THE STEWARDESS

By the time Emilie collapses into the banquette in the crew’s mess she is limp from exhaustion and shaking with hunger. A table is tucked into each of the four corners, and padded seats run the length of two walls. The banquettes create distinct nooks where small groups of crew members can eat their meals in peace. Emilie sits at one on the far side with her back to the observation windows, ignoring the darkened scenery below. She’s the only person in the mess, the rest of the crew having long since eaten their dinner. Emilie barely has a chance to settle into the upholstered cushions when Xaver Maier sets a plate of poached salmon in front of her. He arranges the utensils to accommodate her left hand.

“You remembered?” She wiggles her fingers and picks up the fork.

“It’s my job.” He shrugs. “The rolls were hot an hour ago.”

“I wouldn’t care if they were frozen. I’m starving.”

Emilie falls to her food as though it’s her last meal on earth, and Xaver watches like a hovering parent, making sure each item is sampled and appreciated.

“How is it,” Max asks, standing in the doorway once again, “that this chef knows every important detail about you—the fact that you’re left-handed, for instance—while I know so little?”

“She’s not a chart, Dummkopf. Stop trying to read her,” Xaver says, irritated, as he pushes against the swinging door that leads into the kitchen. He stops midstep and turns. “If you’d like coffee I’d be happy to make some.”

Emilie shakes her head and waves him off. She glares at Max. Her mouth is full of roasted potatoes, and she has to chew quickly then swallow before she can speak. “How do you do that?”

Max grins. “Do what?”

“Magically appear in the doorway every time I’m in the middle of a conversation?”

“It’s a gift, I suppose.”

“It’s obnoxious,” Emilie says, but she’s smiling anyway.

He settles into the seat across from her, arms on the table as though he’s got nothing else to do.

“That’s rude, you know, staring at people while they eat,” she says around a mouthful of green beans.

“It’s also rude to talk with your mouth full. Yet here we are.” He waits a moment as though deciding whether to concede, and then adds, “I came to collect you. I thought it would be polite to let you finish dinner.”

She growls softly and attacks her meal with renewed energy. Emilie is neither delicate nor discreet about the way she dispatches the rest of her meal. She’s hungry, damn it, and she doesn’t care if Max is horrified. Perhaps this will run him off. She can feel the taut thread of exhaustion in her spine begin to fray, ready to snap. With a job like this, each day brings a definite and complete end to her coping skills. She stabs at a loose green bean with the tines of her fork and watches it skitter off the edge of the plate and onto the table. She pinches it with two fingers and eats it anyway. Of course someone would need her the moment she finally has a chance to sit down and eat. Emilie catalogues the passengers she is responsible for on this flight, trying to guess which one might have paged her. It’s a game she plays on every trip, and she’s almost always correct. She once had a passenger on board the Columbus who insisted that Emilie clean beneath her toenails with a letter opener every night before bed. Emilie had the woman pegged as trouble the moment she walked up the gangway pinching her nostrils and complaining about the harbor stench.

“Was it good?” Max asks when she finally sets her fork down.

“I don’t know. I didn’t get the chance to taste it.” She’s immediately sorry for snapping at him. She softens her tone. “Haven’t you eaten?”

“I’m still on duty.” He shrugs. “The mail.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Max waves the apology away and motions her toward the door. They step into the dim, empty corridor. She straightens her uniform, then takes a deep breath to gird herself for whatever distasteful task awaits. “Which one of the passengers paged me?”

“I never said a passenger needed you.”

“You said you came to—”

“Collect you.”

“For what?”

Max extends his hand, palm up, as though pleading. “There’s something I’d like to show you.”

A memory, sudden and Technicolor, rises to the surface: Hamburg, Germany, twenty years ago, a blue door, a red dress, and fingers fumbling at a zipper. Emilie leans against the corridor wall to steady herself as a sudden, unexpected burst of laughter erupts. Two minutes ago she wanted to stab Max with her fork, and now she can barely stand because she’s laughing so hard.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. The last time a boy said those words to me, I was fifteen years old, and Frank Becker took me to the back of my father’s shop and tried to show me his Schwanz.”

Max is dark. Black hair. Olive skin. Eyes like flint. But the color still begins to show in his face, and this makes her laugh even harder. She’s doubled over now, arms wrapped around her ribs, leaning hard against the wall so she won’t tip over.

“That’s not what I…I don’t…well, I mean I do, but…Scheiße! I’ll shut up.”

Her breath comes in gasps. “Oh no, do keep going.”

Max clears his throat. Tries to regain his dignity. To match her bawdiness. “Did he succeed, then, Frank Becker?”

“Almost. I left him there, balled up on the floor grabbing his crotch.”

“Duly noted.”

“Oh, I was curious.” Emilie hiccups. “But I felt that I had to kick him on principle.”

“No uninvited Schwanz flashing?”

“It simply won’t do.” She gives a curt shake of her head, making her curls bounce against her shoulders. “Besides, I was a good girl. And my father would have castrated Frank if he’d found out. A bloody mess that would have been, given that he worked with Frank’s father.”

“Pun intended?”

“Most definitely.”

“And what did your father do for a living?”

“He was a butcher.”

Now it’s Max’s turn to laugh. It occurs to Emilie that she likes the sound very much and that she doesn’t hear it often enough.

“I am curious about something, Herr Zabel.”

“Yes?”

“Why is it that I can’t spend ten minutes in your company without laughing?”

There’s something about the look on his face, like he’s pleased with the whole world, like this is a private triumph. She wants to know what’s behind that look, but she is also aware that Max has revealed a lot about his feelings for her, and that she has given him little in the way of reciprocation. So she isn’t surprised when he brushes the question aside.

“If you’re going to make a joke about my face, I’d like the chance to beg your mercy. My Schwanz has already shrunk an inch thanks to your last story. I’m not sure how much more of your honesty I can take.”

Emilie sets a hand against his cheek. His skin is soft below the day’s worth of stubble. “Well,” she says, her voice just a notch above a whisper, “I’ve not been acquainted with the other, but I like your face just fine.”

Max leans into her touch. The softness around his eyes and the curve of his mouth suggests he can’t help himself. “This is where I prove myself to be smarter than young Herr Becker.”

“It’s not hard, but pray tell, how do you plan on doing that?”

“By keeping my trousers zipped.”

There is an easiness in the way she relates to Max that Emilie finds alarming. Easy anger. Easy laughter. Easy companionship. It has been a long time since Emilie has felt these things, and she does not know how to surrender to them. She meets Max’s steady gaze with all the bravery she can muster. “Now, what was it you wanted to show me?”

“Cologne,” he says.