Chapter One Thousand Two Hundred Seventy-Two
10th March 1958
Berlin
“I hope you don’t mind me interrupting?” The Woman asked as Kiki and Doctor Berg were having lunch in the Hospital Cafeteria, “But you are Kristina von Preussen?”
She didn’t look like any journalist that Kiki had ever encountered. Pleasant looking, mid-thirties, strangely she had an Austrian accent. Something about the way she had asked Kiki her name under the well-known royal pseudonym like if that were no big deal made Kiki uneasy. If she wasn’t a journalist than there were a few other unsettling possibilities.
“Feel free, Frau…” Doctor Berg said, clearly asking a leading question.
“Fraulein de Bar” The woman said as she sat down at the table with them, “But you can call me Lotte.”
Kiki noticed that she had a hospital Administration badge pinned to the front of her blouse identifying her as Charlotte de Bar, Human Services, City of Berlin.
“That’s nice” Berg said in a tone that suggested that she didn’t like this intruder any more than Kiki did. “Is there anything we can help you with.”
“Actually, I’m here to speak with Kristina” Lotte said, “I’m a social worker and I just wanted to see how she was handling things. If we could talk privately?”
Kiki had been uneasy before, now there were alarm bells going off in her head. This woman could completely upset the applecart for her. “Doctor Berg is my mentor and personal Physician” Kiki blurted out, Doctor Berg had shown a great deal of trust in Kiki and it was time that she returned the favor. “Anything said to her will be in confidence.”
Lotte hesitated for a second as she was clearly wondering if she should be taking Kiki’s word for that.
“I just wanted to see how you are doing personally Kristina” Lotte said, “To see if you were still pursuing early emancipation and medical career? I know that you’ve had a trying time over the last couple years.”
“I was wondering how a woman from Austria comes to be a social worker in Berlin?” Berg asked. It was a question that Kiki wouldn’t have thought of and thankfully it took the focus off her for a few seconds.
“I had the exact same career in Vienna, but my intended lives here in Berlin so I started anew recently” Lotte said, “Now, this isn’t about me. Are you going to answer my questions Kristina?”
It was clear that Lotte had a lot of practice in this sort of thing and wasn’t easily deflected.
“I’m doing well enough” Kiki said, “The last several months have been nice. I’ve been living with Gräfin Katherine of Berlin-Pankow since my father decided that she was better equipped to get me through this time than he was. I still want to go into medicine, but my educational goals have had some setbacks.”
“I see” Lotte said, “How serious were the setbacks?”
“I was hoping that I would be allowed to complete my secondary education in time for my sixteenth birthday” Kiki said, “The Headmistress of my gymnasia told me that my educational progress and emotional maturity were lacking.”
“How did you take that?”
“I was unhappy, of course” Kiki answered, “Benjamin was pleased that it would keep me around through the next term.”
“And just who is this Benjamin?” Lotte asked with a slight smile.
That was how it progressed for the next several minutes until Lotte seemed satisfied with Kiki’s answers. She thanked Kiki for her time and left. It hadn’t gone as badly as Kiki feared it would, Doctor Berg gave her one unsettling observation about the entire conversation.
“It felt to me like she was trying to get a feel for you” Berg said, “Who you are, what you want, and whatnot? Beyond what a social worker might normally do, though that is exactly what she seemed to be.”
As Kiki replayed the conversation in her head, she couldn’t figure out exactly what Lotte had been up to and why.
“Is that all?” Kiki asked.
“No” Berg replied, “But I’m sure you’ll figure out when whatever that was all about clobbers you over the head.”
Not for the first time, Kiki wished for a pleasant surprise for once.
Near Oppeln, Silesia
“This is how it is, General” The Feldwebel who was about thirty seconds from finding himself with a new, greatly diminished rank, was saying to Hans without taking the cigar from his mouth to talk. There were times when Hans sorely missed having Jost Schultz and Soren Yount around. Their ability to keep the Enlisted in line was something that he had taken for granted.
The other problem revolved around what Stefan had jokingly referred to as Newton’s First Law of motion, the Military Version. Objects at rest, tend to stay at rest. When soldiers are involved, they fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. Today, after spending a frustrating winter straightening out the bureaucratic structure of the Division, Hans had discovered that half the Division’s tracked vehicles were out of commission ahead of the spring thaw. The roads of Upper Silesia were not exactly in the greatest of condition. More than a decade after the war had ended there were still good roads leading to ruins that had never been reclaimed and lousy roads leading to villages that had. No one had a clear idea of which were which. Once the thaw set in, tracked vehicles would be the only thing moving on the unpaved roads.
That was why Hans was out trying to get as many of the SPz-2 APCs, half-tracks and Raupenschleppers that belonged to the Division running without cannibalizing too many of the vehicles for parts. All of that took time, something that they were rapidly running out of. Matters weren’t helped by most of the men, with the exception of the senior Enlisted and the Officers, would go back to being shop keepers, barbers, factory workers or whatever else they did when they were not doing their rotation with the Division.