Käthe Kollwitz: Woman And Artist

My husband Hades gave another woman my birthday celebration. Then he gave her my mother’s brooch. Then he let our son call her home. Nympha was the flower spirit who had grown up beside him. The healers said a curse was killing her, and she had only six months left before she disappeared forever. Hades said he only wanted her final days to be free of regret. So I was expected to be generous. Even when our five-year-old son, Eren, curled up beside her at the hearth and whispered that she felt more like home than I did, I still told myself he was only a child. Then one night, I heard him say to Hades, “Nympha is so gentle. So beautiful. I wish Mother could be more like her.” Hades only smiled. “Your mother is strict because she wants what is best for you,” he said. “But if you like Nympha so much, I can let her stand beside you at the family altar. She can bless you like a second mother.” That was when I finally understood. My husband had already given her my place. And my son had accepted her there. So the next morning, I placed a marriage dissolution agreement before Hades. He signed it without reading, because Nympha had collapsed again and he was desperate to reach her.By the time he realized what he had signed, I was already gone. If they wanted Nympha to be the lady of the Underworld, I would grant them their wish. But why, after I left, did Hades tear the Underworld apart looking for me? Why did my son cry himself sick, begging for the mother he once pushed away? And why did the dying woman they protected so carefully suddenly stop looking so fragile?

At the bride selection ball, the queen herself chose me to be the crown prince's consort. Then my cousin Yvonne Johnson suddenly dropped to her knees in the middle of the hall and presented an erotic painting to the court. The woman in the painting had no face, but the rose birthmark at my waist had been rendered in chilling detail. Yvonne's eyes were red, her voice soft and cool. "I love my cousin dearly, but I can't deceive the queen. Your Majesty, please look closely. My cousin's virtue is compromised. She isn't fit to be the crown prince's consort." In a single night, my reputation was destroyed. I became the most shameless woman in the capital. Yvonne smiled at me, sweet as ever. "If your mother hadn't drawn your birthmark herself, no one would've believed that the eldest daughter of a duke's household would do something so indecent." My mother looked at me with an expression that held only resignation. "Your aunt once saved my life. I made a promise to Yvonne. I swore I'd give her the finest match in the world. But as long as you're here, you're in her way. Charlotte, my hands are tied." The ground dropped out from under me. It was my mother who'd had that painting made. She'd destroyed my name, my future, all to help her favorite niece marry the crown prince. Using my so-called disgrace as justification, she ordered me to hang myself. Meanwhile, my cousin married into the palace in glory, dressed in the gown and jewels that had been meant for me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day of the bride selection ball.

The knights of Saint Christopher arrived, and they brought nightmares to the little convent of the good sisters- an angel who was the opposite of his kind, a forbidden love affair, a predator of innocents, a monster for a father, and a death. Mathilda, who had nothing but hatred for this world, would slay the evils to protect her people, or was she the evil they needed saving from?

My mother was the best portrait artist in the police station. She had a strong sense of justice and brooked no evil. However, all I got was a sharp retort when I called her to save me. "You know it's your sister's coming-of-age celebration today, and you're cursing her? Kidnapped, are you? Fine, the kidnappers can kill you for all I care." She assumed it was a prank call. So, she refused to go to the police station and do her job. I wasn't saved in time and was tortured to death. When the DNA report came out, she came to the scene all wobbly. She drew a portrait of me with my bones as reference, her hand trembling all the way. "Jessica? It can't be her. This is a mistake!" She tried again and again. Yet, it didn't matter how many times she redid it as the portrait showed my face. My mother, who had hated me my whole life, teared up.

I was a sketch artist acting for the police. On a secret mission, I was discovered by a murderer. My eyes were gouged out, and my body was dismembered, unceremoniously dumped in a garbage bin. On the brink of death, I called my boyfriend, a criminal investigator. However, he hung up on me because he was busy accompanying his first love to a prenatal checkup. A few days later, he received a painting that was a vital clue to finding the murderer, but he thought I was playing tricks on him. In his anger, he tore that portrait to shreds. After he found out the truth, he spent the whole night searching through the garbage to piece it back together.

In 1940 Hitler gifted a Mercedes car to the then monarch of Nepal, Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah Dev. The story revolves around this historical fact; however the main plot of the novel is the romance between a Nepal princess and a man from Kerala, a South Indian state. Both these characters are real people. The man from Kerala is the protagonist of the story. He was in Kathmandu in 1989 to pursue his post-graduate studies. One of his classmates at Tribhuvan University was a princess, a relative of the then monarch, King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. One day she showed him the Mercedes car, which at that time had been abandoned by the royal family and was resting at the Nepal Engineering College compound. The protagonist was a bit skeptical of Hitler's motive in gifting the car to the Nepal king, but since the princess could not give him a credible reason disregarded the matter. After about 22 years the protagonist and the princess come together and travel to Mt. Everest to unearth Hitler's motive in gifting the car to the Nepal king. On the scary and freezing slope of the highest peak in the world they come to know about many unknown facets of Hitler and the main reason behind the fall of the Nepal kingdom. Along with that they also come to know about their past lives, which was scarily excruciating, at the same time thrilling. It is this revelation about the past lives of the protagonist and the princess that binds the story together.