“Nice car,” he said. The red coat beamed beneath the street lamp.
“Want a ride to yours?” she asked.
He got in and she drove him one street over to his rental car. He was in no hurry to get out.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. It was nearly nine.
He smiled. “Got any Jewish delicatessens here?”
“Follow me,” she said.
They drove in tandem along Eglinton Avenue, she leading in her Jaguar, he following in his rented Olds. She shifted lanes around slow cars and kept an eye on Nesha in her mirror. Close to Avenue Road, she signaled that she was parking. They were two blocks away from her house. Across the street was Yitz’s Deli, a long-standing Toronto fixture where the robust fragrance of corned beef had decades ago settled permanently into the sidewalk in front of the store.
On their way to their table they passed a cooler filled with jars of dill pickles and pickled red peppers. Nesha flipped the over-long pages of the laminated menu and grinned. “This is my kind of place. We don’t have anything like this in San Francisco. I guess we’ve assimilated too well.”
He ordered a pastrami sandwich on rye and a kishka. She watched him eat in wonder as she nibbled at her salad. She would’ve been up all night with such fare.
“What’s it like in San Francisco?”
The food had relaxed him. His black eyes gleamed in the soft light of the booth. “The most beautiful place on earth,” he said. “Not just the city itself. The bay. All the little towns around it. I can see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance right outside my window. It’s like a misty piece of art. There’s something new each time the light shifts. I read somewhere there was an artist who painted a haystack a hundred times, each time in a slightly different light. That guy would’ve loved the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“Monet,” she said. “It was Monet.” She was reminded of David and the connection made a piece of lettuce stick in her throat.
“I’m a little disoriented here because of the flatness. My house is set into the side of a hill and the eye is constantly moving up. Very exciting, really. You’ve heard of ‘sea legs’? Well, a few times I’ve had to catch myself from keeling over here because I keep expecting a hill where there isn’t one.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” she said, smiling.
“Well, I invite you out west to check it out. Come visit me and I’ll take you up all the good hills.”
“What about your family?”
“My son’s away at college. I’m alone in the house.” Then, “Who’s at your house?”
“I’m a widow. My husband died last fall.”
Nesha shrunk back in his seat. “I’m sorry. Then you’re still in mourning. That’s the sadness I saw.”
“Is it that obvious?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Only to someone else in pain.”
Tears stung her eyes without warning and she turned away. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry in front of people.”
He reached out a hesitant hand. “I’m flattered that you feel safe enough with me.”
He pulled back when the waiter approached. “Would you like some coffee?” Nesha asked.
“You know, my house is just around the corner,” she said. “I can make us some coffee.”
She unlocked her front door and felt him follow her in. It was an odd feeling, bringing a strange man into the house after ten.
She turned on the light in the kitchen. “I only have decaffeinated coffee.”
“You’re too young for your diet,” he said. Suddenly he yawned.
“You must be tired,” she said.
She led him into the den and turned on a lamp. “Make yourself comfortable and I’ll bring in the coffee.”
“Black,” he said and sat down heavily on the L-shaped sofa.
She was carrying the cups into the den when she stopped in her tracks: he was fast asleep on one L of the sofa, lying with his knees up toward his chest, hand under his head. He had taken off his shoes. The gun lay nearby on a coffee table. His face had softened, the eyebrows dark and finely formed against the skin. There was something touching about the shape he had taken. Something vulnerable and young that was hidden while he was awake. It was probably self-defence after all he had been through. Suddenly she saw him ten years old, thin and dirty, spinning through the indifferent Polish woods, eyes filled with terror and grief, too preoccupied trying to stay alive to mourn for his family. She had the inexplicable urge to take that boy in her arms and stroke his hair, tell him everything would be all right. Only she knew it wouldn’t be. It would never be all right again.
She covered him with an afghan that lay nearby and turned the lamp off in the den. In the kitchen she poured the coffee back into the pot. She was dead tired herself but something was nagging at her. She knew what she had to do, but dreaded doing it. It was her own fault for putting the art books in the basement.
She opened the door that led downstairs and turned on the light. Her heart shrank as she stepped down the carpeted stairs. Without looking at David’s paintings stored upright in the unfinished part of the basement, she approached the bookcase. She pulled out a thick volume on the Renaissance and plopped down on the nearby sofa with it. The old tweedy couch had been in their first apartment when they got married and Rebecca felt a twinge in her chest.
Checking the index references on Raphael she began to look up page numbers. She pushed past Madonnas and the St. George and the Dragon motifs that Raphael had been so enamoured of. She flipped pages impatiently and finally lost hope. Too many Renaissance artists to include more than a token of each. Then all of a sudden, there it was.
The nobleman with averted eyes beneath a perfect brow and the sensuous mouth of a girl. Below: Portrait of a Young Man, formerly in Krakow, Czartoryski Collection. She searched for elaboration in the text but the author was more interested in playing the profound art critic than imparting any practical knowledge:
There has been a tendency to recognize Francesco Maria della Rovere, up to 1516 the Duke of Urbino, in the Czartoryski portrait of a young man of a beauty that is almost feminine, but cruel. But even if the identification is rejected today it is still the typical image of a lord of the cinquecento, refined and ethically insensible, in this face that looks at us contemptuously from the chromatic glory of the rich vestments....
Krakow, Rebecca thought. Her mother-in-law had grown up in Krakow. And hadn’t been back since the war. Understandably, since most of her family had been killed in the vicinity. But Sarah was a resilient person, well-read and cultured, and it was just a little question she had for her. As long as they didn’t talk about David.
Rebecca checked her watch. Just ten-thirty. She wouldn’t tell Sarah she had a stranger sleeping on her den sofa. She picked up the old phone extension they kept downstairs and dialed Sarah’s number.
“Hello dear, is anything wrong?” Sarah asked in her dramatic, scrupulous accent when she heard Rebecca’s voice. Rebecca usually called her weekly on Sundays.
“No, no. Everything’s fine.” Yeah, sure. Rebecca pictured Sarah’s slightly waved auburn hair, chin length and perky for a woman of sixty-one. “I just had a question I thought you might be able to answer.”
“Yes?”
“Have you heard of the Czartoryski Collection in Krakow?”
“Oh, Czartoryski.” She pronounced the cz like cb. “ Yes, of course. They were an old aristocratic family in Poland. They collected art. All kinds of art. So what can you do when you have a mansion full of paintings and tapestries and beautiful furniture? You graciously open your doors and show everyone. So that’s the museum.”
Sarah had a lively critical mind and had picked up an impeccable English during her years in Canada. She was always studying something. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m trying to find out about one particular painting. My source says that a Raphael painting, a portrait of a young man, used to be there.”
“Ah, one of
the big three. Everyone knew there were three important paintings at the Czartoryski. The most famous one is Lady with an Ermine, by Leonardo da Vinci. They came from everywhere to see that. And a so-so Rembrandt landscape. Those two were recovered after the war. Not the Raphael.”
“What happened to it?”
“Oh, that is the big question. First you have to know that the Germans were fond of art. They saw it as their rightful booty in war. Wherever they went they stole the best pieces. So when they invaded Poland, Hans Frank — he was the Nazi governor of Poland — confiscated those three famous paintings and hung them in his apartment in the castle. You know about the castle in Krakow? Wawel?” She pronounced it Vavel.
“Uh... no.”
“Doesn’t matter. When the Nazis realized they had lost the war, they ran with whatever they could carry that was valuable. I heard Frank grabbed those three paintings when he fled to Bavaria at the end of the war. When the Americans caught him he had the da Vinci and the Rembrandt with him. But not the Raphael.”
“And it was never found?”
“You have to keep in mind the chaos at the end of the war. Everybody was on the move. The people who were lucky enough to survive roamed around in shock. Suddenly their Nazi captors had fled. As for the Germans, if they knew where to look and they kept their heads, they could pick up stolen pieces their comrades had left behind. There were many, many stolen pieces.” A slight pause. “What’s your interest in this, dear?”
“It’s a long, involved story. Maybe I’ll be able to unravel it by the time you come over on Passover.”
Rebecca slowly climbed the stairs from the basement. She was not only exhausted, but bewildered. Could Vogel actually have in his possession the genuine Raphael? And if so, what about the other pieces in Feldberg’s catalogue? She couldn’t think anymore.
Leaving only a night-light on in the kitchen, she crept into the den where Nesha still slept on the sectional sofa. He had barely moved, his breathing rhythmic. She lay down on the adjoining L of the sofa. David’s watercolour of her reclining by the river hung mutely above her like a remnant of another life. A street lamp sent a blue shaft of light through the window onto the floor. The triangle of light floated toward the ceiling and grew into a blinding horizon that loomed before her. The sun glanced off the river into her eyes. She squinted as she jogged along the shore. When she got closer, the line of the horizon wiggled and took on a familiar shape. It settled into the outline of David painting at an easel. David. She could feel the fuzzy flannel of his shirt, the orange hair between her fingers though he was fifty feet distant, his back turned to her. She also knew, without seeing the canvas, that he was painting a self-portrait. Which struck her as odd, since he’d never expressed any interest in doing one. She quickened her pace, prodded by the urgency of reaching him before he disappeared. She called out to him but he was intent on his work and didn’t turn. He must be alive, she thought, or he wouldn’t be so casual about seeing her again. The whole thing in the hospital was a nightmare and he’s alive. Her chest expanded with such relief — when she reached him she flung her arms around him, weeping in her throat. He lost no time directing her to the painting on the easel. She tore herself away to stare into the dark melancholy eyes of Nesha reproduced on the canvas, the deft brush strokes rendering his sculpted mouth open in an expression of surprise.
“Rebecca...”
Her eyes shot open. Nesha crouched before her, one knee resting on the floor. The light from the kitchen slanted off his face. “You were calling out,” he said shyly.
“I’m sorry.” She sat up, embarrassed, tears still in her throat. “I was dreaming about my husband.”
He was still crouching. “Then I’m sorry,” he said.
Now that she was sitting, he had to look up at her. He observed her openly without speaking. To her surprise she wasn’t self-conscious; rather, she felt comfortable with him.
“You’re not as strong as you make out,” he said.
“Are you?”
He reflected for a minute, then stood up. “I am when I swim.”
This was something new, she thought.
“When I feel really bad, I find the nearest pool and swim and swim till I can’t breathe anymore. I feel strong in the water; it keeps me afloat.” His hands were curled into loose fists. “But in the end it doesn’t matter. When your heart is dead, you can be strong. Mine’s just a lump in my chest. You can do almost anything if you don’t have to feel.”
She stood up beside him. There was no expression in his eyes as she brought the fingers of one hand together and pressed them flat against his chest. She tilted her head, played at listening to the ailing heart but the warmth of his body beneath her hand distracted her, the gentle breathing.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings,” she said at last, feeling his eyes upon her. “But as a doctor, I can say with confidence that your heart is alive and well — and lodged firmly in your chest.”
He seemed to be looking at her from beyond some gulf of distance or time. His gaze made her feel awkward and she began to pull her arm away. He caught her gently and clasped her hand to his chest with his own. She stopped breathing. His hand warmed hers against the delicate movement of his breast.
“It’s been a long time since I let someone get this close,” he whispered.
That seemed remarkable to her since her arm was almost fully extended. She stepped forward, insouciant. “How close?”
The line of his mouth relaxed, his eyes softened with bemused surprise as he watched her face, ten inches away. “Doctor —” he began.
“Rebecca.”
“I don’t think you understand. You can’t save me.”
“I don’t give up as long as there’s hope,” she said.
His full lips parted, she was close enough to see the sculpted line of his upper lip. “So where can you possibly see hope?” He asked this while still clasping his hand over hers, tight against his chest.
She squeezed his fingers and said, “Here.” She lifted her face to his, whispering. “And here.” Then she pressed her lips lightly against his wide sculpted mouth.
She pulled away, staggered by the silken warmth. He hadn’t let go of her hand though his eyes were closed, his brow creased in some distress. The last thing she wanted was to cause him more pain. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
He opened his eyes and stared at her face a full minute, as if finding something there he had missed before. Then slowly, purposefully, he slid her hand from his chest up around his neck and drew her close. His soft mouth enfolded hers, burned with heat. She was melting into it, disappearing from the world gladly, dissolving into a lump of flesh and everything was gone except the arms pressing her waist strongly to his.
For two years she had forgotten how to feel desire. On the sectional couch in the den, Nesha reminded her. He probed her body like an explorer without maps, without compass, only instinct and passion to guide him. Nesha. His name was like the sound water made splashing over stones. Her head swam with his heat, with the tautness of his body arched against hers, the firm round muscles of his shoulders and thighs. His lips searched her breasts, her belly. She felt his bewilderment become hunger and she rejoiced in her victory over death. Hers as well as his. She rejoiced in the fever of her skin that burned where his hand touched. They made love in the hazy dark, the light of the street lamp splitting the night.
chapter thirty
Saturday, April 7, 1979
Why is it so cold? Isn’t it spring? Why am I shivering under the cover, a duvet filled with enough silky down to clothe a flock of geese? Rebecca opened one eye and became disoriented. There was no duvet, there were no bedclothes, indeed there was no bed. She was lying stark naked under the afghan she usually kept folded on the den sofa. A thin light filtered into the room. Dawn. The highlights of last night played out before her eyes: Nesha’s muscular body, his mouth sweetly pressing.... She craned her neck, still squinting from the light, to peer up at th
e other side of the sectional. Empty. Flown the coop. A one-nighter. He seemed more reliable than that. She looked over at the coffee table. There was a note.
Her arm reached out through the cold air. “Sorry to run. Call you later.” He must’ve taken down her number from one of her phones.
She wrapped the afghan around herself and started upstairs. No, check the front door first. He couldn’t have locked the deadbolt without a key. She hobbled down the hall to the door and clicked the deadbolt down. How long had he been gone? One hour? Two? The killer had missed his chance. Eyes screwed up against the incipient light, she hiked upstairs to bed and set her alarm for 8:45. Every new sound roused her as she drifted in a shallow sleep. The alarm woke her with a start. Exhausted, but awake. She had scheduled two hours of patients this morning, starting at ten.
After quickly showering, she pulled on a pair of beige linen trousers and a loose cotton sweater. She scrunched up her damp hair in her fingers, squeezing the curls into place. A bit of foundation on her skin, a bit of mascara, her cotton spring jacket, and she was out the door.
She drove down Avenue Road until it became Queen’s Park, then all the way down to College Street. Traffic was light Saturday morning and allowed her the opportunity of mentally reliving last night’s lovemaking. She was ashamed she had enjoyed it so much. Sorry to run. Call you later. Maybe Nesha hadn’t felt the same.
She parked in the back lot beside Iris’ Buick, the only car there since Lila Arons didn’t work on Saturdays. She unlocked the back door of the building and stepped in. Approaching the staircase that led to her office she knew something was wrong — the door was ajar. She stopped cold half way up, listening for every sound. Iris never left the door open. What if he were up there? She listened. Nothing but the sound of her own heart. Iris. Rebecca ran the rest of the way until a few steps before the top, when her eyes were level with the office floor. All she could see was Iris’ blonde head on the carpet.
Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle Page 18
