Margot sat in the far corner of the lounge, hands pressed against the windowpane, the only soul in a sea of brown tables and orange upholstered chairs. The wall behind her adorned with a mural painted by Professor Otto Arpke—apparently known for his work on a picture called Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, though Edith had never seen it. The mural depicted the world, showing the most notable transatlantic voyages in history: from Columbus to Magellan, from Cook to trips taken by the airship’s predecessors, the muted browns and blues of the mural attempted to add a sense of adventure to the room, but to Edith it all seemed particularly sad for some reason. These voyages had been monumental, yes, but they’d all come to an end. Only a few names and faces remembered when there’d been more involved.
Margot pressed her hands and the tip of her nose against the closed windows, her breath lightly fogging the same spot over and over. She’d dressed herself in a pair of brown slacks and a blue striped shirt that they’d made together. Her tight brown curls sat lightly on her shoulder, and when she turned to acknowledge her mother, her green eyes gleamed.
Edith considered disciplining her daughter for leaving her side—something she had told her not to do under any circumstances—but the young girl had an adventurous side, a spirit that loved to learn and take in her surroundings. How could she deny a curious child the chance to explore? As it was, they were on an airship—what kind of trouble could she get into on a tin can a thousand metres above the ocean?
Edith walked over to her daughter, wrapping her arms around her. Margot was warm; her body loosened at her mother’s touch. She stared off out the window, to the rising sun, to the waking world. Her right hand tapped against the pane. Edith kissed the top of her head, catching her daughter’s reflection in the glass: those green eyes that if you looked hard enough, you’d notice they were about a centimetre too far apart, her full cheeks that were always a little rosy, and her smile—when she did—was thin-lipped but meaningful.
She followed Margot’s gaze out the window, taking a moment to admire the new day. During their time on the airship, they’d seen nothing but blue skies and bluer oceans, and today was no different. The ocean rippled below them, and far off in the distance, faint beaches and deep forests were starting to take shape.
“It’s going to be a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Edith smiled and crouched beside the girl, sweeping a loose curl off her cheek. Margot paid her no mind.
Edith smiled at her in the window’s reflection. Margot’s green eyes remained locked on something just out of view. Her hand tapping in bouts of three with short pauses between, her breath fogging up the same spot.
The zeppelin swayed to the right, causing Edith to reach out a hand to steady herself. Just a few more hours of this, then we’ll be back on solid ground. Then we can disappear and leave it all behind.
Margot’s head shifted upwards, and Edith’s followed. A dark shadow appeared over the edge of the ship’s rounded frame. As Edith craned her head forward to get a better look, the door to the dining room opened and in poured the other passengers, some still in their nightgowns, some rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Children slept in the arms of their parents, parents muttered amongst themselves.
A rising din followed as what appeared to be about half the passengers on board the ship piled into the lounge. Vogel closed the door behind them, voices growing as he turned to face the crowd.
“If you’d please quiet down,” he said. Faces Edith recognized from passing turned angry, the men shouting, their children crying. Edith stood up and Margot gripped onto her mother’s belt. She placed her hand on her child’s shoulder and gave it a tiny squeeze.
“Please!” Vogel pleaded. “If you’ll quiet down I can explain the situation.”
Women hushed their husbands and soothed their crying babies. Vogel cleared his throat.
“Thank you. Now, my apologies for the manner of which we’ve had to proceed, but a situation such as this has yet to occur on an airship.”
The other passengers turned to each other, murmuring, exchanging worried glances.
“Please, please, quiet down.” Vogel attempted once more. “There is no danger to you or your families.”
“Then why have you herded us into the lounge?” a woman shouted, a crying toddler in her arms.
“Why can’t we go back to our rooms?” asked another. Others joined in with a flurry of shouted questions.
“At this time,” Vogel shouted over the clamor. “Please, everyone! At this time, it is in everyone’s best interest to be here. Due to these circumstances, we will be conducting a search of your cabins—” the crowd roared “—please—with you present. Once we have concluded our search, you will be allowed to remain in your rooms until otherwise indicated.”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“Did you not search our luggage when we boarded?”
“Aren’t we landing soon?”
Vogel cleared his throat, his hand moving to the door handle. “We have delayed landing at the Lakehurst Naval Base until further notice.”
The crowd erupted as Vogel attempted his escape.
“Herr Vogel!” Edith shouted through the crowd, grabbing Margot’s hand as they pushed through.
She grabbed him just as he was closing the lounge door, the other passengers livid amongst themselves.
“Herr Vogel,” she said, holding onto Margot. “Please, will you at least tell me why we’re not landing? What’s happened?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, attempting to shut the door, his attention leaning to something in the hallway.
“Please,” she said, stuffing her fingers in between the door and its jamb. “What’s going on?”
He frowned, his steel-blue eyes looking into hers. Though they’d only met three days prior, she’d taken to him, much like Margot had. There was a kindness about him. Though it was all a part of his job, he seemed to enjoy every minute he was on board the Hindenburg. He looked over his shoulder at the other crew members running by before turning back to Edith.
“A passenger was found dead this morning,” he said as he closed the door.
***
The hours dragged on as the crowd grew smaller and smaller. Whispers made their rounds, eyes shifted from one end of the room to the other. One by one families and single passengers were called out from the room until only Edith, Margot, and another woman and her child remained. The four of them sat in silence, the only sound the faint humming of the airship’s motors, the smell of breakfast faded along with the ardor for the day. None of it affected Margot who tapped on the window repeatedly as the New York City skyline floated below—the statue of Liberty, the Empire State building, everything she wanted to see appeared before her eyes in the late afternoon sun. Edith was about to point her towards the Chrysler Building when Vogel and the ship’s captain, Werner Richter, entered the room.
“Fräulein Brandt,” he said. The two women exchanged glances, the worry clear in both their eyes. Edith then stood up and grabbed Margot by the hand. Richter said nothing, keeping a watchful eye on Edith and Margot from under his cap. His eyes burrowed, his thick white moustache covering his top lip, his stocky frame squeezed into his double-breasted uniform.
Vogel and Richter accompanied them to the cabin, Edith clutching onto Margot’s shoulders. The cabin door sat open, everything as Edith had left it so many hours ago: Margot’s flowered dress on the stool, patched and ready to be worn; Margot’s sheets on the top bunk, tossed aside without a care. Their luggage however, which Edith had stuffed back under her bunk and locked after fixing Margot’s dress, now sat on the floor in the middle of the room.
“Do you have the keys, Fräulein Brandt?” Richter asked. His voice echoed off every corner of the cabin.
“The keys?” She repeated, giving Margot’s shoulders a pinch. Margot’s hands found hers and squeezed back.
“To open your luggage.”
She smiled thinly, thinking of how the scenario could go. Best case, Richter
would open the suitcase, rummage through her personal belongings, perhaps embarrass himself a bit while he searched through her nightgown and underwear, but that would be it. They’d move onto the other woman and her child in the lounge.
Worst case, he’d find whatever he was looking for.
“The keys,” Edith said, removing the necklace and handing it to Richter. “Of course. Though I have to ask, what is the meaning of all this?”
“It’s simply a formality,” Vogel piped up from behind them, shrugging himself into the room while two other crew members gathered at the door. Vogel slyly passed a sweet to Margot, who smiled then hid behind her mother.
Richter kneeled down. He used the two tiny keys on Edith’s necklace and removed the locks, undoing the worn brown straps. She saw him hesitate for the briefest of moments, cocking his head slightly as though to see if she noticed, then he proceeded to open her luggage. Edith held her breath.
Every garment was neatly folded and placed, with Edith’s sewing kit taking up a small section of one side.
Funny, Edith thought as Richter dug into the clothes. Everything we own fits perfectly into this suitcase, this box with a handle.
There had been much Margot wanted to bring with them: toys, gramophone records, photographs, all of which Edith had to deny. Edith herself had to leave behind her mother’s ring—one passed down through the generations—a ruby stone set upon a silver band. She had planned on giving it to Margot one day, but taking sentimental items was too risky. They would have to rely on their memories instead.
Richter tossed their garments aside, carelessly and without shame, until the suitcase was empty, the plaid lining the only thing looking back at him, save for a few frayed strands of string where the seams met. Margot had sewed the lining herself; she’d beamed when she’d finished and rightly so. The girl would make a fine seamstress one day. Richter sighed and stood up. Edith exhaled.
“Apologies for the intrusion, Fräulein,” he said, brushing by them without so much as a glance.
“It must be the other woman,” Edith overheard one of the crewmen say from the hallway. She knelt down, re-folding her discarded clothing, Margot crunching on her lollipop behind her.
“I’m so very sorry, Edith,” Vogel said, crouching beside her to help clean up.
“Please, it’s fine,” she replied, attempting to brush him away. “I’ve got it under control.”
“It’s no worry, here let me help.” He folded one of her shirts. As he was about to place it in the suitcase, he noticed the stray threads dangling from the seam. Without a word, and before Edith could stop him, he tugged at them. As he pulled, the lining came loose exposing two tightly-wrapped flesh-coloured items roughly the size of a rolled up blanket.
Vogel looked up, his steel eyes meeting Edith’s.
There was a moment of silence, of confusion; Vogel’s gaze faltering between the two items and Edith. No time to save herself or grab Margot and run. No time to stop Vogel, to silence him before he opened his mouth. So as Vogel cried out for Captain Richter, the only thing she could do was turn her head to Margot and tell her to run.
***
“We’ve searched the whole ship, Captain,” an exasperated crewman said, wiping his brow with his sleeve. “We can’t find the girl anywhere.”
“Keep searching,” Richter muttered from under his moustache. “For God’s sake, she’s just a child.”
Edith shifted uncomfortably, the handcuffs tight around her wrists, her hands behind her back. Confined to the officer’s mess on the lower deck of the ship, she sat in a burgundy vinyl booth with the items in front of her, both rolled tightly and held together by strings of burlap. Photos of the Fuhrer and General Paul von Hindenburg hung in gold-lined frames on the wood-paneled wall, their eyes on her. Her brown blouse stuck to her shoulder where the blood dripped from the side of her face thanks to one of Richter’s overzealous crewmen who tackled her in her cabin as she tried to pursue Margot.
Richter, Vogel, and two other burly crewmen huddled in the hallway whispering among themselves, their backs turned to her. The hum of the motors was more prevalent down in the officer’s mess, a buzz that sounded like a swarm of bees just outside the walls waiting for the command to attack. The room stank of wasted alcohol and sweat.
“Do not disturb us,” Richter told Vogel as he walked in, closing the door behind him. The zeppelin lurched slightly as the Captain took a seat across from Edith, checking his watch. She could see the hands ticking by, 3:28 pm. Richter cleared his throat.
“I’m not sure what to make of all this,” he said, removing his cap and running a liver-spotted hand over his face and through his stark white hair. “In all my years, never have I come across this type of situation. I’ve been on battlefields. I’ve seen men cut in half. Women left bloodied and disfigured. Children . . . ” he trailed off, his brown eyes lost in a memory. He exhaled and continued, “What I saw today, I do not understand. And I suppose I never will. How does someone so . . . delicate—my God, how could you do such a thing to another woman?”
He looked at her, genuinely puzzled by what he assumed she’d done.
He began to speak once more but closed his mouth before the words came. Instead, he fished in his pockets and pulled out a pair of gloves. He paused after he put them on, but proceeded to unfurl the thinner of the rolled objects in front of him, untying the burlap string with a shaky hand. It stretched over the length of the table as he flattened it out, and not an inch more, some bits stuck together as though they’d been glued. It had started to lose some of its rose colouring, except near the top. He smoothed it out with his hands, pure disgust across his face, until it finally became a tangible object, one that made him turn away in a gagging fit.
Edith gazed upon the piece before her: a well-preserved pelt with a perfect seam and near perfect stitching. Her daughter’s finest work.
“What is this?” his voice shook as he asked the question, immediately correcting his posture, no doubt praying Edith wouldn’t notice his falter. But she did. She had seen it in men like him before—the ones who cowered in their fortresses and demanded others do their dirty work. The ones who would—and had—come for her and her daughter time and time again. Unrelenting. Unwavering. But these men hadn’t the slightest clue what they were up against. And now that they’d found her out, she had nothing to lose.
Behind him, a vent cover silently shook loose, a little hand reaching out to stop it from crashing to the ground.
“It’s Margot,” Edith smiled.
***
Vogel paced outside the door trying to listen to the conversation happening on the other side. The two mechanics waiting with him, Hans and Martin, watched him, smirking.
“They’ve been in there for quite some time,” Vogel said, debating whether or not to interrupt.
“I doubt there’s much going on,” Hans said, scratching his jaw. “What’s she going to do, beat him with her shoe?”
Martin chuckled. Vogel shook his head, “You didn’t see what she did to that woman.”
He’d passed Edith in the hallway that morning, smiling and unaware. She’d smiled back, her lips a deep red, her green eyes heavy. If only he’d known what she’d done. If only he’d checked on Ingrid Schmidt sooner. Maybe he could have done something. Maybe he could have helped.
“No one’s afraid of a lady,” Martin spat.
Vogel shook his head again, making his choice. He knocked on the door. When no answer came, he knocked again, calling out for Richter. When that proved useless, he threw the door open, the handle rattling as it hit the wall.
Upon first glance the room was empty. No Richter, no Edith. But as Vogel approached the booth where he had brought Edith, Hans and Martin staying precautiously behind, the captain’s body came into view, a stream of blood spilling from multiple tiny wounds in his neck and onto the burgundy carpet.
“Perhaps we should be,” Vogel said.
***
Edith followed Margot through
the vents, squeezing her way through the tight spaces with the two rolled up garments tucked under her arms. They eventually crawled up and out through a mesh of tangled wires and into the ship’s interior hull, stepping onto a catwalk that led deeper into the ship’s core one way and the other to a door marked ENGINE ROOM. The smell of rotted eggs slightly more prominent in the hydrogen-filled balloon.
The buzz was the loudest here, though it wasn’t deafening—the ship’s motors flanking them on either side. Around them were the Hindenburg’s bones, the duralumin frames circled above and below like a thousand black Ferris wheels that stretched on as far as Edith could see; the reinforced cotton tarp covering every inch of its skeleton. It flapped and hummed as the winds pushed against it from the outside. Just beyond the tarp, the sun had begun its final descent.
Edith dropped the garments and grabbed hold of Margot as tight as she could, wishing she could squeeze her child into her to spare her from the world around them. She’d gone through so much at such a young age. It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t the plan. They were never supposed to have been found out. But Margot was young and inexperienced; she’d seen a pretty face and wanted her mother to have it. She hadn’t thought about the consequences, how her actions wouldn’t go unnoticed. And now, at the edge of their journey, the outcome was looking grim.
“Mama,” Margot managed to say, her lips not quite glued down to the inside of her mouth, so Edith had told her to talk as sparingly as possible during their voyage. “Your face.”
Fantastic Tales of Terror Page 17