Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Three
22nd May 1980
Tempelhof, Berlin
Quarles Kneipe, the name of the place being a reference to Edgar Allen Poe somehow, wasn’t well known outside of students from the Humboldt Campus of the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin. Built just off of Tempelhof’s high street, it was nestled in with the eclectic array of shops that catered to those same students just down a side street. Despite having been built at the same time as the rest of the neighborhood just a couple decades earlier, the pub had a comfortable, lived-in feel as if it had been there for far longer. The decorations and photographs on the walls along with the Rock & Roll music that was playing constantly on the jukebox whenever there wasn’t band playing live made it clear that the student ghetto that it was situated on the edge of was where most of its customers came from. The owners of Quarles had gone out of their way to make it the unofficial clubhouse of student activities, especially athletics.
That included a large banner for the Black Eagles Cycling Team and several photographs of members, including Sophie as she had won the gold medal on Montreal in 1976. As the Captain of the Black Eagle’s, Sophie was extremely welcome in Quarles. The rest of it was like hundreds of similar establishments that were around. Beer, inexpensive food, entertainment of the sort that didn’t require too much input from the staff was preferred. For the three of them it was a board game called Trivial Pursuit that revolved around questions on an array of subjects, Adi complained about how Sophie and Gabi had an unfair advantage on him because they were University girls. As it had turned out, he had more than held his own and when the game concluded they had just started talking about things. Sophie was of that opinion that Adi was just as smart as his two younger sisters, he just applied it differently. With it being a Thursday night, they mostly had the place to themselves.
Adolf “Adi” Gerst, Sophie’s brother had finally accepted the invitation to come here tonight after weeks of asking. From Sophie’s perspective, it was long past time that all three of them got together now that they were all living in Berlin and Gabi had never had the opportunity to introduce herself.
Adi was a couple years older and had grown up in Bautzen, Saxony. Aside from the mostly intact Medieval Town Center, Bautzen was better known for the modern prison on the city’s outskirts. It had not come as a shock that Adi had gotten out of there as soon as he had finished school by joining the Luftwaffe in hopes of becoming a fighter pilot, only to learn that they actually needed mechanics and ground crew of all types a whole lot more. As a newly minted Flieger, Adi had trained as a Fire Protection Specialist, meaning that he had needed to learn the staggering number of ways an airplane, or worse, an airplane hanger, could go up in flames and how to put it out.
When Adi had gotten out Luftwaffe, he had decided that a good move would be to apply to the Fire Brigades of all the major cities to see if they might be interested in hiring a man with his skillset. His hope was that he would have gotten hired in Saxony, Dresden in particular, but Berlin had come through first. The Brigade had him go through the Fire and Rescue Academy in Reinickendorf and Medical training at the University Clinic in Tempelhof, it had been at the latter where Adi and Sophie had crossed paths. Sophie had been there at Kat’s request to meet with Doctor Nora Berg to see if she was interested in mentoring Sophie, who had been trying to decide if she wanted to continue her studies beyond Sports Science into the related field of Sport Medicine. Sophie had seen first-hand how women were treated by the Doctors who worked with the IOC and the NOK. To say that change was desperately needed was an understatement. She had learned Adi’s name at some point and as soon as she had seen him, she had recognized the features that he shared with her and Gabi, except it was all very different. Sophie was aware that she had another sister who lived in Munich by the name of Celine but had never had the opportunity to meet her.
“If you two will excuse me” Gabi said as she got up from the table. Sophie noticed that there were two men at the bar who gave Gabi an appraising look as she passed, Adi noticed and bristled.
“You only just met Gabi” Sophie said, “As you get to know her you’ll see that she can take care of herself, she hardly needs the protective big brother.”
“She just seems the sort” Adi replied, a touch embarrassed that Sophie had noticed.
“The sort of girl you would want take to meet your mother?” Sophie replied, “She hates that, by the way.”
“Where do you fit in?” Adi asked.
“I am considered far more likely to pick a fight in that situation” Sophie replied.
“The roles we end up playing” Adi said amusedly, “That would make you the odd sort of middle child, not much of a peacemaker though.”
“The picture above your right shoulder explains it all” Sophie said, pointing at the framed photograph on the wall. It was the famous picture at the Montreal Olympics taken in the seconds leading up the finish of the race. Sophie and Connie Carpenter had just collided and Sophie had been so focused on the finish line that she had hardly noticed. The front wheel of Connie’s bike was collapsing and there was a look of dismay on her face as she was about to go over the handlebars. While that incident had cemented her reputation as a fierce competitor, Sophie still wished that Connie had at least been able to finish the race. As opposed to having it end in mechanical failure and injury. That could just as easily have happened to Sophie. Every Cyclist had that experience. The instant where you knew that all control was gone and you had just enough time to have that thought before your body hit the pavement with bone crushing force. It was something that Sophie would not wish on anyone and she had not wanted to win that race that way.
“That was you?” Adi asked as he looked at the photograph. “I remember seeing that on television.”
“Yeah” Sophie replied, “I got a medal and everything.”
She said that last part with a bit more sarcasm than she intended.