Restitution (41 page)

“Anything else to declare?” the guard asked.

“Nothing,” replied Theo, once more in command. It's not a lie if you
believe
you are doing nothing illegal, he reminded himself. Finally, an eternity later, the guard stamped his papers and motioned him through.

Another step completed
, he thought with a deep exhale as he checked his watch and headed toward the German border guards and then Pleystein. This small town of only about twenty-five hundred inhabitants had been his meeting place with Adolfo each time the two of them had joined forces on jobs to get special paintings out of Prague. Pleystein was a convenient location, close to the border, and there was a quiet bar where the two men could celebrate the completion of their business deals. The town was dominated by a church whose steeple emerged at the top of a hill overlooking the quaint, cottage-like homes below.

Entering the bar, Theo nodded at the proprietor, whom he had come to know over the years, and settled into a dark booth at the back, knowing he might have some time before Adolfo was due to arrive. An attractive young girl served him, smiling engagingly. Theo returned the smile. He was tempted to ask her name and perhaps even for a telephone number, but then he stopped himself. There was still one piece of important business left to do here and this was not the time to be distracted by anything or anyone.

While he waited, he thought back over the past week and the business he had conducted in Prague. The week had been more successful than he had imagined. He was sending fifty paintings back to Canada, paintings that would bring him a sizeable profit once they were cleaned, restored, and remounted. And if these next few hours went according to plan, he would also be reuniting a family with property they had been pursuing for many years. He had gone to considerable lengths to secure Karl Reeser's paintings. Theo wondered again at the risk he was taking for a man he barely knew. Perhaps it would have been more in line with his personality if he were intending to keep Karl's paintings, fabricating some story about how he had been unable to acquire them, or how the secret police had gotten wind of his plan and intervened, or how the paintings had been confiscated while crossing the border. Was he tempted to steal Karl's property, sell the paintings privately, and profit even more from this mission? The answer, he knew immediately, was a resounding no! He may have been a smuggler, but Theo was certainly not a thief.

There was a sudden commotion at the door of the bar. Two men had entered, talking in animated gestures and half sentences. “Did you see what happened back there at the border?” one of them asked no one in particular. Theo raised his head from his drink. “Someone was stopped for smuggling.” The second man took up the story: “That one's gone for good, if you ask me.” The men laughed easily and sat down at a table close to Theo.

It's not possible
, Theo thought, and yet, more than an hour had passed and Adolfo had still not arrived. “Excuse me,” he said, standing and approaching the two men. “Did you say a man was arrested?”

“Yes.” The two nodded adamantly. “The Czech police took him away in handcuffs. But he's a fool, if you ask me. Why would anyone take such a risk?”

Theo ignored the comment. “The man who was arrested, what did he look like, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Young, not much more than a teenager,” one man replied.

“But he'll be an old man before he sees the light of day,” the other concluded.

The men laughed again, raising their glasses and downing their beers. Theo retreated to his table. The encounter had unnerved him. The man who had been arrested was too young to be his friend and colleague. Besides, Adolfo couldn't be detained, he reassured himself. He was a diplomat, protected from being searched.
But why isn't he here?
Theo asked himself, throwing back the last of his drink and glancing at his watch. Perhaps something had gone wrong after all. There was no backup plan here and Theo felt helpless, forced to just wait this out. If Adolfo had been turned back, it would take several more hours before Theo would be able to connect with his contact and figure out where the paintings were. He would soon be forced to make a choice: either he would drive on to Frankfurt, get on a plane to Canada, and leave the paintings behind, or he would have to delay his return and make another attempt to retrieve them. Neither was a desirable option. For Theo, this was the hardest part of this entire scheme: waiting, not knowing, and having no power. He hated the absence of control. It was like skydiving without a parachute.

He was just about to leave his table to look for a telephone – perhaps Adolfo had left a message for him at his hotel – when he looked up and saw a smiling Adolfo Flores enter the bar. Theo stood to greet his contact.

“I was beginning to worry, my friend,” he confessed as he grabbed Adolfo's arm and pulled him down into his booth. He signaled the pretty waitress to bring over another round of drinks.

“No need for concern,” Adolfo replied. “There was a bit of a line-up at the border. I think somebody up ahead was being stopped. That's what took so long.”

Theo filled Adolfo in on the reports from the men who had entered the bar earlier. “I was worried at first that it might be you. Did you have any trouble?”

Adolfo shook his head. “None. The border guard glanced into the back seat of my car where your cargo was sitting. I thought he might ask me something about it. But he didn't – he saw it was a diplomatic car, waved me through, and here I am.”

Theo paused and silently blessed the power of the diplomatic license plates once more. Adolfo pounded him on the back, grinned, and lifted his glass to toast the success of the operation. “To you,” he said. “And to many more successful transactions.”

Theo reached into his jacket pocket and extracted one more bulky envelope, which he pushed across the table into Adolfo's waiting hands. “And to you, my friend,” he replied. “Payment for a job well done.”

Adolfo glanced inside the envelope and then slipped it into his pocket. “Call on me anytime,” he said.

The two men finished their drinks a short time later and left, Adolfo to drive back to Prague, and Theo to continue his drive on to Frankfurt, but not before transferring the container from Adolfo's embassy car back into Theo's rental. He settled behind the wheel and turned the radio on full blast. He still had about four hours of driving ahead on a route that would take him past Nuremburg, Wurzburg, and Aschaffenburg, before he would arrive in Frankfurt.

This time, the hours flew by and before he knew it, the skyline of the big industrial city lay ahead of him. At the airport, Theo returned his car, checked in for his flight, and also checked the large container with Karl Reeser's precious paintings. He knew that, upon arriving in Canada, it would be unlikely that he would be questioned about its contents. And if there were any concerns at Canadian customs, he still had the copies of the National Gallery forms, verifying that he was bringing art into the country legally. On the way to catch his plane, Theo called a woman friend of his in Toronto to let her know that he would be home the next day. They made arrangements to meet.
Something more to look forward to,
he thought.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Toronto, March 21, 1990

ALL TO AWARE of the date, Karl's brain awoke early that morning even before his body began to stir. In fact, Theo's imminent arrival had haunted Karl for days now, interrupting his conversations, his meals, and his sleep. He had no idea what time he might hear from Theo, so he arose, trying not to wake Phyllis, and went into the bathroom. Quinta was scratching at the door, whining for Karl to let her out. But first Karl splashed cold water on his face and looked up to stare at his reflection. The stark light above the mirror exaggerated the lines deeply etched around his eyes and mouth. He ran his fingers through his hair. What was left of his once bright red hair was now replaced with a more dignified gray. At close to seventy years of age, Karl was still strong and agile. But he felt as if he had aged years in the days since Theo had left for Prague.

Quinta scratched again, Phyllis stirred, and Karl dressed hurriedly and went downstairs and into the family room, sinking into a large armchair to gaze out the back window. This chair was a favorite place to sit. It faced the enclosed backyard with its changing landscape of multicolored gardens in summer, and white, barren snow in winter. Colorful photographs lined the wood-paneled walls of the room, all of them taken and developed by Phyllis and himself on their many tours abroad. Interspersed were pictures of his children and grandchildren at various stages of their lives – this one in infancy, a birthday, a school graduation. Books were stacked in a neat pile next to the chair, reflecting Karl's deep interest in history and politics. He would often sit here with a book in his hands, looking up periodically to gaze out the back, listening to Quinta snoring gently on the couch and feeling the peacefulness of his life. But today there was nothing tranquil in his bearing. He felt jittery and uncertain. All he could think about were the paintings and the possibility, the fervent hope that he might be reunited with them.

What if Theo didn't call today? That thought had competed for space in Karl's mind along with the anticipation of hearing Theo's voice on the telephone. No word from Theo might mean that his trip was delayed and he was still in the process of retrieving the paintings, or that something had gone horribly wrong and he was stuck in Prague. Then there was the possibility that Theo had absconded with the artwork. Karl could not even bear to consider this thought, or the notion that Hana and Paul had been right all along and that Theo was indeed a thief, a con artist who had duped them out of thirty-five hundred dollars and, worse, had run off with the family's treasures. No! That simply could not be. In his heart, Karl believed he had read Theo correctly. He simply had to be patient and the telephone would eventually ring.

What would it feel like to be reunited with the paintings? Karl had barely allowed himself the luxury of imagining that possibility. He had been so consumed with trying to get the paintings back that he had not stopped to fully consider the outcome. But here, in the stillness of this March morning, he pictured the first moment of seeing the paintings in his home in Toronto, and he immediately remembered the day his parents had acquired them from Mr. Schmahl. Fifty years filled with war, family turmoil, uncertainty, loss, and dispossession had passed. There was nothing left from the old days, nothing to remind him of his previous life – no home, no country, few family members. The paintings were the only evidence of what his family had once had.

“Are you going to sit here like this all day?” Phyllis's voice broke the stillness of Karl's morning deliberation. He shook his head, unable to respond. “Come and have some breakfast, and then I want you to go for a walk,” she commanded. “I'll stay home in case the telephone rings. But you've got to get out of here and do something.”

Karl smiled gratefully. A walk was probably the best thing for him. Besides, there was still one task he needed to complete in anticipation of Theo's call. He ate a quick breakfast, put on his jacket, and headed out the door. The cool and damp March wind swirled around him and he pulled the collar of his jacket up around his ears, thankful that Phyllis had insisted on wrapping a wool scarf around his neck at the last minute despite his protests. It was funny how a day like this immediately reminded him of Prague in early spring, with its comparable bone-chilling dampness. He had been there about a year earlier to meet with Jan Pekárek and Richard VandenBosch, walking the streets of that city a continent away. He reminded himself that, while he and his family had lost so much in their flight from Prague on the eve of the war so many years earlier, he had also acquired so much in Canada: a new life, happiness with a loving partner, children, grandchildren, prosperity, and stability. His life was complete here, with or without the paintings.

There were no customers at the bank when Karl entered. He greeted the manager, who knew him by name, and approached the first teller. “I'd like to withdraw three thousand, five hundred dollars in cash,” he said. “Hundred dollar bills would be fine.” The teller nodded, unfazed, and began to count out the money for Karl. With thirty-five crisp new bills safely tucked into his jacket pocket, Karl left the bank and returned home to wait once more.

The telephone was ringing as he entered his house and he sprang for the receiver to answer it on the second ring. But it was only Hana, calling to see if there was any word from Theo.

“Nothing yet, Hana,” Karl said, trying to catch his breath and slow the pounding of his heart in his chest.

“He didn't say when he would call, did he? Only that he would be back on the twenty-first.”

“It may not even happen today,” Karl replied, though he didn't want to think of that possibility, either. “I've got the rest of the money here. I went to the bank to withdraw it this morning.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “That's being rather optimistic, isn't it?” she finally said.

At that, Karl had to chuckle. His sister had difficulty hiding her ongoing doubt that Theo was going to deliver on his promise. “I'm trying to stay positive, here, Hana. I'll call you when I hear something.” He emphasized the word
when
, and listened for her quiet snicker in reply. After he hung up the telephone, and for the rest of the day, Karl tried to go about his business as usual. He answered the mail, paid the bills that were due, lunched with Phyllis, took Quinta for a long walk, napped, and desperately fought to put all thoughts of the paintings out of his mind, futile as that was.

It was evening before the telephone rang again. By then, Karl was a nervous wreck, pacing in the family room, unable to calm himself. Phyllis was out for the evening, attending a lecture at their local library. She had begged him to come. “It will take your mind off of all of this,” she had said. But Karl had refused. “No one will be at home to answer the telephone,” he had replied. Even Phyllis, always supportive, was beginning to voice her fear that Theo might not call. “Karl, you may have to prepare yourself for the possibility that this isn't going to happen,” she had said before leaving for her meeting.