Vango (39 page)

Vango woke up at the first station. He had slept for only a few minutes. As he opened his eyes, the train was setting off again. Just then, he saw the men running onto the platform and climbing aboard.

“No.”

He got up. His pursuers’ car had been quicker than him.

The old lady was still there.

Vango opened the window and stuck his head outside. The snow was wet and almost warm. He reached out with his left hand to find a grip-hold on the roof. He heaved himself up with his only functioning arm.

The old lady watched him disappear, as if the great outdoors had swept him away, just as the men entered. She didn’t say a word. They were panting as they bent down to search under the benches.

One of them rushed over to the open window and looked outside.

“That window’s stuck, sir,” the old lady pointed out. “If you were able to close it, we’d all be much obliged.”

The man pushed it with one finger, and it closed perfectly.

“Thank you very much.”

The old lady nodded and closed her eyes for a moment.

“Why did you say that window was stuck?”

She opened her eyes again. The man was very close to her face now, and he looked menacing.

“Eh? I hope you don’t have anything to hide. . . .”

The other passengers were pretending to be asleep.

A minute later, as he lay on his front on the roof of the train heading for the bridge at Cannon Street station, Vango saw a man appear, buffeted about by the wind. He had climbed out the same window.

“Come here!”

“Who are you?”

“Come here, my boy. Now, I want you to make your way calmly toward me.”

The man was threatening him with a pistol.

Vango started to head over, as requested. The train was passing between two pylons.

The man followed his every movement. Vango was barely a meter away now. He was crawling slowly. The man would soon be able to reach out and touch him. As the train went under a footbridge, Vango stood up and suddenly jumped, catching hold of a metal arch. He vanished into the darkness.

A shot was fired into the air. This was the signal for some of the men to jump off the train.

Which was how Vango found himself running along a bridge above the Thames, on rail tracks leading to Cannon Street station. At first, his pursuers had gone under the arch, where they hadn’t spotted anything. But another train had tooted loudly on sighting the boy on the tracks. The men had retraced their steps and resumed their hunt.

Vango wanted to reach Cannon Street station itself, which would be full of commuters even at that time in the morning. He could melt into the crowd.

He was gaining ground. He might just escape them.

Snow had given way to rain again.

Vango came to an abrupt halt. He had just seen shadows moving in front of him. They were coming at him from both sides.

He recognized the Frenchmen and two other nasty pieces of work who must have got out at the next station.

Vango was caught in a vise.

The lamentations of the Scriptures rang out inside his head:

Thou renewest thy witnesses against me
,

and increase thine indignation upon me;

changes and war are against me.

The men were closing in on him. They were all around him.

The different factions were even talking to each other.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” the French were saying.

Trains were passing through, indifferent to the drama. Faces could be seen lit up in the windows.

My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook
,

and as the stream of brooks they pass away. . . .

Vango leaned against a parapet, allowing himself to be slowly trapped.

He removed his aching hand from his pocket and placed it gingerly in his other hand.

He was very focused.

“Don’t move,” the Frenchman kept repeating.

The enemy was only two paces away.

And then, with both hands gripped together, Vango raised them toward the sky, arched his back, and jumped. He flew over the parapet and dived into the river.

Friedrichshafen, Lake Constance, the same evening

Captain Lehmann entered the map room of the
Graf Zeppelin
. Eckener was working in there, peering through his pince-nez.

The airship was in its hangar.

“Your good friend Paolo Marini has just arrived.”

“Sorry?”

“Someone named Paolo Marini. He claims to be your best friend.”

Eckener folded up his pince-nez. He hesitated for a moment before exclaiming, “Paolo! That old Boy Scout! Tell him I’ll be with him in a jiffy!”

“He hasn’t got a ticket, Commander. He’s busy explaining himself to the SS officer.”

“What about me?” asked Eckener, losing his temper as he stood up behind the table. “Have I got a ticket? Paolo is no different from me, he’s my friend, my brother, Paolo Murini . . .”

“Marini. He said Marini.”

“Marini, yes, that’s what I said. My old friend from the Scouts. Is it snowing, Captain?”

“No. Not yet.”

Captain Lehmann headed off. He was getting used to all these friends the commander suddenly seemed to have, none of whom he ever disowned.

Eckener returned to his desk and cast his eye over the map.

He had no idea who this Paolo could be.

All he knew was that for some time, friends he had never met before had started coming to him from all sorts of countries. He was a refuge, a land of welcome for those the Nazis were hunting down. They were former soldiers, artists, and, increasingly these days, Jews. The laws against them were multiplying all the time. They were banned from practicing many professions. They couldn’t be lawyers or civil servants. And for two months now, marriage or any kind of relationship between Jews and non-Jews had been forbidden.

Eckener was trying to use his influence. He was doing all he could.

The bulky and untouchable figure of Hugo Eckener meant that in his shadow he could still provide shelter for many of those who needed it.

Eckener walked through the zeppelin.

Night had fallen. In two hours, they would take off.

This would perhaps be the
Graf
’s last moment of glory.

It was going to make a short voyage to New York before returning to spend the depths of winter on the shores of Lake Constance. The following spring, the world would only have eyes for the
Hindenburg
, the biggest zeppelin ever built. That monster was already champing at the bit in the hangar right next to them. Two hundred and fifty meters long, twenty-five cabins, fifty passengers. This was Hugo Eckener’s greatest victory.

But as he exited the
Graf
and turned back to glance at its elegant shape, the commander felt a twinge in his heart. He sighed.

A few flakes of snow had been forecast. He hoped the forecast would be right. One day, a long time ago, from one of these windows, just there, he had taught Vango how to watch the snow falling.

If Captain Lehmann had any doubts about the link between Hugo Eckener and Paolo Marini, these were immediately dispelled as he watched the two men being reunited.

Their exclamations and tears were genuine. They stayed there, hugging each other, for a long time.

Standing at the hangar door, Eckener had been thrilled to recognize his great friend.

“How are you doing, ah . . . Paolo? What have you been up to, old friend?”

“I’ve come to fly for a while in your arms, Commander, old pal!”

A little group had formed around them, including several soldiers, a few German travelers, and the SS officer in charge of checking the passengers.

“You’re insane. They’ll require umpteen authorizations,” Eckener whispered into his friend’s ear. “Go away, Zefiro.”

Zefiro — for it was indeed him — stepped away and made all those around him witnesses.

“Do you know what my friend Hugo Eckener has just said to me?”

Eckener froze.

“He told me I was insane! Do you hear? He says I won’t be allowed to embark.”

The officer in uniform smirked.

Zefiro put his hand on the commander’s shoulder in response to his look of alarm.

“I’m joking. . . . It’s my fault. I’m not good at keeping you up to date with my news, and I don’t suppose you read the newspapers.” He signaled to the officer. “Show him the letter.”

Eckener took the letter, which he proceeded to read.

It was written in German and Italian. It came from the president of the Council of Ministers of Rome. It entrusted Signor Paolo Marini, holder of the Fusillini Military Cross and Commander of the Minestrone, with a special mission in the name of the friendship between the Reich and the great power of fascist Italy, by way of a voyage on board the
Graf Zeppelin
, symbol of the power of national socialism. The letter also contained expressions such as “the glorious alliance of our two countries,” “hope never-ending,” and the “undying purity of our children,” which would have been laughable were it not for the fact that they were a faithful copy of the rhetoric of the day.

The letter had been signed in a convoluted ink scrawl, where “Bibi” was the only decipherable word. But the block capitals just above spelled out the name Benito Mussolini.

Eckener folded the letter.

He shook Zefiro’s hand.

“In that case you are most welcome, Paolo Marini. And as it so happens, we’ve got a free cabin for you. We’re leaving in an hour.”

They headed off together toward the commander’s study. Marini could be heard marveling at how handsome the balloon was.

When Eckener closed the door behind them and they were alone at last, Zefiro asked the commander to forgive him. He put down his small suitcase and punched him in the face.

Eckener reeled slightly before punching the monk in the stomach. Zefiro bent over but soon retaliated. They started fighting like kids on a playground.

Eckener was the first down on the floor, spluttering and writhing. Zefiro watched him, foaming at the mouth and out of breath.

“What have I done to you?” gasped Eckener.

“You know full well.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You revealed the location of the monastery to the police.”

“I revealed it to Esquirol and Joseph so that you’d be able to identify Viktor.”

“Viktor escaped last night.”

Eckener was shell-shocked.

“I have to leave Europe,” said Zefiro. “That monastery is my whole life. I can’t put it in danger.”

“I don’t feel at home anywhere either, Padre. I no longer recognize my own country.”

Zefiro crouched down to help his friend up again.

“I’m doing what I can,” Eckener went on. “If you ask me, Germany is already at war with herself. Yesterday morning, the police went to strike out the name of our friend Werner Mann from the war memorial in his village, near Munich. The name of Mann, do you understand? Hitler gave the order three days ago. No Jewish names on the war memorials of 1918.”

Werner Mann, the hero who had died in battle, and who had signed the pact for Project Violette with Zefiro and his friends, had just been erased from history.

The two friends helped each other dust off their clothes.

Zefiro wiped a bit of blood from Eckener’s lip with his handkerchief.

“I won’t be a burden to you for long, Hugo. I’ll spend the winter in New York. It’s impossible to return to the monastery for the time being. But I’ve got a few projects to be getting on with.”

“We need to leave as quickly as possible,” Eckener remarked. “Your fake letter is pretty farcical. I don’t know how the SS were taken in by it. It probably won’t last.”

Zefiro finally cracked a smile.

“But I put a lot of effort into it. As you saw in line seven, I had myself decorated with the medal of my favorite ham!”

They burst out laughing and held on to each other’s hands again.

“What about Vango?” inquired Eckener after a pause.

Zefiro remained silent.

“Has something happened to him?” Eckener insisted.

“I’m worried I’ve got him tangled up in a nasty business,” admitted Zefiro, trying to restore his hat to its original shape as he explained to Eckener what had happened. “At precisely the moment when I was supposed to meet Vango, I discovered that I was being followed. It was in a train station in Paris. I spotted the photographer in the crowd, one of Viktor’s men. He was hiding a gun behind the curtain of his camera.”

“You left?”

“Too late. I saw Vango coming toward me. I had to act as if I didn’t recognize him.”

“Nobody could have known he was with you.”

“Yes, they could. Vango wanted to talk to me. He came right up to me. He was happy to see me.”

“They won’t find him,” declared Eckener.

“I saw the flash from the camera. They’ve got a photograph.”

Half an hour later, the zeppelin had taken off. The SS officer called the Italian embassy to inform them that the famous Paolo Marini had left his overcoat behind in the air terminal at Friedrichshafen.

As far as the embassy was concerned, that particular name didn’t appear to be famous at all. Nobody recognized it. But when the officer read out the list of Marini’s decorations, he could hear people roaring with laughter on the other end of the line. Among those medals were all the necessary ingredients for a substantial Italian dinner, from the salami appetizers to the panna cotta for dessert.