In the Full Light of the Sun

by Clare Clark

  ‘Then how the fuck did you find me, if he didn’t tell you? There’s no Rachmann here, Berszacki. Matthias is the only person who knows where I am.’

  The sketch is folded inside the notebook. I take it out, hold it out to him. ‘You can find anyone, Herr Gelb, if you know who to ask.’

  Rachmann takes the drawing. The white paper dances in the dim light. ‘And my painting? What did my brother tell you to do with that?’

  ‘I told you, he made me promise I’d keep everything until you sent for it,’ I say helplessly. ‘Everything the police took from your studio. He said he’d given you his word you’d get it all back and you will. Pay the carter and you can have it tomorrow.’

  ‘And the painting in your strong room?’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘I don’t know what that bastard told you, but that painting isn’t his. It’s mine. It’s always been mine. Yes, we agreed it was safer with you till the craziness was over, you were his lawyer so you couldn’t talk and it would be safe in the strong room, no one could touch it there, but the arrangement was very clear, when things died down you’d find a way to get it back to me. It’s my painting, Berszacki, whatever he told you, and I want it.’

  Confused, apprehensive, I shake my head. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t know what you’re talking about. Matthias never entrusted me with a painting.’

  ‘Right. So what exactly are you keeping in your strong room?’

  ‘I don’t have a strong room.’

  With a roar of fury Rachmann turns from me and slams a fist against the wall. A bottle falls from the table and smashes on the floor. ‘Christ, Berszacki, how much longer are you going to lie for him? Don’t tell me you’re still holding out for your money? Jesus, don’t tell me you still believe he’ll pay?’

  I don’t answer. I can think of nothing to say that will not provoke him further.

  ‘What did he tell you, that he and his phantom Russian would see you right?’ He barks a laugh. ‘His imaginary lover with the priceless collection of paintings no one’s ever heard of? Jesus, Berszacki, wake up! Aren’t your lot fucked enough these days as it is?’

  Your lot. It is as though all the hatred and intimidation we have endured are pressed into that little phrase. The anger mixes with the fear to choke me, my breath is noisy in my ears, but I clench my fists and stay silent. Rachmann’s eyes are fixed on mine, they gleam in the gloom.

  ‘You blind fucking fool, don’t you see the way the wind is blowing?’ he murmurs, leaning closer. ‘Whatever he’s told you, he won’t sell that picture, he can’t, it’s too well known, no one’s going to touch it. And even if he did, even if he could, he wouldn’t give you a fucking pfennig. He wants your kind out, don’t you get that? He means to chase you out.’ His face is so close to mine I can smell the sour tang of his breath. I hold his gaze but I say nothing. There might not be truth in silence but there is dignity or something that passes for it. If I start speaking I will not be able to stop. Rachmann can’t stop.

  ‘Since May last year my brother Matthias, your client, has been a paid-up member of the Nazi Party,’ he says. ‘His birthday present to himself, he called it, he said it was the best thing he’d ever done—I’m surprised he didn’t tell you. But then perhaps he’d given a rather different impression of himself to you. Of course back then it was different, politics was a matter of principle, and there was nothing to be gained by jeopardising his appeal. No doubt he was afraid you wouldn’t understand his position, as a Jew.’

  My jaw is clenched so tight it might be bound with wire. I shake my head. ‘The law exists to judge a man’s actions, not his conscience.’

  ‘You honestly still believe that? Matt thought there should be a boycott of outstanding Jewish bills, just as there had been a boycott of their shops. Non-payment as punishment for centuries of hoarding, of profiteering, of screwing the German people out of their rightful share. Time to screw them back, he said. Let them see what it feels like to be owed. He never intended to pay you, Berszacki. And who’s going to make him now?’

  ‘He gave me his word,’ I say, or I try to, but the words have thorns, they catch in my throat. Is there a line, a marked point where hopefulness becomes dishonesty, where faith shrinks to nothing but a resolute determination not to see? All I know for certain is that I have been on the wrong side for a long time. There is a weight in my chest, a heavy emptiness. Only a child believes that wanting something hard enough can make it so.

  He leans closer, so close I can see the pores around his nose, the flecks of dandruff in his beard. ‘So here’s the deal. You give me the painting and I’ll settle your bill. All of it, with interest. In cash.’

  My heart jolts. I stand straighter, refusing to look down, but it is too late, the vertigo is already in me. If I had this painting of his I would do it, I know it absolutely. I do not know who I have become.

  ‘You could pay me ten times over,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t change the facts. This well-known painting Matthias intended to sell, what was it, a forgery? Stolen? Either way, he would never have entrusted it to me. Your brother knew the law, Rachmann. He knew that a lawyer’s professional duty of secrecy does not extend to unlawfully obstructing justice. How do you think that would have played to the bench, the defence counsel called as witness for the prosecution?’

  Rachmann stares at me, his face moving as though there is something crawling under the skin. I shrug.

  ‘Whatever this painting is, wherever it came from, I don’t have it.’

  Rachmann closes his eyes. His laugh is harsh, a bitter soundless exhalation. ‘He told me to be patient, to bide my fucking time. He said you’d expressly instructed us not to make contact, that the police were watching you, that it wasn’t safe. And I believed him. Jesus. My whole life I’ve watched him do it, watched him screw himself into whatever shape he had to be to slip through keyholes and into people’s heads. I never thought the fucker would do it to me.’

  I say nothing. There is nothing to say. It is over. We stand in silence. Then, bending down, I pick up the envelope from the floor and open it.

  ‘Sign by the cross,’ I say flatly, holding out the letter. ‘You’ll have the crates on Friday.’

  Rachmann takes the paper. Slowly he tears it into two, then two again. He lets the pieces drop. Then, turning, he walks up the stairs and out of sight.

  Tuesday 5 September

  The telephone is ringing as I arrive in the office. When I lift the receiver there is a dull clunk as coins are deposited. The line crackles.

  ‘Berszacki, is that you?’ It’s Gregor Rachmann. He sounds agitated. ‘Listen to me. I have to see you. I need a lawyer.’

  I’m so startled I almost laugh. I gathered up the torn strips of paper yesterday, evidence in case it was needed, but a shadowy Voigt still stalked my semi-dreams last night, slapping my shoulder and bantering about baldness and betrayal. ‘If this is about the crates—’

  ‘Fuck the crates. Just get back here now. I’ll pay you up front. On arrival. A hundred marks cash.’

  I should ask him why he wants to see me. I should ask him if he understands that I am Jewish. ‘You have that kind of money?’

  ‘I wouldn’t offer it if I didn’t, would I?’

  I think of Gerda, the lines cutting silently into her face. ‘Two hundred. And you sign for those fucking crates. No signature, no deal.’

  ‘All right. Fine. I’ll sign.’

  It’s done. I want to put my head down on the desk and weep with relief. Instead I nod. ‘Good,’ I say. ‘Then I’ll see you in an hour.’

  Rachmann greets me at the door. Fishing in his pocket he pulls out a thick wad of banknotes. There must be two thousand marks there. He peels off two hundred and hands them to me.

  ‘So that’s it, you’re my lawyer, it’s official?’ he says, and when I nod he looks at me very hard, as though he wants to memorise my face. Then, turning, he leads me upstairs.

  The staircase opens on to a narrow landing. Someone has painted
a sentence on the wall in black paint. It left me feeling that I had seen it all before and that I will not remember it for long. Rachmann walks ahead of me into a bright high-ceilinged room. It is a working studio, there is an easel in the window, a clutter of brushes and rags and squeezed-out tubes, half-finished canvases stacked against the walls, but the walls are the walls of an art gallery. Paintings everywhere, hung in every space, only when I look closer I see that they are not paintings but photographs printed to the size of paintings, hand-tinted in brilliant colours and carefully framed, and every one of them familiar. It is like a dream, I have walked through a crease in time back into the courtroom at Moabit. The poplar trees, the haystacks, the bread rolls in their basket. The boats on the beach at Saintes-Maries. The self-portrait of van Gogh with his cropped hair and his death-mask stare. All of them crowded around the room and between them ribbons of words written in swoops directly on to the walls. Considered by many to be the finest painting he ever made. The work of an artist at his incandescent, glorious best. An indisputable masterpiece.

  I stare. It is a museum. A shrine to Matthias Rachmann and his brief glorious career. I step closer. Each photograph is signed. Black against yellow, scarlet against blue, a single name, the letters neat and carefully spaced. Van Gogh’s signature, only the name is not Vincent. It is Gregor.

  ‘You,’ I say.

  Rachmann does not answer. He crosses the room, disappearing through a door on the far side. When he comes back he is holding an envelope. He slides a piece of paper out of it and hands it to me. It is a drawing in pen and ink, a young girl in a striped jacket, a ribbon in her hair.

  ‘So here’s what you’re going to do,’ he says. ‘You’re going to write to Julius Köhler-Schultz. A legal letter, all the formalities. You’re going to tell him a drawing has come into your possession, a drawing that was originally assumed to be a copy of a work in his collection but which has been proven, after expert examination, to be the original. You have therefore been instructed to arrange for the safe return of the drawing to its legal owner. You assure him of your complete discretion.’

  ‘And exactly how much of that is true?’

  ‘Every word.’

  I look at the drawing. The girl looks back, wide-eyed. The picture of innocence.

  ‘You will tell him that you will hold the drawing securely until he is able to arrange for its collection. You’ll enclose a photograph to prove it, a guarantee of your good faith. And when he writes back to tell you you’re mistaken, that the drawing remains safely in his possession, you’ll telephone him. You’ll admit that some awkward discrepancies have recently been turned up and you’ll ask him very politely if he is quite sure the mistake isn’t his. Whether other similar mistakes might have been made. You can’t be specific, you’re bound by professional secrecy, blah, blah, but you’ll admit to him confidentially that you’ve been shocked by what has been found under frames and stretchers, behind restorers’ liners, even, using X-rays, under the layers of paint.’

  ‘And what do you expect him to find?’

  ‘I expect him to find himself suddenly very eager to return to Berlin.’ Rachmann’s smile is cold, savage. ‘And when he does my brother better have a fucking good story.’

  My hand finds my pocket, the soft edges of the banknotes. Then I shake my head. ‘Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. My duty of confidentiality does not extend to acting as accomplice to a crime.’

  ‘What crime? We’re talking about returning property to its legal owner.’

  ‘You bring me up here to this room, you show me all this, and you still expect me to believe this drawing is a genuine van Gogh?’

  ‘I’m telling you it is.’

  I think of Mina and her restorer and I shake my head. ‘And I’m telling you that it isn’t possible to prove beyond doubt that any work of art is an original. Any expert who tells you otherwise is mistaken.’

  ‘Jesus, Berszacki, I’m the fucking expert. Matt gave me Köhler-Schultz’s original drawing and gave him back my copy. Is that enough proof for you?’

  I stare at him. ‘So it’s stolen? You stole it?’

  ‘I borrowed it. And now I want to give it back.’

  The room is electric with him, prickling and breathless like the air before a thunderstorm.

  ‘Why?’ I ask quietly. ‘Why not take the money and run?’

  ‘Because this isn’t about money. Whatever my treacherous shit of a brother may believe, this has never been about the money. I want him here, where I can look him in the fucking eye. That bastard killed me, Berszacki. Köhler-Schultz and his band of hired assassins. Five minutes and three poisonous fucking sentences dashed off in a cab and years and years of dedication and every pfennig I could beg gone just like that, up in fucking smoke. Everything over. No dealer, no future, just fucking flower murals and fifth-rate restorations. He killed me. And the craziest part? Apparently it meant nothing. He doesn’t even remember. Well, he’s going to remember now. He’s going to spend every fucking minute he has left remembering.’

  His words are pure acid, they blister the air. I should walk away, I should give Rachmann back his money and I should walk out of here, but I think of Gerda and I stay where I am. This is our chance. I do not know when we will have another.

  ‘We can’t do it in writing,’ I say. ‘Letters aren’t safe these days, they open everything, and this is unfinished business. Gans has always made that very clear. This gets out and you’re going down. No, the only safe way is for me to go to France. I can take the drawing, talk to Köhler-Schultz in person.’

  But Rachmann shakes his head. ‘No fucking way. He has to come to Berlin.’

  ‘He’s a Jew and he’s dying. Why would he come?’

  ‘Because the one fucking thing he cares about in the world is here. And because he has to. He has to see.’

  ‘See what? This?’ I gesture at the photographs on the walls. ‘And what will that change? There’s nothing new here, Rachmann, he’s seen it all already. He saw it in court.’

  But Rachmann is already walking out of the studio. I hesitate. Then I follow him. The room on the other side of the landing is smaller, so plain as to be almost monastic. Whitewashed walls, rough wooden floor, a narrow bed. The window looks out over the woods, a tumble of trees beneath a brilliant sky, but I do not look at the view. All I see are the paintings. Three canvases, unframed, hung together on the wall. On either side, vases of sunflowers, brilliant yellow, their heads drooping beneath their weight. One has a yellow background, the other blue-green. The paint is so thick that the heads of the flowers bristle with seeds and the petals seem ready to drop from the canvas to the floor. The image is familiar, it was reproduced many times in the illustrated papers during the trial, but nothing I have seen has prepared me for the vividness of the canvases or their vigour. It is as if the paint is made of sunlight. All the warmth in the room seems to come from them.

  And between them, lit by them, a portrait. A dark-eyed girl in a cobalt blue jacket against a pale green ground, a scarlet scarf around her hair. The colours are dazzling, they stain the air like coloured glass, but it is the girl herself that draws me. It is the girl in the drawing, the pose is the same, the way she sits very upright on the edge of her chair, a posy of white flowers in her hands, only it is not her. There is nothing fragile or childlike about this girl, nothing innocent. She leans forward out of her seat, her gaze fierce, so much impatience in her the paint can hardly hold her in.

  She is not the girl in van Gogh’s drawing. She is Emmeline Eberhardt.

  A line comes back to me, a satirical piece at the time of the trial, Kerr, perhaps, or Tucholsky. The dead Vincent keeps painting and painting. I stare at the sunflowers, at the portrait of Emmeline Eberhardt. It is perhaps the most beautiful van Gogh I have ever seen.

  Friday 8 September

  I do it. I do what Rachmann asks me. I take the drawing and the photograph, and I write to Julius Köhler-Schultz. It is the first legal letter I have sent
from our home address. I have agreed with Gregor Rachmann that, should Köhler-Schultz return to Berlin, I will arrange the necessary permissions to secure a private visit to Matthias in Tegel. Otherwise, once I have spoken to Köhler-Schultz, once the necessary messages have been passed on, my duties are done. Not bad for two hundred marks.

  The money has saved us. For now, at least. Last night when Gerda asked where it had come from I told her to give thanks for that fount of undying motherly spite, Frau Craemer. It was not an answer and therefore not a lie, not quite. She smiled wearily. She hopes that one day I might coax Frau Craemer into kindness. I gave her enough to settle the reddest of the red bills. Tomorrow the engineer will reconnect the telephone. I have not paid the rent, not yet. I put what remains of the money in a shoe at the bottom of the wardrobe. When we leave we will need all the money we can get.

  My wife believes me to be a finer man than I am. I should tell her the truth but I do not. I tell myself I am protecting her, protecting Rachmann, but I know that the person I am protecting is myself. I am afraid, afraid that if she knew she would pull away again, that disappointment would chill and stiffen her just as her grief did for so long, that I would lose her all over again. I cannot lose her.

  And besides, what would I tell her? I have committed no offence. The guilty have as much right as the innocent to legal representation and in my dealings with Gregor Rachmann I have followed the letter of the law. I have not obstructed justice, nor have I aided or abetted a crime. I have Rachmann’s assurance that the paintings he showed me will never be sold and I believe him. As for his business with Köhler-Schultz I have been frank. I advised him to think carefully, to consider the possible consequences of confessing to an offence that carries a significant penalty, a confession that risks the wholesale resurrection of the fraud case against his brother, only this time with him in the dock. He could spend the next ten years in prison, I told him, Matthias too, but Rachmann was blithe. Köhler-Schultz won’t breathe a fucking word, he said, and he laughed. Personally I fail to see the joke but I cannot compel my clients to act in their own best interests. Gregor Rachmann’s conscience, like mine, is his own affair.