The Girl You Left Behind, Page 36

  It wasn't a warehouse as such, more a huge grey slab of a municipal building, like a huge school or town hall. He pointed me towards his two marines, who saluted me, and then the office near the main door where I was to sit. I have to say, I couldn't say no to him, but I took it all with bad grace. It was so obvious to me that the real story was going on down the road. The boys, normally cheerful and full of life, were in huddles, smoking and whey-faced. Their superiors talked quietly with shocked, serious expressions. I wanted to know what they'd found there, horrific as it might be. I needed to be in there, bringing the story out. And I was afraid: every day that slipped by made it easier for the top brass to decline my request. Every day that passed gave my competitors a chance.

  'So, Krabowski here will get you anything you need, and Rogerson will contact me if you have any trouble. You okay?'

  'Sure.' I put my feet up on the desk and sighed theatrically.

  'It's a deal. You do this for me, and I'll get you in there tomorrow, Toots. I promise.'

  'I bet you say that to all the girls,' I said. But, for once, he didn't even crack a smile.

  I sat there for two hours, watching through the office window. It was a warm day, the sun bouncing off the stone sidewalks, but there was a strange feel to it that seemed to drop the temperature. Military vehicles whined up and down the main street, packed with soldiers. German soldiers, their hands on their heads, were marched in the opposite direction. Small huddles of German women and children stood stock still on street corners, apparently wondering what was to become of them. (Later I heard they were called in to help bury the dead.) And all the while, in the distance, the shrill siren of ambulances told of unseen horrors. Horrors I was missing.

  I don't know why Danes was so worried: nobody seemed to give this building a second look. I began a piece, screwed up the paper, drank two cups of coffee and smoked half a pack of cigarettes, and my mood grew darker and darker. I began to wonder if this wasn't all a ruse just to keep me away from the action.

  'Come on then, Krabowski,' I said, finally. 'Show me around this joint.'

  'Ma'am, I don't know if we -' he began.

  'You heard the lieutenant colonel, Krabowski. The lady's in charge today. And she's telling you to show her around.'

  He gave me the kind of look my dog used to give me when he thought I was going to kick him up the you-know-what. But he exchanged a word with Rogerson and off we went.

  It didn't look like much at first. Just rows and rows of wooden stacking systems, a load of grey, military-issue blankets slung over the contents. But then I went closer and pulled a painting out of one of the racks: a modern piece of a horse against an abstract landscape, in a heavily gilded frame. Its colours, even in the dim light of the vast room, glowed like treasure. I turned it over in my hands. It was a Braque. I stared at it for a moment, then placed it carefully back in its rack and kept walking. I began to pull things out at random: medieval icons, Impressionist works, huge Renaissance canvases, the frames delicate, in some cases supported by specially built crates. I ran my fingers over a Picasso, astonished at my own freedom to physically touch art I had previously seen only in magazines or on the walls of galleries.

  'Oh, my God, Krabowski. You seen this?'

  He looked at it. 'Um ... yes, ma'am.'

  'You know what it is? It's a Picasso.'

  He was completely blank.

  'A Picasso? The famous artist?'

  'I don't really know much about art, ma'am.'

  'And you reckon your kid sister could have done better, right?'

  He shot me a relieved smile. 'Yes, ma'am.'

  I put it back, and pulled out another. It was a portrait of a little girl, her hands folded neatly in her skirts. On the back, it read: 'Kira, 1922'.

  'Are all the rooms here like this?'

  'There are two rooms upstairs with statues and models and stuff instead of paintings. But, basically, yes. Thirteen rooms of paintings, ma'am. This is one of the smallest.'

  'Oh, my good Lord.' I gazed around me at the dusty shelves, stacked in neat lines back into the distance, and then down at the portrait in my hands. The little girl stared solemnly back at me. You know, it only really hit me then that every one of these paintings had belonged to someone. Every one had hung on someone's wall, been admired by someone. A real live person had sat for it, or saved money for it, or painted it, or hoped to hand it down to their children. Then I thought of what Danes had said about disposing of the bodies a few miles away. I thought of his haunted, craggy face, and I shuddered.

  I placed the picture of the little girl carefully back on the rack, and covered it with a blanket. 'Come on, Krabowski, let's go back downstairs. You can find me a decent cup of coffee.'

  The morning stretched across lunch and then into the afternoon. The temperature rose, and the air around the warehouse grew still. I wrote a feature for the Register on the warehouse, and I interviewed Krabowski and Rogerson for a little Woman's Home Companion piece on young soldiers' hopes for their return home. Then I stepped outside to stretch my legs and smoke a cigarette. I climbed up on the bonnet of the army Jeep and sat there, the metal warm beneath my cotton slacks. The roads were almost completely silent. There were no birds, no voices. Even the sirens seemed to have stopped. And then I looked up and squinted against the sun as a woman came walking up the road towards me.

  She moved like it required some effort, with a pronounced limp, even though she couldn't have been more than sixty. She wore a headscarf, despite the warm day, and had a bundle under her arm. When she saw me she stopped and glanced around. She saw my armband, which I had forgotten to take off when my trip out got cancelled.

  'Englische?'

  'American.'

  She nodded, as if this were acceptable to her. 'Hier ist where the paintings are stored, ja?'

  I said nothing. She didn't look like a spy, but I wasn't sure how much information I should give out. Strange times, and all.

  She pulled the bundle from under her arm. 'Please. Take this.'

  I stepped back.

  She stared at me for a moment, then removed the coverings. It was a painting, a portrait of a woman from the brief glimpse I got.

  'Please. Take this. Put in there.'

  'Lady, why would you want to put your painting in there?'

  She glanced behind her, as if she were embarrassed to be there.

  'Please. Just take it. I don't want it in my house.'

  I took the painting from her. It was a girl, about my age, with long reddish hair. She wasn't the most beautiful, but there was something about her that meant you couldn't tear your darned eyes away.

  'Is this yours?'

  'It was my husband's.' I saw then she should have had one of those powder-puff grandmother faces, all cushions and kindness, but when she looked at the painting her mouth just set in this thin old line, like she was full of bitterness.

  'But this is beautiful. Why do you want to give such a pretty thing away?'

  'I never wanted her in my house,' the woman said. 'My husband made me. For thirty years I have had to have that woman's face in my house. When I am cooking, cleaning, when I am sitting with my husband, I have had to look at her.'

  'It's only a painting,' I told her. 'You can't be jealous of a painting.'

  She barely heard me. 'She has mocked me for nearly thirty years. My husband and I were once happy, but she destroyed him. And I have had to endure that face haunting me every single day of our marriage. Now he is dead I don't have to have her staring at me. She can finally go back to wherever she belongs.'

  As I looked, she wiped at her eyes with the back of a hand. 'If you don't want to take it,' she spat. 'Then burn it.'

  I took it. What else could I have done?

  Well, I'm back at my desk now. Danes has been in, ghostly white, promising I'll go with him tomorrow. 'You sure you want to see this, though, Toots?' he said. 'It's not pretty. I'm not sure it's a sight for a lady.'

  'Since when did you start ca
lling me a lady?' I joked, but he was all out of jokes. Danes sat down heavily on the edge of my bunk and sank his head into his hands. And as I stared at him, his big old shoulders began to shake. I stood there, not knowing what to do. Finally I pulled a cigarette from my bag, lit it and handed it to him. He took it, signalled his thanks with a palm, and wiped at his eyes, his head still down.

  I felt a little nervous then, and believe me, I never get nervous.

  'Just ... thanks for today, that's all. The boys said you did a fine job.'

  I don't know why I didn't tell him about the painting. I suppose I should have done, but it didn't belong in the darn warehouse, after all. It wasn't anything to do with the darn warehouse. That old German woman couldn't give two hoots what happened to it as long as it wasn't looking at her any more.

  Because you know what? I secretly like the idea that you could have a painting so powerful it could shake up a whole marriage. And she's kind of pretty. I can't stop looking at her. Given everything else that seems to be going on around here, it's nice to have something beautiful to look at.

  The courtroom is in complete silence as Marianne Andrews closes the journal in front of her. Liv has been concentrating so hard that she feels almost faint. She steals a look sideways down the bench and sees Paul, his elbows on his knees, his head tipped forward. Beside him Janey Dickinson is scribbling furiously into a notepad.

  A handbag.

  Angela Silver is on her feet. 'So let us get this straight, Ms Andrews. The painting you know as The Girl You Left Behind was not inside, and never had been inside, the storage facility when your mother was given it.'

  'No, ma'am.'

  'And just to reiterate, while the storage facility was full of looted works of art, stolen works of art, this particular painting was given to your mother, not even within the facility.'

  'Yes, ma'am. By a German lady. Like her journal says.'

  'Your Honour, this journal, in Louanne Baker's own hand, proves beyond doubt that this painting was never in the Collection Point. The painting was simply given away by a woman who had never wanted it. Given away. For whatever reason - a bizarre sexual jealousy, an historic resentment, we will never know. The salient point here, however, is that this painting, which, as we hear, was almost destroyed, was a gift.

  'Your Honour, it has become very clear these last two weeks that the provenance of this painting is incomplete, as it is for many paintings that have existed for the best part of a turbulent century. What can now be proven beyond doubt, however, is that the painting's last two transfers were untainted. David Halston bought it legitimately for his wife in 1997, and she has the receipt to prove it. Louanne Baker, who owned it before him, was given it in 1945, and we have her written word, the word of a woman renowned for honesty and accuracy, to prove it. For this reason, we contend that The Girl You Left Behind must remain with its current owner. To remove it surely makes a mockery of the law.'

  Angela Silver sits. Paul looks up at her. In the brief moment that he catches her eye, Liv is sure she can detect a faint smile.

  The court adjourns for lunch. Marianne is smoking on the back steps, her blue handbag looped over her elbow, gazing out on to the grey street. 'Wasn't that marvellous?' she says conspiratorially, when she sees Liv approaching.

  'You were brilliant.'

  'Oh, my, I have to confess - I did enjoy it. They'll have to eat their words about my mother now. I knew she would never have taken a thing that didn't belong to her.' She nods, taps the ash off her cigarette. 'They called her "The Fearless Miss Baker", you know.'

  Liv leans over the rail in silence. She pulls up her collar against the cold. Marianne smokes the rest of her cigarette in long, hungry gulps.

  'It was him, wasn't it?' Liv says finally, looking straight ahead.

  'Oh, honey, I promised I wouldn't say a word.' Marianne turns to her and pulls a face. 'I could have kicked myself this morning. But of course it was. The poor man is nuts about you.'

  Christopher Jenks stands. 'Ms Andrews. A simple question. Did your mother ask this astonishingly generous old woman her name?'

  Marianne Andrews blinks. 'I have no idea.'

  Liv cannot take her eyes off Paul. You did this for me? she asks him silently. Oddly, he no longer meets her gaze. He sits beside Janey Dickinson looking uncomfortable, checking his watch, and glancing towards the door. She cannot think what she will say to him.

  'It's an extraordinary gift to accept without knowing who you are getting it from.'

  'Well, crazy gift, crazy times. I guess you had to be there.'

  There is a low ripple of laughter in the courtroom. Marianne Andrews shimmies slightly. Liv detects unfulfilled stage ambitions.

  'Indeed. Have you read all your mother's journals?'

  'Oh, good God, no,' she says. 'There's thirty years' worth of stuff in there. We - I - only found them last night.' Her gaze briefly flickers towards the bench. 'But we found the important bit. The bit where Mom was given the painting. That's what I brought in here.' She places great emphasis on the word 'given', glancing sideways at Liv, and nodding to herself as she says it.

  'Then you haven't yet read Louanne Baker's 1948 journal?'

  There is a short silence. Liv is aware of Henry reaching for his own files.

  Jenks holds out his hand and the solicitor hands him a piece of paper. 'My lord, may I ask you to turn to the journal entry for the eleventh of May 1948, entitled "House Moves"?'

  'What are they doing?' Liv's attention is finally drawn back to the case. She leans in towards Henry, who is scanning the pages.

  'I'm looking,' he whispers.

  'In it Louanne Baker discusses her household move from Newark, in Essex County, to Saddle River.'

  'That's right,' says Marianne. 'Saddle River. That's where I grew up.'

  'Yes ... You'll see here that she discusses the move in some detail. She talks of trying to find her saucepans, the nightmare of being surrounded by unpacked boxes. I think we can all identify with that. But, perhaps most pertinently, she walks around the new house trying ...' he pauses, as if ensuring he reads the words verbatim '... "trying to find the perfect spot to hang Liesl's painting".'

  Liesl.

  Liv watches the journalists rifle through their notes. But she realizes with a sickening feeling that she already knows the name.

  'Bollocks,' says Henry.

  Jenks knows the name too. Sean Flaherty's people are way ahead of them. They must have had a whole team reading the journals through lunchtime.

  'I would now like to draw Your Honour's attention to records kept by the German Army during the First World War. The Kommandant who was stationed at St Peronne from 1916, the man who brought his troops in to Le Coq Rouge, was a man called Friedrich Hencken.' He pauses to let that sink in. 'The records state that the Kommandant stationed there at the time, the Kommandant who so admired the painting of Edouard Lefevre's wife, was one Friedrich Hencken.

  'And now I would like to show to the court the 1945 census records of the area around Berchtesgaden. Former Kommandant Friedrich Hencken and his wife, Liesl, settled there after his retirement. Just streets away from the Collection Point storage facility. She was also recorded as walking with a pronounced limp, given a childhood bout of polio.'

  Their QC is on her feet. 'Again, this is circumstantial.'

  'Mr and Mrs Friedrich Hencken. My Lord, it is our contention that Kommandant Friedrich Hencken took the painting from Le Coq Rouge in 1917. He removed it to his home, seemingly against the will of his wife, who might reasonably have objected to such a - a potent image of another woman. It stayed there until his death, upon which Mrs Hencken was so keen to dispose of it that she took it a few streets away to the place she knew held a million pieces of artwork, a place where it would be swallowed up and never be seen again.'

  Angela Silver sits down.

  Jenks continues - there is a new energy about him now: 'Ms Andrews. Let's go back to your mother's memories of this time. Could you read the fo
llowing paragraph, please? This, for the record, comes from the same journal entry. In it, Louanne Baker apparently finds what she believes is the perfect spot for The Girl, as she calls the painting.'

  'As soon as I put her in that front parlour, she looked comfortable. She's not in direct sunlight there, but the south-facing window, with its warm light, makes her colours glow. She seems happy enough, anyhow!'

  Marianne reads slowly now, unfamiliar with these words of her mother's. She glances up at Liv, and her eyes hold an apology, as if she can already see where this is going.

  'I banged the nails in myself - Howard always does knock out a fist-sized chunk of plaster when he does it - but as I was about to hang her, something made me turn the painting over and take another look at the back of it. And it made me think of that poor woman, and her sad, embittered old face. And I remembered something I'd forgotten since the war.

  'I always assumed it was something out of nothing. But as Liesl handed over the painting, she briefly snatched it back, as if she'd changed her mind. Then she rubbed at something on the back, like she was trying to rub something off. She rubbed it and rubbed it, like a crazy woman. She rubbed so hard I thought she actually hurt her fingers.'

  The courtroom is still, listening.

  'Well, I looked at the back of it just now, just as I looked at it then. And it was the one thing that really made me wonder whether that poor woman had been in her right mind when she handed it over. Because it doesn't matter how long you stare at the back of that painting - aside from the title - there is truly nothing there, just a smudge of chalk.

  'Is it wrong to take something from someone not in their right mind? I still haven't worked it out. Truthfully, the world seemed so insane back then - with what was going on in the camps, and grown men weeping, and me in charge of a billion dollars' worth of other people's things - that old Liesl and her bleeding knuckles scrubbing away at nothing seemed actually pretty normal.'

  'Your Honour, we would suggest that this - and Liesl's failure to give her last name - is pretty clear evidence of somebody trying to disguise or even destroy any sign of where the painting had come from. Well, she certainly succeeded.'