A Prince Without a Kingdom (2 page)

Lakehurst, New Jersey, September 1, 1929

The rectangle of crumpled corn was their hideout.

They were lying next to each other, draped in the gold of the crop. All around them, fields stretched as far as the eye could see, proud and tall beneath the sun. The airship on the ground was just visible, a few kilometers off, like a shimmer of silver in the grass.

She was twelve perhaps, and he fourteen. She had run after him through the corn, which had closed up again behind them.

“Go away!” he had called out.

She had followed, without the faintest idea of where he was heading. Now they were huddled on the ground, face-to-face, and she was crying.

“Are we hiding? Why do we have to hide?”

Vango put two fingers to Ethel’s lips.

“Shhh. . . . He’s here. He’s following me.”

Not even the ears of grain rustled. Complete silence, except for a sustained summer note, a deep note you might call the sound of the sun. Vango had a crazed look in his eyes.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Ethel whispered.

The parched earth soaked up the traces of her tears.

“There’s nobody here. I don’t recognize you anymore, Vango. What
is
the matter?”

Ethel had only known Vango for three weeks, but it seemed to her as if their meeting was the beginning of everything and that in her entire life she had never really known anybody else. Three weeks had been like a small eternity together. Hadn’t they traveled all the way around the world?

They had even forgotten about the other passengers on board the
Graf Zeppelin,
the crowds that gathered at each stop-off, the newspapers reporting on the great airship’s adventure, the magnesium flashes from the cameras falling over them like a shower of white rain.

In their hearts, it had been just the two of them flying: from New York to Germany, and then nonstop to Japan. After five days let loose in Tokyo, they had crossed the Pacific in three days, flown over the bay of San Francisco at sunset as part of a flotilla of small aircraft, been given a standing ovation in Los Angeles and Chicago, and finally landed at Lakehurst, near New York.

Enough for at least one lifetime. Or perhaps for two lives joining together?

“Please,” she whispered, “tell me what you’re frightened of. Then I can help you.”

Once again he put his hand over Ethel’s mouth. He had just heard a clicking sound, like a weapon being loaded.

“He’s here.”

“Who?”

Ethel rolled over onto her back.

Vango wasn’t the same person anymore.

Three weeks earlier, they had been strangers. They had met in the skies above New York, on the first night of their voyage. Ethel wished she could be back there, reliving it all, second by second, beginning with the first words, “Don’t you ever speak?”

She had said nothing, of course, which had been her response to every question for the past five years. She was leaning against the window, holding a glass of water. They were one hundred meters above the tallest skyscrapers. The vertical night sparkled below them. She wasn’t interested in the person who was talking to her.

“I was watching you with your brother,” he had remarked. “You never say anything. But he’s very good at looking after you.”

He had turned his head to discover a pair of green eyes staring at him.

All the other passengers were asleep. She had left her cabin in search of a glass of water and had found this boy, sitting in the semidarkness, in the small kitchen of the airship. He was peeling potatoes. She supposed he was working as a kitchen hand.

And then, as she headed for the door to return to her cabin, she had heard him say, “If you like, I’m here. If you can’t sleep, my name’s Vango.”

These peculiar words had stopped Ethel in her tracks. She had repeated them to herself, before wondering,
And if I can sleep, will he still be called Vango?

Against her better judgment, she had glanced at him. She saw that he was peeling his potatoes as if they were precious stones, with eight perfect facets. Above all, she saw that he bore no resemblance to anything or anyone she had ever met before. She had walked out of the room. The
Zeppelin
was already some distance from the coast. Manhattan was just a shiny memory in the sky.

When Ethel returned to the kitchen shortly afterward, Vango had admitted, “Like you, I’ve said very few words in my life. It’s your silence that’s making me so chatty.”

It was her smile that betrayed her. She had sat down on a crate, as if she hadn’t seen him. He was singing something in a language she didn’t recognize.

Vango could no longer recall what he had said to pass the time. But he hadn’t stopped talking until morning. Perhaps he had begun with the potato he was holding between his fingers. Boiled, sautéed, roasted, grated, stewed: the humble potato always astounded him. Sometimes, he would even cook it in a ball of clay, which he would smash afterward with a stone, as if it were an egg. From the potato, he would no doubt have gone on to talk about eggs, then chickens, then everything that lives in the farmyard, or that lends its scent to the vegetable garden or the spice shop, or that falls from the fruit trees with the sound of autumn. He had talked about chestnuts exploding, and the sizzle of mushrooms in the frying pan. She was listening. He had got her to smell the jar of vanilla pods, and he had heard the first sound to pass her lips as her face approached the jar to sniff it: like the sigh of a child turning over in her sleep.

They had even looked at each other for a second in silence. She seemed surprised.

Vango had continued. Later, he noticed the small bundle of vanilla pods bringing tears to the girl’s eyes; even the acrid smell of yeast on the chopping board seemed to make memories rise up for her.He watched her beginning to thaw.

The next day, as they passed the thirty-fifth meridian, Ethel had uttered her first word, “Whale.”

And sure enough, below them was a drifting white island, which not even the pilots of the
Zeppelin
had spotted. A white island that turned gray when it rose up out of the foam.

After that word came the word “toast,” then the word “Vango,” and then other words too: sounds that filled the eyes and mouth. This lasted for nearly two weeks. Ethel could feel life returning, the way a blind person recovers their sight. Her brother, Paul, sitting at the table with the other guests, had watched her getting better before his eyes. He hadn’t heard the deep timbre of her voice since the death of their parents.

But just before leaving Japan, on the twenty-first of August, she had seen something crack in Vango’s gaze. What had happened that evening of their world tour?

Ethel suddenly remembered that all dreams have to come to an end.

Now, here they were, lying in their den of corn and sunshine. They should have felt so close, the two of them, on this particular morning, now that they were far away from the others at last. But instead she noticed the way Vango’s hand was trembling as she valiantly brought hers close to it.

“The balloon’s about to depart. You must go,” whispered Vango.

“But what about you?”

“I’ll catch up.”

“I’m staying here with you.”

“Go.”

She stood up. Vango tugged her back down again.

“Stay low and walk as far as the last row of corn, over there. Then run to the
Zeppelin.”

Something fell to the ground, behind Vango.

“What’s that?” Ethel wanted to know.

Vango picked it up and tucked it inside his belt, in the small of his back. It was a revolver.

“You’re losing your mind,” said Ethel.

Vango wished that were the case. He wished that he had made everything up. That the invisible enemy who had tried to kill him three times in one week had never existed, and that Ethel’s hair could sweep away the shadows lying in ambush all around him.

Ethel let go of his hands.

“You made me a promise,” she added, after taking a few steps. “Will you remember?”

He nodded, his eyes no longer able to focus.

She vanished into the corn.

After she had been walking for ten minutes, with her matted hair stuck to her cheeks and eyes, Ethel heard two gunshots being fired in the distance behind her. She turned around. The pool of gold lay still, as if at low tide. Ethel could no longer tell where she had set out from, or where the sound had come from.

The blaring of the airship’s horn was summoning her. Ethel turned full circle, unable to decide what to do; then, remembering Vango’s pleading look, she continued walking toward the
Zeppelin.

Commander Eckener’s booming voice was making the kitchen window vibrate.

“Where’s my Piccolo? What have you done with him?”

Otto Manz, the chef, shrugged, causing all his chins to disappear into his collar.

“He was here at midnight making a sauce for me. Try this!”

Otto held out a steaming wooden spoon, which Hugo Eckener pushed aside.

“I’m not here to discuss your sauces! I’m asking you where Vango is.”

The kitchen was at the front of the airship. The canvas giant tugged at its mooring ropes, preparing to leave America. In its hull, ten of Christopher Columbus’s sailing ships could have been lined up end to end.

A pilot officer appeared at the door.

“We’re also missing two passengers.”

“Who?” bellowed Eckener.

“My little sister, Ethel,” announced a twenty-year-old man who had entered behind the officer.

“This isn’t a summer camp! This is the first round-the-world trip by air! And we’re running an hour late. Where are these kids?”

“Over there!” exclaimed the cook, looking out the window.

Ethel had just cleared a path through the crowd surrounding the balloon. Her brother, Paul, rushed toward the window. She was alone.

“Get her on board!” ordered the commander.

They reached out to haul her up; the steps had already been taken in. Paul greeted her on the threshold.

“Where were you?”

Ethel thrust her fists into her pockets. She was staring at her brother. She sensed that she was teetering on a narrow causeway. She could either dive back into the silence she had inhabited before Vango, or she could set out alone on a new journey.

Paul sensed his sister’s vertigo, and he watched her with trepidation, as if she were a cat on a glass roof.

“I went for a walk,” said Ethel.

Eckener appeared next to them.

“What about Vango?”

“I don’t know,” answered Ethel. “I’m not Vango’s keeper. Isn’t he here?”

“No, he’s not here!” boomed the commander. “Nor will he ever be again. We’re leaving.”

“You’re not going to set off without Vango?” remonstrated the cook.

“He’s fired. That’s it. We’re off. . . .”

Eckener’s voice faltered. Ethel looked away. The orders rebounded all the way to the flight deck. Otto Manz collapsed against the partition.

“Vango? You can’t be serious!”

“Don’t I look serious?” roared Eckener, his eyebrows sticking up.

“At least try this sauce for me,” pleaded the cook, still with the wooden spoon in his hand.

But before the taste of truffles could reverse destiny, Eckener had disappeared.

Suddenly, the voice of Kubis, the headwaiter, could be heard calling out, “There he is!”

Ethel bounded into the corridor and made for the dining room; pushing aside the travelers who were gathered at the window, she scanned the airfield that was filled with soldiers and onlookers.

“There he is!” declared Kubis again, from the neighboring window.

And sure enough, Ethel could see, beyond the crowd, a man, running and waving his arms.

“It’s Mr. Antonov!”

Boris Petrovitch Antonov had also been missing from the roll call.

“He’s wounded.”

The Russian had wrapped a scarf around his knee and he was limping.

This time, the white wooden staircase was put back in place for him to embark. The latecomer explained that he had tripped on a foxhole while stepping back to take a photo.

His eyes were fixed on Ethel.

Boris Antonov had small wire-framed glasses and a waxen complexion. He was traveling with Doctor Kakline, a Russian scientist and Moscow’s official representative for escorting the
Zeppelin
over the Soviet Union. Two weeks earlier, Eckener had decided to bypass the north of Moscow, where tens of thousands of people waited to no avail. Doctor Kakline had demonstrated his Siberian temper, but it took more than that to make Hugo Eckener change his mind.

Kakline was now busy dealing with Antonov. But he didn’t even glance at the bloodstained bandage on his compatriot’s knee. Instead, he was grilling him with a barrage of hushed questions. Kakline seemed to be satisfied with the outcome of Antonov’s adventure.
“Da, da, da,”
he kept saying, pinching Antonov’s cheeks as if he were a good soldier.

The passengers felt the surge of takeoff. This was always the most emotional moment, as the flying ship pulled away from the shouts of the crowd and slowly rose to silent heights in the air.

Old Eckener was in his wooden chair on the starboard side, near the flight deck windows. His blue eyes were tinged with sadness. He was thinking about Vango, the fourteen-year-old boy who had just spent nearly a year on board the
Graf Zeppelin.
From very early on, he had imagined a mysterious destiny for the person he called Piccolo. But he couldn’t help becoming attached to him. From the outset, he had dreaded the day when Vango would disappear.