Chapter One Thousand Seven Hundred Nine
18th February 1966
Potsdam
Even by Kristina’s increasingly broad standards, she had a horrible week according to Doctor Holz when he had called Louis Ferdinand this afternoon. Apparently, there was a great deal to be concerned about. Kristina had spent the week hiding in the corners of lecture halls and labs, trying her hardest to make herself invisible. Then on Friday morning came the last straw.
A student group had approached Kristina.
According to Holz, it was entirely innocent. They saw Kristina’s seeming to reject the trappings of royalty as a form of progressivism on her part and had wanted to know if she would like to get involved. She had not seen it that way. Already in a fraught state, Kristina had seen them through the lens of her experiences with the self-styled Jacobins and it had resulted in an ugly incident. Fortunately, there had been none of the violence that she was certainly capable of but there had been a lot of shouting and Kristina had fled immediately afterwards. Not just the University but Jena as well. Vanishing completely.
Doctor Holz had called Louis to voice his concerns over what had happened and to tell him that his daughter was missing. It had taken hours to trace Kristina’s steps, from Jena to Potsdam by train, from there she had walked to the Summer Residence. The problem was that there simply was not a whole lot out there this time of year. A small staff of caretakers was the extent of it. So, exactly what she was doing out there was an open question. When they figured out which building Kristina had broken into, it had answered a lot of questions and Louis had realized that he was the only one who could speak to her about what had happened.
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It was raining as Louis stood under his umbrella as the doors of the Antique Temple were opened. Originally built to house Friedrich the Great’s extensive collection of rare coins, jewelry and artifacts, this building had not served that purpose for long. The items in question had been moved to a vault in the Old Museum and the Antique Temple had eventually become a mausoleum after plans to convert it into the Court chapel had fallen through because of the start of the First World War.
Handing the umbrella off the one of his men and was handed a flashlight. Louis stepped into the building and he heard his footsteps echo off the walls. He was reminded as he did so of a line in a book he had read once about how there are moments when you realize that the story might not have a happy ending. It was not fatalism, but a call to action. Perhaps it was weakness on his part, but he was at a loss about what to do.
Kristina was sitting on the floor with her back against the marble casket that held her mother’s earthly remains. With the flashlight shown on her face her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, clearly, she had been crying. Louis could also see from how pale she was and dark rings under her eyes, that Kristina was cold and tired.
“There are better hours to visit Kristina” Louis said.
“She can’t stop me though” Kristina said, “Not this time.”
Louis sighed. After his late wife and daughter’s disagreements had escalated into exchanging blows with Kira slapping Kristina and getting decked in return, Kristina had been sent to Japan in what amounted to exile and the two of them had never spoken another word to each other. He had tried to talk sense to Kira in those last hours as her heart had failed her about how her refusal to see their oldest daughter was taking things too far. Now, years later, Kristina had come here when she had been in what was probably her lowest moment.
“I guess she can’t” Louis replied wearily, a touch appalled by the vindictiveness that he heard in Kristina’s voice. Of course, she had every right to be angry, but still. He sat down next to her and hugged her from the side. It was hardly a surprise that she was shivering in the cold.
“Do you know what it is like?” Kristina asked, “To hate what someone did to you, but still need them because they might understand?”
“Yes” Louis replied, “She never stopped being your mother.”
“No, she completely rejected me” Kiki said, “She told me that I needed to stop thinking like a little girl and except reality. That medicine was just a fantasy. I turned around and told her that she was useless, that she had only been good for having babies and she was past even that. That she wanted the same thing for me. That was when she slapped me.”
Louis didn’t bother to correct Kristina about what she had really said to Kira before she had gotten slapped. According to those who had witnessed the exchange what had been said was far more crude, vulgar and biting.
“What if she was right?” Kristina said, “After today, how am I supposed to go back to Jena?”
“Don’t think about that tonight” Louis said, “Come home, I’m sure that Antonia will be delighted to see you and perhaps you will have a better perspective tomorrow.”
“I don’t know” Kristina said, “Things never seem to get better, I just go from failure to failure.”
She started crying again.
It was something that Louis had seen Kristina do since she was a little girl. Sometimes she was just determined to make herself miserable, like self-flagellation or something.
and abortion be at least not penalized... (no idea what the law would be...)
