Page 45 of Geist Fleisch
“Spain then? I’ve been missing your homeland.”
Jacqueline winced as if the idea pained her. “And trade one incoming dictator for another?”
“How about yours then?” Callum asked Robert, realising he knew nothing about Robert’s origin. “How long since you’ve been home?”
“Have you spent a winter in Denmark?” Robert shuddered. “Besides, I’ve long been a proponent of ‘home’ being wherever I happen to be.”
“Fair enough.”
“Stockholm?” Jacqueline asked.
“See prior note about the weather and add an obnoxious dose of House of Blood politics. Pass.”
“Iceland, then? Little politics there.”
“True, or much of anything else. Be sensible.”
Callum laughed. “You’re running out of options, mate.”
Jacqueline regarded him with a mischievous smile, squeezing his hand. “Los Angeles. Let’s go.”
“Los Angeles?” Robert laughed. “Beaches? Movie stars? Nary a cloud in the sky? You’re—”
“Perfectly serious. Why not give it a chance? Lots of us are doing it.”
“All the more reason not to. How about New York?”
“Not if you want to avoid politics.”
They sat in silence for a moment, letting the question hang in the air.
“Fine. Chicago first,” Jacqueline acquiesced at last. “But only for the summer. Then, it’s on to California.”
Robert frowned, before a smile crossed his face. “How did I mentor someone so insufferably practical?”
“Because it’s the sort of companion you need the most.”
Callum let the remark pass without comment.
The sound of the compartment door sliding open interrupted them. “Fahrkarten. Reisepässen. Tickets. Passports.”
Robert handed the documents over, while Jacqueline stroked his arm, playing the dutiful ‘wife’ to minimise scrutiny.
The attendant punched both tickets, inspecting the passports before handing them back. “Good journ—”
Callum shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the man stared right at him.
“The gentleman said he was going to the restaurant car,” Jacqueline explained. “Though he’s been gone more than an hour.”
The guard muttered something under his breath in German.
“It seems lots of people are leaving Berlin any way they can,” Robert added.
The man squared his shoulders, fixing them with a glare. “You do not like our capital?”
Robert looked at Jacqueline before turning back to the guard. “We hope to like it again, some day.”
With a brusque nod, the guard was gone.
