? ? ?
IN HILDESHEIM, they stand upon the empty platform. Lionel reaches inside his pocket as if to check his watch, but he pulls out a small gold ring instead.
“What’s this?”
“Our name is Brown. Edward and Sylvia Brown. We’re American, from New York.” He takes her left hand and slides the ring on her fourth finger.
“Are you mad?”
“New papers. I had them made up just in case there was trouble leaving the country.” He holds her hand for a moment, examining the ring as if to inspect its credibility.
“Because of Serbia?”
He meets her eyes. “Because of Serbia, and everything else. For one thing, if there’s a war, I don’t want to spend it in some damned German internment camp. Now, if they ask any questions, let me do the answering, all right? Swallow your marvelous pride and self-sufficiency this once.”
“But you’re not American.”
“Honey, I can be as American as apple pie, if I have to.” His accent is flawless. He reaches back into his waistcoat pocket, and this time he holds his watch. He flicks open the case and frowns. “German trains are never late.”
“It’s only four minutes.”
A steam whistle pipes from the distant northeast. Lionel replaces his watch in his pocket, picks up Violet’s valise, and turns expectantly up the platform. The rails shriek softly. The gold band weighs down Violet’s hand with an unnatural mass; the thunderous approaching train makes the metal sing in sympathy.
Lionel draws her arm into his elbow. “Come along, Mrs. Brown.”
The train shudders to a stop and releases an exhausted sigh of steam. Lionel leads Violet up the platform to a first class wagon-lit and hands her aboard. A steward greets them, clad in white. “Mr. and Mrs. Brown?”
“Yes.” Lionel hands him Violet’s valise. “I’m afraid our luggage was stolen. My wife and I will require two sets of pajamas.”
“Of course, sir. Right away. I’m very sorry.” The steward leads them to their compartment and tells them about the facilities and the dining car and the expectation for arrival in Zurich. Violet stares dully out the window. The train lurches forward, the steward leaves.
“You’ll want to clean up before dinner, of course,” Lionel says gently.
“Yes, of course.” Violet opens her valise and finds a new dress and linens. Lionel helps her wordlessly with the fastenings. She opens the door to the washstand and cleans her teeth, takes the pins from her hair, brushes and repins. She turns to find Lionel, stripped to the waist, lifting his shaving kit from her valise.
“All finished?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
He shaves as if there’s nothing at all wrong, nothing at all unusual, only a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Brown of New York, preparing for dinner on the Hamburg to Zurich express. “By God,” Lionel says, blotting his cheeks with a white Turkish towel, “there’s nothing like a hot shave to make a man feel himself again.”
“Yes.”
Evidently Violet doesn’t sound quite so sanguine. Lionel drops beside her on the seat. “I’m sorry about all this,” he says quietly. “I know it’s a shock. I’m reeling myself.”
“You seem to be coping well.”
He curls his hands around the edge of the seat and stares with her at the plush blue carpet. How she loves the smell of his newly shaved skin; she is like one of Pavlov’s dogs, wanting to throw herself into his neck at the barest whiff of him, even now, even with her brain and her heart like double anchors weighing her to earth. His bare shoulder touches her dress; his trousers stretch under the pressure of his muscular legs. He asks, “Are you all right? Can you manage dinner?”
She nods.
“It will be all right, Violet. I promise, I swear it.”
“I know. I know it will.”
Lionel moves his hand to cover hers. “Though I’m afraid there is one more thing.”
? ? ?
THE WHITE-CLOTHED TABLE in the dining car is not empty.
“Well, hello,” says the Comtesse de Saint-Honoré, lifting her beautiful head from an earnest inspection of the menu. “If it isn’t Ed and Sylvie. Fancy seeing the two of you here.”
? ? ?
VIOLET MAINTAINS her composure throughout the soup and fish, the meat and dessert and cheese, throughout the trivial table conversation, throughout Jane’s powder-scented kiss good night and Henry’s firm handshake. Once the compartment door closes behind them, she flings her gloves against the window and turns to face her companion.
“What is going on, Lionel? What the hell is going on?”
He stands motionless, his back covering the small window in the compartment door. “You should call me Edward, for now.”
“How dare you be calm. How dare you tell me to call you Edward.”
He hesitates.
“And don’t call me Sylvia!”