Chapter Fifty-seven
Passengers gathering for breakfast on the second day, some in their dressing gowns and pyjamas, were let down again by the weather. The ship had entered a bank of white fog off the Labrador Coast, and the view from the promenade windows was a swirling fug of cloud and vapour.
Denham had lain awake much of the night, thinking of Rex.
Why had he done it? Out of resentment? Maybe. It was the only explanation that made sense. Resentment towards an English establishment that had never much liked him or valued him, the bright, upstart grammar-school boy gnawed by a sense of his own inferiority.
He’d finally fallen asleep, telling himself he’d awake with a clear head and surer of everything, but the morning’s fog seemed an ill omen.
With America so close, Jakob, Ilse, and Hannah were in a buoyant mood at breakfast, though Denham took only coffee. The old man picked the shell off his hard-boiled egg with his fingertips, his movements neat and fastidious, humming to himself, as if his mind was settled and he was not going to let anything trouble him.
‘Here come Dr Frankenstein and Igor,’ said Eleanor, her mouth full of bread roll and jam. Haberstock and Koch were approaching, walking in single file among the tables.
Koch’s eyes were puffy with grey pouches, Denham noticed, and the fat lips were chapped.
‘Good morning,’ said Jakob.
Haberstock gave a small bow.
‘Could we talk somewhere?’ he asked.
‘We can talk here,’ said Jakob, without looking at them. Haberstock glanced uneasily at the eager audience around the table.
‘Berlin awaits your answer, Herr Liebermann. I trust you’ve considered the benefits of our offer.’ His tone was just a shade short of civil. ‘Do we have an agreement?’
Jakob did not invite the men to sit but buttered another piece of toast, taking his time as the art dealer stood waiting, and his colleague huffed, growing red in the face. Eventually Jakob said, ‘I fear my answer’s no, gentlemen. I hold the List Dossier legitimately, on trust for others, and I’ve no intention of disposing of it, whether by sale or exchange. The art collection, in any event, is not yours to bargain with.’
Haberstock’s lips quivered, as if he’d bitten on a piece of glass.
‘Kikes,’ muttered Koch in a thick voice. He’d clearly been drinking already.
‘Herr Liebermann, please be reasonable,’ said Haberstock. ‘That surely isn’t your last word on the matter?’
‘I’m afraid it is.’
‘In that case’-he cleared his throat-‘I am authorised by Berlin to offer you the sum of fifty thousand reichsmarks for the dossier.’
Friedl gave a low whistle.
‘Good day, gentlemen,’ said Jakob.
Throughout this exchange Jakob had not looked at the two men even once. Denham was struck by how neither he nor his wife and daughter even flinched at Koch’s abuse. It wasn’t that they were used to such a thing, he thought-who could be? — but that they were better people, and they knew it.
At around midday the city of Boston appeared through a gap in the fog. Not long after that the ghostly whiteness vanished altogether, and the Hindenburg glided down Long Island Sound in fine weather, with the passengers standing along the promenade windows, chatting loudly in English or German, pointing out people, landscape features, and buildings, and returning the universal waved greeting.
At 3:30 p.m. lower Manhattan came into sight, its towers glowing in a brief interval of afternoon sun. But beyond the tall buildings the clouds were black and anvil shaped; a thunderstorm was approaching the city from the southwest, and far up the Hudson River the horizon flashed with lightning. Denham slipped his arm around Eleanor, who had said little since they’d passed Newfoundland. She seemed preoccupied, unmoved by the skyscrapers, the welcoming flotillas, or the Statue of Liberty pointing up at them, as small as a jade figurine.
‘When I left New York I said I’d return in shame or glory,’ she said, looking straight ahead.
‘And which is it?’
She shrugged. ‘I left as a girl; I’ve returned as a woman.’
The ship slowed as it sailed over the shadowed chasms and high formations of Fifth Avenue, bristling with spires, gables, and masts. Over the Empire State Building they flew low enough to see the faces of the tourists taking photographs on the observation deck, of parents holding up small children.
An hour later, when they were over the flat scrub oaks and pinewoods of New Jersey, the passengers began returning to their cabins to pack. Denham stayed to watch the approach to landing and noticed the ragged, fast- moving clouds. He opened the window and put his head out. A fine drizzle brushed his face, and there was a sultry, electrical smell in the air.
‘Look,’ said Eleanor.
Haberstock was approaching Jakob, who listened to him with obvious impatience, then shook his head.
‘The man’s trying one more time,’ said Denham.
‘We need to get the dossier,’ said Eleanor.
‘We won’t be landing anytime soon.’
A red warning light was flashing on the hangar of the Naval Air Station, a huge building rising from the sandy soil of Lakehurst. Tiny figures of spectators and reporters held on to their hats, their coats whipped by the wind, but the field itself was deserted. The mooring mast on rails-like a miniature Eiffel Tower-was unmanned.
‘The ground crew isn’t there yet. It’s too dangerous to attempt a mooring in weather like this…’
‘What was that?’ Eleanor shouted. She turned to Denham. ‘Did you see that?’
What seemed like a dim blue flame had darted along the length of the promenade sill, flickering over the metal fittings of the windows before it vanished. There it was again, to shrieks of surprise from other passengers.
‘I saw it,’ said Denham. ‘It was like a will-o’-the-wisp.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, don’t be alarmed,’ said Lehmann calling from the stern end of the promenade. ‘That was a display of the gas known as St Elmo’s fire, caused by a buildup of static electricity during a storm. Quite harmless. There is, as you’ve seen, too much electricity in the air at the moment. Captain Pruss is going to turn the ship away and wait for the storm front to pass. I’m afraid this will result in a further delay…’
Slowly the hangar moved out of view below as the ship tilted and turned southeastwards and away from Lakehurst.
Jakob and Hannah came over to them. ‘Haberstock is now offering me a hundred thousand reichsmarks for the dossier,’ said Jakob. ‘I could acquire a Vermeer for that.’
Denham laughed. ‘If he goes any higher, I’ll say yes on your behalf…’
‘I am starting to feel sorry for him. He seemed distinctly nervous when I turned him down this time.’
The ship looped away from Lakehurst, over the Toms River and along the deserted yellow beaches of New Jersey, where seaside houses were still boarded up from winter, their pastel colours faded and peeled. From behind the clouds, sharp rays made fields of sunlight on the dark sea.
Half an hour passed as they watched the ocean; then the ship turned again and began to head back.
‘We’ve had the clearance,’ Lehmann announced. ‘The weather’s calmer. Herr Denham, would you like to view the landing from the bridge?’
E leanor followed Hannah along the keel corridor into the draughty hull of the ship, buzzing with engine noise, and when they reached the ladder at the foot of the air duct, they climbed, retracing their steps from the night before. This time, however, there were dozens of crew running between stern and prow as the ship prepared to land. One of them asked if they knew where they were going. Eleanor flashed him her best smile, explaining that they had the purser’s permission, and would only be five minutes. When they reached the metal chest at the intersection with the axial corridor they heard a series of deep blasts from a klaxon.
‘Must be the Air Station,’ said Hannah.
She opened the chest and with Eleanor’s help lifted the heavy rolls of silver canvas from inside. In the fifth fold Eleanor plucked out the package containing the List Dossier.
‘Got it,’ she said as Hannah dumped the canvas back inside. ‘Let’s go.’
