Offerings (20 page)

But at that moment her father still was a little boy in Linz. He placed the receipt beside the two rubbings and the picture of the painting. “Remember, I was very young when we left. But I have a slight recollection of this particular painting. My grandfather was quite a collector. We had a number of paintings in our house which my father inherited when his father died.” He set the picture of the painting aside and picked up Kate’s rubbing. “This is extraordinary.” He repeated how remarkable it was that in spite of everything that had transpired in his life, his
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survived.

Marta pivoted her chair so she was looking directly at Kate and Chris across the edge of her father’s desk. “You seem to have made quite an impression on my father with this rubbing, Miss Brewster. But let us return to the question my father asked earlier. How did this painting make its way to America after it was taken from our family?”

Hirsch shook his head slightly at Marta’s comment, but kept the rubbing in his hands. He looked over the top rim of his glasses at his daughter.

Chris’s voice was soft when he finally spoke. “I am ashamed to admit it, but it would appear it was stolen by some American soldiers from a mine near Salzburg where the Germans stored art they had looted.” He paused, as if needing to summon the strength to say what was on his mind. “My father may have been directed to pack it up by his superior officer. I don’t know all the details.”

“I was only following orders. Where have I heard that refrain before?” Marta said.

“It is more complicated than that, Ms. Hirsch, I can assure you. I am willing to discuss what I know about my father’s experience if you feel it is relevant to our discussion. In light of the proposal in the agreement we sent you, however, I’m not sure that is necessary.” Kate reached her hand across Chris’s chair and touched his arm.

“And you now are asking us to reward your father’s dishonesty by allowing you to use this painting in a business transaction?

“Marta, no,” Michael Hirsch said, hoping to redirect the conversation. He seemed pained his daughter insisted on following this path, but she persisted.

“Was your father prosecuted for his actions?” Marta said.

Chris nodded, but said nothing.

Marta spoke over Chris’s silence. “If you will not talk about your father’s actions then please tell us how you chose the value of eleven million dollars you put into your papers. My cousins and I have spent years studying the artifacts taken from our family. Our experts suggest the painting is worth considerably more than that. It was quite telling your package of papers did not include an appraisal. The idea you would steal a painting and then refuse at a minimum to be open about its value only compounds the crime. My family may have been victims, but we are not fools.”

“Marta, I understand and respect the time and energy you’ve devoted to your search,” Kate said. “But our discussion about the painting must be grounded in the reality of what it will fetch on the market today.”

At least the conversation had moved away from Chris’s father. But the raw economics behind Marta’s comment had their own perils. Even with the painting to support it, there wasn’t enough given in the numbers behind the proposed offering to support much more than the number Kate proposed.

Chris spoke boldly. “We can have the painting appraised if you want to discuss price. There is no need to do so if you merely are going to ask for its return.”

Hirsch shook his head at the comment, as if to say it wasn’t necessary to consider that detail.

Chris seemed more animated now that the conversation had moved away from the sins of his family. “Miss Hirsch, as I said, it is not my intention to drive a hard bargain with you over price. I’m not even asking you to prove your ownership of the painting, although my own lawyers advise me despite the receipt and the later photograph it may be difficult for you to do so.”

“I have the receipt which proves my great-grandfather purchased it. I have a photograph showing it hanging in my family’s place of business twenty years later. You just heard my father say he recalls seeing the painting in our home in Linz in the thirties. Call Mister Hitler if you want a further trail of evidence.”

Kate understood Marta’s passion, however misplaced it was in the face of the openness of the proposal. But as much as she wanted to jump to Chris’s aid, Kate remained silent, to avoid inviting further theatrics.

“Again, I don’t mean to open old wounds. All I ask is that you consider the possibility that we can use this painting for just a short period for the benefit of my company and my employees. I employ over one hundred men and women who depend on my company for their well-being. And they have husbands and wives and children. On their behalf we are asking we be allowed—briefly—to hold onto the painting. Nothing more than that; it’s the only concession I seek.”

Chris placed his palms on the top of Hirsch’s desk, as if to ask what more Marta wanted out of this discussion. “Regardless of any number we agree upon, I will be getting very little personal gain from this transaction because I will be turning over virtually all of that benefit to you. I am prepared to recognize your ownership interest without more proof than the receipt, although if I chose to I could drag this out for years. I am prepared to offer you a fair price for the painting if that is your preference. I ask only that you keep an open mind about the steps outlined in the documents Ms. Brewster prepared.”

Marta tapped the end of a cigarette against a silver case as Chris spoke. Kate thought the cigarette would be crushed, but Marta finally lit it. “Your motives may be genuine, Mr. Franklin, but candidly, I am having difficulty reconciling your comment; it is my burden to prove our entitlement to this part of its heritage with your desire to have me think of this transaction in purely commercial terms. It’s as though you are asking me to put a price on the cost of washing the blood off your hands.”

Chris’s face turned red. His voice cracked as he spoke. “Ms. Hirsch, please. I am guilty of nothing. My father apparently may have stolen a painting that was taken from your family.”

Marta looked confused.

“I say apparently, because I have no evidence of the circumstances. My father was court-martialed but there was no mention of this painting at his trial. We never spoke about it. Both my parents have been dead for many years.”

Hirsch shook his head, but with compassion rather than judgment. Kate wondered why he wasn’t putting out the flames of Marta’s fury. There could be no agreement if the conversation remained focused only on historical and moral wrongs.

Chris continued. “I’m not the least bit proud of what I just told you. But I have paid the price for that my entire life. I am seeking reconciliation for both of us. I wish you could see that.”

Kate finally spoke in Chris’s defense. “Marta, please. We are not asking you to agree to every detail we put in our papers. We ask you only to consider the proposal. The painting will be returned. You have our word on that. All you need to do is to sign the agreement and we will be legally bound do so. You won’t have to go through a lengthy and risky process to prove you own it. But there are two sides to this story.”

Marta exhaled the smoke that lingered in her lungs while Kate was talking. A cloud drifted toward her father. He picked up the rubbing he had retrieved from his notebook, folded it to shelter it from the smoke, and returned it to the book.

He then placed both back in the desk and slowly closed the drawer. “Holding the rubbing makes me think of the night we left Linz for the last time.”

THIRTY-THREE

“I was seven. Far too young to appreciate how difficult a time it was for Jews, but eventually my mother told me what life had been like. The Austrian Constitution always had guaranteed equality for citizens of all denominations. All that changed, of course, after Hitler came to Linz.”

“Mr. Hirsch, this isn’t right. You needn’t talk about this,” Kate said.

“Only for a moment. I must confess this rubbing has taken me back to that point in my life. Marta, please indulge me a moment or two. Perhaps the most important purpose of this visit is to heal old wounds and for that they must be exposed to the air.”

“Father, please.”

“Hitler was born in Linz. Did you know that?”

Kate nodded.

“After he visited, so much changed so quickly. Not that our votes would have counted, but we weren’t allowed to vote anymore. Our students couldn’t take their exams or even use the libraries at our universities. We couldn’t sit as judges. We couldn’t use our cars, although we still had to pay to park them. Our butchers were thrown out of the trade unions, then our shoemakers, then our leather workers, then our teachers, then our pharmacists, then our artists and musicians were all expelled. This was in a matter of weeks. We couldn’t sell cattle. We couldn’t buy or sell land. People were told they’d lose their jobs if they did business with us. Our shops were trashed. Our places of worship were looted and our books and scrolls were burned. People were pulled out of their Passover Seders and forced to wash the streets and to scrub the walls. This all took place within a matter of weeks after Hitler came to Linz. And this was well before the exterminations began.”

Kate could only shake her head.

Marta leaned forward, as if to cut off her father’s comments. But he turned in his chair slightly and looked directly at Chris. “Your painting is partly responsible for saving a portion of our family from that horror.”

Chris’s expression was one of disbelief. “How can that be possible?” he asked.

Marta walked to the window.

“As you can imagine, people tried every means possible to escape. For a short period a few of the most fortunate families were able to do so. There was a tax imposed by the Office for Jewish Emigration for those who wanted to leave Austria. We had to surrender our possessions. The office was just a chance to legitimize the theft of our property.”

Hirsch picked up the picture of the painting. He held it up to the light from the window, as if to draw some recollection. “As I told you, my grandfather was quite a serious collector. We had a number of paintings in our home. Courbet, Renoir, Degas. They were bartered for our exit papers. It was bribery, really, to some low-level clerks and opportunistic members of the Gestapo. It took some time and virtually all of our resources, but eventually my father and his brother were able to make the arrangements. We were extraordinarily fortunate.”

Marta walked away from the window back toward the desk, firing her words at Kate. “Art has always been a commodity that has been traded or stolen, particularly in times of war. How do you think Napoleon filled the Louvre? Why do you think the Rosetta Stone is in England and not Egypt? Have you ever been to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice?” Kate nodded that she had. “She was busy picking up pieces for her museum as the Luftwaffe was bombing the suburbs of Paris. War creates opportunity for the serious collector. There are deals to be made. Morality counts for nothing. We bargained that painting for our very lives to men who were nothing but messengers of evil. Do you now understand why we find it so offensive that you want to open those wounds so you can make still one more bargain over the painting? You think only of yourself, but you must look at your request from our perspective.”

Hirsch was not quick to follow his daughter’s lead. “I can’t imagine the petty bureaucrats who traded exit papers for our paintings considered themselves serious collectors, but we’ve always viewed it as a fair trade. Some pieces of canvas for our lives. We were quite fortunate to have been able to make that bargain.” He ran his finger across the picture Kate took at the family’s textile factory.

“I remember it being very cold the night we left. And snowing. I was allowed to carry very little with me. My notebook was important and so were the rubbings. My mother told me I could take one. I only had a few seconds to decide which one I would keep.” He placed the photograph on his desk. He then tenderly touched the front of the drawer holding the notebook.

“Now, with your permission, I have two.”

THIRTY-FOUR

Hirsch folded his hands on his desk.

“We went initially to Marseilles, with the help of some relief agencies. When things became difficult under the Vichy government we were able to book passage on a boat toward North Africa with the help of the OJC,” he said, taking a sip from his coffee. “I was too young to understand anything other than the fear of being pulled along by forces I didn’t comprehend.”

Marta opened the window a few more inches. She fanned the smoke from her cigarette out the window, but Kate wondered if Marta was trying to bring in more noise from the street to distract her father. Hirsch first looked at his daughter, but then turned back toward Kate and Chris. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost distant, and yet inviting in the way the best story tellers draw in their audiences. Kate moved forward in her chair, both to hear him better and to foster their bond.

“I remember my mother clutching my hand so hard I thought it would be crushed when we moved along the docks in the dead of night. There was no moon. I’m reminded of that moment every month when there is a new moon. Our clothes smelled of urine and sweat and salt from the water spraying over the side of the boat.” He ran his finger again around the border of the photograph.

“It was terribly cold on the sea. The water was very rough. People were sick all the time. There were no toilets. No running water. The stench was sickening. There was no food except what we carried on board ourselves. Some people fell to eating rats. We couldn’t bring ourselves to do that.”

Marta snuffed her cigarette into a small metal thimble she carried for that purpose. She took two steps toward her father’s desk. He stopped her by holding up his right index finger.

Hirsch pointed to his drawer. “My rubbing was the one link I had to my home. I tucked that notebook into my pants to keep it dry. The radio was always screaming that the Germans were looking for people who had fled. The man said both we and our benefactors would be thrown overboard when they were caught.”