“The breast, Papa. May I have the breast piece please?”
“Yes, yes, child. Didn’t they feed you at that expensive school?”
Gabi watched her father carve the bird and place a generous portion of breast on her plate.
“Not so much, Papa. I have to watch my figure.”
The general raised a brow at his blossoming daughter. “Figure? I’ve seen more meat on a toothpick. I expect you to finish it all.”
He enjoyed a cognac with dessert, laughter lining his face as his daughter amused him with her endless chatter. When Gabi had run out of dialogue, which took some time, an unfamiliar serenity came over the room and the general was finally given the opportunity to speak.
“So, what are we to do with you?” He drew on a long cigar and blew the cloud high so it dispersed quickly to avoid any complaint from Gabi.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you can’t sit around here all day. You’ll drive this household insane with your constant prattle.” The general pulled out a pamphlet from the Nazi League of German Girls. “Here, read this.”
Having been educated in England for most of her life, Gabi had avoided compulsory membership to this organisation and read the booklet with an interest that quickly turned to mockery.
“Papa, I don’t believe what I’m reading. Is this a joke? It’s hilarious.”
The general shrugged, having not read the pamphlet himself, and gave his daughter a bemused look. “What’s so funny?”
“According to this, the ideal German woman doesn’t work, wear trousers, make-up or high-heeled shoes. She mustn’t get her hair coloured or permed, and she shouldn’t be too skinny. I guess they just want women to cook, clean and pop out babies.”
Although he knew this to be true, the general grinned at the absurdity of these regulations. “I wouldn’t worry about them too much. Do you want to join the Helferinnen war effort?” he continued. “You could learn communications or mapping. They’ll need nurses too.”
But Gabi had other plans. She pulled a pamphlet from her pocket and pretended to read. “Well, actually, I’ve got an application form from the flight academy in Fürstenfeldbruck. They’re looking for aeronautical engineering students.”
The general cast a cynical eye over his scheming daughter. “Since when have you been interested in engineering? I thought you wanted to learn to fly?”
“Doesn’t Onkel Albert say that a good pilot should know what keeps his plane in the air?”
“But Gabi, Fürstenfeldbruck is so far away. Surely, there is a training base closer to home?”
“Papa, it’s the best Luftwaffe training school in Germany!”
Seemingly unimpressed, he waved a hand to dismiss her latest caper altogether. “I’m sure they don’t accept females.”
Sensing defeat, Gabi stubbornly maintained her attack. “But if they do?”
The general heaved a sigh. “Why must we argue over everything?”
“But, Papa, what harm is there in trying?” She fluttered her eyelids and smiled so broadly that her cheekbones ballooned, a ploy that rarely failed.
“Well, all right then. Go ahead—but I think you’re wasting your time.”
The next morning, Gabi sat at her father’s desk, arching her shoulders and choking the pencil into submission, like an unwilling accomplice in an act of deceit. She wrote her name as Gabriel Richter. Gabriele… Gabriel… it was only a little lie, one that might easily be excused as a spelling faux pas, a mere oversight. Was she being sneaky? Absolutely, but how else was she to get in? No one would take a seventeen-year-old girl seriously as an engineer, she was certain of it. But if they thought that she was a male and accepted her application, she would be given the opportunity to prove herself every bit as capable as any male applicant, even more so.
She looked up at the ominous portrait of her grandparents on its lofty perch above the mantelpiece. Her Oma sat on a gothic style chair with an austere expression; her Opa’s image no better, his eyes glaring down at her with a stern look of judgement in keeping with their family name, which meant ‘judge’.
She had never known her grandfather, who had passed away not long after the first war, falling ill with tuberculosis and never recovering. Her grandmother died when Gabi was five, leaving Gabi with only vague memories of her Oma, sadly, none of them fond. And so it was that Gabi never really knew either grandparent and going by their aloof portrait expressions, she suspected that it was for the best.
She sealed and addressed the envelope and headed outside where Helmut was de-linting some coats, brushing them with obsessive vigour. He took his role as head butler earnestly and was often compulsive when it came to order and cleanliness, spending hours fussing over her father’s military tunic, polishing each button to a glint, or cataloguing and reorganising the wine cellar so that every bottle was sorted by variety, region and vintage. But he would always drop whatever he was doing to attend to Gabi’s needs first, making her welfare his highest priority.
She waved at the tall, gawky man whose stern expression seemed all the more exaggerated by the strong magnification of his spectacles.
“Good morning, Helmut.”
“And a good morning to you.” He placed the coat he had been thrashing onto a pile. “Is there something I can do for you?”
Gabi pulled the envelope from her tunic pocket. “Could I trouble you to post this letter for me the next time you go to the post office?”
He raised a wiry eyebrow, and Gabi felt compelled to explain further.
“It’s my application to Fürstenfeldbruck.”
Helmut pouted his meagre lips. It was a mannerism that Gabi knew well; Helmut was not happy.
“I know that I probably won’t be accepted, but there’s no harm in trying,” she proffered, hoping to appease his obvious disapproval.
His puckered face retracted and he reached for the envelope. “I’ll go this afternoon.”
October 1939
The sun broke through the dawn haze casting rays of gold across a glistening countryside. The season was autumn and soon the lush leaves of summer would fall and cloak the land in readiness for the frost. Gabi took a deep breath and exhaled, the steamy particles rising and vanishing into the air like an apparition. What a perfect morning for a ride.
She saddled Spitz, her stallion, named after his pointed ears that twitched with nervous energy. Purchased from the most reputable stud in Prussia, the horse was of the finest pedigree and her father made no secret of the fortune he had paid to acquire the beast. She mounted Spitz and trotted out to a field that rose gently up a hill crowned by a grand oak. Like an old friend, the tree and Gabi shared an affinity for a time that was simple and carefree, when climbing fearlessly to the highest limb to catch a glimpse of Castle Albrectsburg and the Cathedral in the nearby township of Meissen seemed like the greatest achievement of all.
One firm jab and they bolted from the yard, the stallion’s powerful legs surging across the clover, Gabi’s lean body moving in unison as if they were one. She was an experienced rider with a yearning for speed that was perfectly matched to that of her spirited steed. She urged the horse on, tightening her legs around its powerful girth and immediately feeling his longer strides, beads of sweat seeping down and staining his neck that shimmered like oil in the sun.
They reached the oak and Gabi pulled back at the reins, Spitz rearing up on his hind legs in protest. “Good boy,” she said, her heart still galloping to a frenetic pace that settled with each deep breath.