Chapter Two Thousand Seven Hundred Fourteen
2nd September 1978
Lake Starnberg, near Pöcking, Bavaria
The house on the shores of Lake Starnberg was pleasant. There was a reason why Kiki’s Aunt Alexandrine Irine, called Adini by her family, had lived here for years. She always liked this place and the house reflected how her family wanted her to live in an accommodation that benefited her station.
“Thank you Kiki” Alexandrine Irine, or just Adini to her family, said with a smile as she looked at the photographs of Ferdinand and Jerrik. Ria’s two little boys.
She was tickled that Ria had named one of her twin sons for her older brother, and Kiki’s father, Louis Ferdinand, who made certain to visit Adini regularly. Kiki knew that these photographs would join hundreds of other pictures of her on the walls of the suite of rooms in this house that Adini lived in. Kiki knew that largely because of Adini’s congenital health problems had made basically impossible for her to have a family of her own. Still, she had taken an interest in the children of her bothers and sisters and their children in turn.
“Nina and Louis” Adini asked with an expectant look on her face. “Irine?”
It was a reminder that despite everything else, Adini had only ever reached the development of a child.
Kiki had considered bringing her two oldest but had thought better of it. At six months of age, Irine was best left at home today as well. While Nina and Louis were now old enough to have questions and opinions, leaving them in the care of Ben, Fianna and Vũ Mai was better than how they reacted when they traveled. They were usually good for the first fifteen minutes, then the boredom and impatience took over. Irine was a baby and because of that was very vocal about not liking changes in her situation. In a few months they were going to Argentina and Kiki was not looking forward to having them on the sixteen-hour flight. Mai was a recent addition to Kiki’s staff. As her family had grown larger, Kiki had figured that three small children were becoming too much for Fianna to handle. Even with additional help it was a good thing that Kiki and Ben had decided that they needed to take steps to make sure that they wouldn’t have any more.
Finding someone with the right qualifications who wouldn’t object to an open-ended stay in Argentina in the near future had proven to be a challenge. Mai, a middle-aged widow whose husband had died of lung cancer a year earlier had said that she had been looking for a change in scenery anyway, the further from her adult children the better. She said that they needed to learn some self-sufficiency before they drove her insane. Kiki was aware that Mai had already completely uprooted her entire life once when she had left Vietnam decades ago for Hamburg. Argentina would just be one more adventure.
“They couldn’t make it” Kiki replied, “Nina has school on Monday, and we would like Lutz to make some human friends as opposed to the dog, so he is going to the day care center in Balderschwang.”
Adini gave Kiki another smile. She had met Arno in the past.
When Kiki had gotten Arno she had been warned about the trouble that would come from having dog that was of a working breed. As it had turned out, between Nina and Louis Bernhard running all over the property that Kiki’s house was on with him, and Arno becoming a very willing partner in crime as it were, it became a question of him having to keep up.
The thought of Arno reminded Kiki of how there was a serious question as to what to do with him. Nina had thrown Kiki’s own words back at her, about how Arno was a part of their family, and you cannot just leave a member of their family behind just because they were inconvenient. While it was nice that Nina had listened for once, the amount of red tape involved in bringing Arno with them to Argentina was a rather large complication.
“Other boys” Adini said as she looked at the photographs of her newest grandnephews.
With a sigh, Kiki considered the actual reason why she had been asked to come here today. Her father had asked her to check on Adini. It was entirely understandable. The house’s staff included a Doctor who Kiki had spoken with before visiting with her Aunt and he had told her all about how Adini was getting the very best of care, but she needed to understand the reality of situation. Namely that Down’s Syndrome came with a host of problems. At the age of sixty-three, Adini had already exceeded the typical lifespan of someone with that condition and Kiki’s father needed to accept that. It was nice that he had just told her the truth, knowing that was all she really wanted. Of course, it was probably in the back of his mind that she far outranked him socially and probably in the Medical Service as well if he were a part of that. If he had tried to snow her then it was very likely that he would become the next Medical Officer at Wilhelm Station in Antarctica or a weather station that the OKW leased from the Danish Government in Greenland.
Looking at Adini and how happy she was looking at the photographs from Ria, Kiki figured that getting new pictures of her own children would probably be a good idea.