He waved his hand, pulling me into the room.
There was a single lamp illuminating the area of the desk he was working on. As I stood next to him, the smoke from his pipe irritated my eyes.
“So.” He seemed to have lost his train of thought for a moment. “So. Plane trips.”
“Yes.” Flying overseas was a big deal back then. Only important and powerful people took plane trips.
“Would you like to fly on a plane?”
He picked up the pipe next to him and put it in his mouth, then leant back in his chair with an amused, sardonic look.
Of course I would. But the words stuck in my throat.
“Well?” He leant toward me. “Fly on a plane?”
He sucked on his pipe.
Eventually, I whispered “Yes please”.
“Good.” My father put his pipe down on the desk with the air of someone completing a difficult negotiation. “Well, we’re going next week. Next Tuesday. You can even have a couple of days off school. Holidays start soon, don’t they?”
“Yes, the end of next…”
But he had already turned around and was focussed on his reading.
***
We flew to Germany. I knew about Germany from the atlas I kept in my room. It was in Europe and, before I was born, there was a big war which Germany started. But my father told me they had learnt their lesson and were good now.