Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Fifty-Three
2nd April 1963
Tempelhof, Berlin
Though she had been invited, Nadine still felt a great deal of trepidation over the idea of entering the house of the Tigress.
Walking across the alleyway for Nadine was always a fraught experience. There was simply no telling what would greet her when she entered the Gräfin’s back garden. It could be something pedestrian like Katherine’s daughter pushing a baby carriage with the family dog in it which was what had happened the last time Nadine had come around. Or it could be the older women of the house doing something outlandish. There had been any number of times when she had seen the latter. This time the garden was mercifully empty. Walking up to the kitchen door, she was greeted by Housekeeper who opened the door before she could knock. “She’s in the parlor” The Russian woman said before she went back to whatever she had been doing before.
Walking up the stairs, Nadine couldn’t help but notice that this house seemed to be on a larger scale than hers was even if both houses seemed to have the same floor plan. She saw in the library that Kat’s youngest daughter, Marie, was reading from a book to another much younger child, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Not quite what she would have figured for Marie to have selected, but it was of a similar vein. The child looked at Nadine with big brown eyes, ignoring the story that she was being read.
“Hello Nadine” Kat said when she entered the parlor, she didn’t look up meaning that she had been expected. Instead all of her attention was focused on a baby that seemed to be only a couple weeks old in her arms. “This is my niece Petra. Her mother wanted a break for a few hours.”
“Is she really your niece or the daughter of one of your nieces?” Nadine asked. That was far more pointed than she intended, though Katherine didn’t seem to notice, or care if she had.
“Petra is my brother Stefan’s daughter” Katherine said, “I have Marie entertaining Petra’s older sister and should probably check on them soon.”
“Marie was reading to another child when I walked past” Nadine said.
“That would be Elke” Katherine said, “Nizhoni is up in one of the guest rooms sleeping while Stefan has business in the city. She could have done anything she wanted and that was her choice. I do not miss that aspect of having a baby in the house.”
“What sort of name is Nizhoni?” Nadine asked.
“Nizzi’s mother is Diné, from the American South-West” Katherine said. Nadine had no idea what that meant but didn’t want to give Katherine the satisfaction of catching her out, so she didn’t ask.
The two of them sat in awkward silence for a long moment until Nadine finally spoke. “I’m sure that you have talked to Kristina by now” She said, “What she did on Sunday.”
“It was a foolish thing for her to have done” Katherine replied, “She placed a staggering amount of trust in you, all in some effort to win your approval. In my experience that sort of effort is often misguided.”
“Your experience?” Nadine asked sourly.
“Douglas’ mother doesn’t approve of her son’s marriage to me” Katherine said, “There is an extensive list of things that Margot thinks is wrong with me, religion and nationality are at the top.”
“I am nothing like that” Nadine said, “My problem with Kristina is that I cannot trust anything that comes out of her mouth.”
“Because she didn’t tell you who she was when you met her?” Kat asked, “What do you know about the Rome incident? Or how Kiki broke her nose when she was thirteen?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about” Nadine said.
“An Italian Mafia family had the idea of kidnapping Kiki along with her sisters. The Italian police foiled the plot, but the plan was to send Kiki back to her father a piece at a time until he paid a ransom to get the three of them back” Katherine said, “She broke her nose when her bodyguards were less than delicate in getting her out of a church in the midst of an assassination attempt on her mother. Those were merely two major attempts on her life, there have been dozens of others including one just a month ago.”
Nadine was shocked to hear that. Sure, she didn’t like Kristina’s casual relationship with the truth, but she didn’t want to see harm come to her.
“Last Friday Kiki learned that two of the men involved with that last attempt died by her hand. She spent most of that evening crying over men who didn’t deserve it” Katherine continued, “Something that played a role in her decision to tell what she did.”
“I had no idea” Nadine replied.
“The thing you fault Kiki for, withholding information. Have you been paying attention to your son’s career?” Katherine asked, “If he follows through on his ambition to remain a Reserve Officer in the Luftwaffe do you think that this will be the only time that you find out that you were left out in a need to know situation?”
Nadine was about to say that would be different, but realized what Katherine was getting at. It really wasn’t.
“Besides all of that” Katherine said mildly, “If you reveal anything about Kiki’s personal life to the newspapers, I will destroy you.”