Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Eighteen
25th January 1972
Tempelhof, Berlin
While Kiki was traveling back to Kiel, she had been forced to detour through Berlin on personal business. Namely picking up a few weeks’ worth of mail that had been sent to her address in Plänterwald after it had been sorted to weed out the cranks. However, it was an opportunity to talk to the one of the few people on the planet who Kiki knew would understand everything that had happened over the last few days to put it in perspective, or at least wasn’t afraid to tell her that she was acting like an idiot. That last bit was something that Kiki was finding more important as time went on.
“Anencephaly is rare, mercifully I’ve only seen it twice over the course of my career” Nora Berg said, “Both times it devastated the parents.”
“That sounds correct” Kiki replied, “Victoria being Victoria had planned this out the same way she had with Max and… That was her reaction too, devastated.”
“How are her partner and her husband taking this?” Berg asked. She was aware of Vicky’s arrangement, how Vicky and Franz were in a marriage of convenience entirely to keep up appearances in Bavaria, stronghold of the Zentrum Party. Fortunately, Berg regarded patient confidentiality as one of the pillars of her profession. That included whatever she had discussed with one Kristina von Preussen.
“Badly” Kiki replied, “This came at a difficult time, Franz had a breakup recently, got tired of having to sneak around with him. Anna and Vicky have had to engage in a lot of handholding with him because of that.”
“And Victoria’s son?”
“Max is only three, so he isn’t quite aware of what is going on” Kiki replied.
“Small children are more aware of what is going on than you give them credit for” Berg said, “Even if it just that all the adults around them are upset”
“I felt bad for Max” Kiki said, “He has this orange plush toy dinosaur that he says is his friend and he takes it everywhere with him.”
“I seem to recall that you have said that you had a doll you named Sarah” Berg said, “Which you had a similar relationship with.”
“That is beside the point” Kiki replied, “An actual sibling would have been good for him.”
Berg said nothing in reply to that, she didn’t need to.
“Growing up in a royal household is a lonely, terrible experience” Kiki said, “Surrounded by more or less indifferent adults, people making terrifying assumptions about you, layers of security to contend with, everyone being suspect… My siblings were the closest thing to friends I had until I convinced my mother to let me attend school.”
“I understand where you are coming from” Berg replied, “But is that whole of it? Your being worried about your nephew is entirely understandable, and it would be foolish to assume that you don’t have the same concerns about your daughter.”
Kiki knew that Berg was correct, she had hit upon something that had bothered Kiki the entire way back from Munich.
“I see how Marie Cecilie dances between raindrops and that many think I do too” Kiki said, “All while Victoria gets soaked. It all seems unfair.”
“You’re an Emergency Physician, Kristina” Berg said, “You know as well as anyone how unjust the outcomes can be at times.”
“I walked halfway across South America while pregnant with Nina and she turned out fairly normal” Kiki replied.
“You were extremely lucky” Berg said, “Do I need to remind you again of the consequences of ignoring your health, particularly when you are show symptoms as you apparently were during the months leading up to that?”
“No, you don’t” Kiki replied, though Berg just had. It was something that Berg had brought up often in the months since Nina had been born. She had said on prior occasions that it needed to be repeated often with someone who tended to be as pigheaded as Kiki could be.
“In an ideal world you would have gone to Bavaria this week to see your new nephew” Berg said, “Instead, you were there to help your sister through a situation that no parent should have to face. There is also one other thing for you to consider, in an ideal world you and Marie Cecilie can continue to dance between raindrops, as you out it, to your heart’s content.”
“Oh” Kiki replied as she poked at her lunch, and they sat there for a long moment in silence.
“I understand that Benjamin decided to come with you to Kiel?” Beg asked changing the subject.
“He told the University and the Luftwaffe that he was writing a book about his experiences in Korea and Argentina, and they are granting him a leave of absence to complete it” Kiki replied, “He said that made that excuse up on the spot because he is a bit worried about what I might get up to while we are apart. You know what happened the last time. The trouble is that he needs to produce a book now.”
“And normally you are the one painting yourself into a corner” Berg said, clearly amused. “This way you get to have him help out while you learn to handle ships, though you don’t really need to.”
“You sound like Zella” Kiki replied, “She asked me if I understood that there was a reason why a ship typically has a crew.”
“That is the general understanding” Berg said.
“It is about more than that though” Kiki said, “I like having the freedom that it gives me, the independence.”
“Here I was thinking that it was something that you did because it was fun” Berg replied, causing Kiki to pause for a few seconds.
“That too, I guess” Kiki said.