The Parsifal Pursuit

by Michael McMenamin

  Sullivan grinned, never a pretty sight. “We get them first.”

  “Those are the times when St. Thomas Aquinas says that‘s OK. I didn‘t always fully appreciate that but Mattie helped me work it out. And she‘s not even a Catholic.”

  “And far better than your sorry Irish arse deserves,” Sullivan replied. “Keep me posted.”

  “What? About Mattie?”

  “No. Just tell me when you and St. Thomas decide you‘re ready to untie my hands in Germany. Based on what you told me about our client and those Nazi thugs, I‘d be thanking you if it were sooner rather than later.”

  15.

  Peril in the Clouds

  On Board the Graf Zeppelin

  Wednesday, 27 May 1931

  THE Graf Zeppelin‘s interior took Mattie‘s breath away. She had always been fascinated by the complexity of man-made creations and attempted to portray that in her photographs. Factories with their assembly lines, steel mills and molten metal, dams and their huge hydroelectric generators. In her private moments, she admitted to herself, if to no one else, that Margaret Bourke-White had done it first and, truth be told, done it better than Mattie. But Mattie‘s photographs of industrial scenes were pretty damn good. When she wasn‘t taking photos to illustrate her stories, photography was an avocation, a way to relax. Well, maybe it was a bit difficult to relax when you‘re on a catwalk fifty feet above a huge pot of molten metal in the process of being poured. But nothing had prepared her for this.

  Mattie stood inside an immense cathedral in the sky, the duralumin girders and bracing wires were like a huge spider web extending the length of the ship. The outer skin of the airship was translucent so that the light glowing in and around the sixteen huge gas cells lining the ship‘s interior between the girders and wires made her appreciate the immense sense of space. It was like nothing else she had ever seen, nothing else ever built by man. Mattie was walking on a catwalk which ran along the base of the ship, stopping every ten feet or so to take photographs. She was wearing a pair of cotton and canvas slippers that were designed specifically for use on zeppelins to avoid generating any sparks. The zeppelin‘s catwalk was barely two feet wide and formed the base of an inverted triangle so that the duralumin girders flared out on either side of her, the triangle‘s top two feet above her head.

  Sturm took her the entire length of the ship. She was surprised at how many men were at work wherever she walked, taking photographs as she went. The men were high on the framework, adjusting the tension of wires, tending to the large Maybach engines. She even saw men sewing and splicing fabric as if they were making a sail.

  “What are those men doing?” Mattie asked.

  “You can‘t see it because the gas cells block the view, but there‘s a small tear in the ship‘s outer canvas fabric. The canvas is coated with a mixture of resins and aluminum flakes which gives it a silvery appearance. These men are stitching together a patch. Once they have it the right size, they‘ll climb up the vertical ladder closest to the tear. Then, using harnesses and cables, they will lower a rigger over the outer skin of the ship until he reaches the tear. He will slash the torn fabric away and then, like a seamstress, he will sew the patch into place.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  Sturm smiled. “Very dangerous. Captain Pruss will slow the ship down from our current cruising speed of eighty miles an hour. Trying to work and sew with hurricane force winds in your face would be impossible.”

  “Can I watch?” Mattie asked. “I mean photograph the men making the repair of the fabric?” Mattie could see Sturm did not believe this was a good idea.

  “I don‘t think so. The procedure is dangerous enough as it is.”

  “Please. Two minutes. All I need are two minutes.”

  Sturm hesitated and looked up. “Well…. One minute. You‘ll stand on the ladder with just your head and shoulders outside. I will be right behind you, my arms around your waist.”

  “Great. Just great,” Mattie said. “That will be more than enough time.” Actually, Mattie knew she would have settled for thirty seconds, which would have given her four, maybe even five photos. Now she had twice as much time.

  Inside the hull, there was no sensation of movement through the air, but once she saw the riggers start to climb up inside the vertical ladder leading to the top of the ship‘s hull, she turned to Sturm, “Have we slowed down yet?”

  “The captain started slowing the ship down about five minutes ago. By the time the men reach the top, he will be doing less than twenty miles per hour.”

  “He? I thought all ships were female.”

  “Not zeppelins. German airships have always been male. Now, look over there,” he said, “the riggers have reached the top. The repair should take no more than thirty minutes. If it takes longer, the riggers will have to come back inside because the ship will have lost too much altitude at twenty miles per hour and the captain will not go closer than a hundred feet to the ocean. When the last of the four-man crew has gone out, we will wait ten minutes. Then you and I will go up the ladder, you first, me behind. Remember, the wind will be very strong.”

  Mattie climbed the ladder which was enclosed in a tube of canvas and stopped at the top.

  “Only your head and arms will go through the hatch,” Sturm said. “Take one more step and then wait until I am in position.”

  Mattie felt Sturm‘s body push against hers as he came up behind her. She felt both his arms circle around her waist, his strong hands pressing firmly on her stomach, close enough for her to smell the wood and citrus fragrance of his aftershave.

  “Now,” he said, and, as she poked her head out and up into the air, she felt his arms tighten around her waist, just as the wind hit her. While the airship was barely moving, the wind was gusty and the sight was amazing. Three men were standing along the top of the zeppelin, each wearing broad leather belts tethered to a rope anchored between two hatches along the zeppelin‘s hull, approximately eighty feet apart. The first two men were playing out additional rope to the third man who stood there, his feet braced, carefully lowering a fourth man down over the side of the hull. That rigger was wearing a shoulder harness as well as a broad belt.

  Mattie took one more step so that the upper half of her body was through the opening and she could rest her arms on the airship‘s surface, providing a steady platform for her Leica. She took several shots of the three men directly in her line of sight and then changed lenses for a close-up of the man over the side, now trying to stitch the fabric over the tear.

  Mattie felt Kurt‘s hands loosen their tight grip around her waist. “Mattie!” he shouted, above the wind. “One of the crew has called to me from below. A jammed winch. Stay here until I return. Don‘t move. Descending on zeppelin ladders can be difficult.”

  “All right. I‘ve only got a few more shots anyway.”

  Mattie watched the three men on top of the airship, each holding onto the rope that held the sewing rigger over the side. Even with her telephoto lens, that rigger was almost lost to view. Suddenly, the man closest to her was pulled off his feet, whether from a gust of wind or a tug from the sewing rigger below, she could not tell. Mattie was paralysed, but only for an instant. She could see now what had knocked the rigger off balance. They were beginning to pull the fourth man up from the side. Mattie heard the noise of the engines increase. The ship must be close to a hundred feet to the ocean surface, she thought, and now they‘re going higher. As the engine noise rose, the fourth rigger came into view. The man in front of her regained his feet and was braced on the top with the other two, hauling the rigger back up the smooth silvery skin.

  For a moment, the rigger in front blocked her view, and Mattie climbed up the four steps and onto the top of the zeppelin, recalling Eisenstadt‘s advice, “If your photos aren‘t good enough, you aren‘t close enough.” Hooking her right arm under the rope between the two hatches, holding her camera in both hands, she crept forward on her elbows and knees until she was five fee
t from the hatch. She had a clear field of vision between the first and second riggers and, using the telephoto lens, shot the last four exposures. Her camera was dangling around her neck and she used both her hands to move back along the rope to safety. She was less than two feet from the ladder‘s hatch when suddenly the rope started moving. Away from her! Too Fast! She screamed as the rope cut into her bare hands. Instinctively, she let go and she started to slide to the left, the silvery skin of the airship affording no purchase. She hooked her right elbow under the rapidly moving rope, the leather of her jacket protecting her arms, and tried to swing her right leg back up. The hatch was that close. If she could hook her boot inside the hatch, she might be able to save herself. But each time she swung her right leg, it slid smoothly and helplessly back over the slippery surface to its original position. Her right arm was tiring. She didn‘t know how long she could hang on, especially if that damn rope didn‘t stop moving soon.

  Mattie looked to her left. The fourth rigger was only five feet from the other three men. Mattie gave a start when she felt a big hand clasp hard, painfully hard, into her upper right thigh, while another hand grabbed her leather jacket just above her waist and strong arms began to pull her to safety. She turned to see the face of Kurt von Sturm, the wind blowing his hair straight back, his features hard and cold, with no flicker of emotion, a sharp contrast to the fear in the fourth rigger‘s eyes that she had captured with her camera as his comrades pulled him up.

  Back inside the hatch, the top half of Mattie‘s body was bent over the zeppelin‘s hull, her feet firmly planted on a ladder rung, Sturm‘s hand wedged all the way up between her thighs, holding tight in its original grip. “Step down slowly. One leg at a time until both of your feet are on the next rung. Repeat that until you have both hands on the top rung. Then tell me.”

  Mattie did so, one leg at a time, aware as she moved each leg of exactly where Sturm‘s hand was located. But the hand in her crotch never relaxed its grip as she continued to lower herself, step by step, rung by rung, until at last her hands rested firmly on the top rung.

  “I‘m there. Both hands on the top rung.”

  Instantly, Sturm‘s hand relaxed and he pulled it back from between her legs. “Don‘t move. I‘m coming up.”

  Mattie could feel Sturm move up behind her until his feet were on the same rung, and she felt his hips press firmly into her backside, his arms reaching around her to grasp the ladder‘s rails, as he put his face over her shoulder and up against hers. His skin felt surprisingly warm against the chill of hers. He spoke directly into her ear.

  “I‘m going to step down to the next rung where I will hold you by the waist, one leg at a time, each of us in unison, until we are at the bottom. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” She said with a tremor in her voice.

  “Excellent. On my command, right foot. Left foot. Good. Now repeat.”

  And so it went until they reached the bottom of the canvas encircled shaft and were standing on the comparative safety of the main catwalk. Later, Mattie was surprised not to receive a lecture from Sturm for her foolishness. Instead, he had merely told her that the interiors of zeppelins could be dangerous places for the inexperienced; that he had gone down to help a crew member free a jammed winch which kept the crew at the other hatchway from using their winch to help reel in the other rigger. No one was intended to hold on to the ropes along the ship‘s spine in the way she had. He shouldn‘t have left her alone and he was sorry for that. He said all this in a measured, rational voice in which Mattie detected no emotion. At the time, none of this registered. All she wanted to do was return to her cabin. She needed a drink. Maybe two. She had damn well been close enough and she hoped her photographs were good enough.

  MATTIE shimmied into the backless silver gown and then pulled each side of the gown‘s front up over her breasts, the exposure at each side revealing nearly as much as the low-cut front as she tied it around her neck. Not bad, McGary, she thought, to fit into a ten-year-old gown. She was still shaken from her brush with death but the scotch had dulled the worst of it. She was looking forward to dinner. She felt foolish for having taken such a risk today but, with adrenalin still present in her body, it almost felt like old times when the glow from finishing a dangerous assignment lingered with her back in civilization.

  Sturm was wearing black tie again and he rose as the steward escorted Mattie to their table. An image of Cockran, who also looked great in black tie, flashed through her mind.

  “Your dress and you are both as beautiful as I remembered,” he said.

  Mattie looked at him with a quizzical expression. “Remembered?”

  “I saw you once in that very gown, or one that was remarkably similar.”

  “I take this gown everywhere. I had it with me when we were in California, but it‘s only for evenings. I‘m quite certain I wasn‘t wearing it on the two occasions we were together.”

  “It wasn‘t in California,” Sturm said and looked away out the window at the ocean below before turning back. “It was at a private residence in Munich. The host was giving a recital. 1923. I remember the date because it was a few days before the National Socialists‘ putsch.”

  “Really? In whose home?”

  “Ernst Hanfstaengl.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” Mattie said. “Two nights before the putsch! Why were you there?”

  “I was invited by friends. They wanted me to meet Hitler, but he never came.”

  Mattie raised her eyebrow. “Yet you remember me after all these years?”

  Sturm ducked his head. “You were the only foreigner there. The only one with red hair. Combine that with the dress you were wearing,” he gestured with his eyes towards Mattie‘s décolletage. “Most men would remember you. I tried to find a way to be introduced, but our host, Herr Hanfstaengl, appeared to have you monopolized. And none of his friends would interrupt him. I thought of introducing myself, but my English then was very poor.” Sturm smiled at her. “I suppose you could say I was too unsure of myself.”

  “Sure you were,” Mattie said. “Just like Germans are known for their sense of humor.”

  Sturm smiled. “Well, I confess I did turn my attention elsewhere once I saw that an introduction to you was unattainable that evening.”

  “Well, I hope you enjoyed that evening nonetheless.”

  “Oh, I assure you, I had a very enjoyable evening. Our host‘s wife was a delightful and most talented woman and, with you to distract him, her husband never noticed our absence.”

  “Really? So that was you going up the stairs with Putzi‘s wife?”

  Sturm only smiled. “A gentleman never discusses a matter of the heart with others.”

  After Captain Pruss furnished a victorola and records, Mattie and Kurt started dancing right before their second bottle of champagne. She was happy that he hadn‘t held the incident on top of the zeppelin against her. Had it been Cockran, she never would have heard the end of it. Sturm was a graceful dancer, sure of himself and light on his feet. Mattie easily followed where he led. A subtle pressure here and a raised arm there left Mattie with the feeling that she possessed the same skill on the dance floor as he did, something she knew was not true.

  There were two other women on board, traveling with their husbands and, for a while, there were three couples dancing in the salon, the other passengers having retired to their cabins. Eventually the other two couples retired, and Mattie took a break, sipping champagne poured from the last of their second bottle and looking at the lights of passing freighters below while Sturm changed the record on the victorola. It was a slow song, popular in America the previous summer. Sturm came over and extended his hand to Mattie. “One last dance.”

  “Seeing as how there are no other partners available, how can I refuse?” Mattie rose and was struck again by the surreal quality of the evening, dancing in the clouds, three hundred feet above the Atlantic Ocean in the arms of a blond Norse god. Airship travel just might have a future after all
. She marveled at how Sturm could move so gracefully around the salon, never brushing the four columns approximately six feet apart and forming a square in the center of salon. Mattie followed Sturm‘s moves effortlessly as he spun her out and brought her back close, his hand warm against her bare lower back. While dancing, her body relaxed into his and she found sheer pleasure in the movement. She was at one with the movement and the moment.

  He brought her close and, instead of spinning her out and bringing her back, he bent his head down and placed his lips on hers and, to her surprise, she returned the kiss and molded her body to his while his hands roamed over her bare back. It seemed to Mattie at the time the most natural thing in the world. She didn‘t know how long the kiss lasted, but it was impossible not to feel Sturm‘s growing arousal. Time stood still and only the absence of music and the scratching of the needle on the record brought her back to a reality where her body was equally aroused.

  Mattie broke off the kiss, softly pushed him back, and his hands slid smoothly away from her. She could feel her face was flushed and the rest of her body as well. “We really should stop now before this goes further.” she said with a smile. “What will the servants say?”

  “I apologize,” Sturm said, stepping back. “I was carried away. The champagne, the music. Your extraordinary beauty….”

  Mattie smiled. “No apologies necessary. But I am in love with someone else and shipboard romances are never a good idea.”

  Safely back in her cabin, Mattie took a deep breath. She had been electrified by another man‘s kiss and that scared her about as much as dangling outside the zeppelin earlier in the day. She was in love with Bourke Cockran. What the hell had she been thinking? That was the problem. She hadn‘t been and her body had been primed to betray her.

  Maybe Bourke was right. The adrenalin had certainly worn off by now and she felt wretched about what she had done. That was the problem. She had acted first and thought later, the kiss no different than her impulsive move for a better angle to photograph the zeppelin rigger. She tried to pass the kiss off as gratitude for Kurt saving her life but she gave it up. No, face it, she told herself, she had been strongly attracted to that mysterious blond man and that kiss was proof. She hadn‘t felt that way so quickly about a man since, well, since she first met Cockran. Thank God, she thought, the voyage would soon be over and there would be no more nights dancing with Kurt von Sturm to tempt her.