Deceptions

by Anna Porter

  “What kind of trace did your guys find of this missing Caravaggio?” Helena was skeptical. Undiscovered Caravaggios were rare, and his life, since he had been notorious in his own era, had been amply documented. He had fought duels; he had been banished from Rome for killing another man — a pimp, but still. He sought refuge in Naples, then in Malta, where he had been befriended by the Grand Master but fled after some altercation with the knights. He had a volcanic temper and turned nasty at the least provocation.

  Helena ordered the veal medallions on Andrea’s recommendation, and they chatted fondly about the catastrophe of Caravaggio’s life. “There are those records of at least five canvases after he fled Malta,” Andrea continued. “He was broke and desperate, even before his face was slashed by someone who had a major grudge. He had offended a lot of people. There’s that persistent rumour that he was ambushed by some Knights of Malta seeking revenge for whatever he had done while he was on their island. He was hoping to be granted a pardon by Rome, and he needed new paintings to offer as gifts for the authorities, to buy his way back into the city’s good graces. But he never made it, as you know, and the paintings, if there were any paintings, disappeared.”

  Helena tried not to seem impatient. Andrea was, obviously, building up to her story’s climax.

  “Okay, so those last paintings that we know, they are darker and even more violent than his earlier work. They also revisit his previous subjects. Take The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula. It is particularly grim, even for Caravaggio. The dark background is blacker than in the rest of his work, and the theatrical lighting ghostly: it does not illuminate, only makes the dark seem even darker. Your Judith and Holofernes is darker than Artemisia’s usual work.”

  “It depends on when she painted it. Her early work is more violent than Caravaggio’s. She had a lot to be angry about. Is there any written record, anywhere, of his having gone back to the subject of Judith?”

  “Well now,” Andrea whispered, leaning forward in her chair. “That’s why I wanted to see you. Our Monuments Men found a credible source, something we’ve not seen before, a letter by a Spanish diplomat who was sailing back to Spain in 1750. This man had come to Naples to find great art, and he went home with a painting of Judith beheading Holofernes. The painting referred to in the Spaniard’s letter seems to be the same one that shows up in a reference in Bratislava early in the eighteenth century, acquired by the nobleman who had bought the Rembrandts now in the collection of Warsaw’s restored Royal Castle.”

  “Lubomirski?” Helena asked.

  “No. Another collector. This man decamped for France with his art, including the Caravaggio.”

  “But the painting Waclaw is after is by Artemisia.”

  “That’s what I find so interesting. The Lubomirskis did own a Gentileschi, and it, too, was of Judith killing Holofernes.”

  “Okay.”

  “But if you look at the letters, there is a record of a Caravaggio bought by a nobleman visiting the court in Madrid. According to a diary entry by a courtier, it was one of Caravaggio’s last paintings. It’s always been reasonable to assume that if he was killed by the Knights, they would have taken his paintings and anything else of value that they found. The Spanish diplomat’s letter goes on to reveal that he bought his painting of Judith and Holofernes from a Knight of Malta.”

  Helena had never seen her friend so excited. Usually calm to the point of feigned indifference — a pose Italians of her class adopted to great advantage over lesser mortals — she was almost breathless, the tiny vein on the side of her neck pulsing noticeably. “I think you’ve found the missing Caravaggio!” Andrea said, much louder than Helena would have preferred.

  “But why wouldn’t he sign his name?” Helena asked. “Why does Judith and Holofernes have Artemisia’s signature?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a theory. You told me there was something odd about the signature.”

  “Yes, but what does that prove?”

  “Here is what I think happened. Artemisia was in Naples at the same time as Caravaggio. He had escaped the nasty Knights and was determined to make his way back to Rome, feverishly painting for his pardon. I think Artemisia provided sanctuary for him. She had known and admired his work since she was a child. She had even copied some of his techniques. She knew Caravaggio was hunted and that he had to keep painting. She gave him a room. I think she allowed him to put her name over his own signature on some of those last paintings in case the Knights came looking for him at her house.”

  “And he took it on the boat with him when he sailed from Naples.”

  “What do we know about the paintings he took? Yours could have been one of the four paintings said to be with him. No idea what happened to the fifth. I think that it was taken by the men who killed him and sold later to someone from the court in Madrid.”

  “And after that?”

  “There is a June 1870 letter from a young Habsburg to his mother about buying a painting by Artemisia that he believed was really a Caravaggio. He was in France, seeking refuge after his estates were forfeited to the state for some misdemeanour. His family had wanted him out of the country.”

  “Where did you find the letter?”

  “I didn’t. It surfaced during Mendoza’s research for his next Caravaggio book.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. We lost track of it after.”

  “So, it wasn’t taken by Göring?”

  “Not from Poland. I am coming with you to Strasbourg tomorrow. I have to see it for myself.” Andrea hesitated for a moment. “If that is all right with you . . .”

  Helena said there was still something she had to do in Budapest, but she could arrange for Andrea to see the painting. There was a 7 a.m. flight. “Where are you staying?”

  “A boutique hotel called Aria. I booked it because I loved the name.”

  Helena’s cellphone rang.

  This time it was Zsuzsa.

  “I thought you would like to know that your friend has just arrived home again,” she said, putting too much emphasis on the “your friend,” as if she had somehow guessed that Helena was not the friend she had pretended to be.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Helena went back to the hotel for her black hoodie, running shoes, gloves, the knife, the flashlight, and the Swiss mini. She stuffed the Marianne wig into her backpack. She had to be ready to play the part if Zsuzsa noticed her tonight. She took a cab to the cable car that led to the castle and walked the rest of the way. She didn’t have much of a plan for challenging Berkowitz, but she did intend to confront him with what she knew about the lawyer’s murder in Strasbourg. And she needed to know how that tied in with the Vaszarys’ painting.

  Berkowitz’s apartment was dark. She climbed over the fence and checked the side window, but it was too dark to see inside. Zsuzsa’s porch light was on, but it didn’t cast its light as far as the apartment next door. There were now two small black cameras pointing toward the door. One of them blinked several times. Helena knocked and waited, but no one came. She assumed that she had triggered the security company’s alarm, leaving her maybe ten minutes before they came to check. Long enough to find out whether Berkowitz was home, perhaps standing behind his door.

  She used her knife to unlock the door. Waited. Still no sound. No movement. She opened the door with her foot, slowly. Still nothing. She edged the door open further. Drew the Swiss mini out of her sleeve and waited some more.

  Faint notes of Mozart floated in from Zsuzsa’s apartment. There was no sound inside Berkowitz’s. With knees bent, shoulders squared, arms up, she slid into the darkness. János’s lessons flashed through her mind. Always assume that the other person is prepared, that he is armed, that he can more than match you for strength. Still no sound. No movement. She didn’t want to use her flashlight: flashlights make you a perfect target.

  Flat against the
wall, she edged forward to where she remembered the light switch had been. Waited. Nothing. There was again a strong smell of disinfectant or cleaning fluid.

  She pushed the switch with her shoulder. Harsh yellow light flooded the apartment; the furniture floated over the black-and-white tiles. They were all just as they had been when she last saw them. No sound as she made her way toward the long brown sofa that looked like no one had ever sat on it.

  On the other side of the sofa, a man lay on his stomach, his face resting on the rough woven rug, both arms over his head as if he had been stretching or reaching for something under the side table. He didn’t move when she pushed her foot against his knee. She put on her gloves and reached down to feel his neck. No pulse. Some blood had pooled under his chest and seeped out onto the rug. No marks on his neck. His jacket had ridden up. There was nothing under the table. No marks on his wrists. She turned his head and looked at the face. Thin lips, low forehead. Eyebrows in a straight line. Berkowitz. A small trickle of blood had congealed in the corner of his mouth. His eyes were open.

  She wanted to turn him over to see where the blood had come from, but it was too risky. She checked under the couch to find a Glock with a long silencer, its handle angled back toward Berkowitz. He could have been reaching for it, and the killer kicked it out of the way, or the killer had dropped it in his haste to leave. It had been about twenty-five minutes since Zsuzsa’s call, plenty of time for the police to have arrived if Berkowitz’s killer had forced his way in.

  There were no signs of a struggle, no furniture turned over, the photographs were all still on the side table, as she had last seen them. Or were they? Using the tip of her knife, she pushed them face up, one after another. Only one was missing: the photo of herself. She slipped the photo of the laughing Vaszarys into her pocket.

  She checked the kitchen. Tidy, clean, two clean glasses in the drying rack near the sink. Overpowering smell of disinfectant. Two glasses and an open bottle of wine on the counter, Szekszárdi Vörös. The glasses had no visible traces of red wine, but both were still wet. Someone must have washed them.

  She ran upstairs. A spotlessly clean bathroom with no toothbrush or toothpaste, no shaving cream, no razor, and the bar of soap in the soap dish in the shower seemed unused. A large bedroom with a perfectly made bed, blanket corners tucked in, duvet fluffed, pillows arranged hotel-room style, the biggest at the back, the smallest in front. No pictures on the wall, no books, one jacket hanging in the closet. As she had expected, it bore the imprint of its classy tailor, Vargas, but no shirts or pants to accompany it. The small chest of drawers was empty. Wherever Berkowitz lived, it was not here. But why would he have this apartment if he lived somewhere else?

  She went back downstairs, checked the light switch for fibres from her hoodie, slipped outside, closed the door behind her, and wiped the door handle. She crossed the street and walked at a normal pace down toward Gül Baba’s grave. She had reached Erzsébet Bridge by the time she heard the sirens.

  * * *

  She waited for ten minutes, then walked back the way she had come, watched the police cars assemble, the ambulance arrive, and a dark sedan with no police markings park across the street.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Time to go.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  She was crossing the Chain Bridge when she saw that it was Zsuzsa Klein who had called, leaving a breathless message that something terrible had happened next door and that she should definitely not come to see her friend now. When Helena returned the call, Zsuzsa still sounded frightened. “You’re not going to believe what has happened!” she said. “I don’t know how to tell you, but your friend, Gyuszi, I mean, Mr. Berkowitz, Gyula . . . There was a break-in next door. Someone got into his apartment, and he is dead. They killed him.” Zsuzsa whispered this last piece of information.

  “Oh no!” Helena said, affecting a state of utter shock.

  “The police are here,” Zsuzsa said. “I am so sorry. I can’t believe it was only today I told you about how careful one has to be around here, but I was thinking of burglars just stealing your stuff. We have never had anything like this happen, not in this neighbourhood. Killed in his own home. So terrible. So sorry . . . The police officer wants to talk to you. I told him you had come to visit Mr. Berkowitz earlier. Is it okay if I pass him the phone?” She held the phone away from her mouth and said something Helena didn’t understand.

  Then there was more discussion in Hungarian, and a man’s voice asked, “Ki beszél?” Whatever that meant, Helena’s reaction was to drop the burner phone into the Danube and watch it disappear.

  She replayed the scene of the empty apartment in her mind, the missing photograph, and Berkowitz’s inert body. In death, he had seemed younger. He had to have known the person who killed him. He would not have opened the door to a stranger. There was no sign of a struggle and two glasses in the kitchen. Everything was so clean, but that smell of clean had been there the last time she had entered with Zsuzsa. Was it stronger this time? She hadn’t checked under the kitchen sink, but she felt certain that had she done so, she would have found bottles of Lysol or something Hungarian resembling Lysol.

  If Berkowitz had not lived in this apartment, was there a reason why he had chosen to have a place specifically here, next to Zsuzsa’s? Or was that a coincidence?

  Zsuzsa would, of course, be asked about Berkowitz’s visitor, and she would describe Marianne Lewis, a youngish woman, in her thirties, about 168 centimetres tall, painted nails, red-auburn hair with bangs, blue eyes, a bit flashy in an American way, not over-the-top, but you could tell she was American, and she had a loud horsey laugh. From New York. Visiting here. A friend of Berkowitz’s. They had met somewhere in France. None of this would relate to Helena in the slightest, and if the police were to consult Attila, he would know this disguise, but he would say nothing.

  She looked back over her shoulder at the castle above Buda, lit up for the night with thousands of small lights dancing, and the cable car’s track a straight line of white lights heading all the way to the top of the hill. Arcs of lights across the bridge, reaching the lions at either end. A beautiful city in the dark. Attila had been excited to show it to her: his city in all its middle European glory, its history stamped on the buildings and on the people as indelibly as if it had been ink that the centuries couldn’t wash away. That was how Attila had spoken about his city and the Buda Hills that had loomed over it while the country suffered under a range of marauders from both east and west. The Turkish pashas liked to view their dominion from the hills where Gül Baba had been buried. The Habsburg kings enjoyed the fresh air but not the winter winds, so they usually returned to Vienna’s less rustic court as the temperatures fell. The Germans had liked what they saw of the hills and picked their favourite houses to live in once they arrived. Buda had been the last part of the city to be conquered by the Soviet Army and, after 1945, the Communist elite took their turn occupying the best homes in Buda, especially in Rózsadomb. Attila had not spent much time studying history, but, he said, those stories had taken root in his people’s minds. “We’re a small country,” he had told her, “with a small history. But it runs deep.”

  When he stayed in her room at the Gresham Four Seasons, he loved looking across the Danube at the hills. Some nights she would wake to find him standing at the wide picture windows, gazing at the other side. In some ways, it was too beautiful, he had said. Like a postcard. With all the grit removed, it lacked reality. If she wanted to see reality, she would have to come to Rákoczi Avenue, where he shared a seedy two-bedroom with Gustav.

  The apartment had been grungier than she had expected, and smelled of dog, congealed take-out, and unwashed dishes. Yet, his bed had been freshly made and his coffee was delicious, but she could not imagine living in a less inviting place. “I can’t stay,” she had told him when she woke up and looked at his domain.

  “I know,” he had said. “That
’s why I wanted you to see it. We inhabit different worlds, and neither of us would enjoy abandoning what we like for what we don’t think we could get used to.” He had seemed both sad and relieved when she packed her holdall and made her way to the door between tall piles of books, stepping over his discarded clothes and Gustav’s half-chewed bones.

  She nodded. Of course, he was right.

  They had kissed, but it had felt strange, as if they hadn’t kissed before, as if they hadn’t spent some nights together. “Maybe you could come to Paris,” she had said.

  “Yes, maybe I could.” But there was no conviction in his voice, as there had been no conviction in her invitation.

  She had descended the murky staircase, making sure she didn’t touch the railing. She was still holding her breath when she walked out into the noise of the road.

  * * *

  She phoned Attila from the Astoria’s lobby to tell him that Berkowitz had been killed.

  “How?” he asked.

  “It could have been a single gunshot. Or a knife. No defensive cuts on his hands. A Glock under the sofa. Silencer. There was a lot of blood under him. If it was a bullet, no exit wound.”

  “You didn’t . . .”

  “No,” she said. “Of course, I didn’t.”

  “‘Of course’?”

  She ignored the question. “It looked like he had let in the person who killed him. He opened a bottle of wine. May have sat on the sofa with whoever it was, but not for long because I was there about twenty-five minutes after his neighbour called to tell me that he had arrived at his apartment.”

  “You went in . . .”

  “Obviously.”