A flight attendant took up post nearby. Spectators stole glances through gaps between seats. What a story they would tell. The online posts, the e-mails and texts.
Once parked at the gate, Audra waited for officials to help gather her and Jack’s belongings and escort them off.
“Look outside,” she told Jack. “See that? We’re safe now. We’re safe.” She offered the assurance twice, hoping through repetition to believe her own lie.
2
Early August 1939
London, England
Light flickered over his face, a mask of shadows in the darkened room. Vivian James edged closer in the velvety seat beside him. Once more she exaggerated a sigh.
Alas, Isaak’s gaze remained glued to the screen. In black-and-white glory, a squadron of Spitfires roared off the runway. British military had become a standard of these newsreels, a flexing of royal muscle, a pep talk for patriots. From Isaak’s rapt interest few would guess he was actually an American, the same as Vivian. Before each picture show the RAF propellers would appear, and on cue his spine would straighten, eyes wider than a full moon over the Thames.
So easily she could see him as a child, even without the projector’s softening beam. Youthful curls defied hair tonic in his thick golden hair, and a light dimple marked his chin. His entire face had a striking boyishness, save for his gray-blue eyes that reminded Vivian of the locked file cabinet in her father’s den: prohibitive and full of mystery. A good reason, in fact, to have kept her distance from the start. After only three months of their clandestine courtship, her yearning to be with him, her fear of losing him, had grown to a point she despised.
Was Isaak aware of the power he held? She wondered this now, studying the profile of his handsome lips. His unbuttoned collar pulled her focus to his medium-framed chest and down the series of buttons. She forbade her gaze from wandering on.
Determined to balance the scales, she brushed aside finger waves of her long brown hair. The motion freed a waft of the perfume he had given her, Evening in Paris. Raising her chin, she exposed her neck, the slender, bare area he had declared irresistible.
A claim now proven false.
She recalled Jean Harlow, the elegance of her feline moves. Brazenly, Vivian arched her back as if stretching for comfort. Against constraints of a girdle, she showcased the curves of her trim, belted dress. She parted her full lips, painted deep cherry red, to complete the sensuous pose.
Still, Isaak stared forward, where Nazi soldiers paraded in goosestep. They steeled their arms in angled salute. A narrator recycled the usual reports: Germany’s pact for alignment with Italy, an increase of rumored threats to Poland, the troubling ambitions of Adolf Hitler. It was hard to fathom how a pint-sized man with the looks of Charlie Chaplin could cause such a stir. Back in Washington, DC, her family’s home until two years ago, he was surely fodder for the Sunday funnies.
“Isaak,” she whispered.
He nodded absently, not turning.
She said his name louder, with no distinct plans of conversation. A flash of his slanted smile would simply confirm knowledge of her presence.
But her efforts produced a mere shush in the row behind them.
On their last two dates he had been no less distracted. “Just have a lot on my mind, darling,” he’d explained, “with research for Professor Klein, and all the rumblings in Europe.”
Politics. The ubiquitous topic.
Her father, a veteran of the Great War, rarely detailed his work at the embassy. But that didn’t stop politics from maintaining a strangling grip on their home. That was not to say Vivian was uncaring, for Isaak’s family in particular. He had been born to Swiss emigrants in upstate New York, he’d explained, and was only fifteen when a factory accident ended his father’s life. Then Isaak and his mother had moved to Lucerne, where she now remained with family. Although Switzerland was famed for its armed neutrality, the expansion of Nazi power gave just cause for apprehension.
Vivian just wished, for a slice of a moment, that global bulletins would take a backseat. Did this stance make her selfish? She pushed down the notion. There were times when a woman ought to put herself first.
At a second shush from behind, Vivian became aware of her bouncing heel. She tended to fidget whenever her mind wandered. As she crossed her legs, a bold idea formed. Subtle options had failed. She inched her dangling foot over the border of Isaak’s space. With the toe of her slingback, she brushed against the calf area of his trousers.
Oblivious, or so it seemed, he moved his knee away.
Vivian retreated to her side.
His summer holiday, free from his classes at the University of London, was supposed to afford them quality time. But demands of his campus job had kept them apart this entire week. The separation should have caused his affections to spill over-as exhibited by the couples sprinkled about, already necking, embracing, hands roaming. Was this not the reason he had chosen a matinee? For its offering of relative privacy, an element he favored?