The Roses Underneath (31 page)

Madeleine came out of the bathroom wiping her hands. “Ah, my darling you look splendid,” she clasped her hands together. “Very modern.”

“Thanks, Auntie. Is it all right for me to wear Uncle’s things? I reallly need something clean.”

“Otto would love it. Wait, I have one more thing.” She hurried to the desk and pulled something from the bottom drawer. Turning with great flourish she held it up. It was a man’s wristwatch with a worn black leather band. You’ll need this too. You are a
working woman now. Here, put it on. It still works. I checked it the other day. Go on.”

Anna put the watch on and they both admired it.

“Auntie, I don’t know what to say.”

Madeleine smiled. “All this time I kept it and wished I had someone to give it to. Now I do. So, where are you going?”

Anna busied herself with the boot’s buttons and avoided her gaze. “Just back to work. There are some things yet to do today. I volunteered.” She looked up and smiled. “But I won’t be long.”

“Mama, don’t leave!” Amalia said. She was perched on the windowsill, her knees drawn up under her chin.

“Maus, please get down from there. You make me so nervous!” Anna shook her hands at the girl.

Amalia sighed and slid down. “You are no fun. I just like looking out the window.”

“It’s my job to be no fun.” Anna put her hands on her hips. “How do I look?”

“Like a boy.” Amalia wrinkled her nose.

Anna laughed. “As long as it’s just a boy and not an old man. Now, come here and give me a hug.” She squeezed the little body tight around the middle and whispered into her ear. “Be a very good girl and remember that I love you very much. Will you do that?”

“Yes, Mama.” She pulled away and looked her mother in face. “Are you all right?”

Anna smiled. “Yes, of course I am. I have to go now but I’ll be back before too long. Be a good girl, listen to Auntie, and eat your supper.”

Anna stood and waved Madeleine to follow her into the kitchen. “I think there’s some bread left over and some lard too. That’s all until tomorrow.”

“We’ll be just fine, child. You seem nervous. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, of course. Everything’s fine.” She kissed Madeleine on the cheek and picked up the shopping bag that she had stowed under the table by the front door. “Bye-bye Maus, see you in a while.” She blew a kiss and walked out the door.

Outside the front gate she leaned against the cool plaster wall and collected herself. Otto’s watch read a quarter after six. Still plenty of time. She had left early so she could walk and calm her thoughts. Turning north toward the old town, the Marktkirche and the Nassauer Hof, she walked slowly, the bag heavy on her arm. She thought about what Thomas would be doing now. Probably still doing rounds at the hospital or maybe paperwork. Probably he hadn’t eaten anything proper in days. She wondered what the food situation was like in the Russian sector. She thought of him thinking of her. He would think she was maybe doing the washing or giving Amalia a bath. He would never believe what she was about to do.

The sun tickled her left cheek when she emerged onto the teeming Luisenplatz. She cut over into the narrow passages of the old city, emerging on the Schlossplatz. She paused to look at the Marktkirche glowing red in the setting sun, its beautiful Neo-Gothic architecture spared by the bombs. With extra time left before the meeting, she decided to go inside.

The cool air smelled of ritual and reckoning. Heads punctuated the rows of pews here and there, mostly alone but some in pairs. Anna picked a pew halfway to the front and slid in at the end. Sunlight streamed through the stained glass and bathed the interior in a comforting light. With its ornamentation and statuary removed, the church was stripped down, but dignified, its architecture standing in willful endurance.

Anna propped the shopping bag at her feet and slid her hand inside. She pulled the painting up halfway and saw its simple frame first. She separated the sides of the bag to get a better view. The scene was a river, as Cooper had said. The Rhine, a deep blue diagonal streak across the canvas, was flanked by jagged, tree-covered mountains on the distant side and open grassland with patches of splotchy, yellow wildflowers in the foreground. The sky was an anemic blue with scattered strips of flat clouds. The brush strokes were all rendered with hard edges, which made the painting seem flat and stagnant.
It was not a bad painting, exactly, it just wasn’t very interesting. She checked the back. A small faded label on the bottom indicated a Gallerie Neustadt in Mainz. No other marks revealed its origin. She slid the canvas back into the bag and sat for a few minutes before checking her watch. It was time. She stood and exhaled, willing the anxiety out.

Stepping out into the square Anna was hit squarely between the eyes by the setting sun. She squinted and looked around for Cooper, who should have been waiting near the church entrance so he could follow her. The square was busy with people. From her vantage point she could see almost all the way down the Friedrichstrasse, which Cooper should have taken if he was coming from the Collecting Point. But he was nowhere. She wanted to spin around in all directions, run around the corner to see if he was coming,
call out his name. Instead, she stood rooted to the spot, listening to her heart pound.
I’ll count to one hundred
, she thought.
If he’s not here by then, I’ll decide.

When she landed on twenty she slowed down. By the time she reached fifty, she knew he wasn’t coming.
Sixty, seventy-five, then ninety, and one hundred. Cooper was a no-show.
Damn him
. She began to walk in the direction of the Nassauer Hof. There would still be time to back out. As she stepped into the shadows of the Spiegelgasse, her resolve strengthened.
For God’s sake, you’re going to try to sell a painting to an old man, nothing more
, she scolded herself.
Have a little courage
. She picked up the pace and held out hope that Cooper would be lurking in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Platz outside the hotel. But when she got there, he was still nowhere to be seen. She stopped to catch her breath.

“Ah, there you are, Frau Klein.” Schneider was upon her before she could react. He took her elbow and walked her toward the hotel door. “I thought perhaps you’d lost your nerve.” He smiled at her, his lips stretching over small yellow teeth.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” she said as he held the door open for her.

“Not at all. I have only just arrived myself. Please.” He gestured for her to go into the lobby, such as it was. The hotel had sustained a direct hit in the bombing of early 1945 and was only partially rebuilt. Mostly Americans and local VIPs congregated in its dining room, and she’d heard a few rooms were available to rent, if you could pay. She had last seen the hotel in newsreels in 1940 when delegations from France and Germany met here to negotiate the armistice; they had split France among themselves like greedy children. She and Thomas watched in a movie theater in Weimar and she let the tears run down her cheeks in silence. And now here she stood in the same lobby as those men, who had played chess with people’s lives and never gave a thought about people like her.

“Where shall we sit?” she asked, looking into the dining room.

“Oh no, not here, my dear. We are meeting upstairs.”

He guided her down the hall toward the stairs that circled the elevator. Anna steadied herself on weak knees. Schneider wheezed his way up alongside her, and when they reached the first floor, he directed her down the deserted hallway.

“Here we are.” He opened the door to a guest room and pushed her inside with a firm hand.

The room was spare, with only a bed, a chair and a small wardrobe. It was a far cry from the plush accommodations enjoyed at the hotel by SS officers and their mistresses during the war. Standing at the window was Konrad Schenk. He smiled and crossed the room, hand extended.

“Frau Klein, a pleasure to see you again.” His ice-cold hand strangled hers in a firm grip. This time he wore a dark suit and plain brown tie. He gestured for her to sit in the chair while he sat on the edge of the bed. Schneider stood in the alcove leading to the door, leaning against the wall, his hands behind his back and eyes on the floor.

Anna backed into the chair and sat down hard, pulling the shopping bag onto her lap. She had not considered that Schenk would be there. She wanted to tell Schneider the deal was off, that it was only to have been between the two of them as promised, but Schenk leaned forward and rested his arms on his thighs. He clasped his hands and seemed to be settling in for a speech.

“Frau Klein. Ludwig has told me all about you. I understand you have a very good job with the Americans.”

Anna started to reply but he cut her off.

“I am sorry we didn’t have time to talk more last time we met. I’ve wanted to meet you ever since I saw you and your daughter talking with my neighbor, Frau Buchholz. When was that? Was it last week, Ludwig? When she followed you? Ludwig was curious as to why you would follow him but clearly you wanted to talk about the painting and just lost your nerve. You were so patient to wait for him outside my apartment. You could have just rung the bell. And what a sweet little girl you have.
Amalia, yes? You must be very proud of her.” He leaned back and crossed his legs, waiting.

The mention of Amalia hit Anna like a blast wave. Schenk had seen the two of them outside his apartment when Schneider had gone inside. Or she and Amalia had been followed.
But by whom? And why? Anna squeezed the painting inside the bag on her lap and looked at Schneider, but she knew he was no longer in charge. “Excuse me, but I thought I was only meeting with you, Herr Schneider.”

“I invited Herr Schenk, because, frankly, he has access to more resources than I do in my current diminished state, which you are aware of.” Schneider said it as if his circumstances were Anna’s fault. “Together we are likely to offer you a better deal and I wanted you to get as much as you can for your painting.”

Schenk tossed her a toothy smile, like an animal baring its teeth to its prey. “Of course we will make a deal with you, Frau Klein, there’s no doubt about that. It’s just that we’ll need to see if what you’ve brought is of enough interest and, well, frankly, value, to provide what you need. It’s travel papers for your husband, is that right? From the Russian sector?” He let out a whistle. “Those are pricey, as you know. The Ivans run a pretty tight operation. If he wants out, he’ll have to pay.”

Anna made a face of agreement, feigning exasperated solidarity against the Russians. She wasn’t actually sure who was good and who was bad anymore.

Schenk chuckled. “Ludwig, perhaps you could go and fetch us some of that swill that passes for coffee these days. A coffee for you, Frau Klein?”

Anna shook her head.

“Very well. Just two then, Ludwig. See if they have any milk too.”

Schneider closed the door behind him, turning the key in the lock. Anna smiled at Schenk and sat forward in her seat in an effort to move things along. The air in the room was stifling and she wished for a breeze, but the open window only let in sounds from the street below. They seemed very far away and Anna wondered if Cooper was outside. She tamped down her irritation at him and focused on Schenk, who had stood and was now pacing at the foot of the bed.

“Frau Klein, before we look at your painting, I’d like to discuss another matter with you, if you are amenable.” He continued without waiting for a reply. “Herr Schneider and I, we’ve been colleagues for a number of years now. Well, even since before the war, to be honest. You can understand that we’ve been very busy. There was so much to do.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow,” Anna lied.

“So many artworks became…available.” He smiled and his nostrils flared. “All of them had to be sorted and properly redistributed.”

Anna snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Schenk sighed and shook his head. He set his teeth into a bored smile. “Look, Frau Klein, you need my help. I am willing to see what I can do. If you’d prefer to argue the finer points of provenance, we can do that instead. But it seems to me you are in no position to cast aspersions on what I do, given that you are prepared to break the law in order to help yourself.” He held up his palms and made a face that suggested world-weariness, as if the hard work of plundering had exhausted him. “It’s so very easy to sit on the side of the pool. But when you have to get to the other side, you jump in and swim like everyone else.” He walked to the window. “Unless of course, you are here at the bidding of your American friends? I know you are very close with that Captain Cooper, no?”

He looked out the window. Anna guessed the view was of the Wilhelmstrasse and the
bowling green across the street. She thought of all the
Amis
at the Eagle Club, downing drinks and enjoying their victory. Just the distance of a shout and the world was totally different. Sweat beaded along her hairline and on her upper lip. Wiping it with her hand, she stole a glance at Otto’s watch. Twenty minutes past seven and they still hadn’t looked at the painting. She decided not to respond to Schenk’s question. Instead, she leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs. It was her turn to wait.

Schenk provided his own answer. “No, I think you are smarter than that. That would be foolish.” He grinned. “Lucky for us, the value of art remains high. Or we’d both be out of a job. Isn’t that right?” He laughed, but only in the back of his throat.