Heartwood (26 page)

“Grandpa, are you okay?” she asked.

He let go of the table and smiled at her. “I’m just fine,
Liebchen
.”

“You do look pale, Theo,” Grandma Iris said. “Let me—”

“If you try to get that oxygen tank, I’ll strangle you, Iris.” He turned to Laura, “What I would like, my dear, is some brandy.”

“Right away, Dad.”

–—

Thank God for brandy, Theo thought, as he swallowed the amber liquid Laura poured for him. It was a remedy as old as the hills—or, at least, as old as Theo’s medical school days in Austria. It dilated the blood vessels and kept the blood pressure from shooting through the roof, and felt a hell of a lot better going down than holding a nitroglycerin tablet under the tongue. More important, it didn’t stop a conversation the way the cursed oxygen tank did. Theo didn’t want the conversation to stop. Nor did he want to draw the attention of his women to himself. He needed to think, and think fast. When Katie had started talking about an oil painting of a woman who looked like Iris he had felt like a character in a surreal play. Because if what Katie was saying was true, then in some cruel twist of fate, she and Laura had stumbled on what was probably the only evidence in existence of Paul and Anna’s relationship.

It couldn’t be, Theo argued to himself as he sat rooted to his chair in his own dining room, which had suddenly become as alien to him as the surface of the moon. It was just a coincidence; it had to be. The picture in that shop could not, must not, be the portrait of Paul Werner’s mother. He smiled reassuringly at his womenfolk; meanwhile, in his mind he was comparing the story he had learned from Paul with Katie’s stunning statement.

The woman in the picture is wearing old-fashioned clothes, and she’s stuck-up looking, which you aren’t at all
, Katie had said to her grandmother.
But her face is like yours—her nose and her mouth, and especially her eyes. They’re big and dark …

I don’t even have a picture of Iris
, Paul had said on the fateful afternoon when he’d told Theo his story.
Do you know what I do when I want to see her face? I have an oil painting of my late
mother. Iris is the exact image of her, so I look at that portrait and I tell myself it’s both of them
.

And then there had been the final exchange between Katie and Iris: …
when Mom and I asked the saleslady if she knew the name of the woman in the picture, she didn’t
, Katie had said.
But the woman who donated it used to have a store right near where this thrift shop is now. And it was a place where you and your mother used to buy your clothes … it had a French name. Shay something
.

Chez Lea?
Iris had asked.

Yes, that’s it
.

That was the damning detail that Theo couldn’t ignore. Because Paul had told him that the only other person in the world who knew his secret was a woman named Leah Sherman—who was the owner of the boutique called Chez Lea. Where Iris and her mother used to shop.

 … the only way I could get any information about Iris was through Leah
, Paul had said on that gray afternoon in Theo’s office so long ago.
Whenever Anna or Iris came into her shop, Leah could be my eyes and ears. It wasn’t enough, but it was the best I could get and I’m not ashamed to say that I let her spy on them for me
.

That was the confirmation, if Theo had actually needed it, that Katie was right about the woman in the portrait she had seen. The woman resembled Iris because she was Iris’s paternal grandmother. The proof—incontrovertible and undeniable—of Anna’s infidelity and Paul’s paternity was sitting on a dusty shelf in a thrift shop in Manhattan. Those two had given up the possibility of years of love and joy to protect Iris, and now it seemed their sacrifice was for nothing. It would be washed away by this monstrous cosmic joke in the form of a forgotten old portrait.

Because Iris was determined to see it. Theo shook his head to clear away his ghosts and forced himself to listen to a discussion that was taking place between Laura and Iris. Iris was repeating that she was going to be in the city for her dentist’s appointment and she intended to run over to the thrift shop and take a look at this strange portrait for herself. Laura was trying to convince her not to do it, but after a couple of seconds it was clear to Theo that Laura was going to lose the argument. In ten days, Iris would be staring at a portrait that would destroy all of her most fondly held beliefs—and illusions. She would be devastated. Unless Theo could find a way to stop it.

M
ost people, Theo knew, would not have believed that he was a romantic man. A flirt, yes, and perhaps a ladies’ man, although that was not a term he would have preferred. But he was sure Iris would have said that he was too practical a man of science to take on the role of Lancelot riding off on his white charger to protect his ladylove. And Iris, fragile as he knew her to be in some ways, was too practical a person to need that kind of grand gesture. Or so it had always been in the past. But now it seemed that in their old age they were to play the parts of damsel in distress and knight in shining armor after all. And if the knight did his job properly, the damsel would never know she had been saved from the dragon—or, in this case, an old painting. Because there was one fact Theo was certain about: his wife was not going to see the damn thing.

He had a brief hope that perhaps the fates might be with him, that the picture had been sold since Katie and Laura had
last seen it in the shop. So on the morning after his granddaughter dropped her bombshell, he waited until Iris had left for the college, and he called the place.

“Oh yes, we still have that picture you described. It’s a hard piece to sell,” said the man who answered the phone. It was clear that he was more informed about the store’s stock than the woman who had waited on Katie and Laura. “The artist was popular enough in his day, but that was at the turn of the century, and I’m afraid his work hasn’t stood the test of time. As for the subject of the picture, she might have rated a few lines in the social columns back then, but she wasn’t anyone memorable.
Sic transit gloria mundi
and all that.”

“Do you happen to have the woman’s name?” Theo asked.

“She was one Florence Werner.”

“Thank you.” But of course Theo had already known it.

“I could do some more research about the painting, and get back to you.”

“That won’t be necessary. But I would like to come to your store to see it. I’m in the city regularly,” Theo lied. He had only gone into the city four times since his heart attack, and in each instance he’d been with Iris, who had done the driving. His family felt that he shouldn’t undertake the trip often, and when he did he should not be unattended. He had agreed with them. Until now.

–—

The best way to get himself into Manhattan, he decided, would be to go on the train. It would take longer than it would if he were in a car, but he wasn’t up to driving. He didn’t want to take any foolish risks. He would drive himself to the train station, he
could handle that, then he’d let Metro-North get him into the city, where there would be taxis to carry him to the thrift shop and back to Grand Central Terminal. It would require more exertion than he was used to, but he would pace himself carefully. He had to admit that he was rather enjoying planning this outing without a babysitter. And so far it didn’t seem to be doing him any harm. As he’d been making his plans, he’d waited to feel the skipped heartbeats, the pounding in the chest and the shortness of breath he’d come to know so well. There hadn’t been so much as a flutter.

He set Friday as his date since Iris wasn’t going into the city until the following Wednesday. She had a full schedule of classes on Fridays, so she would be out of the house by nine and would not be back until six. He’d have plenty of time to accomplish his mission.

–—

“This is splendid,” said the elderly man with the silk cravat who had identified himself as the manager of the thrift shop. “I’m so pleased that you’ve come in, Mr.…”

“Stern … off,” Theo supplied. Before that moment, he hadn’t thought about using an alias.

The man led him to the interior of the shop. The lighting was dim, but Theo could see that there was indeed a portrait propped up on a shelf. “Even though you told me not to, I did a little research for you. As I said, the lady in this picture was one Florence Werner, nee De Rivera. The Werners were one of the more prominent Jewish families in the city in the early part of the century.” The man lifted the picture off the shelf and handed it to Theo. “There she is,” he said.

And there she was indeed, with her slender neck and her narrow waist—and most of all, her face. There was no mistaking that face, with those big black eyes, that mouth, and that nose. They were the familiar, much-loved features of the woman Theo had been looking at for more than three decades.

Naturally, there were differences between Iris and her ancestress. As Katie had said, Florence Werner did have a grand attitude that Iris, bless her, would never acquire. But no one who knew Iris would ever doubt that in some way this woman was related to her.

“How much?” Theo asked the man wearing the silk cravat. “I want to take this with me.”

He paid the man, and asked him to take the picture out of its heavy antique frame—shocking the dapper manager, who pointed out that it was probably worth as much as the painting—but Theo didn’t want to try to lift it. The painting itself was light and the manager wrapped it and tied a string loop at the top for a handle. Theo carried it out of the store, and hailed a cab to take him back to Grand Central Terminal.

It wasn’t until he was stepping off the train in Westchester that he felt the first little twinge of protest from his heart. He thought about sitting on one of the benches on the train platform to rest, but it was already after four and his plan was to burn the picture in the backyard before Iris came home. He put a nitroglycerin tablet under his tongue and waited until the twinge subsided. He told himself to walk slowly to his car.

The pain didn’t come back until he had entered his house. It wasn’t a bad pain, and once again, it vanished quickly with medication. All the same, he wished Iris were home. He thought about lying down on the couch in the living room and waiting for her. But then he remembered that he couldn’t lie
down yet. Because he was still holding the portrait. The portrait Iris must not see. He had planned to burn it, but now he thought he’d rather not make that kind of effort. Not at this moment. He went to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy, which made him feel better—but he still didn’t want to push it.

So where to hide the portrait until he was feeling more himself? They didn’t have many closets in the house, and the few they did have were small and full to the bursting point. It would be impossible to conceal a large painting in one of them. The same was true of all other potential storage places he could think of; everything was so full. He and Iris had accumulated so many things during all their years together … so many things … and so many years … He forced his mind to stop drifting.

The only place where the picture would be safe from Iris was the cellar. Going all the way down into it, and then climbing back up the stairs would not be a good idea for a man who had been experiencing chest pain—even though it was better since the brandy—but there was a ledge on the wall at the side of the staircase. He could walk down a couple of steps, put the painting on the ledge and come back up to wait for his wife. Two steps weren’t going to hurt him, and the painting would be safely out of sight on the ledge.

The two steps didn’t hurt him. But holding the painting up to put it on the ledge brought the pain back. Excruciating pain. Pain he knew from his last heart attack. His legs buckled with the force of it so that he had to drag himself back up the two steps, and he only managed to get halfway through the cellar doorway before he collapsed. But the portrait was hidden.

–—

He came to slowly, fighting his way through mists. He was in a hospital room—intensive care. He wanted to ask what had happened but he didn’t seem to be able to form words. Or maybe he was just too tired to try. Doctors and nurses came in and out of the room—speaking in soft, soothing voices. He wanted to tell them not to bother being so kind.
You don’t have to be so careful with me
, he wanted to say.
I’m one of you, I’ve seen this happen before and I know what’s going on
. He wanted to reassure them that it was all right.
I wasn’t sure it would be
, he would tell them.
Right up to the end I didn’t know how I would feel about dying, but now I am dying and it’s all right. I’ve been a lucky, lucky man, you see. How could a man who has been so lucky have any regrets?
He would have said all of this if he could have formed the words. And then he would have told them all his wonderful, glorious joke.
I am here in this bed because I went on a lover’s quest
, he would have said.
I am Tristan. I, the practical man of science, am Romeo
. They probably wouldn’t have understood, but Paul Werner would have. So would Anna.