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Switzerland, Alps
Thursday
A lot of People spoke German here, so it wasn’t anything new to hear it this day, even though the voice sounded familiar.
The hours flew by, while Beatrice took care of the Inventory and numbers in her regular booth, until Ava jumped on the bench next to her grinning brightly.
“We’re done for the day.”
“Alright. Just let me finish this and then we’ll go home.”
Ava waited patiently (for her), bouncing her leg up and down all the while staring at Beatrice.
“Fine. I’m done.”
“Great! Let’s go! I just have to say Bye to Hans first.”
And with that she dragged Beatrice out of the booth, towards the Bar where Hans was cleaning the last few glasses.
“Tshüss Hans! Ich freu mich schon auf morgen, wenn du mir deinen spezial Cocktail zeigst!”
(Bye Hans! I can’t wait for you to show me how to make your special Cocktail tomorrow!)
Beatrice was speechless. So that’s how she knew the voice, it was Ava’s! And it was basically without any kind of accent!
But since when did she speak German???
Still in shock, she could only follow when Ava, oblivious to her frozen state, pulled her from the Bar all the way Home.
Only when she heard the door close did she spin around, looking at Ava.
“Ava! I didn’t know you speak German?”
“Oh I don’t.” Ava shrugged.
Absolutely bewildered, Beatrice looked at Ava. “Then what was that with Hans? You just learned that single sentence?” Though that does sound like something Ava would do.
Uncertain Ava looks at Bea “No, well, the regulars at the Bar have been helping me for a few days now…since Monday last week I think? I can hold a conversation pretty well now.”
Again Ava shrugged and started fidgeting with the hem of her Top.
“……..Ava you’re practically fluent.” Bea said dumbstrucked.
Now it was Avas turn to look confused, because certainly Bea was joking.
“I am? I still struggle with some of the more complicated words and proper pronunciation of them though.”
“Yes, but do you understand how the sentence structure works and how to conjugate verbs?”
“I mean yeah, but it’s not like that’s hard. I bet you would get it in like 4 days or so.”
“No, Ava, that’s not how learning a language usually works. You don’t just learn an entire new language in barely a week and then speak it with barely any accent!” How does she not understand that? Bea was absolutely flabbergasted.
“It’s not? But you speak so many languages, how long did it take you to learn French? 3 days? Am I being dumb again?” Ava looks at her in horror, thinking she did something wrong again that most other people understood by default.
(We’re not talking about her first grocery trip. That was embarrassing.)
“Ava no! It took me half a year to get to a decent level of French!” It was almost painful, how chocked Bea felt and hysterical this whole situation was.
“Oh…..then I guess it’s weird that I learned French this weekend, because I wanted to read the same books you do, so you can talk to me about them?”
How did Beatrice ever thought of Ava as selfish was beyond her.
“What?? 2 Days???? That’s….really sweet?” and even in her shocked state, her ear and her face flushed red.
“Oh! Also and don’t tell Camila okay? But I’ve been learning some hacking skill from her since we got here and honestly it always looked so complicated on TV, but it was really easy….well after some mishaps. I even managed to hack into the OCS so I could see how the others are doing.”
Stunned into silence doesn’t even begin to cover how Beatrice was fairing right now.
“They are fine btw.”
“Bea, are you ok? Your mouth is hanging open?”
“Oh...uhm...we should also maybe avoid law enforcement for some time, the CIA really doesn’t have good cyber security. The OCS is way out of their league when it comes to that.”