THE CABIN BOY

On his first trip aboard the Hindenburg, Werner Franz negotiated his position on the top bunk with an aplomb far beyond his age. One look at his indomitable cabin mate, Wilhelm Balla, convinced him that the best approach would be one of emotionless logic. So Werner had suggested that it would be easier for him to move in and out of the high, narrow berth due to the fact that he was younger, lighter, and smaller. Balla had looked at the boy and then the ladder that led to the bunk for a prolonged moment, shrugged, and tossed his bag on the lower mattress. They had never spoken of sleeping arrangements again. The truth of the situation, however, was that Werner desperately wanted the top. His reasons were immature, but he was too immature himself to recognize them: being the younger brother, he’d never gotten the top bunk at home, and he was willing to endure any amount of negotiation to make sure he acquired it now.

Balla isn’t the most interesting cabin mate, but they get along well enough. And they’ve learned not to disturb one another as they come and go at different hours. So when Werner hears the door open, he assumes that Balla is turning in for the night. As cabin boy, Werner’s primary job is to serve the officers, and his schedule accommodates theirs, stretching from early breakfast at six to evening coffee at nine-thirty. Balla tends the passengers and keeps to more traditional hours. Werner is almost asleep again when he realizes that a gentle snoring is coming from the bunk below. Balla is already in bed. Someone else has opened the door.

“Get up,” a voice says, close to his ear. It is not Balla’s.

Werner squeezes his eyes shut. He murmurs a feeble objection and pulls the heavy knit blanket over his head.

The blanket is stripped away. “If I have to turn on the light it will wake Balla and you’ll likely get a beating from both of us. Up now. You have work to do.”

It’s well past midnight. Werner feels certain of this. He was in bed by eleven p.m. and has been sleeping soundly for some time. He runs through a quick mental checklist to ensure that he has done everything required of him this evening: he has served dinner to the officers, scrubbed down their dining area, and cleaned and put away the dishes; he has taken coffee to the control car for those working the night shift; he has made sure all of the officers’ beds are made and their cabins tidy. His clothes are pressed and laid out for the next day. He has not missed anything. He never does.

“I will yank your scrawny carcass from this bed if you’re not on the floor in three seconds.” The voice is stern and all the more intimidating for its lack of volume.

Werner has an older brother and has long since learned to take such threats seriously. He’s on the floor, hand gripping the ladder for balance, before he has even made the conscious decision to do so. There is a sharp twinge in his bruised knee and he winces at the pain.

It takes several seconds for him to recognize the severe face of Heinrich Kubis. The chief steward is standing with his back to the door, his face cast in deep, angled shadows, and he is holding a large basket of shoes in the crook of his arm. His short black mustache looks like a grim slash in the half-light, a mark of displeasure. Werner says the only words he can gather at this moment. “I don’t understand.”

“Come with me.”

The boy looks at his faded flannel pajamas. “But—”

“No need to get dressed.”

Werner grabs his pocket watch from the dressing table, then gently pulls the door shut and follows Kubis down the corridor. He is barefoot and rumpled and half-asleep, and the watch hangs heavy in his pocket. “Where are we going?”

Kubis turns the corner and stops before the gangway stairs. He tips his head to the side, thinks for a moment, and sets the basket down on the third step. “Here.”

The cabin boy pretends to understand. He doesn’t ask any questions, but rather looks at Kubis expectantly, as though awaiting instructions. Silence, when coming from a child, is usually interpreted by adults as understanding. Or, at worst, fear. It is a trick he has used every day since coming to work aboard the Hindenburg. He watches and listens and inevitably gets the answers he’s looking for without ever having to ask.

Kubis points at the basket. “There’s a brush and a rag and a tin of wax at the bottom. You will shine those shoes and you will do a damn good job. Understand?”

The boy doesn’t trust his voice enough to say more than the minimum. “Yes.”

Werner has worked on board the Hindenburg for seven months and never once has he been asked to perform this task. When Heinrich Kubis hired him last year this was not listed among his job duties. And yet here he is, pulled from a sound sleep and given the chief steward’s work to do. If he were a man he would punch Kubis right in his knobby Adam’s apple. But he’s little more than a boy, so he blinks back tears instead.

Kubis is gone without so much as a word of further instruction. Not that Werner needs it, of course. He has been shining shoes for his father since he was three years old. He looks at the basket. It is brimming—probably ten pairs—and he slumps to the carpeted steps, defeated. His feet are cold, and, the longer he sits there, so is his rear end. The Franz men are not known for having a well-padded posterior, and he is no exception.

Werner winds the pocket watch and sets it on the step next to him. The gentle ticking is a comfort, and the tarnished face reminds him of his grandfather. It is neither gold nor silver but rich and heavy pewter, a family heirloom given to Werner by his father the night before his first voyage on the Hindenburg. The glass is scratched and clouded, but the numbers are clear and dark, written in the Roman style. He looks at the time and cringes.

Receiving the watch was a rite of passage, an acknowledgment that he had begun the journey toward manhood. It has traditionally passed from father to oldest son, but his brother insisted that Werner had earned the right to the watch when he gained his position on the Hindenburg. So they had gathered in the tiny apartment—his parents, grandfather, and brother—and eaten an elaborate meal they could not afford. His father presented the watch to him with great pomp and circumstance—and no small amount of pride—while his mother played Eddie Rosner on the record player, the trumpet vibrant and celebratory to mark the occasion. Werner has carried the watch with him on every flight since and set it beside him every time he feels lost or lonely or afraid. The watch gives him courage. He draws from it now.

Each pair of shoes has a paper tab tied to the laces indicating the deck and room number. Werner hasn’t been given specific instructions, but he would guess it falls to him to return the shoes once they have been shined. He’d rather throw them in the trash and go back to bed than touch a single one of them. The first night of any voyage is always the hardest—so much excitement and adrenaline and so many things that need adjustment—and he feels the exhaustion most acutely in his shins. It’s an odd place, granted, but he has been on his feet all day; he is still growing, and all of the strain in his body has settled into that one stretch of bone. When he makes such complaints to his mother she laughs and says he is afflicted with a galloping pain. “Today your wrist, tomorrow your leg,” she says, but she always brings him warm milk with sugar and vanilla and rubs his back until his eyes are heavy and his muscles have relaxed. Werner is usually so caught up in this grand adventure—the travel and the work—that he does not miss his family. But he has such an acute longing to be back home with them at this moment that he has to compose himself by wiping tears and snot on the sleeve of his pajamas.

Werner looks at the watch and thinks of his father, sick and bedridden in their shabby one-bedroom flat in Frankfurt, a man who would give anything to be able to work, and reprimands himself for acting like a child. So what if the task costs him an hour or two of sleep? He’s making a wage and he can help his family. His mother and father are sleeping all the better tonight because of this job. Werner shakes his head, growls a bit to clear his mind, then gets to work. Best to get the task over with.

Ten minutes later he has settled into something of a rhythm and is working on the second shoe in a pair of black cap-toed loafers—this one tagged for a passenger in cabin A4—when someone comes around the corner at a fast clip. It’s that obnoxious American passenger. Werner pulls himself into the shadows because the last thing he needs is to be noticed and sent on some other random errand in the middle of the night. He sits perfectly still and absolutely quiet, waiting for the man to pass, when Max Zabel comes around the gangway stairs from the other direction. For a moment he is certain the American sees Max and that he will sidestep him, but then Werner notices something flash across the American’s face—he can’t exactly tell from this distance what sort of expression it is—and they collide. The force knocks Max sideways.

Werner is wondering where they are off to at this hour when Heinrich Kubis appears before him with a second basket. This time Werner cannot prevent a small complaint. “There’s more?”

“I will be in the crew’s mess if you need me.”

Oh. Werner understands now. He has tried, and failed, on more than one occasion to join the late-night card game that takes place among the crew.

“Poker?”

Kubis sets this basket down beside the other. He shrugs. “You’re a lucky boy,” he says, “to have a job like this. You can help your family. See the world. It would be such a pity if you didn’t pass your probationary period.” He gives Werner a cold smile. “Come get me when you’re finished.”