Chapter One Thousand Eighty-Five
20th August 1954
Wunsdorf-Zossen
It was Hans who had encouraged Stefan to take the courses offered to Military Officers while they were in garrison in Wunsdorf, continuing his education at University level. Now he was free from that just in time for the Autumn field maneuvers to begin.
Dirks thought of it as the never-ending conveyer belt of life, the same for everyone whether they admitted to it or not. Wake up, brush teeth, go to work, come home and sleep. Repeat until your body lands in the morgue having died. With most people it was their body catching up with their soul which had died years earlier. As soldiers they were spared that, except for the ever-present possibility of a particularly gruesome death being ever present it was the perfect employment. The conveyer belt was annual as opposed to daily, so things still came as a surprise occasionally. The only surprises that a factory worker might get usually involved industrial actions or accidents. It was a reminder of why Stefan didn’t talk about life too much with Dirks.
Nizhoni found that amusing even though Stefan had been dead serious about the cynical personal philosophy of Gerald Dirks.
“He really thinks that way” Stefan said.
“But what do you think Stefan?” Nizhoni asked, “Do you have a personal philosophy?”
They were sitting on the front porch of the Horst house on a warm summer evening. Earlier they had gone to dinner and a movie as a fun date night, now they would talk until Horst himself came out and gave Stefan the stink-eye until they called it a night. It was what they had been doing every Friday unless weather or life prevented it. Much to the relief of Nizhoni’s parents Stefan and Nizhoni had decided that they would hold off on taking their relationship any further until she completed University. That had left Stefan wondering just how long it took to get a degree in Art History because he felt nothing but trepidation about what Nizhoni would do once she had to decide about their future.
“I don’t know” Stefan replied, “I used to consider any day I made it to the end of a good one.”
“My father and Jost Schultz have that effect on people.”
“Your father…” Stefan said, “In one of the courses I took, his name came up.”
“Which one?” Nizhoni asked.
“Ethics” Stefan replied.
“Really” Nizhoni said in disbelief, “I can think of a lot of University courses where my father would be mentioned, one that involves the philosophical study of morality is not one of them.”
“It involved his role in the Spring Revolution” Stefan said, “And about how he found a creative way to carry out his orders after General von Wolvogle went to go take a piss.”
“That whole story always struck me as being sort of odd” Nizhoni replied, “Why would they be teaching a bunch of Junior Officers about that?”
“Honor, democracy, right from wrong, ethics, orders and how all of that should work in practice, ideally” Stefan said, “General von Wolvogle wasn’t afraid to put his career on the line over such matters.”
“He was also sort of insane, or at least that is what my father and Kurt Knispel have to say” Nizhoni said, “He did gamble on what my father would do once he decided that putting down the revolution violently wasn’t the right thing to do.”
“Or it could just be that the Old Wolf knew that I would not want to gun down friends” Horst said from the door that Stefan had not heard open. “That crazy bastard knew his people, sometimes better than they knew themselves.”
“Sorry, Sir” Stefan said as he scrambled to his feet, “I didn’t hear…”
“No harm, there are worse things you two could be doing than discussing moral philosophy” Horst said, showing just how long he had been listening in on the conversation. “Good night Lieutenant.”
With that he shared a quick kiss with Nizhoni much to her father’s annoyance and then started to walk back to his quarters as Horst grumbling about what the neighbors must think faded in the distance. Today had turned out to have been good one, or at least it had ended well.
Potsdam
It was a bit amusing watching Freddy tonight. He had switched from ribbing his sister about how she should learn from experience that opening doors with her face was a bad idea to suddenly becoming the protective older brother in a heartbeat. This was when one of the items featured in that night’s newscast was about Kiki getting injured because a photograph had surfaced of her as she was released from the hospital with her face was a mass of plaster and bandages. Clearly visible her having two black eyes and she was staring off into space with an unfocused look on her face.
“It must have been taken with a telephoto lens because there is simply no way the photographer could have gotten around your security that afternoon” Zella said.
“I don’t know about that” Kiki replied, “I was so out of my head on pain-killers that picture could have been taken aboard the elevator on the way down to the car park and I wouldn’t have known.”
“It shouldn’t have been taken at all” Freddy said.
“Weren’t you just making fun of me about this?” Kiki asked.
“That’s different” Freddy replied, “As your brother I get to make fun of you Whippet, no one else gets to. I think there’s a law about that.”
Kiki would have given Freddy a dirty look except it was hard to do around the cast on her nose. Zella was more that happy to do it for her.
