The Stewardess It''s a bad idea, don''t you think?" Emilie asks, as she stands inside the kitchen door, propping it open with her foot. "Striking a match in here? You could blow us all to oblivion." Xaver Maier is young for a head chef, only twenty-five, but he wears the pressed white uniform--a double-breasted jacket and checkered pants--with an air of authority. The starched apron is tied smartly at his waist, the toque fitted snuggly to his head. He gives her that careless, arrogant smirk that she has begrudgingly grown fond of and puts the cigarette to his lips. He inhales so deeply that she can see his chest expand, and then blows the smoke out the open galley window into the warm May evening. "Ventilation, love, it''s all about proper ventilation." The way he says the word, the way he holds his mouth, is clearly suggestive of other things, and she dismisses him with a laugh.
Xaver Maier is much younger than Emilie and a great deal too impressed with himself. "At the moment, love, it''s about aspirin. I need two. And a glass of water if you can summon the effort." The kitchen is small but well ordered, and Xaver''s assistant chefs are busy chopping, boiling, and basting in preparation for dinner. He stands in the center of the melee like a colonel directing his troops, an eye on every small movement. "Faking a headache?" he asks. "Poor Max.
I thought you''d finally come around. We''ve been taking bets, you know." "Don''t," she says, flinging a drawer open and shuffling through the contents. She has made it perfectly clear that all discussion of Max is off limits. She will make up her mind when she is good and ready. "I went to the dentist yesterday, and the left side of my jaw feels like it''s about to fall off." She leaves the drawer open and moves on to another. "Usually when a woman tells me her jaw is sore I apologize.
" Emilie opens a third drawer. Then a fourth. Slams it. "I had a tooth filled." She''s impatient now. And irritated. "Aspirin? I know you keep it around here somewhere." He follows behind her, shoving the drawers shut.
"Enough of that. You''re as bad as the verdammt Gestapo." "What?" She looks up. Xaver reaches behind her head and lifts the door to a high, shallow cabinet attached to the ceiling. He pulls out a bottle of aspirin but doesn''t hand it over. "I''m glad to hear you don''t know everything that happens aboard this airship." He taps the bottle against the heel of his hand, making the pills inside rattle around with sharp little pings. "There''s still the chance of keeping secrets.
" "You can''t keep secrets from me." She holds out her hand, palm up. "Two aspirin and a glass of water. What Gestapo?" Xaver counts them out as though he''s paying a debt. "They came because of the bomb threats. Fifteen of them in their verfickte gray uniforms." "When?" She takes a glass from the drying board above the sink and fills it with tepid water. Emilie swallows her pills in one wild gulp.
"Yesterday. They searched the entire ship. Took almost three hours. I had to take the security officers down the lower keel walkway to the storage areas. The bastards opened every tin of caviar, every wheel of aged Camembert, and don''t think they didn''t sample everything they could find. Looking for explosives, they said. I was out half the night trying to find replacements. And," he pauses to take a long, calming drag on his cigarette, "you can be certain that frog-faced distributor in the Bockenheim district didn''t take kindly to being woken at midnight to fill an order for goose liver p'té.
" She has heard of the bomb threats of course; they all have. Security measures have been tightened. Her bags were checked before she was allowed on the airfield that afternoon. But it seems so ridiculous, so impossible. Yet this is life in the new Germany, they say. A trigger-happy government. Suspicious of everyone, regardless of citizenship. No, not citizenship, she corrects herself, race.
Emilie looks out the galley windows at the empty tarmac. "Did you know they aren''t letting anyone come for the send-off? All the passengers are waiting at a hotel in the city to be shuttled over by bus. No fanfare this time." "Should be a fun flight." "That," she says with a grin, "will have to wait until the return trip. We''re fully booked. All those royalty-smitten Americans traveling over for King George''s coronation." "I''d take a smitten American.
Preferably one from California. Blondine." Emilie rolls her eyes as he whistles and forms an hourglass figure with his hands. "Schwein," she says, but she leans forward and gives him a kiss on the cheek anyway. "Thank you for the aspirin." The kitchen smells of yeast and garlic and the clean, tangy scent of fresh melons. Emilie is hungry, but it will be some time before she gets the chance to eat. She is lamenting her inadequate early lunch when a low, good-humored voice speaks from the doorway.
"So that''s all it takes to get a kiss from Fräulein Imhof?" Max. Emilie doesn''t have to turn around to identify the voice. She is embarrassed that he has found her like this, flirting--albeit innocently--with the ship''s resident lothario. "I worked hard for that kiss. You should do so well," Xaver defends himself. "I should like the opportunity to try." The matter-of-fact way he says it unnerves her. Max looks dapper in his pressed navy-blue uniform.
His hair is as dark and shiny as his shoes. The gray eyes do not look away. He waits patiently, as ever, for her to respond. How does he do that? she wonders. Max sees the bewilderment on her face, and a smile tugs at one corner of his mouth, hinting at a dimple, but he wrestles it into submission and turns to Xaver. "Commander Pruss wants to know tonight''s dinner menu. He will be dining with several of the American passengers and hopes the food will provide sufficient distraction." Xaver bristles.
"Commander Pruss will no longer notice his companions when my meal arrives. We will dine on poached salmon with a creamy spice sauce, ch'teau potatoes, green beans à la princesse, iced California melon, freshly baked French rolls, and a variety of cakes, all washed down with Turkish coffee and a sparkling 1928 Feist Brut." He says this, chin lifted, the stiff notes of dignity in his voice, as though citing the provenance of a painting and then squints at Max. "Should I write that down? I don''t want him being told I''m cooking fish and vegetables for dinner." Max repeats the details verbatim, and Xaver gives a begrudging nod of approval. "Now out of my kitchen. Both of you. I have work to do.
Dinner is at ten sharp." He shuffles them into the keel corridor then closes the door. Xaver might be an opportunist--he would gladly take a real kiss from Emilie if she were to offer one--but he knows of her budding affection, and he''s more than willing to make room for it to bloom further. Max leans against the wall. His smile is tentative, testing. "Hello, Emilie. I''ve missed you." 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 re.