She’s certain the chef is on the other side listening. She can smell cigarette smoke drifting through the crack around the door. He would like nothing better than to dish out a portion of gossip with the evening meal. And Emilie would love to tell Max that she has missed him as well in the months since their last passenger flight. She would love to tell him that she has very much looked forward to today. But she doesn’t want to give Xaver the satisfaction. The moment passes into awkward silence.
“Listen…” Max reaches out his hand to brush one finger against her cheek when the air horn sounds with a thunderous bellow from the control car below them. The tension is broken and they shift away from each other. He shoves his hands in his pockets and stares at the ceiling. “That is such a hateful noise.”
Emilie tugs at the cuff of her blouse, pulling it over the base of her thumb. She doesn’t look at Max. “We’re about to start boarding passengers.”
“I really must see if they can do something about that. A whistle, maybe?”
“I should get out there and greet them.”
“Emilie—”
But she’s already backing away, coward that she is, on her way down the corridor to the gangway stairs.
THE JOURNALIST
Gertrud Adelt has no patience for fools. In her opinion, Americans fit the description almost categorically. The one sitting across from her now is drunk, leaning precariously into the aisle and singing out of tune. He shouts the words to some bawdy drinking song as if he were dancing on a bar instead of sitting in a bus filled with exhausted passengers. His voice is bombastic, loud and abrasive, and mein Gott, please make him stop, she thinks. She turns her pretty mouth to her husband’s ear and quietly asks, “Can’t you do something?”
Leonhard looks at his watch, then up at the heavily listing American. “He’s been drinking since three o’clock. I’d say he’s managing quite well, all things considered.”
“He’s obnoxious.”
“He’s happy to be leaving Deutschland. There’s no crime in that.” The look he gives her is tinged with understanding. Who wouldn’t want to leave this country? Anyone but the two of them, most likely. As it stands, the thought makes her ache. Their son, little more than a year old, is in the care of Gertrud’s mother at the insistence of a senior SS officer. Blackmail by way of separation. Return as promised, or else. In recent months, Germany has grown adept at making sure that valued citizens do not defect.
The Adelts have spent the better part of their day waiting in the lobby of Frankfurt’s Hof Hotel. Waiting for lunch. Waiting for a telegram from Leonhard’s publisher. Waiting for the government to change their minds and revoke permission for the trip altogether. At four o’clock the buses arrived to shuttle them to the Rhein-Main Flughafen. But then they waited while their luggage was searched and their papers checked and double-checked and triple-checked. The first indication that Gertrud was ready to snap came when her bag was weighed.
“I’m sorry, Frau Adelt,” the customs officer informed her. “Your bag is fifteen kilos over the twenty-kilo limit. You will have to pay a fine of five marks for every extra kilo.”
Gertrud looked around the bar, eyeing each of the men waiting to board the buses. She sniffed and rose to her full height. “Then it’s a good thing I weigh twenty kilos less than the average passenger.”
The customs officer was not amused, and Leonhard handed over the seventy-five marks before Gertrud could further complicate the process. By the time they were finally allowed on the bus and took their seats, she was exhausted and entirely without coping skills to deal with fellow passengers.
Now, the long muscles along her spine feel ready to snap. They are tight and aching, strained by her rigid posture over the last few hours. The American’s voice grinds against her skull like mortar against pestle. The back of her eyes hurt. Gertrud fights the irrational urge to reach across the aisle and strike his face. She tucks her hands between her knees instead.
Something outside the window catches the American’s attention and he drifts into silence. Gertrud sighs, squeezes her eyes shut, and leans her head against Leonhard’s shoulder. The bus rumbles along steadily for a few moments, vibrations coming up through the floor and into their feet. They are jostled by the occasional pothole—the broad paved streets of Frankfurt have fallen into disrepair, but fixing them hardly seems a priority to anyone. They soon pass a sign with a white arrow directing them to the airfield. The bus veers to the left, and an excited murmur runs through the passengers. Somewhere, behind them, a child cheers. Gertrud feels a twinge of anger that some other child is allowed to make the voyage while hers is forced to stay behind. The American, however, is energized by their near arrival and belts out the second verse of his drinking song. He leans toward her, eyes crossed, chuckling, and she recoils from his sour breath.
Leonhard grabs her wrist just as she’s about to lash out. “No,” he says. “Be good.” Her husband is twenty-two years older than she is, but time has not dulled his strength one iota. He puts two broad hands around her waist and lifts her up and over his lap. Leonhard deposits her neatly by the window, his body a wall between her and the American.