Chapter Two
His Merry Maid
Klaus had changed my name.
I started my two-year post-doc in Berlin as Mary; I returned to the states as Merry, which caused a little ripple of consternation, curiosity, and not a little irritation, among my friends and, most especially, my family.
I’d needed a new passport—over which I had to wrangle with the US Embassy; I spent weeks, on my return, changing out a pocketbook full of cards and IDs.
Clearly: That was the point.
Every time I went through another bureaucratic tussle, every time I introduced myself, every time I re-introduced myself, I was repeating the name he had given me, reinforcing, over and over and over and over, that he had named me, that he had redefined who I was in a way that was simultaneously both publicly visible and completely pr
