Chapter One Thousand Ten
5th May 1953
Wolfsburg
Nancy could see Ernst Preis and his circle of friends in the doorway of his office from her desk. They had gotten a couple copies of the script from UFA and the rally modified blue and white two-tone Föhn 1200 dubbed “Alpina” was in nearly every scene along with a number of other VW cars. They were practically hopping with joy.
It seemed that with the production of B-Reel films the studio moved extremely fast, once they had a script they moved forward with production, shooting was supposed to start in less than a month in Greece. This was due to a sweetheart deal they had cut with the Greek Government, but Nancy suspected that the idea of shooting scenes on Greek beaches there causing men stampede into theaters was the real motivation. Then in July the remainder of the filming was to be completed in Upper Saxony and Berlin. If they could stick to the timetable they had the film would be released to theaters in English and German just ahead of the Christmas season, and by happy coincidence right when the new Volkswagen Models reached showroom floors. The fact of whose car the one in the film looked exactly like wasn’t lost on Nancy.
The script itself was mortifying, and not just because of the title Catch a Tiger by the Tail. It revolved around a fictional Constantinople to Berlin Rally Race with the unoriginal name of Orient Express. Entering the race was an all-women team led by Viola “Tiger” Martz, a tough as nails driver played by Nicol Scheer. Nancy had no idea where they had found Nicol Scheer, but she was a coarse, working class bad girl who was uncomfortably close to the very woman she was playing was based on. Her friend and navigator, Felicitas von Schultheiss, played by Hildegard Knef, is along for the ride and is the daughter of the team sponsor, Graf von Schultheiss. Into all of this is Anna Berg played by Edda van Heemstra, as the representative from an unnamed automotive corporation, like if the audience couldn’t guess which one. She is trying to be impartial to the different teams but happens to be living in Viola’s house until she can figure out her complex personal situation.
Anna’s boyfriend has been forbidden from marrying her by his father, a Luftwaffe Oberst, for murky reasons. But the boyfriend, Derik follows Anna to Greece to apologize but ends up a prisoner of Percival Abbot an amoral English rake and his Irish sidekick John Berne. It turns out that Derik’s father is hunting Percival Abbot and that Percival is using the race as cover to advance a nefarious scheme of his own.
It was a screwball comedy that made most of what Nancy had gone through over the last few years seem like an absurd series of accidents and errors. Nancy was forced to conclude that Kat was not going to be satisfied with merely killing her. There was also the aspect of Anna getting a happy ending after both Derik’s father and Percival Abbot get their just deserts involving a thermobaric bomb and a particularly randy mountain goat. Nancy’s ending was yet to be written and there was no guarantee that anything remotely like that would ever happen for her.
Berlin
“She’s afraid that she’ll be like her friend Zella” Kira said, “We did our best to make this easier for her. Didn’t we?”
Kat had been abruptly summoned to the Palace that was in the midst of preparations for the move to the Summer Residence in Potsdam. Kat had talked to Maria about that subject a few days earlier, Zella had gone from a precocious, confident girl to an unpredictable moody little shrew seemingly overnight. Oddly, Zella didn’t cause nearly as much trouble as she had before at school or at home, but it was hard to argue that apathy was much of an improvement.
For Kiki, Kat had last seen her only a few days earlier excitedly planning her upcoming birthday party in July. She had been happy then and she was about as far from that now as she could be. She was currently curled into the smallest ball she could manage to make of herself against her mother’s side.
“It’s a mixture of hormones and a society with terrible messages” Kat said, “My Aunt Marcella says that we should celebrate their coming of age and welcome them. Instead we fill their heads with contradictory, and frequently impossible things.”
“How did your Aunt handle it with you?” Kira asked only to watch Kat set her jaw and realized the implications of what she had said too late.
“Just be glad that Kiki has a great deal of personal protection at all times” Kat replied with a tone that was strangely flat. Kira had realized that if she angered Kat then there would be no outward displays of anger. However, Kat’s phone would be left off the hook a lot in the following days. “And that no one would dare to think of her as a mere plaything.”
“She has you as a protector” Kira said.
“Yes” Kat said as she pushed Kiki’s hair out of her face, Kiki was refusing to open her eyes, but Kat knew she was awake and listening to every word. “But I cannot protect her from the painful experiences that happen to everyone growing up.”