Chapter3 - 5

The woman looked bitterly amused. “Aren’t you adorable,”

she said in a Virginia drawl just like the Sutherlands and dismissed the whole subject with a chop of her hand. “What did my father-in-law steal from you, anyway?”

“Three sketches by Klimt.”

This had to be the most surreal conversation Reka had ever had in her life, and she’d done opium and absinthe at the Moulin Rouge with a group of surrealist painters in Paris. “Studies for the Faculty Paintings, Philosophy , Medicine , and—”

“Oh god, not those horrible things.”

Mrs.Sutherland turned away from the side table, reversing across the shadowed hall for the staircase. Reka hovered, unsure whether she was supposed to follow, and then that British voice floated: “Are you coming or not?”

Into the lion’s den , Reka thought, hobbling up the stairs. Not a lion’s den, though; just a private study with blue watered-silk walls. “Mine,”

Mrs.Sutherland said, carelessly throwing lights on. “Though why I need a study when I never write more than the occasional thank-you note is beyond me.”

The desk was heaped with creamy stationery and crystal paperweights, but Reka only registered those things in shadowed glimpses—because on the wall very nearly behind the door, she saw them.

Three charcoal sketches, each no more than eighteen inches square, carefully framed and held behind glass.

“I can’t stand them.”

Mrs. Sutherland shuddered. “All those eyes and those tortured faces. My father-in-law doesn’t like them, either, but he says they’ll appreciate in value . Just the kind of thing to give a bride at her wedding: pictures of nasty creeping eyes that follow you around a room, and a son who splits your lip if you tell him maybe he shouldn’t have quite so much bourbon before church on Christmas Eve.”

She lurched across the room, so suddenly Reka put out a hand to stop her from tripping, but she didn’t fall. She just pointed at the pictures in their frames. “Take them. Just... take them.”

“I can’t.”

The words flew out of Reka’s mouth. She wanted Otto’s sketches but she wasn’t taking them at the cost of this woman’s bruised flesh.

“Barrett never comes in here. Neither does my father-in-law. It’ll be months before they notice.”

Mrs.Sutherland shrugged. “If they notice at all.”

She lurched forward again as if to wrench the sketches off the wall. More in alarm than anything—envisioning broken glass shredding fragile paper—Reka flew forward and lifted Klimt’s work down, moving carefully. The weight of them, after all these years... I can’t , she thought again, but her arms were already locked around the pile of frames. “Have a story if they notice the bare spots on the wall,”

she said instead.

“I’m sure they’re insured against theft. I could report some of my jewelry stolen too,”

Mrs.Sutherland mused. “Hock it later.”

“You should,”

Reka agreed, ludicrously polite. “Every woman needs money of her own. An escape fund.”

Because even if her own situation had been entirely different, she still knew what it was to bristle defensively when someone advised you Just leave . It was hard to just leave when you didn’t have money. Reka took a deep breath. “If they hurt you for this—”

“They hurt me anyway.”

Mrs.Sutherland coughed out a laugh. It clearly pained her ribs. “Look, take the sketches or don’t. They’re yours, aren’t they?”

“Yes—”

“You want them back, don’t you?”

Yes , Reka thought. She could keep them a little while, just enough to cherish what she’d lost... then she could find them a home in a museum. And, yes, money was a part of that decision, money that would make her old age a little easier, but it was more than that. The sketches, with their originals consigned to the flames by Nazis, deserved to hang somewhere the world could see.

“So stop arguing.”

Mrs.Sutherland turned away before Reka could reply, wandering out of the study. “You’re welcome,”

she called over her shoulder, “Mrs.— I don’t remember your name.”

Better you don’t , Reka thought, wrestling the three frames into her big bag. They didn’t really fit, but it would have to do: if she cut the sketches out of their frames the delicate charcoal was at risk of smudging. Was she really going to walk out of here with what was rightfully hers? Her heart was thumping painfully.

This could still be dangerous , Otto warned. Reka knew he was right, but she was still moving down the stairs. What was that saying the senator had thrown in her husband’s face? Possession is nine-tenths of the law here in America. Well, if she was in possession of the sketches, the game changed. Even once the Sutherlands realized they were gone, they’d have no proof she was involved.

They could beat it out of that poor woman , she thought. Your name—she might remember. And after they’re done with her, they’ll beat you into a pulp as well.

But Reka couldn’t stop, not when she was so close to having it back—the piece of Otto, the piece of their past, the piece of their future taken away by a bureaucrat’s smug smile. She just kept going, toward the back door. Had she touched anything here tonight except the sketches? No, not even the glass of whiskey Mrs.Sutherland had poured her. She’d followed from room to room, but her hands hadn’t so much as grazed a doorknob...

She was almost free, almost through the back door, when light footsteps sounded behind, almost running.

“Wait!”

Her stomach lurched as she swung around.

“I need to bolt the door behind you,”

Mrs. Sutherland said, slurring even more now. “If Barrett finds it unlocked, he’ll fire poor Trudy. She’ll never work again in Georgetown, and she’s so nice , she has a grandmother in Mobile and she sends money home—”

“Good idea,”

Reka said gently. “You lock up behind me. No one needs to get fired on Christmas.”

“My god, it’s still Christmas.”

Mrs.Sutherland opened the door, waving her through. Tall and beautiful under her bruises, but looking like a sad little girl. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,”

Reka called over her shoulder, clutching her bag. And walked up the street humming Stille nacht .

Christmas Day. Time to celebrate , Reka thought, somewhat determinedly.

Too late to do much decorating, but she snagged some tinsel Grace had cajoled Mrs.Nilsson into letting her festoon all over the Briarwood House banisters and parlor and draped it over her radiator as though it were a mantelpiece. She thought about making a pot of haluski —Otto’s favorite—but she was out of energy. She turned on the radio instead and heard Bing Crosby: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

“Merry Christmas, Otto,”

she said aloud, voice echoing in the empty room. Maybe more festive feelings would sink in once she arrived in New York tomorrow. Too late to catch the Pollock show at Betty’s, but even in the slow time after Christmas there were little out-of-the-way galleries with a gem or two on display.

And while she was there, she would take out a safe-deposit box, one large enough for three glass-paned pictures. Until she decided what museum would be the best home to approach for her Klimt sketches (price was a consideration, but more so was visibility, and a complete guarantee of anonymity), she didn’t want them in the same city as the Sutherland family.

Maybe that was why the giddy jubilation of her Christmas Eve victory last night had slowly seeped away as morning dawned.

Reka got down to her knees—hurting even more than usual, it felt like—and pulled the sketches out from under the bed for the dozenth time. A few sweeps of charcoal; Hygeia’s face was little more than a smudge... but you could see genius in those sweeps. Or at least Reka did. And even with Bing Crosby warbling and the sounds of merriment floating through Briarwood House, she couldn’t help a single, hard, dry sob pushing out of her throat as she thought of Klimt’s lost originals. Philosophy , Medicine , and Jurisprudence , licked by flames, curling and crisping as Nazi eyes jeered.

So much destroyed. So much lost.

Reka , Otto chided. No tears. You got our sketches back—everything you wanted!

But she couldn’t stop. She kept weeping, sobs tearing out of her throat in ugly surges. Because it wasn’t everything she wanted, was it? She had the sketches; justice had been done; precious art would be restored to the public, and there would be a little money now to ease her last years.

She still didn’t have Otto.

She still had the memories of him at the end, so bitter and beaten down.

She still lived old and alone.

And she had a sudden mad urge to pound her fists on those glass-paned frames until they shattered and the frail paper beneath tore into shreds. Because what use was art in the end? What use was anything ?

“Merry Christmas, Attila,”

Grace March’s voice called from the other side of the door. “Are you in?”

Reka was sobbing too hard to tell her to go away.

“Reka?”

The door pushed open and there was Grace, looking festive in a dark green skirt and scarlet sweater snugged over her full figure, holding a ribbon-wrapped bottle in one hand. “What on earth is wrong?”

she said in her soft voice, coming in.

“Go away,”

Reka choked.

Grace ignored her, nudging the door shut with one heel. “Maybe what you need is a dose of your Christmas gift,”

she said, holding up the bottle. “ Pálinka —that brandy you Hungarians like, or so I’m told. Took me a while to hunt it down.”

The sounds of rummaging issued from Reka’s little kitchenette, and then she came back with two glasses. “A touch of the Christmas blues?”

she asked, then her gaze went wide as she got close enough to see the sketches on the floor. Framed, unmistakable, the same figures Reka had drawn on the Briar Rose Beauty Shoppe’s half-primed sign.

Reka made an ineffectual, far-too-late motion to push them under the bed.

“Oh, honey,”

Grace said. “I hope you didn’t kill someone.”

Somehow that arrested Reka’s tears. It might have been a labored joke, a bit of hyperbole. But Grace’s eyes were calm, her gaze taking in the rest of the room in a single pragmatic flick as if checking for blood or some other sign of violence. “What would you say if I had killed someone?”

Reka blurted, half horrified and half fascinated.

“That it generally takes two to hide a body.”

Grace curled up on the floor beside Reka, neat as a cat. “Do you need help?”

You wouldn’t bat an eyelash if I did. This woman, Reka felt suddenly certain, understood something about violence. Understood enough to contemplate the prospect of it without turning a hair. This was the other side of Mrs.Grace March of 4B, behind the Iowa vowels and sun tea. Reka felt a flicker of admiration. If there was anything she appreciated in a person, it was unshockability.

Szar , was that even a word? It should be.

“I haven’t killed anyone,”

she told Grace at last. What else she’d done, she wasn’t going to say.

“That’s good,”

Grace said calmly, sipping pálinka . “So what on earth has you sobbing along to Bing Crosby on Christmas Day?”

Reka bolted a swallow of her own drink, wanting the burn. “I have these,”

she said, indicating the three charcoal sketches. “But what else do I have?”