Findings

Chapter 5

The clock in Lieutenant Anka Rheinberger's office was desynchronized. It was unbearable. Unless any other classic and regular ticktock any clock would made, this one was not only especially noisy, but erratic. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. And then the second hand would suddenly stop, stay hanging, slightly trembling, as if grappling with its own mechanism, before winning and speeding up to make up for lost time : tick-tick-tick-tock. And ten seconds would pass before the same cycle started again.

It was infuriating. And deafening, considering the sharp silence reigning over the office. Pieck didn't hear anything from Anka Rheinberger in front of her, who was reading some lines from the presentation form she recognized. She couldn't hear her breath. Damn, she couldn't even hear her own heartbeat, though she felt it was escalating with each minute. All she could hear was that damn clock. Tick-tick-tick-tock.

She surprised her own thumb's nervous agitation, and quickly stopped it. She felt like during an oral where she had to hide every parasitic moves the teachers would detect stress through. But this very one comparison made her uncomfortable. The very moment she needed to be considered as an adult, she only could think of experience she got at college. She was sure Anka would read into her. Hell, anyone would do. Pieck still was a student. No one was giving student credit. Certainly not militaries. And to be fair, Pieck was starting to not give her own request any credit. Was Levi's probable disinterest in his childhood love worth to have a meeting with a military? What was she even doing here? She could have enjoyed her discovery and moved on next. She would give a lot to be back on her couch, delaying her essay with any more entertaining reading or bingewatching. Damn, she and Anka had barely exchanged more than the formal manners and she already felt tired of this whole rendez-vous. And this damn clock...

Anka Rheinberger was skimming over the presentation form. Pieck had written that she wanted to works on a typology about profiles of recruits, hence her request to access to the records. This was this fake project she now had to present to Anka who was explaining in quick terms she was the one Pieck had on phone, and also the one who examined her request. So she was the one Pieck had to convince. Basically, she felt as if in a head-to-head with a final boss she would confront with the very first weapon she had got at the beginning.

- Correct me if I'm wrong. You said you registered to a master in Orvurd Human Sciences University.

- Yes.

- Your certificate of attendance at school clarifies it's an art history master.

Oh, Pieck knew where this was going, and she didn't like it at all. However, this was the last way she could think of to get any information to find Levi. She couldn't lose her composure.

- It is, yes. Though it uses to be really open to any subject about... well, history... and... art... And by "art", it meant classical arts like painting, literature, architecture, but also more modern fields like cinema, photography, any kind of performance...

On this one she wasn't lying at all. Damn, she had succeed in convincing a research director, Professor Magath, to follow her into studying street art! She basically registered to this master because of its research freedom.

- How do those fields relate to military history?

- Well... The "history" part also means we can come close to historical sociology, and... A large part of our research projects need for starting a data collection like the typology I could write. Then we start analysing it and drawing conclusions, and writing it, etc...

As she was speaking, she felt as if Anka's keen eyes were probing her soul, as if the military she was had a secret skill to deduce whether Pieck was telling the truth or not from her carotid's beating or her pupil's shiver. Damn, why had she put herself in such a dreadful moment when she could have been wherever else on this stupid planet? She wanted her couch back even more with each second that fucking clock couldn't give properly. Tick-tick-tick-tock.