when Otto stood on Gottlob’s foot and his toe went all black?’
I smiled. ‘Oh, that was disgusting.’
‘And then the nail fell off and he wouldn’t shut up about it. Remember how he went on and on, until Mama made him bury it and sing a funeral dirge?’ Matthias began to laugh. I pulled him close.
‘I thought I’d forget everything.’ His laughter subsided. ‘I thought I’d forget, but all I do is remember. I wish they’d talk about him more. They act as though we never had a brother.’
I rubbed my cheek against Matthias’s back. ‘Me too.’ His body felt strange to me. Stronger than I remembered. Muscled from harder, longer labour. ‘Matthias, do you ever think there must be something wrong with you?’
My brother rolled over. I felt his hand on my shoulder, the pressure of his thumb. ‘What did Mama say to you?’
‘Nothing.’
Matthias was quiet. ‘No. I don’t think there is anything wrong with me. Except this.’ He tapped the gap between his front teeth. ‘And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you either, Hanne. Except . . . you know.’
‘What?’
‘You are clumsy. And you steal the blanket.’
I rolled my eyes.