Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Ninety-Four
17th September 1965
Mitte, Berlin
Zella didn’t slam the door when she came in through the door of the garage. Emil heard cursing as her date, who had been leaning in for a goodnight kiss, narrowly avoided getting hit in the face by it. Just the fact that she had taken the time to wear a dress and doll herself up a bit suggested that she had clearly hoped for better.
“Your date didn’t go well?” Emil asked mildly as Zella threw the bolt loudly. If the man on the other side of the door wasn’t aware that he had messed things up somehow before, that put an exclamation point on it. By now Emil was used to his twenty-four-year-old daughter’s moods so he was hardly fazed by her anger.
“Why are all men so presumptuous?” Zella demanded angrily.
It was something that Zella had been complaining about since she had started working at ARD over the summer. She was surrounded by men who had watched her documentaries and they had a very different interpretation than the one that she had intended. They had seen a rather attractive young woman on the TV screen, and it seemed that it had turned their minds to mush. Having Zella present, in person, had hardly helped matters. Maria had suggested that perhaps Zella ought to play it differently than giving all of them the cold shoulder and should at least try to be sociable with the more civilized among them. That apparently had not worked out. The fact that she had come in through the service entrance into the garage as opposed to the front door suggested that she was avoiding her mother as well.
“Not all men” Emil replied, “Someday you’ll meet someone who treats you halfway decent.”
Zella looked annoyed by that. “So far this year the only decent person who’s asked me out on a date was a friend’s little sister. If you would believe that.”
“Did you accept?” Emil asked, only to get a sour look from Zella.
“Not my thing” Zella snapped as she walked into the garage. “Just dinner and movie he said, with no strings attached. Then on the way home he suggested that perhaps we ought to go back to his place and have a nightcap and it was obvious what he really meant.”
As a father, Emil was rather pleased that his daughter had the reaction that she had. After the events of a couple years earlier she had sworn off entirely men for a long time, she had only started dating again recently.
“Was the movie any good?” Emil asked, changing the conversation to a hopefully safer topic.
“The latest James Bond film” Zella replied, “It was good if you like action movies, I’m not sure about the new guy they cast as Bond though. Scottish actor who I’ve never heard of before, McCallum.”
Emil had never heard that name before either. He had seen the previous Bond films and found them to be an enjoyable distraction. He kept finding himself comparing the character of Andrea Herzog, the female BND Agent who Bond had a platonic relationship with, to Kat von Mischner. This new movie was the first that had not been written and produced by the late Ian Fleming. Emil figured that Maria would probably like to have a night out on the town with him, so it would be a good excuse to see it.
“This is what you are working on?” Zella asked, looking past Emil at the motorcycle and the way she said proved that he was going to have a bit of a problem. She was instantly smitten. They had built two prototypes for the tests that were to be conducted by the Heer and had been left with a frame and engine for a third bike. On a lark, the Engineers had given it a race suspension and had tricked it out in the style of the Café Racers with an eye towards keeping it as light as possible to show the executives at BMW the possibilities for a new series. From the look on Zella’s face it was clear where she stood.
Tempelhof
Sitting in her new bedroom, Suse was annoyed by her sudden change in circumstance. Her mother had insisted that she accompany her parents and brother to Bohemia so that she could get to know her father’s family. Meeting her grandparents and cousins had been a lot of fun despite Suse’s reluctance. Her mother telling everyone that she had been in a snit since her sweetheart had left for the Military had been something that they had all instantly understood, much to Suse’s surprise. It had been what had come at the end of the summer that been most upsetting.
Her parents had told her that she was old enough to make a choice. Her father had been offered a chance of lifetime by Prince Michael of Bohemia, the chance to command a Division and help build a new Mechanized Field Army. That meant that Suse could either return to Berlin to finish her education at her Gymnasia or else stay with her family in Prague and go to school there. This had been discussed by her parents for months and plans had been made for whatever decision Suse made. The upsetting part had been that they had left her in the dark until they had sprung it on her.
Suse had opted to return to Berlin, but now weeks later she wondered how much of her decision had been driven by anger. Living in one of the guest rooms of Aunt Kathrine’s house was a radical change. Returning to school had not been what she had been expecting. Jo was gone, having progressed to University and of her classmates the only one she interacted with regularly was Ina, which was incredibly awkward.