Rosina Lippi's 'Homestead': The Bent Elbow Clan Quiz

Answer: 1916

Hans, Angelika's husband, has been fighting on the Eastern Front, but returns home on temporary leave for a few weeks. While Angelika is pleased to have him back, Johanna has mixed feelings, although Hans' presence means that Angelika and their daughter Mikatrin will not be alone at night and Johanna can go up to Gunta Steeple, the house higher up in the mountains where she takes the animals to graze. Johanna and Angelika's father left them Gunta Steeple, but Angelika's share went to Hans when she married him.

Although Johanna lives with Angelika and her family for part of the year, she enjoys being alone at Gunta Steeple the rest of the time. As Hans is injured, Johanna has to help with cutting the hay, as he cannot hold a scythe properly.

Answer: Cartographer

Angelika originally intends to bring Mikatrin up to Gunta Steeple with her, but Angelika insists on her staying home, and Johanna is glad she came alone when she finds Francesco sleeping in the house. She notes that he has taken his boots off. Although she is afraid of Francesco at first, she still offers him food as she feels guilty eating in front of a hungry man.

She tells Francesco to go, but he stays and says that he wants to get to know her better, and that he has not heard a woman's voice for months.

Although he is Italian, his mother's family are from the Austrian Tyrol. He reveals that he is a cartographer and shows Johanna maps he has drawn, with mountains named after his sisters and former lovers.

Answer: Fragolina

Francesco and Johanna begin a love affair while he continues to hide out at Gunta Steeple. Hans returns to the Front while Johanna is away, and she begins to empathise more with Angelika as a fellow woman in love. Francesco calls her 'Fragolina', or 'Little Strawberry', because she blushes a lot. Angelika is angry that Johanna does not spend enough time with her at the homestead, and Johanna eventually realises she is pregnant and will soon have to confess. Alois Sutterlüty comes to visit as Angelika is ill (it is implied she is having a difficult pregnancy) and he has come to ask Johanna to go back to Bent Elbow on her behalf.

He sees Francesco and Johanna claims Francesco is a distant cousin, but Alois does not believe her. Johanna goes back to Bent Elbow and is upset when Angelika talks about her and Mikatrin going to the Steeple with Johanna in autumn. Johanna takes Mikatrin for a walk and they hear a noise in the woods, possibly Francesco, as Johanna asked him to leave while she was away.

Answer: Making cheese

Angelika's point-of-view chapter is the shortest in the book, and she talks about making cheese and, in particular, the process of making rennet. A dairy farmer's wife is judged on the quality of her cheese and cannot afford to be lazy or careless, as once the cheese is removed from the wheel, its texture will give any flaws away.

While she can feed bread that has not turned out properly to the pigs, cut up useless needlework, or bury dead children without her husband knowing, there is nothing she can do if her cheese turns out to be faulty. Cheese is also used as a metaphor for people's individual flaws.

Answer: A bandage factory

Mikatrin lives on her own with Johanna, who is now in her sixties. Both Angelika and Hans are dead and Mikatrin's sister Martha has been sent away to a school at the Front. Mikatrin is desperate to take Blossom, a particularly recalcitrant cow, to the butcher as they need the money, but Johanna argues against it. To earn extra money, Mikatrin works in a bandage factory, a job that feels endless to her, but is allowed to leave slightly earlier because she has to tend to the animals. Martin Schwendiger, the cobbler's youngest son, comes to visit with a letter from Martha, who he met in the village where he had his leg amputated, and who he was planning to marry. Mikatrin reveals that all of the Bengat boys, including her husband Leo, have died in the war, the Bengat dairy has been closed and Anna has sold the animals and moved in with Olga and her family, who are now running a dairy themselves.

Answer: She refused to take an oath of loyalty to Hitler.

Martha has been hailed as a hero by people in the village for walking out of a teachers' meeting when they were taking a loyalty oath, and Mikatrin resents her for it. She tells Martin that it is all very well Martha walking out, but she left Mikatrin to cope with the farm and Johanna, who is both senile and stubborn.

The army have also requisitioned the animals, many of which had to be slaughtered, and Mikatrin resents not being able to sell Blossom because she is Martha's cow. Johanna lets Martin stay at Bent Elbow as they need the help, and Mikatrin is angry at first, but realises she is in love with Martin and does need him after all. Martha returns to the village, not realising that Martin and Mikatrin are now in love with each other.

Answer: Cancer

Katharina's second point-of-view chapter and Martha's point-of-view chapter both mention Angelika dying of cancer. Martha, who has returned to Rosenau and teaches in the village school, goes to university in Innsbruck to train as a teacher after Hans' death. Hans dies while arguing about whether they can afford to send Martha to university, and Johanna sells animals to raise money.

At university, Martha learns about biology and heredity and begins to question her parentage, as she is dark while both her parents (and Mikatrin) are blond.

She wants to ask Angelika about it, but when she comes back from university, she discovers that Angelika is dying of cancer, and all she says is that the war had soured Hans. Lilimarlene's point-of-view chapter, set in 1974, reveals that Martha has also died of cancer by that point, although Johanna is still alive and living in the old people's home.

Answer: True

Johanna wants to go up to Gunta Steeple one last time before Mikatrin has the house up there renovated. Johanna reveals that she has saved up for a gondola, which will be used to carry her food and possessions up the mountain. While the family pack, Martha finds a book of Roman mythology, but Johanna tells her to mind her own business. Martha's suspicions about her heritage turn out to be correct when Johanna asks her what she remembers of Gunta Steeple, and if she remembers the drawing on the wall.

She says that Martha's father drew it, and Martha says that Hans could not draw, but realises that Johanna is not talking about Hans, and Johanna tells her the story of her conception and birth. Not only is Hans not her real father, but Johanna is her real mother; Martha is the baby Johanna was carrying in her point-of-view chapter, the result of her love affair with Francesco Donati (whose fate is unknown). Johanna went into labour while she was at Gunta Steeple with Mikatrin and Angelika, and they rode down the mountain to Bengat.

After Johanna gave birth to Martha, she gave her to Angelika to raise, and Angelika feared that Hans would find out the truth. Martha later has a vision of Jakob Sutterlüty, who she had sex with on the night of Mikatrin and Leo's wedding, and who died in the Second World War. She translates a Latin poem Francesco copied out for Johanna, planning to give it to her as a present.

Answer: They have both lost a child.

Laura originally appears as one of Martha's pupils in her point-of-view chapter, where she is shown to be quiet and a big reader. In 1977, she is shown working on the farm with her two children and her wedding ring breaks, and she worries that Mikatrin will judge her. Laura and Mikatrin do not get on, and Laura finds her rather domineering, but one thing they have in common is that they have both lost children; Mikatrin's daughter died, after she fell into a well and drowned, and Mikatrin has nightmares about her in her own point-of-view chapter. Laura's third baby died the year after she gave birth to her second child; her first two pregnancies were difficult.

At the time of her point-of-view chapter, Laura is pregnant with her fourth child.

Answer: Martin

Martin is named after his father. He and Laura have two children, Jakob and Annile, and they own Bent Elbow. Mikatrin had wanted Laura to live in the third floor apartment which she rented to tourists, but Laura refuses, so Mikatrin and the other Schwendiger boys move into Martha's old house. Kaspar and Jok are apprenticed to a cabinet maker, while Rudi owns a shop that sells electrical goods, and Mikatrin sometimes works there.

It is also revealed that the present Laura gave Johanna in Martha's point-of-view chapter, when she was a child, was a book about Greece.