The Chrysalis

by Heather Terrell

  Knowing her time was limited, and that the guards would keep the front door ajar the entire time, she proceeded to work. She ignored the beauty of the library and focused on PROVID.

  Using Lillian’s password, she logged onto PROVID, clicked the World War II icon, and combed category after category for references to Strasser: French archives, records from the Germans, Dutch files, and papers from the United States War Department. She tried permutation after permutation of searches. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The hands raced around the face of the clock.

  Before she quit PROVID, Mara hunted down whatever she could about Beazley’s other purchases from Kurt Strasser. Having listened carefully to Lillian, Mara flew through the categories. She entered each painting’s title into the myriad of categories: archival documents, sale catalogs, bills of sale, museum provenance files, indexes to public collections, governmental records, and collectors’ files. When the title didn’t yield any answers, she moved on to the artwork’s other attributes: artist, subject matter, and time period. Results poured in, but she had to hurry, so she printed them without reading them.

  Gathering up her papers, she crept to the document room, hoping not to draw attention to herself. She left the door open a crack and hurried to the climate-controlled inner sanctum of the room, to the direction Lillian had gestured when she made a veiled reference to classified documents. Opening the tightly sealed glass door, Mara noted that the air was very thin. She would have to work fast.

  She hastened to the back wall, where several sturdy-looking wooden boxes were stored. She opened them up and sifted through their contents; they did indeed contain World War II papers. She scouted for documents from the United States Office of Strategic Services’ Art Looting Investigation Unit in particular. The unit often prepared dossiers on various individuals; she trusted these would provide a quick answer. As she reviewed page after page, her rapid-fire reading skills came in handy and permitted her to scan for Strasser’s name without getting bogged down in all the other information.

  The stack of boxes containing no references to Strasser grew. There were only two unopened ones left, and Mara was disheartened. Even more, she worried how she’d explain her actions, her criminal acts really, if she got caught—especially without the damning evidence against Michael she had hoped to find. And what if she were wrong about Michael’s actions? She played out different repercussions in her mind—firing, disbarment, and an indictment. What would her father say? Her grandmother? Michael? Harlan? With effort, she purged all their voices from her head and refocused her attention.

  And then she found it: a transcript, from the United States Art Looting Investigation Unit, of the interrogation of Kurt Strasser.

  Cross-legged on the floor, she scanned the transcript. At the start, the American soldiers from the Art Looting Investigation Unit asked Strasser seemingly routine questions about countless people, artists, paintings, and sculptures. Then the soldiers began asking Strasser about his work as a wartime art dealer.

  Q: Where did you get the paintings we found in your shop? The Degas portrait, the two Corot drawings, the Sisley, and the Monet still life?

  A: I told you, clients sold them to me.

  Q: Clients? What clients? We found no records of the sales in your files.

  A: You know, it was wartime. Sometimes clients didn’t have time for sales receipts. Sometimes clients had their own reasons for not wanting them.

  Q: You didn’t get the paintings as part of a trade with any representative of the ERR?

  A: No.

  Q: You’re certain of that?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Lieutenant Bernard, bring over the paintings. Strasser, are these the paintings we found in your shop?

  A: Yes, they appear to be.

  Q: Turn them over. What do you see on the back of those paintings?

  A: A stamp.

  Q: Do you know what that stamp means?

  A: No.

  Q: I’m going to ask again. Did you get these paintings as part of a trade with the ERR?

  A: No.

  Q: Really? You really don’t know that when the ERR inventoried looted artwork they placed stamps like these on the back of those pieces?

  A: I don’t know what you mean.

  (A twenty-minute pause ensued.)

  Q: I will ask you one last time. Did you get these paintings from the ERR?

  A: Yes.

  Mara understood the pauses in the interview to reflect the soldiers’ efforts—physical, she assumed—to get the recalcitrant Strasser to confess. As the interview progressed and Strasser persisted in his obstinacy, the gaps in the record grew longer. In the end, the soldiers succeeded. Strasser confessed to procuring artwork for and from the Nazis and selling it on the black market. He also named names, including a reference that they did not want to hear. His American art world launderer, he said, was a fellow U.S. soldier whose name was blacked out from the transcripts.

  “Mara, what on earth are you doing here?”

  Lillian’s voice unexpectedly broke through the voices from the past. Mara looked up, mouth agape.

  “I asked you a question, Mara.” Lillian enunciated each word with painful slowness. “What the hell are you doing here? You know you can’t be back here without me or one of my staff. In any event, you told me you were done with your research.”

  Lillian’s unprecedented coarseness stunned Mara even more. She had not planned for this.

  Lillian pivoted. “I’m going to get the guards.”

  Jolted into action, Mara cried out, “Wait, Lillian, please. Wait. Give me a chance. I know I’m not supposed to be here. I know I’m breaking the rules. But I have a reason.”

  Lillian halted. Mara decided to take a gamble with the truth. She knew it was her only chance.

  “Lillian, Beazley’s didn’t buy The Chrysalis from Boettcher.”

  “Of course we did,” Lillian said, her back still to Mara.

  “No, you didn’t. Beazley’s bought it from someone named Kurt Strasser.” Mara waited for a reaction; she still needed to gauge Lillian’s complicity.

  “Who the hell is Kurt Strasser?” Lillian turned and glared at Mara. Mara usually found Lillian hard to read, but now she seemed sincere. Mara remained silent, hoping Lillian would grow uncomfortable and reveal something more. “I asked you, who is Kurt Strasser?” she insisted.

  “He was a conspirator of the Nazis.”

  Lillian jeered. “Mara, stop acting like some kind of heroine. You saw the documents yourself. We purchased The Chrysalis from Boettcher.” She shook her head. “You’re speaking nonsense. I did that provenance myself. Many times over.”

  Mara was scared to go much further, but she could not turn back. Her safety depended on it. “You were given false documents to do the provenance all those years ago. And so was I, to put together our case.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Arms crossed, posture reassembled, Lillian assumed her usual unflappable façade.

  “Don’t believe me. Believe the documents.” Mara reached down into her briefcase. She was loath to part with them, but she knew that she had no choice.

  Lillian took the papers from Mara. She held them up to the light, turning them this way and that, and scrutinized them through her pince-nez for what seemed like hours. Mara stood by.

  “Where did you get these?” Lillian finally asked, with what Mara thought was a bit less ire.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Haven’t I taught you anything? Haven’t I taught you the importance of the origin of things?” Now Mara was sure that Lillian’s voice cracked.

  Mara conceded, “Michael’s safe. They came from his great-uncle Edward.”

  Lillian did not answer, just shuffled over to a chair and lowered herself down. She crumpled like an old tissue. Lines like fissures appeared on her brow and around her eyes, and for the first time, she looked all of her eighty-odd years. “I can’t believe it,” she said aloud, though not necessarily to Mara.


  Mara didn’t know what to say or do. Her instinct told her to try to comfort Lillian, to soothe the anguish that Mara guessed she was feeling, that Mara felt herself. But she was torn. She wasn’t sure she wanted to elicit a shared indignation. Lillian could end Mara’s plans if she chose a different pathway to retribution. If she even chose retribution at all.

  So, kneeling next to Lillian’s chair, hand on her hand, she settled on an empathetic statement of the truth. “I know. We’ve both been deceived.”

  “How could I have been so blind?” Lillian stared off into the distance, flicking away Mara’s hand like an irritating fly.

  “Lillian, don’t be so hard on yourself. I mean, the forged bill of sale you were given to prepare that first provenance looked perfect; it looks exactly like the original except for the seller’s name. Why would you have questioned it?” Mara hoped that, at the very least, she could help Lillian understand that she was not to blame.

  Lillian disagreed. “Mara, you don’t understand. It’s not just that. I was having a relationship with Michael’s great-uncle, Edward Roarke, at the time I first prepared the provenance. I was an easy mark.”

  Mara laughed at the similarity of their situations. Lillian shot Mara a shocked look at her seeming insensitivity, but Mara quickly explained. “Lillian, so was I. Having an affair with Michael, that is.” She paused to let her revelation sink in.

  When she caught Lillian’s eye, they both exploded into laughter, irrepressible due to their nervous shock.

  “Well, I guess we’re quite a pair of fools, aren’t we?” Lillian exclaimed, wiping away her tears. “They certainly pulled the wool over our doting eyes with no trouble.” She sighed. “Although I’m a bigger ninny than you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Lillian. I bet I can give you a run for that title.”

  “Well, if you knew the whole story, I don’t think you would say so. I think you’d just cede victory to me.”

  “What ‘whole story’?”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you now. I mentioned to you that I was working at Beazley’s in 1944, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Once I got here, they started me off doing provenance work, not that there was a provenance department per se at that time. It consisted of me and Mr. Weadock, who was in his sixties and crotchety, poring through moldy books in the basement.”

  Mara thought the grouchiness must come with the territory, but she didn’t want to divert Lillian by sharing.

  “Anyway, I’d been here about a month when I first met Edward. He approached me while I was working in the old Beazley’s library, a pretty haphazard place. I don’t know if you’ve seen any pictures of him, but he was quite handsome—dashing, really. And very charming.”

  “Actually, Lillian, I don’t know anything about Edward.”

  “Michael never told you about him?”

  Mara shook her head. “The few times I’ve asked Michael about his uncle, he’s been cagey. Michael mentioned that Edward used to work at Beazley’s but was vague about what exactly he did.”

  “Edward wasn’t a founder of Beazley’s—that was the British Beazley family—but he was one of the original, key employees here in America. He ultimately became a codirector for several years before his death.”

  “I never knew.” Mara began to process that piece of the puzzle.

  Lillian resumed. “Anyway, my relationship with Edward began slowly. There were coincidental meetings in the library or hallways. There was the odd lunch or cup of coffee. Then suddenly it accelerated into a full-blown romance, if such a thing were possible in wartime. He absolutely swept me off my feet with dinners, shows, and weekend trips. I had visions dancing in my head.”

  Mara had trouble imagining Lillian sailing along in the arms of love. “Why wasn’t Edward at the war? He must have been the right age.”

  “The military wouldn’t take him. He’d had polio as a child and had a noticeable limp. Plus, at thirty, he was a bit on the old side, although he seemed to have a number of friends in the war.

  “In any event, going behind Mr. Weadock’s back, he presented me with an opportunity to prepare my first provenance from start to finish. It was for The Chrysalis. Of course, I leaped at the prospect. With Mr. Weadock in charge, it might have taken years for such a chance. He really never saw me as anything more than a glorified secretary. Edward started me off with the bill of sale from Boettcher to Beazley’s, but I had to fill in the rest, the older history.

  “Sometime after this, our affair tailed off, almost imperceptibly at first, then with resounding, painful clarity. I begged to understand and pleaded with him to change his mind. Edward declined, offering up the excuse of a stern talking-to by his boss at the time, one of the British Beazley heirs apparent. Something was said about not dipping your quill in the company inkwell or some such nonsense. I believed him, even stood by his decision, but I was crushed.”

  “Did you stop speaking to him?”

  “No. We remained very close, after some time had passed. Because of, rather than in spite of, our affair, I think. The fact that neither of us married made it easier. I continued doing provenances for him, of course, and he became my biggest supporter at Beazley’s, really the driving force behind the decision to create a truly substantial provenance department with me at the helm. I was indebted to him, particularly at a time when women had few such chances and when no other museum or auction house had yet set up a provenance department. So I toiled to build the department that he envisioned, trying all the while to live up to his expectations, keeping our past relationship and my lingering feelings for him secret.” Tears forced Lillian to stop.

  Mara didn’t know what else to say, but she was unable to bear the quiet. “And you succeeded,” she blurted out.

  Though Lillian sat stock-still, her voice reverberated throughout the room. “Yes. I succeeded. By forgoing other things: marriage, children. Beazley’s became my family, and the Provenance Department turned into my home.” Mara thought how her track at Severin had paralleled Lillian’s path, at least before The Chrysalis forced her to swerve off course.

  Lillian sank back into her memories. “Now I see I’ve been a pawn in Edward’s game all along. I wonder how many provenances he laundered through me. How many of these Strasser paintings I wrongly verified. How many other auction houses have sold these Strasser paintings, too.” Mara guessed at the number Beazley’s had palmed off based on the Strasser bills of sale she had found in Michael’s safe but didn’t dare tally it for her just yet.

  “How does Philip factor into this?”

  “Well, he and Edward were very chummy. In fact, Edward groomed Philip to be his successor. From those e-mails, it’s obvious that he knows all about The Chrysalis con, but to what extent he’s involved I don’t know.” Lillian shook her head in disgust. “And to think of how Michael befriended me on the strength of his uncle’s name, with all those lunches and afternoon teas. He’s no better than Edward.”

  Mara began to toy with the idea of enlisting Lillian in her cause. Lillian would be an invaluable ally, but Mara wasn’t sure if she would abandon Beazley’s, her home. There was nothing left to lose, though, Mara told herself. “Then would you consider helping me?”

  “Helping you with what?” Lillian peered out through the cloud of her musings.

  “To find out all we can about Kurt Strasser, so we can understand what Edward and Michael were up to and discover what happened to the other paintings.”

  Lillian was silent for a long moment. She rose from her chair and ran her fingers along the cabinets and rows of books, almost as if she were saying a long goodbye. “How could I do that? After I gave up so much and worked so hard to build all this.” She motioned around the room. “I’d be sacrificing it all, maybe even Beazley’s itself. Please don’t ask me to do that.”

  The delicate threads holding Mara together unraveled. “Don’t ask you to help! Lillian, do you think you’re the only one at risk? I’ve tre
spassed into your library without authorization, broken into Michael’s safe and stolen papers out of it. I’ve violated countless codes of ethical conduct for lawyers and innumerable criminal statutes. I’ve put myself at risk of disbarment, indictment, and God only knows what else. And, when all this is over with, I’ve probably ruined my career. I’ve done it all for the sake of righting the wrong that your precious Beazley’s committed, that Michael and Edward perpetrated, through you. So don’t you dare tell me not to ask for your help.”

  The women stared at each other, for a split second that felt more like an eternity to Mara. Lillian broke the impasse first. “Shhh, Mara. Lower your voice. I don’t want those guards in here.”

  Mara dropped down into the chair Lillian had vacated, with the same defeated slump, and felt every bit as ancient and weathered as Lillian had looked. She could not hold back the tears any longer. “I’m sorry, Lillian. I’m way out of line. This situation is not your fault, and I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with Michael. And at Edward.”

  “I know, Mara. I know. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  “What for? I’m in way over my head here, and I’m asking you to jump into the deep end with me. What the hell am I doing?” Mara shook her head, surprised at her outburst. But she was steadfast in her conviction that she must right the wrong, even if she had to do it alone, even if she risked everything.

  Lillian whispered, “I’ll help you.”

  “What?”

  Lillian repeated herself, her voice growing louder and stronger. “I said I’ll help you.”

  “Really?” Mara was astonished.

  “Really. But I have a few conditions.”

  “Anything.” Mara meant it—anything not to be in this quagmire by herself.

  “I don’t want my name associated with this should it come out. For obvious reasons, I don’t want it known that I prepared the provenances using the false bills of sale, particularly the first provenance. But that’s not all. You can never mention my help in resolving this.”