Emilie takes the stairs two at a time down to B-deck. She’s not entirely certain there is time to fulfill Colonel Erdmann’s request, although she does note that the ground crew has not raised the gangway stairs.
Willy Speck and Herbert Dowe startle when Emilie throws the door back and steps into the radio room. They look at her as though she has materialized naked right in front of them, as though they’ve never seen a woman before. Both men are at their stations, headphones on, fingers hovering over a board filled with knobs and levers as they await orders for liftoff.
“You can’t be in here,” Willy says. The lame protest seems to be the only speech he’s capable of, for he falls silent afterward.
“Yes I can.” Emilie has never taken kindly to being told what she can and cannot do. Certainly not by a gap-toothed radioman with hygiene issues.
“But you’re a…woman,” he adds lamely.
“I’m a crew member. Same as you. With full access to the ship. Same as you. I also happen to be performing my duties, namely having a family member of one of our premier passengers paged to come aboard the ship. Excuse me,” she says, pushing past the still-silent-therefore-clearly-more-intelligent Herbert Dowe and descending a ladder into the control car below. Her uniform makes the job delicate, but she’s too angry now to care. If anyone below is peering up her skirt, let them see her garter belt, and her acrimony. But the officers below are gentlemen. They keep their eyes lowered until she has planted both feet firmly on the carpeted floor of the utility room.
Emilie meets the questioning glances of Commander Pruss and his crew without hesitation. “I’m sorry to interrupt your flight preparations, Commander, but Colonel Erdmann requested that I page his wife.”
“Why?”
She doesn’t intend to lie; the words simply form in her mouth before she has time to think about them. “He didn’t say. But he’s quite insistent.”
The colonel said he wanted to tell his wife good-bye. That’s what she’s thinking while Pruss mulls the request. It was the strangled note in Erdmann’s voice at the word good-bye that has Emilie lying so easily now. Her own husband never had the chance to say good-bye before he left her for good. Her fingers twitch, wanting to reach up and find the key that hangs between her breasts, the key that her husband gave her on their wedding night.
One of the things that puzzles Emilie most about Max Zabel is his timing. He finds her, always, in these moments when she is vulnerable. Emilie does not want to be rescued, and yet there he is. Max descends the ladder into the control car and steps forward to stand between her and Commander Pruss. The gesture is not so much protective as authoritative, as though he’s certain that whatever the trouble might be he can resolve it.
“Is something wrong?” Max asks.
Emilie finds herself the object of Max’s curious gaze. It is alarming, that gaze, how it can root her to the floor. How it can wipe her mind clean of every thought, every objection. How it can make her forget even her late husband. This is why she resists Max, why she hates him at times. Emilie does not want to forget.
They both look to Pruss for an answer.
“No,” the commander says, but does not elaborate. Instead he stares at Emilie as though he is seeing her for the first time.
Many years of service aboard ocean liners and her tenure aboard the airship have taught Emilie that important men do not like to be pressed for time, answers, or decisions. Benevolence, although often required, is something they bestow on their own terms. In their own way. So she stands with her fingers laced in front of her, her face set pleasantly in expectation, her lips pressed together with the barest hint of a patient smile. Hurry, hurry, she thinks. I’m the one who will have to serve Colonel Erdmann for the next three days, not you. If Pruss refuses the colonel’s request there is nothing she will be able to do about it. He is commander, after all, but she will be required to deliver the news.
“Max,” Pruss finally orders, “get the bullhorn and instruct the ground crew to have Dorothea Erdmann brought up from the other hangar.” He turns to Emilie. “You will collect her, I presume?”
“Yes, Commander.”
Max gives Pruss a sharp, obedient nod and steps around a glass wall into the navigation room. She has never seen him in this environment before; she has been in the control car only one time—during her initial tour of the airship. Seeing Max surrounded by his charts and navigational equipment makes sense. Another little piece of the puzzle locks into place. He is a mystery that is slowly, consistently being solved.
“Is there anything else, Fr?ulein Imhof?” There’s the trace of humor in Commander Pruss’s voice.
She’s staring at Max. Damn it, she thinks. Everyone has noticed. They’ll pick him apart for that. “No,” she answers.
“You may return to your duties, then.”