Oswiecim, Poland, 1942
"Gretel get back here!"
Claudia's angry voice wafted through the manor as she appeared on the top of the stairs. She saw the tail ends of her younger sister's dress as she ran into the kitchen to no doubt go hide behind their mother's skirts, safely protected from her older sister's volcanic rage.
Angrily, Claudia descended the stairs and marched into the kitchen, her scarlet red pumps clacking on the tiled floor, her long, dark chocolate brown hair flowing behind her like a dark storm cloud.
Her mother's back was to her oldest daughter when she entered the kitchen, and Gretel squeaked in fright when she saw her older sister standing in the doorway shooting her looks of daggers from the threshold. Elsa had a look of alarm on her pretty face as she regarded her oldest daughter. "Claudia? What is this about?"
Claudia pointed threateningly at Gretel and opened her mouth to say something but soon closed it at a temporary loss for words. Finally, she found her voice. "That little . . . brat overheard my conversation with Nicholaus before he left!" Their mother turned around and glanced at Gretel before she turned back around to gaze at her oldest daughter.
"What is so wrong about Gretel overhearing a conversation between you and Nicholaus, Claudia?" She asked her daughter and Claudia's head rose pridefully as she crossed her arms in front of her breasts. While Gretel and Bruno took after their meek mother, Claudia was well known for taking a lot of her father's strong, dominate traits. She was cold and indifferent most of the time, had the temper of a raging bull and could be as stubborn as an ass, the atypical German. The only thing she didn't agree with her father on was her father's views on the Jews.
Blush tinged Claudia's cheeks lightly as she prepared to answer her mother's question. Her current boyfriend was Nicholaus Reinhardt, the Korvettenoberstleutnant of the Nazi army. In English, he was the Lieutenant Colonel of the German Naval Forces, a prestigious title and career.
Claudia had met the young man at the University of Berlin, where she was studying to be a psychiatrist. She brought him home for the Fall holidays one week, which proved to be one of the worst mistakes Claudia had ever made. She never intended for her relationship with Nicholaus to go anywhere other than a one-time fling with the occasional bout of sex thrown in there for good measure, but once they returned to the University, she was almost immediately bombarded with letters from her father telling her how much the family loved Nicholaus and how she should bring him home for the upcoming Christmas holidays. Of course, Claudia should not have been surprised. She was well-known within the high ranking officers of the Nazi army and the Gestapo both, of being a woman whose beauty rivaled that of Eva Braun and whose temper matched that of spitting Egyptian cobra. She had dated countless young up and coming officers, then left them with their heads spinning in the dust when another young officer of higher rank caught her eye. When Claudia brought Nicholaus home, Elsa and Ralf were overjoyed and relived. It seemed like their daughter was finally starting to calm down and Nicholaus was everything that her parents – especially her father – desired in a husband for Claudia. Wickedly handsome, fiercely intelligent, young, and vehemently loyal to the Fatherland, he was dark-haired haired and blue eyed; he was an unfairly charming Devil in a well-tailored uniform.
"It was a . . . it was a personal conversation out in the Garden. She threatened to tell you about it." Claudia admitted her eyes flashing dangerously as she put emphasis on the word 'threatening'. A look of dawning recognition appeared of Elsa's face and she turned around and gazed at her youngest daughter in disbelief.
"Gretel, you know better than to listen in on other people's conversations, especially conversations of that nature! It's very rude! And you especially don't go around telling people about them!" Elsa lectured her and Gretel averted her eyes to the tiles, blush tingeing her cheeks. It was constantly Elsa's job – not Ralf – to lecture Gretel when a fight broke out between their two daughters. Claudia was Ralf's blatant favorite as the child that was most like him than any other, and as such, Claudia could do no wrong in his book. Hell, to Ralf, Claudia hung the moon and made the stars to match. Even if a fight broke out between them, verbal or physical, it was always Gretel's fault, never Claudia's, even if she was the one who started it. It irked Gretel to no end and clawed relentlessly on Elsa's nerves sometimes.
Elsa smiled a tight smile at her youngest daughter before she patted the young girl on the back. "Now go up to your room and play. I have to talk to Claudia alone." Gretel nodded before she walked past her mother and older sister and left the room. They heard her clomp up the stairs a few seconds later and Elsa leaned on the counter, her back to her oldest daughter. When she turned around, Claudia could tell that her mother was desperately trying to hold back her anger.
"Claudia . . . I love you, God knows I do, but you have got to stop this!" She told her firmly, her hand slamming down on the wooden counter-top. "You do this every time you come back from the University and quite frankly, I'm sick of it! Ralf may think that you can do no wrong and that you hung the bloody moon, but quite obviously, I can see differently!" Claudia crossed her arms in front of her chest again.
"Well then maybe you should teach Gretel some manners." Elsa's mouth opened and closed in a loss for words.
"Claudia! Gretel does have manners! But if you weren't talking to Nicholaus about . . . that, then maybe Gretel wouldn't have reacted like the way she did!"
Claudia adopted a look of fury on her beautiful face. "What I and Nicholaus talk about is none of your business mother –"
"You are my daughter –!"
"Who is also an adult in University!" Elsa closed her mouth at those words, and Claudia calmed down slightly. "And maybe I'm not the one who you should having the sex talk with, mother." Elsa gazed at her in alarm.
"What do you mean?"
"I hear that one of father's subordinates arrived here a couple of days ago, one of father's young subordinates."
"Claudia, I don't know –"
"Mother actually use your brain for once! Gretel is just now hitting the age where her body develops the . . . desires . . ." Claudia trailed off and Elsa's eyes widened with a mixture between horror and disbelief that her daughter would bring this topic of conversation up.
"Claudia, don't talk like that! Gretel would never –!"
"Mother, please!" Claudia laughed, her eyes sparkling with callousness. "This officer is about eighteen or nineteen, I think is what father told me and believe me when I say that I'm around his kind all the time at the University. I know how they think and if Gretel develops girlish feelings for this officer based on the purely instinctual desires that her mind makes her believe are real, this young officer is not going to think of her in any way but a juvenile, easily misled cunt." The look of horror on Elsa's face was one that one gets when they first saw a murder occur before them.
"She wouldn't . . . Gretel, she . . ." Claudia's anger dissolved and sympathy for her mother replaced that anger.
"Believe me when I say I speak the truth mother. I told you this simply because I do love Gretel and I don't want her to get hurt," Claudia looked down at the tiled floor for a moment, before she turned her eyes back onto her mother, who was looking like she was going to be sick any moment now. Claudia rolled her eyes as she immediately crossed the room to her easily made sick mother. "Oh Jesus, come here mother, let's get you over to the sink . . ." Claudia crossed the floor and put her arm around her mother, where she led her over to the sink. Elsa put her hands on the rim, but did not vomit.
"Claudia . . . will that really happen?" She asked her daughter timidly and Claudia sighed.
"It might. Of course, there are some boys that do not think like that, but for every one of those, there are five that don't! Not-to-mention, Gretel is . . . young and ignorant. It would be easy." Elsa let out a sob as she put her hand to her mouth and nodded.
"Okay. I will talk to your father about it." Claudia smiled a small smile.
"I have to go do something; will you be fine on your own?" Elsa nodded and Claudia patted her mother on the back before she left the kitchen and walked down the hallway towards the front door, picking a book up from a nearby night-stand as she walked. She was going to the front courtyard in order to get some reading done for her Early Civilizations class at the University. Maybe Bruno would be there to keep her company.
She opened the two front doors and squinted in the bright sunlight, her hand moving to shield her eyes for a moment. Her eyes moved over to the tire swing tied to a tree beside the stone wall, unoccupied. Claudia sighed. Bruno was around here somewhere, but unfortunately, that somewhere was not here at the moment.
The doors swung gently closed behind her and Claudia descended the marble steps to the stone walk, her heels clacking loudly against the stone. The normal guard was standing at attention in front of the fence, the German Shepard sitting patiently at his side, panting. It was going to be another lazy, uneventful day.
A flash of wheat caught her eye and she turned to gaze in the direction the flash of color came from. Leaning against the family car on the other side of the courtyard, was a tall, handsome officer with wheat gold hair. The flash of color came from the sun beaming down on said hair. Could this be the new soldier that was the subject of her and her mother's heated conversation not a mere five minutes ago?
Claudia stopped a couple of feet away from the steps leading to the front door and just gazed at him for a moment. He was polishing his gold pocket-watch, making it shine even brighter in the early morning sun. Claudia held the book in front of her and her head rose again in pride as she put on her most imperious Commander's-Daughter, front.
"You leaning up against the car there!" When he didn't answer, her lips pursed in slight anger and impatience. "Soldier, I'm talking to you!" The man immediately looked up at her at this and Claudia saw that he had the most gorgeous blue eyes she had ever seen. She was temporary speechless but quickly regained her footing.
"What are you doing?"
He gestured to the pocket-watch sitting in his hand. "I am polishing my watch, madam." He told her in the most respectful 'duh' sounding voice and Claudia nodded.
"Yes, I can see that. Why aren't you working?"
A look of amusement appeared in his eyes then. "Are you going to town today?" A look of confusion appeared in Claudia's eyes.
"No I am not . . . why?"
"Then I guess I have no work to do. I'm the driver." He gestured to the car behind him with a flick of his head and a look of fury split across Claudia's eyes. The impudent . . .
"D-Do you know who you are addressing?" She asked him, her fury barely contained and he nodded, performing a flamboyant bow.
"Ja, you are the daughter of der Commander." Claudia nodded.
"Yes, I am. Do you know what I could say to my father about you –?"
"What would you say to him, lieben?" He interrupted her in amusement and Claudia swallowed.
"Your impudence –"
The Soldier laughed heartily at that, successfully interrupting her for a second time. "I'm sorry lieben, but if you think I am being impudent, I hate to see what kind of men you affiliate yourself with!" Claudia was seething with rage by this point of their conversation.
"What is your name, Soldier?" She demanded angrily and the Soldier grinned as he performed another flamboyant bow.
"Lieutenant Kurt Kotler at your service, lieben –"
"Stop calling me that!" She yelled at him, her hands balling into fists at her sides and her eyes closing in anger. "I am not your lieben, nor will I ever be!" Kurt adopted a look of intense pain on his face and clutched at his chest dramatically, right where his heart was located.
"Oh, then you have broken my heart fraulein!" He exclaimed theatrically, replacing one term of endearment for another and Claudia growled inwardly.
"Ugh!" She threw her hands up in the air in frustration before she twirled around and marched back up the stairs to the front door. She grabbed the door handle and turned around to glance at him. His blue eyes twinkled in the light as well as his hair. Whatever then, Gretel could have this cocky, impudent soldier. Right now, Claudia didn't care. Claudia though vaguely of Nicholaus, with his pride and dark good looks and noble bearing, as well as a keen intelligence and a maturity that this soldier didn't seem to have.
She roughly pushed one of the doors open before she slammed it back so hard, the colored panes in both doors rattled gently. Kurt Kotler chuckled lightly to himself as he went back to polishing his watch.
Kurt Kotler's POV
He was captivated by her.
Claudia Tischler was gorgeous; her father's descriptions of her hardly did her beauty justice, however. She was also erratic and when she would get angry, such a beautiful flush would appear on her face and a stormy look would appear in her eyes that would betray her anger, no matter how hard she tried to mask it. It made her look even more gorgeous, even more deadly and that's what Kurt liked about her . . . her anger.
He couldn't help but think what a wonderful partner she would be in bed. She would be angry and defiant, but when she would succumb . . . the whole world would shake and tremble in their wake.