The Highway Kind(47)

And it might destroy Elly too. Scandal was a double-edged sword, and Eberan would fight back—maybe attempt to blame Bernd for the accident.

Ludwig had told me only one thing that I hadn’t learned or heard already: when they’d prepared for the third run, the run they weren’t sure was necessary, there had been some fuss about the wind, which had increased. And Bernd, smiling, had waved off the crew’s mixed concerns and suggestions, saying, “Don’t worry; I can figure it out on my own.”

I can figure it out on my own. Those words could be twisted, taken as arrogance—I gave a small puff of a laugh; Bernie was arrogant, with the perfect confidence of a man who would walk off a cliff because he knows he can fly. But they could say all kinds of things about him, try to destroy his reputation...and if they did that, what would happen to Elly? If she and Bernie were no longer the hero and heroine of the Reich?

She was a woman of deep feelings, and certainly impulsive. But at the same time, she had a cool head; at the age of twenty-two, she’d crashed her plane in the Sahara, survived the crash, been rescued by a group of Tuareg tribesmen, and talked them into escorting her across the desert to Timbuktu—and eventually got word of her plight to the French authorities, who sent a two-seater airplane to collect her. In a way, she had the same arrogance that Bernie had had; they were well matched. But she had a child now.

I was freezing, shaking now with the cold, my toenails burning. Home was in sight, the tall pale blue building on Mariannenstrasse, its white window boxes winter bare. Home, the glowing stove, food. And sleep. I needed to sleep before I went to talk to Elly.

DESIGN NOTE 10.1 Stromlinienwagen 6.5 L [Dr. Porsche]

Body

Slight alteration to the 6.0 L body. See drawing (attached).

I rose late the next morning, both because I was tired—I still ached from the long walk and the shivering—and because I didn’t want to go down until Aloisa had left to do her shopping. She’d been in bed when I came home, and while she’d turned to me, murmuring concern at my frigid skin and taking me to the comfort of her warm bosom, she’d been too much asleep to ask me where I’d been. One look at my face in the morning light, though...

I raised my chin, scraping the razor carefully up the side of my neck. I looked haunted in the mirror, eyes half sunk in my head.

After a little cheese toasted on bread and some coffee, I felt better. Sometime in the night, my mind had made itself up. Elly was Bernie’s wife; she deserved to know what I knew. What she chose to do about it was up to her, and I would help her, no matter what she decided to do.

Her apartment was on Bergstrasse, a wide pleasant street lined with well-kept town houses with a small park nearby. The trees were black and bleak, but the weather had cleared and the sky was a hard pale blue.

The door was answered by a girl in an apron who bobbed an old-fashioned curtsy to me. That made me smile, and the wariness with which she’d eyed me—I must look very bad, I thought—melted enough for her to answer my request for Frau Rosemeyer.

“She went to the park,” the girl said, pointing over my shoulder. “I said it was too cold for the baby, but she said he was wrapped up like a strudel and it would be all right.” A touch of disapproval in her voice, but clearly no one could argue with Elly if her mind was made up. With a small qualm, I bowed to her in thanks and went down the steps to the park.

I had crossed the street and was walking toward the gate when I saw a black car pull up before the house—one of the older classic Horch twelve-cylinders. I paused long enough to see a chauffeur in uniform get out and reach into the car for a basket ornamented with ribbons. He stopped for a moment as someone in the car said something to him, then nodded and bounded up the steps

The park was surrounded by a black iron palisade, and the gate was locked. I caught a flash of color through the trees, though, movement on the far side of the park, and I walked hastily around it, hoping to catch her.

The rattle of wheels on gravel led me to her; she was pushing a pram slowly along a path, head bent in thought. It was the maroon of the pram I had glimpsed through the trees; she wore a black coat and scarf, and her eyes, when she looked up at my greeting, were the color of the winter sky.

She bent over the pram to check that the child was covered, then came over to the fence where I was.

“Ferdinand. Do you want to come inside?” she asked. “You can walk round and I’ll meet you at the gate—or perhaps it’s better to go back to the house?”

“No, no,” I said. “Here will be fine, if you’re not too cold?” No possibility of being overheard here.

She shook her head with a sort of indifference.

I grasped the iron railings with both hands—I’d thought to wear gloves, fortunately—and told her, as briefly as I could, what I’d found out and what Hasse had told me.

She listened, head bent so I could see only her mouth and chin under the curve of the hat she wore. The lips pressed tight at some points, relaxed at others, but the chin stayed strong. When I stopped speaking, she didn’t move. I waited for what seemed a long time, my hands growing colder.

“Elly,” I said at last, quietly. “You don’t need to decide now. What to do, I mean—if...if you want to do anything,” I added quickly. “Just...know I will stand by you.”

She did look up at that and met my eyes directly. They were red-rimmed and tired, but not weeping, and the strong features of her face were carved deep with sorrow. But that chin was still strong.