Page 5 of Flight of Dreams

“Did she tell you I didn’t kiss her?” He clears his throat. “Did she want me to—”

“Go.”

The steward gives Max one hard shove. He stumbles forward and tucks his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what else to do with them. Emilie stands near the portside gangway holding the satchel and scowling at the couple as they whisper intently on their way up.

“Pay them no mind,” he mutters low, over her shoulder, so that his breath tickles her ear. “People go crazy when they fly. I’ve seen decorated soldiers lose their Schieße.”

She laughs, loudly at first, and then lower, a gentle shaking of her shoulders. God, he loves her laugh.

“Are you going to commandeer every conversation I have over the next three days?”

“Are you going to kiss everyone but me?”

“I didn’t kiss either of them.”

“You kissed the cook.”

“Chef. And you sound petty. I can kiss who I like.”

He loves this about Emilie. How brassy and direct she is. They are well matched in spirit, if not height. Emilie is but an inch or two shorter than Max, and he constantly finds himself in the unusual position of facing her eye to eye depending on her footwear. He is tall; so is she, for a woman.

“Kiss whoever you like. As long as I’m the one you like the most.” He lowers his voice. “You did promise me an answer on this flight. Have you forgotten?”

Emilie is about to respond when they are interrupted by screeching tires.

Max grabs Emilie by the arm and pulls her back a step as the careening taxi lurches to a stop beside the airship. A small, wiry man leaps from the backseat, followed by a dog so alarmingly white that Emilie gasps. The new arrival surveys the curious onlookers as though he has come onstage for an encore. Max half expects him to bow. Instead, the dog barks and things disintegrate into bedlam. Three security guards, two customs officials, and the chief steward all descend on the strange little man as though he’s holding a detonator. But he fans his ticket and travel papers in front of his face without the least bit of concern.

“Joseph Späh!” he announces to no one in particular, and this time he does give a theatrical bow. He motions toward the dog. “And this is Ulla. We are so pleased to join everyone on this voyage.”

The ground crew searches his bags, and Späh hangs back to watch, quietly mocking their curiosity. One of the soldiers finds a brightly wrapped package and tears off the paper. He lifts a doll from the pile of tissue and appears somewhat disappointed at the find.

“It’s a girl, Dummkopf,” Späh says when the officer turns it over to check beneath the ruffled skirt.

It takes no small amount of time to verify that Joseph Späh is a legitimate passenger on board the Hindenburg, that Ulla’s presence and freight have been approved and paid for in advance, and to locate his cabin—which, as it turns out, is on A-deck near the dining room, much to Späh’s satisfaction. He seems delighted at the prospect of maintaining his role as entertainer.

Max and Emilie watch the entire spectacle in bemused silence, and he takes immense pleasure in the fact that she does not draw her arm away from his hand. He can feel the warmth of her skin through the thin sleeve of her dress. Max soaks it in. He has never given her more than a glancing touch before. This is progress.

Max’s reverie is broken by the guttural clearing of a throat. He turns to find Heinrich Kubis staring at his hand on Emilie’s arm. The chief steward drops two bulging mailbags at Max’s feet. “These are yours, I believe?”

He releases Emilie and lifts the bags. They are surprisingly heavy, but he’s determined not to show it. “So there’s the last of it. Commander Pruss said two more loads were coming on the bus.”

Emilie nods at the bags. “What’s this?”

“Max is our new postmaster,” Kubis says. He glances at Max and Emilie as though an idea has just occurred to him. “He will attend to those duties in his off hours.”

“His off hours? Meaning he won’t have any hours off?”

“You will have precious few yourself, Fräulein Imhof. And I’d highly suggest that you not spend them fraternizing with an officer in full view of the passengers.” He tips his head toward the control car. “Or the commander.”

Max is absurdly pleased that Emilie looks disappointed at this news. Perhaps she had imagined ways of filling his spare time? He takes a step back and clicks his heels sharply. Nods. “If you will excuse me, I need to get these stored in the mailroom before we cast off.”

Emilie is not pleased that their conversations seem to end on his terms, and he enjoys the lines of frustration that appear between her eyes. “Don’t you want my answer?” she calls after him.

“Send it by post!”

She may have something left to say, but he doesn’t wait to hear it. Max turns, a mailbag gripped tightly in each hand, and walks up the gangway. Instead of taking a sharp right and going up another set of stairs to A-deck, he turns left into the keel corridor and heads toward the front of the airship.

Max neatly sidesteps Wilhelm Balla. He has his hand on the elbow of a staggering American who is mumbling the words to some lewd drinking song, but the man slurs so badly Max catches only every other word.