long and empty. The only sound is the two horses clopping over the dirt. When, after an hour, it becomes too dark to see the road in front of us, Josef pulls up to a house where a light still burns in the window.
“I think we should stop for the night,” he says, and I don’t protest. “I’m going to go in and see if they know of a place to sleep nearby.”
Josef leaves me with the wagon. Feather whinnies softly in the dark until he returns a few minutes later. “We can stay here, in exchange for helping out with chores tomorrow,” he says. “You’ll sleep in with their daughter. I’m in the barn.”
Josef takes my valise, still stuffed with all the belongings I packed this morning, when I hopefully thought I might not return to Foehrenwald at all. Before he carries it to the door, Josef turns back and opens his mouth like he wants to say something. He doesn’t, though, and neither do I.
The couple waiting by the lamplight is older, the man white-bearded and the woman with a gentle slope in her back. We’ve caught them as they were heading to bed; the woman—Frau W?lflin, she introduces herself—is already wearing her nightgown, her graying hair trailing down her back in a loose braid. They don’t seem to mind that we’ve shown up nearly in the middle of the night. Frau W?lflin says they leave the lamp on just for that reason. They need help with the farm, and they feed and bunk travelers in exchange for assistance. She hands a stack of blankets to Josef, and while her husband takes him out to the barn, she pours me a glass of milk. I hold it and try to respond to her polite questions about how far we’ve traveled and the conditions of the road.
“It has been a long day for you?” she says.
“It’s been a long day, Baba R—” I start and then stop, humiliated. I almost called this woman my grandmother’s name. It’s not even as it was with Gosia. I have no excuse; I barely know this woman. I’m just so exhausted.
Frau W?lflin doesn’t notice the slipup. Or if she does, at least she doesn’t say anything. “I mean, it has been a long day,” I correct myself. “Thank you for asking.”
“You don’t need to drink that.” She nods at the untouched glass of milk on my lap. “If you’re tired, you can go straight to bed.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but perhaps I will. We were riding for a long while.”
I don’t know what I was expecting when Josef said I could sleep in their daughter’s room. But by the age of the W?lflins, I think I believed the girl would be my age or older. Instead, when I follow Frau W?lflin up the narrow staircase and wait as she whispers in her daughter’s ear—Hannelore, we have a guest; Zofia is staying with you tonight—the blond pigtailed head that stirs beneath the duvet belongs to a child, not more than eight or nine.
“Don’t worry.” Frau W?lflin smiles. “Lore is used to this being something of a boardinghouse. She won’t be startled to see you in the morning.”
When Frau W?lflin leaves, I slip off my shoes but realize too late that I left my overnight valise downstairs. Rather than fumble my way down in the dark, I loosen the tie in the back of my dress and then climb into bed fully clothed, easing part of the goose-feather duvet aside and slipping in as quietly as I can.
I’m tired for so many reasons that it’s hard to untangle them. I’m exhausted by hope. I’m exhausted by the fact that I woke so early this morning. I’m exhausted by this country. I’m exhausted by my own body, sometimes, which feels like it might not ever be as strong or resilient as it once was.
I’m exhausted by my own mind. That might be the most exhausting thing. My own mind, thinking a farmwife is my grandmother, and not letting me know what I should believe. If I could stop being at war with my own mind. Tame the monster. Stop my dreams.
IN THE MORNING, HANNELORE HAS WOKEN BEFORE ME. Everyone must have. I hear noises in the kitchen downstairs and smell porridge. Peeking out the warped-glass window, I see two figures, Josef and Mr. W?lflin, mending a fence; the sun is far above the horizon.
Hurriedly, I stuff my feet into my shoes, kicked under the