Helen Grant - The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

In my haste I nearly barreled into someone on the corner by the bridge.

“Fräulein Pia.”

My eyes were level with a smart old-fashioned greatcoat with a red carnation, bright as a splash of paint, in the buttonhole. I looked up and saw a craggy face looking down at me, bushy eyebrows raised above startlingly blue eyes.

“Herr Schiller.”

My heart instantly sank. At any other time I would have been delighted to see Herr Schiller; now I saw his eyes move to the shadow behind me and I knew I’d have to introduce him to Stefan. I glanced about me as though seeking escape, but it was too late.

“Is this a friend of yours?” asked Herr Schiller, his voice faintly amused.

“Um…” While I dithered, Stefan had slipped his right glove off and was extending his hand.

“Hello, I’m Stefan Breuer.”

“Heinrich Schiller,” said Herr Schiller gravely, grasping the proffered hand. He turned to me. “And where are you going in this inclement weather, Fräulein Pia?” Herr Schiller always spoke like that; he never tried to talk down to me simply because I was a child.

“To the park in the Schleidtal.”

“I see,” said Herr Schiller. He pushed back the sleeve of his coat and looked at his watch, a great silver antique. “Well, should you wish to drop by later on when you are both thoroughly frozen to the bone, I should be delighted to offer you some hot coffee-or chocolate, should you prefer.”

I looked at Stefan. “Well, actually…” I hesitated. “I’m not really doing anything now.”

“Nor am I,” cut in Stefan, with a challenging glance at me.

“And it is quite cold,” I said, doing my best to ignore him.

Herr Schiller gave a dry, creaking laugh like a pair of old bellows. “Then please, come with me. We can stop at the Café am Fluss for cakes. You may choose the cakes, Fräulein, and Herr Breuer can carry the box.”

Obediently, we fell into step beside him. In spite of his age-he was in his eighties-Herr Schiller was surprisingly sprightly. He never used a cane, even when the ground was slick with frost; now he forged ahead. At the big gate, the Werther Tor, Herr Schiller disappeared into the tobacconist’s; Stefan and I waited outside.

“How do you know him?” said Stefan out of the corner of his mouth, glancing round to check that Herr Schiller was out of earshot.

I sighed. “I used to go and see him with my Oma .”

“The one that-?”

“Yes.” I fixed my eyes on the cobblestones and waited for the inevitable questions to follow, but Stefan said nothing. I shot him a sideways glance; he appeared to be engrossed reading a poster taped to the shopwindow, advertising an over-thirties party in the spa hotel. I relented.

“He’s old but he’s cool,” I said. “He tells me all this stuff-well, he used to, when I went round there with Oma Kristel. Things about the town in the olden days.”

Stefan looked at me dubiously. “History?”

“No, interesting stuff,” I said. “Like-well, Herr Schiller says there used to be this ghost of a white dog, and anyone who saw it-”

Herr Schiller emerged at the top of the steps outside the shop, and I stopped abruptly. But Herr Schiller was not looking at me, nor had he heard me saying his name. He was staring at someone on the other side of the street, and his face was set, although with anger or dislike I could not tell. I followed his gaze and saw a figure I recognized.

“Herr Düster,” said Stefan under his breath. He had recognized that meager form too, in spite of the battered-looking hat that was pulled low over the eyes.

Herr Schiller descended the steps. As he passed me, his elbow thumped my shoulder, but I swear he didn’t notice. He approached Herr Düster like a man backing a dangerous animal into a corner, squaring his shoulders as though he wanted to herd Herr Düster away from us.

“Guten Margen,” I heard him say, and although his words were polite his tone was accusatory.

Herr Düster raised his chin a little, so that his eyes glinted darkly under the brim of his hat. His gaze danced from Herr Schiller to us and back again. There was something threatening in it, yet at the same time wary, as though he were a feral animal driven by extreme hunger to consider attacking human beings. He growled something unintelligible, then very deliberately turned his back and slunk away. He had a curious gait, faintly furtive; he made me think of a crab creeping across the seabed. He slid past the front of the post office and disappeared around the corner.

“Come,” said Herr Schiller sharply, and we trotted after him.

I dared not ask him about Herr Düster. The old man was a legend among the schoolkids, rather like Herr Koch’s evil German shepherd, Troll, which would fling itself against the garden fence barking and snapping wildly if you passed by. Seeing Herr Schiller’s reaction somehow made Herr Düster more sinister. At that time, having to speak to Herr Düster, or meeting Troll when there was no fence between you, seemed liked the scariest things that could happen to you. Until, that is, Katharina Linden disappeared.

Oddly enough, I have a very clear memory of seeing Katharina Linden that Sunday. I hardly knew her-she was in another class, with the other children from the outlying villages of Eicherscheid and Schönau, and I don’t think I had ever even spoken to her, but I knew her by sight.

I saw her standing by the fountain in front of the photographer’s shop. The fountain is a curious gunmetal gray creation with a statue of King Zwentibold of Oberlothringen gazing benevolently down from the top. Although it was February, and uncomfortably chilly, the sun was shining and Katharina was bathed in its cold pale glow. The memory is so sharp that sometimes I doubt myself-did my mind create this image because I wanted to see her, or was she really there?

She was dressed as Snow White-an instantly recognizable outfit because it had been based on the Disney costume: blue bodice, yellow ankle-length skirt, red cloak, a high collar, and a little red bow in her dark hair. I think that was why she or her mother had chosen that costume-Katharina had thick wavy hair that was almost jet-black, so she was the perfect Snow White, with her rather pale skin and dark eyes. When she vanished, it almost seemed like something from a fairy tale, as though she were one of Grimms’ twelve dancing princesses, who somehow got out of a locked bedroom every night and came home in the morning with their shoes worn to flinders. But Katharina never came home at all.

I don’t know who first realized something was wrong. The procession started-as is traditional-at eleven minutes past two. All the Karneval floats were lined up in the road outside the Orchheimer Tor, the great gate at the southern end of the town. Full-volume Karneval music crackled through enormous speakers, competing with the shouts and cheers of the crowd.

As the first float passed under the Tor, Stefan and I with a dozen other children darted forward to gather up handfuls of the sweets and little trinkets being thrown out. The haul was always good and we were well prepared, with canvas shopping bags to carry our loot in. The actual floats themselves were of less interest than the gathering of the booty, but I remember there were several very impressive ones that year-a pirate ship with real cannons belching forth dry ice, and an undersea scene with fish and octopuses, surmounted by Neptune on his throne, attended by bare-shouldered mermaids shivering in the February air.

Nearly everyone was in costume: Marla Frisch passed by, dressed as Red Riding Hood, studiously failing to notice me. Thilo Koch appeared as an overweight pirate, his potbelly straining at the satin of his shirt. Much as I hated him, I could not help feeling envious: at least his mother had bought him a costume, a proper one.