Gerti Kruger waved to her brown skinned boyfriend from the back door. He waved back, with a broad grin. They would eat and dance at Club 48, and later go back to her place to make love. Her landlady was happy to close both eyes in return for a packet of Lucky Strikes.
Gerti was looking forward to the evening, and she wasn't going to let even Ziesel the garbage truck driver spoil it for her. Ziesel came in just before the dry cleaners' closed, to collect the empty chemicals containers. Sergeant Chang had lined them up ready.
'Get a move on, do, we're about to close.'
'Oh, so the lady can't wait to see what her black stallion's going to stick into her.'
'My Washington at least has something to offer a woman. Unlike you, you feeble wimp. Can't even get your little finger up!'
'When we get to have a say in things again, you'll be the first we shave bald, you Yankee whore.'
Gerti laughed out loud. 'You're too stupid even to shave a head. You see to your garbage bins, they're brimming over.'
'Cunt. Yankee tart,' muttered Ziesel as he went out. 'Good evening, sergeant,' he ingratiatingly greeted the American.
Washington Roberts watched Ziesel lift several empty bins off the truck and heave the full ones up on it. The sergeant's eyes widened. A slender white hand was hanging out from under the lid of one of the containers.
The black Packard limousine drove down Unter den Eichen with its blue light flashing, a corporal from the Women's Army Corps at the wheel. The US city commandant was in a hurry. He sat in the back with his face set like stone, trying to digest the news that had reached him a quarter of an hour earlier.
The sentry at the entrance to the military hospital saluted. The limousine stopped outside the main building. A captain of the US Medical Corps was waiting for the general. 'May I lead the way, sir?'
'Please, doctor.' General Henry C. Abbot followed the doctor down a narrow flight of steps. The bright neon lights of the mortuary met them.
Several uniformed men were gathered around an autopsy table in the background. Colonel Tucker moved away from the group. 'I hope it was right to let you know, sir.'
'Of course. Don't talk nonsense.'
'This is Captain John Ashburner of the Military Police, sir,' Tucker introduced the man. Ashburner saluted. Abbot offered his hand. Tucker indicated the head of the German-American Employment Office. And you know Mr Chalford.'
The general nodded. 'Hello, Curtis.'
Curtis S. Chalford passed one hand awkwardly over his thin fair hair. His rosy face with its pale-blue eyes was distressed. He was clearly at a loss. He cleared his throat. 'They called me because they could tell at once that she was a German employed by the army. Of course I immediately knew who she was. I'm very sorry, general.'
The city commandant bent over the marble slab. They were all silent. The dead woman had been covered up to her chin with a white sheet. Her regular features, surrounded by blonde hair, looked calm and grave. Captain Ashburner broke the silence. 'General Abbot, I have to ask you formally: Did you know this woman?'
Henry C. Abbot silently bowed his head. It was both confirmation and a last goodbye.
HENRIETTE
'DETTA!' SHIMMERING SUNLIGHT filters through the branches of the old trees, falling like a cap of invisibility on the blonde hair of the girl in the grass. 'Detta!' The girl ducks down even further into the long grass. 'Time to get changed, Detta!' Get changed? Why? What's wrong with her tartan blouse and jodhpurs?
'Detta!' The voice is dangerously close. The girl picks up one of last year's fir cones and flings it into the bushes in a high arc. The sound will lure Adelheid the wrong way. Detta doesn't want to get changed. Getting changed will mean a bath, nothing wrong with that, but a bath will inevitably be followed by hair brushing, quick and hard, and the stupid frilly dress that makes her look like a twelve-year-old even though she's fourteen.
Anyway, why all this fuss? Just because visitors are coming from Potsdam? 'Important visitors,' as Adelheid puts it, pursing her lips elegantly. Detta carefully peers above the grass. The governess has turned her back. A good opportunity to disappear among the rhododendrons — three strides will do it — and run to the stables. If she saddles Henry quickly enough she can be off long before Adelheid appears.
Oh, how stupid: Adelheid is already standing by the horsebox, patting Henry. There's no getting past her. Or is there? Hans-Georg suddenly appears and starts talking to the governess, leads her away from the stable. Her brother is sixteen, but his smooth, dark head of hair makes him seem older. How good he looks. He turns briefly, gives her a conspiratorial grin, and leads Adelheid a little further away. Detta quietly opens the door of the box. No time to saddle the horse. She quickly gets the snaffle on Henry and mounts him bareback. Duck her head at the door, dig her heels in outside, and off they gallop. No, not along the gravel drive. Hans-Georg and Adelheid are walking there, but straight ahead into the trees.
The gate at the end of the park is child's play for Henry, they've jumped it dozens of times, but you can easily lose your seat without a saddle, particularly when Henry jams on the brakes instead of jumping. Detta sails solo over the bars, rolls over as she comes down, and finds herself sitting in the meadow, surprised. Henry turns and trots briskly home. 'You beast!' she hisses after him, and sets off on the long walk back, slightly dazed and with a triangular tear in her jodhpurs over her left thigh.
A red-striped marquee has been put up behind the house. It's crowded with people. Detta hopes to get past, but Bensing has seen her. Bensing, clad not as usual in shirtsleeves and an apron but in dark-blue livery with gilt buttons, takes a deep breath, thrusts out his chest and trumpets: `Henriette Sophie Charlotte, Baroness von Aichborn.'
Father is suddenly beside her. As Bensing is announcing the next guest, he steers her through the throng towards a slender gentleman in tweed. 'Imperial Highness, may I present my daughter Henriette?"
Detta bobs a half-curtsey. Adelheid has practised it with her, and has taught her that a full curtsey is due only to the Kaiser; the Crown Prince gets a half-curtsey, even if he isn't really a Crown Prince any more and nor, in the tenth year of the Weimar Republic, is the Kaiser a Kaiser.
, my dear Aichborn, what a splendid young lady.' An appraising glance at the firm, girlish thigh showing through the tear. His Imperial Highness likes them young.
A little riding accident. I hope your Highness will excuse us.' Mother removes Detta from the danger zone. 'You'll be confined to your room for a week.' she says sternly. 'Hans-Georg will bring you your meals.'
'Yes, Mother.' The fourteen-year-old smiles to herself. That won't be so bad, not if Hans-Georg can visit her.
The gong summons the family to breakfast: bacon and eggs, kidneys, grilled sausages, tomatoes and toast. This is 'English morning' at Schloss Aichborn. Miss Imogen Thistlethwaite, the English governess from Somerset. makes the two younger siblings sit down at the table. 'Fritz, sit still. Viktoria, put your hands on your lap and straighten your back.'
Ah. Bratwiirstchen,' says the Baron with pleasure when he sees the sausages.
'Speak English, darling,' his wife reminds him.
'I bet none of you know what Haferbrei is in English,' Hans-Georg challenges the company. Detta looks affectionately at her big brother. He looks fabulous. He's a senior officer cadet, and home on leave. Now that Germany has a proper army again, not just a ridiculous force of a hundred thousand men by kind permission of the entente, he has a whole career laid out ahead of him. Of course he will join the traditional Aichborn regiment, the Ninth Cavalry in Potsdam, known popularly as the 'von Neun' because so many of its blue-blooded members' names contain the aristocratic von.