“How close is Chevrier to flying around the Tower?” Maximilian already knew the answer, but this test would allow him to see if Guillaume would tell the truth.
Guillaume stiffened, his reverie gone. “He could fly anytime. But he won’t because of that feud between him and Meurthe. And now, to make matters worse, that little bird fluttering around our workshop distracts him.”
Maximilian laughed. “You mean Yvette Meurthe?” Things were working out perfectly, he thought.
Now there was a tinge of steel in Maximilian’s voice. “If he does decide to fly, we must do something to insure that he doesn’t win.”
“What do you mean?” Guillaume was apprehensive again.
“What is the word you French use? The one where you throw your wooden shoes in the machines?”
“Sabotage,” said Guillaume softly, and for a second Maximilian thought he had lost him. Guillaume started to rise and Maximilian grabbed his arm.
“All we’re talking about is something simple, something that would delay Chevrier for a day and could never be found out.
“Look, you know your future is not with Chevrier. He doesn’t respect you. If he flies, all the glory will go to him, not to the men who did the work. The new Germany, the Germany we’re creating, isn’t like that. It’s a partnership between the workers and the employers. That’s why our technology is so superior. That’s why we win our wars.”
Guillaume was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged with resignation. “What do you want me to do?”
“I have a simple device, only two inches square, that you attach at the front of the balloon. You push a button. Inside is acid. The acid eats a hole in the balloon. The balloon deflates and then settles to the ground.”
“And the device?”
“It falls off when the job is done. It is also eaten away by the acid and looks like a piece of the airship’s skin. Here, I will show it to you.”
Maximilian reached inside the sack next to him. The package was the same bright blue as Alain’s airship—an exact match.
Guillaume did not want to touch it. He kept his hands at his sides.
“What’s in the package? Candy?”
Guillaume looked up in horror. A small, dark-haired boy with bangs over his eyes was watching them.
Maximilian smiled. “It’s a present. Would you like to see it?” He gave it to the boy. “One must never hide things from children,” he told Guillaume. “It makes them suspicious.”
“It’s heavy,” said the boy. “May I open it?”
“No,” answered Maximilian. “It is a gift for this man. It is going to make him rich.” He took the package from the boy and placed it very carefully in Guillaume’s shaking hands. Then he patted the boy’s head.
“I love children,” said Maximilian after the boy had turned away. “Someday your children and mine will be sitting together at a show like this. By the way, you should disable Chevrier’s other balloon as well. Rip a seam or something.”
“And what about the Americans?”
“They are awaiting their pilot. And we have provided him with enough whores to keep him occupied for a long time.”
On stage Guignol sat in a big red chair, smoking a pipe. He was telling the children how comfortable life was without his wife and how he wished that it would go on forever. Just then there was a sound like the wind coming through the trees. “What’s that?” said Guignol, sitting up in his chair.
The noise became louder and turned into a voice, the devil’s voice. “Guignol,” it moaned, “it is time to collect my reward. Come along.”
But Guignol wasn’t going, at least, not willingly. He tucked himself back into the chair and wrapped the arms around him. “Later,” he called. “I’ll come later. Not now.”
Then, with a twist of the head that had remained tucked into the chair like that of a sleeping bird, the children saw the red chair was actually the devil himself. They shouted and screamed and tried to explain it to Guignol, but he would only yell, “Go away! All of you! Leave me alone!”
Most of the children were standing at the fence that separated them from the stage or jumping on the benches. The small dark-haired boy was crying because he could not see. Maximilian reached down and swung the child up on his shoulders.
Guillaume was weighing the package in his hand. “This device will not hurt anyone?”
“Guillaume, I give you my word,” said Maximilian, bouncing the boy on his shoulders. “In a few days we will both be in Germany. Be sure you follow the instructions. Then burn them.”
Guillaume nodded.
Maximilian watched his face carefully. He had misgivings. Guillaume was a weak vessel, a blunt instrument to set against someone as strong and determined as Chevrier. But even a blunt instrument could kill. Maximilian knew that from experience.
The children squealed with fear as the devil seized Guignol, carried him off-stage and tossed him into hell. A fan underneath the stage blew orange ribbons that symbolized flames, and Guignol danced across them.
“Oh, ow, ouch! It’s hot down here,” he told the children. “But at least there’s one good thing. I’m alone.”
And that was the signal for his wife Madelon to come out, still waving her pot, and beat him over the head. She was even madder now, because her stupid husband had condemned them both to this place.
The older children were laughing, but many of the younger ones cried, their faces buried in their mothers’ dresses. The mothers tried to explain that this was only a puppet show; Guignol would be back next week. And when you are older you will like it. See how happy the big children are?
Especially the tall man in back with the blond hair. He had the broadest smile of all.
Chapter Twenty: The Soiree in Neuilly—Evening, July 14
That night Alain climbed onto the seat of his smaller airship, the one he called “The Bitch,” and started the engine. The little dirigible looked like a racing car, and was perfect for what he wanted; so light it could cut through the air like a knife, and so agile it could dart down an alley or up into the clouds. It was the ship in which he had flown with Mary Ann the day they taunted President Pouchet.
Tonight, though, as the propeller churned the air behind him and the airship rose from its hangar, he wasn’t thinking about Mary Ann, or flying to the Eiffel Tower. He could fly to the Eiffel Tower anytime. Tonight he was flying for fun, to avenge an insult by Henri Meurthe and to kiss a beautiful woman.
It could not have been a more perfect night. The moon was full and the sky as bright as if a friendly God had lighted a street lamp above his head. The shadow of his craft was a luminous, swift-moving ghost on the boulevard below. With no wind the little airship was easy to handle. Passing over the avenues at treetop level, he waved at everyone, then seemed surprised when everyone waved back.
Then he spotted a corner cafe on the Champs-Elysées where he knew the tavern keeper. He reached overhead and slid the coiled drag rope forward. Instantly the little torpedo-shaped balloon responded to the change in ballast, and he brought it to rest between two outdoor tables, hovering just above the sidewalk.
Three pretty young ladies begged him to share an apéritif. Alain shook his head; he had too much to do, but he bought a bottle of wine for them. Then he slid the drag rope to the back and sent the airship spiraling skyward, its engine roaring, startling a flock of pigeons who couldn’t believe they had competition for the night sky. One flapped its wings and clucked at him only a hairsbreadth from his nose, scolding him for invading their domain.
Alain slowed as he reached the upper floors of the six-story mansions that lined the street, turned his handlebars gently and glided past the long floor-to-ceiling windows. He paused to pick flowers from a window box and scattered them over the people on the street below, who dashed beneath him to catch every one. Farther up the block, women ran to their windows to throw their undergarments at him. Some of them undressed to do it. Children ran from roof to roof, leaping over the parapets be
tween attached houses like rabbits, trying to keep up with him.
It was the most beautiful flight of his life.
* * *
Harding had finally gotten Mary Ann a dress that fit, a flowing white gown with golden leaves woven into the cloth. Alain liked white, she remembered. She bought a bottle of perfume, the same kind she had smelled on Yvette, and set her hair the way Yvette had shown her, even painting her face, a little, just under the cheekbones. Dress, camisole, chemise, translucent slip. She felt a glow that seemed to rise up from deep inside her at the thought of the masquerade she was putting on.
Harding came in a rented black landau with chrome handles that glowed in the dark, and a leather roof that swung back to reveal the starry night sky. She noticed that his suit was clean—for a change—but he seemed distracted. On the way to Meurthe’s he sang a song popular in America:
“This life’s a hollow bubble, don’t you know?
Just a painted piece of trouble, don’t you know?
We come to earth to cry,
We grow older and we sigh,
Older still and then we die,
Don’t you know?”
“I liked your pig song better,” she grumbled. “By the way, how did you get old snootface Bishop to pay for this gown?”
“I didn’t. I paid for it. Remember that little hole-in-the-wall where I lived? Well, I don’t live there anymore.”
After that they didn’t talk for another mile. Finally she made herself say it: “I’m sorry. I know that place had memories.” They were nearly there.
“Don’t be,” answered Harding, “it’s too late for me anyhow. Look, I hope everything works out for you tonight. I hope you see Alain and he dances with you again, and he and Meurthe end their feud, and this damn pilot shows up and we win the prize. But I have a bad feeling.” And he started to sing again, “This life’s a hollow bubble...”
Mary Ann tried to distract him. “Oh look! There’s a full moon out and it’s floating right over the Meurthes’ house.” She could see the second-story balcony surrounded by tall shrubbery and ivy. As she watched, a second, smaller moon came in and hovered at arm’s length just beyond the edge of the balcony. It was Alain’s airship.
She paused, unable to move or even breathe as she watched what happened next. Then she screamed as if she’d been bitten by a snake, threw herself on Harding’s shoulder, and started to cry.
* * *
For Henri Meurthe, it was another night, another one of those infernal parties. This one was of even less interest to him than the others were, because it fell in the realm of pseudo-science. A man he despised was doing a thing he despised even more.
His daughter Yvette had invited the Egyptologist, Professor Belique Trivard, to do a mummy unraveling, which was all the rage this year. A crowd of more than 100 guests in evening clothes had gathered at the foot of his marble staircase where a trestle had been set up. The cloth-wrapped corpse that lay on it—surrounded by surgical instruments—was the guest of honor.
What was this morbid fascination with the dead? Meurthe wondered. He remembered how some of these same people had poked their canes and umbrellas under the rubber sheets after the Bazaar de la Charité fire had left 200 poor souls dead, gawking at the mangled remains of people they knew.
Meurthe turned away from the door when he saw Professor Trivard come in and hand his cane and gloves to a butler. Trivard had a reputation for liking young boys more than he should, a thought that turned Meurthe’s stomach. In Meurthe’s opinion, Trivard’s trips to Egypt were just an excuse to indulge his passions for hashish and pedophilia.
Meurthe almost stepped on a live turtle that crawled around the floor with jewels stuck to its back. He hoped the jewels were fake. At one side of the room was a long cylinder that looked like a gas tank. On top was a pressure gauge and—coming out at another angle—a hose that led to a nose and mouthpiece. Some fool has brought ether, he thought. Soon all the other fools will be inhaling it, and then staggering around like drunkards. He hoped that no one put a candle next to the tank and blew them all up.
As he watched, Professor Trivard began his lecture next to the mummy, talking about how he had made his way back from the Valley of the Dead in the lower reaches of the Nile after all the other members of his expedition had died. Accidental deaths, of course, but the treasures that Trivard had brought home had made him a wealthy man, Meurthe remembered.
And now the famous Egyptologist with the perpetual leer took surgical scissors and cut through the resin membrane that had kept the wrapped corpse airtight for long centuries. Meurthe felt violated, as if it were his body lying on the trestle. There was a hissing sound as the dry air of the Middle East collided with the humid Parisian summer night, and then the smells of ancient Egypt, frankincense and myrrh, permeated the house. There were screams from the audience. One woman appeared to faint, falling backwards into the waiting arms of her paramour.
Trivard, using a crochet needle, explained how the embalmed brain was pulled out of the skull through the nose and placed in the earthen jar that sat in the crotch of the mummy. When he passed the jar around, one of the ladies dropped and broke it, and the others kicked the brain back and forth, shrieking as the desiccated organ touched their shoes.
“That’s enough!” Meurthe said out loud, although no one heard him. Disgusted, he pushed his way through the crowd and headed for the peace of his outside garden and a good cigar. It was a warm night, and the doors that opened onto the promenade were already wide apart. He stepped outside and drew a long breath.
Then he too looked up at his daughter’s balcony.
“Get my car!” he roared at his servants. “Get me my car!”
* * *
Yvette’s maid was the first to notice him. She ran to get Yvette. “You should greet your guest,” she said, smiling.
“I will be down when I am ready,” Yvette snapped.
The maid shook her head. “He’s not down,” she corrected. “He’s up.”
Yvette was puzzled for a second; then she understood. She dashed to the balcony. The full moon seemed to engulf the whole sky. Alain was waiting on the seat of his airship just beyond the balcony’s edge. Yvette slowed herself to a walk (“Never look too eager,” she thought) and came to the edge of the railing.
“So you came, Monsieur Chevrier,” she said quietly, as if greeting an ordinary guest downstairs.
“Yes, I’ve met my part of the bargain. And what of your promise?”
“I will keep mine, too,” she said, and leaned over, one leg up behind her like a ballet dancer.
When two people—even experienced men and women—take their first kiss, it is a finding, fumbling process. Much worse when one of them is on a bicycle seat on a tiny airship and the other is trying to balance like a tightrope walker. The first time they collided with their noses and missed each other’s lips entirely—grazing cheeks in a parody of the traditional French fashion of greeting one another.
“One would think we were cousins,” said Yvette, laughing.
They tried again, more successfully. Her mouth was deep. The third time she gave him a touch of her tongue, just a taste, running it across his lips and then retreating. Then she broke it off.
“Tomorrow night, Alain, after you fly to the Tower.” And she ran inside.
* * *
Harding held Mary Ann with one hand while he clasped the reins with the other as they rode back to the Bethanie. She was sobbing uncontrollably and, for the first time since they had met on the mountaintop, he was afraid of what she might do to herself. Two blocks away from Meurthe’s house, fierce white acetylene lights framed them and he heard the roar of a motorcar behind him. He saw the angry flash of Meurthe’s taut white face as the car sped past, rocking the carriage with its speed.
“He’s headed for Saint-Cloud,” Harding thought, “and the final confrontation with Chevrier.”
When they reached the Bethanie, Harding helped Mary Ann up the gangplank and down t
o her cabin. For once, she was unresisting. She lay on the bed, still sobbing softly, mumbling how she would never forget the sight of Alain and Yvette kissing, framed by the full moon, the damned moon. Even the moon had betrayed her.
“I thought that he loved me,” she blurted out. “I’m a fool. I’ve been a fool ever since this started.”
Harding cradled her gently in his arms.
“Maybe he does love you. I know that he cares about you. But he’s a different kind of person than you or me. Alain can see things you and I never will. He can see distant stars, even in daylight. But he can’t see people the way they really are. He can’t understand the way you feel. He doesn’t know you the way I do. He doesn’t care about you the way...” and he stopped.
Mary Ann opened her eyes wide and looked at him. She could see, suddenly and quite clearly, how Harding felt about her, how much of her own pain he was willing to share, and it shocked her out of her own misery.
Then the door to her cabin burst open and Neville Bishop walked in without knocking. So much for privacy, she thought. But she realized that his mind was elsewhere. His hair and beard were limp and stringy and he wore a nightgown so baggy that he resembled a washerwoman. He looked bleak and defeated.
“I have just received an invitation,” he mumbled. “Alain Chevrier will be flying to the Eiffel Tower tomorrow at 5 a.m. We have been invited by Henri Meurthe to observe—from the reviewing stand at the Tower.”
Chapter Twenty One: Alain’s Flight—July 15
Five a.m. The dueling hour. Paris was already awake. By now everyone in the city knew that
Alain Chevrier would make his flight to the Eiffel Tower this morning.
And most were positioning themselves to see it. Outside the giant workshop in Saint-Cloud, a crowd had gathered in the gray light before dawn. Billowy dresses swept the grass. A company of bicycle riders, volunteers in blue uniforms from the post office, waited to take up stations along the route.
Alain was inside looking at a map and making final preparations with Guillaume LeRond. Alain looked drained; it was apparent that he hadn’t slept. His usual confidence was absent from his face. His dark hair was uncombed and his eyes were like empty headlight sockets.