The Chrysalis

by Heather Terrell

  The women looked at each other, neither one daring to break their gaze. The scheme Edward and Frank had hatched together passed unspoken but completely understood between them. Lillian averted her eyes first and refocused on the report. She turned the pages one at a time, and Mara scribbled down the words. They were so engrossed that they jumped when Julian silently reappeared.

  “Sorry to startle you, ladies. It’s just that your hour’s up. Unfortunately, I must get the document back as promised. And I believe you have an appointment with an airplane.”

  In a daze, they gathered their few belongings. “Julian, how can I thank you for this?” Lillian asked as they walked through the lobby to their waiting car.

  “Lillian, you know I’d do anything for you.”

  Julian and Lillian embraced, and Mara saw the deep affection and lost opportunities pass between them. “At my age, this may be a true goodbye,” Julian said in a hushed tone.

  Lillian’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Oh, Julian, please don’t say that.”

  “It’s the truth, my dear. I’m just thankful for the opportunity to say it, to let you know how blessed I’ve been to know you.”

  They pulled each other closer. “Julian, it’s I who’ve been blessed with you all of these years.”

  Mara slipped unnoticed into the car and left the two a last quiet moment together. When she joined her, Lillian’s eyes glistened, and she spent the ride back to Heathrow facing the window.

  twenty-five

  AMSTERDAM, 1943

  ERICH HEARS THE CRUNCH OF THE GRAVEL AS THE CAR APPROACHES the house. The rare sound rouses him from his early-morning slumber. He looks over at Cornelia, who has not stirred, silently throws on his robe to ward off the dawn chill, and rushes to the window.

  An enormous black Daimler-Benz rounds the drive. The driver’s door opens, and a uniformed officer steps out. With military precision, the soldier opens the rear door and bows to a bedecked S.S. officer exiting from the backseat. Erich knows he should wake Cornelia, and they should rush to dress, but he is frozen with fear. What do the Nazis want from them now? Since they received the reichskommissar’s letter of protection, the Dienststelle Mühlmann officers have stopped harassing him for the location of the paintings not turned over to Lippman, Rosenthal and Co. Bank, paintings that the officers hear once hung on Erich’s walls.

  The ringing of the front bell rouses him. By the time Willem knocks on the bedroom door, the couple has donned their somber finest. Hand in hand, they descend the front stairs.

  The decorated officer greets them with a smile. After they make their introductions, he says, in heavily accented Dutch, “I come with good news. We’ve got your visas to Milan and your train tickets.”

  “Our visas to Milan?” Erich asks. After receiving his daughter’s recent communication, he is surprised that she is able to secure the visas but is, of course, overjoyed.

  “Yes, here they are.” The officer hands the couple a packet. “Go and pack your luggage. Your train leaves in two hours. You can take anything you can carry with you.”

  Before returning upstairs to pack, Erich opens the packet and looks over the visas and first-class train tickets. One of the items on the train itinerary makes him pause. He dares to ask the officer, “Why does this train stop in Berlin?”

  The officer is quick to assure him, “All international trains departing from the Netherlands must go through Berlin.”

  Erich is still wary but mollified by the explanation. The newspapers had reported the development, the upshot of another of the reichskommissar’s many regulations.

  He and Cornelia scurry from room to room, adjudicating the fate of their few remaining worldly goods in the one hour allotted before their departure. Was an heirloom silver Cartier humidor worthy of the journey, or should they assign it the uncertain destiny sure to accompany its abandonment? Might a cherished desktop clock given as an anniversary gift merit inclusion, or should they take only Cornelia’s jewels and other portable, salable items that they have squirreled away? Erich’s pronouncements are harsh but necessary, and Cornelia holds back tears over leaving behind a collection of photographs and keepsakes amassed over a lifetime.

  At the end of the permitted hour, the couple makes their way down the front stairs again, this time weighted down by suitcases and parcels. Willem follows them with a trunk.

  The smile so carefully arranged on the officer’s face freezes. “I thought I said you can bring what you alone can carry. Your manservant will not be going with you.”

  Erich answers, his voice tremulous. “My wife and I can manage the trunk along with our other belongings. Willem is only helping us carry it to the station.”

  The officer’s smile reanimates. “It will not be necessary for Willem to come to the station. We will be accompanying you to the train. My man here can help you get on board with the trunk, as long as you can handle it on the train.”

  “We can.”

  The officers are solicitous, helping pack the Daimler-Benz with the couple’s possessions. They describe with enthusiasm the private railway car reserved for their journey instead of the hardships of recent wartime travel. The senior official settles into the front of the Daimler-Benz, as the junior officer opens the rear door and gestures for the couple to get into the crowded backseat. Cornelia slides in as best she can, and they all wait for Erich.

  Before he gets into the car, Erich turns to embrace Willem, the very first time he has done so. Tears glint in the corners of both men’s eyes, as each understands that the embrace will certainly be their last as well as their first. He then hastens into the car, not wanting to leave Cornelia alone in the company of the officers for too long.

  As they pull away and round the drive, Erich turns back. He is just in time to see Willem, Cornelia’s maid, Maria, and his home grow small and blurry in the distance, in the low blue light of the dawn.

  twenty-six

  LONDON, PRESENT DAY

  IN THE BRITISH AIRWAYS LOUNGE, LILLIAN’S OFFICIOUS DEMEANOR returned, perhaps even more pronounced. She practically ordered Mara: “It’s time for you to make a move on this.”

  “There’s not more research to do?” Mara asked.

  “No. I’ve completed enough of the provenances for all the other paintings Beazley’s bought from that bastard Strasser. And we now know very well what happened. Edward and his friend Frank hatched a scheme whereby Frank, acting on behalf of Beazley’s, bought looted artwork from Strasser at cut-rate prices. He then sent it to his wife by military post, thereby avoiding any chance that it would be examined en route. Finally, Edward picked up the artwork on one of his many trips to Boston.” She stopped. “Oh God, come to think of it, I believe I met Frank’s wife on one of our visits to the Cape. Our first one.”

  She drained her glass of scotch. “At some later, safer time, Edward would create new bills of sale for the paintings, using the real ones as a model but changing the names of the sellers. Instead of some tainted dealer like Strasser, he’d substitute an immaculate one like Boettcher for The Chrysalis or Wolff for the Rembrandt. He picked dealers with spotless reputations, particularly those whose files he knew were destroyed or compromised in the war. That way, there was no reason to challenge them and no way to cross-reference the sales with the dealers’ files should any questions arise. And then he’d give them to me—his patsy—to launder with an unblemished pedigree. Edward would sell his flawlessly provenanced painting and share the proceeds with Frank. Or at least, I assume that was the deal, since Frank never gave up Edward’s name to the Art Looting Investigation Unit despite what I can only assume was a brutal interrogation.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I gave my approval to all those Strasser paintings.”

  A singsong announcement called out over the speaker. “We now invite our first-class passengers to board the plane departing for New York.”

  The women made their way to the gate and then onto the Jetway. As Mara advanced, she felt Lillian poke her in the back. She
turned around to see Lillian gesture toward the back of a man’s head with silvery hair, a few passengers ahead of them. There was something familiar about him to Mara, but she couldn’t place it until Lillian whispered, “Philip Robichaux.”

  Mara froze, but the line of passengers boarding the plane pressed forward, so Lillian nudged her. “Mara, you can move ahead.”

  “Sorry.” Like an automaton, she walked onto the plane, took her seat next to Lillian, and stored her bag, all the while following the man with her eyes.

  Once he settled into his seat a few rows ahead of them, she whispered back to Lillian, “What should we do?”

  “We need to be certain first—absolutely certain—that it is him. See if you can get a look at him.”

  “Me?”

  “Surely you are not suggesting that I try to steal a glance at him? He would know me in an instant. He has seen you only once.”

  Mara knew Lillian was right, but she needed to find a way to identify him without putting herself in his line of vision. Just then, he stood up to stow his suit jacket and bag in the overhead compartment, and an idea came to Mara.

  She walked to the back of the aisle, surreptiously grabbed a pink Financial Times off the cart, and approached an air hostess. “Miss? That gentleman over there dropped this. Would you mind returning it to him?”

  “Certainly.”

  The air hostess approached the man with the Times in hand, while Mara waited and watched from the back. “Sir? Did you drop this?”

  The man turned. Instead of Philip’s tan, chiseled face, one with near-translucent skin and a weak chin welcomed her. The hair was the only commonality. Mara’s whole body relaxed. “No, miss. That’s not mine,” she heard him answer.

  Mara walked back toward her seat, her heart still pounding.

  “So?” Lillian asked.

  “It wasn’t him.”

  Lillian fell back into her seat. “Thank God. What would we have done?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know that you’re right—I need to act. It’s time.” Mara’s breathing returned to normal.

  With a big sigh, Lillian reached into her purse, pulled out a prescription bottle, unscrewed it, and popped a pill in her mouth.

  “What’s that?” Mara asked.

  “Is that really any of your business?” Lillian responded, with an arched eyebrow.

  “No, of course not. But are you all right?”

  “As ‘all right’ as one can be at my age. Let’s stick to the topic, Mara.”

  The women reviewed their options. Mara wanted to do justice, return The Chrysalis and the other paintings to their rightful owners, even if it meant she would pay a price; after all, why else was she taking all these risks? Lillian, too, wanted to see the stolen art returned but also wanted to shelter Beazley’s and safeguard her life’s work. Neither was sure how to join their visions until Lillian suggested a compromise.

  “What if you confront Michael with all that we’ve found and give him the chance to restitute privately? He could even protect himself by claiming he’d just found the documents. That way, we’d be able to keep the whole matter under wraps.”

  Mara was skeptical. “Do you really think he’d be willing?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I think it’s worth a shot.”

  “But, Lillian, if he doesn’t agree, then we’ve tipped our hand. Who knows what he might be capable of at that point?” Mara did not really believe that the Michael she knew, the Michael she had loved, could inflict harm upon her or Lillian, but her legal training compelled her to consider and plan for all possibilities.

  “If he won’t agree, then I suppose you must proceed with an alternate plan. As you know, I’ve come this far. Once you cross the breach, I have to drop out.”

  Mara needed no more reminders about the impending change in Lillian’s role. It had loomed over her head like a guillotine from the start. “I know. I understand our deal.”

  Lillian posited another possibility. “If Michael won’t agree to restitution, what about approaching the partner on the case? Maybe he could reach out to his contacts at Beazley’s to see what can be done quietly.”

  “Maybe…” Mara’s stomach flipped over at the thought of divulging her possibly criminal, or at the very least unethical, handiwork to Harlan.

  “All I ask is that you do your best to preserve Beazley’s. That you bring the matter to court or go public only as a last resort. Resuscitating Beazley’s will be very difficult once the truth is known.”

  “I promise you that, Lillian,” Mara said. “I agreed to that from the beginning.”

  Lillian rummaged through her bag for her address book and pulled out a business card. “If all else fails and you need to go public, here is the contact information for a reporter at the New York Times, Elizabeth Kelly. She’s a straight shooter.” She handed Mara the card.

  Mara tried to sleep but could not. The various paths she had to choose among bedeviled her. There was one remaining thing, though, that she needed to know.

  “Lillian,” she whispered. “Lillian, are you asleep?”

  “I was,” she replied, eyes still closed.

  “Before you drop out of this and into your Beazley’s savior role, I need you to tell me something.”

  “What’s that?” Lillian muttered, half asleep.

  “Who owns The Chrysalis now?”

  “Oh, I thought I told you that already.” She stretched out felinelike in her reclined first-class seat, then rolled over so her back faced Mara. “Back in the 1940s, Beazley’s sold The Chrysalis to the Catholic Church’s largest religious order, the Jesuits. If you want to get technical, the New York Province of the Jesuits.” In the quiet roar of the plane engine, Mara almost heard her grandmother groan.

  twenty-seven

  HAARLEM, 1661

  JOHANNES RETURNS TO WORK, AND THE BURGOMASTER’S FAMILY portrait evolves. With characteristic ability but uncharacteristic flattery, Johannes depicts father, mother, and sons in perfect accord with each of their stations. He saves Amalia for last.

  Johannes paints the burgomaster’s daughter with deliberation. He savors each stroke and moment of observation. He uses the burgomaster’s desire for perfection as a way to prolong his private veneration of Amalia. Unconsciously first, then with conscious surreptition, she becomes the subject of another commission: a clandestine painting for the Jesuits of the Catholic meetinghouse, an unusual penance for dishonoring his late mother.

  Johannes’s secret painting becomes an allegory of Catholic faith. Specifically, it reminds the viewer of faith’s gift of salvation. While Johannes paints Amalia as the burgomaster’s daughter in black, standing next to her mother, he also paints her in white as the Virgin Mary, the emblem of the Church. He swaths her in ivory robes and decorates her in lapis lazuli and ruby. He crowns her in ivy, the evergreen signifier of eternal life, the conquest of death by resurrection. He surrounds her with the Virgin’s objects of devotion: the lily, flower of purity; and the single-flamed candle, which personifies faith. He pierces her virginity with a single beam of God’s light that streams through the unbroken oval window to her right and enters her heart. The light transforms her from girl to mother, from mortal to eternal, from faith to resurrection. Finally, Johannes places the goldfinch, symbol of Christ, in her open left hand, poised for flight.

  The symbols in the painting signify the Virgin Mary, but the visage and light are fully Amalia. Johannes infuses the painting with the burgomaster’s daughter’s luminosity, a joyous white-yellow glow that pours from and around her, radiating from her hair, dancing off her skin, sparkling from her eyes. Her light reaches into the painting’s shadiest corners, bringing the promise of illumination to even the blackest nooks. It is a harmonious, Catholic light with no hint of discordant Protestant chiaroscuro.

  Long days pass, each day longer than the next as spring turns into early summer. Each night grows ripe with the smell of the unplucked berries that climb the wall outside Johannes’s studio. His w
orld revolves around Amalia and the canvases. He paints by lamps long after the midnight hour in order to keep his work a secret from Pieter, who would disapprove of a commission for the Jesuits. This religious order seeks to counteract the spread of Protestantism, and any association with them could ruin Pieter and Johannes’s chances for other clients. Johannes is not capable of heeding these concerns; he can only answer to his ardor for Amalia.

  Amalia returns his gaze. It is not the stare of a curious subject trying to discern the painter’s particular alchemy. She is looking directly at him, Johannes the man, not the painter. Her gaze lingers, and Johannes sees a barely repressed smile.

  Enchantment descends upon Johannes. He is feverish to capture that moment, that smile, in the Jesuits’ painting. He works through the night. He wakes at his easel to the morning sun penetrating his lids and to the sound of light footfalls. He recognizes Amalia’s footsteps; she is early for their appointment to work further on the Brecht family portrait. She crosses into the painter’s sphere, coming behind the easel.

  She stands for a long time in front of it. He knows the interwoven symbols have only one interpretation. The image demands a response: Do you accept her, do you accept Him, do you accept the Catholic faith?

  He awaits. She turns her turquoise gaze on him. She reaches out to him. Closing his eyes, he braces himself for the deserved slap for his audacity, his sacrilege, in featuring her in this blatantly Catholic work. Instead, he feels the soft pads of her fingers on his cheek, on his eyelids, on his hands. He hears her voice for the first time. “You have captured me, Master Miereveld.”

  Their connection strengthens with a walk. They step out to the medieval ramparts that enclose the town. It is a safe, empty promenade in the early morn. Their first steps are tentative and their glances sideways; they talk innocuously about the celebrated views from the walls, agreeing that the market square formed by the rising towers must be the finest in the land. As they note the way the canal reflects the bridges that connect the city gates, she interrupts the formal dance and asks how his brush understands her so well. He cups her cheek in his hand and explains.