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Freedom came bittersweet to Manfred von Karma.
He had never thought much at all about what it would be like to be released from prison; he’d never thought that he’d ever be incarcerated to begin with. However, from what he understood, most people would be at least marginally happy to be able to reclaim their freedom and re-start their lives.
But not him.
Even if he could have begun to prosecute again, it wouldn’t have mattered; his perfect record had been smashed, something he could never piece back together. His fame, his fortune, they were gone as well. His health was failing; numerous meetings with various physicians had made him well aware of that. Not that he had much to live for anyhow; death could come whenever it pleased. Be it because of old age or a kind of exhaustion with life, Manfred couldn’t find himself to be disturbed by the idea of death anymore.
But before he did die, he wanted one thing.
He wanted to know.
Her surname was different now. That new name had become legendary during the time he’d spent in prison; much like his own had once been. In fact, it had come to pass that she’d totally eclipsed him. Public Prosecutor General was her official title in Germany where her career had settled after years of working abroad, but the people of the world, as an almost reverent honour to this great worker of justice, had given her a sort of nickname:
The Director of the Law.
He couldn’t really tell what he thought about it. Was he proud that she’d managed to achieve what he could not? Was he jealous of the success that he had not been able to find, even in a career longer than she had yet lived?
No.
Neither.
She had been defeated.
Twice.
Now, as his aged legs carried him from the airport towards the centre of Berlin, he had only one question in his mind:
How?
How could someone who could not achieve total perfection become one of the most venerated, and feared, figures in all of law?
She had won some cases, she had lost some. Some defendants were declared guilty, some were not. Yet no matter the verdict, in every recording or piece of media covering a case she handled, Manfred could only feel confusion churning as he saw her appear most content with herself by trial’s end, even when stating that the prosecution had no objections when a ‘not guilty’ verdict was inches away.
He wanted to know.
What changed?
What kind of woman had she become?
The prosecutor’s office was perhaps taller than the one in Los Angeles with which he was quite familiar, but not nearly as ornate or cathedral-like. A black pillar in the centre of the city, as if keeping watch with an omnipresent eye over all crime within the horizon.
He adjusted his coat. Even in the late spring, he was cold; a by-product of old age, he surmised.
And then he stepped in.
The silence was so thick, he practically had to swim through it to reach what looked like the receptionist’s desk. The high ceiling and open concept didn’t do much to help his chill, along with the lack of body heat in the room; there sat only a few people in chairs around the lobby, likely waiting to make their appointment with a prosecutor in the interest of pressing some sort of redundant charge.
Once he was within a few metres of the desk, the man behind it looked up from whatever it was he was doing to make eye contact. “May I help you?” The young man’s voice cut through the silence. The air felt almost tangibly thinner.
“I must meet with the Chief Prosecutor immediately,” the old man’s rough voice rolled out.
“Frau Direktorin is very, very busy, and has appointments booked through the next several weeks. The best I can do for you is to put your name down.”
Even her employees were using the nickname.
“That will not do,” he growled. “Let me say it again; I must see her now.”
The young man shook his head, eyes closed for a moment. “I am sorry, but she has given strict orders not to be disturbed for the remainder of the afternoon. She has a great deal of work to do and requires tranquillity with which to do it.”
The ex-prosecutor lifted his thin, white brow, the corresponding eye widening. “Does she have any appointments for this afternoon?”
He grimaced a little. “Well, no, but-”
“Then there is no excuse. I will say it until your feeble brain finally comprehends my words; I must see her immediately. Do you understand?”
Perhaps his factor of intimidation had waned with age, or the young man’s resilience was unusually strong, but the latter did not yield. “I can take your name and contact information, along with your reasons for coming here, but that is all I can do.” He looked down at his desk, withdrawing a pad and pen. “What is your name?”
Fine. Perhaps this would actually persuade him better.
“Manfred von Karma.”
All at once, the receptionist froze solid. Eyes widening, his head darted up to look back at the old man standing before him. “Y-you… you are-”
“Yes,” Manfred growled. “Do you want a piece of identification, or are you going to show me the way?”
A bead of sweat was wiped away by a slightly shaking hand as eye contact was broken while the young man pondered nervously. “I… I have orders… she is not to be disturbed-”
“I am her father, you fool!” The ex-prosecutor barked. “Enough of this, where is my daughter?!”
The receptionist jumped at the sudden lift in Manfred’s tone of voice, their eyes meeting once again. A few seconds passed in silence as the old man silently wrestled the young one’s will into submission. “I-in her office,” came the weak reply. “I-I’ll take you to her.”
Leaving his writing implements, the receptionist quickly stood, turning around as he began to scurry away. Struggling somewhat to keep up with his quick pace, Manfred followed the young man around a corner to an elevator, which responded to a key withdrawn from the receptionist’s pocket. A ding, and the two men entered the lift. Once it had climbed its way all the way up to the top of the building, the doors opened to reveal a high hallway perpendicular to them. All along the walls, every so often, were punctuated doors to offices of (presumably) high-ranking prosecutors; likely the senior-most Oberstaatsanwälte. The door directly opposite the elevator was a small bit larger than the others, probably belonging to her deputy.
But certainly, none of these suites belonged to one as high-ranking as the owner of the office all the way down at the end to their right, the door to which went as high as the ceiling. Upon approaching it, a name embossed proudly in a thick brass plate made the name of its occupant clear as plain as day:
Franziska Karma-Fey
Generalbundesanwältin beim Bundesgerichtshof
A knock at the door on the part of the receptionist took Manfred out of the staring he hadn’t realised he was doing at the nameplate.
“F-Frau Direktorin?” The young man stuttered, wiping sweat from his brow.
A moment’s pause.
“What is it?”
The voice that met the receptionist’s call was not one Manfred was used to. Gone was the sharpness that accompanied its teenage years; now it was quiet, smooth, mature.
“I-it’s me, Frau Direktorin,” the receptionist responded. “There is someone here to see you.”
“I told you already; I do not wish to be disturbed. I must get this work done before I retire for the afternoon.”
She hadn’t raised her voice, actually the opposite, but the cringe that racked the receptionist’s body was definitely wrought by fear, as far as Manfred could tell. “I-I know, m-my sincerest a-apologies, Frau Direktorin.” He quickly wiped his face, glancing over at the man beside him. “B-but I th-think you should make an allowance,” he blurted in a hurried rush.
“Who is it?”
A pause.
“I th-think you should see for yourself, F-Frau Direktorin.”
…
“…Very well. Come in.”
The receptionist sucked in a deep breath, taking out a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his entire head yet again. With that, he took one of the two brass doorknobs in his hand and worked it. “Th-this way, mein Herr,” he instructed, pushing open the double-doors.
Despite the fact that the room was flooded with sunlight thanks to the tall floor-to-ceiling windows to his right, Manfred found the large, mostly empty office to be dark. Against the left wall, facing the broad open sky, was a sizable desk, which was covered in a number of different items, including an odd, conspicuous brown bag of some sort.
At the desk sat Manfred’s daughter, head down as she remained focused on something.
She wouldn’t stay that way for long, though; looking up, she caught sight of the two men who had interrupted her peace and quiet.
Her flat, austere expression changed not at all when she made eye contact with him for the first time in some two decades. The first time since she and the rest of the world learned that he was a murderer.
She looked to the receptionist. “Leave us,” she commanded.
A deep bow, and he was gone; the door closed behind him.
Once again, for a brief moment, the two von Karmas made eye contact. Given the circumstances, it was difficult to know for sure what would transpire next; the entirely neutral expression with which she looked at Manfred betrayed no indications as to how she felt about their reunion.
But no matter what he was expecting, it certainly wasn’t for her to completely ignore him, looking back down at her work as her hand picked up writing again.
A little bewildered, and driven with some curiosity, Manfred took a few steps forward to get a better look at his daughter, to see what the years may have changed. She had aged. Her hair was long, longer even than it was when she was a teenager.
And a blue Maltese cross hung at her neck.
His slow steps immediately came to a halt when he caught sight of it. “That… medal…” he near-whispered, more to himself than anything. “Could it be…?”
At the sound of his hushed words, Franziska’s eyes briefly looked up to her father. “Oh, this?” She asked rhetorically, leaning back in her seat. She looked down at it. “It was given to me only a few years ago. It is not my only decoration, but I think this one looks the nicest; I wear it as jewellery more than anything, to be honest.” She brought a hand under the medal, lifting it up a little to better showcase it. The polished blue enamel glistened in the sunlight, highlighting the words emblazoned on it in gold:
Pour le Mérite
“You wanted this order, didn’t you?” One of her eyebrows was raised, a cocky grin on her face.
There was a pause.
“You don’t deserve that,” Manfred eventually spat.
Franziska’s grin died away as she sat up straight. “And why do you say that?”
The old, ex-prosecutor began to make his way towards the front of the desk. “I have learned the details of your career in the time that I have been released,” he began. “Nothing more than a series of misadventures; you’ve consistently and repeatedly been bested by mere defence attorneys, and defence attorneys from all corners of the globe, no less.” His eyes narrowed. “But your worst transgression is that you let them win. Again and again, over and over, you simply allowed the ‘not guilty’ verdict to be passed down without so much as an objection, as if you genuinely believed that the one in the defendant’s chair was actually innocent! As if you had any intention but to bring about a guilty verdict for every criminal with whom you crossed paths!” He braced his hands on the desk, leaning forward as his voice lowered. “You’re a coward. You’re a failure.” He paused. “You’re imperfect.”
But despite his reprimanding, nary a thing changed on Franziska’s neutral expression as she listened, at least before her eyebrows came up a small bit. “I know,” she replied. She shook her head a little, not breaking eye contact. “But neither are you.” Once again, she took to the back of her chair, relaxing. “No one is.”
“Hmmf,” Manfred scoffed. “Certainly not the imbecile who appointed you as the GBA, nor even the head of the House of Hohenzollern who gave you that blasted medal.” He stood up, crossing his arms with a lofty, condescending smile. “I presume you’re also a knight of the Order of the Black Eagle, hmm? And all of its corresponding inferior orders?”
In response, one corner of Franziska’s mouth slowly lifted up into another grin.
Despite himself, Manfred couldn’t help but feel more than a small burn of jealousy. “You… that’s absurd!” He exclaimed, his eyes opening wide as he threw his arms down in anger. “You are absurd! This country is absurd! The entire world is absurd!” He yelled, turning around in a circle as he held his hands high up in frustration. “No one should be rewarded for anything less than perfection!” Manfred growled, turning back around to face his daughter. “Any success you have ever had; any fame, fortune, or glory that you have ever made, was because of me!” He pounded at his chest with his index finger, voice heightening into a full-blown scream. “I made you what you are! That medal is mine! This office is mine! You belong to me!”
As Manfred finished, catching his breath, Franziska’s reaction began to unfold. Her eyes darkened, eyelids narrowing their scope of vision. Slowly, she leaned forward in her seat, laying her hands on the desk in front of her. “You listen to me very carefully,” she growled. “I left my entire career behind when I went to America all those years ago, and when Phoenix Wright became the first to defend a client successfully in a case I prosecuted, my reputation was destroyed.” Her gloved hands gripped the wood below tightly. “Everything I have now; every victory, personal or otherwise; I had to make for myself. I have done more than you ever will. Not through back-room deals and conniving manipulation, but by pure, unadulterated hard work, did I make my career; did I make everything that I have, come into existence. It took me years to rid myself of the poisonous rhetoric you infected me with since my infancy, and not without the help of many kind, supportive people. It took me years to see the errors of my ways. It took me even longer to correct them, and longer still to make a meaningful impact on the world, and on myself, with a new purpose and drive.”
One hand came off the desk, rubbing at the ribbon around her neck. “The greatest achievement thus far in my career was twofold; I sent to INTERPOL an enormous report, the culmination of immense quantities of work, so much so that my health suffered for a time afterwards.” She paused. “The first half provided all the information and evidence necessary to bring the largest terrorist organisation in Europe to justice; one that threatened to topple the entire European Union and plunge the continent into anarchy.” Another, longer pause. Her voice waned. “The second half was a compilation of all my crimes. Forging evidence, manipulating testimony, everything. I was certain I was immediately bound for prison, and by all rights I should have been, but I wasn’t.” The hand at her neck slid down to grip tightly at her award. “I earned this medal. I owe you nothing.”
Alas, Franziska’s words fell on deaf ears; stubbornness was a strong von Karma trait. However, before Manfred could return fire, something cut him off.
A phone rang.
Franziska looked down to the desk; the phone thereon was ringing. Sitting down, she picked it up, immediately dispensing with the anger she’d just been expressing in favour of a stern, but polite, businesslike tone.
“Generalbundesanwältin Karma-Fey.”
Then, as she seemed to recognise who was on the line, a most extraordinary thing happened.
A bright, joyous smile took up her face.
“Ah; yes, my darling,” she cooed. “I was just about to call you; I’m on my way.” She glanced over at the bag on the desk. “I’ve got the cheese and the Châteauneuf-du-Pape.” Her gaze then took to the paper in front of her, and after a brief moment of contemplation, she shrugged a little. “This work can wait, I will be coming home soon.” A small, tinny sound then gave Manfred the impression that whoever was on the other end of the line had begun to speak, but they didn’t have the chance to do so for long before the sound of a loud buzzer sprang into the room.
“Just a moment, my dear,” Franziska said, putting a hand to cover the mouthpiece of the phone, using the other to press a button on a large array. “Yes?” She asked, her expression stern once again.
“The president is on the other line.”
Manfred recognised the voice of the receptionist who had brought him up to the office coming from a speaker on the array.
Franziska rolled her eyes. “Tell him I’m out of town,” she grumbled, pressing another button, which brought the smile back to her face. “Yes, my love. I’ll be with you in sixty minutes.” The other person said something in reply, which induced a small giggle in the prosecutor. “Alright. Goodbye.” With that, she hung up the phone.
“What on earth was that?! ” Manfred spat.
“That,” Franziska began, seeming amused as she packed up her desk. “Was my lovely wife.”
“Your wife.” He crossed his arms. “Do I know this woman?”
“As a matter of fact, you do.” She smiled a little as she stood up. “Tell me; do you recall the young girl who assisted Phoenix Wright in your defeat in the trial that spelled your end?”
When the meaning hit him, Manfred felt like a boiler on the verge of explosion. “Y-y, y-you, y-y-you-” He stuttered, face heating as he struggled to voice his emotions. “You married that- that- that-”
“Yes, I did,” Franziska beamed. Her gaze drifted off, and her eyes became a small bit glassy. “I love her very, very much,” she murmured.
“Love.” There wasn’t enough saliva in the world with which Manfred could have disgustedly spat that word. “‘Love’ is an emotion for ignorant, childish fools.”
Manfred heaved a heavy sigh; he had finally discovered all of what it was he had come to find out about Franziska, and he was most… well…
“You have permitted yourself to be swayed by the wiles of an infantile halfwit; a mere distraction from the only true pursuits of life. I cannot describe in words how much I am appalled at what kind of woman you have become, Franziska. You have wholeheartedly abandoned everything that made you a von Karma, and now you-”
“That’s enough.”
At those words, Manfred felt himself be shaken to his very core, as if an earthquake had rattled his bones to splinters. His rant died in an instant as his aged brain felt itself be racked with an old, unfamiliar emotion.
Fear.
Lothar had been the most terrifying person who had ever lived, and it wasn’t just Manfred who thought so; anyone who had come to meet the man under the wrong circumstances, or who had done some sort of harm or disservice to him or those he cared about, had truly come to know the meaning of fear.
So to see his father live on in some small way in his own daughter like this…
He stared wide-eyed at Franziska, surprised more with himself than anything; how had he not seen it before? Their hair was the same. Their faces were the same.
Their eyes.
“I have had quite enough of you,” he- no, she said. They said? Who was speaking? “I don’t believe I have to tell you to never come back here, nor to ever dare cross paths with me again. The same applies to my family and colleagues, especially my family.” Their eyes bored into his. “Do I make myself clear? ”
Manfred could only nod feebly. A part of his voice he hadn’t used since childhood rose up to reply “ja, mein Herr ” in little more than a whisper.
They nodded a little, looking down at what was yet to be put away on the desk, a wave of the hand dismissing him.
With that, Manfred turned around and made for the door as fast as his feeble legs could carry him.
He didn’t stop until he felt himself be forced to lean against the wall by the elevator to catch his breath. With every step, every sway of his legs, every blink, he saw their eyes burning into his. How long had he not seen it for? How long had he not seen it for?
“You’re still here?”
Manfred jumped with fright as he heard the voice from behind, spinning around to meet it. Franziska, now fully dressed and ready to leave, seemed confused that he hadn’t yet disappeared. How long had he been standing there for?
She turned around. “Lock up the office,” she commanded to nothing. Though, ‘nothing’ would soon make itself known: after a sound like a heavy bolt sliding, along with a few other noises from inside the now closed-off room, a computerised voice spoke the words; “office locked. Good day, Generalbundesanwältin.”
As Franziska turned back to walk towards the elevator, Manfred could only stare onwards at her with horror and awe.
They were both slightly shorter than average for their respective sexes, and yet both seemed to tower over everyone around them; Manfred felt like he was now looking up at his own daughter. Part of it was certainly their posture; bolt upright. They had the same walk: noble, almost regal, yet without pomposity or pretence; a far cry from the days when Franziska stomped around everywhere she went in a bid to seem confident and to attract attention.
Now, she didn’t need to; she had the Bundesgerichtshof, the country’s highest criminal court, at her fingertips.
And apparently could ignore the president at her will.
“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; I doubt you’d be able to walk down fifty flights of stairs.” With that, Franziska stepped over to the elevator, using her key to activate it. When the doors opened, she gestured for him to enter, and Manfred quickly obeyed the silent command.
However, once in, he was not joined.
“Are you… getting in?” Manfred murmured, speaking quietly lest he upset them too much.
“You might not be able to go down all fifty floors, but I can. I do it everyday; I like the exercise.”
Before Manfred could say anything, nor even really process the words, the doors began to close, and just before they did, he heard the last words ever to be spoken to him by his daughter:
“Goodbye, Manfred.”
Silence. Stillness.
His finger wandered over to a button. The elevator began to descend. He began to recollect.
It wasn’t as if Lothar was an evil man, he was just… terrifying. Not all the time, of course. In fact, the smile that Franziska wore when on the phone with her wife was eerily reminiscent of the same one offered by Lothar to Manfred’s mother; Kunigunde.
Come to think of it, much like Franziska, he had loved his wife, too. Genuinely.
Not that Manfred cared for such pointlessness. Helena had been a means to an end, nothing more. Sure, he played the better part of the loving husband, but the keyword there is played. Little gestures here and there, an odd compliment or comment, or a boast to strangers about things like her cooking or other trivial matters, and no one was the wiser.
But, of course, Lothar had wanted to get involved.
Over and over again, he whined and whined at Manfred. “I want to see my granddaughter”, he said, and he said it again and again. Something about wanting to be a part of her life, wanting to watch her grow up, wanting to see her smile.
Why did people care so much about smiles, anyway? Why did they like them so much?
It was ridiculous, and after a couple short years, Manfred’s stubbornness won out over Lothar’s. Eventually, the correspondence stopped, and Manfred felt at ease thinking that he wouldn’t have to put up with any of his father’s pestering anymore.
But then, it happened, and he was forced into action.
For you see, Manfred didn’t keep his father away from his daughter for nothing.
And in fact, as the elevator descended and he continued to remember, he finally answered his own question.
How long had he not seen it for?
The answer was simple; he’d seen it immediately.
But he destroyed it. Or, at least, he thought he had.
For at the very moment Franziska von Karma was born, her father saw something in her eyes that he recognised immediately. Something that he saw in his own father, in his mother, and in his wife.
And not long afterwards, he’d seen it on the rest of her face.
A smile.
And then, he’d heard it.
Her laughter.
And once he’d heard that sound, and had seen those sights, he understood what it was he had seen in all those people. Something he, himself, lacked.
Joy.
And in that instant, he knew what he had to do.
If Franziska was ever to grow up to be a true, thoroughbred von Karma like he was, he was going to have to snuff out the joy that glowed behind her eyes. He was going to have to mould her exactly to his specifications, and if that meant a great deal of pain, pain of all possible varieties, then so be it.
And that meant keeping Lothar away.
If there was anything that he had learned in his time, it was that joy was somehow contagious. Lothar would have been a poor influence on Franziska, and that was something he could not tolerate.
And then he appeared one night in her bedroom.
The two men made eye contact in that instant; Manfred in the doorway, Lothar above the bed. The former didn’t care how the latter had made it in, he only cared about one thing. One thing that he realised in that moment:
If a von Karma puts their mind to something, no matter what it is, they will see it through.
There was an old, ornate dagger that Manfred had inherited from his grandfather. That did the trick.
It was a good thing that Franziska was such a heavy sleeper; Helena had made a loud gasp when she’d entered the room after hearing a commotion, and it had been harder to keep her mouth covered.
She was younger than Lothar. She fought back harder.
Fortunately for Manfred, everything worked out with a surprising degree of fortuitousness. Franziska was suitably convinced the following morning that her mother had been kidnapped, the blood on the floor cleaned very easily, he was able to find a metal drum that fit perfectly, and the bunker oil salesman hadn’t asked any questions. He was lucky, too, that the wind blew the smoke away from the nearby town consistently for several days, and that he was able to eventually pin the blame on some random sap. Of course, it all meant that there was a great deal of media attention on the von Karma family for a while, but with his newfound good luck, it all passed without marring his reputation; his career could carry on.
Not long afterwards, the DL-6 incident took place. Many wondered how Manfred could have so easily taken a man’s life the way he had, even with such a strong motive. The truth was, it hadn’t been Manfred’s first time; a secret he would take with him to the grave.
The elevator doors opened.
Walking down a sidewalk had never been more laborious, though part of that was probably due to the fact that he had no idea where he was going.
Maybe it was chance, maybe it was fate, maybe it was luck, but eventually, Manfred found himself stumbling through a quaint suburban neighbourhood in Potsdam. There was no way he’d walked that far, though. Had he taken public transport? He couldn’t remember.
Suddenly, there was the von Karma ancestral home; as grand and picturesque as it had ever been. Manfred had only lived in it during his childhood; he’d raised Franziska in downtown Berlin, and she’d bought the house from him when she’d made enough money during her early career, aged only fifteen.
Then, a car pulled up to the curb in front of the house and Franziska stepped out from the passenger’s seat. She said a few words to the driver, closed the door and then turned to walk up the short path to her home as the car pulled away.
She didn’t get very far, though.
The front door flew open and a child came barrelling out, shouting their mother’s name in excitement. Two more followed behind, each a little older than the last. The first out the door and the youngest of them all soon wrapped their stubby arms around Franziska’s legs, which elicited a bit of a chuckle from the latter. She dropped the brown bag in her hand to pick up the little rascal, spinning around in a circle to a chorus of giggles. Bringing her child close to her face, the two did a strange sort of movement with their heads such that their noses rubbed side-to-side against each other as smiles adorned their faces. Was that meant to warm each other up? Manfred had never seen such absurdity.
As Franziska put the youngest down and turned to the other two, a fourth child, who was clearly old enough to have the dignity not to come flying out of the house like a mosquito, walked down the path to join the others.
And then, out stepped Franziska’s wife.
Manfred had never actually determined what the girl’s name was, and if he had, he had long since forgotten it, but he did strongly recognise the odd purple robes and the bizarre beads she wore in her hair, along with the odd-looking necklace. Everything about her was odd, but now a bit older than he remembered. When Franziska noticed her, she waded through a sea of children to make her way over to her. Soon, Manfred found himself struggling to contain a wretch as he witnessed the two hold each other in a kiss, before taking up a long, joyful embrace. Soon, their children joined them, and they were encumbered on all sides by their arms and torsos.
The longer he watched this spectacle unfold, the longer he looked into their eyes, the longer he saw their smiles, the longer he listened to their laughter and merry voices, the more he was sickened. This was the kind of life that Franziska had chosen? How disgusting. He was repulsed.
So much so, that it started to hurt.
Manfred threw his free hand to his chest, the other bracing on his cane. It felt like a great tightness, as if an enormous weight had been applied to his chest. He looked back up at Franziska and her family, and the tightness got worse. The pain got worse.
Suddenly, his ears began to ring. His vision swam. Balance failing, he staggered over to a nearby lamp-post to support himself, but soon the strength in his legs began to fail, and as blackness began to swallow the edges of his sight, Manfred felt himself slip off the post and hit the ground, his head bashing into the concrete of the sidewalk on which he had watched Franziska from across the street. Within seconds, his consciousness was ripped from him.
Not long after that, it was all over.