Rosina Lippi's 'Homestead': The Bengat Clan Quiz

Answer: Luise Wirth

In order, the Bengat homestead point-of-view characters are Anna Sutterlüty (1909), Isabella Sutterlüty (1917), Barbara Feuerstein (1921), Olga Natter (1946) and Lilimarlene Natter (1974). Isabella is married to Alois, the head of the family and a farmer; Anna is the wife of Peter, Alois and Isabella's son; Barbara is Peter's sister; and Olga is Anna and Peter's daughter. Lilimarlene is the Wainwright's granddaughter on her mother's side, but Olga's granddaughter on her father's, and she goes to live with her uncles at Bengat when she returns to Rosenau. Luise is one of Peter and Barbara's sisters (the other one is called Margit) and does not appear in the book.

Answer: Fink

Grumpy Marie, the postmistress, receives a card addressed to an Anna Fink and gathers several Annas together - from a teenage girl to a woman in her eighties - to see who it's for. All of them had Fink as a maiden name, but as Anna Sutterlüty lived at River's Bend ten years ago, Marie and the other Annas assume it must be hers.

The postcard is from a man called Anton and has a picture of a lakeside hotel on the front. Anna practices her handwriting and eventually writes a long response, telling Anton about her family, but ultimately does not send it and instead sends him a postcard saying he must have sent it to her by mistake.

Answer: A leg and an eye

Several men from Rosenau have died in the First World War, while many others have returned home injured. Johanna's point-of-view chapter mentions that Peter is stationed in Galicia. In Isabella's point-of-view chapter, the postman brings the Sutterlüty family a telegram, which Olga runs to get. Anna is terrified that Peter has died, but Olga holds the telegram up to show the family that it is not edged in black, meaning that Peter is alive.

However, he has lost his left eye, left leg and some fingers, and the left side of his face is badly scarred.

He carves beautiful mountain scenes on his wooden leg as his son Leo watches. Throughout the chapter, Isabella thinks of how beautiful her son is.

Answer: Falling off a hayloft

Barbara catches Olga having sex with Klaus, the son of 'Goat-Cheese' Willi Natter, in the hayloft and Olga later tells Barbara that she doesn't understand how it feels to be in love. Barbara remembers her late husband, Franz Michel, who lived at the Half-Moon Hollow homestead, and who she married in the same summer when Peter married Anna.

A year later, after Olga's baptism, Franz Michel fell off a roof while mending shingles, landed on his head and died, and Barbara returned to Bengat. Half-Moon Hollow went to Franz Michel's brother Bartle, who gave Barbara a cow in return.

Answer: Fifteen years

Barbara's point-of-view chapter is set in 1921, and the clan charts at the beginning of the book reveal that Franz Michel died in 1900. During that time, Barbara searches for another husband, but few men are interested and several of them later die in the war.

It is later revealed that Barbara had grown desperate and visited the Wainwright for sex in secret, buying a sourball each time; she has collected fifteen years' worth of sourballs. When she discovers that the Wainwright is marrying again, she threatens to tell his new wife about their past unless he has the homestead at River's Bend fixed up and allows her and her disabled nephews, Stante and Michel, to move there, so she can look after them.

The Wainwright is forced to give in and Barbara moves in with the boys, though nobody quite understands how it happened.

Answer: Russia

Olga's point-of-view chapter is different from the others in that it is written in the form of a letter to Klaus, who is a prisoner of war in a Russian camp in Odessa. On the clan charts at the front of the book, the date of Klaus' death is unknown. At the time of writing, Rosenau is under occupation and Olga, her sons and Anna - who is now old and senile - have left Bengat and are now living in the Natter family's dairy, and are focusing full-time on making cheese. Mikatrin's point-of-view chapter reveals the Bengat farm fields have been rented out and the animals sold, and the Bengat dairy closed up.

Answer: Jakob

Jakob was killed after stepping on a landmine in Italy in 1943. Jos was the first of the Sutterlüty boys to die in the war, in 1940, and both Leo and Tony were killed two years later. In life, Jakob was nicknamed the Wanderer due to his habit of wandering off, and Olga sees his ghost in the bakery window while shopping. Olga sees Jakob again in a mirror at home and when she comes home from Mass, she sees that the dairy cat, which belonged to Jakob, has died. Olga thinks that Jakob has returned to claim the cat, as he had said that he would come back for her when the war ended.

It is later mentioned in Lilimarlene's point-of-view character that Olga saw Jakob's ghost before she died of a heart attack; her son Klaus also saw him, twice.

Answer: Morocco

Although Lilimarlene sees Alois Natter as her father, he is actually her stepfather. Like her mother Theres, Katharina Metzler - later Natter - causes a scandal in the village when she has a fling with a foreign soldier and becomes pregnant with his bastard child.

In Katharina's case, the soldier is a half-French Moroccan called Ahmed who was part of the occupation forces after the war. Katharina was nicknamed the Moroccan's Whore and the subject of various nasty jokes, and married Alois when she was pregnant. Lilimarlene strongly resembles Ahmed.

At the end of her point-of-view chapter, she recalls her sole memory of Katharina from when she was three and Katharina was going to fetch cream, before later dying in an accident.

Answer: Nurse

Lilimarlene has a job in a city hospital, but returns to Rosenau - to the bewilderment of her boss - and moves in with her uncles Christian and Klaus at the Bengat homestead, as Alois has remarried, has several children with his new wife and there is not enough room for Lilimarlene in their house.

Although Lilimarlene is chiefly a nurse, people sometimes ask her to look at their animals. Some of the older men assume that she is looking for a husband. Lilimarlene does home visits and also takes care of residents in the old folks' home, who include Grumpy Marie, Johanna Lang - now in her nineties - and Lilimarlene's cousin Stante, who is fit for his age, but insists on staying with Marie. Marie is crankier than ever and calls for Katharina, even though she died several years ago.

Answer: False

Lilimarlene goes to the Kilbe (a local midsummer festival, in honour of St Peter and St Paul) party at the local pub and dances with Rudi, one of Mikatrin and Martin Schwendiger's sons, amongst others. She thinks she kissed him in the school cellar, but Rudi tells her that it was actually another boy, Kasparle's Jos (meaning that Jos is the son of Kasparle; in Rosenau, people are known by 'clan names' which include their home and/or the names of their fathers, such as 'Bengato Peter's Anna' or 'Bent Elbow's Mikatrin'), who kissed her on a dare. Jos later confirms that it was him, and he and Lilimarlene walk back to Bengat, with Stante accompanying them. Lilimarlene is surprised to hear Stante having a conversation with Jos, as he is normally very quiet, and decides to ask Stante about her mother.

She and Jos kiss.