The Painting on Auerperg's Wall

by Erika Rummel

  “My aunt took me to Hungary. She had relatives in Budapest. But after the war, things went from bad to worse. The Russians closed the border and imposed their regime on the country.”

  “But you studied in Vienna, isn’t that what you told me?”

  Zoltan gave him a quizzical look, and David realized his mistake. Zoltan had told him nothing. He had read it on the website of the Hope Center.

  “I escaped to Vienna during the Hungarian Uprising in ’56,” Zoltan said, “and the Auerpergs took me in. I wrote the pamphlet as a tribute to Max. He was like an older brother to me. Later, I wrote the story up properly, with names and dates, and shopped it around to publishers, but no luck. They either wanted me to jazz up the narrative or said the book was too short and needed more historical background. In the end, I published it myself. It’s not that I was desperate to see my name in print. I just wanted to go on record.”

  “If you have a spare copy, I’d like to read it.”

  Zoltan put up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Nancy was unhappy with the longer version. I ended up trashing the print run. I didn’t want the book to come between us. Relationships are difficult enough, without dragging in history.”

  “She didn’t like your interpretation of history?”

  “You could put it that way.”

  “But everyone is entitled to his own views,” David said, lapsing into his lecturer’s voice. “There is no such thing as The Historical Truth.”

  “Derrida, and all that — I know,” Zoltan said. His voice picked up. He wasn’t going to be lectured by David. “But Deconstruction is old hat. Philosophies aren’t what they used to be, have you noticed? Plato stayed on top for a millennium. The Enlightenment lasted two centuries. Marx kept his grip on the communist movement for a hundred years. Derrida and Deconstruction are already fading. I give them another five years, tops.”

  “And after that certainty will return?” David said. If so, it was too late to do him any good. Deconstruction had worked its insidious poison on his brain. It would be a long time before he could say again with total conviction: What I see is what I get. In the meantime, he was stuck with doubts and best-guess scenarios.

  “I don’t know about certainty in the philosophical sense,” Zoltan said. “But as far as the historical truth is concerned: I know what happened to my parents. They died at Dachau in a typhus epidemic. That’s documented. And I have my aunt’s word for what happened in Vienna. She told me the story of their deportation so often, I know it by heart. We could have recited it together. But for Nancy it wasn’t about the historical truth. It was about family, about the Auerpergs. She was loyal to her husband, and she didn’t think I’d given him and his father enough credit for what they’d done. She was unhappy about certain details, about a painting my aunt sold to Max’s father and shouldn’t have. Or perhaps it was the other way round, a painting Auerperg shouldn’t have bought from her. It’s a complicated story.” He shrugged.

  “Stories involving heirlooms are always complicated,” David said. “I’m working on a book about the Burgundian Habsburgs in the fifteenth century. It involves a lot of family quarrels over objets d’art. There were feuds about who was going to inherit what. Greed, jealousy, intrigue, forgery, murder. You name it, and there is a Burgundian case story to illustrate it.”

  “No murder in this case,” Zoltan said. “Jealousy maybe. But I’m not going to quarrel with Nancy over something that happened half a century ago.”

  “And so you decided to leave the past alone and write about the future?”

  Zoltan grinned. “Science fiction is a great genre. You won’t hurt anyone’s feelings speculating about the future. You can tweak it to suit your taste. Or rather, I tweaked it to suit Nancy’s taste. I’m writing this novel for her.”

  “Have you made her a character in the book?”

  He thought for a moment. “In a way,” he said. “You could say Nancy is the heroine searching for eternal youth, and I’m the mad scientist trying to find a way to make it possible. But now I’m thinking of changing the storyline. The idea of rejuvenating the body isn’t futuristic enough.”

  “You mean, there’s no need to transfer your physical imperfections to a clone when you can have cosmetic surgery instead?”

  “Right. There are ways to reshape the body, but no one has developed a procedure for reshaping experiences. You can’t shed them or transfer them to another person, not yet anyway. Although Hollywood is trying to provide that experience. Why do you think action movies are such a hit with young males? Because they crave the excitement of action. They are hungry for a high-risk life, for the adrenalin high of fighting the enemy. Their own lives are so boring. Nothing exciting ever happens to them. They are bus drivers or mailmen working the same route week after week. They shelve products at Walmart all day long or sit in a cubicle looking at figures on a screen. I myself have the opposite problem. I’ve had some frightening experiences in my life, adventures I’d like to forget or shuffle off.”

  For a moment, David thought Zoltan might tell him of those adventures, but he only wrinkled his brow and capped the confidential talk, moving from the particular to the general. “Now that’s a subject for a futuristic novel,” he said. “The protagonist gets rid of painful experiences by shifting them to a clone. Or simply sheds whatever he no longer needs or wants by selling it to the highest builder. A Craigslist of old experiences, if you want.”

  It was a vintage Zoltan speech. He was a futurist, always a civilization ahead of everyone else. He gave David a victorious smile and handed him the coffee mug balanced on the empty cake plate. He was getting up to go when Laura appeared at the sliding glass door. Her thin figure was backlit, sharply outlined by the bright morning light, dark and luminous at the same time. She waved, and David let her in. She was wearing a black T-shirt and Lycra shorts. The black outfit gave her a crow-like appearance.

  “I’ve finished packing,” she said to Zoltan, “and I wanted to say goodbye to David.” She reached up, untangled a red rubber band from her ponytail, scraped her hair back from her forehead, and put the elastic back on. A few loose strands kept dangling behind her ears. She did not look well. Her face was pasty.

  She turned to David. “So long, then,” she said. She avoided his eyes and focused on some point below his chin instead.

  “Good luck,” he said, bending forward to kiss her on the cheek, but she failed to turn her head, and his lips touched the corner of her mouth, while her outstretched hand bumped into his stomach. It was an awkward goodbye: half New World peck, half Old World handshake.

  “It was nice to have you as a neighbour, however briefly,” he said, stepping back.

  “Yes,” she said, giving him a limp smile.

  “I’ll see you around,” he said, realizing at the same time that he probably wouldn’t.

  “Yes,” she said again. Her lips stayed parted as if she wanted to say more and couldn’t because her supply of words had dried up. He tried to read her thoughts in her eyes, but she put on a mask of anonymity, keeping her words and her thoughts from him.

  “Okay, let’s get your things into the car,” Zoltan said with determination and started for the door.

  David watched them cross the driveway, Zoltan solid, hand-paddling, Laura hiding in his shadow, a starveling little girl. He tried to tie down his feelings, his coming and going affection for Laura. Would he miss her, or was he glad to see her go? When Laura was helpless, he answered her silent call for help. He wanted to coddle her, to take care of her. But he preferred the pre-hospital Laura, the one with the cold reserve in her eyes, the one with the eccentric fashion sense and clipped speech, the woman who fitted seamlessly into his erotic dreams. Perhaps it was best to let go of Laura, both Lauras.

  TIME SLOWED TO a crawl for David after Laura’s departure. He was once again Bébé’s caretaker, but Nancy’s house was peopled with ghos
ts now: Laura, dark, silent, sylphlike. Zoltan, voluble, his hefty body weighing down the elegant patio chairs. Zoltan’s memoirs were floating in the air, nudging David’s brain with bits of information, enough to pique his curiosity, not enough to satisfy him, leaving him hanging, wanting to know more than the few words he had been offered in passing. About the Gestapo raid. About Zoltan’s rescue. About the painting that was sold and shouldn’t have been sold. David’s mind drifted to another fragment of the Nagy saga, Laura reminiscing about a painting in her grandfather’s study, Herbstwald, an autumn landscape, a stage for the fairy tales he told her. But that must have been another painting and another man because Zoltan’s father died before Laura was born and her maternal grandfather, if he was alive, would have been left behind in Hungary. Or was that another dark corner of the Nagy family history?

  David wondered about the memoir Zoltan had peddled and failed to sell to a publisher. Was it confined to Zoltan’s rescue from the Nazis, or did his gratitude to the Auerpergs carry on into the postwar years, to his flight from Hungary to Vienna and the hospitality they offered him? Because it was the sequel that David was interested in. Was there any mention of Laura in Zoltan’s memoir?

  An idea struck him: Nancy might have a copy of the book. While Bébé was crouching over her food, David searched the bookshelves in Nancy’s living room. He tried to tell himself that his search was no different from looking for historical sources in an archive. Maybe that was the definition of a historian’s job, probing the lives of others. But he couldn’t suppress a twinge of bad conscience. He was sticking his nose into other people’s business.

  He checked the titles of the books on the top shelf. They were devoted to art. He skimmed the books arranged at eye level, but he saw at a glance that they didn’t have the right shape for a memoir. They were coffee-table books, the hefty kind, display-sized. The lower shelves held a medley of books on history, biography, literary classics, and travel books. The Morocco leather spines were the only common denominator. He remembered reading somewhere that interior decorators bought that type of book by the yard to give a warm red and gold glow to a room. The bottom shelf contained a row of paperback novels, the kind sold at airport stores, thick with shiny textured covers, but no copy of The Rescue. It was a hopeless search, really. Why would Nancy keep a copy of the book if she disapproved of it?

  He went back to the kitchen. Bébé had finished eating and rubbed against David’s pant leg. He reached down, stroking her absent-mindedly. She escaped from the kitchen and dashed upstairs in a sudden display of nervous agility. He followed her lead. Nancy might have a copy of the short version of The Rescue at any rate, the one handed out at her husband’s funeral. He searched the bedrooms and found the memorial pamphlet in the most obvious place for a woman who had played the devout widow for him — on Nancy’s bedside table. On the cover page was a black-and-white headshot of a patriarchal-looking man: Max Auerperg, 1929-2000. David picked up the pamphlet and saw a slim volume underneath. The Rescue — disapproved by Nancy but preserved nevertheless, out of decorum because it was signed by the author? “For Nancy with love, Zoltan,” it said below the title.

  David sat down in one of the chintz-covered chairs and turned to the first page, but it didn’t seem right to sit in Nancy’s bedroom and read a book he had ferreted out by going through her things, a book of which she did not approve. It seemed a double violation of decency. He decided to take the book back to his house, to his study, the place where he did research. Because this was historical research, he reminded himself.

  Later, sitting at his desk, he opened the volume gingerly, afraid of cracking the spine and loosening the pages. For all he knew, it was a unique copy, the only witness left to Zoltan’s composition, a purloined copy on which he did not want to leave any traces of his guilt.

  He began reading. He expected to hear Zoltan’s voice, long-winded, complex, delivering some sort of Freudian analysis, but the account was plain. The facts were hard enough to take, and Zoltan understood: The suffering of the innocent is diminished by what is merely circumstantial.

  Zoltan’s name at birth was Samuel Wassermann. His father was arrested first. His mother was preparing to flee to England, but she waited too long and got caught in a Gestapo raid. Zoltan was saved because his aunt, Eva, pretended he was her child, but it was impossible to maintain the lie. Someone was bound to rat on her sooner or later. She had to get out of Vienna. Leo Auerperg offered to help her. Let’s talk, he said. They met at St. Peter’s Church.

  David put the book down. If he had known all that about Zoltan earlier — well, what difference would it have made? None. He still had a lot of questions that needed answers. He read on.

  It was a weekday. The church was deserted. Her steps were ringing on the flagstones, bringing a faint echo from the cupola. Von Auerperg was kneeling in one of the pews at a side altar lit by a single candelabra. With his hands covering his face, he looked like a man in deep prayer. She sat down in the row ahead of him, the baby in her lap sleeping fitfully.

  “Thank you for offering to help me,” she said to Auerperg, turning her head, speaking to him over her shoulder.

  The pew creaked faintly, as Auerperg leaned forward and whispered, “I’ve been thinking. You need cash. Could you sell some of the things in the apartment? I remember seeing an ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, and a Fabergé egg, and a Waldmüller over the fireplace — was it a Waldmüller? And what about the Pettenkofens and the Hobbema? They are worth a great deal.”

  “They’ve all been sold. The money has been deposited in an account in Switzerland, but I don’t know the details. Josef took care of everything. We thought the information was safe with him.”

  “And there’s nothing of value left?” he said.

  “Only the Persian carpets and a painting by Liebermann: Herbstwald. He has been blacklisted by the Nazis. Irene couldn’t find a buyer, or maybe she didn’t try hard enough. It was her favourite painting, you know. She loved Herbstwald.”

  David stopped, confused. There it was. The painting Laura had mentioned. Herbstwald. Autumn Forest. But the time frame was wrong, wasn’t it? Laura could not have seen it in her grandfather’s study. She might have seen Herbstwald later when Auerperg owned it. But he wasn’t her grandfather. Was Laura’s reminiscence a fantasy born of longing? Was it a false memory or a neural malfunction?

  He turned the page.

  “I tell you what,” von Auerperg said. “I’ll buy the carpets and the Liebermann from you. I’ll move the stuff to my property in the country. I’ll give you,well, I don’t know… whatever I can scrape together in a hurry.”

  “I can’t sell them to you,” she said. “They belong to Sam and Irene.”

  There was a pause, in which the baby set up a wail. Von Auerperg said hurriedly: “If anything happens to the parents, the little one is the heir. So you’ll be acting on his behalf.”

  “I suppose so,” Eva said, cradling the child in her arms. “I guess I can’t worry about legal niceties now. I’m between a rock and a hard place.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s a tough situation. And you understand: I’m taking a calculated risk buying the stuff and moving it out of the apartment. You’ll have to give me a receipt predating Sam’s arrest. Can you fake his signature?”

  “I couldn’t do that. I’ll give you a receipt in my own name.”

  The baby was settling into a crying jag. Von Auerperg sighed. “That will have to do then.”

  “And how will you get the money to me? I’m afraid to go home in case the Gestapo checks up on me. Honestly, I don’t know what to do,” she said, wiping the baby’s snotty face with her handkerchief. They were both inconsolable.

  “It’s probably best for you to go back to your sister-in-law’s apartment and stay there for the night,” Auerperg said. He was talking fast now. The child’s bawling unnerved him. “The Gestapo isn’t likely to go back there a
fter they’ve made the arrests. Tomorrow, we’ll see. My secretary is looking for someone to mind her mother. The old lady had a stroke, and her maid quit. She said she didn’t want to clean up after an imbecile who soils her pants. I’ll talk to my secretary. Her name is Liese Meisel. Phone her tomorrow morning. Maybe you can work something out with her. She needs a live-in maid. You need a place to stay. And I could get the money to you through Liese.”

  He got up.

  “Make up your mind,” he whispered urgently. “I have to go. I don’t want to be caught talking to you here.”

  “Alright, then,” Eva said. “I’ll go back to the apartment. I just hope there’s some milk there for the child.”

  “I’ll come by later and bring you some milk,” he said.

  My aunt and Liese Meisel came to an arrangement. Liese would do the food shopping. Eva would look after old Mrs. Meisel and do the cooking and the cleaning.

  “What’s the little boy’s name?” Liese asked.

  “Zoltan,” my aunt said. It wasn’t wise to tell Liese my real name. I was named Samuel after my father, but that was a giveaway. It meant I was Jewish. No one else used Old Testament names in Vienna.

  “I’m afraid I can’t offer you any pay, only room and board,” Liese said. “You understand that I’m doing this as a favour to Mr. von Auerperg. He says you are in some sort of trouble. On the run from a husband who beat you up — something like that, right? He said you didn’t want to talk about it, but you were scared of him. You don’t want him to know where you are.” She gave Eva a questioning look.

  “That’s right,” Eva said. “I need to keep out of his way.”

  “Well, that’s not a very nice situation,” Liese said. “What if he finds out where you live and comes after you? What if he makes a scene at my place? What will the neighbours say?”

  “That’s why I’m prepared to work without pay,” Eva said. “I appreciate the risk you are taking.”

  “As long as you appreciate it,” Liese said.