The Chrysalis

by Heather Terrell

  “I’m afraid I have to call you back. I found Miss Joyce lying on the floor of her apartment, and I’ve just called an ambulance. I need to escort them to her.”

  “Go, go! I’ll call you back later.”

  Mara sat frozen, cell phone in hand, watching the clock. After another twenty-five minutes had passed, time enough for the concierge to conduct the EMTs to Lillian, she contacted him again. “Sir, it’s Mara Coyne calling back. How’s Miss Joyce?”

  “Well, the ambulance has taken her to Mount Sinai, but I’m sorry to tell you that it doesn’t look good. They said it looked like her heart gave out.”

  “Her heart?” Mara was puzzled; Lillian had never mentioned a heart condition—not that she would. Suddenly she remembered seeing Lillian take that pill on the plane. Had Philip done something to precipitate an attack?

  “Yeah, she’s given us some scares in the past. But nothing like this.”

  Mara thanked him and hung up the phone. Too shocked even to cry, she was trying to process the concierge’s words when the driver asked, “Where to, miss? We’re getting close to the city.”

  Mara didn’t know how to answer his question. She felt unmoored by the possibility of Lillian’s death, uncertain of what course to take, where to land. She thought back on her conversation with Lillian on the plane ride home, one of their last, and suddenly the right path appeared to her. Reaching down into her purse, she pulled out the business card Lillian had given her.

  She read aloud to the cabbie the address inscribed on the card, and they headed toward the offices of the New York Times.

  thirty-two

  HAARLEM, 1662

  ALONE, JOHANNES AND AMALIA DISCUSS THE POWER OF painting and the force of the image. To deny the potency of the symbols, to assent to the Calvinist belief of faith based on the Word alone and not the icon as an intermediary, would be to disavow what they embrace, to renounce the very spirit that has drawn them together. They decide upon a union with the Catholic Church as the final step toward their own union.

  Johannes strides down the aisle first, with a candlestick in hand to light the way. Meeting the priest at the altar of their little hidden church, he waits for Amalia. The deacon opens the door, and she enters, as he closes it behind her. A nimbus of light outlines her form and the intricate lace headdress over her loosened hair; as she walks down the aisle, her steps are a little shaky. Johannes longs to rush to her side, to help stabilize her gait, but knows she must make the journey down the aisle alone. When Johannes and Amalia join hands at the altar, her hand is steady, and the couple beams at each other.

  As the priest readies the water, a door slams in the back of the church. The couple jumps. The priest reassures them. “It is only Brother Witte, helping prepare for tonight’s Mass.”

  They give a nervous smile to the priest, who asks, “Shall we proceed?”

  “Yes, Father,” Johannes answers for them both.

  “Have you undertaken a course of study of the Catholic faith?”

  “We have.”

  “Have you reached the conclusion that the Catholic Church is the true Church?”

  “We have.”

  “Do you believe the Catholic Church’s teachings because God has revealed their truths to you?”

  “We do.”

  “Wilt thou be baptized?”

  “We will.”

  The priest first extends his arms to Johannes and Amalia in welcome, then he sweeps his hands to the heavens in thanksgiving. He smiles at the couple and gestures toward the baptismal font: “Come and be christened in the name of the one true Church.”

  Amalia leans back first, then Johannes. The priest pours the water over them.

  thirty-three

  NEW YORK CITY, PRESENT DAY

  RAINWATER STREAMED FROM MARA’S HAIR, JACKET, AND SKIN. It pooled at her feet while she waited. The wetness washed clean the reporter’s clinging cigarette smoke, and tears sprang up in Mara’s eyes again at the thought of her conversation with Elizabeth Kelly.

  She had met the reporter at a coffee shop just outside the Times building. As Mara shared with Elizabeth The Chrysalis’s tortured history, highlighting Beazley’s involvement in its abuse, and turned over a set of The Chrysalis documents to her, the magnitude of Lillian’s loss began to impact Mara. Mara started to experience intense guilt, no matter Lillian’s earlier protestations that Mara did not “drag” her into anything, and sensed her strength start to crumble. But she knew she had to stave off those feelings until she completed her final task: meeting with Hilda Baum.

  Mara rang the doorbell again, then reached for the heavy door knocker. A familiar cloud of white hair and a pair of milky blue eyes appeared over the chain.

  “Ms. Baum, I’m not sure you remember me, but I’m—”

  “I know exactly who you are. You’re that lawyer for Beazley’s.” The soft eyes hardened into steel.

  “Yes, I’m Mara Coyne. There’s something I need to tell you. May I speak to you for a moment?”

  “You want to speak to me? Oh, that’s rich. All those hours you spent questioning me in that deposition, lecturing me, muffling me every time I opened my mouth to speak. Strangling the words right out of me. And you come here expecting me to sit silently again when you want to speak? I don’t think so.” She slammed the door shut and turned the dead bolt.

  Mara rested her forehead against the door. “Please, Ms. Baum. Just hear me out. It’s important.”

  After a long moment, the dead bolt clicked again. The face reappeared over the chain. “What is it, then? Tell me your important news. But if you’re here to inform me that The Chrysalis has been stolen, I already know.”

  “No, Ms. Baum, it’s not about that. I understand that you’ve been told about the theft and that you’ve reached an accord with Beazley’s. I’m here to talk to you about something different, which I’m afraid will take more than a moment. May I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  Hilda scanned Mara up and down, then hesitantly unfastened the chain and opened the door. “Come in, then. But before I’ll sit mute again, listening to you rail on, Ms. Coyne, you’re going to let me finish my story.”

  Mara waited in the vestibule for a sign of where to follow. The apartment had the hallmarks of wealth, solid bones, and a good Upper East Side address but was distinctly down at heel. There were packing boxes and luggage everywhere. Hilda motioned for Mara to step over them toward the kitchen, to a chair across from a steaming cup of tea and a copy of La Stampa, a daily Italian newspaper. She tossed Mara a tea towel with which to dry off.

  Settling in the chair across from Mara, Hilda began. “You know, of course, that my father owned and ran an insurance company. But what you don’t know is that the business was merely his work, not his passion. Art was his passion.

  “My earliest memory is walking with Father down the long hallways of our creaky seventeenth-century family home just outside of Amsterdam. Every wall, every corner, every tabletop, every nook and cranny of our home, every one of the three floors, was alive with art. I couldn’t have been much more than three, but I vividly recall being carried in my father’s arms as he pointed out each of the paintings on the walls. I listened to him tell their stories with such love, such regard, that I remember feeling jealous. I was particularly envious of his little Degas ballerina sculpture. I felt sure that she could steal my father’s love for me…. Children’s imaginations.

  “Of course, at that time, many of the paintings on the walls, Dutch old masters and early German portraits by Cranach and Holbein, were very dark, very serious, even a bit scary to a child. In time, though, they became interspersed with color as my father became a connoisseur of Impressionist paintings. I loved the vibrancy of these more modern works, the bold swaths of brushstroke, the pictures of families.

  “But the most treasured item in Father’s collection was not the dazzling Impressionist paintings or the old masters or even the Degas ballerina. It was a private, intimate painting, one that hung alone in h
is study. One that radiated a light that illuminated my father’s study more than any window ever could. It served as an altar of sorts for him, a place for meditation. I am referring to The Chrysalis, of course. This painting I recall above all others—not for its value or its aesthetics but for the place it held in my father’s heart.

  “As I grew older, war came again to Europe. Hitler hung about the periphery of my teenage years, always looming in my parents’ conversations and in movie reels, but he never quite threatened my little world. Classes at the convent school, music lessons, language instructions—these were my daily fare. I had all the training necessary to be presented as the proper daughter from one of Europe’s leading families. We all moved as if the world around us were perfectly normal.

  “You know from my deposition that I was an only child, but what you don’t know is that mine was not a lonely childhood. Father was one of four, and Mother was one of five. So my world overflowed with cousins of all ages. They were the brothers and sisters I never had. Madeline, in particular.” Hilda’s voice cracked, revealing a chink in her carefully constructed reminiscence. “She and I were born exactly nine days apart. She never let me forget that she came first. Maddie was my constant companion. We were infant playmates, tomboys dangling from tree limbs, adolescent partners in crime, and dreamy, inseparable teenagers in love with the same movie idols. I have very few memories of childhood without Maddie.”

  As Hilda rambled on, it occurred to Mara that Hilda wasn’t sharing such intimate recollections for her benefit. Hilda seemed to be reliving her history for a greater audience that Mara could not discern—or for herself.

  “But then my world began moving so very quickly, so very differently. It seems as though I left the protected, guileless days of my girlhood behind in an instant—the night I met my husband. I remember the rain of that night so well. The late-fall storms, which bring the kind of wetness you cannot shake off. A wetness that clings to you. I do not think you have so many types of rain here as we Dutch have. The downpour of the early-spring showers, the light drizzle at the start of winter that wants so much to turn to snow, the damp night air that is always present.” She stopped, steeped in her memories. Her story was growing long, like so many Mara’s own grandmother had told her, so Mara coughed, hoping to bring her back to the point of her tale.

  “The umbrellas made such a colorful patchwork of the narrow streets that night. Maddie and I did the best we could to stay dry, bobbing and weaving through them. We arrived late to the party. Oh, and the club was lit so low we almost did not see them.” She chuckled. “Imagine not having seen them.” She sighed.

  “My dear friend Katya had arranged a little party at a jazz club in Amsterdam. Maddie and I, of course, had never been allowed to go to such a place. So we left our houses in secret, each telling our parents we were at the other’s home. Then we dashed off to meet Katya. Do you know the word rendezvous?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, that is what we did. Had a rendezvous.” Amusement welled up in her voice. “We were so scared, so innocent. Neither of us had ever disobeyed our parents before—but what an adventure! We could hear the chanteuse from the street. Her voice held a promise of the exotic, and we worked our way inside, finally finding Katya’s table. Making our excuses, we sat down. And there he was, with his coal-black hair and eyes and easy smile, so different from the men I knew.”

  “Who?”

  “Giuseppi Benedetti, my husband. Not that he was my husband then. Oh, but the moment I looked at him, I knew he would be. Later, he told me he knew at that instant, too.

  “Things moved quickly back in those days. Girls didn’t date for years, live together as man and wife as you girls do today, only to find the man to be unsuitable as a husband. No, no. Within a few dates, mostly chaperoned by Maddie and held in secret, we orchestrated a meeting with Mother and Father, and Giuseppe asked for my hand. You see, he was an officer in the Italian army, Mussolini’s army, and had to return. I was determined to go with him, but Mother and Father would hear none of it. Mother sobbed that I was only nineteen, and what did I know of the world? Father was devastated—that I could see—but he knew my will. So he did what he could to assure himself and Mother about this man, this Italian stranger whom I wanted to marry. Father telegrammed his sister in Rome, who years before had married an Italian man. Thankfully, through quite a bit of poking around, my aunt was able to vouch for Giuseppe and his family. Giuseppe and I exchanged our vows under the trellis in the courtyard of my family home. I had all of my family around me, and Maddie was my maid of honor.

  “How I loved Italy. Everything was baked golden by the sun, a sun that burned bright even after my eyes closed. I loved the smell of sunbaked tomatoes and cypresses in the air, and the impossible warmth after all that Dutch rain. Our first days in Italy were a dream.”

  Hilda’s eyes closed as if experiencing the warm rays one last time. Mara hungered to hear more, wanting to know that her sacrifices, to say nothing of Lillian’s, were not in vain.

  Hilda’s voice grew thick and low. “But I awoke. With Giuseppe’s return to duty came knowledge of Europe’s disastrous economic situation, of the worldwide depression, of the Nazis’ tyrannical march back and forth across the Continent, and of the Final Solution.

  “At this time, the family insurance business was in dire straits. Father could maintain the family home only by going deeply into debt and selling assets. The house was mortgaged, the family trust heavily borrowed against, certain precious paintings sent off to dealers on consignment—all as a way to generate some money.

  “But I knew none of this until much later. Father was of the old school. He thought that his daughter, his only child, should know nothing about money. So Father’s letters were full of chitchat about this cousin, that party. Even when I traveled home for Christmas in 1939, Father presented a perfect picture of normalcy. I do remember that some paintings had been changed. For example, a Degas had moved to a premier position where a Holbein once reigned, and the Holbein was missing altogether. Silver serving pieces that we always used at meals had been replaced with porcelain. I asked Father about these absent pieces. He laughed and said that he had gotten tired of certain paintings and so had rearranged them. As for the silver, well, it had been sent out for polishing. I wanted to believe the fiction that nothing was changing, so I did not ask more.

  “But I would not be allowed the luxury of denial much longer. In May 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands. We had heard rumors, but we were stunned. After all, the Netherlands had stayed neutral throughout World War I, and the world assumed that it would be permitted to remain so again.

  “I was so worried for Father and Mother, and for the rest of my family, and of course, for Maddie. From my husband, I knew all too well what became of the citizens of Hitler’s conquered countries. I also knew what became of the Jews. At first, I thought this had nothing to do with my family and Father’s family: After all, we were Catholics. Then we learned that my parents were being classified as Jews because of Father’s grandfather. Mother could have fought the label, but she understood that doing so would part her from Father, which she could never do. I knew then that my parents were in grave danger, no matter how agreeable my father’s letters were. I knew that the occupied Dutch government would replace Father as the head of his own business with a German administrator. I knew that, as a Jew, Father would not be permitted to conduct even the most rudimentary form of business, including withdrawing money from his own bank accounts. I knew that Father and Mother would be required to wear yellow stars outside the house. I knew that, without the yellow stars, they would be more or less prisoners in their own Amsterdam home. And I knew that they could face the camps.

  “You know, of course, about the letter of protection from Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart that Giuseppe and I procured for my parents. And you also know that, as the situation worsened and we knew the letter would not keep them safe, Giuseppe and I tried to get my parents passage
to Italy. Certainly it was war-torn, but we thought it more secure for them, with my husband’s connections and the connections of my aunt. I relentlessly lobbied the Italian government for such permission, without success. Then, curiously, one day, glorious news arrived through the Italian embassy from my parents. They were given leave to come to Italy. They had managed to obtain travel visas, although I could not fathom a way in the absence of our help.”

  Hilda’s voice dropped to a whisper. Mara tried to catch every word. “So I rushed to Milan. In those days, all international trains came to Milan via Berlin, and I went to the station immediately. I remember so well that cool winter day. I had dressed in my wartime finest, my highest heels with a matching bag, a fur stole around my thin shoulders, and some black-market lipstick to warm my wan face. I wanted to look my best to greet them. I did not want them to see the hardships I had been enduring, so small in face of their own. I stood in the very spot where their train would disembark, under the enormous ticking station clock. The Berlin train announced its arrival with a deafening horn blast and a bellow of steam. I could not wait to see them, touch them, and embrace them—to make them real again. A stream of soldiers and important-looking officials passed by. But not my parents.

  “Surely they would be on the next train, I thought to myself. So the next day, I repeated my vigil. And the next day. And the next. And the next. And the next. A whole week of waiting and watching. I grew intimately familiar with the soaring metal skeleton of the station; with the routines of the station workers, who had grown so un-Italian in their punctual attention to schedule; with the endless flights of refugees looking for a safe place to land. At the end of the week, I had to acknowledge that something had happened to them and that they would not be on the next train.

  “I tracked down my husband, desperate with worry. We tried to find out where they were. At last, after an endless fortnight, we got the information that my parents had been taken to a concentration camp, to Dachau. We knew what that meant. I cannot even explain to you the depths of my devastation, but I was forced to deny it for the time being. My husband and I went to Rome and were received by one of Mussolini’s own ministers. We told him of the terrible mistake, of the letter from Seyss-Inquart, of the promised safe passage. He pledged to try to help save my parents. But the war was turning against Germany. By 1943, the Italian army was losing to the Allied invasion force, which meant the end of any influence on the Nazis through my Italian connections. Then Mussolini fell, and blackness descended upon me.”