Werner doesn’t argue. He just waits. This decision is Max’s to make. The navigator ponders for so long that Werner worries he will miss the start of his next shift. But finally Max hands him the key. “Don’t get caught,” he says.
The cabin boy is muttering assurances, backing toward the door, when Max stops him. “Wait. You never told me who brought the other dog on board.”
Werner blinks at him for a moment, confused. “You did,” he says.
THE NAVIGATOR
“I don’t have a dog.”
“There’s one in the cargo hold listed under your name.”
Max glares at the boy. “You’ve read my name wrong before.” Something on Werner’s face wavers. Uncertainty perhaps. “You can read, can’t you?”
“Of course I can read!”
“And you are certain, absolutely certain, you read my name?”
“Yes. Three times. Just to make sure.”
Werner is like a puppy standing there wagging his tail, waiting for a pat on the head, some morsel of approval. Max believes him. He has never known Werner to lie. To omit information, yes. And to evade, yes. But the boy is not a liar. Max needs time to think, time to sort through what this means. Why would someone put his name on that manifest? “Go back to work,” he says, “but I want to talk to you tonight, after your shift.”
Max can tell that Werner wants to ask him something but is too afraid. He takes a guess at what is worrying him. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Besides, I need your help.”
Werner holds up the key. “And this?”
“Do what you can. But don’t let anyone see you.”
“Balla will want it back.”
“Then give it to him. Don’t argue. And don’t let on that you know anything.”
Max watches him hurry down the corridor and around the corner. He’s due back on duty in a few minutes, but there’s something he needs to check first. The mailroom is only a few yards from the officers’ quarters, and all the keys are on a hook at his belt. His room key. The key that opens the radio room. One for the mailroom. One for the officers’ safe in the control car. And a small pewter skeleton key for the lockbox. He used it that first night when he placed the brown paper package in the lockbox, and he holds it between thumb and forefinger now.
The owner of the package is trustworthy. Respected. Formidable. And, when Max looks up, he appears before him, as though summoned by guilt or magic or kismet. Regardless of the cause, Colonel Erdmann pushes open the radio room door just as Max reaches for the knob. Erdmann has been there, as he is most mornings, quietly observing. Taking notes. There is no reason to suspect his sudden appearance. And yet Max does. Especially when Erdmann steps into the hall and shuts the radio room door behind him. He clears his throat and scans the empty corridor.
“I trust that the package I placed in your care is still safe, Herr Zabel?”
Max nods, mute. A toxic, unholy fear begins to bloom in his chest.
“Good. You will receive the rest of your payment once we arrive in Lakehurst.”
THE STEWARDESS
They are unhappy because there is nothing left to do, Emilie thinks. The passengers have reached that point in the trip where cabin fever has set in. It is late afternoon, on the last full day of travel, and there is a stifled feeling in the air. A thickness. These men and women have seen and done everything. There are no more rooms to explore—at least no rooms where they are allowed. The newness has worn off, as has the exuberance. They are tired of one another and tired of the doting crew, though, if pressed, they would argue that the service could be better. They are tired of coffee and pastries and card games and the dissatisfied droning of their peers. They wish the piano hadn’t been removed last year—it would be nice to have a little music. They wish the sun would come out. They want to be in New York. Fifteen hours. That’s all they should have left until arrival. But that time has been lengthened now, a seemingly interminable age to these fatigued travelers. They are angry about the ever-increasing flight delays. Angry they won’t be on their way to some new grand adventure tomorrow morning.
For Emilie the remaining hours cannot pass quickly enough. She sits in the promenade with Matilde Doehner and her children. Irene is crying her way through a difficult cross-stitch pattern. She has pricked her finger three times, and a tissue lies wadded in her lap in anticipation of a fourth. It’s the frustration more than anything else that has the girl in tears. She wants to get it right but can’t. Emilie can sympathize with this. She has spent the majority of her life feeling the same way.
“Would it help if I held the hoop? That way you’d have both hands free,” Emilie says. Helping Irene gives her something to do. It’s a way to forget her anxiety of what will happen when they land.
Irene looks up at her, embarrassed to be caught with tears dripping off the end of her nose. Emilie wipes them away with her apron and receives a smile in exchange.