drive every animal in the house to distraction. For now, it smelled of the sand in its fur and the grass between its toes—as did Gustav, still alive and well and hopping around under the table. That overgrown specimen didn’t give a damn about anything, least of all what was going on above his head. Though well-mannered enough to deposit his droppings in a neat pile in the corner, he sank his teeth into every piece of furniture he came across, shook his head, balanced on his outsized feet and washed his ears with his front paws. It was one surprise after another. Von Bötticher gave Gustav a piece of bacon, which disappeared little by little between his grinding jaws.
‘There’s something you didn’t know, eh? Rabbits eat anything. Even meat,’ said von Bötticher. ‘Just like cows chew out dead animals in search of minerals. Ever seen a cow with a dead rabbit in its mouth? They’ll happily gnaw a bone or two for the sake of calcium. It’s eat and be eaten in the natural world, no waste. Every last morsel gets consumed. The insects are first on the scene when an animal dies. Flies and mites can smell a hare like this one from miles away. Then birds of prey arrive and tear loose the skin, exposing the guts to foxes and badgers. But the rotting process alone will ensure that a corpse bursts open within a few days.’
He stroked the hare’s fur and sniffed his hand. ‘This one needs to be taken down to the cellar immediately. What on earth is keeping Leni?’
‘Are you planning to eat Gustav, too?’
‘Absolutely! With cowberries. Or smothered in cream, braised in Riesling and served with parsnips. Or wrapped in bacon and roasted after a night soaking in buttermilk. I’ll be sure to give him the attention he deserves. Ah Leni, at last!’
Leni was barely through the door when the toe of her boot connected with Gustav’s backside, to no discernible effect. ‘That monster has chewed the fringes off every carpet in the house. And unless my eyes deceive me, it’s produced a fresh pile of droppings. Sir, I ask you, I beg you on my aching knees: for God’s sake leave those animals of yours to roam around outdoors for a week or so. It will spare me all kinds of mess. The nights are still warm enough.’
‘And where would that leave me? How is a lonely man like myself to find warmth and companionship?’
Leni spread her arms wide. ‘And lonely you’ll remain while you continue to lock away your lady guests in the pigeon loft!’
Irked, von Bötticher tossed the dead hare into her open arms. ‘Here, woman. Take this down to the cellar and quick.’
Heinz came into the kitchen and sat down to wait while von Bötticher cut thin slices of sausage. This was clearly a morning ritual. The lord of the manor boiled eggs, removed a young cheese from a bowl of water, served cream with a small basket of berries on the vine, and put a plaited loaf on the table. His manservant did not lift a finger, and when his wife returned he pulled back her chair and together they prayed in silence. Through half-closed eyes, I watched von Bötticher stare unashamedly at their knitted brows. I think he took pleasure in the fact that the first sight to greet them after their moment with God would be that mutilated mug of his. Once grace had been said, he made sure we filled our stomachs with the food from his table, as if we were stray dogs. He himself ate next to nothing. When the dishes were all but empty, he solemnly broke the silence to address a practical matter. ‘Well, Janna,’ he said on that first morning, ‘have you brought me anything? Something from your father perhaps?’
Leni’s eyes were ablaze in an instant, while her husband went on chewing steadily. He was all too familiar with the consequences of speaking out of turn. Besides, what was the harm in a letter? I put my knife down on my plate.
‘An envelope, maître. I’m sorry. I wanted to give it to you straight away but you didn’t want to be disturbed.’
‘An envelope, of course. Yet another letter. Well, let’s be having it.’
Von Bötticher dispatched me with a gesture an adult might make to a child who has been hesitantly holding up a drawing. I obeyed in a heartbeat. Back up the stairs I headed, in leaps and bounds, swinging around the pillars. I was childish, it’s true. Girls today are worldly-wise, independent, but in my youth we were simply passed from one sheltering wing to another. The only condition was that we in turn should have a caring disposition; it was not a condition I met. I much preferred being taken care of, so I could continue my playful, sheltered existence. Despite the inevitable physical transformation, I had no intention of becoming a woman. Not that I was a tomboy or a wild child or anything of the sort, it was more that I preferred things to stay as they were. It was an annoyance when I began to develop breasts at fifteen. Those bumps swelling under my nipples had nothing to do with me and I was seized by a curious melancholy that was a long time in passing. Helene Mayer took no extra measures to protect her breasts during her matches, and so neither would I. With that kind of padding under your jacket you are asking to be hit square in the target area. Admitting the possibility of a hit is a compliment to your opponent and refusing to do so made my parries stronger, especially quarte and sixte. A hit to the chest during a fencing bout left me sick to my stomach. I had no desire to feel those milk glands, those maternal appendages. I would never become a mother. Nor would Helene. It could be no coincidence that my idol bore the name of the most beautiful of all the Greek goddesses, the protectress of young virgins, she who had been abducted and overpowered. We were girls of Sparta, who battled on so we would never have to grow up, but we were passionate just the same. In my daydreams I increasingly became the object of desire. At night my painstakingly composed allegories were thrust aside by impatient, unbridled phantoms who left me panting and satisfied. Phantoms I had been unable to capture, just as they had been unable to capture me.
Fencers are often a little childish: playing at musketeers, wearing their hair long, swigging wine from the bottle, stamping around in their boots and pounding on tabletops. Such antics end on the piste, where deadly seriousness is the order of the day. Even von Bötticher was playful in his way, though his imagination was directed at animals. He taught them to behave like humans and when he succeeded he was happy as a sandboy. The task of opening the letter fell to Gustav. This was pure showmanship, of course: look how clever my rabbit is and how little store I set by this epistle from your father. His bunny nibbled neatly along the edge with mechanical dedication, even giving a little tug when he arrived at the corner so the resulting sliver of envelope could be detached and devoured. A letter opener could not have done a better job. Von Bötticher slipped his hand between the cardboard sides, pulled out the letter and began to read. For three full pages, I hardly dared draw breath. I stared intently at his eyes, as if my father’s words would be reflected in them, but they darted from line to line and, as Leni had feared, began to smoulder furiously.
‘I’ll spare you the embarrassment of reading it aloud. You’re his daughter and it’s not my place to shatter the image a daughter is apparently supposed to have of her father. I have said enough already.’ He folded the letter and stuffed it back in the envelope, which still had more to divulge.
‘And what else do we have here?’
It was a yellowed sheet of paper, an illustration. I grew dizzy with curiosity but von Bötticher walked over to the sink, placed the envelope between the pages of a cookery book that was thick as a fist and slammed it shut.
‘Very well. We shall see who is right,’ he said scornfully. ‘I expect you in the fencing hall for your first lesson in half an hour.’
The fencing hall had once been a ballroom. The parquet in the middle had been worn by a century in which dances traced circles. The floorboards, on which laced-up satin boots once followed the heavier tread of army officers, now only bore the weight of footsteps that advanced and retired, still following but never in the round. Three pistes had been drawn in black paint, delimiting the strictest of choreographies: fourteen metres long and two metres wide, two adjoining triangles pointing out from the centre toward the on-guard lines at a distance of two metres on either side; it was a further three metres to the warning line for sabreurs and épée fencers, one weapon’s length beyond came the warning line for foil fencers, and then it was back another metre, and not a single pace more, to reach the end line. The net curtains billowing in front of half-open terrace doors were the sole reminder of rustling tulle ballgowns. It was warm.