Chapter Two Thousand Seven Hundred Eleven
19th August 1978
Tempelhof, Berlin
For years Bas had listened to Marie Alexandra complain that the meetings of the Order of Louise were like watching paint dry. That was why she had been looking for excuses to avoid attending herself. There was also another aspect that had caused Marie to be there tonight, namely how there was a definite pecking order among the members. As the daughter of one of the two Dame Commanders of the Order and being the highest-ranking Maid of the Imperial Court, Marie was someone who no one dared tangle with. Henriette was there as the guest of the Empress and was an unknown quantity, and a foreigner. So many of those who would be reticent to come after Marie might not be so constrained with Henriette.
Bas knew that was horseshit. Henriette had put her life back on track after experiencing the sort of difficulty that few among the gathered Ladies of the Order could even fathom. Bas’ mother had told him most of them thought that hardship was if the suite at the hotel resort in the Caroline Islands that they wanted was booked solid. The issues of being a single mother in a middle-class family was something that they couldn’t fathom. If any of them tried the sort putdowns and condescension that was a part of snobbery 101, they would discover that Henriette had been facing off with Margot Blackwood, the reigning Queen Bitch of Montreal, for years. So it would not end how they figured it would.
Bas himself had other considerations. He was minding Alice as Tante Kat’s house with the help of Sophie Sommers and Angelica de’ Medici, the two women in the house who were not invited to tonight’s events. Mostly it was a matter of keeping Alice from veering wildly between loosie goosey and zoomie in the manner of all small children. This wasn’t helped by the presence of Sprocket, Sophie’s little dog, who seemed to love everyone. Alice and Sprocket played a spirited game that involved chasing each other around the house and the back garden. There were no rules, but a lot of laughing, yelling, and barking were involved, much to the annoyance of everyone else in the house. Bas supposed that it could have been worse, his family had always had the Pitbulls his father favored, and Bas could remember playing the same game with them.
Finally, everyone had been ready to leave, and Bas had been awed by how Henriette looked when she took the effort. He couldn’t help but notice that Marie Alexandra had a fourth medal pinned to the left sleeve of her dress. A gold and white enamel Maltese cross on a purple bow with white stripes. Like most of the Women’s Chivalrous Orders, he wasn’t familiar with that one. Marie was also discussing with Henriette what would probably be the topics of discussion at the meeting. The latest gossip in the Imperial Court would probably be center on how Queen Marie Cecilie of Galicia-Ruthenia had given birth to twin sons whose names are Ferdinand and Jerrik. There was probably going to be some talk about the upcoming General Election, but Henriette should be very careful about who she brought that up with.
Marie was still talking about that as they were getting into the car, the same Mercedes Benz that Tante Kat had made a point of seizing from the estate of von Papen. She had kept the car in perfect mechanical condition and loved to have it be seen at public events, the sort where von Papen himself would see it on television. The minor detail that Franz von Papen had been dead for almost a decade seemed to have no impact on her thinking.
By the time they had supper, both Alice and Sprocket had tired themselves out. That was why it was hardly a surprise that Alice fell asleep on the couch sitting between Bas and Angelica while watching television. The show they were watching was a British Historical Comedy starring Rowan Atkinson as a young conscript trying to survive on the Arras Front and not lose his mind while the being in the process of losing the war. The humor was pitch black reflecting on subject matter. The surreal and absurd aspects were in keeping with Bas’ experience. Those were pretty much a given with most armies. Tangling with entrenched bureaucracy that saw you as the enemy because of this or that misspelled word and those above you seeming to not have the slightest clue as to what was really going on was not surprising. What the show did really well was tackling how reality seemed to take a back seat at times. Bas had seen that sort of thing often as his superiors had seemed more interested in him getting a gold medal in Moscow than he was. For him it was always about being able to compete and proving himself to be the best.
Bas must have fallen asleep himself because he woke up to hushed voices talking and a camera click. He later found out that those who had gone to the gala that night had come home to find Bas, Alice, and Sprocket sleeping in a heap on the couch. When Doug saw it, he went and got his camera. For Henriette that photograph was far more important for her than the meeting the of Order of Louise had been. She said that next time she would probably listen to Marie’s warnings about something being tedious and boring.
