by Ariel Lawhon
“I didn’t think so.” He likes the boy. Werner is frank and bright and has just the right amount of confidence to accomplish this task.
“You don’t mean the acrobat’s dog, do you? Because I doubt he’d like me interfering.”
“No. Not that one. There’s another dog in the cargo hold that seems to have been forgotten about. I want you to feed it and change the papers in its crate twice a day. I’ll pay you ten American dollars to do the job. That way you’ll have spending money once we land. Maybe you could buy something for your mother?” The American looks over Werner’s shoulder at Irene as she pretends not to watch them. “Or maybe a trinket for Fräulein Doehner?”
Werner’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “How do you know what’s in the cargo hold? Passengers aren’t allowed outside of the passenger areas.”
Oh, he likes this kid very much. Werner cleanly ignored the bait and went straight for the jugular. “Neither are cabin boys, from what I hear.”
Silence.
“But given the fact that I saw you in the belly of this ship not half an hour ago, I would say that you and I are both people for whom exceptions are made.”
“I don’t—”
The American holds up a hand to stop him. “No point in lying. I don’t care what you were doing. You are clearly ambitious and clever, but those are tools that you should make the most of elsewhere. The only question you need to answer, Herr Franz, is whether or not you would like to make a bit of extra money.”
The cabin boy clears his throat. “Of course,” he says. “But not if I’ll get in trouble for it. I can’t afford to lose this job.”
“You won’t get in trouble. I can promise you that. Simply ensure that the dog is cared for. And if anyone asks what you’re doing back there, you can tell them the owner paid you to care for it since he isn’t allowed in the cargo hold.”
“You own that dog?”
“No. But no one else needs to know that.”
Werner considers this proposition for a moment. “What’s its name?”
“Owens.”
“Is that actually his name?”
“Hell if I know.”
“What if it won’t answer to Owens? Dogs are smart.”
“Trust me. It will answer to anything.”
“Why are you doing this? Why pay to care for an animal that isn’t yours?”
Sometimes a bit of compassion and decency is reason enough to do something out of the ordinary. This isn’t something he will say aloud, however. “That dog doesn’t deserve to be abandoned, starved, and left to shit itself.”
“I’ll do it, then. But you will pay me up front.”
The American pulls a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and hands it to Werner. “Agreed.”
The boy scrutinizes this windfall for a moment as though to make sure it isn’t counterfeit, as though he’d know the difference. Then he tucks it into the small breast pocket of his steward’s coat. He gives the American the serious nod of one gentleman conducting business with another.
“Now I’d like to know what we’re having for breakfast. I’m starving. And I’m also quite interested to learn everything you know about a certain passenger on board this airship.”
“Which passenger?”
He rocks back on his heels, arms crossed, anticipation written into the lines around his mouth. “Leonhard Adelt.”
THE NAVIGATOR
Max descends into the control car for his shift and feels the charged atmosphere immediately. He has missed something important. An argument most likely. There’s palpable tension in the air. No one makes eye contact or speaks. The officers look like a pack of angry dogs, hackles raised, spines stiff. There’s a feral look to Commander Pruss, an aggressive slant to his mouth.
Colonel Erdmann has observation duties this morning, and he has removed himself to the edge of the utility room. He watches, concern evident on his face.
Max sniffs out the situation carefully. “What’s wrong?”
Christian Nielsen stands in the navigation room glowering at a set of charts spread on the table. He jabs them with an angry finger. “Headwinds.”
“And?”
“We’re three hours behind schedule.”
It was Max’s affinity for logic and order that drew him to navigation in the first place, but it is his capacity for problem-solving and maintaining order that keeps him in this position instead of reaching for command of his own airship. Already his mind is ticking through potential issues, looking for a solution. A loss of this magnitude can easily happen over the course of an entire trip, but for it to happen overnight is highly irregular. Max inspects the instruments on the wall above his desk, looking for the culprit. A broken clock or a malfunctioning triangulation gauge. He even pulls the compass from his pocket to double-check the gauges. But nothing is out of sync.
“Headwinds?” he asks.
“Fifteen knots.”
He ponders this for a moment. “Crosswinds?”
Nielsen checks the logbook. “They’ve stayed around twelve knots, give or take a bit, depending on altitude. But still, we should have crossed the prime meridian at one o’clock. And we didn’t get there until three. We’ve lost another hour since.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Max says. “It’s—”
“Inexcusable,” Commander Pruss growls. He stands at the rudder wheel, his back turned, his voice charged with electricity.
So here is the source of the tension, then. Pruss is frustrated, Nielsen is defensive, and everyone else is unwilling to take sides. No matter what might have been spoken between them, the delay cannot be Nielsen’s fault. The Hindenburg is an aviation marvel but no state-of-the-art technology can defeat Mother Nature. The airship will always be subject to her capricious whims.
“Get us back on course, Max,” Pruss says. He dismisses Nielsen with a curt nod.
Nielsen is ready to protest, but Max shakes his head. No, the movement says, it’s not worth the trouble you’ll make for yourself. Max is on duty now. He’ll fix the problem—it’s what he does best after all. If Nielsen is smart he will keep his mouth shut, and Pruss won’t remember the incident come nightfall.
Nielsen signs out of the logbook with resignation. Then he salutes Pruss and leaves the control car. There is an immediate shift in the atmosphere, as though Nielsen has taken the strain with him, and as Max assumes his position at the chart, balance is restored.
Max consults his equipment and then traces the ship’s course on the chart as he mentally calculates the total air speed and the angle of the wind based on their direction of travel.
He makes a decision. “Commander?”
Max waits for Pruss to turn.
“If we lower altitude fifty feet and alter course two degrees to the south, headwinds will be reduced significantly.”
Pruss considers Max’s suggestion for a moment—it’s for show, as Pruss always defers to Max in this area—then he gives the orders to descend. There is an immediate tug on the airship, like a balloon being pulled forward.
“Well done,” Colonel Erdmann says quietly behind him.
Max acknowledges the praise with a slight nod, unnerved at the intensity of Erdmann’s gaze and the unasked questions it contains. Then he returns to his duties, feeling rather satisfied with himself. No, you can’t defeat Mother Nature, he thinks, but you sure as hell can move out of her way.
THE JOURNALIST
Gertrud is woken, not so much by light, but by the feeling of being watched. Without opening her eyes she knows that Leonhard’s gaze is on her face. Without looking at him she can’t tell whether the gaze is amorous or angry, but she can feel its heat nonetheless. Gertrud groans and rolls away, taking the blanket with her. “It’s too early. Go back to sleep.”
His voice is a warm hum in the near darkness. “Why? When I was so enjoying the surprise of waking to actually find you here.”
Damn him. So it’s anger, then.
Gertrud shifts onto her back but does not
open her eyes. Her scalp hurts. The backs of her eyeballs feel like they are coated with sand. There’s fur on her teeth and sleep in her limbs. “That’s such a rare thing?”
“Where did you go last night, Liebchen?” Leonhard loops an arm around her waist and pulls her against his chest. There is nothing seductive about the gesture. He is locking her in.
“What do you mean?” She won’t lie to him exactly, she’s never been good at that, but Gertrud feels no guilt about feigning confusion.
“You smell of cigarettes. And booze.” He throws the blanket back to expose her rumpled slip. “And last I checked, the only thing you were wearing…was me.”
She opens her mouth, but Leonhard lays a finger across her lips in warning. He does not like it when she’s deceptive. He’s giving her a way out.
“And then there’s always the fact that when I woke last night you weren’t here,” he adds.
“Maybe I got cold? Maybe I got up in the middle of the night to use the toilet? Maybe I was hungry?”
“Maybe you went looking for trouble because you thought I wouldn’t be along to stop you?”
“Does it matter?”
Leonhard gives her a nip on the ear with his teeth. “Of course it does. I am your husband after all.”
“Then why didn’t you come looking for me if you were so concerned?”
The stateroom is beginning to fill with a pale, silvery light, but they can’t see out the window from the angle at which they are lying. “We’re six hundred feet in the air. You’re afraid of heights. Didn’t figure you could get very far.”
“I didn’t think you’d wake. I’m sorry.”
“Clarify that apology, Liebchen. Sorry that I woke? That you were reckless? Or that you worried me?”
Gertrud turns to face him. She forces one eye open. “Sorry that you think this is a big deal.”
“It is a very big deal. Where did you go?”
“To the bar. I couldn’t sleep.” The look she gives him suggests that this is his fault, that he’d promised her sleep and didn’t deliver on his end of the bargain.
They have spent such a large part of their relationship in some form of playful banter that she is unnerved by the severe crease that forms between his eyes. Leonhard is quite genuinely angry.
“What were you doing? In the bar?”
“Drinking.”
“And?”
“Smoking.”
“With?”
“Edward Douglas.”
“Pray tell, Liebchen, who in the fucking hell is Edward Douglas?”
Gertrud yawns and stretches her arms behind her head until her palms rest flat against the wall. She pushes against it, and the muscles in her spine begin to protest. “Well, for starters, he’s the drunk Arschloch who was on the bus yesterday.”
“Starters?”
She sits up and folds her legs beneath her. Gertrud pushes her hair away from her face, then crosses her arms over her chest. She does her best to match the harsh expression on Leonhard’s face. “He also happens to be the mystery man who ran up the stairs that day in Frankfurt when Herr Goebbels yanked my press card.”
Gertrud waits. Leonhard has the squint-eyed look of a man trying hard to remember something just beyond his grasp. After a moment he sits up with a start. “The mustache!”
“It doesn’t really suit him, does it?”
“You are a terrifying creature. You know that, right?”
“I like to think I’m simply observant.”
Leonhard isn’t ready to let her off the hook just yet, however. He sets a gentle hand on each shoulder. “What I’d really like to do right now is shake you so hard your teeth rattle. And I would if I thought for a moment that it would do any good. But I know you better than that. So instead I want you to tell me every single thing you learned about that man. Do you understand? Everything.”
“You’ll just be disappointed. I don’t know much more than you do. Despite my best efforts. He’s cagey. And a spectacular liar. He answered my questions, but only just. And in a way that left me with more questions. That bastard had five empty glasses on the table when I got there. And two more by the time the bartender kicked us out at three o’clock, and he wasn’t even the least bit drunk. How is that possible, Leonhard?”
“Clearly he holds it well.”
“No one holds it that well.”
“You’re using absolutes again. I would have thought life had taught you better by now.”
“It’s too early to get philosophical.”
“This is logic. Not philosophy.”
“You want logic? Why the act on the bus yesterday? What could he possibly have gained from that little charade?”
Leonhard isn’t a man who smiles often. He isn’t jovial. Or histrionic. He often keeps his emotions tucked behind that reserved, precise exterior. So Gertrud is somewhat anxious when a broad, wicked grin stretches across his face. “That is something you’ll likely have to puzzle over while you get ready. We’re going to breakfast.”
“No.” She dives back into the covers. Pulls them over her head. “I’m going back to sleep. I’m exhausted.”
She can feel the mattress shift beneath her when Leonhard climbs out of bed. And for the briefest moment she actually believes that he will let her sleep. But a second later he yanks the bedding clean off, sheets and all, and drops it to the floor.
“Stop it!”
“Get up.”
“No.” She flings herself back into the pillows like a petulant child.
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 Scheiße 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.