Chasing the Wind

by C. C. Humphreys

  His piggy eyes narrowed in anger. His voice, though, was calm when he replied. “You would be right. If that was what ‘all this’ was for. But it is not. It is more of what my friend here just called it. Business.” Munroe picked up his cocktail, sipped, then continued. “You are forgetting something, Roxy. Or rather, somewhere.” He paused, then added, “Tahawus.”

  “Where?” Though it rang a bell, she couldn’t place it.

  “In the Adirondack Mountains. Up near Newcomb, New York. You own land there.”

  “I…do.” The words were going to come out as a question. But then she remembered the place. Only just. “Blood Hill,” she said.

  “Correct.”

  Munroe was looking smugger than a toad. “For crissake, man, spill it before you explode.”

  “It’s quite simple. I am still your father’s principal debtee. His estate must pay off his debts before it dispenses any inheritance. Tahawus is its only asset.” He sighed. “I couldn’t come after you when you were outside America. Tiresomely, the law demands that such papers are served only on US soil. They will be when we arrive in New Jersey.” He smiled. “The courts will rule in my favour, and I will get your land.”

  “What—a thousand acres of forest? In a depression? What’s that going to net you? Two hundred bucks?”

  The smug smile spread. “Ah, but you are wrong. You see, Tahawus was once a mining community. Iron. It was abandoned mid last century, because there was an impurity in the ore that made it hard to process. No one knew what it was, but the profit wasn’t there because of it.” He beamed. “The impurity was titanium dioxide. And it’s now worth a goddamn fortune.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum.” He nodded. “It will particularly appeal to you, Roxy, knowing that so much will come from your former land. Because from now on it will be one of the major components in airplanes. To make them lighter, faster. And there will be many more airplanes needed soon, in the war that is coming.”

  There were so many questions to ask. One struck her—prompted by what she remembered from the newspaper article on Munroe that had accompanied the air ticket. “And would most of this titanium be going to Germany?”

  “Well—” Munroe shrugged “—since my friend Reichsmarschall Göring is currently offering the best price…”

  She remembered it now, Blood Hill. Her dad had taken her up to see it when she was about nine. There was an old miner’s cabin they’d made habitable enough for a short summer stay. Loons had cried at night; bears had grunted nearby. A pine marten had snatched bread from her hand. And now Munroe was going to cut down all the trees and open a mine for a metal to be used in building German planes. Maybe like the ones that had bombed that town in northern Spain the week before. Guernica.

  Watch out, she warned herself, you’re beginning to think like Jocco. And thinking of him, she thought of all the other things that were missing from Munroe’s tale, and why she was there.

  She sucked in another lungful, then carefully stubbed the cigarette out. There was half still to smoke and habits died hard. Slipping the butt into her packet, she drained her cocktail and stood.

  Munroe frowned. “Leaving us, Roxy? Can’t I buy you another drink?”

  She was sure there was a comeback she could find if she tried. But she knew that the less effort she spent on him, the better she’d feel. So she turned and walked out the airlock door, and closed it behind her on her nemesis’s mocking laugh. Caught between rooms, she leaned her head against the exit door and shut her eyes—just too late to trap the tear that fell.

  “Oh, baby,” she said. “Jocco.”

  The door opened. The bartender, tray in hand, let out a curse. Keeping her head low, she pushed past him and entered the corridor. Her cabin was just ahead. She could go there and have the good weep she wanted. But she felt a pang of hunger. When had she last eaten? Ten hours ago at lunch. She’d slept through her first dinner aboard. But in the pamphlet she’d been given when she’d collected her ticket, she was sure she’d read something about sandwiches. Maybe they’d be available in the lounges above that she hadn’t yet explored.

  She went up the stairs. On the landing, there were entrances on either side. After tossing a mental coin, she went right—starboard, she corrected herself—and entered a lounge. It was about thirty-five feet long, about half that wide. On the far side was a promenade, with windows through which she could see the night sky. Several people, singles and in pairs, were there admiring the view. Others were occupying tables, playing chess or cards. To her left, the wall was filled with a mural. It was a map of the world, and showed voyages ancient and new. She saw the names Magellan, Cook, Columbus; designations LZ 126 and LZ 127—other airships, with their routes across the Atlantic.

  A young woman in the white uniform of a stewardess approached her. “Good evening, Fräulein,” she said, her accent light. “May I bring you anything?”

  “Is it true you can get a sandwich this late?”

  “It is true. Cheese, ham—”

  “Both, please. With mustard. And maybe a, uh, a beer?”

  She nodded. “Will you take it here?”

  “Is there anywhere less crowded?”

  The stewardess gestured to the room’s end. “If you go on the promenade, up there you will find the writing room. There are magazines, books—”

  “Thanks. I’ll take it there.”

  The stewardess departed and Roxy crossed the promenade, glancing out into the dark, before walking the few paces on. The wall divided the two rooms; a railing continued to the next entrance, a gap a few paces along. She reached that before she noticed the hunched figure. She paused, and sighed inwardly. Only one person was in there, scribbling away so feverishly that he didn’t notice her. Willie. Her admirer. She was about to back out, when he looked up and hastily threw an arm over what he was writing. “Madeleine!” he exclaimed.

  She stepped in. “State secrets?” she inquired.

  He laughed. “Poetry. I have a fiancée, in Washington. She likes stuff like that.” He ran his hand through his thick hair. “But I am a terrible poet! No one else must ever see.”

  “It’s the thought that counts.”

  “Perhaps.” He ripped the page off the pad, folded the paper over, pocketed it. He gestured to a chair opposite him. “Will you join me?”

  When she’d seen him, she’d thought of getting the sandwich to go. The last thing she felt like, after the recent shocks, was fending off advances. But the fiancée changed things a little. And all she’d have for company in her cabin were her thoughts, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone with them just yet.

  She sat in the brown upholstered chair. The writing room was small, cozy. On its pale-yellow walls were little paintings, scenes from the world. In one, a Chinese farmer followed a woman toward a temple. In another, in America, tribesmen stood before a teepee, contemplating a sleigh pulled by a reindeer.

  He pointed at it. “I went to my psychiatrist and said, ‘Doctor, sometimes I think I’m a wigwam and sometimes I think I’m a teepee.’ Know what he said?”

  She looked at him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard a gag. “What?”

  “He replied, ‘You’re two tents.’ Get it? Get it?”

  She groaned, then laughed, a little harder than the joke deserved. When had she last really laughed? With Jocco, she supposed, and stopped laughing.

  Her expression must have changed. “You okay?” Willie’s pleasant, open face had narrowed in concern.

  “Fine,” she replied. Just then the stewardess appeared with a tray. She set it down. On it was a beautiful plate, gold rimmed around a blue band. At the top, an airship floated in a blue globe, the words “Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei” circling it. Positioned beneath was a ham-and-cheese sandwich on rye. Beside it, a flute of pilsner, bubbles rising into foam. She lifted the folded linen napkin and laid it on her lap. “Dankeschön,” she said to the stewardess, who
answered, “Bitte sehr.”

  As she turned to go, Willie pointed at the beer and said, “I’ll take one of those, please, uh, bitte sehr?” He looked at Roxy. “Is that right?”

  “Just bitte when you’re asking for something. Bitte sehr is ‘You’re welcome.’ ” The stewardess nodded, left, and Roxy continued, “What, you’re half German and you don’t speak any?”

  “Nope. None.” He shook his head. “My parents left Germany in 1900. All they wanted was to be American, and that’s all they wanted for their kids too. No German, not even to each other.”

  The sandwich was good, but she found her thoughts had taken away her appetite. After three bites she put the sandwich down and sipped her beer. “So, your poem? You going to recite it when you land?”

  “No, I’ve got to spend a week in New York on business before I get home to DC. So I’m going to mail it. Right from here.”

  “What? How?”

  “Didn’t you know? They have a post office on board. You can send mail, stamped from the Hindenburg. They parachuted a bag down over Cologne, didn’t you see?”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “And you could send a telegram immediately.”

  Roxy arched an eyebrow. “Really? Quite the ship, ain’t she?”

  “She sure is.”

  She munched her sandwich again, only half listening while Willie prattled on about the airship and its wonders. Because as soon as he’d said “telegram,” an idea had come. The faintest hope of a way out of this mess. Well, the first part of it, anyway: being served papers at Lakehurst Airfield. Because an airfield meant planes, and planes meant flyers—and some of those flyers would be women.

  Amelia would be in California, getting ready for her big flight. But Louise Thaden? Pancho Barnes? Any member of the Ninety-Nines? Couldn’t one of them fly in to fly a friend in need out?

  Roxy took a last bite of sandwich, then drained off half her beer. “Gotta go,” she said, standing.

  Willie did too. “For a smoke? I saw your cigarettes in Frankfurt. I don’t smoke, but I could keep you company.”

  “No, I’m hitting the hay. See you at breakfast.”

  He’d looked disappointed but perked up at that. “Sure. I’ll save a seat.” He stood too. “I think I’m going to see if I can send my fiancée a telegram.” The stewardess appeared with his sandwich. “I’ll take that to go,” he said.

  They left together but quickly parted ways. Halfway to her cabin, she realized she’d forgotten her purse in the writing room. She went back. No one was in the room now. But her plate with her half-eaten sandwich was still there. As was the writing pad Willie had been using. Sweet, she thought, poetry for his girl. When had anyone ever written her poetry? Never was the answer. Though there was a certain poetry in the way Jocco rolled cigarettes. And in the way he kissed her.

  She sighed deeply and looked down. Willie pressed hard when he wrote; some words were etched on what was now the top sheet. She bent, suddenly craving a touch of love, even someone else’s. She sought an endearment.

  And found an umlaut.

  She couldn’t make out the word. But she’d been drawn to umlauts ever since she’d focused on that one on the eye chart in Göring’s cellar, just before she put the scalpel to the doctor’s throat. So from her purse, she now drew her cigarette case, took out the half-smoked butt, rubbed its ashy end across the page. A word appeared.

  Rüstungen.

  She understood what it meant. It had been stamped on half the boxes she’d flown in Abyssinia. Armaments. Guns, essentially. But she struggled to understand the word’s use in a love poem—and from a guy who claimed he didn’t speak any German and so wouldn’t know an umlaut from two piss holes in the snow.

  She was going to have to watch the jolly Mr. Willie.

  She replaced the cigarette, and thought of their last conversation. There was a brochure on the side table, and in the back of it was a small plan of the ship. The post office and radio room were forward, and on B deck. She was pretty sure she wasn’t meant to wander down there alone.

  Hell with that, she thought. Jersey was three days away and the girls would need some warning if they were going to get her out of this bind.

  She left, descended the stairs then walked along the corridor, past the entrance to the bar and smoking room. Opposite it, the clang of pans and plates could be heard, a burst of raucous laughter. Had to be the kitchen. Beyond that, a door half ajar gave her a glimpse of a room with banquettes and chairs. Men—officers, by their stripes—were sitting around, reading, talking. No one noticed her slip by.

  Through a little cubicle of an office was a door. Voices came from behind her, down the corridor. She pulled the door open fast, stepped through and closed it behind her. Turning back, she inhaled sharply, and blinked.

  She was staring into immensity—a universe of semi-darkness, punctured occasionally by bright lamps like stars. These threw light on a vast web of cables and wires stretching all around the cavernous space. It was almost completely silent. If she listened hard, she could catch the faintest hum of engines. She didn’t feel like she was in the sky at all. Up there she was used to roar, wind, storm, a place where you had to shout to be heard. Here it was like a submarine. Or a cathedral. She felt that if she even whispered, it might be a form of sacrilege it was so vast, empty, almost holy.

  Except it wasn’t entirely empty. Farther along the gangway that stretched ahead of her she could see other enclosed, lit spaces like the one she’d just left. Her map had told her that beyond the water, gas tanks and storage areas to either side were crew sleeping quarters and then both the post office and the radio room. Her destination was maybe two hundred feet away.

  She was about halfway there, when she heard the door open behind her. She stopped, anticipating the hail from an irate crew member. But none came. Instead she heard the door close again, then soft footsteps on the rubber-floored gangway. She turned to see Áttila Ferency walking toward her.

  TWENTY

  THE HUN

  THOUGH SHE HAD NO DESIRE TO SPEND TIME ALONE WITH the creep, he had been the last person to see Jocco. There might be something else she could learn. So she waited.

  The forger stopped a few feet away. “I saw you come here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I wanted to be alone with you.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I can help you.”

  “Oh yeah?” She raised one eyebrow. “You tried to kill me.”

  “I did not. I told you that was a mistake. Bad timing.”

  “Bad for me.”

  “I am sorry you were hurt, Roxy.” He took a step nearer. “Hurting you is the last thing I wish to do.” He smiled. “In fact, I want the opposite.”

  She stared at him for a long moment before speaking. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “No.” He took another step. “You are a strong woman, Roxy. Clever also. We would make a good team.”

  “Really? And what game would we be playing?”

  “One we both understand.” He stepped even closer. “I am excited about going to your country. It is the land of opportunities, yes? And I learned, from our time together in that cellar when I paint, that you do know something about art, and art dealing in America.”

  “Something, sure. So?”

  “So. I paint, you deal.” He nodded. “You are—what do they call it—the front? Your father collected, bought and sold, no? You will already have the credibility that, perhaps, a newcomer would not.”

  “It’s, uh, an interesting idea. A gal could always use an income. But you may have forgotten—Munroe has plans for me that may make me kinda notorious.”

  “He does. But Herr Munroe is not as clever as he thinks. And he does not appreciate art, like you and me. He is only truly interested in the price.” He nodded again. “So I help you, yes? When we land in America.”

  “How exactly?”

  He shrugged. “He will be busy. He has something else to think a
bout when we land.”

  “You mean Icarus? The painting is on board?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then how about we smuggle both me and him off this bird?”

  “It’s possible. Anything is possible. If we are a team.”

  She took her lower lip between her teeth, studied him a moment. “Okay then. We’re a team. Why not?”

  She held out her hand. He covered it in both of his. “But how can I be sure, Roxy? How can I trust you? Only one way.” He closed the last inches of gap, till his face was a hand’s span away. She could smell his breath, spearmint on gin, and his floral aftershave. His voice dropped lower. “It was torture in that small hotel. The walls so thin. Hearing you and that…that Communist together. He was a brute. But you, ah.” He sighed, squeezing her hand. “You were raised to be with gentlemen. Especially a gentleman who appreciates what a woman like you needs.”

  The stench of him. Those lidded eyes full of lies. He’d tried to kill her, whatever he claimed. She’d seen the expression of joy he’d painted on the face of Icarus’s father. He’d hoped she’d see that as she crashed in flames. For one moment, she considered still stringing him along, in case she could use him on arrival. Just for a moment, though—that one before she took back her hand and slapped him.

  He staggered, shock and fury warring. Then he hissed, “You stinking little bitch!” and came for her.

  He snaked one long arm around and pulled her to him hard. She’d thought he was a tall reed, frail. But he was stronger than he looked and she was weaker than she’d been. She tried to swing her knee between his legs, but he pushed her back against the guardrail; and raised a hand to cover her mouth, palm concave so she couldn’t bite. He pressed his body hard against her. She tried to slip free. But she could barely breathe; her head throbbed. She was still not fully recovered, and though she tried to reach, grasp, twist flesh, she couldn’t free her hands. She thought she was about to faint. And she had a pretty good idea what Ferency would try if she did.

  A door opened somewhere. Someone yelled and immediately Ferency stepped away, as a pounding came along the gangway that made it shake.