When they’d gone, Denham was washing his face in the basin when Hannah appeared in the door.
‘This is the party cabin tonight,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
She glided in, wearing a brushed-cotton bathrobe with a frilly nightdress hanging underneath. It must have been in the case Ilse had brought for her. Her silky chestnut hair was down, coiling and slipping around her shoulders.
‘There’s been a mix-up over the cabins,’ she said.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Yours is next door. I’m to have this one.’
Amused, he went and knocked on Eleanor’s door.
‘Come in,’ she said in a low voice.
His fiancee lay on the bed and arched her back in a long feline stretch when she saw him.
‘This is the only way to travel.’ She sighed and switched off the reading lamp. He sat next to her on the bed, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the pale starlight reflected off the sea. She had on a silk camisole and stockings that were lacy at the top where they attached to the garter straps. Leaning down and kissing the smooth skin of her thigh, he undid one of them.
‘A generous friend of ours wants to send us on a honeymoon,’ he said. ‘Where would you like to go?’
‘Mm,’ she moaned as he kissed her again, ‘the South Pacific.’
‘A desert island?’ He undid the other strap and ran his hand up her thigh.
‘Yes. Where we can… Oh, come here.’
She pulled his head towards her and kissed him, and he lay down next to her on the narrow bed, holding tight the perfect curve of her spine.
They caressed and made love, kissing without stopping. Eventually, exhausted, they lay side by side with their feet towards the head of the bed so that they faced the window.
‘The stars seem so close I could almost reach up and swish them around,’ she said.
‘I love you,’ he said.
They were lulled to sleep by the hum of the propeller engines.
Chapter Fifty-six
The airship had entered a cold front over the mid-Atlantic, disappointing the passengers, who’d wanted to enjoy the view from the promenade windows. Outside was a world of white, an empty dimension with no sensation of forwards movement. The ship seemed frozen in time over an invisible ocean.
With nothing to see, most of the passengers returned to their cabins, and only the little party of stowaways was breakfasting in the dining room at nine o’clock. Refreshed and rested, Friedl and Hannah chattered eagerly of their coming life in America. Jakob was telling them how Pola Negri had once fainted in his arms in the elevator at the Park Avenue Hotel, when Ilse tugged his sleeve. Marching towards them among the dining room chairs was a man of about fifty wearing brass buttons and three sleeve stripes. The white peaked cap, hostile stare, and wide, grimly set mouth gave the impression of a police commissioner. He was followed by two junior officers.
‘Oh,’ Jakob said, dapping his mouth with a napkin. ‘This must be Captain Pruss.’
‘Well now.’ The man stopped at the table and leaned towards them, his hands on the back of a chair. Looking at each of them in turn he said, ‘Whoever you are, be in no doubt of the seriousness of the offence you have committed.’ Hannah blushed scarlet and kept her eyes on her plate. ‘Whoever aided you will be discovered and dealt with. The company’s rules on stowaways require that the quartermaster confines you in a restricted area until we land.’ Ilse glanced warily at Jakob. ‘However…’ Pruss straightened up and exhaled, his displeasure giving way to an odd expression, a type of pained graciousness. ‘The response I’ve received from Dr Eckener orders me to treat you as paying passengers until the matter can be fully investigated… your names will go on the passenger list…’
Having left them in no doubt of what he thought of the order, and after Jakob had assured him he would pay the fares in full, he withdrew.
‘Oh boy,’ Friedl said, starting to laugh. ‘He was not happy.’
‘By now Heydrich will know where we are…,’ Denham said thoughtfully, looking at the white sky.
‘Oh, so what.’ Eleanor poured herself more coffee. ‘It’s too late to turn around. We’ll be in New York this time tomorrow morning.’
I n the reading room after breakfast Eleanor befriended a lady who introduced herself as Miss Mather, an elegant New Yorker in her late fifties who’d booked the passage because she abhorred ocean liners and had no sea legs. She had a delicate, Old World manner.
‘I’m a dedicated fan of air travel,’ Miss Mather said. ‘But… I simply can’t explain it. I felt a reluctance to board the Hindenburg. It was really quite overwhelming…’
‘You’ll be fine when you find your air legs,’ Eleanor assured her, but she noticed how the woman kept crossing and uncrossing her thin ankles. She seemed even less at ease when Lehmann passed and told them that the ship was battling strong headwinds. They would be twelve hours late arriving in Lakehurst.
T owards late afternoon the fog and low clouds began to lift, and cresting grey waves could be seen below, marbling the surface of the ocean.
As they were changing for dinner in their cabins the sun finally broke through, and by the time the six of them climbed the stairs to A deck and entered the hundred-foot-long promenade in time to join the other passengers for cocktails, the setting sun shone horizontally through the windows, burnishing the lounge with a reddish golden light.
The single gown Eleanor had packed was of green satin organza with a low, square neckline, set off by her pearl necklace. Hannah had borrowed earrings from Ilse and wore her fine hair swirled and piled up. The men wore the dinner jackets Eckener had placed in their cabins.
Once they’d been served martinis they gathered along the window. The ocean had calmed, and its dark surface sparkled with gold. A cargo ship whose wake they’d followed for miles sounded its horn and its crew waved from the deck as the leviathan droned overhead.
Jakob was in good spirits. Probably never in his life had he been beholden to the mercies of strangers, Eleanor thought, as he raised his glass.
They raised theirs in return.
The old man was about to speak. But then his smile wavered and began to fade, first in his eyes, and then around his jowls and lips.
He was staring into the gathering of passengers.
‘What’s the matter Jaku, dear?’ said Ilse.
They turned to look at what Jakob was seeing. Several knots of people chatting with drinks. But among them were two men together, in black tie, glaring at them. One with a white moustache twisted into two pins, a pince- nez, and hair swept back like a professor’s; the other tall and potbellied, with fleshy lips and a mane of thick, grey hair. He wore a Party pin in his lapel. His eyes landed on Eleanor: they were the grey-beige colour of dishwater. And that’s when she recognised him.
‘Father,’ Hannah said, ‘aren’t those the men…’
‘Yes,’ said Jakob.
‘The men who were leaving the morning we visited your home…,’ said Eleanor. ‘The ones who took your art collection.’
The tall man turned away from them, a look of repugnance on his face, as though he’d dressed for a society wedding only to find that the street drinkers had been invited. He leaned down to whisper to his colleague. Then they both turned and walked quickly out of the promenade deck.
‘They’re probably going to complain to Pruss,’ said Jakob. ‘Ah well. I take comfort from knowing that I’ve spoilt their dinner as much as they’ve spoilt mine.’ He gave a mirthless smile. ‘If our collection turns up for sale in New York they know I can kick up a stink… which raises an intriguing possibility…’
Jakob met his wife’s eyes, and they seemed to be reading each other’s minds.
The hors d’oeuvre was an Indian swallow nest soup served with a superb Piesporter ’34. When the sun fell
