Though Bruno’s deployment to Austria only lasted a few weeks, he had taken many men with him, including Heinrich, who, as a major in the army, wasn’t exactly invited to the meetings between the Generals and Monarchs.
Instead, he spent most of his time with the other soldiers, in the same tents, trenches, and conditions. Heinrich hadn’t joined Bruno’s latest escapade by choice; he was serving in the Field Army that Bruno commanded and happened to be in the division Bruno chose to enter Austria with.
Since this was the case, he needed someone to look after Alya, and that someone was naturally Heidi, who took the girl into her home with open arms. Heinrich wasn’t exactly an ideal father figure.
The man had been living the life of a bachelor until the young adolescent girl was suddenly dropped into his care. Because of this, his home was rather unkempt, and he didn’t exactly have the necessary skills—whether in terms of parenting or simply maintaining the place—to properly care for the girl. While in her new adoptive father’s home, Alya commonly lounged around the house when she wasn’t at school, with reading fiction as her primary source of entertainment.
Heidi, however, was an absolute taskmaster of a parent. Her children, as long as they could walk, were performing some form of chores around the house that were appropriate for their age. Naturally, she was bewildered by the fact that Alya neither knew how to cook, clean, sew, nor perform any basic tasks necessary to become a proper wife.
Because of this, the first week of Alya’s life under Heidi’s reign of terror was absolute hell for the girl. The tyrant watched over her every move, giving her various chores to perform so she could become a proper woman of value to her future husband.
Alya was no doubt salty about the fact that she couldn’t simply lounge about and read fiction all day. Instead, she was sore all over from the laborious work that the housewife put her through. So much so that Bruno’s oldest daughter, Eva—who, while very young, was rather intelligent for her age—couldn’t help but comment on the whole thing while helping Alya out.
“You missed a spot… Mommy is going to be mad if you don’t clean the bath properly!”
Alya, whose hands were soaked with water and soap and were fully pruned and peeling, couldn’t help but break out into tears as she complained about how hard life was in Heidi’s tyranny.
“It’s so unfair! Papa never makes me do housework! How am I supposed to do all of this all the time? I want to read, goddammit!”
As if the woman were around every corner, Heidi immediately appeared with a wooden spoon in her hand, shocking the early-teenage girl by smacking her bottom with the object, all while scolding her for her poor choice of language.
“Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain in this house, young lady! Nor shall you use such crass language! Next time I hear you say such unladylike things, I’m breaking out the ladle!”
Eva couldn’t help but laugh at the girl who was practically a decade older than her as she commented on Alya’s misery.
“Hehehe, Mommy spanked you!”
Her joy was short-lived as Heidi also smacked her own daughter on the bottom with the wooden spoon—not hard enough to cause injury, mind you, but as a lesson. She spoke aloud in a heightened and stern tone.
“Eva, you know better than to take joy in someone else’s suffering! I swear to God, the moment your father steps out for a brief business trip, you all act like a bunch of ruffians! Well, not in my house!”
Eva didn’t break out into tears like Alya did. She was well accustomed to her mother’s firm hand of discipline and simply apologized while helping the foreign girl who was temporarily staying in their house as the two of them scrubbed the bathtub.
“Sorry, Mommy!”
Heidi couldn’t help but facepalm as she walked away, commenting on how improper the newest girl who was thrust into her care acted. However, she only did so after she knew she could not be heard. After all, it would be inappropriate to say her thoughts in front of the poor girl who had lost her family at such a young age.
“Honestly, I know I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but the way which the Russians raise their daughters is deeply concerning…”
It wasn’t exactly Alya’s fault, or that of her parents who were deceased. They were peasants, practically serfs. Manners of high society like those that Bruno and Heidi grew up with were about as alien to them as a proper meal.
On top of that, Alya had only lived with her biological family for the first ten or eleven years of her life before they died in the war between the Tsar and the Bolsheviks.
And though Heidi raised her children to behave respectably at such a young age. It wasn’t exactly something peasants who were more concerned about having enough food to last the winter considered to be at the top of their priorities.
Still, Alya’s life under Heidi’s care, while stern, taught her many valuable lessons, and by the time her father returned from Austria nearly a month after his departure from the home, she would be quite disgusted with the way they had lived up until that point.
She took it upon herself to clean their home and begin preparing proper meals for herself and her adoptive father, who had previously relied mostly on quick-to-prepare food that was cheap and plentiful.
Needless to say, the sudden change in her behavior was deeply shocking for Heinrich to witness unfold, and he began to suspect that Heidi was some kind of miracle worker.
As for Bruno, the moment he stepped foot in his home, he was greeted by his wife and children once more. They enjoyed a lovely meal together as a family, and Bruno spoke about his time in Austria, though he would most certainly leave out what the Austrian Kaiser had said to him in jest.
The mere mention of such things was a near-certain way to piss off his wife. And like he had said to Franz Joseph, when Heidi was enraged, it was truly a terrifying thing to witness. Thus, avoiding such topics was a matter of maintaining the peace as far as Bruno was concerned.
