On board the Hindenburg, from Frankfurt to New York

With only thirty-six passengers when it could accommodate double that number, the Hindenburg felt like an out-of-season grand hotel. The setting could have been Deauville or San Remo in the spring, when the hospitality trade chugs along in slow motion: umbrellas are restitched, there are plenty of empty tables, and the beach attendant has time to talk to the guests. The sixty-one crew members were able to attend to every request, however small. There were five chefs for the three dozen passengers. So it hadn’t been difficult for Eckener to find a cabin for Ethel when she had sprung a surprise visit two hours prior to takeoff.

On taking her leave of the Cat in Paris, Ethel had planned to drive to Friedrichshafen in order to catch the zeppelin rather than the boat.

Intending to gain a few days, she had in fact lost a lot of time. The car had skidded on a tree-lined road and turned over. In the next village, she had been promised a speedy repair, but two days later Ethel was still at the Golden Lion Hotel, waiting for miracles that didn’t happen. As chance would have it, the hotel, which was empty, belonged to the garage owner. He had to travel no farther than the end of the street to repair the car. But the engine had given up the ghost. And so Ethel abandoned the handsome but crumpled Napier-Railton and had jumped on a train instead.

At Friedrichshafen she had found the hangars empty. The Graf was on a stop-off in Brazil and the Hindenburg was leaving from Frankfurt the next day. So Ethel had caught the train back to Frankfurt, arriving just in time. She had lost a week.

Eckener gave her a warm welcome.

Ethel had showed him Vango’s telegram, and the commander had stared at the piece of blue paper:

The commander read the four words over and over again, and tried to be as reassuring as possible.

“He’s a brave boy, my dear. He knows how to fend for himself.”

This was exactly what Ethel was worried about. A cry for help from a brave boy was by definition an act of desperation. Eckener had the office alerted immediately so that a cabin could be reserved for the young lady. Someone replied that two tickets had just been unexpectedly purchased by some travelers from Norway. With a bit of luck, they would end up being full.

Ethel was in the first cabin at the top of the stairs to the upper deck. When she arrived on board, she had discovered that the Hindenburg’s cabins were spread across two floors. There were fifty berths upstairs, and twenty had been added below, on the port side. No sooner had Ethel walked into her cabin than she lay down and fell asleep. It was nine o’clock in the evening. She awoke at midnight, dabbed her face over the washbasin, glanced again at the telegram, which she had tucked by the mirror, and then went out.

Ethel almost got lost. This wasn’t the small family-run hotel she had known on board the Graf Zeppelin. It was a flagship. The cabins were in the middle of the gondola, and two handsome promenades with glazed views ran along both sides. The premises seemed deserted. Everybody was asleep. Ethel found the baby grand piano, which she stroked. A notice that read OUT OF ORDER had been put on the music stand. Intrigued by this ban, Ethel wanted to try playing a note. She pressed down on a B-flat, which sounded like a grumbling stomach, and then played an appalling F-sharp. Abandoning the piano, she pushed open a door and entered a reading room hung with paintings. A man was poring over an illustrated newspaper that he had spread out on a small table. He looked up and lowered his glasses on his nose. Ethel indicated that she didn’t wish to disturb him and went to survey the view from the large sloping window. The sky was overcast and dark. Only the occasional glimmer could be seen from the earth.

Ethel would have liked all the lights on the balloon to be switched off, so that she could contemplate the night. She was recalling the evening when she and Vango had followed two small headlights flickering far down below them. It was when they were flying over Russia, during their world tour in 1929. Back then, Vango used to invent stories at the window of the Graf Zeppelin. Two bicycles on a country road in the middle of the night: they must be returning after a party. Vango made up names for them. The girl was called Yelena. She was cycling a little ahead. The boy was following behind. When the lights sped up, Vango said it was because they were going down a steep hill, and he asked Ethel to strain her ears. According to him, shrieks of joy could be heard as the bicycles made their descent. And then the lights slowed and drew closer together. They came to a stop. Ethel was looking at Vango. Everything had gone dark.

“What now?” she had asked.

Vango had smiled.

“What do you think’s happening now?” she had pressed him.

But he couldn’t give an answer.

Ethel left the window. She walked toward the reader, who had fallen asleep over his newspaper, his cheek squashed against a photograph of an ocean liner being approached by a submarine. She switched off the light and left the room.

Ethel blamed herself for not having joined Vango earlier. She had wanted to let him plunge into his past alone, so that one day he would return free. She had waited dutifully, channeling all her impatience into restoring the tiny plane. But she wondered if she wasn’t inventing dangers around her in order to justify Vango’s absence. She had even stopped writing to him, in order to protect him, and had ordered him to do likewise. Still, every morning she tore the post out of Mary’s hands, searching for his handwriting on the envelopes.

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.