A Prince Without a Kingdom (31 page)

Ethel walked down the staircase in front of her cabin. The atmosphere on the lower deck was much more lively. The small bar was still open. Three men were deep in conversation on the banquettes. The barman was slicing lemons on his counter. Behind a high-security door was the famous smoking room, which comprised the most popular twenty square meters in the airship.

Ethel stepped inside the smoking room and Max the barman followed, closing the pressurized door behind her. A dozen men sat around in armchairs swathed in smoke. It took a few seconds to recognize J. J. Puppet beneath the cloud on the right. He smiled at her. He was alone near the picture window, with an enormous cigar.

“Do you smoke?” he inquired when Ethel came over.

“No, but even the carpets smoke here!”

Ethel felt that without lighting a cigarette, she had still inhaled a cupful of tar just by opening her mouth.

Puppet was keeping a discreet eye on one of Valpa’s men, who was sitting near to the door.

“So,” he ventured, “your father enjoys boxing?”

“Yes,” replied Ethel.

“And what about you?”

“I don’t know.”

Ethel didn’t want to mention that boxing made her cry because it made her recall the sound of her father’s voice whispering in her ear as he explained the fights.

“It’s not a little girl’s sport,” declared Puppet.

“Oh, yes it is. But I’m a grown-up now.”

He looked at her.

“What are you going to do in New York?” Ethel asked him.

“No idea.”

Puppet was watching Valpa’s man, who had just stood up.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he went on, “but I’m not even sure what I’m doing here. I’m just doing a friend a favor.”

“Is he here?”

“I hope so. I haven’t seen him yet.”

Ethel didn’t seem surprised. She liked mysteries.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He might be hidden in the piano, upstairs.”

Ethel laughed.

Little did she suspect that at that very moment in the empty lounge above them, the lid of the piano was slowly being raised. Two eyes scoured the room. Nobody. The piano lid opened a bit more. A man got out. He was completely numb. It was the piano tuner.

“Aha, so now I understand why the piano’s out of tune!” declared Ethel, back in the smoking room.

“Have you tried it? You shouldn’t have. The hammers strike my friend when you press down on the keys.”

Joseph Puppet half stood up.

“Max!”

He gestured at the barman, who approached with a tray.

“I hadn’t forgotten you,” he told Puppet.

“No, I’d rather you gave that glass to the gentleman who’s about to leave.”

Puppet indicated the man who was standing close to the door.

The barman did as requested, and Ethel saw the man sit back down again with his glass.

“I don’t want that guy hanging around the corridors,” Puppet whispered to Ethel.

One floor above them, in the empty lounge, the piano tuner was gently closing the piano. He was in so much pain that he could only just manage to stand up. To pass the time from four o’clock in the afternoon until two o’clock in the morning, he had been reciting the breviary. He stretched his body and cracked his fingers.

His hands weren’t those of a pianist but of a gardener.

They belonged to Zefiro.

The door opened behind him.

“Excuse me?”

He didn’t turn around. Somebody had just emerged from the reading room, his face puffy with sleep.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes?” said Zefiro.

“Are we here yet?”

Zefiro turned to take a look at the man, who held an illustrated newspaper in one hand.

“I shouldn’t think so. The crossing takes three days.”

“Were you the person who switched my lamp off?”

“No. You should get some sleep.”

“Where are we?” inquired the man, wandering over to the far end of the lounge.

Zefiro let out a long sigh.

Back in the smoking room, Ethel finally sat down.

“Do you know anybody on board?” she asked Puppet.

“Not really. Have you noticed those two men pretending not to look at you?”

“No.”

“Can’t you see that everybody’s staring at you in here?”

“No.”

“A woman in a smoking room is like a black man in a German airship. People stare.”

Ethel was interested in Joseph Puppet. She listened carefully to what he had to say.

“Those two over there, for example, the ones I just mentioned, who are staring at you even more closely than the rest, I’m slowly getting to know them.”

“Well?” Ethel pressed him.

“They say they’re Norwegian.”

She shot a quick glance, while Puppet made progress with his cigar.

“Have you ever been to Norway?” he asked.

“No.”

“Me neither, more’s the pity. And nor have they.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe they’ve ever set foot there.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re speaking Russian.”

She shooed the smoke away with her fingers, as if she were turning the page of a book. Puppet had Ethel’s full attention now.

“I made mincemeat of a Russian in 1919 in a boxing ring in Belgium. I swear he was speaking the same language as them.”

“You made mincemeat of him?”

“Well, steak tartare.”

Zefiro tapped four times on the partition wall of the cabin. The door opened. Zefiro and Esquirol fell into each other’s arms.

“You’re out of your mind,” said Esquirol. “You have no idea what you’re getting us into.”

“You gave your word, just as I did.”

Both of them remembered the pact they had made in the clearing at Falbas, and which had become Project Violette. A communal promise made in the midst of all the fighting. An Italian priest soldier, a German aviator, a French doctor, and an Ivorian infantryman.

“Is Voloy Viktor here?”

“Valpa is here,” Esquirol corrected him.

“I don’t care what name he’s going by these days.” Zefiro shrugged.

“He’s in his cabin, down below. His two men are taking turns guarding him. He doesn’t come out. His meals are brought to him.”

“What about Eckener?”

“I don’t think it went too badly. It was a crazy situation. Valpa shook his hand. That was the best we could do, seeing as you refused to explain your plans to Eckener.”

“He wouldn’t have played our game.”

“You never know, Zefiro.”

“Is Viktor in the large cabin at the back?”

“Yes. A family with three children was expecting to go in there. But I held firm. All the other cabins along the corridor are empty.”

“And what about the cabin boy?”

“He knows not to go into Valpa’s cabin or ours. We’ve come to an arrangement.”

“Good.”

“When will it be?” asked Esquirol, looking Zefiro straight in the eye.

“The last night, before landing. Where is Joseph Puppet?”

“It was rash of you to make him play the part of a heavy weapons investor. It’s madness.”

“Did you have someone else in mind?”

“Puppet is known far and wide for his pacifist appearances.”

“Where is he?” asked Zefiro.

“He was keeping an eye on the other bodyguard in the smoking room. Now that you’re safely out of the piano, I can liberate him from his duties.”

Esquirol turned toward the door.

“Bring me something to eat,” called Zefiro.

The padre lay down on the floor and closed his eyes.

“Don’t you want a bunk?”

“I’m a monk, Esquirol. I sleep on hard floors or inside pianos.”

When he saw Esquirol appear at the door to the smoking room, Joseph Puppet stood up.

“I think someone’s come for me.”

He took Ethel’s hand and bowed so low that his forehead touched it.

“Good night, miss.”

A few passengers eyed them disapprovingly.

Puppet was reveling in the attention. He knew that, the previous summer, after beating Joe Louis — a black American from Alabama — in the twelfth round, the great German boxer Max Schmeling had caught this same
Hindenburg
back to Germany. For the Nazis, his triumphant return had been symbolic of the superiority of the German race.

With a smile on his lips, Puppet gave a little bow to the assembled company and left.

Ethel stayed behind only a few minutes longer, but she took the time to observe the two Norwegians. They had openly turned their backs on her now. She noticed that they had brought their own metal flasks with them, which appeared to contain something strong, because with each swig the men winced.

One of them was tall, strapping, and bearded. He had a shaved head and he didn’t speak. The other was a small nervous man who chain-smoked cigarettes. He rolled them on his knees using mild tobacco. He muttered things to his colleague, who nodded every time he paused for breath.

Walking past them on her way out, Ethel noticed, on the neck of their flasks, the outline of a snarling bear.

A northwesterly wind rose with the day. Captain Pruss had chosen to steer a course that took them toward the North Atlantic, with the result that the airship was now in a headwind. It was difficult to navigate. Not that the passengers even realized. The
Hindenburg
was remarkably stable in all weather conditions. But the crew could tell that Captain Pruss was preoccupied. He didn’t linger at the table, and spent most of his time in the cockpit. The airship was running late. Pruss knew that among the numerous passengers on the return flight were many English travelers who wished to embark in New York in order to return to Europe in time for the coronation of King George VI the following week. They couldn’t afford to be late.

The piano being out of order didn’t improve matters. A little music might have created a more relaxing atmosphere. A few months earlier, Captain Lehman had made the passengers forget all about a thunderstorm thanks to his piano recital, which had lasted an hour and a half.

Just before the second night, Esquirol went to knock on Vincent Valpa’s cabin door. The cabin was situated at the end of a long corridor in the keel of the balloon. It was one of the few cabins with an external window, and the only cabin large enough to accommodate four bunks.

“Who’s there?” someone called out through the closed door.

“It’s me,” said Esquirol.

One of the two guards nudged the door ajar.

“What do you want?”

“I should like to invite Mr. Valpa to a glass of something in the dining room.”

What Esquirol really wanted was to empty the cabin for a few minutes, in order to scope out the premises prior to Zefiro’s operation.

“No,” muttered Valpa without putting in an appearance. “I’m not thirsty.”

“He doesn’t want to come out,” relayed the henchman.

“There’s a bottle of champagne that Commander Eckener has left for us.”

“Drink it.”

The door closed again.

Esquirol found Zefiro waiting with Puppet on the banquette in the cabin.

“He won’t come out.”

Zefiro was already in black combat dress.

“Well, in that case I’ll get him in his hidey-hole. You need to make sure that all three of them are in there.”

“I thought you only wanted Viktor.”

“Nobody must raise the alert before the zeppelin lands in Lakehurst.”

In front of him, Zefiro laid down a Luger Parabellum loaded for three shots.

At one o’clock in the morning, on the sixth of May 1937, an inexplicable phenomenon occurred high above the North Atlantic.

Ethel was lying on her bunk, but her eyes were wide open. She hadn’t been able to sleep since that first evening. Boulard had warned her that one day Vango would ask for help, and it would be too late. Her stomach was in knots, and she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of the piano. Someone was playing a Bach fugue, and the notes were pitch-perfect.

She sat up in bed and listened attentively. Then she got up, put a coat on over her nightdress, and went out into the corridor, where she saw many of her fellow passengers surging past. Captain Lehman’s hands were roaming over the keyboard.

An idle traveler must have pressed down on one of the ivory keys before going to bed, only to discover that the piano worked perfectly.

What could have happened? How had such a turnaround occurred? Nobody guessed that the piano had been relieved of eighty kilos in body weight. Someone swore they had found an olive-wood rosary among the strings. This story had the makings of a miracle.

While everybody was gathered around the piano, Esquirol went to warn Zefiro, who was still hidden in his cabin.

The monk immediately removed the square he had cut out of the plywood ceiling and hoisted himself up into the forest of metal. Zefiro could hear the piano below him: the music of Bach filled the air as he made his way through the dark on the ceiling of the upper deck. He was trying to follow the girders so as not to lose his way or put his foot through the ceiling and land in a cabin. Zefiro counted the rows as he went. He must be above the staircase by now. Taking a left turn, he began to slide down an aluminum pole with holes punched in it. The piano was just on the other side of the partition.

Zefiro was now walking above the new cabins on the lower deck. He knew that the tenth one belonged to Voloy Viktor, but the padre stopped just before it. He checked the weapon on his back and removed a razor-sharp blade from his belt before cutting a hole and lowering himself down through it. Viktor and his men should be just there, in the next-door cabin. A small amount of light seeped through a narrow window to the side: this was the beam from the zeppelin’s headlights as it traveled into the black clouds ahead.