The Woman Who Rode the Wind

  The match flared out, and Guillaume’s lamp gave barely enough light to see by. Instinctively he reached for the gun in his coat pocket.

  “Welcome to our little kingdom,” said Maximilian. He chose two skulls from a nearby pile and juggled them as he spoke.

  “Why did you want to meet here,” Guillaume demanded. “It is cold and damp...”

  “And it reminds you of death, doesn’t it,” Maximilian finished. “Well, I like these catacombs. At night I sometimes walk down here. It is safer for a German among the dead than up there among the living. Your problem is that you don’t trust me.”

  “I trust you.”

  Maximilian eyed Guillaume’s hand clutched around the pistol in his coat pocket. “And that’s why you keep that gun pointed at me? You have never trusted me, have you? Yet trust is everything. Without it, we would be no better than wild beasts.”

  Guillaume took the pistol out of his pocket—it was no secret anyway—but kept it pointed at the ground, waiting to hear what Maximilian would say.

  “But should I still trust you?” the German asked. “You betrayed your superior officer and your friend!” Then Maximilian’s tone softened. “Yet I do. And I am here to tell you that you will be traveling to Berlin, where you will meet the Kaiser himself.”

  “No joke?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking? Standing here among these skulls like Hamlet himself, do you think I’m joking? Trust someone for a change!”

  Guillaume snorted. “You almost sound like Chevrier.”

  Maximilian laughed. It sounded hollow inside the limestone caves.

  “You know, Guillaume, we did him a favor, you and I. In life he was an arrogant son of a bitch. But in death he is a national hero. Your people have immortalized him as if he were Christ himself.” He threw one of the skulls across the room, where it shattered against the wall.

  Guillaume winced. “I think he knew that he was going to die.”

  “Why do you say that?” Maximilian looked surprised.

  “Because, just before he went up, he said he needed to ‘Have a little courage.’”

  Maximilian shrugged. “So...”

  “Those are the last words they say to a man who is about to be guillotined! I tell you, he knew!”

  Maximilian put his hand on LeRond’s shoulder. Guillaume flinched.

  “You still don’t trust me, do you?” Maximilian asked. “Well, let me try to convince you. If I had wanted to betray you, I could have. ‘Jealous subordinate plants bomb,’ the headlines would have read, and a swift execution would have followed. Don’t you think Pouchet would love to find a scapegoat like you?”

  Guillaume said nothing. He brushed off the cobwebs that clung to his shirt.

  “Or I could have had a few of my men meet you down here and you would have joined your ancestors. Plenty of bodies in these caverns—one more would never be noticed.”

  Maximilian gripped him by the arms. “Guillaume, Guillaume, Germany wants you. Wants your skills, your knowledge. We need to create new and better flying machines. You are the man who can do that. You and no one else. So take your hand off the gun.”

  Maximilian took the gun out of Guillaume’s hand and threw it into the pile of bones. All right, I will trust you, Guillaume thought. But I still have my knife.

  They walked past the little well that went down so deep.

  “Take a look down there, Guillaume,” said Maximilian. “That pool flows forever. All water is linked— thousands of feet underground. Did you ever look at a map and try to decide where one ocean ends and another begins?”

  Maximilian’s eyes grew misty for a second. “Someday humanity will be like that. There will be only one nation. You and I may not live to see it, but our children will. Come on, I will show you something.”

  Guillaume hesitated. It was dark in that direction. Maximilian laughed. “All right, I will walk in front.”

  They went single file down the narrow passageway. For a moment Guillaume lost sight of Maximilian. He panicked. Was Maximilian behind him? Then he heard the German’s voice above him say: “Up here.”

  Guillaume climbed a high set of circular stairs, staying far enough behind so that Maximilian couldn’t push him. When he reached the top, Guillaume was puffing.

  “Do you see what I mean?” said Maximilian with a smile. “It’s like exploring the woods at night in the dark. Now watch this.” He pushed open a door. Suddenly they were in a brightly-lit subway station. “See, it’s the Necro.”

  In the lighted tunnel, Maximilian looked more human, and acted like it. He studied Guillaume’s anxious face.

  “You were worried about being questioned, weren’t you?” he asked. “Well, you’re safe now. Take the Necro to the Gare du Nord and look for a train with only one car, just outside the station. Knock twice on the door. You’ll be the only passenger.”

  In the distance they could hear the rumble of the Necro coming into the station. Maximilian stood with his back to the track, only a few inches away and, for just a second, Guillaume was tempted to push him over the edge just to see the shock on his arrogant face when he fell under the wheels of the train.

  Then Maximilian surprised him. He held out his hand in a gesture of friendship. “And now,” said Maximilian, “I wish you a good trip. I will see you in Germany.”

  Guillaume took his hand and shook it. Maximilian mumbled something. Guillaume leaned closer. “What did you say?” he asked.

  “I said ‘Have a little courage!’”

  Still holding his hand, Maximilian yanked Guillaume forward and then twisted and let go. Trying to catch himself, Guillaume fell flailing off the platform and landed on his hands and knees on the metal tracks. He looked up just in time to see the panicked face of the motorman...and the front of the train rushing at him, its brakes shrieking.

  Maximilian watched for a moment after the blood-spattered train came to a stop. Guillaume’s body was still moving, but he knew they were death spasms. No one could survive wounds like that.

  A cluster of the curious had gathered on both sides of the tracks, gawking at the corpse. Maximilian joined them for a moment, seeking safety in numbers. No one would remember him. Then he eased away. As he walked up the steps to the street he thought, the Necro has claimed its first victim.

  He went upstairs and headed toward the Seine. He still had more work to do tonight.

  Chapter Twenty Five: A Visitor to the Bethanie—Early Morning, July 17

  The short, wiry man walked up to the gangplank.

  “‘Allo,” he called out. “‘Allo the boat.”

  Mary Ann was the only one awake. She had been up most of the night, wondering if she should have persuaded Henri Meurthe to let them fly. What if the pilot didn’t show up today? Why hadn’t she just taken his money and gone back to America?

  “‘Allo,” he called again. “Is this decrepit tub the Bethanie?”

  “Yes,” she answered, “and who are you?”

  “Jack Reece. At your lovely service.”

  Her first reaction was relief. Then came anger.

  “You’re days late. In fact, you’re weeks late.”

  “I was kept occupied,” he said with a snicker. “Christ, is this it?”

  “Yes,” she replied, looking at the aeroplane as it rocked gently on the deck. “And it will fly.”

  But Reece wasn’t looking at the aeroplane. He was eyeing her. She felt uneasy.

  “Mr. Bishop!” she called. “Harding! He’s here.”

  “Not so fast,” he said, coming closer. “Not so fast. I’d like to talk to you first.”

  Mary Ann watched him suspiciously. He was a shade over five and a half feet, with pinched nose, pointed chin and a balding scalp that flaked dandruff. He was pigeon-chested, but had muscles like bridge cable, and he made swift little movements with his head, like a snake about to strike.

  “I’m a Cockney, no ‘arm in that, is there” he said. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Some snooty people look d
own on Cockneys, but I always say you got to be what you are, no changin’ it.

  “I was a bicycle racer once, and when me legs gave out I was a jockey. That’s why they call me ‘Ride-Anything Reece.’ And then I became the human cannonball. I’d play a trick on the rubes. I’d go up underneath a balloon nestled in a long piece o’ pipe that looked like a cannon. Then I’d touch off a charge at the top, so people would think I’d been shot out. Then while they was watchin’ all that smoke and noise, I’d slide out the bottom and go down in me chute. Pretty smart, eh?”

  Why is he telling me all this? thought Mary Ann.

  Reece moved in even closer, almost touching her. “I’m a trained athlete. You know, some athletes say sex makes your legs weak. Why, they even ice themselves down the night before a race to avoid a nocturnal emission. But me, I think sex is good for you anytime at all, Missy. Don’t you agree?”

  “Reece!” she heard Bishop call from below. “Come here. Now!”

  He winked at her and went downstairs.

  She heard the three of them talking in the cabin, first softly, then louder. There was a dispute over money, with Bishop telling Reece that he’d be paid when he flew, and Reece demanding it now, before he risked his life on that “fool contraption.”

  “I could take it out in trade,” she heard him say. “That warm bit upstairs might persuade me to stay.”

  It took Mary Ann a moment to realize that she was the “warm bit.”

  “She’s not for sale.” That was Harding’s voice.

  And then Bishop: “Wait a second. Why don’t we let her decide? She wants to go back to America, doesn’t she? Tell her that the only way she’ll ever see it again is if we win the million francs.”

  There were more words between Harding and Bishop. She heard Reece say something like ‘ore.” Then a bottle smashed, and there was a crash and a thump as something heavy hit the floor. The last of the captain’s furniture, she thought.

  She heard someone running up the steps, and suddenly Reece came crashing out holding his left eye. He saw her with his good eye, recoiled and took off down the gangplank. Then he stopped and turned around.

  “You’re barmy, the ‘ole bleedin’ lot of you!” he screamed. “Bloody lunatics! You’ve got about as much chance of flyin’ your bloody tub of a boat as you do that machine.”

  He might have gone on, but he saw Harding come out of the pilothouse and took off, still holding his eye. There was a long gash on Harding’s cheek that was oozing blood.

  “I’m leaving,” he said quietly.

  “What about Bishop?”

  “I decked him. He was trying to hold my arms while that little snake cut me with a bottle.”

  “What are you going to do?” She realized, suddenly, that he was carrying his carpetbag, the same one that she had seen the first day on the hill at Jericho.

  “Well, I’m not going to collect my pay. Who knows? Maybe I’ll join the Wandering People again. Roam Europe with a guitar on my back. Wanta’ come?”

  It was more than an invitation. He expected her to say yes.

  “No,” she said.

  He looked at her closely. “You know what you’re saying? You’re going to stay on the Bounty with Captain Bligh? I won’t be here to protect you from people like Reece anymore.”

  “I’m staying,” she said. “My life is wrapped up in this. It was my father’s dream and Alain’s dream. They didn’t find their place in the sky, but they knew that they belonged there, knew it in spite of all the people that told them they couldn’t. I’m going to find that place.”

  Harding shook his head as if she were a child who had just said something stupid. “Mary Ann, you’re tied to two dead men and they’re like anchors. They’re going to drag you and Bishop and this boat and that stupid machine so far down that you’ll never ever come up again.” He hoisted his worn carpetbag and trudged down the gangplank.

  She might have said more. She might have told him that she had been waiting all her life, through all those lonely days and nights on the mountaintop, for this hour to come, and she wasn’t going to let it pass her by. But she could see that he wasn’t listening. He was trudging away, that stupid carpetbag on his back so threadbare that she could see a shirt peeking out. So she just stared at him as he left.

  And in the distance, the Eiffel Tower stared back down at her, cold and hard and higher than she had ever imagined. And now she knew who would have to fly—if anyone could.

  Chapter Twenty Six: Funeral at Notre-Dame—Morning, July 17

  The day began with the hazy light that comes just before it rains, when the sun is barely able to shine through thickening clouds and all the color seems to emerge from the earth itself. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Everyone’s eyes were on the slate-colored sky. Would it stop the funeral march?

  The companies lined up: brightly-colored Zouaves with red breeches and shakos, stocky soldiers from the Vendee, four military bands. Then cavalry sabers flashed. Hussars and lancers trotted up and took their positions, scarlet saddle blankets embroidered with gold. They were followed by the cuirassiers, the heavy cavalry, in metal breastplates, knee-high leather boots and silver helmets. The black-crepe carriages of government officials and nobility formed behind. Meurthe was not among them.

  The coffin slid down from the catafalque onto the waiting gun carriage. It looked like a dark gondola. Twelve black plumed horses stood waiting. A single soldier, picked especially for the honor, held a purple cushion. He would march with Alain’s Legion of Honor medal all the way to Notre-Dame, where the funeral would be held.

  The parade began down the Champs-Elysées. Every beat of the drum sounded like a heartbeat. Troops representing all parts of France’s empire were there, from huge dark Senegalese to small yellow Annamites. The boulevard was awash with turbans, plumes, kepis, pith helmets and rows and rows of lances.

  The gardens of the Bagatelle had been stripped to provide flowers for the parade; asters of all colors, Jacob’s trumpets, roses were scattered in the street. The statues were covered with black bunting, but the children waved red banners—oriflammes—as the soldiers marched by.

  Every lamppost had a boy on it. People were hanging from the peaks of iron gates. Poor farmers, their pockets bulging with radishes for their midday meal, had come to town just to see the coffin passed by.

  At Place de la Concorde a little girl was caught out in front of the marching band.

  “Halt! Knees up!” the leader shouted. The band marched in place, with the drum keeping time, while someone in the front row of spectators grabbed her. Then she was passed hand over hand above the crowd to her mother.

  Maximilian stood on the Notre-Dame bridge as the parade came across. He lit a match with his thumb and started a cigar. The cigar tasted bad. As a company of light infantry went by he flicked his cigar among the marchers. It bounced off one soldier’s cheek with a flash of sparks. The trooper didn’t miss cadence. Very impressive, Maximilian said to himself. They can march, but can they fight? He didn’t think so.

  The procession continued across the bridge. All of the troops lined up on both sides of the square in front of the looming towers of the cathedral, marching in place to the beat of a single drum.

  Then, precisely at noon, the bronze doors of Notre-Dame swung open. Sixteen husky soldiers in dress blue carried the coffin, placed it just below the altar and solemnly draped the French flag over it. The honorary pall bearers followed: President Pouchet, the French Premier, the head of the Chamber of Deputies, the Secretary of War, all the leading generals. They knelt before the coffin, blessed themselves and took their seats in the front row. Meurthe was not among them.

  The members of the Aéro Club and other dignitaries entered, bowed their heads and took their seats. Meurthe was not with them either.

  Then Louise Chevrier came forward alone, wearing a black dress as though she were born to it, and took her seat in the front row. She sat alone. She needed no arm to lean on and no shoulder to give her
comfort. She was no stranger to sorrow.

  The church filled. The ever-present reporters jammed in, wedging themselves against the walls. The doors were propped open so the common people, left outside, could hear what was said.

  But the rain would hold back no longer. With a series of thunderclaps it rolled into the square and over it, drenching the soldiers resting on their arms outside the church, drenching the huddled crowd, drenching the patiently waiting horses. The sound of Berlioz’s “Requiem” on the organ inside blended with the sky’s own percussion.

  The bishop with his gold miter and crosier led the mass; the choir sang, prayers were said in Latin. Then, as the mass reached its height, Auguste Pouchet stood to deliver the final eulogy.

  “Stop!”

  Louise Chevrier had risen from her seat. “I claim a Mother’s Right,” her voice rang out. “I do not want this man speaking for my son.”

  Pouchet turned to face her, contempt oozing from his voice. “Sit down, woman!” he shouted. “You are distraught.”

  But Louise remained standing, defying the French President.

  “Not so distraught that I can’t see through you,” she said to his face. “The honor of speaking the last words over my son goes to the one of my choosing, and I choose...Henri Meurthe.”

  And Meurthe came forward.

  Pouchet looked startled as he saw Meurthe approaching the coffin. Now he realized that he faced a serious challenge.

  “Take him out of here!” he ordered the burly soldiers who stood nearby. Blue uniforms swirled around Meurthe as he stood next to the coffin.

  Then the bishop spoke, his voice echoing off the stone walls so that the whole church could hear him: “Monsieur le President. She has that Right.”

  The bishop’s voice froze everyone in place, like a tableau. No one could challenge him in his own church, not even the President of France.

  No one moved, except Henri Meurthe. He took Pouchet’s place, pushing him gently aside.

  “Sit down, Auguste,” he said quietly. “I promise you that this will be a short speech, unlike so many of your own.”

  The word spread out from the front of the church like a ripple turning into a wave. Up until now everything had gone according to ritual, and ritual is man’s best defense against the unknown. But things had changed. Louise Chevrier looked around. You could almost see the sawdust leaking out of the stuffed shirts sitting in the front row, she thought. How Alain would have enjoyed this if he were here! Then she remembered; Alain was here. And she almost cried, holding desperately onto her tears in the sudden silence that engulfed the whole church.