Telling Lies (24 page)
Authors: Cathi Stoler
September 1937
Mama and Papa have been arguing again tonight after supper. Their voices are low but harsh and angry sounding. I am worried that Papa will storm out of the house like last time and that Mama, the girls, and I will be left alone. Papa insists that we must leave Berlin, that it’s no longer safe for us. Mama cries and shakes her head and says no, she will not leave her family, her parents and sisters. We will stay. Things will get better. Surely someone will make Herr Hitler listen to reason. Papa says she is being foolish. Nothing will get better for the Jews. It never does. He has heard the rumors just as she has. People are disappearing. Work camps, some say, but Papa thinks it is worse, much worse. Mama looks nervously toward the heavy wooden parlor doors that Papa has pulled closed. The children, her look seems to say, and Papa lowers his voice even more, but the anger remains.
I shrink away from the transom over the door where I have been watching and listening and almost tumble from the chair I am standing on. They think that Elsie, Anna, and I are in bed asleep. But how can I sleep? I, too, have heard things at school, and I am afraid. Instead, I listen harder, quietly, hardly daring to breathe.
Hitler is a madman. He won’t stop until he gets rid of all of us, Papa says. We must take what we can and go to Palestine where we will be safe with our own kind. He says he is going tonight to the place where “it” is hidden. He will bring “it” back with him, and tomorrow it is arranged for us to leave Berlin, to begin our journey.
I know that “it” is the painting that we children are not permitted to know about. I have heard them speaking of it often, but only when they thought we were not listening. It must be a great painting, I think, if Papa wants to hide it from everyone, even us.
Once, a long while ago, when I was feeling brave and Mama was in a good mood singing and making soup, I asked her about it. At first she was angry and said I was never to speak of it again. But I asked and asked and she finally told me.
It is, she said, a very special painting, a portrait of a very famous Italian nobleman from Italy, Signore Emilio Fontana, a duke from Florence and a friend of the Medici family who ruled the city. You remember, Isaac, she said, when I took you to the Nationalgalerie
to look at the paintings from the Renaissance? It is a painting from that time.
How did we come to have this painting? I asked. We are German, I said, not Italian. Mama told me that the duke lived long ago and that because of some things that he did, his family, the Medicis, took away all his land and his money.
Like Papa says Herr Hitler will do to the Jews in Berlin? I asked.
Mama bit her lip, drew me toward her and continued her story. The man, Signore Fontini, was forced to sell everything he had just to live, even his beautiful portrait. But though his fortune was gone, he knew he would rather starve than sell it to someone who would only look at it and see how much money it could bring. Mama rubbed her first two fingers and thumb together to show me what she meant. You understand? she asked.
I nodded, and she went on. He took the painting to a man in the city with whom he had done business before, someone he knew loved art more than money. That man was Papa’s great, great, great grandpapa. She smiled. Or maybe even one or two more greats, she shrugged. His name was Yitzhak, like yours. He promised Signore Fontini that he would treasure his painting and guard it with his life. And he did, passing it along in our family.
But, I asked, if it is ours, why couldn’t we have this painting here? I would like to see what Signore Fontini looks like, and if I could, use it to practice my own drawing.
Oh, Isaac, she said, holding me close. It is not so simple. If anyone knew we had it, they would take it from us. Papa … Papa would …
Mama looked hard at me. Isaac, I am going to do something I swore to Papa I would never do, but you must promise me that you will never tell.
What, Mama? I demanded, excited now. Mama never kept secrets from Papa. She walked to the tall bookcase in the dining room and lifted a book from the top shelf. She opened it and removed a small photograph from its pages and handed it to me. It was the painting of Signore Fontini.
He was seated in a high-backed chair, one arm leaning on its armrest, the other in his lap, holding a book. He was dressed in heavy robes and wore a large medallion hanging from his neck and a large ring on the hand holding the book. A small cap covered his head, and behind him was a window through which you could see cypress trees and a city in the distance. The photograph was old and a little bit faded, but it was his face that I couldn’t stop staring at. Long and lean, with a pointy nose, the face seemed to leap out of the photograph at me, mouth smiling but eyes proud.
But, Mama, I said, thinking about what he must have been like when he was alive, there are no colors. What colors were his robes and his chair and …
Isaac, Mama said, grabbing my chin with her hands and smiling, you are too full of questions, a true artist who must know everything. The colors of the painting are beautiful. She pointed to the picture. A rich red here and dark blue there. A golden medallion and ring. The colors of a nobleman’s dress and home.
I concentrated even harder, trying to imagine this man, taking in every detail so that I might be able to draw it from memory, even though I knew I should not.
Perhaps someday, Mama said, you will be able to see it for yourself … and paint it, too, she added as if she had read my mind.
Just then the front door opened, and we heard Papa in the hall talking to Elise and Anna, the girls giggling as they helped him take off his hat and coat. Quickly, Mama replaced the book on the shelf, not realizing that I still held the photograph. I slipped it into my trouser pocket just as Papa entered the parlor, trailed by my sisters.
Ever since then I have been waiting for Mama to ask me for the photograph. Maybe she has forgotten that I have it. Or maybe now that Papa is bringing “it” home, it won’t matter. When Papa gets home, we will have the real painting to look at and study.
Lior finished reading, refolded the pages, and slipped them back into the envelope. His grandfather had told him many times about that night and the days that followed.
Bernard never returned to the Stern home. Instead, he disappeared like so many others in Berlin.
A friend of the family in whom Bernard Stern had confided and who had promised to help should anything happen to him arrived at the apartment early the next morning. He informed Isaac’s mother, Rachael, that the Gestapo had taken her husband and that she and the children must leave the city immediately.
Bernard had been followed to the painting’s hiding place by an elite unit of the Gestapo, commanded by Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring. When he emerged from the building, Bernard was arrested as an enemy of the Reich and the painting confiscated. It seemed that Göring had heard rumors about the existence of this particular work of art and had placed Stern under surveillance. Göring waited for the right opportunity, then pounced like the jackal he was. This was a true find, a masterwork, and its provenance would stun the art world. After the war, it would be the centerpiece of the Göring collection.
The family fled, taking with them the identity papers that Bernard had already purchased, a little money Rachael had put aside, and anything of value that they could carry to barter or sell. Eventually, they arrived in Palestine together, except for Bernard and the painting.
Isaac never stopped searching for the portrait of Signore Emilio Fontini. Until he died, he worked with every group that could help him and never gave up hope of finding it. He was determined that it should be returned to its rightful owners—the Stern family and Israel—those who had a vested interest in its recovery. It would be a huge coup to repatriate this consummate work of art. And when Lior became a member of the Mossad and joined its Asset Recovery Unit, he took up his grandfather’s quest.
Lior picked up the photograph that his grandfather had entrusted to him and studied it closely. It was worn and cracked from being carried and handled, but to Lior it was as clear as if it had been snapped yesterday.
He had researched the painting scrupulously. If what Isaac had told him was correct, there was none like it in the world. He’d spent months on the Internet and traveling from city to city in Italy gathering information, slowly piecing together what must have happened to Signore Fontini and his portrait.
The man had been a scholar and artist who had been well received at court. At some point, however, he ran afoul of The Society of the Black Cross, a secret and deadly group of art collectors, and was ruined by them several years after his portrait was completed.
He was also a friend to Michelangelo Buonarroti, who was visiting in Florence in the year 1504, and spent much of his time at the Fontini palazzo. Eventually, Fontini persuaded the master to execute a portrait of him that he planned to hang in his country villa outside the city.
For a time, that was all that Lior could find. Fontini had been exiled, and it seemed that no other records of him or his painting existed. Then, in a small, little-known library in Padua, Lior stumbled upon a diary written by Signore Fontini after he’d left Florence in disgrace. For Lior, it completed the story.
It appeared that Michelangelo was halfway finished with the painting when Pope Julius II summoned him back to Rome to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. There would be no time to complete the portrait of Fontini himself, so he turned to one of Florence’s foremost masters, Sandro Botticelli, for help. They had been introduced by Fontini and had spent many evenings together discussing politics and drinking wine at Fontini’s palazzo. After some persuasion, the now elderly Botticelli agreed to paint in the missing background and complete the work. Michelangelo signed the unfinished canvas before he left for Rome as a gesture to his friend and a thank you for his generous hospitality. And, when it was complete, so did Botticelli.
It was a painting by two of the world’s greatest masters, created the one and only time they worked together. It was also part of Lior’s family’s heritage and he was going to get it back.
The Stanfield Hotel
New York City
Helen was in. She’d reserved an elite suite at the Stanfield for two nights, starting this evening. The suite, on the 17
th
floor, had two bedrooms connected by a sitting room, two master baths, and a balcony overlooking the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was one of the few rooms available. The renovation and grand re-opening had been played up in the press, and the publicity, coupled with the hotel’s heritage, had created a huge demand for rooms. It was at ninety-eight percent occupancy and Helen had taken what was available. This, it turned out, was the Grand Suite. She’d been informed that it was “quite special.” At two thousand dollars a night, it had
better
be special.
Helen had never spent anything close to this amount of money for a night in a hotel. She was going for her lungs, as Joe would say. The amount seemed more like what the monthly rent on an apartment might be, or in Manhattan, a garage space. But hey, she told herself, this was a very important assignment, albeit a free one, and it was critical to be inside and prepared to move quickly.
Two bedrooms would be perfect if she asked Joe to join her and act as her backup. His presence at her shoulder would bolster her cover as a moneyed guest.
Didn’t rich folks usually have an entourage? Then why shouldn’t I?
She was using the name Helen Stratton—her middle name from her mother’s family. Helen was carrying a complete set of false identification and credit cards, along with a Dune Road Southampton address—her parents’—should anyone check. When she’d made the reservation, she had given the impression that it was an upper class name attached to upper class money, all the better to pay for the Grand Suite.
When Helen had decided to return to the Stanfield after their drinks in the bar, Joe had stopped her. “Hey, Ms. Impulsive who just blew three hundred bucks on a bartender who will definitely remember you, don’t you think it might be better to just call and reserve a room? If you go back into the lobby now, hotel security or someone who saw us at the bar might get suspicious. Why raise a red flag?”
“
You’re right.” She handed him her cell phone. “You call for me, instead. Pretend to be my assistant and ask them to please hold for Helen Stratton. Make it sound like I might be just a tad difficult.” She’d arched an eyebrow at Joe’s snide look. “I’ll take it from there.”
Now here she was, being shown all the suite’s amenities by a very attentive bellman, also garbed in the hotel’s ubiquitous tailored black suit. “Let me get that suitcase for you.” He pushed down the retractable handle and prepared to heft it onto to an ebony wood luggage rack.