Though he was not a licensed pilot, Michiel belonged to that class of people who spent a lot of time messing about in boats and planes and had some knowledge of how they worked. Saskia was old enough to remember when a man of that description might have been called a playboy. Among European royalty there was no lack of such. But no self-respecting man wanted to be called that anymore. Anyway, the Venetian didn’t have a job per se, or any fixed slate of obligations relating to work or family. When it came time for Saskia to head for Vadan, Michiel asked if he might join her in the co-pilot’s seat, and she said yes without hesitation. He was good company to be sure. And though she wouldn’t have trusted him to take the Beaver off or land it, he could manage it in level flight when she needed the occasional break.
The journey lent itself to an easygoing, short-hop style of travel. They were essentially flying down the whole length of the Adriatic. They chose to follow its Italian, as opposed to its Balkan, coast. They could put the plane down almost anywhere, and it would usually turn out to be someplace charming. Michiel, who had roamed up and down this coast in pleasure craft his whole life, knew of good places to get coffee or a delicious meal while the Beaver was being refueled. They stopped once about halfway along in a little old Roman town, unspoiled by tourism and yet still well supplied with cafés and restaurants because of a local art scene. Then they flew a leg to near Brindisi, on the heel of Italy, at the narrowest part of the Adriatic. Here there was more modern hustle and bustle because of its maritime connections to Albania and Greece, but Michiel knew of a fantastic little waterfront bar, just colorful enough to feel like a real place, patronized by a hilarious mix of locals and old salts passing through. It was tucked in beside a fishermen’s wharf across a cove from the fuel dock. The crew looking after the plane there, mostly Albanian immigrants, were in love with it and asked Michiel all sorts of questions. They were assuming that he, and not the woman by his side, was the owner and pilot. In other circumstances Saskia might have taken offense at that, but she was luxuriating in this brief spell of anonymity. None of these men had had a clue that she was Her Royal Highness Frederika Mathilde Louisa Saskia of the Netherlands. She was just the wife or girlfriend of this cool-looking Italian guy—who addressed her as Saskia. She didn’t have to
Once they were established in that waterfront bar with glasses of white wine and a plate of snails, Michiel squinted across the sun-sparkled water of the cove toward the fuel dock, then pulled his sunglasses down on his nose, looked over them at Saskia, and said, “Those men are fascinated by your Beaver. As am I.”
Lotte had already made Saskia well aware of a fact that never would have occurred to her otherwise, namely that in English slang the word “beaver” meant a woman’s genitals. The pun had since cropped up in conversation a few times. So Saskia was ready for the double meaning. Or at least she had to assume that Michiel was simultaneously making a perfectly aboveboard remark about aviation and hitting on her.
As with any double entendre, there was a need to proceed with caution, in case he actually
“You need to be aware,” she said, “that it’s old and complicated and takes a while to get up to speed. Not like the new models you’re probably used to.”
“Newer models have complicated features that are tiresome and high-maintenance in their own way,” he pointed out.
“As long as you understand,” she said, biting into a snail, “that the Beaver is mine, and it has other places to go.”
