THE JOURNALIST

“Who else have you shown this tag to?” Leonhard asks. The chain lies wadded in the palm of his hand. He pokes it with his finger.

“Only the stewardess.”

He is surprised at this. “Why?”

Gertrud thinks for a moment, looking for a way to explain. “There’s something about her mind. She seems to remember everything. Names and places. Dates. Insignificant details. They say she’s fluent in seven languages. Can you imagine?”

“I know exactly what this is,” Leonhard says. “But I can’t tell you what half of it means. Much less who it belongs to. Why would you think that she could?”

“It was a hunch. Not to mention damned good timing. She showed up in the bar while I was puzzling through it all. And I was right. I know I was. She just wouldn’t tell me.”

“Don’t you think that was an unnecessary risk?”

“We have to do something, Leonhard. I don’t know what that American is up to. But it can’t be good.” She closes his fist around the chain. “This man has to be warned.”

“Who would you have me tell? We know nothing! Only the whisper of a threat.”

“Tell Captain Lehmann. You’re friends. He trusts you.”

“We will not speak a word of this to him. Not now.”

“So we just keep it to ourselves?”

“What exactly are we keeping, Liebchen? A rumor. My God, last I checked that was called discretion.”

“What if something happens to the man who owns that tag?”

“So your plan is to run to the captain and babble about this like a crazed goose? You want to figure this out?” He shakes her by the shoulders a bit too roughly, then lays his palms gently on her arms, apologetic. “Yes? Then we use our minds, Liebchen. That’s our greatest weapon. We learn something useful. Then we speak.”

“What about the bomb?”

“We don’t know if there is a bomb! This ship has been picked over with a fine-tooth comb.”

“But the threats—”

“There are always threats, Liebchen. They multiply like a venereal disease everywhere Hitler goes. We must learn to maneuver them if we are to survive.”

A slow, constricting panic crawls up her throat and tightens around her vocal cords. Gertrud feels as though she can’t breathe. She has assumed all this time that Leonhard isn’t concerned. That he has simply been frustrated with her wild theories and tired of accommodating her fear of this trip. But she sees now that a deep concern has taken root. His eyes have grown tight. Dark. Leonhard pulls her into his chest. His shirt smells of books and pipe smoke and the faintest traces of his cologne. “We can figure this out.”

“But can we do it in time?”

“I hope so.”

“I hear the clock ticking, Leonhard.”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve worked on deadline. And,” he tucks a curl behind her ear, “this time we don’t have to mess with the writing itself. Just the investigation. I have always suspected that is your favorite part anyway.”

She grins. “I do love having written.”

“Don’t we all.”

Gertrud snorts. “Oh, don’t lie. You’re a purist. You don’t struggle with the actual craft the way the rest of us do. You enjoy the construction. I just want the finished product.”

He does smile at this. It’s true after all. Leonhard very much enjoys the process of writing. In the years that she has known him, Gertrud has never once heard him complain while at work. He’s happy to sit in his study and collect his thoughts on paper.

“I do like my job,” he concedes.

Gertrud sniffs and raises up onto her toes to look him in the eye. “Well, it would be easy for me too,” she says, “if I had a wife to make my dinner and care for my son and press my trousers.”

“You look terrible in trousers.”

She smacks his shoulder.

“I look quite nice in trousers, thank you very much. All the men tell me so.”

“The men are trying to get in your trousers, Liebchen, not encourage you to wear them more often.”

“Just because you went about it that way…”

“As I recall, you were wearing a skirt, and all I had to do was lift it up, like this.” Leonhard demonstrates his method and slides his hands along the smooth skin of her outer thigh.

“You are changing the subject.”

He buries his face in her neck. “It’s a much better subject.”

“Really, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. One minute you’re lecturing me, the next you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t old men supposed to lose interest in sex?”

“I’m not an old man. And men never lose interest in sex.”

“You’re a great deal older than I am.”

“And a good thing too. You wouldn’t have been able to keep up with me when I was your age.”

“Insatiable?”

“So I was told.”

Leonhard has most of her clothing off at this point. “Well, I don’t want to hear the sordid details. Nothing before my time, mind you.”

“It was just practice, Liebchen.”

“Ugh. You’re not even sorry about it!”

“Well, I was married once before, you know.”

“I don’t want to hear about her either.”

The only thing left on Gertrud’s body at this point are her underclothes, and Leonhard tries to dispatch those as well. She steps away from him. Sets her arms on her hips in protest. “We’re late for drinks.”

He sighs. Pulls a tailored red dress from the closet and hands it to her. “It’s not wine I’m thirsty for.”

Gertrud takes the dress from him, being careful to stay out of reach. They will never make it to the bar otherwise. “We have work to do.”