by Erika Rummel
When Zoltan wrote his tribute to Max, and read it out at the Celebration of Life, I cried and cried, surely no one will ever say anything about the Liebermann painting again, I thought. The Auerpergs saved Zoltan’s life after all, but Laura — Laura of all people — said it was a maudlin story. If Zoltan wanted to set the record straight, he should write a proper memoir, put down exactly what Aunt Eva told him, and what the circumstances were, and put in the names and dates and places, that would be something of lasting value, a gift to her and Cereta, a piece of family history, and Zoltan agreed with her and wrote the memoir and had it printed, that was the worst of it. I was so distraught because it made Opa Auerperg look like a swindler, and when Zoltan saw how hurt I was, he kissed me and said, Nancy, I don’t want you to be upset, I tell you what, I’ll pulp all the copies, the whole print run, except for two copies, to leave to the children, because, you must admit, they have a right to closure, and that’s what I wanted to give them, a definite narrative. Well, I don’t know about that, I said, it’s a narrative that makes Opa Auerperg look bad, or casts suspicion on him at any rate, and will only make Cereta dig in deeper and stir up the mud. I could have said a lot more, that it wasn’t even the whole story, considering what Max had told me, on his deathbed practically, and it’s not wise to stir up the mud, definitely not. But I stopped feeling so desolate after Zoltan said he would destroy the copies, and it was certainly the right thing to do if he loves me, but I kept my copy, because of the pattern, you know, I kept it together with his tribute to Max, it seemed to me that those two pieces needed to be twinned, to show the difference between gratitude and business, as Cereta said, it’s one thing to be grateful and another to do business.
And then Cereta almost spoiled our Nile cruise. Or perhaps, I should say, she and Zoltan, I can’t absolve him completely, because it was the two of them, they cooked up that scheme, and Laura going along, well, it must be said, unwillingly, no, it wasn’t Laura’s fault. It was one of Zoltan’s theatrical stunts, one of his hoaxes. He told me only after we got to Cairo, and I wish he hadn’t told me at all. God, it was high-risk! But it had all blown over by then, and that’s why he told me, because, he said, everything was fine, but it’s hard to believe that anyone can pull off a stunt like that. I had just begun to relax when Zoltan got the phone call from David Finley.
It was hard enough to relax in Cairo. After some tourists were ambushed, the security at the Hyatt was tighter than at the airport, you had to walk through metal detectors every time you entered the lobby, and there was really nowhere to shop except at the boutiques in the hotel complex, but the fashions were somehow — maybe people in Cairo like that style, the women there tended to be a little too, the makeup, I mean, especially around the eyes, it reminded me of the ’60s, and you couldn’t walk anywhere because you had to be afraid of twisting your ankle on the cracked sidewalks, and there was construction opposite the hotel, the men climbing up the scaffolding like monkeys, with their jellabiyas tucked into their belts, climbing up the ladders in sandals, can you believe it, no one wore construction boots or hard hats, and on the roof of the building next to the hotel, right across from our room, was a goat tethered to a peg, and all the sightseeing was spoiled because there were always crowds of kids and old men peddling postcards, and touching you, and looking so ragged, and speaking such horrible pidgin English, no, it was a mistake to go to Egypt. The Nile cruise was better because at least we were among ourselves, and the waiters and stewards kept their distance, and the tall men sailing the feluccas were really quite elegant, with their smooth black faces and flawless white teeth and wide smiles, but still, we should have just gone straight to Vienna, which is so much more civilized. In any case, I couldn’t enjoy a thing with Laura and Cereta playing that farce, and David Finley getting mixed up in it as well. It turned out he had heard about the so-called mugging and gone to the hospital, it was lucky he’d seen Laura only once, at the party, in soft lighting, so he wasn’t able to tell the difference, and a lot could be blamed on amnesia, Zoltan said, but I doubt Laura can get away with this newest twist, going out with David and whatnot, without telling him the whole story, not with David insisting that he saw her in Vienna. I’m positive it was her, he said. I suspect he ran into Cereta. What bad luck, I mean Vienna has two million inhabitants, so what are the odds they’d meet at the Dorotheum — but then he is an art historian, and so perhaps it wasn’t so odd that he’d go to the Dorotheum and look at the paintings there. I just hope Laura won’t mention the Liebermann to him because he might take an interest and look into its provenance, complicate things, aren’t they complicated enough already?
BUT, GOD, TIME FLIES, Nancy thought. It’s already ten o’clock and she had an appointment with Stanley Summers at 10:30, and he was so particular about time, a lawyer’s time is money, of course. Nancy understood. She drove up Wilshire, and took the elevator to the third floor. Andrea, Stanley’s secretary (did she have to paint her nails blue with little silver stars? but that was probably a Latino thing), Andrea said hello and told her to go right in, Mr. Summers was expecting her, and Stanley in his impeccable Brooks Brothers suit, wool and cashmere blend, striped shirt, but the tie, Koala bears? Isn’t that a little? What happened to the Harvard tie? Stanley came out from behind his desk, tall, deferent, came around and shook her hand, he had a bear squeeze handshake, it hurt but it also gave you a solid feeling, like his voice.
“What can I do for you, Nancy?” he said in his rich bass.
“I don’t know where to start,” she said, sinking into the Loewenstein chair. He should really go for something lighter, but maybe his office was intentionally stuffy, conventional goes with the image of a lawyer. “It’s rather awkward, you know.”
He waited politely for her to continue. His hand went up to his domed head and planed back the non-existent hair. His eyes glinted at her through the glasses (rimless Silhouettes), he was ready to hear what she had to say, she wished he’d say something encouraging, though, like “take your time, Nancy.”
How to put it?
“It’s about a painting, Max Liebermann’s Herbstwald, a painting my father-in-law acquired in 1939 from a neighbour who was deported by the Nazis,” she said.
“Acquired — you mean, bought?”
“Bought, yes, that is, money changed hands between him and Zoltan’s aunt, but nobody knows how much, and now Cereta, Zoltan’s daughter, the one who lives in Hungary, alleges that my father-in-law took advantage of the situation and did not pay full value for the painting.”
“Let me get this straight, Nancy. Zoltan’s aunt was the owner of the painting? And your father-in-law bought it from her?”
“No, I didn’t explain that properly. Sorry, Stanley. The painting belonged to Zoltan’s parents, who were deported and died in a concentration camp. His aunt rescued Zoltan — he was an infant — and sold the painting to Leo, my father-in-law, because she needed money to get away. I suppose she acted on behalf of the owners, or on behalf of the heir — Zoltan, I mean.”
“I’m not sure that sort of reasoning would stand up in a court of law, Nancy. The situation, if I understand it correctly, is this: Your father-in-law bought, for an unknown sum, the painting from a person claiming to represent the owners. Now, as to taking advantage of the situation — I do not see how anyone can make that claim if the purchase price is unknown. I can, however, see the heir — Zoltan — claiming that his aunt was not entitled to sell the painting, and that your father-in-law was therefore not the rightful owner.”
“I can’t imagine Zoltan saying any such thing.”
“You’d be surprised what people say or do for money, Nancy. Where is the painting now, if I may ask?”
“In my apartment in Vienna. Max inherited it from his father. And let me assure you, Stanley, Zoltan would never question Max’s ownership — not after what the Auerpergs did for him.”
“What, exactly, are we talking about here, Nancy?
Financial support? Can we quantify what the Auerpergs did for Zoltan? Is this something we can document?”
“Zoltan has put it all into his memoir if that’s what you mean by ‘document’.”
“Let’s be a little more precise, Nancy. A memoir — as in a diary? A manuscript? A printed book?”
“A printed book, well, Zoltan self-published it, but he destroyed all the copies because I was so upset — he destroyed them all, he said, except for two, to leave to his daughters.”
Stanley raised an eyebrow. She knew what that peaked eyebrow meant, it reduced everything to an alleged thing.
“And I have kept one copy,” she said doggedly, as doggedly as she could manage under Stanley’s raised eyebrow, “which I can show you. In fact, I’ve brought it with me.”
She opened her purse and brought out her copy of The Rescue.
“He says explicitly that Max and his father saved his life,” she said. “I don’t know whether that quantifies it. You can’t put a dollar value on life. Unfortunately, he also says that his aunt — wait, let me find the place, I’ve marked it — expected more money for the painting than she got, but that she was in no position to negotiate. Here it is. He paid ‘less than Eva had expected.’”
“I see. Let’s look at two possible scenarios. One: Zoltan’s aunt – she is deceased, I take it?” He waited for Nancy to nod yes, before he went on. “One: Zoltan’s aunt had no legal title to the painting, in which case the transaction is null and void. Two: She was entitled to sell the painting and sold it under duress, which makes the transaction legally questionable. There are a number of precedents, I’m afraid — judgments reversing such transactions and returning objects of art to the original owners, or their heirs, as the case may be.”
“I know. Cereta keeps citing cases. She is a very troublesome young woman, you know. The things she has put me through, just lately, I don’t even know whether I should tell you, but I will because I think I should give you the whole picture, so you can advise me what to do.”
He leaned forward. “I think I’d have to read the memoir and do some research into related cases, Nancy, if you want specific legal advice from me in this matter. Is that what you want — a legal opinion on whether Zoltan and/or his daughters have an actionable case against you?”
“Perhaps I should tell you about Cereta first.”
“If you think it’s relevant. I don’t want to hurry you, Nancy, but you did book a thirty-minute consultation, and I have another meeting at eleven, so we may have to leave it at preliminaries for today. But do go ahead, and tell me about Cereta, if you think it’s relevant.”
“I wish you wouldn’t hurry me, Stanley. I can’t express myself clearly when I’m rushed. And now you’re asking me, is it relevant? Well, how am I supposed to know? You are the lawyer, Stanley, not I. Let’s just say, I was appalled when Zoltan first told me about the scheme. Cereta, you see — did I tell you, she is Laura’s twin sister? Well, Laura always says she herself is the older sister, but that’s only by ten minutes. When Zoltan split up with his wife, Cereta elected to stay with her mother, and they moved back to Hungary, don’t ask me why anyone would move from Vienna to Hungary. I think the mother was a little, well I don’t know, unbalanced, or homesick, or didn’t want to learn German, or something like that. Anyway, Cereta studied English at the University of Pécs and afterwards taught high school in Hollókõ, some godforsaken place near the Rumanian border, Zoltan tells me. Some time ago, I can’t tell you exactly when, there was an explosion at a local fertilizer factory there, which resulted in a toxic spill. It affected the water supply of several houses nearby, including the house in which Cereta and her mother lived. The factory owners hushed up the accident and offered them compensation. Cereta’s mother refused to accept hush money. Both she and Cereta suffered from nausea and dizziness for a while. The complaint Cereta lodged with local authorities went nowhere, and no one helped them because the fertilizer company is the town’s main employer. I’m telling you what Zoltan told me, Stanley, so I don’t know whether it’s true. Anyway, Stanley, I can tell you are getting impatient with me, but I’m keeping it as short as I can. Cereta’s kidneys were affected, apparently. By last summer, her condition was acute. No one believed, or wanted to believe, her story. She could not get proper treatment, or not fast enough. That’s when she contacted Zoltan.”
Stanley looked at his watch. “Nancy, let’s get to the point. How is this related to the question of the painting?”
“It’s not, but you wanted me to tell you what I’ve done for Zoltan. He wanted to bring Cereta here, so she could receive proper treatment for the kidney problem. The question was who would pay for it? I wish he had asked me. I would have offered. But he came up with a crazy plan instead: Laura is fully covered for medical expenses, and so, the simplest thing, he said, was for Cereta to borrow her identity for a time.”
“Nancy!” Stanley said, scandalized. “That is reckless, not to mention, illegal. I know Zoltan can be over-the-top, but I’m surprised he’d get involved in a scheme like that.”
“If he had told me ahead of time, I would have discouraged him. But he only told me after it was over.”
She had cried when he told her, on the cruise ship, standing at the rail of the upper deck and looking out into the sluggish water of the Nile, listening to the hollow noise of the ship’s engines below. They sounded ominous, like a murmured threat. She cried, even though he said it had gone alright, and she should be able to see the funny side of it. He had his arm around her shoulder and said, Nancy, love, life is generally speaking flat. We need to put a few bumps in the road to keep the driver awake.
Stanley was frowning, but she braved his frown. “What can I say? Zoltan loves hoaxes.”
“This isn’t a hoax, Nancy. This is fraud. Besides, if his daughter was sick, I’m sure she could have gone to Budapest and gotten treatment there. Hungary isn’t on the other side of the moon. They’ll be joining the European Community within a year. Their hospitals must be up to international standards.”
Nancy nodded helplessly. “I know. Maybe she just wanted to get away from her mother who is crazy.”
“Leaving that question aside for the moment, how is all of this connected to the Liebermann painting?”
“Don’t you see, Stanley? After I put up with that caper, Cereta can’t possibly take me to court. I mean, she’d be afraid. I could report her after all.”
Stanley compressed his lips. “Let’s not add blackmail to the mixture, Nancy. Two wrongs don’t make a right. So, you say, Laura was involved in this as well? I would have thought she was too level-headed to abet a criminal scheme.”
“She didn’t want to get involved, at least that’s what she says. She was furious with Zoltan for setting it in motion, but she felt she couldn’t let him down. Him or Cereta. She picked her sister up at the airport, took her to Santa Monica Place, and left her there. That was the extent of her involvement, Laura said. At first, the idea was that they’d do a straight exchange. Cereta comes here, and Laura goes to Hungary, but in the end, she chickened out. She didn’t want to spend all that time with her mother, who is crazy, as I said, pathologically depressed, or bipolar, or something. So Laura went to the cabin — Zoltan has a cabin near Twentynine Palms, on a dirt road, I don’t know why anyone would want to go there, it’s absolutely out in nowhere. Laura went to the cabin and stayed out of sight for the duration.”
“Nancy, this is deplorable. I don’t know what to say.” He looked at his watch again. “I wish you hadn’t told me, and I’ll do my best to forget the story. My advice — my personal advice, Nancy and I’m speaking as a friend, not as a lawyer — is to do nothing. Forget about the painting until Zoltan, or his daughter, take action, which, as you say, is unlikely in the circumstances. And in the meantime, try not to let it bother you.”
That was all very well for Stanley to say, but it did bother her, and
she hadn’t even gotten to the point of telling Stanley what Max said to her, practically with his last breath. The poor man had carried the burden on his shoulders for years. But her thirty minutes with Stanley were up. She would have to tell him next time, she just wished Stanley wasn’t so exacting. If she told him what Max said, she was afraid he’d say you can’t rely on the testimony of a stroke victim, Nancy. Do you have anything in writing? Are you sure you understood Max correctly? Well, no, she wasn’t sure, and there was nothing in writing, and perhaps it didn’t affect the transaction as such if Stanley was right, and it had no legal force after all. But in any case, her time was up.
Stanley came around his desk and touched her shoulder solicitously, or pretended to be solicitous, because Nancy understood, really, he just wanted her to get up and leave. It was the end of the interview.
“If there is anything else I can do for you, Nancy, let Andrea know, and she’ll book you another appointment. But as I see it, there is no reason to pursue the question of ownership of the painting at this point in time. I’d put it aside, Nancy,” he said, ushering her into the waiting room, where a man in a corporate-style suit, possibly the same Brooks Brother suit Stanley was wearing, put away The Economist and took up his attaché case, smiling expectantly.
“Well, thanks, Stanley,” she said, turning around to him in the doorway. “I’ll think it over and get back to you perhaps another time.”
