Gertrud offers a wry smile. “Good? You know that being good isn’t part of my skill set.”
“Now is not the time to talk about your many attributes, Liebchen. Humor me this once. Please?”
She can still hear the American, but she can no longer see him, and this is a great mercy. She gives Leonhard’s hand a squeeze of gratitude, then leans her forehead against the cool glass of the window. She tries not to think of Egon and his chubby, dimpled fists. His bright blue eyes. The soft brown hair that is just starting to coil above his ears. Gertrud thinks instead of the career she has worked so hard to build and how it lies in rubble behind her. Her press card having been revoked by Hitler’s Ministry of Propaganda. Troublemaker, that’s what they have branded her. In reality she has simply been a question asker. She is a good journalist. But she has never been a good rule follower. Or a good girl, for that matter, despite Leonhard’s admonition. Yet, even now, she cannot bring herself to regret the choices she has made this year.
A few minutes later the bus slows and turns onto the airfield. A great hangar looms in front of them, taller, wider, longer than any structure she has ever seen. And moored just outside is the D-LZ129 Hindenburg, almost sixteen stories tall and over eight hundred feet long. From their vantage point, Gertrud can barely make out the airship’s name written aft of the bow in a blood-red Gothic font, and farther back, the massive tail fins emblazoned with their fifty-foot swastikas. The irony is not lost on her. They will make this trip, but only under a watchful Nazi eye.
“Mein Gott,” Leonhard whispers, placing one large, calloused hand on her knee.
The zeppelin floats several feet off the ground, moored on either side by thick, corded landing lines. The only parts of the actual structure that touch the ground are the landing wheels and a set of retractable gangway ladders that lead up and into the passenger decks. They will board there, directly into the behemoth’s swollen silver belly. Gertrud stops herself from cracking jokes about Jonah and his infamous whale, but she does feel very much as though she’s about to be swallowed whole.
The ground crew scurries around, preparing to cast off, while the flight crew stands in a long, neat line near the gangway waiting to greet them. The American chooses this moment to finish his drinking song with one last, raucous burst.
Gertrud is up and out of her seat like a shot. She climbs over Leonhard, knees the American in the shoulder, and rushes down the aisle without regard for any of the other passengers. “I’m sorry,” she says by way of apology to the driver. “I’m feeling sick. I need fresh air.” The bus is still rolling to a stop, but the driver swings the door open and Gertrud takes the steps two at a time, only pausing to breathe when her feet are planted firmly on the ground. She stands off to the side, waiting for Leonhard, while the other passengers unload and venture toward the ship, forming a line in front of the crew. She clenches her fists and inhales deeply through her nose. For the first time since early that afternoon she can neither see nor hear the American. Gertrud takes another deep, ragged breath and stands with her eyes closed in the middle of the tarmac, soaking in the fresh, cool evening air. She can feel the tension begin to lessen in her neck.
A bevy of ground crew come to collect the luggage stored in compartments beneath the bus, but Gertrud intercepts one of them and grabs a brown leather satchel. “I’ll keep this with me,” she says. “It’s mine.”
“Come along.” Leonhard has their tickets in hand, and he steers her to the back of the line. In front of them is a family of five. Two young boys jump up and down, barely able to contain their excitement, while their teenage sister holds her father’s hand and grins with unabashed delight.
“I can’t do this,” Gertrud whispers. “Egon—”
“Will be fine,” he says, finishing her sentence with certainty. “Three months. We can do this for three months.”
“He will think we have abandoned him.”
“He will not even remember our absence.” Leonhard sets his hands on her shoulders. He looks at her calmly, with a smile that does not reach his eyes. He appears lighthearted, jovial even. His voice, though, is low and measured and serious. “We will do what we have to do, Liebchen. And then we will return home to our son. Now, turn and give your papers to the steward. Do it with a smile if possible.”