by Cara Charles
Below her hilltop chateau, Mavra’s own snow covered mountain valley in Three Valleys, France played a visual symphony for her. The notes and phrases of harmony and melody communicated in wind and weather, season and spell, clouds and color.
In the distance, the spreading band of pink on the horizon was pushing away the gray of night and snow, a poetry that usually took her breath away. The only thing in the world Mavra respected was the authority of Mother Nature.
She had had thirty-foot high windows built to take in the uninterrupted drama this view performed for her, season after season. Now the beauty was lost on her. She wasn’t enjoying her snow globe world.
The fire in the massive marble fireplace crackled and spat and echoed off the walls.
Losing Valentina had made her sad. Being sad took her out of her head and back into her heart, a place she hated. She didn’t want to feel… anything, except D.
She taken pills to make her sleep and still wasn’t sleeping well. Mental and physical fatigue and pain were forcing her to remember she had casually watched her grandfather Ivan Kimirov die in his Park Avenue penthouse bedroom. Little did Ivan Kimirov know while he was sleeping, she stood over him for several hours watching, waiting for his breathing to stop while she read her Italian Vogue.
But so like him, he’d graciously slipped away, somewhere between the Ralph Lauren and Armani Spring collections.
When Mavra had hatched the plan to kill her family five years ago, nothing could have stopped her. Not the scream of conscience, not the fear of discovery, or a life spent in a damp European prison, and not a lifetime of loneliness.
Transforming herself into a boy to buy Ipecac was fun. Mavra as the boy, had gone to the university library to learn how to build a time bomb. She’d hidden in the stacks, only took notes, never asked for help, and never checked out a book. She’d been careful to stay off the internet and anonymously male.
Months later, she’d brought the bomb aboard the family’s brand new Boeing Business class jet in her cosmetic bag. She’d soaked gum in Ipecac, timed her customary gum chewing for equalizing her ears perfectly, and started vomiting right away.
She’d overeaten so she’d make a mess near her mother, heightening the disgusting quotient. They weren’t too far out onto the taxiway, when her mother asked the pilots to turn back to the hanger, so someone could clean the carpet. Mavra hoped her mother wouldn’t insist on taking another plane. Her mother had agreed to let her get out of the yearly family outing to the Seychelles.
“The servants will take care of me,” Mavra assured her parents.
The ground crew assured her mother they’d have the carpet sweet smelling soon.
And in twenty minutes, they succeeded. Being sick in the tropics would spoil their good time, especially since none of the servants were going. Mother couldn’t be bothered to be a nursemaid. Mavra kissed her mother, her father, and her brother goodbye, clutching the wastebasket.
The devise detonated right on schedule over the Indian Ocean, making recovery improbable.
‘Perhaps it was something beyond anyone’s control,’ the press and her grandfather speculated.
The investigation had turned up nothing. Maybe they’d sucked in some birds. No one questioned that ridiculous theory. Birds at 30,000 feet.
C'est la vie. Mavra hadn’t given her family another thought.
The pride in her Grandfather’s eyes when she’d solve a business problem had given her permission to eliminate them and persuaded her, she alone deserved his empire. After all she had contributed greatly to his net worth. She waited for five more years, hoping Grandfather Ivan would die of natural causes.
During the Kimirov Mining trial, she’d sensed a connection with Elise Andersen. Ivan had intently watched her, the pride in his eyes he usually had for her was now directed toward Elise. By now confirmed, Elise Andersen’s father Charles had been involved with Ivan. The irony could not be ignored.
Ivan’s behavior had confirmed there was an unexplained connection. Although Mavra had nothing else to go on then but instinct, her goal now was to get Elise on the mind opening drugs, to find out why her grandfather’s association with Charles Larsen had been a secret. A secret Ivan had kept purposely from her, her entire life.
Mavra’s face flushed with resentment and rage even now, remembering Ivan’s proud smile as he signed that check doubling the settlement and accepted a hug from Elise.
The hateful look she’d given Elise, warned Elise this was not the last time they’d see each other. Wiping away tears he couldn’t explain to her adequately after they left Elise’s Los Angeles office, drove her to begin the probe.
After Ivan had blown up the latrine and her car at the train station, she pressured her pilots to detour to Israel and then get back to New York quickly after Ivan did.
Her plan to tip Ivan’s hand succeeded. He’d tried to kill her. The secret was that important to him. She had time to come up with a better plan.
The original briefcase and papers, plus another duplicate copy were in her closet, waiting. The duplicates she had made by a prop master had fooled Ivan.
On the plane ride back to New York from Berlin with a quick stop in Israel, she reviewed the archived documents captured on her laptop.
For a few seconds she had had Eisenhower’s May 8th 1945 flight plan, flight crew names and passenger manifest, then her laptop froze. Keeping the document on the screen, when it was unfrozen the files were gone. She’d seen all she needed to see.
Her grandfather’s name and a nurse’s name had been on the manifest.
When in Jerusalem at Yad Vashem earlier in the Fall, Mavra combed through all the old German archival documents from the Nuremberg trial, specifically. The Medical Case looked for names of survivors, and the Institute for Military Scientific Research held the Ahnenerbe Society files. The “ancestral heritage” files, she could not get in to see.
One name stood out besides Mengele as being familiar, a name familiar from her Grandfather’s foundation files. A young genetic scientist named Dr. Johan Titus, escaped prosecution. Dr. Titus had been forced against his will, to be a party member and participate in their genetic experiments.
Mavra had conducted a private investigation of Elise, discovering her father Charles was Eisenhower’s personal navigator, present at the May 7th, 1945 signing.
Kay Summersby had written about everything on May 7-8, 1945, except Ivan’s defection. Kay had been with Ike at the signing. He was as close as the next room because Kay had written, ‘they’d enjoyed cigars and Champagne and Eisenhower had handed out the pens used for the signing to his staff. Summersby included.’
Mavra had found Charles Larsen’s career led to more suspicions and more questions. She had softened Elise Andersen with tragedy. Now she had to find her again, aware how close she’d been to her own death by Elise’s hand as she ran through the Montecito neighborhoods running for her life, alone, but as always surviving.
Briefly back in NYC, she’d avoided Peder with his permanent scowl and attitude. Soon thereafter, the image of Ivan’s smiling, trusting face started appearing. Consciously, she’d put him to rest.
In her dreams, the image of him sobbing into his hands haunted her. She looked through the door’s keyhole and there he was, sobbing. She’d broken his heart.
He was an efficient man. He would have felt his usefulness was over, eventually.
As the soon to be fifth richest billionairesses in the world, Mavra could have any thing she’d ever wanted. She’d make a respected name for herself, and turn his money into billions more, when her fleet of new pharmaceutical companies took off and she sold her exclusive products to her class of friends and their friends. Within five years, she’d be first on the list.
When Ivan returned from Germany last spring, he’d added a moldy, old briefcase to his new safe. Inside was a notebook filled with old typewritten carbons from General Keitel’s desk, dated 7 August 1944. They were individually encased in acid free paper. Th
e pages were fragile with age now almost powder.
And there was that still beautiful pink silk nightgown and hair samples, blond and black. In the briefcase, her Grandfather had a thick, black hair sample, and a blond hair sample in a little ring box, together. The blond hair matched the color of the young woman’s hair in the painting that hung over his bed. They were the two women he had loved in his youth. Ivan had been deeply in love perhaps with the blond. Why else keep the nightgown?
Mavra went to the closet and gently removed the contents of his old briefcase.
Holding up the documents to the light, she could still read them. If she hadn’t been able to read the old typewritten report carbons from the Western High Command in German she would have never known of the story of an immortal African woman they thought they had in their custody.
Winifred Schmidt, Keitel’s secretary had typed the reports, her name clearly entered on its own salutation line on every document in the briefcase. Her Grandfather had been keeping these pieces of her, all of his life because she must have died tragically, leaving him broken hearted for seventy years.
Imagining him loving these women, each in his own way, but knowing Winifred was his true love, that love held so passionately and for a lifetime, left her numb and angry. No one would ever love her like that. Ivan had loved her she knew, yet she still betrayed him to love herself, more.
Mavra seduced then poisoned a young priest who was a librarian at the Vatican. He’d helped her find the African creation legends about Nana Bubu in the Vatican library annex. If Mavra hadn’t become multi-lingual and nearly an expert in old manuscript Latin, she’d never have had any reason to begin this killing spree to attain her goal, exposure of Ivan’s long kept secret.
Weeks earlier in October, Mavra’s private investigators had found Johan Titus PhD, Emeritus, one of the genetic pioneers from the war years. He had to be ninety, at least. Because of her grandfather’s intellect and vibrancy at ninety, Mavra didn’t hesitate to look up this gifted, elderly scientist.
He’d become a professor of molecular sciences and retired to Oberamagau, the quaint German village known for their Passion Play held every ten years in which the whole town participated.
Ivan had taken the briefcase back to Germany when Mavra asked about his war years.
He put her off saying, “Another time. I am too tired now.”
He thought he had succeeded. She’d killed him for it. Tears were welling in her eyes. She hadn’t cried in years because anyone who had made her cry was now… dead.
CHAPTER TWELVE -- OBERAMAGAU, GERMANY
22 OCTOBER
MAVRA IN HER SHORT BROWN WIG and her thrift store winter clothes knocked on the door of an aging timber framed cottage two blocks from the famous town’s center.
The first one to the door was an ancient, white muzzled, yappy dachshund who didn’t like visitors.
A small wiry energetic elderly man with a mane of thick, pure white hair, and eyeglasses that desperately needed cleaning, opened the door. He was not frail but vibrant, shockingly so.
“Dr. Titus?”
“Yes, my dear? How can I help you? Hansie? Don’t be rude.”
“Dr. Johan Titus?”
“Yes, still the same man I was two seconds ago.”
“Does the name Herta mean anything to you Dr. Titus?”
His heart skipped. He kept his expression neutral. A thousand horrific images flooded in. ‘I’d almost made it home free before ever having to be afraid of the name Herta again.’
“I believe Herta is an old tribal name associated with German folklore. Folklore is not my area. Since you know my name, you know that my dear. Are you a reporter here to ask entirely different questions than those related to our folklore? And… perhaps not ‘yours.’ You are not German either, are you dear?”
“I’m not Dr. Titus. If you let me in, I’d like to discuss an enterprising proposition with you in private, and not on your doorstep.”
“It’s not every day I get such an offer. But neither is it my custom to let strangers into my house. You still haven’t introduced yourself my dear.”
“Kimirov. Mavra Kimirov.”
“Not a stranger at all. Where is your press Miss Kimirov? Is that why you don’t look like your cover girl self? You’re always associated with legions of those vile fleas called the paparazzi.”
“I’m very good at ducking them. I promise you Dr. Titus. I’m alone.”
“And you drove yourself? That my dear, I highly doubt.”
“When I want to blend in Dr. Titus, I drive myself and I‘m also a pilot.”
Mavra stepped away from his eye line and showed him her VW Passat and the key with the rental tag on it. Mavra fished in her thrift shop leather purse, opened her thrift shop wallet, and showed him her multi-engine pilot’s license, with an instrument rating.
“And so you are. I love the ‘oh so plain’ disguise. I guess I’ll have to let you in or else some of my young neighbors will surely recognize you and spoil the reason you came here, so impressively thrift store-anonymous. Come in. Mavra.” ‘She has an entourage stashed somewhere. Of course I know you, my spoiled little Russian princess. Could have sent someone else to do your bidding, yet you came yourself. Big ego, like Ivan’s. She’s passing as an ordinary young German out on her errands, heavy in mother’s clothes and mother’s Chanel No. 5.’
Johan knew Ivan as ‘Ivan the Terrible’ because he had never given a dime to anyone, especially in Johan’s professional circle until Johan had heard of the Kimirov Mining settlement last year. Johan had applied for grants with Ivan Kimirov year after year, long before he retired. Any charity Ivan created had been reported to be a front to ease criticism of not sharing his billions. Johan supposed that’s where she found his name, in Ivan’s foundation files. Like any good Russian, old habits died hard. Ivan kept tabs on everyone.
In certain circles he guessed exposure of Herta’s existence was threatened, now. Legitimacy was the reason Miss Kimirov had found his name in Ivan’s files. He’d be careful with her.
Johan held the door as Mavra stepped into his modest but ancient 17th century cottage. A chill went through him, slapping him alert. His mind leapt into action.
“Tea, dear?”
“Do you have Green tea?”
‘God, one of those,’ Johan thought.
The sitting room smelled of old books, furnished with worn leather library chairs, and ottomans perfect for a contemplative, studious man and a brocade love seat. Thick pale blue plaster walls were covered in small oil landscapes by the same hand. The plaster was broken up by ancient timbers, which supported the bookcases containing scientific books and decades of dusted journals. Johan’s library covered the entire lower story of his two-story cottage, continuing up the stairway. Pipe tobacco permeated every corner.
A cozy fire in the stone fireplace greeted her, while an ancient hand colored photograph of his once beautiful young wife stared down at her from the mantle.
The ominous ticking of an ancient grandfather clock drove her nuts within seconds.
He’d been having tea. A chipped pot sat on his cluttered side table. He’d been drawing a molecular compound on a lap desk. His crumb-laden lap robe lay heaped on the ottoman.
“No to Green tea, but don’t say no to a regular cup of tea, my dear. It keeps the mind sharp. I’ll need a strong cup to answer all your questions. We have a very nice tea service which will impress, even you.”
“Regular tea would be nice,” Mavra said surveying how he lived.
“Add a few logs to the fire while I make us a proper high tea.”
Mavra stoked the fire, coming face to face with his wife. “Your wife was beautiful.” Something about her eyes was hypnotic, and captivating.
Johan answered from the kitchen, “She was perfect, and completely stole my heart. She possessed beauty that was far more than skin deep.”
Mavra’s eyes cruised around his favorite room, getting a feel for this man. It was too
warm in the room. She felt smothered right away, and took off her jacket.
Mavra petted his ancient dachshund a time or two, but the dog backed away, got in his bed near the fire to watch her. Within seconds, Hansie had a low throaty growl for her. He’d sized her up.
She ignored him, but thought she’d love to throw him into the fire. Hansie barked at her.
‘Mind reader,’ she thought, keeping her gaze from his probing eyes.
The hand colored photo of his deceased wife, a judgmental sentinel in the room drew her attention, again.
Johan Titus was a man who still loved his wife.
Mavra looked over the molecular drawing, his books and journals. All current issues.
‘Retired, my ass,’ she thought.
Hansie barked at her again.
Within a few minutes, Dr. Titus brought a beautiful pink and gold Limoge china tea service to the tea table, poured their tea, then sat.
Hansie investigated the cookies and cucumber sandwiches. Then he returned to his bed. He was intensely interested in the motives of this tense guest with her negative energy.
Johan didn’t believe in pleasantries. During his university office hours he’d make his students get right to the point. He would with her. He watched her while she sipped her tea.
“Just what I needed,” Mavra looked into his eyes.
‘Over confident,’ he thought. “The reason you’re not at some red carpet event, skiing in France or at a Valentino runway show, is you’ve decided a ninety year old retired academic is deliciously more interesting. What’s wrong with that picture is, it makes very little sense.”
“Thank you for getting right to the point, Dr. Titus. And so will I. I’m going to create a state of the art genetics lab and a corresponding pharmaceutical company. I’d like to make you my Chief Consultant.”
“I was very clear when I said I was retired. The science has grown far beyond me, many years now. I’m as dusty as most of my books.”
“By the looks of your doodling page there, I’d say you’re bored. Your books aren’t dusty and neither are you, Dr. Titus. I can’t believe you wouldn’t want to come back to a lab of your own.”