Chapter Four Hundred Eighty-Seven
19th August 1945
Saint Petersburg, Russia
The meal following the burial was a lowkey affair as these things went. At this point it meant different things to different people. For Gianna it was only about her continued survival and saying goodbye to her parents. The need for the former had outweighed the latter until now. For Georgy it was about putting the memory of his problematic predecessor safely into the history books. It was after dinner when a couple promised meetings took place. The whole world knew that Jehane Thomas was still alive. That she had emerged from hiding when the Soviet Union had gone away, and Stalin was arrested. However, no one knew what she looked like and few had ever made the connection between Jehane Thomas and Gianna Strobel It was a deliberate decision on the part of Kira and Kat. One that Gianna was sincerely thankful for, she didn’t want Kira’s life. That did leave her as the heir to the Russian throne, her hope was that Georgy would have an extremely long life and a dozen children, so she would never be within screaming distance of being Czarina.
“Lydie, this is my cousin Jehane” Georgy said to Lydie Sauveterre. The Frenchwoman had been Georgy’s love for some time, but war and his sudden elevation had ruined their plans. Now they were making other plans but Lydie looked like she was still trying to adjust. Gianna looked around at who was present, Georgy’s mother, Gianna’s Great Aunts Olga and Xenia along with their families. A rather motley bunch speaking with different accents because they had been scattered across Europe and in Gianna case spent much of her life in Canada. She found that she couldn’t help but not think of these people as her family. Her actual family was waiting for her to return to Berlin.
“George said that you look a lot like his Aunt Alexandra” Lydie said. Gianna remembered her grandmother, she had died shortly after her Uncle Alexei and grandfather had died in 1936. Gianna realized with a bit of guilt that she couldn’t remember what her grandmother looked like, just a vague memory of a woman prematurely aged by years of fear, loss and hardship.
“Thank you” Gianna replied, and she waited for Lydie to say something else. After a long uncomfortable moment Lydie went to talk with Xenia. Gianna let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding. As if she needed more proof that she wasn’t a part of this world.
It was the meeting with Victor Lamar went better. The Superintendent was who father had worked directly for. He had not been present when the massacre had happened but that hadn’t stopped him from blaming himself.
“I feel like I owe you an apology” Lamar had said to her “The safety of your family was my responsibility and you know how that turned out.”
“Your men were overwhelmed” Gianna said, “Superior numbers, and weapons, all of that.”
Lamar had been surprised by that. Kat had arranged for a copy of the official report to be delivered to Kira and had gotten Gianna access to it when asked. It had stated firmly that other than what Gianna’s mother had done by pushing her out the back there was simply not enough time to do more.
“Regardless” Lamar said, “I’m sorry that we couldn’t present this to you at the cathedral” And he had handed her the folded red Canadian Ensign.
Now Gianna just wished that she could go home.
20th August 1945
In transit, Russia
Back to Germany via Moscow. It might have seemed counterintuitive to do it that way. But it was actually faster than trying to get back through the Baltics. That was not even considering the diplomatic aspect of this trip, if that weren’t a factor they could have come by ship which wouldn’t have had nearly the number of security concerns. Instead they were going down railroad lines that had run through war zones less than a year earlier. Whenever Kat looked out through the steel louvers that covered the windows of the train “What’s the worst that could happen?” echoed sarcastically through her mind. At least the train was a rolling fortress, Kat’s hope was that it wouldn’t be necessary. But every kilometer they rolled through Russia filled her with anxiety.
Kat was seriously regretting asking Georgy if the Order of Saint Catherine could be returned. He had suggested that other things might be coming when he had declined to do that. She had left the SKA with fifteen individual awards from the war, monuments to her various attempts at self-immolation. A factor that no one seemed to understand aside from Doctor Holz.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gerta was serendipitously watching Kat from across the train car. She had watched her friends over the last year, how they pursued their respective relationships. Kat’s extreme caution and Helene’s bold leaps. For her whole life Gerta had thought that much of the messages of society were so much drivel. The whole romantic love thing, her mother had told her that all relationships were transactional at best, based mostly on lust. Growing up almost all of the men she had encountered had been terrified of her father. When she had gotten seriously into acting she had frequently marveled at how stupid the women she played tended to act. How was that acceptable? Then there was how she had behaved when she had seen Kurt with the English Princess. She had behaved just like one of the petty jealous women who she had played which had left her confused.
