“If it’s the Maybach 12 you’re drinking tonight, you’ll not have much time yourself before I’ll have to carry you to bed.”
“You’ll hardly get the chance if you never get the drinks.”
“Start slowly at least. You don’t have the legs to hold much of that particular drink.” Leonhard leaves her then and goes in search of the bar on B-deck and its famous cocktail, the recipe for which is known only to the bar steward, a secret that is guarded more closely than the Hindenburg itself.
Gertrud sniffs. They have established on more than one occasion that she is a lightweight when it comes to booze. Fine. She’ll pace herself. But still, she waits a few moments to approach Colonel Erdmann. Waits to make sure that none of the other passengers will seek him out. He lingers apart from the cluster of people, his eyes glued to the hangar on the other side of the tarmac where his wife has disappeared once again.
She goes to stand beside him but does not draw attention to herself. After a moment she simply says, “Your wife is lovely.”
He does not look at her when he responds, “You have no idea.”
“You might be surprised. I’m a good judge of character.”
“I’ll grant that. Given your husband.”
He is observant. She will have to be careful. “You know Leonhard?”
“As much as one man can know another from a few pleasant conversations.”
“He thinks highly of you.”
“I think not.”
This takes her aback. “Oh?”
For the first time since he entered the promenade Colonel Erdmann grins. He turns to face her. “It will take more than one Maybach 12 to get me talking, Frau Adelt. I would hope Leonhard gives me more credit than that.”
“So you heard our conversation?”
He shrugs. “I pay attention.”
Observant and clever. Gertrud mentally recalculates her plan of attack. “Alas, I am responsible for that poor estimate. Forgive me? I tend to assume the Luftwaffe recruits only one kind of man.”
He gives a lopsided grin. Waits for the punch line.
“Libertines.”
“Guilty as charged.”
She takes his laughter as a small victory and extends her hand with a smile. “Gertrud Adelt.”
“Fritz Erdmann.” He grasps her hand. Shakes it. “I see that you and Leonhard are very well matched.”
Gertrud opens her mouth to answer but is interrupted by the return of her husband.
“I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to get it right the second time around.” Leonhard joins them at the window carrying three frosted glasses containing ice chips and a murky citrine liquid. The look he gives Gertrud is a mixture of astonishment and respect. He hands one of the glasses to the colonel. “You will join us for dinner? Unless my wife has revealed too much of her impetuous nature.”
Gertrud takes a tiny sip of the Maybach 12 and can almost feel her hair blow back. The drink is everything, all at once, and she has an immediate appreciation for its reputation. She can taste the kirsch and the Benedictine in equal parts, along with a good dry gin, and something else she can’t identify. “He means I’m an acquired taste.”
“On the contrary, Liebchen,” Leonhard says. “It didn’t take me long at all. One kiss, if I recall correctly.”
The colonel is clearly enjoying their banter. “This may come as a surprise to you, Frau Adelt, but I prefer women who speak and drink freely.”
“Why would that surprise me?”
“It’s not the sort of thing you admit in polite society.”
“Oh, I’m hardly polite.”
“Neither is my wife.”
Gertrud can’t help but look at the rectangular hangar across the tarmac. She’s trying to find the right thing to say when the colonel speaks again.
“Dorothea would have liked you very much.”
“I would be honored to meet her. Perhaps when we return to Frankfurt?”
She offers her drink in toast, but he only clinks her glass halfheartedly. “Perhaps.”
THE NAVIGATOR
“She’s down there,” Willy Speck says when Max enters the radio room. He gives a pointed nod at the ladder that leads down to the control car.
“Who?”
“Your girl.”
Their relationship seems to be an established fact for everyone but Emilie herself. Max can hear her then, asking Commander Pruss to have someone paged. He pushes past the radiomen and slides down the ladder as quickly as he can. Finding Emilie in the control car like this feels a bit like finding her in his bed. It’s not unwelcome, just startling, as though she has made herself familiar with his things. The way a lover would. And, as he would most certainly feel in that situation, Max does not know what to do next. She hasn’t ventured into the navigation room but stands patiently in the utility area waiting for Commander Pruss’s decision.