The Magician

Thomas’s mother, Julia Mann, always makes theatrical entrances at the salons she hosts in Lübeck, descending to the drawing room only after all the guests are assembled there, as Thomas, his older brother Heinrich, and their sisters Lula and Carla watch from the staircase landing. Thomas supposes Julia’s flamboyant behavior results from her foreign origins. Born in Brazil and said to have Indigenous ancestors in South America, she emigrated to Germany as a child. Thomas’s father, a senator, married 17-year-old Julia de Silva-Bruhns when he was 29, creating a minor scandal.

Julia tells her children stories about Brazil’s warm weather and starry skies. According to Julia, Lübeck and Brazil are linked, since the sugar in Lübeck’s famous marzipan comes from the sugarcane grown in Brazil. Though the senator doesn’t like Julia telling their children, especially their daughters, about Brazil, he loves relaying his own origin stories about how the Manns became wealthy traders in old Lübeck. Aware that his family is under scrutiny because of Julia’s effusive manner and Catholic upbringing, the senator tries hard to make the children as German as possible.

As Thomas and Heinrich enter their teen years, talk begins in the extended family about their future.