by Kris Tualla
“Not the way she is now, no,” Mary played along.
Eli frowned. “You are talking in riddles, Ms. McKenna. Please say what’s on your mind.”
Hollis folded her arms and considered him. “Your father only painted one original painting in his lifetime, is that correct?”
Eli bounced a nod. “Yes.”
Hollis turned to Rachel. “Yet he seems very competent.”
“That was not his passion,” Eli countered.
Hollis tapped her chin. “But he went to some lengths to try and save it, even if that meant she went to the neighbor boy.”
“My father loved her,” Gerhardt said. “Benjamin knew this.”
“I’m sure he did.” Hollis let her glance drop, and then slowly lift again. “But beyond that, he knew Wilhelm wasn’t Jewish.”
“So he knew the Kunst family would not disappear.” Samuel shrugged. “And so neither would the painting.”
“But they did disappear, didn’t they?”
Gerhardt looked at her, awestruck. “They were neighbors. They must have spoken to each other. Benjamin would know my grandfather’s politics.”
Hollis nodded. “And the day after the Meyers were taken, the Kunsts left Germany.”
“With the painting.” Samuel wagged his head. “That was quite a plan.”
“Yep. Quite a plan to save a worthless painting. The only painting ever made by an unknown Jew…” Hollis let the sentence hang in the air before she added, “A Jew who restored priceless masterpieces as a career.”
Four pair of eyes locked on hers. The palpable silence in the room was charged with disbelief. Hollis felt the hair on her arms rise.
“Are you accusing my father of stealing a masterpiece?” Eli growled.
“No, not at all.”
“Did he paint over one?” Samuel looked from Hollis to the canvas and back.
“Yes, he did.”
“Who was the artist?” Eli croaked.
“Max Liebermann.”
This is the most fun game of twenty questions, ever.
“Who?” Gerhardt looked at the others in the room. “I’ve never heard of him.”
“I hadn’t either, until we were able to match it to a missing post online. Max was a nineteenth-century Jewish impressionist from Berlin.”
Mary produced two color copies of the painting’s x-ray and handed one to each of the families. “This is how we found out what he did.”
“That looks like Rachel.” Eli observed. “It is a young woman in the same pose.”
Hollis nodded. “I would assume that was where he got the inspiration to paint Rachel the way he did.”
“And he would have used the brush strokes as a template for his own composition,” Mary added.
Samuel addressed Mary. “She said the painting was listed as missing.” He winced. “Was it stolen?”
“No, it was listed as being in a private collection and its whereabouts unknown.”
Eli lifted his head. “Whose collection?”
Mary consulted her notes. “Elijah and Marion Weichsel bought the painting from Max Liebermann in eighteen-eighty-nine.”
Eli’s puzzled expression eased and he smiled a little. “Those were my mother’s parents. My grandparents.”
Mary shot an enlightened glance across the long table to Hollis. “That makes sense, then.”
“If so, then the Liebermann must have hung in your house.” Hollis pulled out a color copy of the Max Liebermann painting. “Did you have a painting that looked like this?”
“Yes. Yes we did.” Eli looked up at Hollis. “In our drawing room, in the same place he hung Rachel when it was finished.”
“Do you know when your mother and father received the painting from her parents?” Hollis asked.
Eli shook his head. “I cannot remember when it wasn’t there.”
Hollis addressed Mary. “Well, that’s good enough for me, if it’s good enough for you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Now what?” Samuel asked.
“You have two choices. You can keep the painting as it is and enjoy it for its sentimental value,” Hollis explained. “Or you can have the overpainting removed and restore the original Liebermann.”
“That’s why you said make two copies.” Gerhardt wagged a finger at her. “You are clever.”
“How much is the Liebermann worth?” Samuel asked.
Eli glared at his son. “You would consider destroying my father’s work?”
Samuel scowled. “That depends on the value of the Liebermann. Obviously.”
“After researching the artist and his other paintings which have been sold at auction…” Mary retrieved another sheet of paper from her folder. “We are thinking at least one-point-seven-five million. Maybe as high as two-point-five.”
Shocked silence met her announcement.
Even Hollis was stunned. “Really?”
Mary grinned at her. “Really.”
“I had no idea…” She looked at the occupants in the room. “And so that’s the real reason Benjamin wanted the painting to survive.”
All of the man’s actions were now falling into their logical position. “He wanted to leave a legacy for his survivors.”
“The real kicker is that Max didn’t die until nineteen-thirty-five,” Mary informed the still silent quartet. “So the painting’s value back then was nowhere near what it is now.”
Eli pushed himself up from his chair with some effort, eschewing Samuel’s help, and walked slowly to the easel. He stopped in front of it, and reached out one finger to stroke his long-dead sister’s cheek.
“She was a beautiful girl with such a life ahead of her. Such a life.” He drew a shaky breath. “Wilhelm would have made her happy, I think. If such a marriage could have been permitted.”
The old man grasped the edges of the canvas with arthritic, blue-veined hands and lifted it from the easel. He kissed Rachel’s image tenderly. Then he pressed the painting to his chest and closed his eyes.
“You did a wonderful thing, Rachel. I hope you can see this.” Eli sighed heavily. “You could not save our parents or yourself, but you saved your family.”
His voice held the reverence of prayer. Hollis wiped the tear that ran down her cheek.
“You saved us first with your uncomplaining patience as our father painted you.” An odd smile sculpted the old man’s features. “And you saved us secondly by loving an Aryan boy.”
Hollis was in full-blown cry mode now. She reached for the ever-present box of tissues and yanked two out. She blew her nose as quietly as she could, unwilling to interrupt Eli’s prayer.
“Yes, I agree. That is the right thing.”
Hollis glanced at Samuel, then Gerhardt and Amelia. Who was Eli talking to?
Maybe the man has undiagnosed Alzheimer’s.
Or schizophrenia. That was a possibility.
Eli opened his eyes and turned to her suddenly, ending her musings. “We will make the two copies.”
Hollis sniffed and nodded. “Ms. Oberman will take care of that right away.”
“Good.” Eli carefully placed the painting back on the easel. “And then we will sell Max’s painting once it’s restored.”
“Let’s make copies of the original Liebermann first, Dad,” Samuel suggested. “We might as well enjoy it too, seeing as how it was in the family for well over a hundred years.”
Eli shuffled back to his chair. “Samuel, you are wise for such a young man.”
“Young? Mid-sixties?” Samuel laughed. “I guess age is relative.”
Eli waved a hand as if to wipe away his son’s words. “And once the painting is sold, Ms. McKenna, half the money will go to Mr. Kunst.”
“What?” Amelia’s first spoken word that day jarred the air in the room. “We’re getting money?”
Gerhardt was obviously struck speechless. The normally garrulous German simply stared at Eli.
Though Hollis was thrilled, she needed to be certain the old m
an meant what he said. “Are you sure? Do you want a day to think about it?”
Eli looked at her the way a parent looks at a child who is clueless. “Rachel insists. It was her idea, and I deeply respect it.”
After her experiences with Sveyn, Hollis was the last person to argue with anyone claiming to communicate with a dead person.
“Thank you, Eli.” Gerhardt’s voice was thick with emotion. “You are an honorable man.”
Eli made a face. “Me? I would keep the money. But Rachel promises me misery if I do.”
As Gerhardt’s glance shifted uneasily to Hollis, Eli burst into a delighted cackle.
“I’m kidding. I’m kidding!” Eli grabbed Samuel’s forearm as if he made the joke. “She would never threaten her little brother.”
*****
Once Eli’s decision and subsequent plan of action were committed to paper and signed by both parties, Gerhardt and Amelia left. Hollis had texted Sveyn that they were finished, and he just walked into the room.
“Hang on, I want to ask Eli and Samuel a question,” Hollis said to him. “Then I’ll tell you all about everything in the car.”
“All right.” Sveyn lowered himself into a seat to wait for her.
“Mr. Meyer, Samuel, can I ask you something personal?”
Samuel straightened the shoulders on the coat he had helped his father into. “Sure.”
“You’re from Tomah and I recently learned that my birthparents are from Sparta.”
Eli smiled softly at her. “We are neighbors, young lady.”
“Yes.” Hollis returned the smile. “I was wondering if there was any chance either of you might know my grandmother.” Hollis pointed at Samuel. “She would be about your age.”
“Maybe.” Samuel shrugged. “What was her name?”
“Karen—she married Howard Mueller, but I don’t know her maiden name.”
Eli looked like he saw a ghost. “Howard and Karen Mueller in Sparta are your grandparents?”
“Yes. Their daughter Kathleen got pregnant when she was fifteen,” Hollis explained. “My parents were their best friends, and they couldn’t have kids so they asked to adopt me. After Kathleen had the baby, they took me and moved to Milwaukee.”
“I always wondered…”
Eli looked like he was about to collapse. Hollis shoved a chair toward him and a very pale Samuel lowered him into it.
“Should I call nine-one-one, Dad?”
Eli wagged his head. “No. I’ll be fine.”
Samuel squatted in front of his father. “Do you want me to tell her?”
“Yes,” Eli breathed.
Now Hollis felt like she was seeing a ghost. “Tell me what?”
Samuel stayed by his father and looked up at her. “Karen is my older sister.”
Chapter Thirty
Sveyn snapped to attention. “You are Karen Mueller’s brother? And this is your father?”
Hollis sat still, her shock and disbelief evident.
Sveyn shifted his attention to the elderly man. “That means you, Mr. Meyer, are Hollis’s great-grandfather?”
Eli regarded him as blankly as Hollis did. “Yes. If what she said is true, I am.”
“Who has red hair?” Hollis demanded.
If Eli thought the question strange, he did not let on. “Karen. And I did, at one time.”
“Did you know Aleksander Hansen?” she pressed.
Samuel’s brow furrowed with concentration. “I think he might be the boyfriend Karen brought one Fourth of July… But if I’m right, she broke up with him that fall.”
“He is Hollis’s father,” Sveyn interjected.
“Really?” Samuel pinched the bridge of his nose. “He was a couple years older, I think.”
“Yes. Three.”
Eli straightened in his chair. “I do remember a time when Kathleen disappeared for months. I asked Karen where she was and she said Kathleen was acting as nanny for one of Howard’s cousins in Minnesota.”
Hollis looked at Sveyn. Judging by her expression, the reality of what just happened was beginning to sink in.
“Oh my God, Sveyn. This man, Eli Meyer, is my great-grandfather…”
“So it would appear.”
“And the man who painted that—” Hollis pointed at the painting of Rachel. “Is my great-great-grandfather.”
“This is an unexpected turn, is it not?” He smiled. “But a very happy one, I think.”
“You are a daughter of Israel, Ms. McKenna,” Eli murmured.
Hollis looked confused. “That’s a surprise, considering Kathleen was confirmed in the Lutheran Church. Did Karen still practice her faith?”
“No,” Samuel said sadly. “She converted when she married Howard.”
Hollis looked at the girl in the painting. “Rachel is my great-aunt, then.”
“Yes.”
“I never imagined something like this would happen.” Fresh tears rolled down Hollis’s cheeks, but this time they were tears of joy. “So I guess I’ll have Mary make me a copy of the painting too.”
*****
In the car on the way from the museum in downtown Milwaukee to the north-side Italian restaurant where Hollis and Sveyn were meeting her parents for an early supper, Hollis gave Sveyn the details about ownership of the painting.
“What made you ask about Karen?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But after being in Sparta with that feeling of a small town, where everybody knows everybody, that kind of thing, I just threw it out there.”
“It is good that you did.” Sveyn smiled “Now you have all of your answers.”
“I can’t wait to tell Mom and Dad about Eli.” Hollis turned the blinker on and moved into the left turn lane. “And after dinner I just want to go back, take a hot bath, get my pajamas on, and relax.”
“What time is our flight to Phoenix tomorrow?”
“Noon.” Hollis made the turn into the parking lot. “We should probably be at the airport by ten-thirty.”
She parked the car and they climbed out. The wintry afternoon was gray but bracing. Sveyn drew a long breath, the chilled air filling his lungs in a way that made him homesick.
“I do miss snow,” he admitted.
“We have snow in Arizona. I’ll drive you up there.”
Sveyn was growing tired of Hollis acting the chauffeur where he was concerned. “I need to learn to drive.”
She smiled up at him and waited for him to open the door for her. “And now that you have a birth certificate, you can get your permit and begin.”
Sveyn followed Hollis into the restaurant. She stopped at a little podium near the door.
“Is there a table for Ian?” she asked.
The hostess smiled and gathered up an armful of menus. “Yes. Follow me, please.”
Hollis’s gaze moved around the restaurant. “I don’t see them. Do you?”
“No.”
“They’re in here.” The hostess opened a French-style door to a darkened room.
Sveyn followed Hollis inside the mysterious space, his senses on high alert.
“SURPRISE!”
The shouts startled him and the sudden lights blinded him.
Sveyn acted on his warrior’s instinct. With a roar of warning, he grabbed Hollis and pulled her behind him, placing his crouched body between her and danger.
For a moment, no one moved.
The crowd in the room stared at him in stunned silence.
It only took Sveyn a moment to realize there was no actual danger present.
He straightened, embarrassed and feeling very much out of his century.
Hollis stepped out from behind him. “Well, we certainly are surprised. Obviously.”
Brianne hurried forward in an attempt to distract everyone from the unexpected awkwardness. “We couldn’t let you leave tomorrow without celebrating your birthdays and letting everyone meet Sveyn.”
“No. I get it. Thanks, Mom.” Hollis turned around and gave Sveyn
an apologetic smile. “So this is Sveyn, my birthday twin and fiancé.”
“Hey, you’re Eric! From the Match Point commercials!” someone shouted.
*****
Hollis understood her parents’ desire to celebrate her birthday because they had been apart at Christmas. And it warmed her heart that they wanted to introduce her fiancé to their friends here.
And of course they had no idea of what today’s meeting about the painting had revealed.
That would have to wait until after the party.
So much for a relaxing evening.
Sveyn held up well, she noticed. He was willing to accept that his actions, which were so out of place in this place and time, were amusing to the gathering. But being recognized as ‘Eric’ from Match Point was something neither one of them had anticipated.
Again, he held up well—posing for pictures and signing his autograph with an unwavering smile.
The one question that she was repeatedly asked and had no answer for was, “Have you set a date?”
“No, but we will when we get back to Phoenix.” Hollis always added, “It will be a very small wedding, since both of Sveyn’s parents are gone and I don’t want to bankrupt my parents’ retirement account just for a party.”
Then she excused herself to get a refill on her Merlot. Or to check in with her mom. Or dad. Or Sveyn. Anything to change the subject.
She sidled up to her mother. “Do we have an end time to this shindig?”
Brianne’s expression fell. “Aren’t you having fun?”
“Of course, I am. And so is Sveyn.” The Viking really did seem to be enjoying the attention. “But something extraordinary happened today at the meeting that I want to tell you and Dad about when we’re alone.”
“We only have the room until eight.” Her mom glanced around at the happy group. “I know you want to leave for the airport by nine-thirty tomorrow morning and I didn’t want to keep you too late.”
“Thanks, Mom. I love you.” Hollis kissed her cheek. “This was really sweet of you.”
*****
Hollis shut the car door and heaved a sigh. “Sorry about that. I had no idea she was serious when she mentioned a party.”
