by Ariel Lawhon
The Hindenburg shudders to life. Each of the four engines—separated from the main body of the airship by steel girders and a narrow catwalk—rumbles, then smoothes into a steady purr. Some of the ground crew grip the yaw lines and lean away from the ship’s mass at exaggerated angles. They disconnect the ropes from the heavy anchors driven into the tarmac but keep the lines taut, straining against the wind. Other crewmen are lined beneath the engine gondolas, gripping the rails. Together they walk the Hindenburg away from the hangar, and she glides forward as though weightless, as if her great mass were nothing more than a breath.
The air horn, much louder now that Max is in the control car, gives a long and strident blast. The muscles in his neck and jaw seize in response. He makes a mental note to research alternative notification devices once they are back in Germany. The ground crew stops in unison, the muscles in their forearms straining to keep the airship under control. Pruss is still at the window, and he waits for a count of three before shouting, “Schiff hoch!” into the bullhorn. Up ship.
Max notes their departure time as 8:18 p.m. in his logbook.
The great web of handling lines are drawn into the ship at Pruss’s command, and the crewmen beneath the gondolas give a heaving, upward push. There is a lift and a pull, and she hovers twenty feet off the ground for a moment as the crew cheers. Then Pruss gives the order for two tons of water to be released from ballasts on either side of the ship, and like a balloon no longer tethered to the hand of an impatient child, the great silver zeppelin rises into the rose-colored Frankfurt sky.
THE AMERICAN
The American has made himself presentable and is sitting alone at the far end of the narrow dining room. He picked this seat so that he could see the entire area, could monitor the comings and goings of everyone else. The American likes the sense of control this gives him. He’s early, the other guests having gone back to their rooms to change before the late dinner. The only other passengers in sight are a teenage girl patiently watching her two younger brothers. They lean over the observation windows, their noses pressed against the glass as the airship floats over the darkened countryside. He watches the children with a growing sense of unease. They are wild and loud, and one of the small boys pounds his fist against the glass. The American fears the little cuss will discover the windows can be opened and that he’ll tumble out and drop to his death below.
He balls his fists in his lap. Clamps his lips tight to restrain himself from scolding the child. What happens to the boy is no concern of his. He shouldn’t care one way or another. But he does. The American had a brother of his own, and he remembers those moments when they played with abandon, unfettered by fear or consequence. But that was a long time ago. Long before the First World War stripped away the vestiges of their youthful innocence. He knows how the world works now. And that young boy stands no chance.
The child grows foolish now, showing off for his siblings as he tries to scramble up onto the windows themselves. His sister, tall and blond and rail thin, rises smoothly from her seat and cuffs his ear. The movement is so quick, so graceful that the boy does not see it coming.
“Nein,” she says.
“You’re not my mother,” he howls. “You can’t do that!”
“Go on, then. Tell Mama. See if she doesn’t cuff you again. And for impudence this time.”
The two boys rush off, intent on telling their version of events first, and the girl follows slowly behind, head high, back straight, secure in her position as eldest child. The boys can say what they like; their parents will believe her. She knows this and leaves the dining room without looking the least bit perturbed. The American is certain that she will not embellish what the child did. She will simply deliver the facts, perhaps with leniency even, and let them decide.
A-deck is made up almost entirely of passenger cabins. The staterooms below, on B-deck, are new, added early this year to help accommodate the growing demand for passage on the Hindenburg. But the primary quarters are up here. Twenty-five cabins with two berths each, a dining room and promenade on the port side, and on the starboard side, the lounge, reading room, and a second promenade. The only area on A-deck that is not accessible to passengers is a small serving pantry beside the dining room. No bigger than one of the cabins, it has two long counters with overhead cabinets filled with extra utensils, glassware, and linens. Along one wall is a dumbwaiter used to lift food from the kitchen below. It is too small to hold a grown man—a young child perhaps, but that does the American no good—and he has already ruled it out as a possible means of escape should he need to get out of sight quickly.
All of this he discovered when he entered the dining room ten minutes ago. He took a quick glance inside the pantry and then muttered an apology. Wilhelm Balla was inside folding napkins, and it was easy enough to convince the steward he was lost. More than anything Balla appeared relieved that he didn’t have to come collect the drunkard. The American decided to let the sour-faced steward’s opinion of him remain exactly as it stands. He wants to be dismissed. To be underestimated. At least for now.
Slowly the American is getting his bearings inside the airship. There isn’t much territory to cover in the public areas—he will get to the off-limits sections later—but there are a number of players within those areas, and he has yet to put them into the appropriate slots. Ally. Threat. Hindrance. Unnecessary. There are so many options. This evening’s dinner should help quite a bit with that. Or it will help with sorting out the passengers, at least. Nothing reveals a man’s true character like the way he behaves when being served a meal. And the vantage point he has chosen will make this task easy enough. His seat, in the back corner, faces outward, and he can see not only every other table but the passing skyscape as well. At the moment there is nothing but the inky darkness of a spring evening outside the windows. The occasional star or wispy passing cloud. The moon is out, but it’s hidden on the starboard side. Below them, the Hindenburg’s searchlight slides over small towns and villages, pastures, and here and there the glassy surface of a lake, briefly illuminating the microcosm of rural life.
The ambiance inside the dining room is, he has to admit, quite impressive. He flew aboard the Graf Zeppelin several years earlier, but it cannot compete with the opulence in which he finds himself. Hand-painted murals by Otto Arpke line all three walls, showing scenes of the landscape captured on one of the Graf Zeppelin’s flights between Friedrichshafen and Rio de Janeiro. Brightly winged birds in midflight. Green-tipped mountains. The graceful arc of a white-sand beach. A rushing waterfall. The tables are draped in pressed white napery and set with the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei silver and the china custom-made for the Hindenburg. In the center of each table is a thin stem of Austrian crystal with a single fresh flower. Tonight the flowers are lilies, bright and pink and fragrant. Tomorrow they will be something else. He reaches out one blunt fingertip and touches the thick, silky petal and can’t help but wonder where the flowers are stored. The American looks at his place setting, the ridiculous array of silverware, and lifts the salad fork from its place. The fork is real silver, its metal soft, and he bends one tine back with the tip of his finger. He slips the fork into his pocket.
The American is perusing the wine list for the third time—its bold print smugly reads WEINKARTE and boasts an array of tasteful French Burgundies and expensive German Models—when the first of his dinner companions arrives. A small man, little more than five feet tall, with the buoyant walk of someone who is used to being watched. No, the American thinks, someone who likes being watched. Expects it, actually. Yes, an entertainer, he decides before the man has even reached the table.
“Joseph Späh”—he sticks his hand out, right in the American’s face so he has no choice but to take it. “Acrobat. Filmmaker. Comedian. International personality. And you are?”
“American. Belligerent. Hungover.”
Späh laughs and takes his seat. He pulls the wine list from the American’s grasp. “I’d best catch up wi
th you then.”
“Competitive?”
“Thirsty.”
He’s muttering about whether to start with red or white when a lilting voice interrupts them. “Oh. I’m early. How gauche of me.”
A single glance at the wealthy woman makes it clear that she is used to being noticed when she enters a room. She has the look of a woman whose beauty has long been enhanced by wealth and doesn’t show any signs of deteriorating soon. Early to midfifties, he guesses. He and Joseph Späh rise to greet her. Späh pulls out her chair and settles her in. Then he introduces himself in the same absurdly confident way he had with the American just a few moments earlier.
“Margaret Mather. Heiress. Spinster. Inappropriate.”
“I think we will be fast friends, Miss Mather,” Späh says.
“And you?”
She’s looking at the American, but Späh interjects, “Ah, this is a man of mystery. We know nothing of him other than that he drinks too much.” He lifts a dark eyebrow in question. “Or is it that you can’t hold your liquor?”
Margaret claps her hands. “Oh! I do like this. Let’s make a game of it, shall we? We will try and guess who he is.”
You would think the two of them had known one another all their lives the way they fall into this easy familiarity. Talking. Joking. Späh recommends a wine for her, but the quick flicker of his glance gives him away: he’s guessing. He might be an entertainer, used to accommodating the wealthy, but he doesn’t run in their circles. Not really. If Margaret Mather realizes this she doesn’t let on. Despite her excessive wealth she is kind. The American notes all of these things, files them away, as he places his dinner companions into their proper slots.
Margaret is a woman of easy grace. She’s comfortable in her own skin. Yet he notices that every few moments she brushes her fingertips along her bare collarbone, searching for something that is not there.
“Have you lost something, Miss Mather?” he asks.
“Oh. No. I’m sorry. Do excuse me. Force of habit, I’m afraid. As it turns out I had a rather inept maid this morning.” She blushes at this confession, as though having a maid is something of which to be ashamed. “She packed all of my jewelry in my steamer trunk, and I feel rather naked without a bobble or two.”
The American assures her that she looks lovely nonetheless, but he files this bit of information away for future use.
The dining room is full, most of the seats taken, when Commander Pruss enters. He greets the occasional passenger. Shaking hands. Welcoming people. And then he makes his way to the back table. He’s too gracious to make it obvious, but he does not want to be here. The American can plainly see that the glad-handing is his least favorite part of the job.
No sooner has Commander Pruss taken his seat than the serving pantry grows busy. Dinner is ready. Chilled salmon in honor of the warm spring evening. Or the late castoff perhaps. Nonetheless it is delicious, and the four of them fall to it like they have not eaten in days. But while the American, Margaret, and Späh enjoy the Weinkarte’s better offerings, Commander Pruss drinks nothing but sparkling water, insisting that he will imbibe in the lounge after dinner. The others make plans to join him.
The meal is light and delicious. The salmon perfectly poached. The rolls are soft and bursting with steam as they are broken open. The meal is everything one would expect from a world-class airship. But as the American goes to eat his melon he summons Wilhelm Balla from where he stands against the wall.
“It seems I don’t have a salad fork.” He motions at the empty spot on the table.
Balla squints. “My apologies. I set the table myself.”
He turns on his heel, but not before the American catches the look of suspicion in the steward’s eyes. He feels a petty delight, certain that pestering Balla will be one of his most enjoyable forms of recreation over the next few days. The steward brings him a new salad fork moments later.
It is easy enough for the American to make his observations about the remaining passengers during dinner. The stewards have seated two Jewish men at a table together. They are the last to get their drinks. The last to get their meal. And yet both hold themselves with dignity and restraint, even when forced to repeat a request. They do not admonish their steward—an arrogant young man who seems to enjoy toying with them—or complain to anyone else. Counting the stewardess who lingers near the family with the children, there are eight women on board the airship. Only three of them are younger than fifty: the stewardess, the teenage girl, and the journalist from the Hof Hotel. She and her husband make an unusual and unnerving pair. He is clearly much older than she is. Tall. Broad. Entirely bald—the American guesses he shaves what little is left of his hair—and adorned with the small round glasses of an intellectual. Yet his wife is a different story. She oozes the brash sex appeal that has been the downfall of many a sedate, established man. Her hair is honey-colored and curly. Her eyes a bright and startling blue. When she smiles he can see every single tooth on top, all the way to the back of her mouth, and not a single one on bottom. There is a sharp, wicked, intelligent note to her laughter. Yet the thing that unsettles the American most about this pair is his certainty that he has seen them before. Not just on the bus and in the hotel but even further back. There is something important he must remember about them.
The American is puzzling over this when Margaret Mather turns the dinner conversation in an unexpected direction. “You don’t really think,” she says, spearing a sliver of salmon with her fork and looking at Commander Pruss with open curiosity, “that there’s anything to the bomb threats, do you?”
“I think that bomb threats should always be taken seriously.”
“I was raised by diplomats, Commander. I know politics when I hear it. What I’m interested in are your thoughts. Do you really think they could destroy this ship?” She looks around the dining room. Up at the ceiling. Considers the vastness of the structure that is floating six hundred feet off the ground and is carrying them through the darkness at over seventy miles an hour.
“They?”
She waves a hand dismissively. “Whoever.”
“There are two answers to that question, Frau…” Pruss searches for her name.
“Fräulein.”
Interesting that, the American notes, her clarification of the German designation of an unmarried woman. He wonders if perhaps the heiress is lonely. If she is looking for companionship on this voyage. Advertising her availability.
“Fräulein…Mather. First and most important is that we would not let anyone destroy this great airship. Every conceivable precaution has been taken. But speaking to the possibility?” And here he becomes the storyteller the American has heard him to be. “The Hindenburg has only one great weakness.”
Margaret Mather and Joseph Späh lower their forks and lean forward, expectantly.
“Hydrogen.” The American pre-empts.
Pruss nods. “It’s flammable.”
“It’s combustible, you mean.”
“Only when mixed with oxygen.” Pruss tilts his head a few degrees to the side. Takes in the American now that he has been challenged twice. “You are American?”
He nods at the others. “We all are.”
“I see,” Pruss says, “then you might want to ask your government why they are hoarding the world’s largest supplies of helium.” He gives Margaret Mather a look that could be mistaken for an apology but is actually defensiveness. “This ship was designed to be lifted by helium. Which is not flammable.”
“Combustible.” The American corrects him again quietly.
“But your government,” Pruss continues, “refused to sell us the gas. Regardless of our arguments and our generous offers. So we were forced to use hydrogen.”
“But why wouldn’t they sell Germany the helium?”
The American smiles. Oh, Margaret, he thinks, you pretty fool. “Our government,” he says, “is not in the business of furthering Germany’s military goals.”
Pruss s
norts. “This is a passenger ship.”
“With swastikas emblazoned on the side. Flown by Luftwaffe pilots. And fitted for artillery. It may look like a floating luxury hotel, Miss Mather, but you are, in reality, traveling on a Nazi warship.”
“That is a gross misrepresentation,” Pruss says. The angrier he gets, the heavier his accent becomes, the more he fumbles with what is usually clear and precise English.
The American draws back now that he has brought the commander to the edge of rage. He puts his hands up—a show of surrender. “I do not mean to offend. I simply meant to help Miss Mather understand the politics at play. The underlying tensions, so to speak.”
It’s a cheap trick, using her as a shield, and Pruss is not fooled. “There is no tension.” He smiles at Margaret, then looks at the American. His eyes tighten at the corners, but the anger slips from his face. Pruss makes a jab of his own. “You purchased a ticket for this flight. Why financially support this airship when you claim to be so offended by it?”
“I didn’t pay for my ticket. The McCann Erickson company did.” The American deflects the blow easily, then circles back to his point. “Regardless, a Nazi warship that flies over New York City fifteen times a year creates more than enough tension. Especially when safety is not always the primary concern of Zeppelin-Reederei.”
“Do explain what you mean by that.” Pruss leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, scowling.
The American takes a long sip of his wine, swishing it around his mouth before answering. “The propaganda flight last year on behalf of Herr Goebbels? Didn’t this airship sustain damage during takeoff? And all so you could drop election pamphlets for the Nazis in adverse weather conditions?” He looks at Margaret and gives her a grin. Easy. Jovial. Uncomplicated. “Whatever else this airship might be, it was first funded by the Nazis and used for their purposes.”