9.6.2014
I contacted Sir Sinclair this morning at my office in the Reichstag, and I explained to him that we were paid a visit by Herr Deimos and Herr Sanford, the two American operatives from Seal Team Six, and what we had discussed yesterday. So with this context, I informed him that I would be willing to negotiate terms for a joint naval exercise with both the British and German fleet personnel sometime in the future...preferably in the very near future. Thankfully, Sir Sinclair, being the understanding man that he appears to be, accepted my proposal, and we began to discuss the terms. After a few hours, we settled on our final terms.
We will send Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Lebe, Max, U, Libeccio, Littorio, and Roma at Rosyth Dockyard in northern Britain. There, they will join the British fleet personnel, and together, for two weeks, will train under the tutelage of their British counterparts, for they have had much more training and thus know quite a few things about naval warfare that our girls may benefit from learning. As Marco has permitted, Libeccio, Littorio, and Roma will only stay for a week before being flown back to Italy. I would have tried to negotiate for a longer period, and I'm sure Sir Sinclair would not have minded either, but it still stands to fact that these ship girls of ours are, in some respects, a national secret. Simply letting them travel out of the country, even if it is for a good reason like a valuable and much-needed training program, is a risk in itself. Besides, the Wunderwaffe team may have become upset with me had I agreed to a longer term, as much as I do understand their sentiments. Having them out of Germany for extended periods of time - nobody is particularly comfortable with the notion.
Then again, if I am to be of this mentality, I suppose I should have never felt all that comfortable with sending the girls to Japan either. At least we are only sending them across the channel to Britain. I wonder what I should have felt if I were to know that they would fly around the world.
I ran this across my husband, and he gave me his approval, and we officially informed the girls at home earlier this evening after work. Needless to say, the girls were quite happy and thrilled to know that they would finally get their hands on some proper training. Bismarck remarked that she would become a university professor faster than she would become a proper ship girl at this rate, and that particularly amused me and Gernot quite a lot. Roma expressed worries that they would not be able to get along well with the British, given that they were not allies during their own time. Understandable that Roma should be the one who mention this, as it is common knowledge that she and Bismarck tend to bump heads as frequently as Retia pokes me on my cheek whenever I carry her in my arms.
Understandably, Prinz Eugen expressed her concerns about how Gernot and I would be able to look after Retia in their absence. I believe this is a concern that has already been stated in this journal once, if not more than once, that I have become complacent with this new lifestyle with having the Wunderwaffe girls here looking after our daughter while we are at work, like having the world's best babysitters living at home with us for no pay. (Now I realize this wording sounds quite rude, but rude or not, it is essentially true.) Gernot and I will have to rearrange our schedule so that I can return home earlier from work to take care of Retia, or perhaps stay home a few days from work entirely. I even suggested that I could even bring Retia to work with me, an idea that while Gernot said that he was uncomfortable with, it may have to be done. We've grown so accustomed to having the ship girls look after and take care of Retia that no one else can fit the bill. Nobody else takes care of our daughter as well as they do; anyone else would strictly be a straight downgrade. And why would we do that? I suppose we could ask Khal to stop by, since Retia is familiar with and likes Khal, but he is a doctor, and his schedule is strict. Gernot said he'd call him after dinner, which he did, and as we'd thought, Khal could not oblige us.
Regardless, the confirmation of a joint naval exercise program with the British has got most of the ship girls quite excited. Bismarck could not seem to cease her proud soon-to-be exploits and achievements in this upcoming program, a side effect of her unbridled German spirit and ego, and Prinz Eugen, as expected, acted as her cheerleader. Libeccio, Lebe, and Max, the three destroyers, chatted animatedly about what kinds of British destroyers they would get to be friends with, a conversation that strikes me as quite strange, as they should have remembered the British as enemies in their past lives. Roma, as mentioned, entertained thoughts of doubt about this program, and Littorio worried mainly about the kind of food that they would have to sustain themselves on during their time there. Littorio has proven to be quite the connoisseur of fine dining - I should expect no less from an Italian who idolizes the perfection of the ideal cookery of pasta.
After dinner, U asked me for a bit of my time and inquired what her situation would be regarding her prototype weapons. Was she to receive them and train with them during her time in the program at Rosyth Dockyard, or were they too highly classified for her to take with her and train? It was a question I was not able to answer at the moment, so I said I would contact the H&K employees at that factory and the Wunderwaffe staff for advice on the proper classification levels. Should this beg my opinion, I would not allow U to take these pieces of equipment, purely based on the technologies on which U's new equipment is based. A vest that allows U to Cloak? A sniper rifle like that, the C-10? A weapon that fires any kind of modern firearm cartridge and turns invisible with her suit? Just the Cloaking features alone would make them the most classified military hardware in the nation, of any nation. Any Cloaking technology, period, is an extremely potent military advantage - something straight out of military science fiction, made a reality. I told U my thoughts, which made her understandably disappointed, but she said she would make do without them.
U-511 is a strange girl.
I remember when I first received her from the Wunderwaffe staff. She was a quiet, somber girl. She had the look of an old veteran soldier, like the face of one of the World War II veterans that I visited in my youth during my university days. It was not quite the so-called "thousand yard stare", but it was a face that was thoughtful, in a sort of melancholic manner. The philosopher's face, as I like to call it. The face of one who cannot help but to think about difficult things in life, to deplore and wonder why things must be the way they are. This kind of a face does not belong on a young Mädchen. Not on a girl this young.
U also simultaneously combines this kind of facade with the aura of some kind of pet. Perhaps it is only because of the image that she portrays with her submarine cap, the two metal flaps on either side of her head, all interconnected with each other to a small antenna that protrudes up into the air like a car antenna, but she looks like somebody who is suited to being petted like a dog. This is not to say that I think of U as a dog or a mere pet; she is obviously much more than that. But whatever the case, this image chillingly may suit her more than I think - a somber wolf, brought up from the graves of the former wolf packs of the sea, contemplating whether or not it is right and proper for her to return to the world once more to sink and kill.
This is just me putting words in her head; I have no idea if she actually does think about things like this.
But as with the other girls, the months in which I have spent with U have proved otherwise. While quietness, reservedness, and shyness are all core virtues of U, she is not the war-torn veteran that I thought she may have been built to mimic. She has shown no signs of behavior that a traumatized soldier would exude; she is merely the type to prefer spending her free time by a window, looking out at the gardens or napping on the couch with Retia.
What gets to me personally is U's eccentric behavior. Perhaps she is only doing this because of her identity as a submarine, but every day, when I am cooking dinner in our kitchen, I would turn around at least once to cut vegetables or sprinkle spices on the central kitchen counter and spy the top half of U's head staring at whatever it is that I am making. The first time this happened, I was taken by surprise, and I froze, lost for words and not knowing how to react. And as I watched, U slowly sunk back down beneath the kitchen counter out of view and slunk away like a stealthy cat. She would do this every single time I cook, and this is a habit that she still indulges to this day, though I have gotten used to her presence and do not mind her lurking in the kitchen, watching my every move. Perhaps it is that she wishes to learn how to cook, and I even put this across her, saying that Prinz Eugen or Lebe or Max would be quite willing to teach her how to cook if she was too nervous to learn from me, but U only gave me a simple head nod, and I have never seen her cook anything. She just watches me cook, and nobody else. Very strange - harmless, but strange.
Even without that cropped Cloaking jacket that she received the other day at the factory, U is a ghost. It is as though she is a subconscious being, lurking in the shadows like a netherworldian being and disappearing like spirit randomly throughout the day. When we are all sitting together eating or socializing or doing some kind of family activity together, U always seems to be that one girl who disappears and reappears without anyone noticing. And if anyone ever does notice, it is guaranteed that within three minutes, she will suddenly appear by our side again as though she had never gone anywhere. Where she would wander to and why she would wander about, nobody knows. I tried asking her this myself, but U did not give me a reply. She simply shrugged.
Of all the people in the Wedekind household, only our daughter, Retia, seems to be able to understand the enigma that is U. Their interactions are...well, how should I describe this, interesting. One vivid example that I recall with perfect memory is one Saturday morning when I was sitting with Retia and U on the couch in the living room. U began to tilt her head to the left at Retia, and Retia responded by tilting her head to the right, mimicking U. U then raised a finger and traced the letter U in the air in front of Retia, and Retia responded by doing the same, but with the letter R. Then U started to clap her hands together softly, and Retia began to slap her own hands together too. That was the extent of their...conversation.
I suppose you cannot expect normality of a girl who is content with being called a letter of the alphabet.