Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Nine
9th August 1964
Bad Reichenhall
It being Sunday afternoon, Lucy and Gertrud had separately insisted that Kiki should accompany them when they went into town. Rauchbier was once again in the company of Johannes, Erwin and Lucy’s four-year-old grandson. He and his Uncle Joseph had been the one to go up to the chalet and let the dog out before he made a mess, chewed the legs off the table or who knows what else when Kiki had fallen asleep in the parlor a few days earlier. It was something that Kiki was grateful that he had done. It seemed that Johannes had wanted a dog and having Rauchbier for the summer was dream come true for him. Kiki was fine with the arrangement so long as an adult kept an eye on them.
Erwin had once commanded the Alpine Division whose barracks were located in Bad Reichenhall before the Second World War had started. He had gone on to bigger things, but his family still had the house near the town here where they lived during the summer and they commanded a great deal of respect in the community. That was evident as they walked between shops and markets. The Kiki’s profound relief, she was completely ignored except by Lucy who occasionally asked her opinion.
What wasn’t a relief, was that the presence of armed men from either the First Foot or the BII were following her closely. It was assumed that with troops from the Bad Reichenhall Barracks crossing his property on a nearly constant basis, no one in their right mind would dare to approach Kiki without permission there. The town was a different proposition though. Kiki had heard that after her collapse a month before the press was rife with speculation about her health. There were rumors floating around about how she was in a coma, hidden away somewhere or had required extensive brain surgery. It really was strange how that sort of speculation tended to grow with retelling. Kiki just wished that it was about someone else.
What Erwin had told her had kept rolling through her head. Gertrud had told her that he had been speaking of his own situation decades earlier when he had followed through with his engagement with Lucy though he had already had Gertrud with a woman he had met named Walburga, family pressure had been involved. Apparently, he had been told that the match was inappropriate, and she never was able to get over that rejection eventually dying of what Gertrud said was broken heart. Lucy seemed to be extremely excepting of the entire situation, having Gertrud and her children around constantly. It seemed that when Gertrud’s marriage had fallen apart, she had come home and had built a new life for herself in Bad Reichenhall. She stayed and took care of the house during the winter months as well as pursuing her own career.
Kiki was used to convoluted family trees, her grandfather being an infamous womanizer had consequences. Aunt Sigi was supposedly just one of several children that he had refused to acknowledge, she just happened to be the one so far who had refused to be ignored. In her thinking, Erwin had seemed to have handled it as best he could, but it was easy to see how he could have ended up with a few regrets.
“What do you think Kristina?” Lucy asked, snapping her into the present.
She was holding up a red dress that she had just found on the rack.
“I think that’s a bit small for you” Kiki replied.
Gertrud smirked and Lucy gave her a look.
“Don't be silly, for you” Lucy said, “Lea is going to be here this week and having the two of you dressing that way will be intolerable.”
“What’s wrong with how I dress?” Kiki asked.
“Lea dressing like she has just come back from war has been a constant complaint of Lucy’s for ages” Gertrud said, “And your father did give us a bit of money to cover your expenses while you are staying on top of the rent for the chalet.”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he had done that, Kiki thought to herself. He had done the same thing five years earlier when she had gone to the South of France.
Washington D.C.
The hot, humid days that defined the Capital during this time of the year were in full swing. Congress had taken care of the basic housekeeping before leaving for the Summer Recess. Considering the tensions that were engulfing the rest of the nation, it was one of those rare occasions where the District of Columbia was an oasis of relative calm. The waning days of the Harriman Administration were all about maintaining that status quo. Everyone figured that barring an event of biblical proportions, it would probably be Nelson Rockefeller who would be sworn into office in January. Exactly what that meant for the country had yet to be seen.
“I’m surprised that you were able to get this” Averell Harriman said looking at the minutes of the meeting that had taken place in Wunsdorf, Germany days earlier. “This is basically saying that while the Germans are interested in keeping the railways open, they aren’t interested in sending in their army to do the job.”
“Because we have been burned by document leaks like this in the past, I would take it with a rather large gain of salt” Frank Church, the National Security Advisor, replied. “There is also the bit in there which mentions recent events in Afghanistan, where the Russians paid off the Shah to build a rail line through that country that connects to existing tracks over the Khyber Pass and into India. Within a year’s time, the rail lines through China will be of significantly less strategic value. Why fight a war when you don’t need to?”