The Amazon of Rheinland

[Byron]

CHAPTER 3.1 - A few weeks later...

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Playing around with her fingers nervously, Elena sat down on the chair in front of her. Her body was shaking all over the place, and as the summer sun had shone through the window for the whole day, heating it up, she sweated like a pig under her clothes. It wasn’t unusual that summers on Stuttgart could become fairly hot, but today, the heat was almost unbearable. The scent of the perfume she had put on was already long vanished. She probably stunk a lot by now, but at least, the other man who was in the room didn’t smell different in any way.

On the one hand, Elena was extremely excited, but on the other hand, she felt her need for a nap. The last couple of hours had been very exhausting for her, as she had to do multiple fitness and precisions tests, something she wasn’t used to at all. In fact, her stamina has never been the best, as she had to struggle with asthma from time to time, and over the last weeks, it had become worse again. As she already felt how her trachea narrowed because of the excitement, she quickly grabbed the spray out of her handbag and took a long, deep breath.

The room itself was furnished very sparely, there was only one wooden desk in the middle, with various papers that had been messily stacked. Whosever office it was, he had to be quite an impatient and disorganized person. And somebody who didn’t have any taste in interior decoration at all, obviously, since the walls were for the most part completely bare. The only exception were two flags hanging right and left to her, showing the Cross of Rheinland.

The other person who was in the room, a man in his mid-40s, closed the door and walked to the other side of the desk. Falling down on his chair, he grabbed a towel that lied on the floor to dry his front. Sweat beads were running down his forehead, and he had a pretty huge beer belly – probably from too much Rheinbier – and generally speaking, he was a man of sturdy build.

After he toweled himself down, the man took a piece of paper from one of the stacks lying on his desk and perused it for a while, while looking more and more surprised. Doubtfully, he put it down again and faced Elena, narrowing his eyes to small slits. With a raised eyebrow, she looked at him, wondering what the hell he was staring at her that way. At the same time, she recognized a small sign pinned onto his uniform that said: “August von Grobenhofen, Kommandant der Rekrutierung”

After a few nastily silent seconds, the man began to talk, still staring at her like she was an alien. “So, um… let’s start simple. You must be Elena Voigt. Is that correct?”

“Correct”, she replied, trying to imitate the classically imperious language of Military Officers. She was still gasping a bit, as she had not have much time to relax after her last test had been finished.

Scratching his head as he recognized her heavy breath, the man went on: “Since you’re already in my office, I suppose you want to join the Rheinland Military, correct?”

“Correct”, Elena repeated, this time with a proud voice. Saying this, she instantly had to think about the row she and her father had about this topic some weeks ago. Only when she thought about him, she felt her anger about the whole dilemma coming up again. If he had been around here at the moment, he would have probably gone violent by now, at least that was what she guessed. Especially since she had decided to dye her hair blue, like in an act of rebellion, as it was just the color her father hated the most.

In fact, her father didn’t even know that she was at the local Recruitment Office at the moment, as she had told him she would go shopping in the mall with some friends. Even though he might had already seen it coming. Her plan was to get the piece of paper that would bring her into the Military Academy and only then tell her father about it. However from the facial expressions of the Military Officer, she became a bit uncertain whether she would even be able to show the paper to her father at all. Herr von Grobenhofen was definitely surprised by her, but the question was: Positively or negatively.

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