Amerika (29 page)

I  made  my  way  over  to  the  company’s  weather  forecasting  office located just off the main hallway. Minutes later I traced my finger over the freshly-inked isobar line and smudged it slightly.

The Pan Am meteorologist winced. ‘I just spent five minutes plotting that thing.’

‘Sorry. What’s your best guess?’

He chewed his lips as he deliberated. ‘I wouldn’t pull the plug yet. You might make it out by late tonight.’

I thought of our scientist twisting in the wind in Lisbon while we twiddled our thumbs in Horta. ‘Sure about that?’

He gave me that familiar, wearied look weather forecasters have been giving pilots ever since time began. I rephrased it to give him his proper due. ‘What’s your best estimate?’

He looked at the chart and then out the window. ‘Maybe.’

To  protect  myself,  I  gave  the  passengers  my,  ‘We’re  not  going anywhere’ speech and then, amidst their expected groans, I held out the same carrot the weather man had held out to me; a slight chance things could clear up, the seas grow calm enough, and we’d be on our way, so please have faith in God, Mother Nature and Lufthansa - in that order.

The crowd dispersed, Nawrocki and Addison scurrying after them like sheep dogs, nudging them toward the bar, the game rooms, and the restaurant, while peppering them with cheerful suggestions as to how to spend the next few hours on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere without going crazy.

The German contingent, led by Father Petrucelli, headed straight for the bar. Ziggy brought up the rear like a bobbing caboose.

A voice behind me whispered, ‘What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on that wall.’

I turned and there stood Ava.

‘Got a light, darling Sam?’

I fished for a match. ‘Didn’t know you smoked.’

‘I don’t. Goes with the act.’

She held my hand to steady the flame, which unaccountably shook slightly.

‘You okay?’ she said.

‘Never better.’

‘Let’s go for a walk.’

‘In this?’

‘The grandson of a Key West wrecker afraid of getting a little wet?’

‘Not if you’re not.’

Turned out to be more wind than rain, which was a good sign that the front was moving fast. But even so we had a time of it, wrestling with a hotel umbrella that was big enough for two, but kept threatening to turn itself inside out. I finally gave up and furled it, willing to risk getting wet instead.

Ava held out her palm and said, ‘Where’d all the water go?’

‘Towards Lisbon, I hope. And if we’re lucky we’ll leap frog over it tonight and get back on schedule. All depends on sea conditions.’

‘Last time I checked we were flying in a seaplane. Why would water matter?’

‘Our runways move up and down. If the waves get too high, we’ll crash into them on takeoff, which is just like crashing into a brick wall.’

‘Didn’t think about that.’

‘You’re a land pilot, that’s why.’

‘When all this is over, maybe I’ll get my seaplane rating. Mind showing me the ropes if I do?’

‘I’m not Amelia Earhart.’

She took my arm. ‘That makes two of us.’

We walked in silence down the long curving brick pathway from the club building to a sheltered overlook. No passengers in sight. Couldn’t blame them. What is normally a delightful place to appreciate the flora and fauna of this little gem of an island was now a grey, gloomy foreboding place you couldn’t wait to get away from.

I said, ‘How did things go in Hollywood after I left last night?’

She sighed. ‘The usual: grim Germans, nosy newspaper reporter, jovial priest, glamorous actress, weasely agent and an assorted cast of minor characters, all eager to be in Lisbon. Some of us slept, most of us didn’t. How were things for you on the flight deck?’

‘Just like you; trying to act the part. How am I doing?’

She gave me a long, calculated look. For the first time I had a chance to notice that her eyes were more violet than blue.

‘Something the matter?’ she said.

‘Your eyes. Very interesting color.’

‘Depends on the lighting. At night they’re more blue.’ She went on tiptoe to peer at my face. ‘And yours are brown, I see.’

‘Plain old brown.’

‘Good, that’s settled. Our eyes, I mean. It’s been nagging both of us, I’m sure, ever since we met.’

We arrived at the sheltered overlook. Blossoming Wisteria vines jammed the pergola almost to bursting.  Their weight made it creak in the wind.

Ava peered down into the sheltered harbor. ‘Thar’ she blows.’

The Yankee Clipper huddled on the water like a grounded sea bird. A crew member clambered over her rain-slicked wings, while a team of others worked on the starboard engines, their cowlings opened like clamshells for servicing. Even from this distance, I could make out Orlando’s massive shape as one of the workers.

I pointed him out to Ava, ‘Once a mechanic, always a mechanic.’

‘He’s acting the part great.’

‘Not acting. Knows engines like you know movies.’

‘All the better then.’

‘So let’s review our little movie, shall we?’

For the next ten minutes we went over the details of what would happen once we touched down in Lisbon; where we would go, what we would do. The experts back at Couba Island had figured out all the steps well in advance. But of course that meant everything except the plan would unfold because life is like that. Even so, people like to plan, mostly because it gives them something to do until it’s time to actually do it and then all hell breaks out.

My job in Lisbon was to be - in Fatt’s words -   ‘grease on the axle,’ meaning my Pan Am uniform with its impressive ‘Master of Flying Boats’ gold wings would play a key part of the extrication plan for our good
Herr
Doktor, should something go wrong. Which it would, of course. I just didn’t know what.

We finally ran out of words and stood there in silence looking out at the wind-tossed waters, each in our own thoughts.

I was so absorbed in mine that the touch of her hand on my arm startled me and I jumped.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘That’s okay.’

‘Far away?’

‘Thinking about Abbie. Want to get her one of those little carved monkeys I saw back at the club. She collects them.’

‘I loved horses when I was her age.’

‘Real or toys?’

‘Are you kidding? Real.’

‘Ever get one?’

‘Not until I grew up. Had three, loved them all.’

We both turned to go at the same time and bumped shoulders.

‘After you,’ she said laughingly.

‘Please, beauty before age.’

‘Let’s compromise.’

She took my arm and we made our way together up the curving walkway. I was about to say something about monkeys when she squeezed my arm and said, ‘I’m so sorry about your family.’

I nodded stupidly, at a loss for words, and then finally said, ‘How did you know?’

‘It came up when they were talking about getting you for this mission.’

‘‘They’?’

‘Uncle George, Captain Fatt, the other Sons of Liberty. Her name was Estelle, right? And Eddie?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like.’

‘Me either.’

She stopped. ‘So many people died that day. Washington and New York. People who had done nothing wrong. Slaughtered like...like...’

‘Pigs.’

‘Except they were innocent people. Your wife, your little baby boy.’ She wiped away windblown wisps of hair across her face and with it tears. ‘I’m just so sorry it happened, that’s all.’

I stood there, waiting for the ache in my throat to loosen up. It didn’t, so all I could do was nod my understanding.

We continued walking. Her grip tightened on my sleeve. ‘I want to kill them all. The bastards.’

‘We’ve got a whole planeload. Where do you want to start?’

‘At the back and work my way forward, and save
Herr Inspektor
Bauer for last.’

‘He’s up to something but I don’t know what.’

‘Me either.’

‘Think he’s got wind of us?’

She frowned. ‘I hope to God not.’

‘He’s one of those cops who’s easy on the outside, but hard on the inside. Puts you at your ease and then pounces. At least that’s what I think - but on second thought, why don’t we ask him ourselves? Look.’

Bauer and Ziggy were weaving their way down the walkway, arm in arm, best of friends. And when I say weaving, I mean it. They were drunk as skunks.

‘My God,’ Ava said. ‘A Nazi and a Jew, drinking buddies?’

Ziggy spotted us and waved merrily. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

Bauer smiled stupidly and bumbled along for the ride.

‘Ziggy, you hardly every drink,’ Ava said.

‘Surprise!’ he said.

They came to an inconclusive stop and regarded us with great benevolence.

‘Let me guess,’ Ava said. ‘Bloody Mary’s for breakfast.’

Ziggy stabbed the air with great authority. ‘Correct as usual, Doctor Watson.’

Bauer looked puzzled.

I said, ‘Ever heard of Sherlock Holmes?’ He shook his head, but then suddenly brightened. ‘Of course, the great British detective.  Most excellent stories. ‘The Hounds of something or other.’’

‘The Baskervilles.’

He snapped his fingers, or at least tried to, but he couldn’t get it to happen. He stared at them like they’d let him down.

Ava said, ‘This fresh air will do you boys a world of good.’

‘As long as it doesn’t sober us up, right
Herrrrrrr
Bauer?’ Ziggy rolled his ‘r’s’ with great theatricality.

‘Correct,
Herr
Siegel. There comes a time when the world is best viewed through the bottom of a glass.’ He regarded at the gloomy overcast sky. ‘This is one of them.’

He turned majestically on his heel and towed Ziggy along with him back to the bar.

Ava said softly, ‘And the Lion shall lie down with the lamb.’

Despite everyone’s desire to escape, the weather gods refused to cooperate until the following morning, when they quelled the waves long enough for us to lift off from Horta at 8:38am and never look back until when we touched down in Lisbon six hours and forty-four minutes later, after an uneventful flight with Fatt and me at the controls and a load of passengers ready to end their rain-soaked adventure in sunny Lisbon.

All I can say is, what a difference a war makes, not only on countries that are waging it, but on countries that are not, like Portugal. Unlike the United States, whose neutrality and distance from the battle left it like Noah’s ark stuck on the top of Mount Ararat with not a drop of water in sight, Lisbon was awash in refugees trying to escape the madness of their native lands; Germans, Russians, Poles, Greeks, Jews, prostitutes, homosexuals, all of them desperately looking for a way out.

The ones with lots of money used it to beg, borrow or steal a clipper ticket. Few made it but most had to make do with a long ocean journey to a place where they wouldn’t be persecuted. And those places were getting fewer and fewer.

During the flight, Sparks had tuned in on the latest of what was going on in Nazi-controlled England. Even more civilian restrictions had been placed upon the conquered nation. This latest one had to do with travel outside ones ‘sector.’ In short, if you didn’t have written and stamped permission to travel to anyplace other than your immediate village, town or section of a city, you didn’t move.

The Brits were not taking this laying down of course, and the news story focused on the protest groups marching from one village to the next in defiance of the Nazi decree. No one was harmed, but only a matter of time before the gloves came off and the hobnail boots started kicking. Not easy being trapped on an island with your conquerors breathing down your neck, just waiting for an opportunity to grab and twist it until you died.

Signs of the ‘new order’ were visible at Pan Am’s ticket counter in Lisbon, with Lufthansa personnel replacing our Portuguese personnel. Sheer pandemonium greeted our crew after we cleared customs. Even though three in the afternoon and our return flight wasn’t until the next morning, the place was jammed with refugees. They took one look at us and our uniforms, and the potential freedom we represented and surged toward the stone-faced Lufthansa ticket agents, who refused to yield.