Lost Children

by Willa Bergman

  My heart begins to beat faster. He opens the box and inside I see something I haven’t seen for fifteen years. I see the Portrait of the Lost Child.

  As soon as I see it I lose my breath, like all the air has been sucked out of me. I can only stare at it, stare at the lost painting in front of me.

  “What do you think?” he asks me.

  I don’t say anything, I can’t.

  “Are you satisfied with the painting’s authenticity?”

  I don’t want to answer him. I steal as many moments as I can before I have to drag myself back into the world beyond the painting. I look at him and ask if I can inspect it. He tells me I can.

  I’m still learning about the different art verification techniques that exist. I’m proficient enough that I can make assessments of pieces from a number of the major periods of European art, but if this were any kind of normal situation I would be calling in multiple teams far more knowledgeable than myself to verify the painting. There would be a detailed scientific analysis performed as there’s no certificate of authenticity to rely on. First they would use infrared reflectography to examine the ageing of the painting, then stereoscopic checks for the pigments and the depth of the craquelure, then monochromatic lights to check for signs of restoration work and finally infrared spectroscopy to check for consistency of the materials used in the period.

  Here though it’s just down to me and what I know. But in truth for this painting I don’t need any of the scientific analysis. The moment I see it I know I’m looking at the painting that hung in my home, a certainty that only comes from the countless hours I’ve spent with it. I also have one further check; I turn it around and on the back of the canvas in the bottom left hand corner I see there is a small, grey wobbly line, about two centimetres long, barely discernible, marginally thicker at the top before thinning to nothing at the bottom. I drew it when I was eleven years old. I knew already back then that the painting was important and I guess I wanted to leave some mark on it, however small, to connect me to it.

  I sit back and stare again at the painting. It feels so strange to see it again. Walden repeats his question to me, “So, are you satisfied the painting is real?” I don’t know whether I’m happy or sad, but I answer simply, “Yes. It’s the painting.”

  I flick a switch in my head and suddenly jump out of the trance the painting has cast over me, the next moments are critical and I need every part of me completely focused. For the two illegal paintings I’ve sourced previously this would be the point where I make my excuses to have a private discussion with the purchaser but would in fact be giving the armed police unit waiting next door the green light to break in and seize the painting. But I can’t hand this painting over to the police, so from here on in every move I make is a step into the unknown.

  Walden looks at me, pleased at my confirmation of the painting’s authenticity and starts talking like this is the moment he’s been waiting for.

  “Now I’m guessing you’ve done your homework here and have concluded that in the open market the painting would comfortably fetch in excess of five million dollars. But you also know that this isn’t the open market so you’re going to try and argue a much lower figure. You’ve presumably also seen the press articles that say I’m in some sort of financial difficulty and you think this may help motivate me to sell. But I’m not selling. No matter what price tag you dangle in front of me.”

  “So why invite me here? Why show it to me?”

  “What value is art if it’s never seen? I guess I liked the idea of temporarily reuniting the two of you. But that’s all it’s going to be. I’m not selling.”

  “That’s good news, because I’m not buying. You’re going to give it to me.”

  “Excuse me?” He says in a bemused tone.

  “Outside this building there are twenty police officers, fully kitted out, ready to break down your door and arrest you for possession of stolen goods. They are waiting for me to send a text message on my mobile to say that I have had sight of the painting. As soon as I do that, they will come storming through your front door and take you away.”

  He’s looking at me very differently now. His jovial, playful demeanour now disappeared.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it’s the truth. And because I want to offer you a solution which doesn’t end up with you being walked out the door in handcuffs.”

  Pause. It needs a moment to sink in.

  “What are you proposing?” He asks.

  “A simple trade. In exchange for the get-out-of-jail free pass that I can give you, you will give me the painting.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No I’m not. I’m deadly serious. And I think once you get past your initial reaction, you’ll realise it’s your only play. This is a slam dunk case against you, caught red-handed. And this is third strike for you. The best legal team in the world isn’t going to get you out of this one. You asked me how much the painting is worth and you’re right, I do think it’s worth less than the open market price because it is, but I’ll indulge you and say it is worth five million dollars. Three strikes means a life sentence for you. I’m betting that avoiding a life sentence is worth more to you than five million dollars.”

  He looks at me with wide eyes, he’s in shock. He wasn’t expecting things to play out like this, to be threatened like this. I’ve caught him off guard and he’s on the ropes, but he’s no snowflake, he’s not just going to roll over for me.

  “You’re quite the little hustler aren’t you. And you’re saying some things that I admit are making me feel uneasy. But then I look around and I see everything is still the same. I don’t believe you. I don’t think there are any police officers about to come bursting through that door. I think you’re a small time hustler who’s stupid enough to think she can come in here and walk out with my painting.”

  I don’t flinch. I keep my eyes fixed with his and speak without hesitation. “You don’t have to believe me, you can see for yourself. Outside your building there’s a navy blue Ford Taurus parked on the other side of the street. In it is a detective. He’s there as a lookout in case anybody tries to leave the building. Ask your man at the door to check.”

  I can see his mind working furiously, trying to work out if he should believe me, thinking about all the different permutations of how this situation can play out.

  “So if I were to believe this little story of yours, what exactly is stopping me from making you text them that I don’t have the painting?”

  “There’s a codeword I have to include in the message to let them know I’m ok. If I don’t include it they will come running.”

  “I’m sure my friends outside can convince you to tell me the word.” He says with undisguised menace.

  “If you ask me for it I’ll tell you. You don’t need to hurt me, I’m not tough. But you won’t know if I’ve given you the right word until it’s too late.”

  “You know you’re absolutely right. So I think I’ll just kill you instead.”

  “Also not a good idea. Putting aside my own personal preference to stay alive, it doesn’t serve your needs. The police are waiting for me. If I don’t leave this apartment in the next thirty minutes they will be coming in and if you kill me they’ll be coming after you with a murder charge.”

  “And so you think you get to just walk out of here with my painting?”

  “Yes I do.”

  The authority and confidence with which I say it belies the overwhelming amount of fear inside me.

  “Well I must say you’re either very brave or you’re very stupid.”

  I’m neither, but it’s amazing what you’ll do when there’s a gun to your head. I’m all in now, I press the point again.

  “Outside there are two dozen police officers waiting to reclaim this portrait and come and take you away. It’s your choice.” Walden stares at me intensely. He then picks up the phone on the wall and tells whoever it is at the end of the line to go
downstairs and check if there’s a Ford Taurus outside and find out what they’re doing there.

  I stand there as calmly as I can. Each moment seems to last an age. Finally the phone rings. I can’t hear exactly what he says but whatever it is Walden balks at him as he says it, before turning back to me. “This proves nothing. So there’s a policeman in a car downstairs. So what?”

  “There’s more than just one policeman down there. Your men look like they know what they’re doing, ex-military? I’m betting when your man found out the car was police he started to look around, did a walk around the building and saw the two unmarked vans parked around the back too. Now you can wait until there’s twenty policemen standing in this apartment or you can deal with this now. And right now you have only two options. The first is: you hand over the painting to me, I walk out of here with it and you never hear from me again. The second is: we sit and wait here for a few more minutes before Detective O’Rourke and his men walk through that door, put you in jail and the painting in an auction you won’t see a penny from. Either way your time with the painting has come to an end. Your only choice is whether you want to spend the next twenty years in jail for it or not.”

  Suddenly he moves violently to strike me but I recoil backwards and he misses. I scream at him, “This doesn’t work for either of us if I walk out of here like the walking wounded. They’ll know something went wrong.”

  He stops coming at me and looks down at his feet. I think I’m safe but then he looks up and hits me, catching me square across the face. I’m expecting to be knocked flat to the floor but I’m still standing. He didn’t punch me, he only used the palm of his hand. I’m not dazed but there’s an excruciating stinging across the whole of the left side of my face. I look up at him. He says, “Take the painting and get out.” He doesn’t look back at me, he just stares blankly at the empty space in front of him. “Get out!” he tells me again, every syllable paining him to utter.

  Still dazed but not waiting for him to change his mind I pick up the painting and move to leave. When we walk out into the apartment his men are waiting for us. They can see I’m holding something and they move to stop me but Walden stands them down.

  It actually feels like this is happening. But I don’t dare to believe it yet, I can’t get ahead of myself. Each moment now is just as important as the ones that preceded them, I can’t rush this or they’ll know I’m scared. My heart is racing but I walk slowly out of the apartment, the painting in my hands.

  The lift to take me down is empty and when the doors close I feel the first shots of relief pang through me. I want to collapse into a ball but there’s a camera in the corner and I can’t leave anything to chance.

  I walk out onto the sidewalk and into the last challenge that I must face. Detective O’Rourke is parked outside across the street. As soon as he sees me he gets out of his car and starts crossing the road towards me, clearly agitated.

  “What happened?” He shouts accusingly.

  “He doesn’t have it.” I reply.

  “What?!”

  This next part is unavoidable. I tell the detective I sat down with Walden and made my pitch but he either didn’t believe me or never had it to begin with. Either way there isn’t anything more I can do to push him. Furious, the detective proceeds into a long diatribe that he is not there to serve at my beck and call, and how I’ve wasted valuable police time, all of which is completely true and fair. He sees the slim black case in my hand.

  “What’s in the case?” he asks. I tell him it’s empty, I brought it along in case I found the painting. He looks down to the ground out of frustration before shouting out some obscenities which startle a nearby couple and garners some concerned looks from passers-by. Then he takes out his police radio and tells his team to stand down, it’s a no go. I apologise again and ask him if there’s anything I can do. He asks if I’m going to complete the mountain of paperwork this little operation required and explain to Captain Leo why it ended up being a complete waste of everyone’s time. He tells me he doesn’t want to see me right now and that I should just leave. I don’t try to dissuade him.

  I hail a cab and get in. As it takes me down fifth avenue I quietly begin to sob. I’m shaking all over but I feel okay, happy even. In my head I just keep saying over and over, “I did it. I did it. I did it.”

  6

  The painting rests against the wall in the apartment. I stare at it in silence. This is the first time I’ve been alone with it for over fifteen years. It’s so beautiful I can just stare at it indefinitely.

  I remember the first time Arnaud told us its story. He must have told us it a hundred times, but it’s the first time I remember most vividly. It was when we were all there: my mother, brother and I, all sat around it. It was dark outside and it was like he was telling us a bedtime story. There was even a fire lit in the fireplace underneath it. That’s my first real memory of it.

  The first time I started to really realise that it was an important painting was at one of our parents’ parties. Arnaud made everyone gather around it and he said that today marked the fifty-fifth anniversary of the end of the Second Word War. He said the painting was a reminder of what we stood to lose in that war as it was on a list of paintings the Nazis tried to requisition during the time of French occupation. April 5th 1942 was the day the Nazis came knocking at the chateau door looking for the painting. So the story goes, Arnaud’s father told them the painting had already been looted. The Nazis didn’t believe him and they turned over the chateau looking for it but were not able to find it.

  Arnaud had a tradition in honour of the story where once a year each Easter we would play the game Detective looking for the painting. Arnaud would play his father and we would be the Nazis trying to find the painting. My brother and I would search for the painting following the clues he left for us. He would always start by giving us an object like a wild flower, and that would be our first clue; that might then lead us to the meadow and we’d forage around for another clue, something not supposed to be there. We would follow his clues around the estate, each one leading us a step closer to the painting’s hiding place.

  These are the memories of the painting that are dear to me. But all of them are tainted for me now. I can no longer love them just as I can no longer love this painting, they’re all tainted by the man I called my father. For every time I think of the childhood memories I have playing with my brother in the grounds of the chateau, for every time I recollect the beautiful story of Prince Alexander, I am haunted by what my father did. This painting, what he prized above all things, he turned into something dark and corrupt.

  I get up and pour myself a glass of water. I take out my phone and call the number Joseph Masoud gave me. The line is routed to a European number, I can tell by the change in ring tone, and his assistant answers. I ask to speak with Masoud and she tells me he will call me back. I stay sat on the floor; while I wait I just keep looking at the painting. It’s less than a minute before I get the call back.

  “Yes?” There is no pretence, no politeness from him now.

  “I have it.” I am appropriately non-descript in my wording.

  “You are certain it is what we are looking for?”

  “Yes.”

  There’s silence on the line.

  “Where are you?” he asks.

  “At the apartment.” I reply.

  “Stay there. Don’t speak to anyone else. I’ll come back to you with instructions.” He hangs up. Once again the painting and I are alone. I’ve thought a lot about what makes a piece of art important to me. Having written off my university professor’s ideas on valuation I had to come up with my own set of principles. In truth I’ve never been particularly interested in the numerical value people put on objects. They’ve existed for hundreds of years, and will last for hundreds to come. Some fool may think they own a piece of art but it’s a delusion. Great art survives us, it is immortal. We by comparison are mere passers-by, temporary custodians that are but bri
ef flickers of light in the darkness. Great art is like Keats’ Grecian urn. He was inspired to write it by a vase made by the Athenian sculptor Sosibios, a Neo-Attic marble volute krater that he saw in the Louvre in Paris which still sits there today, still unravish’d. When old age shall this generation waste, it shall remain.

  To me the story of an object can be more important than the skill used to create it. Maybe that’s just the romantic in me. But my Masters was in Art History and for me it’s just always been about the story of the artworks themselves. To me art is a creation in the same way that some higher power created us and it can have depth and meaning in a way that we so often struggle to find in our own lives. I have little faith in people, life has given me little reason to, so I’m left with art. It has been a constant to me when people have not. When I couldn’t be with others I found solace in art.

  I studied Middle Eastern Art for my Masters and spent a year travelling in the region. I spent six months in Palmyra. It isn’t there anymore, at least not in any way that it was before. Other sites, less well known to the western world, have suffered a similar fate: the Al-Qubba Husseiniya Mosque in Mosul, the Jawad Husseiniya Mosque and the Saad bin Aqeel Husseiniya Shrine in Tal Afar. Deliberate destruction and theft of cultural heritage by ISIS. They were able to do it across the Middle East but in particular in Iraq and Syria. They plundered and destroyed important historical and religious buildings in horrific acts of cultural cleansing. What wasn’t destroyed was looted and smuggled to willing buyers to finance ISIS activities.

  There was a man I met while I was in Palmyra called Sami. He was probably in his fifties but he looked much older. He’d lived in Palmyra all his life. I don’t know what happened to him but I think about him sometimes. He lived in a small shack just outside the ancient city and on the outskirts of the new one. No running water, no heating, just a small generator with enough power for a lamp and a small stove. He sold knick-knacks and trinkets to the tourists: sun hats and bottles of water and little mementos for their visit. All the archaeologists there knew him. They would say he knew more about the ancient city than all of them and it wasn’t said in that condescending academic way that you hear, it was meant sincerely. He would talk to all the academics that would come and go and ask them all what they were doing and most were happy to explain. He wasn’t an educated man, but they could see he was interested, it nourished him even. He was so knowledgeable about the place they would even go to him for his opinion on the work. He was like a reference point for previous researchers, where they had dug, what they thought. He didn’t know all the fancy names or techniques but he knew every square inch of that place better than anyone. The accumulated knowledge of decades spent on a site. He wouldn’t get to see the rest of the world but the art and the history of the ancient city was enough for him to explore for an entire lifetime. That’s the power of art. That’s why the destruction of art is unforgivable. When the news showed images in Iraq and Syria of ISIS beheading prisoners I couldn’t watch. But when the news showed images of ISIS destroying the mosques and temples of their history I cried.