From that unsettling den we went on to a private party where Mistinguett and half the artistes of the Casino de Paris were giving impromptu performances. I was enjoying a ridiculous song about going up in an aeroplane when soft hands fell on my arm. A well dressed man, dark-eyed and swarthy, smiled at me in uncertain recognition. To my surprise (for he seemed French) he addressed me in Russian. He was from Odessa, but was no one I had known well.
‘Stavisky,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘We arranged a little business some years ago. You were a boy then. You haven’t changed.’ I now remembered him from a single meeting. Through my cousin Shura he had been the man buying cocaine off the Dutch dentist at whose surgery I eventually met Mrs Cornelius. Stavisky’s clothes had been more flamboyant in those days, the clothes of an Odessa dandy, though even then he was living in Paris.
‘You’re doing well for yourself, it seems.’ I was pleased to see him. He grinned. ‘I can’t complain. And you, too. This airship racket’s a winner, eh?’
Although I disliked him calling my project a racket, I had become used to Parisians’ dismissive slang so was not offended. We had a vodka and grenadine together, for old time’s sake. He hoped to see me around, he said. If I had any more patents, I must let him know. As he returned to his own table I asked if he knew anything of Shura. ‘I can tell you exactly where he is. Running a little operation down in Nice. I saw him a week ago. Shall I give him a message?’
‘Just that I’m in Paris. He can find me via the airship works at St-Denis.’
‘I’ll tell him.’ Stavisky winked. ‘You don’t want to pay these prices.’ He pointed at the remains of our cocaine. ‘Come to me next time. I give special rates to friends.’ He waved and disappeared into the jigging disturbance surrounding us. He was a good-hearted soul who would rise to eminence in the next few years, but was already marked as expendable to the conniving politicians who, Jews themselves, would brand him a Jew. They would have him shot down in a little shack in the Swiss mountains. In some ways, I suppose, I should feel grateful for the events which followed, although I did not welcome them at the time. If I had stayed in Paris longer, I, too, might have met Stavisky’s fate.
The original signs did not seem particularly disturbing. On January 30th there was a strike at the airship sheds. All engineers and fitters demanded higher wages. This was a blow, simply because I believed relations with our workmen excellent. We stood shoulder to shoulder in pursuit of a common ideal. Some Socialist agitator doubtless would be at the root of it. There was an emergency meeting of the Board. M. de Grion said we must certainly refuse all demands. Already these saboteurs were insidiously poisoning the roots of French society. It would not merely be against our immediate interest to capitulate, it would be against the interests of all decent people. Understanding his principle, I was nonetheless alarmed by its implications. Our schedule was threatened. We had promised to complete in a year. Our prospectus announced a maiden voyage in November 1921, a regular service by January 1922. To stop work now would be madness. We could not afford to break the rhythm of our progress. It would be more than just losing a week or two: there must be unity between designers and engineers at all levels. De Grion was sympathetic, but his argument won the day. Only Kolya and myself voted against a resolution refusing negotiations with the workers.
From that point I became the incredulous witness to a crazy, uncheckable avalanche. Within a month half our people had deserted to other jobs. It was impossible to proceed without a full team; the hiring and training of new personnel would take ages. M. de Grion remained unmoved. I told him his obstinacy threatened to ruin us. I saw my dreams collapsing once again, at the very moment I thought them most secure. Gradually stories began to appear in the more obscure newspapers. The Transatlantic Aerial Navigation Company was in trouble and seeking funding from the government. Shareholders had begun to sell their stock. By April there were even a few who spoke of suing. At least one scandal sheet described
Kolya and myself as ‘a pair of Russian charlatans bamboozling the French public with a fraudulent engineering scheme’. Increasing numbers of reporters would appear at my door, night and day, to demand if there was truth in these rumours. Was the Company on the edge of bankruptcy? I was frantic. I could not answer. I explained I was a scientist, not a financier. The scheme was solidly founded because my ship was the most advanced of its kind. Given the chance to complete it, I would show the world. I blamed the strikers for their short-sightedness. This was a red rag to the Bolshevik press, of course. They ran headlines indicting half the eminent business men of France (as well as ‘White Russian entrepreneurs’) as deliberately perpetrating a fraud. The Airship Company’s shares became worthless overnight. M. de Grion told me sadly he would have to resign from the Board. Only Kolya stood by me, attempting to persuade people to stay, for without them the Company would surely collapse. ‘Why throw away a goldmine when all that’s needed is a little more digging?’
They would not listen. I was disgusted with them.
At home, Esmé scarcely understood what I meant when I described this betrayal, our difficulties. Why must we consider moving again, giving up the car, dismissing the servants? I asked her to try to make sense of our household accounts. Earlier, to give her a feeling of purpose, I had put her in charge of our food and clothing purchases. She cried, saying it was beyond her. It was for me to decide what to do. I lost my temper. She should pull herself together. It was an emergency! I took my rage out on a child. I stormed from the house, walking up and down our street for half an hour until I was in control of myself. But when I returned she had gone. The servants said she had left in a car, that was all. I was not unduly worried.
Kolya and I dined together. He found the news upsetting but superficially was taking it better than I. He showed me a packet, received at the office that afternoon. He placed it in my hand. ‘What is it?’
‘Escape,’ he said, ‘If we need it. Luckily, I’d anticipated requiring these if we wanted to be on the Rose’s maiden flight.’
Opening the envelope I found a brand new French passport in my name, stamped with an entry visa for the United States, ‘It’s all quite above board.’ Kolya was reassuring. ‘M. Dalimier helped. Don’t you remember signing that form just before Christmas?’
I had signed so many. In general I was worrying about things bearing my signature, not knowing how many had made me personally responsible for the fate of our firm. I recalled nothing specific.
‘Well, we were all very busy then,’ he said.
‘And is there a passport for Esmé?’
‘She’s a minor. Unlike you she had nothing to prove her Russian nationality or, indeed, her identity. But her passport will come through soon, I’m sure.’
The new documents, placed in my breast pocket, seemed to protect my heart. ‘But how shall we keep the Company going, Kolya? Every other director has resigned. None any longer own stock, including your father-in-law. We’re the only major shareholders.’