Salt to the Sea

These pages include 15 short sections, beginning with Alfred’s.

Alfred assesses the group through an opportunistic lens as he helps them register; he sees “hope” in pretty, blonde Emilia, whom he describes as “a fine specimen of the master race” (188). Eva decides to go look for their cart, though the poet pleads with her to register. Emilia is terrified and does not want to use the Latvian’s papers. After seeing a woman with a dead baby trying to board, her attitude changes.

Alfred concocts yet another imaginary letter to Hannelore, in which he brags that he has been given a special assignment “assisting a young recruit on a very important mission for Gauleiter Koch,” the regional Nazi Party leader known for his brutality (198). In fact, Florian is running from Koch, as well as Dr. Lange, whom he is afraid might have discovered the missing swan. Although Alfred is hiding in the toilets, he “tells” Hannelore, “My catalog of heroics is growing so rapidly I can scarcely keep track” (199). Alfred does deliver the blank boarding pass to Florian in the theater, where Florian gets chummy with him to further manipulate the unsuspecting Alfred.