The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World (21 page)

In the hot, hushed quiet that followed, Mrs. Zender removed the two yellowed slips of paper from the envelope: the bill of sale and the exit visa. She looked at them for a long, long time.

Mrs. Vanderwaal asked—gently now—“Do you recognize that signature, Mrs. Zender?”

In a whisper, Mrs. Zender answered, “No, but I recognize the name. Karl Eisenhuth.”

“What is the connection between you and Karl Eisenhuth?”

“My sound system and Mr. Zender,” she replied. She straightened her back and in a subdued voice resumed her story.

“On the very day I found the souvenir program, I read in the
Vindicator
an article about the world famous acoustician, Karl Eisenhuth, having been engaged to engineer the acoustics for a new concert hall in Houston, Texas. Among Eisenhuth's credentials, the paper listed his having been on the staff of the rebuilding of the Vienna State Opera.

“Mother had tucked a clipping from the newspaper into the fold of the program saying that she had been among the glitterati as the guest of Messrs. Walter Zender and Karl Eisenhuth, the engineer who had been responsible for the resplendent qualities of the acoustics. That is when I half-teasingly suggested to Mr. Zender that he ask Eisenhuth to stop in St. Malo en route to Houston and install a sound system in our house here on Mandarin Road.

“Mr. Zender denied knowing Eisenhuth. His denial was very much like the one that had come from a real retired diplomat who was very much in the news those days.

“The retired diplomat was Kurt Waldheim, and he was in the news because he was a candidate for the presidency of Austria.

“Kurt Waldheim was a good-looking man in the gaunt,
pinched way that Austrians regard as aristocratic. He was a talented linguist—spoke several languages fluently—and had elegant manners. His lightweight intelligence and his social skills made him the perfect diplomat. However, beneath the patrician social graces beat the heart of a politician and a liar. Waldheim had capped a diplomatic career by twice being elected secretary-general of the United Nations, but when he failed to be reelected for a third term, he decided to return to his native Austria and run for its presidency.

“It was at the height of his campaign for president that reports of Waldheim's Nazi past came out. At first Waldheim claimed to have spent the last years of the war in Vienna studying law. Mr. Zender also happened to be a lawyer, and his denial of knowing Eisenhuth had strong echoes of Waldheim.

“When Waldheim was confronted with records that showed that he had not only been a Nazi officer but had participated in atrocities in the Balkans, he claimed that he could not remember something that happened so long ago. When I confronted Mr. Zender with the souvenir program and the clipping, his response was, ‘I can't remember details of something as unimportant as a party.'

“Selective forgetting is the first symptom of Austrian amnesia. Remember that term?

“Then Mr. Zender turned his back to me and walked out of the room, leaning on the silver-tipped cane, his prop for his adopted role of retired foreign diplomat.

“I followed Mr. Zender. He was in the upstairs sitting room. His cane was resting across the Bibendum chair. I picked it up and sat down. I rested both hands on the cane, leaned forward like an interrogation officer, and said, ‘It's time you told me what kind of a thief you really are.'

“And that is when Mr. Zender told me in all seriousness, as if it had never been said before, that he had been a young officer, and he did not have the authority to steal. He just followed orders.”

Mrs. Zender sighed. “Echoes,” she said. “I was hearing echoes of Waldheim, for when it was revealed that Waldheim had taken an active role in deporting forty thousand Jews to Auschwitz, he said that he was just a young officer following orders.”

It took a minute before Mrs. Vanderwaal said, “I am grateful that my dear husband is not around to hear this.”

“I can understand that, Mrs. Vanderwaal. But do
you
want to hear it?”

Amedeo piped up, “I do,” and received a volley of cold stares in return.

Mrs. Zender smiled at Amedeo. “Of course you do. I think everyone does, and oddly enough, I want to tell it,
for there is an inevitability to the rest of the story. In its way it all leads to today.”

Pointing to the receipt, Mrs. Zender said, “You can see that one of the things taken from the gallery was a drawing by Gustav Klimt. The rest of the story begins with that drawing.”

Amsterdam. 1942.

Karl Eisenhuth was a senior officer of an
Einsatzgruppen,
one of four special squads of the German Army whose responsibility it was to loot cultural treasures from the Nazi-conquered countries.
Responsibility!
It was the
responsibility
of the
Einsatzgruppen
to steal. There was an unofficial competition among these special squads to steal things that would please Hitler or Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering. Goering was notorious for his extravagant tastes. A vain, greedy man, he loved jewelry. He often wore several diamond rings on each hand and kept a pot of diamonds on his desk to play with.

Like all good Germans, Karl Eisenhuth took his looting very seriously, but stationed in Amsterdam as he was, the biggest thieves had been there before him, even before the Occupation, and the old masters that were the favorites of Hitler and Goering had already been taken.

But here and there Eisenhuth found a few objets d'art that he knew would please some of the generals, and in one small shop on Prinsengracht he found some Modern art.

Eisenhuth knew that Modern art was not allowed inside Nazi territory. If it was found, it was to be destroyed, but men like him—he certainly was not the only one—stole it anyway. They hid it to use as barter after the war if Germany lost.

The Nazis had denounced Klimt and his work as too sensual for the refined Aryans. But by 1955 Austria was independent at last, and Gustav Klimt was back in high favor. Several of his paintings were hanging in the Belevedere Palace. Modigliani was back in favor, too, but the Austrians loved Klimt more, for he was Austrian, one of their own, and he was not a Jew.

Eisenhuth was a good engineer, but at that time he certainly did not qualify by experience or reputation for a position on the acoustical staff that was rebuilding the State Opera House. But Herr Eisenhuth was ambitious, and he was clever. He took out of hiding the things he had stolen from the little shop on Prinsengracht, and persuaded one of the nouveau bureaucrats to overlook his Nazi past in exchange for one of his treasures.

The Klimt bought him a position on the technical staff. The pair of candelabra bought him a promotion.
He now had a corner office, and one day his secretary announced that a Mr. Walter Zender was there to see him. Walter Zender had been one of his lieutenants when he was in the
Einsatzgruppen.
Eisenhuth's other lieutenant had died. Poor fellow. Cause unknown.

Zender and Eisenhuth reminisced about the time they were billeted together in Amsterdam. Charming city, Amsterdam. Mr. Zender looked around Eisenhuth's office approvingly. He suggested to his former commander that with the prestige of his current position, he should be well on his way to an international clientele. Eisenhuth agreed mildly, wary of what was coming. And then, almost offhandedly, Mr. Zender said that he could never forget the time they had gone shopping at that charming gallery in Amsterdam. It was on Prinsengracht, wasn't it?

Eisenhuth knew what Zender wanted, but he stalled. He said that surely Walter Zender's postwar career had also been fortunate: He was after all an educated man—a lawyer—handsome, suave, charming, and spoke English with a Viennese tongue, which—Eisenhuth reminded him—was a compliment.

Herr Zender readily admitted his accomplishments, but what he didn't tell Eisenhuth was that although he was diligent, his colleagues did not regard him as an intellectual. Everyone recognized that his manners were
beautiful—princely even—and he had learned well the art of doing favors for the right people, but he was often passed over. Success seemed always to elude him. To live the life he deserved, he needed something more. With a knowing wink, Mr. Zender told Eisenhuth that he had his eye on a wealthy American widow. A certain Mrs. Tull. Vittoria de Capua Tull was, of course, older than Mr. Zender, but a young man with an older woman was very, shall we say, “continental.”

Eisenhuth told Zender that he had a drawing, a Modigliani, that he would like to give to him as a wedding gift for the widow. Zender told Eisenhuth that he accepted the drawing with thanks, but it was a little too soon to talk about weddings. He had yet to woo the woman, and the way to this widow's heart was entrée into the inner circles of European society. For that he needed two tickets to the grand opening of the rebuilt State Opera.

Eisenhuth protested. There were no tickets as such. Admission was by invitation only, and the guest list was closed. It was an international group of the rich and famous: the crowned heads of Europe, heads of state, world-famous musicians. The glitterati of the time.

Yes, Mr. Zender insisted, that was exactly the kind of company the widow liked to surround herself with. He looked around Eisenhuth's office and commented that his
view was spectacular. He got up and with his hands behind his back, reminiscent of the officer Eisenhuth once was, walked to the wall where Eisenhuth's engineering certificate hung. Mr. Zender suggested that perhaps other positions he had held in the past, some other credentials so to speak, should best be forgotten.

Eisenhuth regretted having made the offer of
The Moon Lady
when he realized that what Zender really wanted was the two invitations. But he couldn't renege. His “honor” was at stake, so Mr. Zender got
The Moon Lady
and the two invitations.

When the invitation arrived, Vittoria de Capua Tull knew what they were for. She knew that Mr. Zender wanted to marry her. She was not naïve. She accepted the invitation because she had decided that she wanted Mr. Zender as well. But not for herself. She wanted Mr. Zender for her daughter. As the prince's consort, Aida Lily Tull would be lionized by St. Malo society, and her mother would become the dowager duchess. She had it all worked out. Daughter would get a husband and a Modigliani, and Mother would get a son-in-law who looked terrific in a tuxedo.

Eisenhuth got Zender's silence about his Nazi past. Vittoria Tull got Mr. Zender for her daughter. Her daughter got
The Moon Lady
as a wedding gift. The word
blackmail
never came up because by the time the negotiations were over, who could tell who was the extortionist and who, the extorted: Eisenhuth? Zender? Vittoria? Or all three?

Mrs. Zender continued, “Mr. Zender and I got married on December 5 of the same year as the reopening of the Vienna State Opera. We had a small wedding in Venice, Mother's choice. Mother joined us in Rome, the last stop on our wedding trip, and we all flew back here to St. Malo in time for Easter. We moved into this very house on Mandarin Road, and the parties began—”

Mrs. Vanderwaal was the first to catch her breath. “Why?” she asked. “Why,
why
didn't you return
The Moon Lady
when you found out for certain that it had been Nazi loot?”

Mrs. Zender said, “I know this is going to be hard for someone like you, someone who pumps her own gas and who drives a van all over the country by herself, I know it's
very
hard for you to understand, Mrs. Vanderwaal, but the truth is, it never occurred to me. Call it the St. Malo Syndrome. I had bonded with my captor.”

“Worse than that. You used
The Moon Lady
as barter to get your sound system.”

“I suppose you could say that, Mrs. Vanderwaal.”

“I just did.”

Amedeo said, “Mrs. Zender, the first day I met you, you told me that Karl Eisenhuth installed your sound system because three words,
Aida Lily Tull,
were enough.”