A Prince Without a Kingdom (29 page)

“She mentioned an address that you gave a long time ago, an address on the corner of two streets, in a building under construction. Ethel has left for New York.”

Vango immediately thought of Zefiro. Ethel would lead whoever was after him to Zefiro.

And, just as happened every time, in a flash the Cat was alone in the branches. Without so much as a good-bye.

Vango arrived to find an empty station. The last train to Cherbourg had just left. He woke the engineers, one of whom pointed to the end platform, where Vango jumped onto a goods truck bound for Caen.

In a state of torment, Vango bedded down between some blue sacks. He didn’t sleep a wink. At dawn, in front of Caen Station, he climbed onto the roof of a truck, jumping off at Valognes, where he borrowed a bicycle for the last twenty kilometers or so.

He entered the Port of Cherbourg and ran toward the dock. Too late.

The
Europa
had set sail that night.

Frankfurt, Germany, May 3, 1937

Sleep, Hindy, sleep a while longer.

Schiff was pushing a cart of empty gas bottles, while technicians whirled about the hangar. Above him, the
Hindenburg
had gobbled up its two hundred thousand cubic meters of hydrogen. Schiff couldn’t take his eyes off it. The balloon’s belly was full to bursting. It was a giant, as long as twelve tennis courts end to end, and appeared dust colored in its lair. Schiff talked to it from morning until night, moving his lips soundlessly. He called it Hindy, as if it were a friend.

Sleep until this evening. . . .

Hugo Eckener had asked Schiff to talk inside his head, and the boy was doing his best to obey him. He worked hard, and that way people forgot about him. It took hundreds of gas bottles to satisfy Hindy’s hunger. Schiff transported them one by one, day in and day out.

The Zeppelin Company workers were doing the final checks. Two or three of these men were still suspended from the arches.

The
Hindenburg
’s departure for America was set for that same evening. It had already made several crossings to Brazil at the start of the season. But this was its first flight to New York in 1937. A dozen cabins had been added over the winter. It wasn’t fully booked on the outbound journey, but every cabin was already reserved for the return leg from New York. The
Hindenburg
zeppelin could now digest seventy-two passengers and nearly as many crew members. It was an ogre.

Captain Pruss walked past Schiff, who stopped his cart to gawk at the four golden stripes on the sleeves of the captain’s jacket. Pruss was accompanied by an assistant, who was running through a list of problems still outstanding. The captain was used to this kind of inventory: the kitchen generator had broken down; the cabin boys didn’t know how to make the beds; the thousands of tons of water were taking too long to load; the chief engineer’s wife was about to give birth. . . .

“What d’you want me to say? Get another engineer, or else bring his wife along too!”

The assistant was taking notes.

“Just tell me there isn’t a storm forecast,” growled Pruss.

“Not tonight, no. But the piano —”

“What’s wrong with the piano?” asked the captain irritatedly.

An aluminum baby grand piano covered in yellow leather had been installed in the starboard saloon of the airship, on the upper deck. Schubert could be played over Cape Verde or Ellis Island.

“The piano tuner is by the door. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to him. You’ve asked him —”

“I haven’t asked him anything!” protested Pruss. “Don’t you think I’ve got better things to do? Does it sound out of tune?”

“I’m not an expert, sir, but when I . . .”

The man sung a nocturne very badly while tinkling his fingers over an imaginary keyboard.

“All right, all right,” interrupted Pruss. “Have him tune it.”

Schiff’s lips were still moving as he stared at the captain’s four stripes.

“Is he still here?” asked Pruss, noticing the boy.

“The commander wants to keep him.”

“Heil Hitler!” fired off Schiff, raising his right arm.

Pruss continued on his way.

“Apparently Commander Eckener is in his office.”

“Apparently so, Captain.”

“I thought he was supposed to be in Austria for some meetings.”

“I don’t know about that.”

The two of them headed off. And Schiff pushed his cart toward the exit.

At eight o’clock that evening, at the far end of an airfield in the middle of nowhere, two cars arrived from opposite directions. The first was a black German car with a Swiss license plate. The second was a big shiny red Bugatti, which flattened the grass with its fenders.

The cars came to a stop at a respectable distance from each other. Once their engines were switched off, silence descended again.

Then two men got out of the first car, keeping their right hands under the left armpits inside their jackets and their eyes trained on the other vehicle. They were ready to pull out their weapons at any moment. The airship was already outside the hangar, gleaming in the evening sun less than a kilometer away.

The doors of the red car remained shut for another minute. Over on the other side, the two men were waiting. From time to time they said something to the person inside the black car. They didn’t want to betray their anxiety. Suddenly, three doors of the red Bugatti opened simultaneously. The driver stepped out first. He was an old man in white leather gloves and a chauffeur’s uniform. He looked as if he had spent the last couple of hours shining his shoes, which were such a dazzling black they almost looked white. His face was dignified and expressionless. You could tell he had an English accent before he even opened his mouth.

Behind him, another man appeared. It was Esquirol, looking more elegant than ever. He wore a long jacket over a pair of striped wild silk trousers. He was fiddling with his hat, which boasted a claret-colored ribbon. His black hair was turning gray at the temples, and he had slicked it down with a subtle eau de parfum.

Doctor Esquirol was leaning on the car door, his hand raised slightly to protect himself from the sun. Even the small flies in the evening light were getting on with their business in silence. All that could be heard was an occasional creaking from a cylinder cooling down.

Finally, the third person appeared: a short black man with broad shoulders, which he squeezed through the open door one at a time. He was dressed like an Andalusian prince. He wore an emerald-green jacket with a purple collar, a pearl waistcoat, a wide black tie that was almost undone, and trousers with a braided trim. Perhaps Joseph Puppet had gone a little over the top. But he had been told not to skimp, and he had followed his orders to the letter.

His eyes were hidden by dark tortoiseshell glasses, he sported three rings on each hand, and he carried a walking stick with a carved knob depicting a sparrow. He wore no socks inside his Italian shoes, which had been made from a single piece of leather. On his wrist was the lace from the left glove of his final boxing match, in which he had knocked out an American in the Buffalo Stadium at Montrouge before calling an end to his career. J. J. Puppet looked like a prince, but a sophisticated, fashionable prince. On his other hand, he wore a slim wristwatch that could have belonged to a lady. There was brocade on his elbows and a pair of rosewood buttons at each cuff; and the ivory clip on his black suspenders appeared beneath his waistcoat when he leaned on the car hood.

Doctor Esquirol took a few steps toward the black car. He was approached by one of the two armed men. Esquirol raised both arms. He was frisked carefully.

“And the others!” ordered the man.

Puppet and the English chauffeur stepped forward. They were frisked in turn.

The bodyguard went back to the car and opened the passenger door.

A man stepped out. He strode across the grass toward Esquirol and Puppet, clad in a dull suit that couldn’t have contrasted more sharply with their fashionable attire. He looked tense.

“Where is Mr. Eckener?”

“Mr. Valpa, there’s a problem with Commander Eckener. He’s not with us.”

“I am here to speak with Eckener,” insisted Valpa.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t able to let you know in time, but Commander Eckener won’t be on board the
Hindenburg
with us tonight.”

Vincent Valpa took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his mouth.

“You’ve made me . . . come from Geneva for nothing?”

“Certainly not,” said Esquirol. “Have you heard of Joseph Jacques Puppet, the boxer?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Valpa, staring at the Andalusian prince.

“He’s here for the same reason as you. He is part of the great contract. He is suspicious, and wishes to meet Eckener before signing.”

“I’m not suspicious, Doctor.” Puppet smiled. “You are overstating the case. But I’ve only seen Eckener’s name at the bottom of the page. I need to feel his hand in mine before I can believe him. I am investing a great deal of gold in this contract, equivalent to the combined weight of your two bodyguards, Mr. Valpa. And, like you, I want to be sure of what I’m doing.”

Valpa turned to assess how heavy his bodyguards were. It would appear that this man’s investment amounted to three hundred kilos of gold. He looked at Puppet with rather more respect.

Puppet smiled, because he knew that the only gold he possessed on this earth was the tiny ray of sunshine that had just come to rest on his patent leather shoes. He didn’t even own a pair of scissors in the hair salon where he worked in Monaco.

But he had been asked to play the role of a wealthy retired boxer who invested his money in arms trafficking. And Puppet was proving to be an excellent actor.

“You’re about to meet Commander Eckener, gentlemen,” said Esquirol. “He’s not able to fly to New York with us, but he is waiting for you in his office.”

After a few seconds, Vincent Valpa folded his handkerchief. Puppet tucked the sparrow head of his walking stick under his arm. Each of them returned to their cars, which proceeded to crawl toward the
Hindenburg
as if part of a funeral convoy.

In the first car, Esquirol leaned toward the chauffeur.

“Harry, drop us here and return to Monte Carlo.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please thank Madame Solange again.”

Madame Solange, who was a customer at Joseph Puppet’s salon, was married to an ambassador. She had lent her husband’s red Bugatti and his chauffeur, Harry, in exchange for twenty free wash-and-dries.

Esquirol was taking the most insane risk he could possibly imagine. Hugo Eckener had no idea about any of this. They were going to have to improvise.

There was a slight fuss at the foot of the airship. A lady traveler who had arrived from Italy had just found out that she would have to pay five marks for every fifteen kilos of excess baggage. She hadn’t been informed of this until now, she complained. Air hostess Imhof, the only female member of the zeppelin’s crew, was trying to calm her down. But the lady kept insisting that she weighed at least twenty kilos less than most of the passengers, and she pointed at Madame Kleeman a little farther off, the wife of an important motorcycle manufacturer.

Inside the zeppelin, Kubis the headwaiter was striding through the lounges to check that everything was in order. It was almost quarter past eight, and the passengers would be appearing in a few moments.

One of the young chefs, Alfred, was putting vases of flowers on the tables. Kubis noticed that he was limping. Porters passed by in the corridors, as they started to take the luggage to the cabins. There was a scent of lily in the stairwell. Kubis found the cabin boy sitting on the piano stool.

“What are you doing here?”

Werner leaped up, knocking over the pile of bath towels he was supposed to be laying neatly by the basins.

“It doesn’t work,” he explained.

“What?”

“The piano.”

Kubis went over and played a chord. The piano made a dreadful noise.

“Where’s the tuner?”

“He must have gone already.”

Kubis played a few more notes.

“He’s left this piano in an appalling state.”

“Do you want me to find him?”

“Certainly not. Deal with those towels.”

Kubis checked his watch. There was no time to call for another piano tuner. He would handle this matter on their return. There would be no piano music on the outbound journey, which was no bad thing as far as the headwaiter was concerned, given that Captain Lehman would be on board. Lehman spent his time either at the accordion or on the piano. This delighted the passengers and tortured Kubis. Indeed, the previous winter he had argued the case for not having the piano at all.

One minute later, Kubis walked down the footbridge to greet each of the passengers individually. There were still five missing. They hadn’t caught the bus from the hotel and were supposed to be arriving under their own steam. Kubis ordered the removal of a cart of empty gas bottles that was lying around, realizing that it was a cause of alarm for a mother of three children.

“Stay away from there, Irene,” the woman told her eldest daughter.