Flight of Dreams Read online

  OTHER BOOKS BY ARIEL LAWHON

  The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical figures and public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Ariel Lawhon

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., Toronto.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Cover design by John Fontana

  Cover illustration © New York Daily News / Getty Images

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Lawhon, Ariel.

  Flight of dreams / by Ariel Lawhon.—First United States edition.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-0-385-54002-5 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-0-385-54003-2 (eBook)

  1. Hindenburg (Airship)—Fiction. 2. Airships—Germany—Fiction. 3. Aircraft accidents—New Jersey—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3601.L447F58 2016

  813'.6—dc23

  2015023339

  eBook ISBN 9780385540032

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by Ariel Lawhon

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Day One

  The Stewardess

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Cabin Boy

  The Stewardess

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Stewardess

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Journalist

  The Cabin Boy

  The American

  The Stewardess

  The Navigator

  The Journalist

  Day Two

  The Stewardess

  The Cabin Boy

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Navigator

  The Cabin Boy

  The American

  The Navigator

  The Journalist

  The American

  The Stewardess

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Stewardess

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Navigator

  The Stewardess

  Day Three

  The Cabin Boy

  The American

  The Navigator

  The Stewardess

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The Cabin Boy

  The Stewardess

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Journalist

  The Cabin Boy

  The Navigator

  The Stewardess

  The American

  The Journalist

  The Cabin Boy

  The Journalist

  The Stewardess

  The American

  The Cabin Boy

  Day Four

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Navigator

  The Cabin Boy

  The Stewardess

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Navigator

  The Stewardess

  The American

  The Cabin Boy

  The Navigator

  The American

  The Navigator

  The Journalist

  The Stewardess

  The Cabin Boy

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The Journalist

  The Cabin Boy

  The Navigator

  The Cabin Boy

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The Cabin Boy

  The Journalist

  The Stewardess

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The Stewardess

  The Cabin Boy

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The Cabin Boy

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The Journalist

  The Cabin Boy

  The Journalist

  The Navigator

  The Journalist

  The Cabin Boy

  The Navigator

  The Cabin Boy

  The Navigator

  Epilogue

  The Cabin Boy

  The Navigator

  The Journalist

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For my husband, Ashley, who has taught me the meaning of sacrificial love.

  Also for Marybeth. We’re even now.

  And in loving memory of my grandmother, Mary Ellen Storrs. I never thought to ask her if she remembered the Hindenburg until it was too late.

  To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.

  —C. S. LEWIS, THE FOUR LOVES

  U.S. COMMERCE DEPARTMENT BOARD OF INQUIRY

  HINDENBURG ACCIDENT HEARINGS

  May 10, 1937

  Naval Air Station, Main Hangar, Lakehurst, New Jersey

  Please inform the Zeppelin company in Frankfurt that they should open and search all mail before it is put on board prior to every flight of the Zeppelin Hindenburg. The Zeppelin is going to be destroyed by a time bomb during its flight to another country.

  —Letter from Kathie Rusch of Milwaukee to the German embassy in Washington, D.C., dated April 8, 1937

  “This was not the first bomb threat, correct?” The man in the black glasses lifts the letter and waves it before the crowd. “Did anyone bother to count how many there were? Or, for God’s sake, to believe them?”

  Max thinks the man’s last name is Schroeder, but he can’t remember, and in truth he doesn’t care. He’s a fool if he believes that crazy woman from Milwaukee and her letter. Not that anyone else in the room is concerned with Max’s quiet derision. People whisper and nod their heads like mindless puppets at the idea of sabotage. Search the mail, she said. There’s a bomb on board, she said. It’s a popular theory, especially now, with the wreckage still sprawled in the field outside. But no one cares about the truth. They prefer theatrics and conspiracy theories. And Schroeder is happy to provide them. He is ringmaster of this circus. He will make sure the mob is entertained.

  Wilhelm Balla limps his way through the crowded hangar to stand next to Max. He escaped the crash with little more than a sprained ankle, but Max suspects he’s exaggerating even that. He leans a bit hard to the left with each step, showing off. Letting the world know he’s injured.

  Balla searches Max’s face for clues to his emotional state. “Emilie?” he asks.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s prepared for the trip back to Germany?”

  Max turns his attention to the spectac
le at the front of the room. “I haven’t asked.”

  “Let me know when she is. I’d like to say good-bye.” Balla clears his throat. “They have me booked on the Europa with Werner on the fifteenth. How is she going home?”

  “On the Hamburg. With the others. It sails in three days.”

  Wilhelm Balla is not a man who often displays emotion. It is up for debate whether he actually has a pulse. But this surprises him. “You aren’t traveling with her?”

  Max leans his head against the window. The cool glass feels good against his throbbing temple. He hasn’t been able to shake this headache since the crash. No surprise, really, all things considered. “There are many things outside of my control, not the least of which is travel.” He taps the envelope in his pocket with the pad of one finger and then draws his hand away. “I don’t testify until the nineteenth. I’ll take the Bremen the following day.”

  Balla gives him the long, appraising look that Max finds so aggravating. “How many times have you read Emilie’s letter?”

  “Once was enough.” It’s a lie. But he has no interest in confiding in Balla. Not after the trouble he caused.

  From his position beside the window, Max can see the airfield and the charred skeleton that lies crumpled beside the mooring mast. He closes his eyes and tries to push the sight away, but to no avail. The images are there—will be there, he is certain, for the rest of his life; a single tongue of blue flame licking the Hindenburg’s spine, a fluttering of silver skin followed by the shudder of metallic bone, a flash, barely visible to those on the ground below. Bedlam. He is certain that the passengers close enough to see the explosion never heard it. They were simply consumed as the backbone of the great floating beast snapped in half. Thirty-four seconds of catastrophic billowing flames, followed by total, profound destruction. In half a minute the airship went from flying luxury hotel to smoking rubble—a skeleton lying crumpled in this New Jersey field, blacked by smoke and flame. No, these are things he will never forget.

  Already the hearings have begun. There will be testimony. Reporters and flashbulbs. A different sort of pandemonium and a desperate attempt to understand why. There will be political conflagration. Headlines screaming out their theories in bold print, punctuated for emphasis. ACCIDENT! SABOTAGE! Fingers pointing in all directions and, of course, the subtle, insinuating whispers. The quiet placing of blame. Max wonders if their names and faces will be forgotten when the headlines are replaced by some new tragedy. Will anyone remember the particulars of those who fell from the sky a few short days ago? The vaudeville acrobat. The cabin boy. The journalists. An American heiress. The German cotton broker and the Jewish food distributor. A young family of German expatriates living in Mexico City. Chefs and mechanics. Photographers and navigators. The commander and his crew. A small army of stewards and Emilie, the only stewardess. Old men and young boys. Women past their prime and a fourteen-year-old girl who loved her father above all else. Will anyone remember them?

  Bureaucrats measure loss with dollar signs and damage control. Already they have begun. There is standing room only in this hangar. But Max knows that to him, the cost will always be measured by lives lost. He also knows that in nine days, when his time comes to sit in that chair and give testimony, he will not tell them the truth. Instead he will look over Schroeder’s shoulder at a point on the far wall and tell the lie he has already decided upon. It is the only way to protect Emilie. And the others. Max Zabel will swear before God and this committee that it was an uneventful flight.

  DAY ONE

  MONDAY, MAY 3, 1937—6:16 P.M., CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME

  FRANKFURT, GERMANY

  3 DAYS, 6 HOURS, AND 8 MINUTES UNTIL THE EXPLOSION

  Here is the goal of man’s dream for many, many generations. Not the airplane, not the hydroscope, man has dreamed of a huge graceful ship that lifted gently into the air and soared with ease. It is come, it is completely successful, it is breathtakingly beautiful.

  —Akron Beacon Journal

  THE STEWARDESS

  “It’s a bad idea, don’t you think?” Emilie asks, as she stands inside the kitchen door, propping it open with her foot. “Striking a match in here? You could blow us all to oblivion.”

  Xaver Maier is young for a head chef, only twenty-five, but he wears the pressed white uniform—a double-breasted jacket and checkered pants—with an air of authority. The starched apron is tied smartly at his waist, the toque fitted snuggly to his head. He gives her that careless, arrogant smirk that she has begrudgingly grown fond of and puts the cigarette to his lips. He inhales so deeply that she can see his chest expand, and then blows the smoke out the open galley window into the warm May evening. “Ventilation, love, it’s all about proper ventilation.”

  The way he says the word, the way he holds his mouth, is clearly suggestive of other things, and she dismisses him with a laugh. Xaver Maier is much younger than Emilie and a great deal too impressed with himself. “At the moment, love, it’s about aspirin. I need two. And a glass of water if you can summon the effort.”

  The kitchen is small but well ordered, and Xaver’s assistant chefs are busy chopping, boiling, and basting in preparation for dinner. He stands in the center of the melee like a colonel directing his troops, an eye on every small movement.

  “Faking a headache?” he asks. “Poor Max. I thought you’d finally come around. We’ve been taking bets, you know.”

  “Don’t,” she says, flinging a drawer open and shuffling through the contents. She has made it perfectly clear that all discussion of Max is off limits. She will make up her mind when she is good and ready. “I went to the dentist yesterday, and the left side of my jaw feels like it’s about to fall off.” She leaves the drawer open and moves on to another.

  “Usually when a woman tells me her jaw is sore I apologize.”

  Emilie opens a third drawer. Then a fourth. Slams it. “I had a tooth filled.” She’s impatient now. And irritated. “Aspirin? I know you keep it around here somewhere.”

  He follows behind her, shoving the drawers shut. “Enough of that. You’re as bad as the verdammt Gestapo.”

  “What?” She looks up.

  Xaver reaches behind her head and lifts the door to a high, shallow cabinet attached to the ceiling. He pulls out a bottle of aspirin but doesn’t hand it over. “I’m glad to hear you don’t know everything that happens aboard this airship.” He taps the bottle against the heel of his hand, making the pills inside rattle around with sharp little pings. “There’s still the chance of keeping secrets.”

  “You can’t keep secrets from me.” She holds out her hand, palm up. “Two aspirin and a glass of water. What Gestapo?”

  Xaver counts them out as though he’s paying a debt. “They came because of the bomb threats. Fifteen of them in their verdammte gray uniforms.”

  “When?” She takes a glass from the drying board above the sink and fills it with tepid water. Emilie swallows her pills in one wild gulp.

  “Yesterday. They searched the entire ship. Took almost three hours. I had to take the security officers down the lower keel walkway to the storage areas. The bastards opened every tin of caviar, every wheel of aged Camembert, and don’t think they didn’t sample everything they could find. Looking for explosives, they said. I was out half the night trying to find replacements. And,” he pauses to take a long, calming drag on his cigarette, “you can be certain that frog-faced distributor in the Bockenheim district didn’t take kindly to being woken at midnight to fill an order for goose liver pâté.”

  She has heard of the bomb threats, of course; they all have. Security measures have been tightened. Her bags were checked before she was allowed on the airfield that afternoon. But it seems so ridiculous, so impossible. Yet this is life in the new Germany, they say. A trigger-happy government. Suspicious of everyone, regardless of citizenship. No, not citizenship, she corrects herself, race.

  Emilie looks out the galley windows at the empty tarmac. “Did you know they aren’t
letting anyone come for the send-off? All the passengers are waiting at a hotel in the city to be shuttled over by bus. No fanfare this time.”

  “Should be a fun flight.”

  “That,” she says with a grin, “will have to wait until the return trip. We’re fully booked. All those royalty-smitten Americans traveling over for King George’s coronation.”

  “I’d take a smitten American. Preferably one from California. Blondine.”

  Emilie rolls her eyes as he whistles and forms an hourglass figure with his hands.

  “Schwein,” she says, but she leans forward and gives him a kiss on the cheek anyway. “Thank you for the aspirin.”