“Not yet.” Lionel picks up the valise and moves forward in the queue. “Nothing’s written in stone, is it?”
Another hour. The guards are working with remarkable efficiency; only one party stands ahead of them in the queue now. They are now being split between the two guards. Violet looks back and forth between them, trying to judge which will finish first. She doesn’t want to go to the man with the bulbous nose; she doesn’t like the keen squint of his eye, the bloodhound hang of his jowls above his stiff gray collar.
The other guard waves his party through the gate and calls over the next in the queue. Lionel’s hand closes about Violet’s, in a solicitous husbandly way. “Tired, my dear?”
“It’s dreadfully hot.”
“We’ll be through soon, I promise.”
Violet watches the guard. He looks up and jerks his head at the man who stands nervously before him, and the man picks up his valise and hurries with relief through the barrier. The guard turns his gaze to Violet, and then, more thoroughly, to Jane. He lifts his hand and motions them forward.
Jane thrusts her papers forward. “Jane Mortimer, of New York City,” she says. “And my son, Henry.”
The guard takes the papers and looks them over.
“What an adorable country you have,” says Jane. “I admire your efficiency tremendously. Such a strong and muscular race.”
He looks up. She smiles winningly.
His eyes shift to Lionel and Violet. “You travel together?”
Lionel offers the papers. “Yes. Edward and Sylvia Brown, New York City. Some crowd you’ve got here, eh? You’d think there was a war on, ha, ha.”
The guard runs his thumb along the side of Lionel’s false passport. He opens the leather cover and flips over the pages. “Edward Brown?” he says.
“Yes, siree. My wife, Sylvia.”
The guard spares a glance at Violet and returns to his study. For some reason, the word wife comforts Violet, even though it’s false, even though Lionel is telling a patent lie. She likes the way it sounds in his confident American voice. As if, in that instant, she really is his wife, and he really is her husband.
“I hope everything’s in order,” says Jane. “I can never keep all these official stamps straight.”
The guard’s gaze falls for an instant on her bosom, on the smooth skin of her neck. He turns to Lionel and Violet and jerks his head. “You, go ahead.”
“But we can’t—” says Violet.
“Let’s go, Sylvie,” says Lionel. “They’ll catch up.”
Jane says, “Oh, go on ahead, you two. I suppose I’ve left something out again.”
Violet looks frantically at Henry. “But—”
“Let’s go.” Lionel’s unshakeable hand surrounds her arm.
Violet gives way. Lionel urges her forward with swift American-like strides, toward the barrier, which lifts obligingly at their approach. Switzerland, safety, the end of the journey a few steps away. Violet’s blood skids giddily in her veins.
A shout from behind. Violet turns.
Lionel tugs her forward. “Come along, Sylvie! Now!”
“Schliessen Sie! Schliessen Sie das Tor!”
The guard at the barrier brings down the bar with a thud. He looks toward the guardhouse. A swirl of dust lifts past.
Lionel’s hand clenches like a vise on Violet’s arm. “Look here, we’ve already been cleared.”
The pair of guards—the ones from the automobile—stride toward the barrier, waving their arms. They shout to the crowd, in English. “No more! No more today!”
An outraged murmur passes among the hot and dusty crowd. Someone shouts out in furious Italian.
“No more today!” the taller one repeats.
“But we’ve already been cleared,” says Lionel.
The guard shrugs. “By order of the state.”
? ? ?
THEY SIT around a table in a bare room in the guardhouse, the four of them, Lionel and Violet and Jane and Henry. The guard with the bulbous nose overwhelms a chair in the corner. His eyes fix on Jane’s swelling bosom with expressionless intent.
They have been picked out of the crowd, along with a few other parties, and brought here, while all the other travelers drifted off to the hotels and restaurants to nurse their official outrage. “This is ridiculous,” says Jane. “We’re American citizens. I demand to see the fellow in charge.”
The guard doesn’t answer. A clock ticks on the wall behind Violet, unnaturally loud in the overheated stillness of the room. She imagines a glass of water, tall and cool, on the table before them. She can almost picture herself lifting it up and drinking deep. Next to her, Lionel sits back in his chair, his jacket slung behind him, his muscular body at perfect rest.
Lionel will handle this. Lionel knows what to do. Invincible Lionel.
Violet crosses her hands in her lap and allows a long breath. The gold ring squats on her finger, fat and reassuring. Faith: whatever that is. Faith in this, at least: that Lionel will find some way to release them from this guardhouse. That this room and this moment are not the ones she has to fear.