The Chrysalis

by Heather Terrell

  Pushing the blunder out of her mind, Mara assumed her place at the podium. She consulted her notes one last time and took a final breath.

  When Weir spoke, it was like Oz from behind the curtain. “You are?” he asked in a booming voice that belied his minuscule frame.

  “Mara Coyne, Your Honor, with the law firm of Severin, Oliver & Means. Here for the defendant, Beazley’s.”

  “I understand we have a summary judgment motion on for today. In the case of Baum v. Beazley’s. Is that correct?”

  “That’s right, Your Honor.” Mara’s voice cracked.

  “This is the case in which the plaintiff alleges that a painting was stolen from her family—Holocaust victims—by the Nazis. Am I right?” His eyes glowed royal blue from the reflection of the computer screen on his desk.

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Mara’s delivery strengthened.

  “You may begin, Ms. Coyne.”

  Mara gulped. “Your Honor, I stand here today before you arguing for summary judgment in the case of Baum v. Beazley’s.” Her eyes riveted on the judge’s hands, clasped in the triangular shape of prayer. For a split second, Mara saw her grandmother’s hands on a church pew, as if Nana had entered the courtroom to weigh Mara’s arguments.

  “Ms. Coyne, I think we’ve already established that. I told you that you can begin,” the judge commanded.

  Mara’s heart thudded; she couldn’t seem to shake her dread.

  Justice Weir ordered her to speak. “Ms. Coyne!”

  Somewhere behind her, she heard Harlan whisper, “Mara!”

  “Your Honor, please don’t interpret Beazley’s application for summary judgment as a lack of sympathy for the plaintiff’s plight. After all, a horrific fate befell the plaintiff’s family in World War II.” As if from a slight distance, Mara heard herself begin. She had planned a legalistic affair, full of persuasive, yet detached points of law designed to appeal to the judge’s reputation for cold, hard logic. But the unexpected memory of her grandmother disturbed Mara’s assurance, and new opening words spilled forth of their own accord. “From what we understand, the Nazis categorized the plaintiff’s family as Jewish and stripped them of their liberties, their humanity, and their property. The plaintiff claims that The Chrysalis figured among the property looted by the Nazis as part of their art lust and Final Solution. In order to acquire it, the Nazis robbed the plaintiff’s parents of their lives.

  “So I come to you torn. Torn between, on the one hand, my sympathy for the plaintiff and her unimaginable family history and, on the other, my understanding of what the clear letter of the law requires. I won’t lie to you, Your Honor, there have been times when I have been uncomfortable representing Beazley’s.”

  Justice Weir looked startled. It wasn’t every day that an attorney came into his courtroom and admitted that she was uneasy with the morality of her client’s position. Mara imagined the expression of suppressed rage on Harlan’s face. She took a deep breath and continued.

  “But then I took a close look at the facts and the law. I came to understand what the law really says, what the law requires. And I became convinced that Beazley’s obtained clear title to The Chrysalis when it purchased the painting and that Beazley’s conveyed that clear title to the painting’s current owner.

  “The law says that the plaintiff’s title must be pure to recover the property, but discovery revealed that the plaintiff’s title isn’t. In fact, it’s anything but pure. Let me tell you the true story of The Chrysalis’s ownership, Your Honor.” As Mara returned to her prepared remarks, her adrenaline quickened and her confidence returned. She knew that she could command the language and the legal facts. “No one disputes that Erich Baum, father of the plaintiff, legitimately bought the painting at auction from its original owner, the Van Dinters, in whose family home it had languished for over three hundred years. It’s what Erich Baum did with the painting that brings us here today. The plaintiff will tell you that she has a letter from her father asserting that he sent certain paintings—including The Chrysalis—to Nice, France, and that he sent it to family for safe storage. And from there, the Nazis’ ERR branch plundered the painting, passing it on to Albert Boettcher & Company in Switzerland. That’s why no documents exist demonstrating the transfer of the painting to Boettcher, according to the plaintiff—because the painting was stolen by the Nazis in between. The plaintiff will then tell you that Boettcher sold his ill-gotten goods to Beazley’s.

  “But what the plaintiff will not tell you is this: That Erich Baum, unable to work in his insurance business once deemed a Jew, needed money to keep his family afloat. That Erich Baum sent The Chrysalis to Nice not to family but to his art dealer, Henri Rochlitz, on consignment for Rochlitz to sell. That, in the 1930s, Erich Baum shipped nearly twenty paintings to Rochlitz as his sales agent, and in early 1940, the very time frame in which he sent The Chrysalis to Nice, he shipped four other paintings to Rochlitz to sell. That France was far more war-torn than the Netherlands and swarmed with Nazis, making it an illogical choice for safekeeping. That Rochlitz routinely sold paintings to Boettcher, particularly during this time period. That no records exist of this transaction in either Rochlitz’s or Boettcher’s files because the war destroyed both Rochlitz’s and Boettcher’s businesses. That Boettcher had a squeaky-clean reputation of never trafficking in Nazi-plundered art. That, in fact, the Allied governments recognized Boettcher for his assistance in the French Resistance. Finally, that no Nazi records exist of The Chrysalis—and the Nazis were notoriously fanatical record keepers of their war spoils. If the Nazis had indeed taken The Chrysalis, as the plaintiff claims, we would see it in the Nazis’ records. And the plaintiff has not provided us with one piece of evidence that The Chrysalis was stored in this so-called family member’s home in Nice. All of this proves that Erich Baum authorized Rochlitz to sell The Chrysalis to Boettcher. And then, in turn, Boettcher legitimately sold it to Beazley’s. As a result, Beazley’s title, as well as the title of its current owner, is clear.”

  Mara punctuated her argument with dramatic enlarged visuals: large-as-life bills of sale demonstrating that Erich Baum sold paintings through Rochlitz many times over during this time period; voluminous military reports listing Boettcher as an “asset” to the Allied forces during their campaign; a video clip of Hilda at her deposition, detailing the dire nature of her family’s financial situation.

  “But, Your Honor, even if I’m utterly wrong about this, and the Nazis did pilfer The Chrysalis from the Baum family in Nice, there is a line of authority based on the DeClerck case that says a plaintiff must hunt down the stolen property to have it returned in a replevin action.” Mara explained the facts behind DeClerck and its progeny. She highlighted the policy reasons for embracing DeClerck rather than the competing authority of Scaife: If the judge followed Scaife instead of DeClerck, New York would be vulnerable to long-stale replevin claims, potentially chilling New York art commerce.

  “Your Honor, I invite you to pave new ground and adopt these cases. It is in your control. Following the DeClerck authority, if a plaintiff hasn’t hunted down the stolen art, the plaintiff waives his or her claim to it. Discovery has shown that Hilda Baum did not scour for The Chrysalis.

  “Discovery established that The Chrysalis has been on public display in the United States since the 1950s, in exhibitions and in museums.” Mara gestured to the screen, which showed a series of exhibit and museum catalogs with color photographs of the painting. “Discovery also proved that The Chrysalis has featured prominently in numerous British and American art publications since the 1950s.” The screen scrolled through the scholarly literature referencing the piece. “If Hilda Baum had been looking, she would have found The Chrysalis.”

  Hilda materialized on the enormous video monitor, in a carefully edited deposition excerpt of her most damning confession. “However, as we can see, by her own admission, Hilda Baum gave up the search for The Chrysalis sometime in the 1950s and never considered trailing after it in the Unit
ed States. She never even listed The Chrysalis as a piece of stolen artwork on the recently formed art loss registers. And who can blame her? The search churned up the memories of the evil done to her parents and broke her spirit. But by giving up the search, Hilda Baum relinquished her rights to The Chrysalis.”

  Mara concluded with her trump card. “Finally, Your Honor, even if I’m wrong, even if the Nazis poached The Chrysalis, and even if Hilda Baum searched with reasonable diligence for the long-lost painting, the law says that once you’ve waived your rights to a piece of property, you can’t later seek to recover it.”

  The screen displayed a magnified and highlighted version of her prize possession: the German Art Restitution Commission release. “Discovery showed that in the late 1940s, Hilda Baum filed a claim for her family’s lost artwork with the German Art Restitution Commission, including The Chrysalis. When she received a payment from the commission, she signed a release, waiving all future claims based on those paintings. Take a look at the translation: ‘For The Chrysalis…I have submitted no other applications for compensation…be it on my own behalf or through any institution, organization, or authorized agent, nor will I do so in the future against this entity or any other.’ This waiver prevents her from pursuing a lawsuit now to regain The Chrysalis. The case law refutes any argument by the plaintiff that this release does not apply in the United States as well as any contention that the release applies only between plaintiff and Germany, not between plaintiff and defendant. And think about the impact of the release on her desire to ferret out The Chrysalis, Your Honor—if you’ve already been paid for a painting and you’ve released your rights to it, would you really invest a lot of time and energy searching for it?”

  Mara filled in the broad outlines of her argument with the finer points of the law for nearly an hour. Exhausted, she finished and sat down to give the plaintiff a chance to reply.

  Hilda Baum’s ancient attorney struggled to stand up and then hobbled over to the podium. For a moment, his seeming frailness buoyed Mara’s spirits. Until he spoke.

  “Well, well, well, Your Honor. It seems that the defendant, Beazley’s, wants to make my client, Hilda Baum, a victim of the Nazis once again,” he declared, his voice surprisingly strong and commanding. “Let’s see what Beazley’s is asking Ms. Baum to give up.”

  He lifted his hand to signal a colleague, and the lights dimmed in the courtroom. He made another gesture, and new images appeared on the screen: the photographs of the young Hilda Baum and her parents, surrounded by art. “Your Honor, I think you’ll agree that Beazley’s is asking Ms. Baum to surrender more than just the painting you see on the wall of her family home. Beazley’s is demanding Ms. Baum relinquish the only keepsake she may ever have of her parents.”

  He then launched into a response anticipated by Mara: strident claims that a gap in the title existed, which “proved” that the Nazis took the painting from Erich Baum’s aunt in Nice. Desperate assertions that Scaife applied, and even if it didn’t, DeClerck said a claimant must undertake a sensible investigation to find the painting—not an exhaustive one—and that Hilda Baum’s quest, limited as it was to Europe and Russia through the 1950s, sufficed. Tortured arguments that the German Art Restitution Commission release signed in the Netherlands did not apply in the United States or to Beazley’s, and finally, heart-wrenching pleas to return The Chrysalis.

  Mara stood up and took her last turn at the podium. She inhaled deeply and delivered an impromptu speech, an attempt to defuse the empathetic images imprinted onto the courtroom by Hilda Baum’s counsel. The remainder of her extemporaneous reply was easier, as she had predicted the bulk of the plaintiff’s legal argument. Then she rested.

  The courtroom held its collective breath as Justice Weir pulled himself up to his full height, such as it was, and prepared to speak. He was known for delivering a forerunner of his final opinion at argument’s end. “Ms. Coyne, I will not deny that I entered the courtroom today firm in my conviction that Beazley’s motion for summary judgment should be denied, and certainly Ms. Baum’s attorney made a persuasive presentation to that end. However, your argument, which took your written words to a higher plane, has caused me to question that conviction. My clerks and I will have work to do before I render judgment.”

  As the judge droned on about the procedures and timing—it would be three to four weeks—surrounding his decision, she averted her face from Harlan. Regardless of the judge’s favorable forecast, she knew that Harlan would be furious; her argument deviated from the approved script. Not to mention Michael’s reaction. Worse, it actually played to the sympathetic nature of Hilda Baum’s loss, something they had worked hard to avoid. Yet, in that split second before she began her argument, Nana, the Schwarzes, the Sterns, the Blumers, and all the others like them loomed before her, and Mara felt compelled to make room for her conscience amid all her professional maneuverings.

  But she was wrong. Once the judge finished and they all rose for his exit, Harlan slapped her on the back. “You had me scared there for a minute, Mara, with that new opening and all. But you really turned this thing on its head. Nice job, using the natural sympathy for the plaintiff as a weapon against her.”

  A wave of nausea assaulted Mara. She had expressed an empathy that any normal human being would experience in the face of Holocaust tragedies, and Harlan assumed she had simply been exploiting the plaintiff’s plight. She could understand his fury at her script deviation, but she could not comprehend his utter lack of compassion for the people underlying the case. He seemed devoid of natural emotion altogether.

  Watching Mara falter, Michael diverted the conversation. “I believe a congratulatory drink is in order.”

  The motley threesome ambled over to O’Neal’s, the famous courthouse watering hole. Secure at a table near the bar, the three recapped the day’s events. Their analysis of Mara’s argument relaxed her. Harlan was well pleased. So was Michael. She tried to let her courtroom victory, with its attendant prizes, triumph over her disgust at Harlan’s reaction.

  A voice bellowed across the bar, directed at Harlan. “Hey, you old scoundrel, is that you?”

  Harlan hoisted himself up and waddled off, greeting with surprising warmth an old colleague or adversary—Mara and Michael could not tell which. But as Mara watched him shuffle across the room, she saw the chubby young boy desperate for friends behind the self-protective adult heft. Lonely then by stigma, lonely now by choice, marrying work rather than a wife, and spawning cases and money rather than a family. For the first time, Mara felt sorry for him and understood why he was so closed off to any emotion.

  Michael murmured, “May I invite you back to my place for dinner tonight? It’s just a warm-up—I have a real celebration planned for tomorrow evening.” He drew circles on her knee.

  She couldn’t suppress a little intake of breath, and she looked around to make sure Harlan had not seen the gesture. “I’d like that.”

  “Why don’t you give me a few hours after we wrap this up? Do you want to meet at my place at eight?”

  “Sure,” she whispered, as Harlan returned to the table. After a few more drinks, Mara and Michael made their way to separate cabs, back to their own offices, keeping alive the subterfuge.

  seventeen

  HAARLEM, 1658

  THE NEW PARTNERSHIP OF VAN MAES AND MIEREVELD CANNOT keep up with the blaze of commissions. The craze for their portraits has spread among the town’s wealthy burghers, with the burgomaster’s imprimatur fanning the flames.

  The enterprise doubles its work as it serves two distinct clientele: those who ask for Master Van Maes and those who request Master Miereveld. This suits the master just fine; he continues to drown his grief in labor. For those subjects who seek a traditional likeness, with a simple composition and a few symbolic props conveying the message dictated by the customer, Master Van Maes is unparalleled. For those willing to surrender the conventional, Master Miereveld paints like no other. He uses a dramatic chiaroscuro, so C
alvinist in its depiction of the irreconcilable nature of light and dark, heaven and earth, the likes of which few have attempted before. Johannes works without a set framework; he varies brushstroke and combines different composition types—a customary portrayal inside a genre painting, a still life containing a portrait, an architectural view surrounding a subject—to tell poignant stories about the essence of his sitters, and he never allows his subjects to script the outcome.

  The master, having long ago fired Hendrick, lets Lukens and Leonaert go as well. Neither has learned to tolerate Johannes’s new status. At Johannes’s insistence, Pieter Steenwyck joins the partnership as an equal of sorts. More than a journeyman, though not yet an official master, he serves in all capacities: assistant, painter, manager, and comrade—to Johannes, at least.

  The master tutors the friends in the business of art. The Guild of Saint Luke, he explains, must be appeased because it controls the art market. Membership and good standing are necessary to sell. Portraits should be the venture’s focus because they publicize one’s name in social milieus and promote careers. Genre paintings and architectural interiors are fine, and should be undertaken upon request, but they do not garner the same exposure as portraits. Religious paintings must be avoided at all costs, not just because the pictures themselves sin against God but also because they alienate clients of the true faith.

  Free from his apprenticeship, Johannes finally has the liberty to travel to his parents, but the commissions are too many and the distance is too great. Instead, his few visits grow scant and then stop. Over the years, the master becomes father as well as partner, and Pieter becomes brother as well as colleague. A family and an enterprise grow together.