THE STEWARDESS

Emilie sets the makeup case on her bed and empties out the contents. Lotions. Perfumes. A variety of expensive cosmetics—she takes much better care of her skin now that she has gotten older—and the necessary products that accompany being a woman in this modern world: curlers and sanitary napkins, talcum powder and tweezers. She shoves all of this aside and presses her fingernails into the panel at the bottom of the case, exposing a compartment less than an inch deep. The panel lifts easily and she sighs. Emilie knew the documents would be there, but still it’s a relief to see them. It took months to get everything together, and even longer to convert the Deutsche marks to American dollars, one small bill at a time. Anything more than a handful every other week would bring too much attention. But it’s all here now, neatly stacked and bound with string. She counts it again, just to be sure. This is her insurance policy. And her indictment. These papers contain all but one of her most guarded secrets: her mother’s maiden name.

Abramson.

It is a detail that has been obscured by time and marriage. But the names of her parents are plainly written on these documents, and it would take a curious mind very little time to discover the truth. It would be her ruin.

Funny how marriage can erase the person you used to be, she thinks. It happened for her mother. And it happened to her as well. When she married Hans Imhof all those years ago she went from being the daughter of a Jewish woman to being the wife of a German innkeeper. In a breath—no longer than the time it took to speak a vow—she was someone else.

The loss of her name never troubled her much. But she has never recovered from the loss of her husband.

Emilie pulls off her dress and stockings. She hangs them on the ladder that leads to the upper berth and allows herself to be comfortable for the first time that evening. A hesitant knock sounds on the door. The tension that only moments ago had subsided in her shoulders, the small of her back, and the arches of her feet returns with a lurch. She curses silently. There is no time to shove everything back in her case, so Emilie grabs the papers and the money and hides them in the closet. The knock sounds again, lighter this time. Emilie is at the door wearing nothing but a slip before she can properly think through her response.

“What?” She yanks the door open with a growl and immediately regrets it.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d be in bed already. I just came to say good night.”

It is a great credit to Max’s sense of honor that he looks at nothing but her eyes.

“Just a moment.”

Whether he takes a peek as she turns to get her robe she cannot say, but he is waiting calmly at the door, eyes on the carpet, when she returns a few seconds later. There is a decision to be made and she must do it quickly because they are standing in the corridor, in full view of anyone who should happen upon them.

“Come in,” she whispers.

Max takes off his cap and steps into the room. It’s identical to his own cabin, but he looks around anyway. Her clothes are hung neatly over the rungs of the ladder. Max reaches out to finger the collar of her uniform.

“I’ve never seen you not wearing this,” he says.

“I do have other clothes.”

He flicks a glance to the deep V of her satin robe. “So I see.”

The twitching at the corner of his mouth makes Emilie wonder if he wasn’t so noble with his gaze after all. It has been less than an hour since the mail drop over Cologne, but from the hunger in his gaze you would think he hadn’t seen her in months.

“Is there something I can do for you, Herr Zabel?”

“Yes.” He steps forward and the room shrinks considerably. “You can start calling me Max.”

“I already do.”

“Only sometimes.”

“Are you suggesting that we are on a first-name basis now?”

“I should like to think so.”

“And you don’t think that perhaps you’re taking liberties?”

“Not at all.” Max seats himself on the edge of the bed and pats the space next to him. He seems unconcerned by the fact that her personal items are strewn all over the blanket. “Let me explain.”

Damn it, she thinks, how does he do that? But she only hesitates for a moment before settling next to him on the heavy knit blanket. “This I need to hear.”

“It’s really quite simple,” he says. “We’ve just spent the evening together—or some of it, at any rate. And now I’m sitting in your private quarters kissing you good night. I think that puts us on a permanent first-name basis.”

She looks up at him in surprise. Max catches her face in his hands. He gives her a smile that is so mischievous, so pleased with himself, that she cannot help but return it.

It has been ten years since Emilie kissed her husband good-bye. Ten years since he left for work one morning and never returned. And in those years she has forgotten the profound, blood-warming pleasure of being kissed. Of course he would be good at this, she thinks. He begins with a tender brushing of his lips against hers, and when she tilts her head and softens beneath him he pulls her close and earnestly goes to work. There is no uncertainty with Max, and when her lips part he finds her tongue with his. He tastes of white wine and fresh melon, and she thinks that there is truly no better combination.

She is not ready for him to pull away, but he does anyway.

Max straightens his collar and smoothes his hair. Oh God, did I do that? she wonders briefly, and is certain that she did, in fact, twist her fingers through his hair. She cannot remember doing so. Ten years of widowhood and this is what one brief kiss does to her?

Emilie has no idea what expressions are running over her face in rapid succession, but Max laughs at her.

“You don’t have to look so bereft,” he says, bending closer and playing with the curls at the base of her neck. “I’m not ready to stop either. I just thought I’d better make sure you wanted to keep going.”

“So now you ask my permission?”

“Easier to ask forgiveness.”

“So you’re sorry?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Emilie is certain now that she did indeed muss his hair a moment ago. Because it’s between her hands again and this time she notices how smoothly it slides between her fingers.

“Mein Gott, that feels good,” he mutters against her lips. “Don’t stop.”

Max lays his palm against her neck. His hand is soft and warm, and she shivers just a bit as he slides it downward. It stops at the base of her throat when his fingers meet the chain that she wears around her neck. He pulls away to look at her and then at the chain. Max tucks one finger under the edge of her robe so that he can lift the chain out.

“A key?”

Slowly, slowly she realizes what is puddled in the palm of his hand and she jerks back, taking the necklace with her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“My husband gave it to me,” she says. “On our wedding night.”

Max knows she is widowed. Everyone knows this. But the words have a corrosive effect nonetheless. The heat that charged the air only seconds ago vanishes completely, and they are left sitting on the bed staring at one another in silence.

After a few seconds he manages to speak. “And you still carry it?”

“It’s all I have left of him.”

“What was his name?” Max whispers.

“Hans.”

“And you miss him?”

“Every day.”

“You love him still?”

“I will always love him.” The ferocity of this statement startles Emilie. The key is gripped so tightly in her hand that it cuts into the tender skin of her palm.

“How did he die?”

“He drowned.” It’s her polite way of saying that Hans drove off a bridge and dropped sixty feet into the Main River. But she doesn’t tell him this. She doesn’t like to think of that long, horrifying fall or the churning water that waited for her husband at the bottom.

Max does not ask for these details. He merely sits there, hands folded in his lap, thinking.

Emilie wants to apologize for her reaction. She wants to explain everything. But she cannot find the words. It’s just a key, she tells herself; it can’t bring Hans back. But she holds it anyway.

Max nods at her fist. “What is it to?”

“The front door of the inn we owned. It was a dream. A wedding gift. And when he died I lost it. I lost everything.”

“Except the key?”

She nods. “I took it with me when I went to work on the Columbus. I lied to the people who bought the inn. I told them I’d lost the key. I couldn’t bear for them to have it.”

Emile can see Max connecting the dots in his mind. A young widow forced to sell everything she owns. Forced to take a job serving wealthy passengers on an ocean liner. Ten years of drifting, never having a home, never working with anyone long enough to call them friend. She erupts in sudden fury at the sympathy she sees written across his face. “I don’t want your pity!”

“I wasn’t offering it.”

“Then why are you here, Herr Zabel?”

“No.” He catches her face in his hands again. Firm. But gentle. “You don’t get to call me that anymore. Not after the way you just kissed me.”

She tries to speak, but her voice cracks. Emilie clears her throat and tries again, but she manages little more than a whisper. “Why are you here?”

“To offer myself as a very willing and very eager substitute for the man you’ve lost.”

“He can’t be replaced.”

Max takes her clenched fist in his palm. He pries her fingers open, pulls the key from her grasp. He dangles it six inches from her nose. “You don’t have to torture yourself with this memory.”

She owes him an answer. That’s why he came here tonight. And he has forced her hand. Quite literally.

“Max…”

He lowers his head and brushes the corner of his mouth against hers. “That’s much better.”

This time when the knock sounds at the door it is hard and urgent and official.

Max doesn’t speak aloud, but she can read his lips, and she is quite surprised at his creativity. She has never seen those words used in that particular combination before.

“Yes?” she calls, turning toward the door. Her voice sounds a bit too strangled for her liking, but it’s the best response she can muster under the circumstances.

“You have been paged, Frau Imhof.” The dry, impatient voice is that of Heinrich Kubis. “Margaret Mather requires your assistance.”

Emilie mentally repeats the name in several languages until the face of the American heiress drifts into her mind.

“I will be right there.”

“Very well.”

She listens to Kubis’s retreating footsteps. And now, another choice. Max cannot very well be seen following her from the room, especially with Kubis in the corridor. But if he stays here they will have to continue this conversation, and Emilie will have to finally give her answer. She sits there, looking at Max, one hand on the key and the other pressed lightly to her lips where he has just kissed her. “Will you wait here?” she whispers.

He gives a small, pleased smile. “Of course.”

Max stands and lifts her dress from the ladder. “I am quite fond of that robe already, and what lies beneath it even more so, but I doubt Kubis would approve of your attending to Frau Mather in your slip.”

“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.”