Vango (13 page)

Eckener was trying to get Captain Lehmann’s attention. There was no point in making things worse. Clearly, Lehmann had no idea about what his commander had undertaken the evening before with a five-inch paintbrush.

“Follow me, gentlemen,” said the captain, who was taking no notice of Hugo Eckener’s frantic signaling. “Follow me — you’ll be amazed.”

Unfortunately, I’m not sure who’s going to be the most amazed out of those three
, reflected Eckener with a sinking heart as he watched them heading off. They went around to the other side, where, looking up, they scrutinized the left flank of the airship.

Eckener turned away. He could hear hurried steps rushing over to him.

“Herr Doctor Eckener.”

“Yes?”

Agent Max Grund was standing before him, more in disarray than ever. He didn’t say a word, but summoned his colleague.

“Heil Hitler!”
they chanted in unison, their arms raised in front of them.

There was no point in putting up a fight. Eckener took a step forward.

“I’m ready to follow you, gentlemen.”

“We will overlook your sarcasm, Commander. Rest assured that our informer will be hanged.”

Eckener was taken aback.

“Good-bye, Commander,” said Grund.

“Good-bye.”

They headed off through the hangar. Hugo Eckener turned toward Lehmann, utterly bewildered.

“Captain?”

The captain’s embarrassed smile was the first giveaway sign. Hugo Eckener watched him closely. He was beginning to understand. Frowning, Captain Lehmann said, as if to excuse himself, “I told you this morning that I undertook some improvement jobs on the rear before your arrival.”

Eckener looked down at the ground and then straight into the captain’s eyes.

“Yes. You did. I’d forgotten. Thank you, Captain. You can return to the passengers now. The bus from Kurgarten should have arrived.”

The captain nodded before walking off.

“Captain Lehmann!”

“Yes?”

“What time is it?”

“Twenty-five past five.”

“Twenty-five?”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Captain . . .”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see any reason to refer to what’s just happened.”

Lehmann frowned.

“To what’s just happened? I’m sorry, you’ll have to tell me. . . . What has just happened, Commander?”

Eckener felt overwhelmed. This was the humanity he loved.

Embarkation for the
Graf Zeppelin
flight looked like something straight out of the society pages of a major newspaper in Berlin, Paris, or New York. In a few seconds, you could see an extraordinary array of characters climbing the steps, each worthy of a few juicy lines in the gossip columns because they were so important, or appeared to be so important.

The felt hats were made by Christys’ of London, the dresses were by Jean Patou, the suitcases came from Oshkosh in Wisconsin, and the smiles were straight out of Pathé films.

Diplomats, industrialists, writers, flamboyant characters, politicians, scientists, people of enormous fortunes, and diminutive actresses: what they all had in common was the drive to set foot in this dream and in History. That particular morning, there were seventeen of them. Each person was weighed with their luggage to check they didn’t exceed the weight allowance. It was a sort of joyous cattle market that smelled of May roses and patent leather.

A well-fed German businessman with a small canvas bag stood on tiptoes in his slippers, as if that way he would weigh less on the scales. He talked a lot, saying that he lived in Paris, that he’d caught the plane from the airfield at Le Bourget, then a three-engine Lufthansa aircraft between Sarrebruck and Friedrichshafen. He was alarmed at the prospect of being too heavy and listed all the dishes he’d been offered in the course of his long journey by plane to the zeppelin: “Stuffed cabbage, cheeses rolled in bread crumbs, petits fours, vol-au-vents; I refused everything. Everything.”

He was almost in tears at the mention of this diet.

The customs officers laughed. They let him embark.

Needless to say, no sooner was he on board than he fell into the arms of Otto the chef, begging that a whole leg of lamb be sourced for his breakfast. In order to get rid of him, Otto made a heap of promises, but the chef’s mind was on other things: he put on his toque and headed for the dining area.

Lady Drummond-Hay was already seated at her table.

Otto walked up from behind, overcome with emotion, trying to do up the last button on his kitchen jacket. Time for a reunion.

In a small notebook, the young woman was starting to write down her account of the voyage, as requested by her newspaper in Chicago for a forthcoming edition.

“Lady?”

She swiveled a little on her chair and saw the chef.

“Thank you. I don’t need anything for now. I had a coffee at the hotel.”

“Lady . . .”

“No, really. You’re very kind, sir. But please don’t insist.”

Otto was about to say something when the zeppelin started moving as it was winched toward the outside of the hangar. Grace Drummond-Hay stood up to look out the window. Hundreds of men were assisting the departure of the airship, holding its ropes.

Otto couldn’t find the strength to walk to his kitchen.

She hadn’t recognized him.

The passengers had left their cabins and were all flowing into the dining area. They rushed over to the windows without so much as a glance at the chef, who had turned into a pillar of salt in the middle of all the tables.

At the front of the zeppelin’s gondola, Eckener unfolded the message that the telegraph boy had just received.

For D-LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin

Flying over France strictly forbidden until further orders

With both hands at the helm, one of the pilots called Eckener over. The zeppelin was now fully out of its lair.

“I’m releasing us from the winch, Commander. Takeoff in two minutes.”

“Go ahead.”

Eckener signaled to Lehmann.

“Captain, come with me.”

They went into the map room. Two officers were working at a table.

“Gentlemen,” said the commander, “the program has just changed. We no longer have the right to fly over France.”

“I’ll halt operations,” said Ernst Lehmann calmly.

“No. Nobody has forbidden our flight, so we will fly. Draw up a new itinerary. We’ll need to go via Switzerland and Italy. Look in the archives: the same flight as three years ago, when our destination was Cairo. April 1931. Once we’re level with Sardinia, you’ll head west to reconnect with our route for Brazil.”

“We don’t know about the weather in the Alps.”

“Find out. And warn the ground that we’re leaving in spite of everything.”

Twenty-five meters above them, in the middle of a forest of girders and lying on a metal platform, Vango waited.

The zeppelin was late taking off. Vango intended to let a few hours of flying time go by before revealing himself. A large part of the crew had known him five years earlier. All Hugo Eckener had to do was pretend to scold him and then find him a role on board. The passengers wouldn’t even notice the presence of a new crew member.

Vango had remembered this hiding place near the wine cellar, just below the zeppelin’s canvas ceiling. He was unlikely to get any visitors. No operation required climbing all the way up there via a labyrinth of ladders and walkways. The tiniest noise, the slightest smell reminded him of his wonderful year on board, and of young Ethel’s face when he’d met her for the first time in the skies above Manhattan.

The memories gave him butterflies.

His final voyage had only lasted three weeks, but that was when it had all started. Happiness and fear. They had made each other promises, the only promises in his life that Vango hadn’t kept, and which were now an open wound.

Today, those times seemed as distant to him as the memory of his island. He was a criminal hunted down in the country he had made his home for the past four years. And now he’d had no choice but to take refuge in the belly of this whale where nobody would come to pull him out. Vango felt ashamed of not having confessed to Eckener why he was on the run. By hiding the reason behind his arrival, he felt as if he were deceiving the commander and abusing his trust.

But he knew that nobody would ever have let him on board, even as a stowaway, if they’d known about the crime of which he stood accused.

Eckener was at his usual post: the starboard window of the large flight deck.

He was staring beyond the empty expanse of ground at four sets of car headlights coming toward them out of the darkness. The helmsman had just asked for a few more moments to rectify a problem with the balance. Eckener had granted the request because he took pleasure in the thought that these few late cars would also be able to witness takeoff. Commander Eckener felt extremely grateful for the enthusiasm that prompted hundreds of people to rise before dawn, simply in the hope of seeing the
Graf Zeppelin
take flight.

He sat down in his small wooden armchair, his elbow resting on the frame of the open window, and discreetly took from his pocket a crumpled piece of paper, which he glanced at once again. It was an article that had been cut out of a French newspaper. He had read it at a table at the Hotel Kurgarten, where it had been left behind by a traveler. For three days, he hadn’t shown it to anyone. The article was about a sordid incident in Paris. A murder. A photograph of Vango illustrated the three columns.

Eckener had no intention of keeping his young passenger on board for long. As soon as he’d seen him, sleeping like a cherub on the banquette in the cabin, the evidence was clear: this child wasn’t guilty.

But although Eckener was convinced of his innocence, he had less confidence in the courts. Vango wasn’t like other boys. His whole life was a mystery. There were shadowy aspects to him, which the justice system wouldn’t appreciate.

He was in danger of the gallows.

Eckener intended to drop him off at the end of the voyage, in South America, where he could start a new life. A one-way ticket to the unknown.
A strange destiny . . .
he thought.
With some people on this earth, we’ll never know where they’ve come from, or where they’re going to.

The cars were only two hundred meters away now. The tooting of their horns could be heard. The commander folded the newspaper article again, stood up, and told his captain to give the signal for departure.

“I’d rather cross the mountains before ten o’clock this morning. After that, we don’t know what kind of risk we’d be running. I don’t want the
Graf Zeppelin
grazing the edelweiss.”

“Yes, sir! The helmsman can finish regulating the ballast after takeoff. We’re ready.”

From the cockpit, bellpulls served to alert the mechanics of the five engines.

To the rear, among the passengers, every window was full.

Down on the ground, a crowd surrounded the airship.

The crew started emptying the water bags in order to lighten the balloon. The ropes yanked at the arms still keeping the airship on the ground. The water that was let out showered the onlookers, who gasped in surprise. Hugo Eckener assumed his position to call out,
“Chocks away!”
This was the signal to drop everything and commence takeoff.

Just then, the four cars all braked at the same time. Fifteen armed men got out. Doors slammed, and, through a megaphone, the order rang out: “Stop! Commander Eckener, remain on the ground. Orders from the minister of the interior. Don’t move!”

Eckener gritted his teeth.

He didn’t need a megaphone to bellow from the window: “I have all the permission I need! Switzerland and Italy have just radioed in their consent!”

“The flight will go ahead,” insisted the nasal voice, “but two places have been requisitioned for surveillance and security purposes. Open the door! I am ordering you!”

Commander Eckener let out a string of swearwords that would be impossible to repeat here, then gave a long sigh and said, “Open up for them. We’ll make them sleep in the drains.”

He had a ladder brought out of the hangar.

When the two agents climbed up, Eckener recognized Officer Max Grund and his associate Heiner. Once the maneuver was completed, the doors were sealed again.

“Let her go!” the commander ordered.

And the balloon rose up amid cheers. The engines started up one after the other, drowned out by the sheer volume of the zeppelin. Only the windows of the gondola were lit up at the front. The rest of the balloon formed a violet haze in the darkness.

Everything grows small
, Lady Drummond-Hay wrote in beautiful handwriting in her notebook.
The dream has just begun. Lake Constance is nothing but a mirror in a bedroom where the lights have been switched off. We’re leaving.

Otto the chef was weeping against the kitchen tiles.

Looking worried, Captain Lehmann watched the police cars disappear into the distance, little luminous dots in the middle of the night.

The fat businessman was singing opera arias at the top of his lungs in the corridor, near to the kitchen, as he inhaled the aroma of bread rolls in the oven:
“Ah, dear south wind, blow once more! My lass longs for me. . . .”