The Quiller Memorandum [antikvár]

A COUPLE OF AIR-HOSTESSES Came in through the glass doors, crisp and pure-looking in Lufthansa uniform. They looked once at the group of pilots who stood at the soft-drinks bar and then swung on their spiked heels to preen themselves in the mirrors. The pilots turned to watch them, all of them tall, all of them blond. Nobody spoke. Another girl came in and touched her reflected hair before she turned away and studied her shining fingertips at arm's length, glancing up just once at the tall blond men, looking down again with her head tilted, admiring her spread fingers as if they were flowers. One of the young men grinned and looked among his friends to see who would join him in an approach toward the girls, but nobody moved. A light flashed rhythmically across and across the window, coming from the airport beacon. The two girls left the mirrors, glanced again at the pilots and then stood neatly with their feet together and their hands behind them. Everybody seemed to be waiting. The boy who had grinned to his friends seemed to venture a step toward the hostesses, but another blocked his foot and the boy shrugged, folding his arms. Into the silence was rising the sound of a jet airliner starting up outside. This was what they had been waiting for and they all turned toward the center, looking upward, listening, all of them smiling now. The rising sound of the aircraft was not yet very loud, so that I heard the door of the box being opened behind my chair; a wedge of light came against the wall and then went out. Clearly visible through the big window the dorsal lamp of the airliner began winking, and the sound of the jets leveled 9