There is an edge to his voice now. “You, my dear, are going to get up and make your way to the shower. Then you will dress and put on, not just your makeup, but your best poker face. Because you’ve been a fool. You have shown your hand. And that man, whoever he might be, now knows ten times more about us than we know about him. We will rectify that today, Liebchen. But we will do it together. In a manner that I find appropriate.” Leonhard leans across the bed and runs a single calloused thumb across her cheek. “You will get your Schei?e together. Starting now.”
There are fifteen things that Gertrud wants to say. And for one long, jumbled moment they knock around inside her mind, jockeying for position. Accusations. Profanity. Excuses. Not one, but three Romani hexes she learned from her maternal grandmother. But judging by the look on his face, it’s an apology he’s looking for, and she cannot find a single one to offer him. So in the end she says nothing. Gertrud is not ready to admit any wrongdoing on her part. And her husband is not ready to accept anything less. An uneasy silence settles between them. After a moment Leonhard lifts a long, cream-colored satin robe from the closet. He holds it out.
“You know,” she says, taking a stab at levity, “the best thing about this trip was going to be sleeping in. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have to get up early and deal with a child.”
“Think about that the next time you crawl into bed smelling like an ashtray. How long has it been since you’ve smoked? Two years?”
“Almost. It’s therapeutic.”
“I find it unnerving.”
“You used to find it sexy.”
“I still do. That’s not the point.” He shakes the robe, impatient.
So this is how it will be. Fine. Gertrud slides off the bed and lets Leonhard help her into the robe. He secures it high on her breastbone, then ties it at her waist. Leonhard hands her the cosmetic bag and a towel that hangs beside the sink.
Her voice is clipped. “Which dress?”
“The blue one. It matches your eyes. And I’ve never seen you wear it without every man in the room staring at you.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to put myself out there?”
“The problem, Liebchen, is that you can be such an idiot in the way you go about doing it.”
He is done with argument. Leonhard shoos her out the door. “Be in the dining room in thirty minutes,” he says. “We’re going to make an appearance at seven like the civilized people we are.”
“You’re not waiting for me?”
He chucks her chin. “Why bother when you’re so good at rushing ahead?”
The only people whom Gertrud encounters on her short trip to the shower are two uniformed crew members who discreetly avert their eyes at the sight of her in a dressing gown. Once inside the small room, Gertrud locks the door and hangs her clothing on a series of hooks bolted to the wall. The shower is split in half and separated by a curtain. The walls and floor are covered in clean white tiles. There’s a single light overhead and a drain in the floor. Gertrud hangs up her robe and drops her slip to the tiled floor. When she turns the knob she discovers insufficient pressure and tepid water. It rather feels as though she’s being pissed on. Gertrud has to make three full rotations before her entire body is wet, and it takes minutes of standing directly beneath the showerhead to saturate her hair. Gertrud finishes her shower with military efficiency, scrubbing at her body with a bar of lavender soap. Shampoo gets in her eyes, and she can’t rinse it out before the sting spreads. What little bit of good humor she had left slips away, leaving behind a raw, bristling anger.
It’s not until she goes to step over the lip of the shower that she slips and has to steady herself against the wall. At first she thinks there’s a sliver of soap near the drain, but when she bends to pick it up she finds a pendant of some sort at the end of a ball chain. It’s oval, tarnished, and stamped with raised letters and numbers. Gertrud wipes it against her towel and holds it up to the light so she can read it.
It looks to be a Deutsches Herr identification tag.
The tin is well worn on one side. She runs the pad of her thumb across it to help identify the digits she can’t read. There are ten numbered fields on the disk, each containing a bit of pertinent information about the soldier it was issued to. Religious preference: rk for Catholic. Service number: 100991–K-455(-)6(-)8. Blood type: AB. And various vaccinations. Whoever this soldier might be, she now knows almost everything about him but his name. The only thing that Gertrud is certain of as she squints at the tag, trying to make sense of its presence in this place, is that the American had one very much like it in the bar last night. But she has no intention of giving it back.
She is flushed, excited, as she dries and dresses and readies herself for breakfast. Hair and makeup and general grooming are done in the cabin, in record time, and she’s buzzing like a live wire by the time she reaches the dining room. Leonhard rises from his seat and comes to greet her as soon as she enters. He is so hell-bent on intercepting her that he doesn’t notice the dramatic change in her countenance. He bends low to place a kiss on her cheek. “You smell better.”
“Hhhmm. I did think a bit of food would improve your manners.”