A Prince Without a Kingdom (27 page)

“You see, I am with you.”

“Yes. Put that away, right now.”

Schiff started reciting another poem.

“Be quiet.”

To Esquirol’s astonishment, Eckener took out a name card. While he was scribbling on it, the commander kept on talking, like a doctor writing out a prescription.

“What can you do, Schiff?”

“Anything.”

“Can you carry heavy loads?”

“Yes.”

“Go to the air terminal at Frankfurt. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“Show this note to Herr Klaus. He’ll give you work. Go straight there, all right?”

“Yes.”

“Right away. Catch the train. Ask for Herr Klaus and stay there.”

The young man took the letter, clicked his heels, and went on his way. He had left behind the knife with
BLOOD AND HONOR
engraved on it.

As he watched him go, Eckener felt as if he were still glimpsing the figure of Vango from a few years earlier.

Doctor Esquirol was sitting bolt upright opposite him.

“It seems there are some requests you don’t refuse, Eckener.”

“Indeed.”

“You’ve changed,” he said.

“Yes, I’ve changed,” agreed Eckener, taking a deep breath. “Everybody changes at one time or another.”

“You disgust me. . . .”

“Did you know, for example, that I studied psychology in Leipzig?”

“That’s irrelevant, Commander Eckener.”

“I wanted to become a psychiatrist. I earned my doctorate, then I changed my mind. What matters is knowing when to change, Esquirol. I realize now how much I would have suffered: they no longer look after the sick in our psychiatric hospitals; they eliminate them.”

“That’s not what I’m here to discuss,” said Esquirol, standing his ground.

Among many other shocking laws, the doctor knew about the measures taken by the Nazis against the mentally ill. Hitler had been talking for more than ten years about suppressing “life unworthy of life.”

“You’re muddling everything up,” declared Esquirol.

“No, I’m telling you what I see and you haven’t experienced.”

“You are complicit in all of this. You’re giving work to this lad who’s come to see you, because he’s been recommended by people in high places.”

Eckener gently scratched the tablecloth with his thumb. Wearily, he slid the piece of paper from the boy toward Esquirol.

“Do you want to see the recommendation from someone on high?”

“No.”

But the doctor reached for the piece of paper all the same. It was a carefully presented letter, signed with an illegible name. Esquirol couldn’t read German.

“Who wrote this?” he asked.

“He did. Schiff.”

“Is it a fake?”

“No, it’s a real recipe for pork with cabbage.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Pork with cabbage, allow one and a half hours’ cooking time. Do not stir.”

“Is he crazy?”

“Yes, chronic schizophrenia with atypical features. Didn’t you notice anything? What do they teach medical students in Paris? To stroll around the Latin Quarter with pretty girls?”

Doctor Esquirol was a bit lost.

“Did you see his eyes?” Eckener went on. “The way his head moved? You didn’t notice anything? Luckily, that boy has never set foot in the Hitler Youth. Otherwise, a man in a white coat would already be experimenting on his brain in a laboratory somewhere.”

“So —”

“I’m sheltering him. He may have been sent by some of my university friends. Or by chance. It doesn’t really matter. He’ll lift gas bottles and boxes in our hangars at Frankfurt. It’s better for him that way.”

Unable to utter a word, Esquirol was still holding the letter.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually.

“I have to choose between blood and honor every day, Doctor.”

Eckener stood up, put a note down on the table to cover the bill, thrust the knife into it, and headed for the door.

“Wait. When can we see each other again?” Esquirol called out.

Eckener looked surprised.

“What about May, and the embarkation of the
Hindenburg
? Are you telling me it’s not a serious appointment after all?”

He stepped outside. In the street, he was a sight to behold with his white mane of hair and his alpaca coat. Esquirol watched the commander stopping the cars with a wave of his hand, like Moses crossing the Red Sea.

Esquirol drank a glass of water and thought for a few minutes.

He asked for the telephone, and was pointed toward the basement. Ten minutes later, after battling with a telephone operator using the few German words he knew, he finally managed to connect with a number in Geneva.

He asked for Vincent Valpa.

“Mr. Valpa? It’s me, Doctor Esquirol. I’m in Berlin. Everything will be ready for the beginning of May.”

Not a word from the other end of the line.

“Can you hear me? We’re leaving from Frankfurt on the third of May.”

The person on the other end hung up.

It was always the same story.

Whether he was disguised as Vincent Valpa, Madame Victoria, or any of his other avatars, Voloy Viktor never spoke on the phone. He listened and he hung up.

Moscow, April 20, 1937

A bare-chested stranger stood on the stairs, wearing only a pair of trousers. He was staring at Mademoiselle, who had just opened her front door and looked taken aback.

“Is Ivan Ivanovitch Oulanov in?” asked the stranger.

“No. Who are you?”

“When will he be back?”

Mademoiselle didn’t answer, but the man wouldn’t let it drop.

“What about his wife?”

“She’s been working nights in the factory now that Mr. Oulanov isn’t here anymore.”

Mademoiselle felt uncomfortable standing opposite this man in the middle of the night. He seemed rather stiff, and he kept his hands firmly by his sides. She had opened the door the moment she heard the knocking because she still hoped that the father of Kostia, Zoya, and Andrei would be safely returned to them.

“I’m the neighbor from the first floor,” the man informed her. “I know the family’s got some problems.”

“Please don’t worry on their behalf,” said Mademoiselle, trying to shut the door.

“Wait.”

The man blocked the door with his foot.

“Please,” whispered Mademoiselle firmly. “The children are asleep.”

She pushed the door against the man’s shoe and managed to shut it.

“Open up,” he called out.

“Come back tomorrow. I’m alone with the children. I’m not allowed to open the door.”

“Wait,” he whispered. “Hear me out! I’ve just received a telephone call from Andrei. He wants to talk to his father. He’s going to call back in a few minutes.”

There was a long silence, and the door opened very slowly.

“Andrei?”

“The Oulanov son. Sometimes he sends messages via us. Andrei got on well with my son. He wants to talk to his father.”

“I’ve told you: his father isn’t here anymore.”

“Well, come with me, then. He’s going to call back for news of his family.”

“I’ve never met Andrei. What am I going to say to him? He had already left when I arrived. I’ve taken over his bedroom.”

“You’re the only person who can answer him.”

“But the children . . . I can’t leave them.”

“They’re asleep.”

Mademoiselle thought back to what Andrei’s father had told her about their linked destinies: what Andrei did determined their lives.

The man took a broom from the landing and propped it across the doorway.

“Come with me. The door will stay open.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

“Come on.”

“I can’t.”

But as she spoke she was already making her way downstairs, and turning around to check on the door. She walked into the first-floor apartment. The telephone was in the kitchen. They made their way along a gloomy corridor to find an old woman sitting at the kitchen table.

“This is my mother. My wife is asleep in the bedroom, next door.”

All three of them sat around the table. A cup of tea was poured for Mademoiselle. The old woman served the tea just like in the grand houses Mademoiselle had once known. They waited. The telephone was fixed on the wall near the door.

“We’ll leave the room when he calls,” the man announced. “I don’t want to hear what you say to him.”

On the wall, there was a brand-new poster celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the revolution. Mademoiselle looked at the faces depicted on it. A child carrying bricks in his arms, a woman pointing to the horizon with a trowel. Opposite Mademoiselle, the old woman sat very still, her hands on the table, as she stared at the visitor.

“Are you French?” the woman asked in French.

“Yes,” said Mademoiselle.

The woman smiled.

“I grew up and worked over there, in Paris,” explained Mademoiselle. “But I haven’t been back home for a very long time.”

It had been years since she had last divulged such simple facts about herself.

“I’ve never been to France,” replied the old woman. “But I used to speak good French. And I haven’t forgotten it. I talk to myself in my bedroom.”

“Be quiet, Mother,” said the man, who couldn’t follow the conversation.

They didn’t say another word until the woman rattled off, “You need to return to Paris. People need to go back home one day. My husband died in exile, sadly.”

To avoid her son’s wrath, the woman stood up and carried the teapot over to the sink, before heading for the kitchen door. Just as she was in the doorway, the telephone rang.

The man offered his arm to his mother. They left, closing the door behind them. Mademoiselle was next to the telephone. On the fifth ring, she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

The voice sounded very far away and unsure of itself.

“Mother?”

“No.”

Mademoiselle was panic-stricken. What could she say?

“Hello?” came Andrei’s voice again. “Who’s there?”

“This isn’t your parents, Andrei.”

“Who’s there?

“I am the
tioten’ka
who looks after your brother and sister.”

“Where are they?”

“Your father’s been taken away. I don’t know why.”

At the other end of the line, the voice had gone quiet.

“Hello?” said Mademoiselle.

Perhaps the line had been cut off. Confronted with this loud silence, she suddenly felt bolder and began to talk.

“I don’t know why your father’s been arrested, Andrei, and I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing. I don’t know anything. I don’t know you. Can you hear me? Your violins are under my bed. Under
your
bed. I came here by chance. No one tells me anything.”

She listened to the crackling of the line before continuing.

“But I want to warn you about something. It is my belief that your actions are being watched by someone, that your actions affect what happens here. That’s what your father explained to me before he went. I’m afraid they may have taken your father because of you.”

Not a sound in the receiver. Perhaps Mademoiselle was talking to herself in the kitchen, just like the old woman every evening when she recited Verlaine’s poems to the empty table, the big poster, and the samovar.

“Andrei, can you hear me? Tell me if you can hear me. Think this over. Is there one thing you could do that would help bring your father back? He needs you. Your brother and sister need you. Your mother needs you. Are you still there, Andrei?”

She clung to the telephone and whispered, “Good luck, if you can hear me . . .”

The line hadn’t been cut. Andrei had heard everything. But he was speechless. He was in Inverness, Scotland, in Gregor’s Colors paint shop, and it was the middle of the night. He had dared to make this phone call.

The crackling grew louder. Then nothing. He replaced the handset and put his head in his hands. His father . . .

He no longer had any choice. His plan had been ready for a long time. Four words in a telegram. All he had to do was take it to Everland. But he had wavered for weeks about using Ethel in order to save his family.

Andrei stared at the telephone on the desk: there couldn’t be many calls to Moscow made from it. In any event, he would be far from here by the time his boss received the bill. And Vango would already be in the Vulture’s clutches.

As she returned to the apartment and tucked in little Kostia, who was crying in his sleep, Mademoiselle didn’t realize the gravity of what she had just done. In those few words to Andrei, she had relaunched the hunt for Vango.

Sochi, on the shores of the Black Sea, the next day, April 21, 1937

Setanka was locked in her father’s study. She was listening to her nurse, Alexandra Andreyevna, shouting at her from behind the door.

“He’ll be here any moment and he won’t be happy. Come out, or I’ll break down the door.”

Setanka knew that her nurse would never break down the door of Joseph Stalin’s study. She even felt a bit ashamed making the woman she adored, who was like a surrogate mother to her and much more besides, resort to such threats.

“He’s holding me prisoner in this house. I want to go back to Moscow! It’s not fair making me stay here when I’m only eleven!”