“We have been in America for months!”
“That is exactly the point. They could not control what you said or who you spoke with. Know that they are watching. They are listening. They came here three times while you were gone, asking the same questions in different ways.” She shakes Gertrud’s shoulders. “You have no friends. Do you understand? None. You have me. And you have each other. That is all.”
“It is enough.” Leonhard lays his hand across the small of Gertrud’s back. He kisses her temple lightly. “Go to him, Liebchen.”
It has been months since she has walked through the rooms of this home, but her feet carry her around the corner, down the hall, and to the doorway of Egon’s room. She hears him before she sees him. Hears him laughing and chattering to himself.
Gertrud’s heart is loud and tight within her chest. She stops two feet from the door and listens. She drinks in that glorious sound. And then she steps forward.
The windows in Egon’s room stretch from floor to ceiling, and he stands before one, his back to her, watching a butterfly on the bush outside. He is mesmerized. Delighted. Her son wears only a cloth diaper. The light catches his hair. It is curlier than when they left. Longer. It is soft and molten, like caramel, and she longs to loop one of those lazy curls around her finger.
Leonhard rests his chin on her shoulder. They watch their son for a moment and then he whispers in her ear, “Go on. Don’t be afraid.”
“What if he has forgotten me?”
“You are a silly thing, Liebchen. No man could forget you.”
The tears come and she has to swallow them. She has to breathe. She has to compose herself. Gertrud drops to her knees in the doorway.
“Egon.”
The boy jumps, then turns around. For one second the blankness on his face confirms her fear. He is afraid. He will cry. But no, he is only startled. His small, pink lip trembles for a moment, and then his face is transformed into joy. Nothing but pure, breathtaking joy. He has four teeth now. His dimples are deeper, his eyes are bluer, and he can walk.
Egon Adelt grins with unabashed delight, raises his arms, and takes three triumphant steps toward his mother before dropping into a frantic crawl. He knows her. He comes to her. And she scoops him up, overcome. Gertrud inhales the clean smell of him. The powder and the sweetness of his skin. She laughs and she weeps as Leonhard folds his arms around them both.
They are home.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
They said it was an uneventful flight. This phrase is repeated countless times in the hundreds of pages of eyewitness testimony compiled by the Commerce Department Board of Inquiry. Leonhard Adelt, a German journalist, later wrote, “Our trip on the Hindenburg in May was the most uneventful journey I ever undertook in an airship.” In November 1937 the American heiress Margaret Mather wrote an article for Harper’s in which she described the trip with such banality that one has to wonder why the passengers didn’t sleep the entire time.
An uneventful flight.
But here’s the problem: I don’t believe them. Ninety-seven people traveled on a floating luxury hotel for three days over the Atlantic Ocean. The events that took place on board might not have been explosive—at least not until the end—but I doubt they were uneventful. I’ve taken enough transatlantic flights to know you can’t place that many people in such a small space for any length of time and not have tension brewing beneath the surface. But if you’re going to call bullshit on historical events, you’d best have a good theory to offer as an alternative. This novel is my attempt at a theory. It is the result of my short-term love affair with that spectacular moment in history. I hope that you will humor me. And I hope you enjoy the ride.
I’ve long been familiar with the iconic photos of the Hindenburg’s destruction and with Herb Morrison’s famous exclamation, “Oh, the humanity!” But until I began researching this book, I couldn’t tell you the name of a single person on board the airship. Thirty-six people lost their lives when the Hindenburg exploded over Lakehurst, New Jersey, and I wanted to know who they were.