The waiter immediately produced a glass. Fulmar waved it away.
“I’m drinking the cognac,” he said. “Would you fetch my glass, please?”
“Jawohl, Herr Baron,” the waiter said.
An odd combination of sophistication and boyishness.
“Where’re your friends?” Gisella asked.
“They were already engaged,” Fulmar said. Gisella was sure this boy and the Arab had decided between them who was coming to her table. Perhaps they had even flipped a coin over her. And this boy had won.
"And Hauptsturmführer Peis was called to duty,” Gisella said.
"What’s going on, Fräulein?” Fulmar asked.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean, Herr Baron,” she said.
“Why do you call me that?” he asked, turning unfriendly. But after a moment, she also realized he was not acting like a young boy making a play for an older woman.
“I was told your father is the Baron von Fulmar.”
“Well, true. But I’m an American, and Americans can’t be barons.”
“Your German is perfect,” she said. “You could easily pass for a German.”
The compliment rolled off him quickly. “Languages come easily to me,” he said matter-of-factly. "I even speak pretty good Arabic. But what I asked is ‘what’s going on, Fraülein?’”
The waiter returned with the brandy glass. Von Fulmar sniffed at it, sipped at it, and set it down. Then he looked at her for her reply.
“I really don’t know what you mean,” she said uncomfortably.
“I know who Peis is,” he said, almost impatiently, and with obvious contempt, “and I know who you are. Why is the local Sicherheitsdienst thug offering me his girlfriend?”
Gisella felt her face flush.
She blurted what came into her mind. “You can get in trouble calling him a thug,” she said.
Fulmar dismissed that with a wave of his hand.
“Do you work for him?” Fulmar asked.
She met his eyes but didn’t say anything.
He shook his head. “What does he want to know?” he asked.
She was frightened now. This was not going at all the way she had expected it to.
“Just fishing, huh?” Fulmar said.
Gisella blurted,“I’m not his girlfriend.”
“I thought you were,” he said matter-of-factly, and she believed him. And that meant that he really was unafraid of Peis. He had sent the wine to her without caring whether Obersturmführer Wilhelm Peis would like it or not.
“I think I understand,” Fulmar said. “He’s got something on you, right?” She nervously, softly, licked her lips before she spoke.
“I think he wants to be friends with you and your friend.”
Fulmar laughed unpleasantly.