“Yes, dear. Who else?” These days they have no callers, so different from the halcyon days before the occupation. Their former friends are afraid to be seen in the home of Jews.
As Erich walks toward the parlor, he runs his fingers along the dark rectangular markings on the faded red silk damask walls, scars where paintings once hung. Not for the first time, he says a silent prayer of thanks that he listened to his daughter and removed his paintings to France before the Netherlands fell to the Nazis on May 14, 1940. Otherwise, Erich would have had to hand them over to the reichskommissar’s local band of government-sanctioned art looters, the Dienststelle Mühlmann, in compliance with the ordinance requiring Jews to surrender all valuables to the Dienststelle Mühlmann’s agent, the Lippmann, Rosenthal and Co. Bank. Though he turned over only the few, lesser paintings that remained on his walls when the ordinance was issued, the Nazis have heard rumors that he once had other treasures and now hound him for their location.
“A letter has come. From Hilda.”
He hurries into his wife’s rosy Victorian domain with its rococo murals of cherubs taking flight, so different from the austere décor and uncluttered surfaces of his study. The parlor’s shelves and tabletops are littered with silver frames of every imaginable shape and size, capturing events from a life that has passed. Cornelia sits in her usual wingback chair near the fireplace with an envelope, rather than her usual needlepoint, perched on her tightly closed knees.
“What does she say?” Erich is almost afraid to ask. Their daughter Hilda’s letters have grown increasingly rare and ever more filled with unwelcome news.
“I daren’t open it, Erich. It is addressed to you.”
“To me?” He is confused; Hilda’s letters are usually directed to his wife.
“Yes, and it came by the embassy pouch.”
He rushes to take the envelope from Cornelia’s hand and then slices it open with an ivory-handled letter opener from the parlor desk. A second, sealed envelope flutters out onto the floor.
After reaching down to grab the fallen letter, he sits in the wingback chair facing his wife’s. His hands shake as he tries to open the second envelope without breaking its ornate waxen seal. Only then does he pore over the two letters.
“What do they say, Erich?” Cornelia looks at him, her eyes brimming with expectation.
He hesitates, but there is no way to soften the news. “She cannot get us visas to Milan.”
The hope pours out of her eyes in tears. “What will we do, Erich?”
“She did manage to get us this.” He places the document enclosed in Hilda’s letter into his weeping wife’s hands.
Her cries stop for a moment as she dabs her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief and reads the missive. “So this will protect us from the reichskommissar’s deportations and the other ordinances against Jews? From the Dienststelle Mühlmann’s questioning?”
“So it seems. For now, at least.”
“But what of your brothers and sisters and their families?”
“The letter does not safeguard them. And Hilda would have arranged protection for her dear Maddie if she could.”
Cornelia’s sobs resume. He rises and runs a consoling but preoccupied hand along her shoulder as he leaves the parlor. He wishes he could comfort her, but there is something he must do. Something he had hoped to avoid.
His body feels heavy as he climbs the stairs to his study. The once gloriously spartan room, which had brought him such peace, now serves as a stark, even barren, reminder of all they have lost—all they still stand to lose. He sits at his desk and begins to compose a letter of his own, a letter to his daughter.
fifteen
NEW YORK CITY, PRESENT DAY
IN THE TEN DAYS THAT FOLLOWED THE DEPOSITION, MARA spent most of her time writing and assessing the transcript. She needed a tourniquet in several places to stop the bleeding from Hilda’s sympathetic deposition testimony. But she acquired a few spoils as well, not least of all Hilda’s concession about her failure to search and her admission to the German Art Restitution Commission release. Out of these, Mara wrote the summary judgment motion with which she could protect Beazley’s claim to The Chrysalis. In truth, however, she had few illusions about the motion’s weaknesses. Even Sophia, ever her champion, acknowledged the inherent sympathy of Hilda Baum’s story.
Mara delivered the summary judgment motion to Harlan for his final endorsement and sat alone with Hilda’s condemning words and her grandmother’s frowning judgments.
Within hours of Mara’s dropping off the papers, the phone rang to summon her upstairs. She trudged to Harlan’s office with leaden steps, certain of his reaction. Mara waited outside the door of his office, and as usual, the anteroom was filled with the stale odor of the Cuban cigars he smoked in flagrant but tolerated violation of the building code. The fact that his smoking was permitted irked Mara no end. It was an unavoidable reminder of the hierarchy of power that governed both the firm and her life.
A guttural sound emerged from behind Harlan’s door. Mara knew that this was her signal to enter, so she steeled herself, glanced for a nod of confirmation from his secretary, the ubiquitous Marianne, and opened the door. As usual, Harlan’s colossally wide body was ensconced in an enormous leather chair. A panoramic view of downtown Manhattan loomed behind him, but the way he positioned his chair and imposing mahogany desk deliberately blocked the vista. The room was arranged to remind anyone who entered of Harlan’s authority, that he alone had earned the right to his view.
He gestured for Mara to sit in a small, stiff chair and then pretended to pay her no heed as he continued to examine the summary judgment papers on his desk. But Mara knew that he was scanning her as much as her words. He wanted to see how she held up under the pressure of the case and his inspection. His game had some value—Mara acknowledged that his scrutiny had a positive effect on her posture in the courtroom—but as much as it was educational, it was also manipulative and designed to keep her in obeisance. As with all his other power tricks, Mara had learned to look the other way.
Finally, he gave her a toothy grin.
“I liked the brief,” he said.
Mara was flabbergasted. In her six years of working for him, she had never once seen him smile in her direction. She knew she should respond to the compliment, the only one he had ever bestowed on her, but she was shocked into silence.
“I said I liked the brief,” he repeated.
The gruffness returned to his voice and prompted Mara to speak. “Thank you. I really appreciate it, but are you at all worried by Hilda’s testimony about her parents?”
“I’m not too bothered by it. Sure, it’s a tragic tale, but it doesn’t change the law. What I am impressed by is that you took a pretty unwinnable situation and came up with some legal arguments that stand a chance. You handled the flaw in the title well, even turned it back on them. After all, she didn’t really look for the painting, did she? Just as in DeClerck. But the waiver argument is the winner, I think. She signed away her rights to pursue The Chrysalis all those years ago and probably never thought that release would resurface. Let’s call the client.” He bellowed, “Marianne, get that guy at Beazley’s on the line!”
They sat in awkward silence, not quite knowing how to deal with the changed dynamic between them. A frisson of excitement at the impact of Harlan’s compliment pulsed through Mara.
“He’s on,” Marianne announced. Harlan hit the speakerphone button. “Michael? I’m here with Mara Coyne, whom you know.”
“Yes, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Mara over the past few months. We all think that she has done a terrific job.”
Mara’s cheeks turned scarlet. Michael had returned from his European trip just an hour or so before, and since their evening had been planned over many transatlantic phone calls and e-mails, they hadn’t spoken since he landed.
“Glad to hear it. You’re about to see even better. We’re sending over to you the summary judgment brief. As a ru
le, I don’t assess our chances of success up front, but I think we have some powerful arguments here. If you like it, I’d recommend we file it within the day.”
“If it’s anything akin to Mara’s work to date, I’m sure it is fantastic. Feel free to send it right over.”
Without a goodbye, Harlan hung up. It was something of a relief to know that he didn’t stockpile his brusqueness for the firm associates alone. “Marianne! Fax this to Beazley’s.” He tossed the brief on the floor toward the door and, without a word to Mara, returned to reading the documents on his desk. Her moment in the sun was over. She excused herself and hurried back to her office, descending staircase after staircase, past the flashy, light-filled floors where the senior partners tallied their hours in large, airy offices to the darker, dingier ones where the associates toiled shoulder to shoulder in barely delineated cubbies. She was jubilant about Harlan’s favorable judgment and her “client’s” public praise of her work. She was also elated at the thought of seeing Michael that evening, if a little nervous after their weeks of separation. She wondered if things would be the same between them.
She shouldn’t have been anxious. When she walked into Michael’s apartment that night, his delight flickered from the candles he had lit on every surface, bloomed from the bouquets of her favorite light pink roses spilling out of cut crystal vases, and steamed up from the stove, where he was putting the finishing touches on lobster tails. He pressed a kiss on her lips and a glass of sauvignon blanc into her hand. They toasted to her success and to their reunion. For the moment, Mara felt utterly at peace.
ON THE FINAL FILING DAY FOR ALL THE SUMMARY JUDGMENT papers, Mara’s father announced an unexpected visit, an event that always filled her with an unsettling mix of excitement and trepidation. She wished she could invite Michael to dinner; she’d been awaiting the day when she could introduce the two men. But she and Michael wanted her father to think the best of him, and they could not expect a hearty welcome when they were dating in blatant disregard of her career. Their introduction would have to wait until after the case was won. Perhaps, she dared to imagine, they’d all celebrate Mara’s partnership together.
So when the taxi reached the Four Seasons Hotel on Fifty-seventh Street, Mara alighted alone. Almost instantly, a bellhop appeared at her side and escorted her inside. With its enormous granite columns and regal staircase, the hallowed hotel was a large-scale, contemporary version of her favorite refuge, the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was also the place her father always stayed when he visited New York for business, and Mara knew exactly where he’d be sitting with the paper, waiting for her.
After their initial, perfunctory embrace, he told her that he had just enough time to squeeze in a cocktail before a business dinner. Well, to be fair, he had enough time for two whiskeys, neat. A long line snaked out of the famed lobby bar, but Mara and her father were led right in to a prime center table. Her father heaved his corpulence into a signature maroon velvet chair and waved off some hovering politico courtiers. If he weren’t so clearly Irish, with his ruddy cheeks, fair complexion, and graying red hair, an onlooker might have mistaken him for a don. He really was a lot like Harlan, Mara mused.
Of course, he was here without her mother. She was never invited on business trips. When Mara thought about her mother, she was blurry, out of focus. Mara tried to zoom in and sharpen the picture, but she never could. She could just make out the edges of her, but never the details. Blonde, petite, perfectly appointed, pretty, in sort of a pale, forgettable way, her mother was like a conch, retreating deep into a pleasing shell but nowhere to be found.
Mara recalled her as ever present and never present, all at once. Certainly, meals were prepared and presented, and car pools duly driven. School functions well attended, cocktail party chatter handled expertly, and events flawlessly orchestrated. But her mothering was offhand, even absent. She could sit at the dinner table and seem never to have been there at all.
In rare moments of animation, a light sparked behind her eyes. Mara had learned to recognize these moments as the result of more than a few predinner martinis or the infrequent attention of her father. A tall, hulking man with a tall, hulking persona, when he left a room, his presence lingered on for long hours. His expectations governed her mother’s life as they did Mara’s, who ran as far from the vapidity of her mother as possible, even when it meant modeling herself after her father.
Immediately, her father directed the conversation to her work: how her tenths of an hour matched up to the tenths of an hour of her competition. She told him about her new case and client but left out the personal part about Michael. She took a sip of her drink and looked up for his response: As always, validation was what she sought. After long years in the habit, she couldn’t help herself, and she knew her news would please him.
“So, if this goes well, you could be the reason a big client comes back for more,” he surmised.
“That’s a big ‘if.’”
“Still, that sounds promising. For your partnership chances, I mean.”
“I’m hopeful.”
“Good. I’d hate to see you passed over.” Her heart sank, but as he downed his drink and turned to order another, old eavesdropped words came to Mara, ones that had seemed blasphemous at the time but brought her a measure of comfort. She had once overheard her grandmother render judgment on her son: “Ah, in a rare while, a family tree bears a different fruit from all the rest. No matter that it’s always fed the same water, no matter that the trunk and branches are all the same. The branch bearing Patrick grew a different fruit—fancy skin on the outside but no flesh, no seeds, nothing within.” It was a verdict even her gentle lilt could not soften.
“Aha, I see my dinner dates.” Her father waved to two pin-striped gentlemen. “Call your mother. You know she worries about you.” He gave Mara a big bear hug and disappeared, leaving her alone with his fresh drink, her own half-finished wine, and the room’s flickering candlelight.
sixteen
NEW YORK CITY, PRESENT DAY
SEVERAL WEEKS LATER, MARA STRODE UP THE WIDE EXPANSE of stone stairs leading to the infamous New York State Supreme Court, flanked by Michael and Harlan. The court building was home to the paparazzi-plagued trials of reputed mafioso bosses and fallen Wall Street traders, the lair of famed commercial law judges, and the battlefield for everyday New Yorkers’ skirmishes, large and small.
It was almost a relief to arrive at the courthouse, even though it meant she’d have to deliver the summary judgment argument in front of the notoriously mercurial and crotchety Justice Ira Weir. Mara had spent the day with Harlan, running through the argument over and over again and subjecting herself to his merciless criticism and ridicule. It was rare that he surrendered the chance to present a summary judgment argument to an associate, as he reminded her over and over. The harangue continued in the limo ride to the courthouse, with Michael as a witness. At one point, Mara nearly snapped at Harlan, but she had stopped herself, knowing that the opportunity to deliver the argument was critical to her partnership prospects.
Watching Harlan climb the courthouse steps, Mara realized she had never witnessed him move so quickly. By the time they reached the long lines of the security check, he was gasping for breath and dripping with sweat.
As she waited for the two men, Mara calmed her nerves by strolling through the lobby beneath the recently restored cupola. Standing on the intricate marble parquetry flooring, she gazed up at the mural. The cerulean blue ceiling was covered with gilded representations of renowned judges and lawmakers: Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Frankish, English, colonial, and finally, American. They all testified to days when ideals rather than money were championed in the courthouse. Her grandmother would have loved the values emblazoned on the ceiling, if not the actual justice handed out in the chambers.
The fast clip of Michael’s step reverberated across the floor, followed closely by Harlan’s belabored shuffle. A
s he approached her, she reveled in the fact that she towered over him. She nearly chuckled at the fleeting, subtle shift in power, which went a long way toward alleviating his earlier belittling treatment of her, when Harlan’s harsh tone had quickly restored order.
Together the three passed under an archway bearing the inscription “The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government” and walked toward the courtroom of Justice Weir. Like most lawyers, Harlan and Mara had experienced mixed reactions when they drew his name. Weir was considered smarter than most of the supremes, a stickler for the clear letter of the law, and longer on the bench, but he was also known to have cantankerous flashes. So they prayed for a good-mood day.
Mara scanned the courtroom. The rich, dark wood floors, though scuffed and worn with use, were burnished bright. The tall windows let in little light, facing as they did the façade of another building; any illumination was left to several dim chandeliers. Ornate crown moldings bordered soaring ceilings. Stark white walls were emblazoned with the phrase “In God We Trust” in gleaming brass. And an American flag, topped with a golden eagle poised to take flight, presided over it all. She reveled in the room’s distressed-leather luxury; it was like the worn pages of a much-beloved legal textbook.
Mara nodded hello to opposing counsel and Hilda Baum and then made her way to the counsel’s table, a pewlike wooden bench set before the altar of the judge’s desk and the jury box. She could hear an ancient clock ticking on the wall behind her. The butterflies in her stomach swirled to its rhythm. Once the judge entered the courtroom, she knew she could get through it, but until then, anticipation had her on edge. She swallowed hard, perused her argument, and tried to ignore the unnerving proximity of Michael and Harlan.
The court officer cried out, “Hear ye, hear ye. The Honorable Justice Ira Weir. All rise.” A sense of dread chilled Mara’s blood like ice, and she braced herself for the justice. His tiny frame emerged from his chambers. He climbed up the steps leading to his formidable bench, and his large hands and head commanded Mara’s attention. For a second, Mara thought she saw the glimpse of a smile in her direction. Before she recognized the grimace for what it really was, she smiled back.
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