Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Thirty-Nine
24th March 1961
Munich, Bavaria
Being in the city was like an itch that he couldn’t scratch. That was how Albrecht I, King of Bavaria found it when he needed to come into Munich on official business. He much preferred to spend his time in Starnberg. In this case it involved his presence in the Landtag so that the Bavarian Parliament could be formally dissolved ahead of the General Elections that were going to be happening in a few weeks, not just in Bavaria but throughout the German Empire. Considering the complicated relationship that the Kingdom of Bavaria had with the rest of Germany, no one wanted, any funny business or even the perception of it, to occur here. As it was Bavaria made a show of maintaining its independence. The Government had more power than that of most of the other Federal States and maintained its own Military beyond the Landwehr.
Still, many who Albrecht had talked to had voiced a similar concern. Despite a robust manufacturing and aerospace sectors, Bavaria was in danger of becoming a vast theme park. Many of the same politicians he was hoping that the voters would do away with came across like if they would be pleased if history had stopped sometime in the early Nineteenth Century before all that unpleasantness that came after 1848. The SDP might be confined mostly to the cities, but their potential DEP coalition partners were expected to make a good showing in the upcoming elections. While Albrecht himself didn’t agree with everything they stood for, there was a good chance that they would finally do something about a nation that was growing stagnant. If the elections put a dent in Bavaria’s reputation of being a bastion of the Empire’s more conservative political parties, then that would be a small price to pay.
Albrecht was also in Munich to see how his son Franz, who had once again made a hash of things in Berlin just a few days earlier was fairing. While he admired the gumption that it must have taken to make a marriage proposal of a girl that he had only met before a few times in passing. He said that he had done because the prior winter when he had spoken to her, she had seemed nice. The results had been less than satisfactory, she had turned him down. It also suggested the lengths that Franz would go to get Albrecht’s approval, or at least get him off his back regarding his personal life.
The young lady who Franz had asked certainly could have complained or made a big display of publicly smashing him, but she hadn’t. Instead she had said she was flattered, but had gently explained that the answer would have to be no. In Albrecht’s thinking that was probably just as well. The girl was well known to be a blue stocking and that career of hers would have been a complete scandal just a couple generations ago. The reason that she would be going to Württemberg in a few months screamed that if she had agreed to it then the entire Kingdom would know exactly who wore the pants in that household at best. At worst, it would make plain that the whole thing was a sham. It was better that Franz remain single rather than have that happen. God only knew how long he could have managed to keep up that particular farce. Not very long if his father had to guess.
Tempelhof, Berlin
Sitting around the table in Kat’s formal dining room, it was wonderful to have Gerta and Helene for lunch like they had ages ago when they had all lived under the same roof. Of course, the topics of conversation had changed a great deal in the years since. At the moment the topic was Kiki’s encounter with the feckless Franz von Bayern.
“It seems to me that Kiki handled it the best that she could have” Kat said, “Though I think that the whole thing sort of panicked her.”
“What was running through his mind?” Helene asked, “I would be completely mortified to ask a question with even half that significance.”
“She always tries to be nice to everyone” Kat replied, “I’ve never heard her say that she actually dislikes anyone, just mentioning that she doesn’t like someone’s behavior at a given moment.”
That drew an immediate response from Gerta and Helene. They knew that there were some people who Kat couldn’t be in the same room with. It was because once they made an enemy of her then she would be inclined to deal with them as such, with savage ruthlessness.
“It was stupid, I can see that” Gerta said, “But it was also a bit romantic. Like something from a different century.”
“It was that” Kat replied, “But there is always hard cynical thinking behind this sort of thing. If you asked Klaus Voll, he would tell you that was probably all about. It was a common practice in less enlightened times to keep up appearances.”
“You cannot be serious” Helene said, “This is the Crown Prince of Bavaria that you are talking about.”
“There’s also the King of Italy” Gerta said, getting a dirty look from Helene in the process.
It had always been the same with them. Helene’s politics had always leaned to the left, but only so far as the things she was comfortable with were concerned. That included her very strait-laced personal life. Gerta on the other hand, had imagined herself as far more sexually liberated than she ultimately turned out to be, something that had included a fair amount of experimentation right up until she smashed headlong into the very real consequences that only women got to experience. While Kat wasn’t sure about what the deal was with Prince Franz, he certainly gave her the impression of a few things.
“I talked to Gia the other day” Kat said, hopefully changing the subject to a less touchy topic. “She’s in a bit of a state because the Russian State and the Orthodox Church are planning some events to honor the members of her family who died twenty years ago.”
“How is she managing?” Gerta asked, “When Gia moved to Moscow she left so much behind. I still don’t understand why she did that.”
“She had her reasons” Kat replied. Neither Helene or Gerta knew what those reasons were and why Gia had not been given a choice in the matter.
“I think that she needs to put the past firmly behind her” Helene said, “If she was smart, she would use these events to do that.”