Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Seven
26th February 1965
Mitte, Berlin
As this continued, Jo was getting a picture of just how naïve Suse Rosa was. To her, going on pretend dates with Manny was an easy way to have a bit of fun and for perhaps the first time that she could recall, Suse didn’t have her mother on her back. They would go to the cinema or one of the dances that were being held throughout the city this time of year, perhaps get a bite to eat along the way.
What Suse wasn’t taking into consideration was that her being regularly seen with Manny in social and public settings. As in Freiherr Manfred von Mischner, the grandson of Graf Manfred von Richthofen and nephew of Fürstin Katherine von Mischner zu Berlin. It was something that everyone was taking note of. Suse was the granddaughter of Ritter von Wolvogle, legendary Knight of the Black Eagle. It took far less than that to get gossip’s tongues wagging. And it wasn’t just Suse’s mother, but the whole of Berlin society that would be looking to have her fitted with a wedding dress if they got the wrong idea.
There was also the personal aspect as well.
Suse had never been in a relationship of any kind before. Despite her protestations, they would have to see exactly how fake the relationship was when Manny was his usual oblivious self at some point in the future. He took the whole thing about the two of them just being friends for exactly that, which was the problem. A couple years earlier, Jo had found herself having a schoolgirl crush on Manny and because there were other girls around, she had found herself jealously attacking them. Mostly verbally but physically once as well. Jo was still embarrassed by the memory of her behavior and she hoped that she had outgrown it.
Still, she worried about Suse.
Simply put, Jo had not behaved like herself during that time because she had lacked understanding of what had been happening. Suse had not learned that understanding yet and she had always been more of a fighter than Jo ever was. So when, not if, that happened there would very likely be blood on the floor before Manny realized whether Suse actual had feelings for him.
This afternoon, they were sitting in a clubhouse that was provided for the youth wing of one of the political parties that Aunt Marcella was a prominent member of. Manny had grabbed bottles of orange Fanta from the refrigerator before he had started trying to teach Suse how to play pinball. There were few other boys their age around. However, as Jo had discovered over the previous couple years whenever she tried to talk to them, they would just nervously stare at their shoes and make excuses to be elsewhere. Aunt Marcella said that it was because she was an extremely beautiful young woman and even if that wasn’t intimidating enough, everyone knew that she was Kat’s ward.
So, Jo had nothing to distract her as she watched the interaction be Manny and Suse. They were very much complete opposites both physically and in temperament, but Jo realized that it had nothing to do with the notion that opposites attract. They were people not magnets. As Suse got frustrated over the game that she couldn’t seem to master, Jo realized what was really going on. While it was obvious that they were more attracted to each other than they were prepared to admit, it seemed to Jo that both were the perfect foil of the other. Jo had no idea how that would play itself out, but it would certainly be interesting to watch.
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Mamma had insisted that she wear an itchy formal dress made from blue wool today and Marie was hating every minute of it. A detail of the incident months earlier was that she had bitten one of her kidnappers. For starters it was exactly the sort of thing that Momma insisted that she never, ever do and she had not talked about it in hopes that it would be forgotten. It had certainly seemed that way until this evening, but it had turned out Marie was wrong.
It had started when Marie had gotten home from school. Her mother had insisted that she needed to get cleaned up quickly and the dress had already been laid out for her. “Your Godfather asked to see you tonight” Was what Momma had said when asked. Marie understood that her Godfather was an important man, but in all the times that she had seen him in the past a formal dress was not ever required. Tonight, was different somehow and them Momma had explained that it was because Marie had bitten that man. When Marie asked if she was being punished, Poppa had laughed while Momma had just looked at her sadly. “There will be many times in your life when you are going to be asked to just accept things how they are” Momma had said, “This is one of those times.”
Then she had been loaded into Momma’s car and they had driven Downtown and like always Poppa insisted that she hold his hand once they got out of the car. Riding the elevator to the top floor of the building was almost distracting enough to make her forget the itchy dress. Entering the penthouse, Marie saw that Kiki, who was like a big sister to her, was already there as well as Lotte, her Godfather’s wife.
Once in a room where her Godfather was waiting for her, Marie noticed that there were other men around. She still insisted on hugging him in greeting. He just smiled, “I’m happy to see you too Marie Alexandra, but we need to avoid the appearance of favoritism” He said, which Marie didn’t understand. Then minutes later, before the photographers he pinned a gold medal on a white bow to the front of her dress.
“Lotte nominated you to receive this after the investigation concluded that you helped save my little my little girl” Marie’s Godfather said, “You see the two letters at the bottom, those are CH for Charlotte Hedwig”
Marie looked at the medal, it had the words “For Merit” engraved across the top of it and a gold cross set into the face. It was pretty. They said it was an award for Ladies. Momma always did insist that she act like one, but how did biting play into that?