The Lover's Portrait

by Jennifer S. Alderson

  The sounds of beeping car horns interrupted her thoughts. She looked out the window and saw that Friedrich was turning onto the Stadhouderskade. “Do you want to come up for a glass of wine?” Zelda asked. “I know I could sure use one. You can always borrow my bike if you get too tipsy.”

  He nodded slightly as he ignored the honking behind him and carefully backed into a tight parking space on her busy street. After killing the engine, he said, “That sounds fantastic. It’s been a pretty strange day, hasn’t it?”

  Zelda opened her building’s front door, expecting to be greeted by a cabal of noise coming from the kitchen. Instead, there was only silence. It was Friday night, she realized, her housemates – all students – would be out celebrating the end of the study week. Though Zelda usually liked to stay in on Fridays and have the house to herself, she was glad Friedrich was with her tonight. She was in no mood to be alone.

  As they ascended the fourth flight of stairs, Zelda was surprised to see her studio’s door cracked open. She slowed a little, causing Friedrich to stumble against her legs.

  “What the –” he exclaimed, grabbing the railing in time to stop himself from tumbling backwards down the steep stairwell.

  “Look,” she whispered, pointing at a narrow shaft of light spilling into the hallway. She tried to tell herself there was nothing amiss; one of her housemates must have borrowed a shirt and forgotten to turn off the light. But Zelda was sure she had locked her door when she and Friedrich went to Urk. And none of her housemates would have been so desperate to get at her cheap clothes that they’d have jimmied it open.

  Friedrich pushed her gruffly aside, maneuvering himself in front.

  “Be careful,” she softly squealed, unsure whether to call the police or let her friend look inside first. Before she could decide, he kicked the door open and jumped through the entryway in a karate pose straight out of a B-movie.

  “Oh, shit,” Friedrich exclaimed from inside her apartment. He poked his head back through the doorway. “You’d better call the police.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  June 17, 1942

  “No, that closet is much too small, especially after we crate them up. That’s the best way to protect them from insects and light. It may be months, or even years, before it will be safe to move any of these paintings again,” Arjan explained. He’d had the foresight to begin collecting suitable wooden boxes as soon as the war started, figuring he may one day need them to store his most delicate pieces. Because of the current fuel shortage, they were impossible to come by nowadays. He had one-hundred and fifty-two crates stacked up in his formal dining room, the space he and Philip Verbeet were now standing in, unused since Gijs’s death. He’d hoped they could squeeze all three hundred and twenty-seven framed canvases into them.

  Even if they did fit, neither he nor Philip knew of a space large enough to hold them all. When the bombing raids and skirmishes within the city limits intensified a few months before, Arjan had sketched up plans for a storage room disguised as an emergency shelter to be constructed in his backyard. When Gijs fell ill, he’d stopped searching for discrete workmen suitable for the job. And now with Drechsler looking over his shoulder, he would never be able to build something like that on the sly.

  “And the bomb shelter on Stadhouderskade?” Philip offered, scouring the map of Amsterdam he’d spread out on Arjan’s dining room table. “Or the shelter in the Leidsebosje? We might be able to store them there amongst the rations.”

  “As soon as there’s a bombing raid or fire anywhere in the vicinity, the shelter will fill up. Someone’s bound to notice those crates don’t belong. If the locals don’t look inside and take the paintings, the Nazis will,” Arjan said dismissively. They’d been at this for hours and neither of them could think of a single worthy location. He pushed back his chair and rose. “I could use a drink. Is red wine alright? Or do you prefer something stronger?”

  “Red is fine,” Philip said, perking up. “The only liquor I drink is the schnapps I brew myself. Raspberry is my specialty.”

  Arjan looked at the older man with interest. “I’ve never heard of a raspberry variation before. Can you still taste the fruit after it’s been fermented?”

  “It’s quite subtle. I’m going back to check on our house tomorrow morning. I’ll get a bottle of schnapps out of our root cellar while I’m there.” Philip said.

  “Root cellar?”

  Philip smiled. “That’s what the Americans call it. My brother-in-law lives in Boston and has an unfinished cellar under his house. The earthen walls keep the room damp and cool, no matter what season it is. I dug one out under our garden shed so we can store my wife’s preserves and my liquors down there without having to worry about them spoiling. It’s not large, but big enough to stand up in.” he said.

  “How large is it exactly?” Arjan asked, urgency in his voice.

  “Ten by twenty meters square?”

  “How many crates do you think we could we fit inside?”

  Philip began to scoff, surprised by the question, but Arjan’s serious expression stopped him cold. He studied the oak boxes stacked up around the room. “Seventy, if we’re lucky.”

  “Perhaps if we enlarged it, we could fit them all in?”

  “It would take a few days of hard labor, but it is possible. I dug out the current cellar myself in less than a week,” Philip said with pride. “The entrance is in the floor of the shed, the neighbors won’t notice us working as long as the door is shut tight. We can dump the dirt we dig up in the flower beds along the fence after nightfall.”

  “If the entrance is inside the shed, than anyone could find the paintings, couldn’t they?” Arjan said, his enthusiasm waning.

  “Not if we cover the door up with cement tiles. No one would think to look for a room hidden underneath a floor,” Philip countered, becoming more convinced of the plan’s feasibility.

  Arjan’s mind swirled with possibilities. He’d been searching for a suitable location for weeks, without success. What other choice did they have? Philip’s root cellar wasn’t the best option, but it was probably their only option. “We’ll need to buy a pick-axe and wheelbarrow,” he said.

  “I already have both in the shed. Working together, we should be able to expand the cellar in three or four days. I would rather not get anyone else involved.”

  “I agree, we need to keep this between us,” Arjan said. If the space was suitable, he would write to his brother Gerard and tell him to contact Philip if anything happened to him. But he couldn’t tell Gerard where the artwork was hidden; simply knowing the location would mean risking his life.

  Was a week enough to get everything done, Arjan wondered. He would have to close up shop, write a note on his gallery door claiming he was ill and pray Colonel Drechsler didn’t come to his home to check up on him in the meantime.

  “Wait a moment; you said a Nazi was looking for your daughter. Won’t he have someone watching your house?” Arjan knew he should not have gotten excited quite yet, there was still a snake in the grass.

  “If he was desperate enough to lay in wait for Iris, he would be staking out my frame shop. That’s where she worked and where she socialized with most of the art students who knew she and Lex were in a relationship,” Philip responded calmly, until he noticed Arjan’s nervous expression. “Honestly, I’m not even certain he’s still looking for her or how badly he wanted to find her in the first place. I couldn’t have lived with myself if my family had stayed and he did come knocking, that’s why I sent them all to Venlo straight away. However, I haven’t seen anyone show the slightest interest in our house or my shop in the four days since my girls left Amsterdam. The only way to get to the shed is through our apartment. Once we’re inside, no one will be able to tell that we’re there.”

  “Alright, why don’t we go take a look at your root cellar together?” Arjan said, mustering up his enthusiasm, knowing there were no other realistic options to consider.

  THIRTY-EIGHT
>
  “Are you sure nothing’s missing?”

  Zelda massaged her temples as she took a mental survey of her few belongings, now strewn around the room like worthless trash. Her clothes, CDs, photo albums, travel souvenirs and books had been ripped out of their drawers and shelves. Her desk, futon and bed had all been tipped upside down and the legs busted off. Shards of her television and stereo peeked out from under the broken furniture. She could hardly believe this was her studio apartment, the same one she’d left so neat and tidy a few hours earlier. How could she tell at a glance if something was missing? Not a single thing was in its rightful place.

  “I don’t think so,” she mustered, finally answering officer Eenhuizen of the Amsterdam police department, a tall blond man who couldn’t be older than thirty. He had already taken her statement, listening intently to her account of the evening before asking questions. Two cars full of cops arrived minutes after she’d called 1-1-2. Though Zelda was extremely grateful to have so many agents working on the case, right now all she wanted to do was drop onto her couch and cry. But she couldn’t even do that because there was nothing left to sit on.

  “Did you have any expensive jewelry or other valuables stored here,” the young officer asked, trying to understand why she had been targeted.

  She shook her head. “The most valuable thing in here was my television,” she said, pointing under her futon mattress at the small set with a smashed-in screen. “Everything else was secondhand, even the stereo. I’m a student; I don’t have any real valuables and certainly no expensive jewelry,” she replied, clearly at a loss.

  “We’ve already checked your housemates’ apartments. None of their rooms were disturbed so we don’t think this was a random break-in,” officer Eenhuizen said, searching Zelda’s facial expression for signs she was holding something back.

  As the weight of the violation she’d experienced begin to sink in, Zelda dropped to her knees and covered her face with her hands. Her backpack’s straps cut sharply into her shoulders, manifesting the pain she was feeling inside. This wasn’t random; she was the target of some nut job. “I really don’t know why anyone would want to rob me,” she replied, her voice trembling. “Even if someone thought I had something worth stealing, why would they tear up my apartment like this?”

  The young policeman grew somber. “Intruders usually don’t take time to destroy property, at least not to this extent. You’re very lucky you weren’t home.” He paused for a moment then cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed by what he had to ask. “Are you sure you can’t think of anyone who has a grudge against you? An angry ex-boyfriend or a stalker?” He gestured to the chaos around them. “This seems personal, all this damage. Especially considering nothing obvious was taken.”

  Zelda’s face went white: Pietro! Was the thought of spending a few classes together so horrible that he’d ransacked her apartment to try and scare her into leaving Amsterdam? She couldn’t believe he would be so desperate to get rid of her that he’d go this far. But then she never suspected he’d had a girlfriend back home either. She clearly didn’t know him as well as she’d thought.

  “Well, I did split up with my boyfriend about four hours ago,” she said reluctantly.

  Officer Eenhuizen perked up. “What is his name? Do you know where he is?”

  “His name is Pietro Moretti and he’s probably still at his parents’ home. They live in a small village near Florence, Italy. We broke up over the phone.”

  The young officer frowned as he flipped open his notepad. “Still, he has lived in Amsterdam and presumably knows people here he can call on, perhaps someone with a key to your apartment. None of the locks were forced. I’ll still need his full name and contact information.”

  Zelda read off his phone numbers and address, spelling Pietro’s name letter for letter. As she spoke, she took off her backpack and rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve the tension in her neck. Nothing made sense anymore. First Gerard’s house was broken into and torn apart. Only hours later, her own apartment was pillaged. And neither of them owned anything worth stealing. She still couldn’t believe Pietro would do something so crazy. He could easily find another place to live; he had enough friends he could sponge off of. And most of their classes didn’t overlap. Having to spend a few hours a week in the same room together didn’t warrant destroying her apartment.

  Besides, they’d only broken up a few hours ago. He’d have to have called someone moments after she’d hung up on him. And frankly he didn’t sound that upset about losing her, more irritated he’d been caught cheating. So was it just some weird coincidence that she and Gerard were both burgled on the same day, or were they both targeted by the same person? But for what reason?

  Zelda rested her knees on her backpack, feeling the thick pile of paper inside. The letters Arjan van Heemsvliet sent to his brother! That was the only connection between them. If someone was looking for the letters, that would explain the damage to both of their homes. But why would someone go to all this trouble to steal and even kill to get their hands on letters written by a dead man more than seventy years ago?

  “Why is this happening?” the words escaped her lips as a whisper.

  “Do you have somewhere to stay?” the young policeman asked sympathetically.

  “She can stay with me,” Friedrich piped up. He’d been standing in the doorway listening the whole time. There was no room for him inside, considering the number of detectives and uniformed policemen wandering around her tiny apartment. She smiled at her friend gratefully, mouthing “thank you” as she stood up and slipped her bag onto her back.

  “We’ll be busy here for a while longer,” the policeman explained. “If we are lucky, we’ll find fingerprints we can trace. We will have to fingerprint all of your housemates and any friends who’ve been by recently so we can eliminate them from our search.”

  “My housemates are all out drinking and won’t be home until late tonight. You said none of their rooms were broken into and the kitchen appears to be untouched. I’ll leave them a note letting them know what happened, and that you’ll be back in the morning and why. I’m sure they’ll cooperate; none of us will feel safe until we know who did this.”

  Officer Eenhuizen closed his notebook and held out his hand. “You are free to go. We’ll see you back here tomorrow morning, around nine o’clock.”

  She nodded distractedly as she shook his hand. Were the letters really important enough to kill for? Zelda despised Karen O’Neil but she couldn’t believe the New Yorker would murder to get ahold of Irises, the letters or even Van Heemsvliet’s entire collection. Her unsullied reputation was worth so much more. Besides, as soon as her lawyer supplied the museum’s director with her mother’s birth certificate, the Wederstein was hers anyway. But who else would be so anxious to read these letters they would scare an old man to death in order to do so?

  Friedrich hurried Zelda down the stairs. Once they were out on the street and well out of earshot, he whispered, “You know what they’re after, don’t you? I can see it on your face.”

  She patted her bag, “Gerard’s letters. It can’t be a coincidence both of our homes were broken into today. But Friedrich, it doesn’t make any sense. I’ve read half of them, yet so far Arjan hasn’t said a thing about having a gay lover or being blackmailed by a Nazi.”

  “Someone clearly wants those letters badly enough to kill for them. There must be something important in them, or at least the killer thinks there is.”

  Zelda stopped in her tracks. “Friedrich, do you realize what this means?” She could feel the blood draining from her face as her mind put the pieces together. “Either Bernice Dijkstra, Huub Konijn or Karen O’Neil must be behind these break-ins. Nobody knew Gerard had Arjan’s letters until I told everyone about them at the meeting yesterday.”

  Zelda grabbed her friend’s shoulders, turning him towards her. “If it is one of them, then I killed Gerard by lying about where the letters were. If I had told the truth, the rob
bers would have never gone to his house.” Tears poured down her cheeks as she moaned, “Oh Friedrich, what have I done?”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Zelda’s head was spinning. She wasn’t sure if it was the caffeine rush from her ninth cup of coffee, the lack of sleep finally catching up with her, or the pure monotony of translating Arjan van Heemsvliet’s letters into English that was doing her head in. His handwriting was, thankfully, neat and easy to read despite the multitude of swirls he used in his cursive text. However, the ink had faded and the paper had yellowed to the point where many paragraphs seemed to disappear off the page and were only visible if she held the thin paper up to the kitchen light. To make matters worse, Arjan’s style of writing and word choice was quite formal. She was constantly flipping through Friedrich’s Dutch-English dictionary, slowing her progress even further. Luckily, Friedrich seemed to be faring much better. In the time it took her to translate one page, he’d cruised through three.

  “Oh man, I need a break,” she said, pushing her chair back from his kitchen table.

  Her friend looked up from the pile of letters in front of him, weariness evident in his bloodshot eyes and slumped shoulders. “Yeah? Me too,” he replied, relieved.

  “Do you have any juice?” Zelda asked, already walking towards his refrigerator. “If I have any more coffee my heart might explode.”

  “The orange juice is Sam’s. I guess he won’t mind. Pour me a glass, will you?” Sam was the friendliest of Friedrich’s five housemates. As was the case in her building, they each had their own room but shared the toilet, shower and kitchen on the second floor. Unlike her canal house, theirs was owned by an absentee landlord who refused to repair anything, with the small exception of leaking water pipes. Zelda tried to avoid Friedrich’s place at all costs; a house badly in need of renovation and shared by six bachelors was never really tidy. Considering her own apartment had been torn apart by unknown assailants, she really didn’t have a choice. In fact, she was glad Friedrich offered to let her sleep on his floor; even a few nights in a hotel would have certainly blown her monthly budget. Amsterdam was one of the most expensive cities in the world and hotel prices definitely reflected that exclusive status.