by Ariel Lawhon
“You can’t be in here,” Willy says. The lame protest seems to be the only speech he’s capable of, for he falls silent afterward.
“Yes I can.” Emilie has never taken kindly to being told what she can and cannot do. Certainly not by a gap-toothed radioman with hygiene issues.
“But you’re a…woman,” he adds lamely.
“I’m a crew member. Same as you. With full access to the ship. Same as you. I also happen to be performing my duties, namely having a family member of one of our premier passengers paged to come aboard the ship. Excuse me,” she says, pushing past the still-silent-therefore-clearly-more-intelligent Herbert Dowe and descending a ladder into the control car below. Her uniform makes the job delicate, but she’s too angry now to care. If anyone below is peering up her skirt, let them see her garter belt, and her acrimony. But the officers below are gentlemen. They keep their eyes lowered until she has planted both feet firmly on the carpeted floor of the utility room.
Emilie meets the questioning glances of Commander Pruss and his crew without hesitation. “I’m sorry to interrupt your flight preparations, Commander, but Colonel Erdmann requested that I page his wife.”
“Why?”
She doesn’t intend to lie; the words simply form in her mouth before she has time to think about them. “He didn’t say. But he’s quite insistent.”
The colonel said he wanted to tell his wife good-bye. That’s what she’s thinking while Pruss mulls the request. It was the strangled note in Erdmann’s voice at the word good-bye that has Emilie lying so easily now. Her own husband never had the chance to say good-bye before he left her for good. Her fingers twitch, wanting to reach up and find the key that hangs between her breasts, the key that her husband gave her on their wedding night.
One of the things that puzzles Emilie most about Max Zabel is his timing. He finds her, always, in these moments when she is vulnerable. Emilie does not want to be rescued, and yet there he is. Max descends the ladder into the control car and steps forward to stand between her and Commander Pruss. The gesture is not so much protective as authoritative, as though he’s certain that whatever the trouble might be he can resolve it.
“Is something wrong?” Max asks.
Emilie finds herself the object of Max’s curious gaze. It is alarming, that gaze, how it can root her to the floor. How it can wipe her mind clean of every thought, every objection. How it can make her forget even her late husband. This is why she resists Max, why she hates him at times. Emilie does not want to forget.
They both look to Pruss for an answer.
“No,” the commander says, but does not elaborate. Instead he stares at Emilie as though he is seeing her for the first time.
Many years of service aboard ocean liners and her tenure aboard the airship have taught Emilie that important men do not like to be pressed for time, answers, or decisions. Benevolence, although often required, is something they bestow on their own terms. In their own way. So she stands with her fingers laced in front of her, her face set pleasantly in expectation, her lips pressed together with the barest hint of a patient smile. Hurry, hurry, she thinks. I’m the one who will have to serve Colonel Erdmann for the next three days, not you. If Pruss refuses the colonel’s request there is nothing she will be able to do about it. He is commander, after all, but she will be required to deliver the news.
“Max,” Pruss finally orders, “get the bullhorn and instruct the ground crew to have Dorothea Erdmann brought up from the other hangar.” He turns to Emilie. “You will collect her, I presume?”
“Yes, Commander.”
Max gives Pruss a sharp, obedient nod and steps around a glass wall into the navigation room. She has never seen him in this environment before; she has been in the control car only one time—during her initial tour of the airship. Seeing Max surrounded by his charts and navigational equipment makes sense. Another little piece of the puzzle locks into place. He is a mystery that is slowly, consistently being solved.
“Is there anything else, Fräulein Imhof?” There’s the trace of humor in Commander Pruss’s voice.
She’s staring at Max. Damn it, she thinks. Everyone has noticed. They’ll pick him apart for that. “No,” she answers.
“You may return to your duties, then.”
Emilie hears a distorted version of Max’s deep voice echoing through the bullhorn as she ascends the ladder. The pointed look she gives the radiomen is very much an I-told-you-so rebuke. Once the door is shut behind her she stops to compose herself.
The only jewelry that Emilie wears is a skeleton key on a silver chain around her neck. The chain is long and tucked beneath her dress, hidden from view. She has not taken it off in the years since Hans died, and the side that lies against her skin has grown tarnished. It feels warm and heavy now, like a weight against her heart, so she pulls it out and cradles the key in her palm. It is the only thing she has left of her old life.
It is a life worth remembering, and Emilie struggles to keep Max Zabel from invading it. She tucks the key back inside her uniform, squares her shoulders, and goes to the gangway stairs to collect Dorothea Erdmann.
THE JOURNALIST
“Who is that woman, do you think?” Gertrud sets a slender fingertip against the window and points at a military jeep speeding across the tarmac toward them. A woman sits in the front seat, her hair blowing wildly around her face while she holds on to the door with one hand.
“She was on the bus. I saw her,” Leonhard says.
“Is she a passenger?”
“Apparently not.”
The jeep parks directly below them, out of sight, and a few moments later the woman rushes into the promenade, followed closely by the stewardess, and throws herself into the arms of a man standing apart from the rest of the passengers. Some turn to watch the spectacle, but most seem oblivious, their attention held by the pre-flight operations below.
The moment the couple embraces, the stewardess backs away, leaving the room looking pale and unsettled. Gertrud puzzles at this as they embrace each other, as tight as two humans can, for well over a minute.
“You know,” Leonhard whispers, “I’ve never seen a guest brought on board this close to takeoff before. They’re quite serious about security. It’s likely that only his rank made it possible.”
The man’s clothing is indistinguishable from that of the other civilian passengers, and Gertrud gives her husband a questioning glance. “Who is he?”
“Fritz Erdmann.”
“You know him?”
“He’s a Luftwaffe colonel. Kommandant at the Military Signal Communications School. He was appointed as a military observer to the Hindenburg earlier this year. It’s not something he’s thrilled about.”
“You know this because…?”
“He told me. During the first commercial flight to Rio de Janeiro in March.”
Of course Leonhard would know this. Leonhard knows everything about Germany’s airship program. It is this knowledge, and his journalism skills, that have them on this ridiculous flight to begin with. He has recently collaborated on the autobiography of Captain Ernst Lehmann, director of flight operations for the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei. This flight was provided gratis so Leonhard could meet with his U.S. publishers prior to the book’s release next month. Gertrud’s attendance, though unwilling, was required as well.
Colonel Erdmann and his wife finally separate and stand gazing at one another. He brushes his thumb along her cheekbone, perhaps to wipe away a tear—Gertrud cannot be certain—and then she steps away from him and quietly leaves the ship. It occurs to Gertrud as she watches the jeep carry Frau Erdmann back to the hangar that neither of them uttered a word the entire time.
The colonel looks despondent as he watches his wife leave, and Gertrud smells a story. She sets her hand on Leonhard’s arm. “Darling,” she says, “I think that man needs a drink.”
Leonhard gives her the look, the one that says he recognizes the purr in her voice, and that he knows she’
s up to something, but she’s just too damn clever for him to preempt whatever mischief she has planned. He won’t try to stop her, though. He never does.
“You will behave yourself?” He takes a step toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To the bar.”
“Why? The stewards are passing out champagne.”
He clucks his tongue. “Liebchen, champagne is not going to give you what you’re after.”
“Who says I’m after anything?”
“I would be highly disappointed if you weren’t.”
This is why Gertrud married a widower twenty-two years her senior. Leonhard is the only man she has ever met who not only appreciates her gumption but encourages it. “Well, then, order the good colonel a Maybach 12 and one for me as well.”
“Careful, Liebchen. Alte Füchse gehen schwer in die Falle.”
She laughs and pats his cheek. “He’s not such an old fox as that. Younger than you by the looks of it. And my traps are well laid.”
Leonhard lifts her hand and turns it palm up. He kisses it lightly. “I cannot argue that.” He dips his mouth toward her ear. “Many things about you are well laid, Liebchen. Though I prefer that you not spread such tempting traps for him as you did for me.”
“I hardly doubt you’ll be gone long enough for that.”
“If it’s the Maybach 12 you’re drinking tonight, you’ll not have much time yourself before I’ll have to carry you to bed.”
“You’ll hardly get the chance if you never get the drinks.”
“Start slowly at least. You don’t have the legs to hold much of that particular drink.” Leonhard leaves her then and goes in search of the bar on B-deck and its famous cocktail, the recipe for which is known only to the bar steward, a secret that is guarded more closely than the Hindenburg itself.
Gertrud sniffs. They have established on more than one occasion that she is a lightweight when it comes to booze. Fine. She’ll pace herself. But still, she waits a few moments to approach Colonel Erdmann. Waits to make sure that none of the other passengers will seek him out. He lingers apart from the cluster of people, his eyes glued to the hangar on the other side of the tarmac where his wife has disappeared once again.
She goes to stand beside him but does not draw attention to herself. After a moment she simply says, “Your wife is lovely.”
He does not look at her when he responds, “You have no idea.”
“You might be surprised. I’m a good judge of character.”
“I’ll grant that. Given your husband.”
He is observant. She will have to be careful. “You know Leonhard?”
“As much as one man can know another from a few pleasant conversations.”
“He thinks highly of you.”
“I think not.”
This takes her aback. “Oh?”
For the first time since he entered the promenade Colonel Erdmann grins. He turns to face her. “It will take more than one Maybach 12 to get me talking, Frau Adelt. I would hope Leonhard gives me more credit than that.”
“So you heard our conversation?”
He shrugs. “I pay attention.”
Observant and clever. Gertrud mentally recalculates her plan of attack. “Alas, I am responsible for that poor estimate. Forgive me? I tend to assume the Luftwaffe recruits only one kind of man.”
He gives a lopsided grin. Waits for the punch line.
“Libertines.”
“Guilty as charged.”
She takes his laughter as a small victory and extends her hand with a smile. “Gertrud Adelt.”
“Fritz Erdmann.” He grasps her hand. Shakes it. “I see that you and Leonhard are very well matched.”
Gertrud opens her mouth to answer but is interrupted by the return of her husband.
“I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to get it right the second time around.” Leonhard joins them at the window carrying three frosted glasses containing ice chips and a murky citrine liquid. The look he gives Gertrud is a mixture of astonishment and respect. He hands one of the glasses to the colonel. “You will join us for dinner? Unless my wife has revealed too much of her impetuous nature.”
Gertrud takes a tiny sip of the Maybach 12 and can almost feel her hair blow back. The drink is everything, all at once, and she has an immediate appreciation for its reputation. She can taste the kirsch and the Benedictine in equal parts, along with a good dry gin, and something else she can’t identify. “He means I’m an acquired taste.”
“On the contrary, Liebchen,” Leonhard says. “It didn’t take me long at all. One kiss, if I recall correctly.”
The colonel is clearly enjoying their banter. “This may come as a surprise to you, Frau Adelt, but I prefer women who speak and drink freely.”
“Why would that surprise me?”
“It’s not the sort of thing you admit in polite society.”
“Oh, I’m hardly polite.”
“Neither is my wife.”
Gertrud can’t help but look at the rectangular hangar across the tarmac. She’s trying to find the right thing to say when the colonel speaks again.
“Dorothea would have liked you very much.”
“I would be honored to meet her. Perhaps when we return to Frankfurt?”
She offers her drink in toast, but he only clinks her glass halfheartedly. “Perhaps.”
THE NAVIGATOR
“She’s down there,” Willy Speck says when Max enters the radio room. He gives a pointed nod at the ladder that leads down to the control car.
“Who?”
“Your girl.”
Their relationship seems to be an established fact for everyone but Emilie herself. Max can hear her then, asking Commander Pruss to have someone paged. He pushes past the radiomen and slides down the ladder as quickly as he can. Finding Emilie in the control car like this feels a bit like finding her in his bed. It’s not unwelcome, just startling, as though she has made herself familiar with his things. The way a lover would. And, as he would most certainly feel in that situation, Max does not know what to do next. She hasn’t ventured into the navigation room but stands patiently in the utility area waiting for Commander Pruss’s decision.
She’s good at this, he notes. Emilie does not push. She doesn’t demand answers. And in the end Pruss asks him to call for Dorothea Erdmann. But Emilie does not escape the control car before revealing her own fascination with Max’s domain. She watches him for an unguarded moment and is then dismissed by Commander Pruss. But Max does not watch her go. They will give him hell if he does.
“Ruhe, bitte!” Max warns, a slight growl in his voice, when he turns from the window, bullhorn in hand.
Pruss is standing in the doorway to the chart room, his cap so low on his forehead that Max can’t tell whether he looks stern or amused. “Where were you?”
“Mail,” he answers.
“Not chatting up the female employee again?”
Max snorts. No secrets indeed. He casts a derisive glance at the ladder as an answer. How could he be chatting her up, the look says, when she was here with you?
Pruss simply turns and without preamble gives the order to begin preparations for casting off. Max takes his position in the chart room amid his maps and logbook, his charts and his direction-finding instruments.
Commander Pruss may be in charge of the airship on this trip, but it is Captain Ernst Lehmann who usually flies it, and this is a privilege he considers sacred. To be at the helm is almost an act of worship for the director of flight operations. He’s in the control car for castoff despite technically being an observer on this flight—a symbolic role while en route to America to prepare for a book tour promoting his biography, Zeppelin. His co-author—a journalist of some repute—is on board as well, though Max hasn’t met him yet.
While Pruss prepares for liftoff, Lehmann stands with hands clasped behind his back, restraining himself from giving orders. He watches as they methodically go through the pre-flight
checklist, as they check gauges and ballasts, wheels, rudders, and elevator lines. When all seems to be in order, Pruss takes the bullhorn from Max’s table and leans out the open window. “Zeppelin marsch!”
Pruss’s voice is strong and authoritative. Loud. Max hears the metallic clang of the gangway ladders being slammed into place, and there is an immediate, subtle shift beneath them. The passengers on B- and A-decks likely don’t feel it at all. But the control car, only a few feet off the ground, vibrates with the movement.
The Hindenburg’s forward landing wheel is located directly beneath the chart room where Max stands. The wheel is accessed by a panel under his feet and is one of three points on which the airship can rest when on the ground, the other two being the gangway stairs and the rear landing wheel. Like the blade on an ice skate, each wheel is simply a point of contact on which the ship balances when moored to the ground. Operating this small but vital piece of machinery is Max’s job during every takeoff and landing, regardless of time or day, regardless of shift. And while the mechanics of it are easy enough—he raises and lowers the wheel using a valve to direct the flow of compressed air and a detachable control to keep the wheel and its housing turned into the wind—it is, in actuality, a tricky task requiring a steady hand and no small amount of concentration.
Max slides the floor panel aside so he can raise the wheel. It lifts into the ship smoothly, without shudder or noise. He pulls the retractable control gears from the floor slot so the wheel can’t drop again. Max checks the locking mechanism to make sure the wheel is secure within its casing, and the rest is a matter of waiting.
“Well done, Max,” Pruss says.
He nods in response, pleased with himself, and stands aside to watch the ground crew take over below. Peering out the portside window in the control car, he watches the yaw ropes being held tightly in the hands of the ground crew. First one rope, then the other, stretches to its full length. Max can feel the portside ropes tighten with a subtle shift of the wind, and the Hindenburg is pushed starboard in response. The airship is held to the earth by little more than these ropes and the determination of a few men on the tarmac.