Traudl Krieger, sister of Marie the maid, age 36

Early in the morning that Friday, I helped our Marie pack all her belongings. She didn’t have much, enough to fill a backpack and a bag, too, that’s all. No, it really wasn’t much.

I’d promised to go with her when she started her new job. She didn’t want to go out there alone, because she didn’t know the way. So I gave her my promise. Gave her my promise . . .

It was fine first thing in the morning. But it was midday before we started off at last. The weather was nothing special by then. My mother-in-law came to look after the kids while I was gone.

My husband, Erwin, was still at work. He has to be on the building site early, he’s a bricklayer. Never comes home until late on a Friday. Not that he has to work such long hours, no. But he gets his wages on Friday, and then he goes to the pub after work.

Usually he comes home late and drunk. That’s men for you; drinking in the pub they forget everything, wife, children, just about everything.

When we set off, Marie and me, it hadn’t begun raining yet. The weather was still reasonable. A lot of dark clouds in the sky, but on the whole the weather wasn’t that bad. We’d had nothing but rain and snow over the last few weeks.

I carried the backpack, and our Marie strapped her bag on the carrier of the bike. Now and then I helped her to push it.

I’d borrowed the bike and the backpack from my neighbor the miller’s wife. Erwin takes our own bike to work with him, and I didn’t want to walk the whole way back. I thought I’d get home quicker on a bike.

Frau Meier who keeps the shop, she told me just how to get there. She told me about the vacant position in the first place.

“Your sister Marie’s a good strong young woman. She can turn her hand to anything, and she’s not work-shy. Over at the Danner farm their maid’s walked out. They’re looking for a new one. Just the thing for your Marie.” That’s what she said.

Frau Meier in the shop always knows everything. People come from all around here to see her when a new maid’s wanted, or a farmhand, and they tell her all the news, too, who’s died, who’s had a baby. Even if you’re looking for someone to marry, you just have to go to her. She can get the right couple together. Then her husband is the go-between and fixes up the wedding.

Marie had been with us in our little place since January. She’s not demanding, well, you can’t be, not with us.

Our place has two bedrooms, one for the children and one for us. It has a kitchen that’s our living room, too, and its own bathroom, not one for the whole floor of a building where you have to stand in line and wait for the others to be finished.

The place is big enough for Erwin, our three children, and me, but with Marie as well space was very tight.

Marie was sleeping on the sofa in the kitchen living room. It wasn’t going to be forever, really not, just for the time being. That’s why I was so pleased about the job.

And after she came to us, our Marie was with my brother for three weeks. In February, that was. My brother has a little farm, just a smallholding. Our parents left it to him. My brother’s wife wasn’t well, so our Marie went to help out. Marie was a good girl, you see. A really good girl. She could work hard, oh yes, she could, and she liked to work, but she was a simple soul, too.

I mean, she was a little bit backward. Not mentally handicapped or anything, just a bit simple, and she was good natured.

When our sister-in-law was better, Marie came back to us. Marie never got on too well with our brother. He was always going on at her, she couldn’t do anything right, not for him. He’s been a grouch all his life, he won’t ever change.

I’m younger than Marie, that’s true, eight years younger, but to me our Marie was always the little sister I had to look after. When our mother died, I mothered Marie instead of the other way around. Our father died a long time ago, too, he died just after Mother. Consumption, that’s what the doctor said.

It’d be easy for anyone who wanted to take advantage of our Marie. She always did as she was told, she never asked questions. Like Mother always said, the easy-going are usually good at heart, too.

Well, Marie wasn’t so much easy going, but she was far too good at heart. She’d have worked for no wages, just for board and lodging. That was our Marie. Poor creature.

Up till New Year, our Marie had a job with Frau Kirchmeier. Babette Kirchmeier. Frau Kirchmeier was a widow, and Marie kept house for her as best she could. But Frau Kirchmeier had been going downhill fast. In the end she could hardly walk, and she was getting a bit confused. So then she went into the old folks’ home; she’s got no children who could have taken her in, poor Frau Kirchmeier. So our Marie lost her job.

And like I said, I’d promised Marie to go to the Danner farm with her.

From what Frau Meier told me, it should have taken us an hour and a half to get there, but the weather was getting worse and worse.

It turned really dark, and a squally wind was blowing. I keep on thinking we never ought to have gone, not in that weather. Then everything would be different now.

Well, we left our place around two, and by three-thirty or so we were hopelessly lost. So we wandered around for a while. Then we went back again a little way to the last farm we’d passed.

When we got there we asked our way.

Last field on the left, take the path through the woods, you can’t miss it, the man said.

And it started raining again in the woods, so when we finally reached the farm we were sopping wet. It’s a very isolated place, you know. I’d never have thought it was so far out in the country. If I’d known I’d never have let our Marie go there. Never. Out there in Tannöd, there was only the old lady at home, she opened the door to us. I didn’t see anyone else. Only the old lady and the little boy.

A pretty child, two years old, I’d say, with lovely golden curls.

Marie took to the child on sight, I could see that, our Marie likes kids. But the old lady was very odd, she looked at us so suspiciously. Hardly passed the time of day. We hung our wet jackets over a chair. Close to the stove to dry. Old Frau Danner never said a word all the time. I tried to get her talking. I mean, there’s questions to be asked when someone new comes to a farm. But no, we couldn’t get anywhere with her, though the little boy was already laughing and clinging to Marie’s skirt after five minutes.

And our Marie was laughing with him.

The kitchen was just like the farmyard, old and gloomy, and a little bit grubby too. The old lady was wearing an apron that could have done with a good wash. And the little boy’s face was dirty.

I sat there with my sister Marie on the bench by the tiled stove for an hour, and in all that time old Frau Danner said maybe five sentences. Strange, surly folk, I said to myself.

At the end of an hour I put on my jacket, didn’t want to go home in the dark. The jacket was nearly dry by this time and I wanted to set off straight away.

“I’ll have to go home now, it’s getting dark. I don’t want to lose my way again,” I told Marie.

Then I met old Frau Danner’s daughter on the doorstep.

Right there in the doorway.

We had a word or so, she was a bit friendlier than the old lady, and then I went out the door. Our Marie came with me. I pushed the bike through the garden gate and said good-bye to her at the fence. She didn’t look all that happy, I think she’d rather have gone back home with me. I could see how she felt, but what could I do? There was nothing else for it.

It almost broke my heart. I just wanted to get away from there quick. I told our Marie, “I hope you like it. If not we’ll find you something else.”

Marie only said, “Oh, I’ll be fine.”

I ought to have just taken her away with me. Something else would have come up. I’m certain it would. But I turned away and rode off on the bike. When our Marie called to me again I stopped and got off the bike.

Our Marie ran after me and gave me a big hug. Squeezed me tight. As if she never wanted to let go. I really had to tear myself away and get on the bike in a hurry.

I pedaled away like mad. I didn’t want to stop again.

The house, the farm, no, I wouldn’t even want to be buried there, I said to myself. It shook me, that place did.

How can anyone stand it out there with those people? Poor Marie, how would she be able to stand it? I was so upset, my chest felt tight, but what else was I to do? Marie couldn’t sleep on our sofa anymore, and Erwin was tired of it all, too; he’d wanted to be rid of her long ago. I pedaled and pedaled. I didn’t stop. I just wanted to get away, right away!

I wanted to get away from my guilty conscience as well.

After a while there was water running down my cheeks. I thought at first it was because the cycling made me sweat so much. But then I realized it was tears.