The Chrysalis

by Heather Terrell

  Hilda stopped. Not wanting to interrupt, Mara sat without making a sound.

  Hilda shook herself from her deep reverie. Her voice grew strong and businesslike. “As you know, on that first day of peace, I undertook the search for my parents and learned what had happened to them at the Berlin train station, at Dachau.” The mask did not hold; Hilda began to weep. She got up from her chair and went through the motions of putting on more tea. Mara felt tears stream down her own face, overwhelmed with the horror of it all and the role she had played, however unwittingly.

  “I had to wait until 1946 to go back to Amsterdam. Because I was traveling on an Italian passport at that time, I was regarded as an enemy of the Netherlands. Imagine that.” Mara saw Hilda shaking her head from the back. “I remember well approaching my parents’ house. From the outside, it looked exactly the same. The gardens were in full bloom, and Mother’s prize tulips were flowering. I kept expecting Mother and Father to rush out in greeting. On the inside, however, the Nazi ravages were evident. Walls stripped bare of paintings, tapestries, and mirrors; floors left naked of carpets; rooms fully exposed, without so much as a stick of furniture for cover. The Nazis left only the bare bones of a house.

  “I scoured the neighborhood, looking for anyone who’d been with my parents in their last days. Searching for a keepsake, any kind of remembrance of them. I found Maria, Mother’s lady’s maid, drunk in a nearby pub. She’d been with my mother in the final days, and inebriated ever since.

  “Maria told me what had happened. On that last morning, an S.S. officer arrived at the house, pulling up in a black Daimler-Benz. My parents were terrified at first, but the officer greeted them with an enormous grin and first-class train tickets to Italy. My parents were thrilled, thinking I had arranged them. While my parents scampered about packing their worldly goods like rats in a trap, the officer and his aide went slowly from room to room looking at the few remaining paintings, touching the furniture. The smiles returned as the officers helped load the Daimler-Benz to escort my parents personally to the station, to their own private compartment in first class, a rarity in those days. Maria bade my mother farewell as the car pulled away from my parents’ home. Along with Willem, my father’s servant, she watched my graying parents, mother bedecked in her finest, both sealed in by crates and trunks, grow smaller in the distance.”

  Hilda turned from the stove, drawing close to Mara. “I wanted something of my parents, Ms. Coyne. Something tangible that I could touch, feel, caress in those dark moments when I could hear them crying out from Dachau. I wanted The Chrysalis most of all.

  “If only I could have found it in Europe after the war. Any civilized country would have returned the painting to me. But The Chrysalis was long gone. Gone to the United States where your laws are so very different and so very unjust.”

  Mara spoke, her voice raspy and dry from sitting so long in silence. “That’s why I’m here, Ms. Baum, though it may seem an empty gesture now that The Chrysalis is gone. I hope perhaps to make up, in some small way, for the injustice that has been done to you and to your family.”

  Hilda’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  Mara cleared her throat, more nervous than before any judge or tribunal. “I came to tell you of a deception perpetrated by Beazley’s upon me, upon you, and upon countless others like you.”

  Mara longed for absolution, but the remnants of her old, self-protective persona stepped in with justifications. “You must understand that, from the beginning, Beazley’s assured me they had obtained The Chrysalis legitimately, that they’d purchased it from Albert Boettcher & Company, an impeccable dealer. They even showed me the documents to prove it.

  “Ms. Baum, it was all a lie. After the summary judgment motion, I learned that Beazley’s bought The Chrysalis from Kurt Strasser, a man who’s been described as an eager profiteer of plundered Nazi art loot. So I did some investigation. Beazley’s—I should say my client, Michael Roarke’s, great-uncle Edward, who was a chair of Beazley’s—forged a bill of sale showing instead that it’d been bought from squeaky-clean Boettcher. They hoped to bury forever the fact that the Nazis must have stolen the painting from your father’s aunt in Nice, where your father sent it for safekeeping, and laundered it through Strasser, like so many others. Even worse, the person through whom Strasser laundered it in turn was an American soldier working in league with Edward Roarke.”

  Hilda’s face was blank; she said nothing. “Ms. Baum, I’m so sorry. I wanted to share this with you before you read about it in the papers. To protect us all, to shield us from what Michael Roarke and Philip Robichaux might do to prevent all this from becoming known, I told the story to a New York Times reporter and gave her copies of the documents about The Chrysalis. The truth about The Chrysalis will become public tomorrow. I know it’s not much of a consolation for you, now that The Chrysalis has been stolen, even though I hope the settlement money is something of a comfort. Regardless of the fate of the painting, I wanted the truth to be known. I’m sorry.”

  Hilda’s voice escalated into rage. “You’re sorry? Do you think your little investigation into the truth offers justice? Before you found out that Beazley’s had forged the bill of sale, you were ready to hand The Chrysalis to them. Ms. Coyne, it doesn’t matter if my father sent The Chrysalis to storage for the Nazis’ ripe picking or sold it to the Nazis himself. Either way, the Nazis stole The Chrysalis from him. They forced Father to wear the Jewish star. Forced him out of his business. Forced him deep into debt. So deep that maybe he tried to sell some of his precious art to purchase freedom for himself and Mother, or maybe just to buy food to survive. If I’d been able to bring the suit in the European courts, I could have argued that even a voluntary sale in such circumstances is forced and tantamount to Nazi wartime theft. The European courts might have returned The Chrysalis to its rightful owner: me. But no. The battle for The Chrysalis took place here in the unsympathetic American courts—with you and all your crafty little arguments.”

  “Ms. Baum—”

  “You’ve heard my story. Now leave and take your apologies with you.”

  Sick to her stomach, her head spinning with the possible futility of her efforts, Mara staggered to the door. Briefly she turned back, and as she did so, a wooden crate, tucked into the far corner of the packaging-strewn living room, came into her vision. She had missed it during her hurried entrance, but the crate now looked familiar. Mara pinpointed it in her memory: the storage room at Beazley’s. It was the crate that had housed The Chrysalis.

  So this was how Michael and Philip had laid the Baum case to rest, how they had planned on keeping The Chrysalis bomb from a public detonation. They had arranged for the painting to be conveniently “stolen.” The insurance money would go to the empty coffers of the current owners, the Jesuits, and the painting landed in Hilda Baum’s eager hands. The controversy mooted and settlement achieved, the case of Baum v. Beazley’s would be dismissed, with prejudice, of course. Everyone was happy, except perhaps the insurance company, but it had premiums to placate it. The scheme would work as long as Michael silenced the truth and got back the documents from Mara—which he had failed to do.

  Mara stared at Hilda, who stood tall and firm, defiant in the face of her accusatory gaze. “Ms. Coyne, I’m sure you now understand that I couldn’t leave it to the courts. Your arguments—about the possibility that Father willingly sold The Chrysalis to the Nazis, about the delay in filing suit, about my search, about that damned release—were too clever to take the chance. You and your courts were all too ready to give the painting to Beazley’s. So, when I was offered The Chrysalis last night, well, you left me no choice but to accept.”

  “Of course you had a choice.”

  “Ms. Coyne, I would do a deal with the devil himself to get back The Chrysalis.”

  The right words came to Mara. “Ms. Baum, I think you did.”

  thirty-four

  NORTH OF MUNICH, 1943

  THE SOLDIERS DRAG ERICH OUT
OF THE DARK INTERROGATION cell into the light of morning. Though slate-gray clouds blanket the sky, the sun somehow penetrates the cloud cover and blinds him.

  His eyes stream through his swollen lids; the outside world seems unimaginably vivid after so many days of blackness. He does not want the soldiers to mistake it for weeping, so he reaches up to wipe them. His pale blue tattered shirtsleeve returns red, stained with fresh blood. The wetness is not tears.

  After his battered eyes adjust, Erich realizes that the soldiers have deposited him in the middle of the camp courtyard. To his right, he recognizes the gate he passed through when the soldiers brought him and Cornelia here. There, Dachau’s incongruous motto is scripted in wrought iron: Arbeit Macht Frei, or Work Will Set You Free.

  As he looks around the courtyard, he begins to appreciate that he stands alone at the center of a large circle of inmates. He scans the crowd, desperate to catch a glimpse of his wife, from whom he’s been separated since their arrival, too many excruciating days before to count. The shorn, skeletal women, distinguishable from the men only because of the differences in their camp uniforms, bear no resemblance to Cornelia. Her absence terrifies him.

  The prisoners encircle him, and heavily armed soldiers ring them in turn. He notes that the prisoners’ eyes are averted from him, though their bodies face toward him. It is as if they have been ordered to look at him but cannot endure it.

  An officer breaks through the masses surrounding him. The officer, whom he recognizes from the interrogation chamber, calls out to him in German, “Prisoner Baum, I will ask you one last time. Will you divulge the location of your art collection and sign it over to its rightful owner, the Third Reich?”

  Erich knows what is about to happen, what will transpire regardless of his signature. The Nazis want it only for slavish adherence to their own complicated laws on confiscation of property, and perhaps the appeasement of Seyss-Inquart. He is scared, but he will not allow his last words to be those of a victim; he will not sanction the Nazis’ sins. “No, I will not.”

  “Then you know what I must do.” A firing squad materializes from the crowd, and the officer gives a signal.

  As they ready their guns, he closes his eyes and sees the turquoise eyes of the woman in The Chrysalis before him; he feels her outstretched arms wrap around him as if welcoming him home. In his mind, an epitaph forms in defiance of Dachau’s own motto: “Faith will set you free.” He smiles.

  The guns fire.

  thirty-five

  NEW YORK CITY, PRESENT DAY

  THE MARBLE BENCH FELT COLD AGAINST MARA’S SKIN. THE air around her was still and frigid, even though the day outside burned bright and warm. The long room was a haze of gray-and-white granite honoring Lillian’s ancestors, indistinct through the blur of Mara’s tears. Lillian’s memorial plaque alone appeared clear.

  Silence engulfed the mausoleum now that the mourners had departed. Mara was relieved. She wanted to be alone with her pain, her loss, her guilt, and not to feel the old impulse to put up a good front for others.

  The loud clack of approaching steps echoed through the chamber. At first, Mara started to flee. As she rushed about looking for an exit, she wondered how the intruder got past the guard she had engaged for protection from Michael, from Philip, from those they might hire to stop her from revealing the other purloined Strasser documents. They didn’t know she planned on keeping those documents secret, for proper restitution and private amends; she no longer counted on the courts as an equitable recourse.

  Mara was almost at the heavy wrought-iron gates when she collided with the intruder: Sophia.

  Sophia reached out to stop her old friend from running, hurried in her speech, and stumbled over her words. “Mara, I’ve come to apologize. I know there is nothing I can say or do…I don’t know how I can make it up….” Eyes brimming with contrition, she began to weep. “I can’t believe I didn’t help you. Worse, I can’t believe I brought you to Michael in the diner, after all I’ve read about him in the papers. I should’ve trusted you.”

  “Yes, you should have. Sophia, I didn’t think that you’d help me, but I didn’t expect you to betray me.”

  “Mara, please believe me that I didn’t think I was betraying you. I thought I was rescuing you, stopping you from destroying your career.” The words were barely intelligible through the sobs. “It’s just that my moral compass was so off course. I was righteous about all the wrong things.”

  This was really the first time Mara had seen Sophia cry, and it weakened Mara’s resolve. She knew that Sophia hadn’t acted out of malice, but full mercy still eluded her. “I believe you, Sophia. But I may never get to forgiveness.”

  “Oh, Mara, I don’t expect forgiveness. How could I after I threw you in the lion’s den? Or should I say, brought you to the lion? I’m just thankful you’re willing to talk to me.” She wiped the tears from her face and, out of long habit, patted her hair back into place. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you alone now. Mara, if there’s anything I can do…”

  Mara paused. “You could tell me about the fallout from the New York Times article three days ago.”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “No, I’ve kind of been in hiding, ignoring reporters’ messages and too many calls from my father to count. Today’s the first day that I’ve been back in public since the article ran.”

  “The authorities dove right in; in fact, the federal and state agencies fought a little turf war as to who should lead the charge. They contacted that reporter you talked to and got the documents from her. Then they made Michael and Philip targets of their investigation. They haven’t filed any charges just yet, but the rumor is that they’ll bring Michael and Philip before a grand jury on criminal fraud for their Chrysalis scheme.”

  “Are they being blamed equally for it?”

  “Philip tried to distance himself and pin it all on Michael, but Michael dragged him right back into it. They’re hardly a unified front right now.”

  “What about Lillian’s death? Has that been associated with all this?”

  “Should it be?” Sophia’s mouth dropped open.

  Mara paused for a moment, struggling with whether to answer the question. She had made a vow to shield Lillian’s involvement, and she knew if she revealed the connection between Lillian’s death and Michael and Philip’s actions, she would be revealing Lillian’s connection with The Chrysalis’s flawed provenance. Yet Mara did not believe that Lillian would want Michael and Philip to escape punishment for their involvement in her death.

  “Yes, it should be.”

  Sophia’s mouth widened. “Oh my God.”

  “I know,” Mara uttered softly. “I need to go to the police. I’m just a little overwhelmed by the prospect of reliving the past few days for them.”

  The women sat in the oppressive quiet of the mausoleum, each lost in her own thoughts.

  Sophia broke the silence. “Let me go to the police for you, Mara.”

  “You? Why should you go?”

  “You’ve been through too much, and it will buy you some time. It’s the very least I can do…after I betrayed you to Michael.” Sophia turned to Mara, her eyes red from crying. “Please.”

  Moved by Sophia’s plea, Mara softened and decided to let Sophia pay her uncommon penance. She shared with Sophia the information she would have to impart to the police and then, emotionally drained, changed the subject to less charged matters. “Has any of this impacted Harlan?”

  “Not really. There’s been some gossip about his suspicious ties to Philip; maybe that scuttlebutt will shrink his stature one day. But right now, he’s still as big as ever, literally and figuratively.”

  “And what about me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How does the firm judge my actions?”

  “Oh.” Sophia broke the eye contact she had been so desperate to make minutes before. “Certain partners sympathize with your actions, but they’re in the minority. Most don’t condone your
behavior, even though the authorities seem willing. The naysayers worry about the impact on the clients’ confidence.”

  “That’s what I figured. I didn’t think there’d be a job waiting for me. I accepted that the minute I contacted the Times.” As the women sat in silence, Mara thought about what she had kept hidden, beyond the other Strasser documents: the new domicile of the “stolen” Chrysalis. Had she taken the right route by not heading back to the reporter? Mara thought so. Hilda had endured enough loss; if The Chrysalis helped ease her suffering, then let it stay with her, however deceitfully she had obtained it. The Jesuits would receive the money they sought anyway. All Mara still wanted was to see Michael punished and to have a clear pathway for a private return of the rest of the Strasser paintings.

  Just then, a finger tapped her shoulder. Mara jumped. A gentle, non-threatening face, with graying brown hair and soft eyes magnified by thick glasses, stared back at her. Sloping shoulders and a nondescript charcoal-gray suit completed the man’s unassuming appearance.

  His voice matched his countenance and put her at ease. “Ms. Coyne, please forgive me for bothering you during this difficult time, particularly today, but I’ve been trying to reach you for days. I understood from mutual acquaintances that you were lying low, after all the news articles about The Chrysalis and the investigation at Beazley’s. I thought this might be our only chance to speak.”