Free Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon

let him know she needs a moment of privacy.
    “Forgive my wife,” she hears Leonhard say as the door swings shut. “She has the bladder of a tiny bird.”
    The colonel follows with some rejoinder about his own wife, and she knows that they are fast becoming friends. The toilet is tiny, made of some shiny, lightweight metal, and cold enough to make her gasp. She finishes her business quickly and tidies up in front of the mirror. Another coat of red lipstick. She wipes the mascara smudges from beneath her eyes. Smoothes her hair. Something in the roundness of her eyes, the exhaustion written there, reminds her of Egon, the way he looks when she puts him to bed at night. She is struck with a pang so deep she struggles for breath. Gertrud has not thought of her son in two hours. Not once during dinner. Guilt. Sadness. Anger. All of these things are written on her face, on the brightness of her cheeks. Leonhard sees the emotion clearly when she joins them in the hallway, and he gives her hand a questioning squeeze. He won’t ask her here, but she knows he has marked it mentally.
    The corridor takes a sharp left and then an immediate right, depositing them directly in front of a heavy glass door. Leonhard raps on the door sharply with his knuckles and steps aside as a steward pushes it open. There is an immediate hiss of air and Gertrud’s ears pop. The steward holds the door as they enter. It is ingenious the way they have designed this part of the airship. Safety, beauty, and practicality all rolled into one. The cramped antechamber into which they enter is in effect little more than an air lock monitored by the bar steward. To one side is a fully stocked bar, shaped like a banquette with room for one man to stand, but there are no chairs. No tables.
    She doesn’t catch the steward’s first name when he shakes Leonhard’s hand, but she hears his last: Schulze. “This room and the one beyond,” he points at the door opposite, “are pressurized, you see. To prevent any trace amounts of hydrogen from entering. Otherwise no one would be allowed to smoke on board.”
    Schulze leads them to the opposite door, also glass, and into the smoking lounge. If the rest of the ship is luxurious, this room is opulent.
Priorities,
Gertrud thinks,
the Zeppelin-Reederei knows whom to indulge.
Leather benches and armchairs line the perfectly square room, leaving the center open. Hand-painted murals of early hot-air balloons decorate the walls. Small square tables are set with playing cards and poker chips. Carpet, such a dark blue that it looks like spilled ink, covers the floor. The place smells faintly of sweet pipe tobacco, and also the bitter smoke of cigarettes and cigars, though she can tell they’ve gone to great pains to air the room out. Wall sconces fill the space with warm yellow light. And then, of course, the starboard wall is an entire bank of windows. The same as elsewhere on the airship, slanted outward at waist height so you can lean over them and see the ground below. This is where she gravitates while Leonhard and the colonel choose a table. There is so little to see at this time of night that Gertrud is drawn to every prick of light. There the headlights of a vehicle. There the light in a farmhouse window. And on the horizon a luminous string, like a glowworm, hinting at some looming piece of civilization.
    Schulze sets the cocktail menus on the table. “These rooms are open until three a.m.,” he says. “You will find that we have all varieties of wine and alcohol on board. Cigars. And tobacco as well, though we do not provide the pipes. Our menu is generous, and I can make anything to order, though, if I might be so bold, I highly recommend the Maybach 12. It is a drink of my own invention and is excellent, if I may say so.” He glances at Gertrud as if to measure her tolerance for alcohol. She must appear wanting, for he adds, “Though it is of considerable horsepower. I will be in the bar when you’re ready