Page 27 of Flight of Dreams

“And you propose to help me dress?”

“I can turn to the wall, if you like.”

As always, the decision is hers. Max Zabel truly is the most infuriating man she has ever met. But Emilie unties her robe and sets it on the top berth. She shrugs and raises her hands above her head like a little girl being dressed by her mother.

This time Max does look. But it’s the barest whisper of a glance as he lowers the dress over her head. Somehow they do the buttoning and the belting in tandem. They do not speak. They do not look at one another. Max approaches the job very much the way she imagines he approaches his charts: with precision and delicacy. And it is now, even more so than during the kiss, that Emilie realizes how much she has missed being touched.

In the end he does turn to the wall when she pulls on her stockings. There is only so much intimacy she can handle for one night.

Max straightens her collar and with a warm hand slides the key back inside her slip. His knuckles brush against the swell of her breast but it does not linger. Seconds later he stands there, hands tucked into his pockets.

“I will be right back,” she says.

“I will be right here.”

THE NAVIGATOR

Max does not mean to find the documents. It happens by accident, the way everything with Emilie happens. Much like the way he has fallen in love with her. She should have been back by now. Of course, he thought that thirty minutes ago as well. Whatever help this Mather woman needs must be excessive and completely unnecessary. It has been over an hour now, and Max has not even begun to cool off. That’s what set him pacing in the first place. And if he hadn’t been pacing he wouldn’t have gotten a little carried away and started swinging his arms in agitation. And if he hadn’t been charging around the room like a damned horny monkey he wouldn’t have run into the closet door, knocking it open. And he would not now be staring at a birth certificate, passport, five hundred American dollars, and immigration documents in the name of one Fräulein Emilie Imhof. Max scoops them up, takes one look, and then sits down roughly on the bed.

Emilie does not plan on returning to Germany.

The strangled sound he makes is one of despair. These are her private things, and he has no business riffling through them. He knows that. Emilie owes him nothing. But she kissed him back, damn it. He mutters this as he lifts the pale green satin robe from the bed. He buries his face in it, inhales her clean, sweet scent until it fills his head.

For over a year Max has wondered what it would be like to kiss Emilie. He has watched her from the day of their first flight. He has created opportunities to speak with her. Slowly, one trip at a time, he has lessened her resistance. He has reveled in her humor. Marveled at her defiance, her intelligence, her uncanny ability to anticipate the needs of others. And now he knows that her kiss is even sweeter than he imagined, that her skin is softer, and the feel of her breast beneath his hand—no matter how fleeting—reduces him to putty.

And Emilie Imhof is leaving him.

There are certain attributes that work better than others in the field of aviation, and for the most part Max has them in abundance. He is cautious. Patient. Thorough. Punctual. He has diligently applied these traits to his pursuit of Emilie. But at this moment he is also embarrassed. He is hurt. Sad. Volatile emotions that filter through a rapidly deteriorating fuse of anger. When that fuse burns dry he is past the point of reason.

Max jerks to his feet. He grabs his cap from the top berth and places it firmly on his head. He pulls a pen from the inside of his coat pocket and writes a note, a single line, on the envelope that holds her money, the nib digging so deeply into the paper that it almost tears. He looks at what he has written. It’s blunt and acerbic, and he isn’t sorry. He sets everything back in the closet where he found it. Then Max Zabel, navigator, postmaster, breaks his first promise to Emilie. He does not wait for her to return.

THE JOURNALIST

Leonhard is wrong. She cannot sleep. He lies beside her, on the outer edge of the berth, lost in the deep, contented slumber of a man who has just been soundly bedded. She spoke the truth to him earlier that day: being a good girl is not one of her talents. She has many others that he much prefers anyway.

He looks younger when he sleeps, boyish somehow. The deep lines on his brow smooth out, his mouth relaxes. She lifts the glasses gently from his face—she hadn’t noticed that he’d left them on—and sets them on the ledge beside the bed. They will be the first thing he reaches for in the morning. He turns to the side and buries his face in the pillow while Gertrud pushes the sheet away and rolls around, unable to get comfortable. It’s not that she doesn’t want to sleep; she simply can’t. Her mind is sharp and clear, every thought standing out in deeper contrast the longer she lies here. This is always what happens when she’s on deadline. When a story has piqued her interest. When there is a trail to chase. But right now there are only worries to catalogue.

Egon. She tries to push that thought away but he only becomes clearer in her mind.

Colonel Erdmann.

The bomb threats. Bomb threats, for God’s sake! And credible ones at that. How can a girl get an ounce of sleep with that on her mind? She balls her hand into a fist and pounds it against the mattress. Leonhard doesn’t stir and she frowns in the dark, resenting this singular male ability to sleep like the dead after sex.

Gertrud thinks of the fact that at this very moment they are flying over the Atlantic Ocean in an aircraft lifted by combustible gas. Of course a man would come up with this, she thinks; you’d never find a woman inventing a floating bomb.

Her press card and its current location at the bottom of a desk drawer in Frankfurt. The thought makes her wince. And then cuss. “Drecksau.” She spits the word out, not even bothering to whisper, but Leonhard doesn’t so much as stir beside her.

That was easily the single worst day of her career. Leonhard had been so calm on the surface, so unperturbed, as he’d taken her arm and turned her back down the hallway after she’d insulted not only the Kulturstaatssekretär but the Hure fungus of a mother who brought him into the world. She regrets that last part. Gertrud hates the word, hates it entirely, and has made a point never to insult other women. For a woman who trades in words and wields them with precision, using such a word was inexcusable. And yet it came unbidden in her rage, and even Leonhard could not hide his astonishment.

The Frankfurt branch of the Ministry of Propaganda leases office space at Neue Mainzer Strasse 56. It’s on the fourth floor and has an impressive view of the city. As do all the other floors, but they are empty except for a small sublet office on the third floor. She was told it is occupied by an American advertising company. Which would make sense. Many Germans aren’t comfortable with the idea of doing business anywhere near the Ministry of Propaganda.

Something clicks in Gertrud’s mind and she sits up so quickly the blood rushes to her head. She waits for the dizziness to subside, then picks the thought up. Turns it over. Examines it closely.

Neue Mainzer Strasse.

Her press card.

Americans.