“This is our annual International Balloon Race to see how far aerostats can travel,” he told her. “I will start them as soon as atmospheric conditions allow. Watch now. They are sending up trial balloons to test the wind.”
There was a sudden flurry below. It was as if seeds had been sprung from their pods. Mary Ann got the eerie feeling that she was on the ground and that they had dropped on her.
Then they rushed by, small colored figures of dwarfs, rabbits, misshapen faces, all stitched together from goldbeater’s skin, the fourth stomach of an ox and the most airtight substance known to man. At the same time a flock of pigeons was freed just below them, their wings flapping the air like a drumbeat.
That’s the way the world’s been going by me, Mary Ann thought. For years I waited in that church for something to happen. Then it all happened so fast. The arrival in Paris, the announcement of the contest - and then today, when Meurthe had met Harding and Mary Ann at her hotel and whisked them into his Mors touring car, ignoring complaints from Bishop that they should be working even on a Sunday.
The big Mors roared through the crowded streets to the Eiffel Tower, where they rushed into the elevators, and out at the third level. Then a quick run up the circular steps to an even smaller platform. Inside a glass booth sat the weatherman who monitored the city’s winds and temperatures. Outside, apart from themselves, there were only two other people on the platform, Maximilian von Hohenstauffen, the German military attaché, and Meurthe’s daughter, Yvette.
Mary Ann thought that the German, who was there to watch his countrymen fly, was handsome in a self-centered way, except for that strange scar that ran down the left side of his face. But it was Yvette who caught everyone’s eye, including Harding’s, she noticed.
Yvette looked slender and elegant in a scalloped, rose-colored dress that brushed the floor. Her dark brown hair was pulled back and wrapped around her head. But, whether by accident or by design, a few strands had come loose and danced with the wind.
When the pigeons flew by, she turned and laid a hand on Harding’s shoulder, seemingly for support, although it was obvious to Mary Ann that she didn’t need any. Mary Ann could see Harding suck in his gut and throw out his chest. She felt a twinge of jealousy in spite of herself. He had never done that for her. She tried not to look, but Yvette’s mannequin-perfect beauty was...well, intimidating. She focused instead on what was happening below.
“There are 21 balloons in the contest, 12 of them foreign,” Meurthe said, stretching his arm across the field. “Some are named for their place of origin, such as Pommern, St. Louis and Copenhagen, while others have the names of their intended destinations, like Cathay and the Far West. Some are named for mythology: Zeus, Minerva and, of course, the giant Centaur, the one that looks like a four-poster bed with its huge balloon in the center and its four supporting ballonets, one at each corner.”
“And the one over there at the far right of the field?” she asked, using the French that she had learned in school. “The one that’s pure white?”
“Yes,” said Meurthe, happy to speak his own language. “That’s The Conqueror. Breathtaking in its simplicity, isn’t it?”
She nodded, wondering who had made something that lovely.
Meurthe shaded his eyes from the sun and watched the clown-shaped trial balloons drift away. “The wind is from the west. That is good. No balloons out in the channel or bothering our friends the English. No one getting wet. If we start them soon, they may travel all the way to the Sahara, Bulgaria, or the Canary Islands. Last year’s winner flew 1,193 miles and ended up near Kiev in the Ural Mountains. But the wind is still a little too strong to send them off.”
“They must need a lot of supplies for that length of a trip,” said Harding.
“Their baskets are stocked with clothing for every climate, thermos bottles, liquor, soup packed in lime so that it will heat when water is poured in, even Japanese travel guides with phrases like ‘How much is that?’ and ‘Show me on your fingers.’ You can find it all in your New York emporium Abercrombie & Fitch. It has a catalog just for balloonists. Ah, I see the warm weather has brought out our current crop of flâneurs.”
Meurthe was pointing at a crowd standing at the edge of the field. Mary Ann saw a pool of dark clothes on the olive-green grass, dotted with the bright colors of ladies’ summer dresses and punctuated with Panama hats and straw boaters.
“Do you see Alain Chevrier among them?” asked Yvette. She obviously has an interest in him, whoever he is, Mary Ann thought.
Meurthe scoffed. “One does not find a dolphin in a school of minnows. These people are idlers, loungers, out for a day from their clubs or salons. Chevrier is in the white balloon over there in the corner, The Conqueror.”
All of the balloons had been inflated, their skins stretched tight, straining at their ropes, ready for the moment when Meurthe would fire his flare gun.
Mary Ann heard a tapping on the window inside the glass enclosure where the meteorologist sat. “Monsieur Meurthe,” he called, his voice muffled by the glass. “The winds are now acceptable. Only six miles an hour.”
“Down there,” said Meurthe, pointing beyond the ponds at the base of the Tower, “we shall put up a landing field for airships. And around it a track for racing automobiles.”
“Aren’t you a little ahead of yourself?” asked Harding. “We haven’t even seen a man fly yet, except in one of these gas bags that get bounced around by the wind.”
Meurthe laughed. “Are you one of those people who believe that the earth’s clock is running down and that there is no one left to rewind it? You remind me of children I saw playing on the street corner the other day. Each of them would pretend to be an animal. The largest boy would pick a word like ‘Jump,’ and they would go around the circle. The one whose turn it was would have to say ‘Elephant doesn’t jump,’ or ‘Monkey jumps.’ All the other boys would hit anyone who made a mistake.
“When they got to ‘Fly,’ the smallest boy said ‘Man flies,’ and the other boys punched him. But wait,” said Meurthe, “he’ll get his chance to hit them back.”
Mary Ann heard Maximilian snort. “The bigger ones will always hit the smaller ones,” he said.
That seemed to upset Meurthe. “Are you suggesting brute force is the only answer?”
“There is something to be said for force,” Maximilian retorted.
It was then that Mary Ann realized she didn’t like him, and that Meurthe didn’t, either.
“I agree,” said Meurthe coldly. “Yvette, hand me my pistol.”
Maximilian stepped back.
Yvette gave Meurthe an antique case that looked as if it held a dueling pistol. He snapped it open. Inside, burnished to a high gloss, was the brass flare gun used to start Aéro Club events.
Harding laughed. So did Meurthe. Maximilian didn’t.
Meurthe leaned over the edge. Far below, faces turned up to him, the balloonists, their rope handlers, their wives and mistresses, the on-lookers, the passers-by.
The flare gun went off. Ropes shook loose and fell to the ground. The seven-story balloons rushed upward, revolving as they came. As the Zeus passed in front of them it turned so the stormy face of the old god painted on its skin was toward them, his hair and beard disheveled, looking as though they had disturbed his sleep. Below the balloons were the long snouts that controlled the release of the hydrogen, the serious faces of the aeronauts, and then the willow and rattan baskets, so tightly woven that they could smash through a brick wall.
“Look, Papa, they’re kissing!” cried Yvette.
Mary Ann noticed, however, it was Harding’s arm she took—not her father’s. By rising faster than the Zeus, the Minerva had bumped the top of its balloon against the side of the Zeus; a maneuver called “kissing.” Again, Mary Ann felt a twinge of jealousy. She had been told that Yvette was “a Beauty,” which, in Europe, had the status of a Countess or a Marquese. Now Mary Ann knew how Yvette had gained the title. It was her abilit
y to manipulate men.
Below, The Conqueror was just taking off. As it did, a gust of wind surged across the Champ-de-Mars, blowing hats and dragging The Conqueror along with it. The crowd scattered. Men and women, forgetting their finery, dove for the ground. The Conqueror, the bottom of its basket only four feet high, fought for elevation as it neared the edge of the field. Looking down, Harding and Mary Ann saw it smash through a board fence.
“Mon Dieu!” said Meurthe, almost involuntarily.
“You sound as if you had a personal interest in Chevrier,” said Maximilian, who was looking over his shoulder.
Two bags of the sand ballast that hung outside the basket fell to the ground. Two others split open, dumping sand on the spectators. Freed of the weight, The Conqueror shot up past the three levels of the Tower. Mary Ann saw Chevrier only for a second. He was hanging onto the ropes leading up to the balloon as the basket swayed beneath him. But he didn’t look scared. If anything, he looked...happy. And then, while she wondered what kind of man he might be, he soared beyond her and up into the sky.
“Did you ever fly in a balloon?” Harding asked Meurthe.
“Yes,” he said, “but it was not for pleasure. Thirty years ago, back in 1870, we were at war and Paris was surrounded by the Germans.” He glanced at von Hohenstauffen, who had moved to the other side of the balcony to talk to his daughter. “The only way we could get messages to our troops was to escape in balloons. I was on one of the last balloons to fly from the city.
“But then, as now, balloons went where the wind took them. Mine ended up on a hillside in Norway. My messages were never delivered, and the city surrendered. I failed, and the Germans won.” Even now she could sense his frustration. Meurthe was a man who didn’t like to lose, she decided. And for some reason, he didn’t like this German in particular.
“Monsieur von Hohenstauffen,” said Yvette, “or may I call you Maximilian. What brings you to our city?”
“You may call me your obedient servant,” he said in perfect French. “I am the head of the German contingent that hopes to win your father’s million-franc prize. I had hoped to introduce myself to him, but I see he is too busy. So it is my greater pleasure to talk to you.”
“What are the women like in Berlin?” she asked him.
Maximilian paused to light a cigar. He flicked a match and the flame seemed to appear out of nowhere. “They are fat Lutheran cows,” he said. “They wear muddy brown skirts, sack coats that look like traveling rugs, and square-toe boots.”
Overhearing them, Mary Ann flushed with embarrassment. He might just as well be describing her clothes.
“Someday I will have to marry one of them,” he went on. “But for intelligence and beauty, I prefer the women of Paris.”
“Monsieur von Hohenstauffen, you flatter us,” said Yvette.
“Flattery is the farthest thing from my mind. Seduction, perhaps, but not flattery.”
Yvette smiled, but it was an amused smile. It was one of her talents, Mary Ann realized. She would flirt with anyone, but she belonged to no one. At least, not yet.
A sound like a thunderclap echoed in the cloudless sky. “Look!” cried Yvette. One of the balloons was falling.
Meurthe seized the telescope and tried to keep it focused. “It was one of the last to go up, and it is white. It must be The Conqueror, but there’s a tear in its side. It...it looks to have exploded. It’s shriveling up at the bottom like a dried apple!”
“It was going up too fast, wasn’t it?” asked Mary Ann.
Meurthe nodded, trying to keep his line of sight on the plummeting basket.
“He’s going to die, isn’t he?” asked Harding.
Mary Ann started to shiver uncontrollably. So high up. She could imagine falling from that height. It would be a tumbling, turning world with no direction, like being at the top of a swing just before you start down again and knowing that you are absolutely at the mercy of gravity. Was it true what they said about your whole life passing before you in the last moments? She looked at Maximilian. His eyes were hooded, like those of a hawk watching a mouse in a sunny field just before...
“Look, Papa, look!” Yvette called.
Above her, Mary Ann saw what appeared to be a mushroom. Then she realized the cap of the mushroom was actually the white covering of the balloon, which was caught in the mesh netting that had surrounded it and tied it to the basket. The stem of the mushroom was the netting and the basket.
“Brilliant!” said Meurthe, sighing with relief. “He must have released the ropes that held the neck of the balloon inside the basket. Then air pressure forced the balloon up to the top of the netting, where it formed a parachute.”
“It’s the same as flying a kite, isn’t it?” said Harding. “If you push hard enough against the air, it holds you up.”
Meurthe nodded again.
“He’s still coming in fast though,” said Mary Ann.
She could see the shape of the wounded Conqueror grow larger, as could everyone in Paris. Inside the basket a tiny figure was throwing everything out: instruments, anchor, megaphone, even a portable toilet pitched over the side; anything to lighten the balloon and slow his descent. A set of long underwear billowed out and floated away.
And the wind was getting stronger again. Gusts battered the top of the Tower and, turned the mushroom top of the balloon into a spinnaker, a concave sail like a crescent moon. Now it truly was like a kite. It leapfrogged over one line of buildings after another, traveling as fast as a car, but with no control, getting closer and closer to the inevitable moment when something would reach up from the city and snatch it back to earth.
“Does he have a chance?” she heard Harding call to Meurthe.
Meurthe shielded his eyes against the sun. “It depends on where he hits!” he shouted.
Mary Ann looked down. All around them were saw-toothed chimney tops, the sharp-sided red tile roofs, the bullet-headed towers and needle-nosed spires of steeples. There are no soft haystacks here, she thought. If you fall, you die.
The remains of Chevrier’s balloon careened toward the tower of a big church less than a mile away. She held her breath and tried to shut her eyes, but couldn’t. It hit with a pitched bang, an almost musical crash as the basket smashed a stained glass window. The balloon itself floated down toward the street. Suddenly there was a white flash and a noise like a cannon as a gaslight ignited the remaining hydrogen inside. It seemed to vaporize before her eyes.
“He’s dead,” said Maximilian.
“No, he’s not!” said Meurthe. He pointed to the edge of the roof.
There, hanging from one of the gargoyles, was a tall, dark-haired man. He had jumped from the basket when it hit the window, skidded across the steep slate roof and caught himself just before he fell a hundred feet to the street below.
“Quel homme!” cried Yvette. “Magnifique!”
Mary Ann looked through the telescope. Chevrier’s arms were clasped tightly around the ugly face of a gargoyle, one of the ancient stone carvings that hung over the edge of the roof of the church and were supposed to protect it from evil. “Ugly or not, it saved him,” she thought. But his legs were kicking the air, looking for a foothold and not finding any. How long could he hold on?
Then down below she saw a company of firemen, who appeared like medieval knights in their steel helmets. The bell on their engine was clanging as they fought their way through the crowd. They hoisted a ladder toward the roof. When it reached him she heard a shout from the mob in the street, and a sigh of relief from everyone on the Tower. Everyone, she noticed, but the German.
“Come, Papa!” cried Yvette. “I want to take a closer look at this marvelous man!”
She disappeared down the circular staircase with a rustle of petticoats and silk. Meurthe, despite a limp, followed her, taking two steps at a time. With both of them gone, the platform seemed almost empty.
But Mary Ann just stood there, watching. “He is going to be all right,” she thought. She
felt as though she knew him, as if she had reached out into the sky and saved him. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself.
She looked across the balcony. The German, Maximilian, stood at the far corner, distant, aloof, and perhaps a little angry. He was wrapped in his gray army cloak as if he were hiding a secret.
She heard a step behind her and turned around.
It was Harding. “Pretty remarkable,” he said. “Yvette hasn’t even met him and it sounds like she’s in love with him already.”
“Along with every other woman in Paris,” said Mary Ann, watching the crowd below her cheer Alain.
Harding looked at her. “Well, you’ll get your chance to meet him tonight. Henri Meurthe invited us all to the Aéro Club.
Chapter Seven: Alain at the Aéro Club—Evening, May 26
Mary Ann stood on the Place de la Concorde outside the Aéro Club listening to the distant splash of the fountains in the Tuileries. The square—lit by gaslights—was so bright that there was not even a shadow on the sidewalk. She felt out of place, as if she were an actress who had stumbled on stage during the wrong scene.
The members of the Aéro Club, men in silk top hats, had been arriving all evening, some with well-dressed ladies on their arms. Mary Ann was waiting for Harding because she didn’t want to go in without him. Now she didn’t want to go in at all. Where was Harding? Had he forgotten? Was he drunk?
She wore the same summer dress she had arrived in earlier that day, and the breeze off the Seine gave her goose bumps. For protection she pressed up against one of the statues that lined the square. She looked up at the stone figure of a seated woman with her feet resting on two cannons and her arm cocked defiantly on her hip. The figure was draped in a black robe.
A tall figure came up to the double blue doors of the Aéro Club where two doormen waited. Then he changed direction and came toward her, walking with a forward-sloping gait. He circled the monument twice before he noticed her and stopped.
“Who are you?” he asked in French.