The Woman Who Heard Color (29 page)

As Hanna made her way back to the small room where she now lived alone, the images of the paintings, sculptures, and drawings, continued to flash and settle, and then disappeared in her mind.

She thought of what Josef had said many years ago after the Putsch, when Hitler was first attempting to gain control of Germany. When Hanna saw his photograph in the newspaper, she told Josef, “Why, he was here years ago, presenting his drawings in hopes that we might show them in the gallery.” And Josef had replied lightly, as if making a joke, “Now, that’s the kind of leader Germany needs, one with the sensitivity of an artist.”

At the time no one knew what he really stood for.

She thought of Leni telling her how this man intended to bring the art to the people.

As she entered her room, she sat on the bed and Adolf Hitler’s own words came back to her: “Art is for the people. The people will be called on to judge their own art.”

Yet, in the very way it had been presented to the people, they were being told what should be labeled as art.

Hanna slept little that night, and restlessly the following. Several days later, while out looking for employment, she passed the House of German Art. It appeared almost deserted. Later she walked past the Hofgarten building. The line of those who wished to view the
entartete kunst
stretched on and on. She wondered if many others, as she did herself, felt it might be their last opportunity to see this art.

Unable to find work, again Hanna went to stay with Leni. The dissonance she had felt between herself and her sister had all but disappeared. Leni had no kind words for Hitler, no unkind words for Hanna. There were no arguments. The sisters barely spoke. Leni provided her with a home, with food, and family. For this Hanna would always be grateful.

She had little time to consider what she should do next, when again her life was interrupted. She received an official letter, forwarded to her from the Hausmann Gallery. Her expertise was required by the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. She was to appear in Berlin within the week and report to the Reich Cultural Chamber.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

 

“By the time Mother told me that Papa had sold the Kandinsky
Composition
,” Isabella said, “much worse things were happening in Germany.”

They sat silently, enclosed it seemed in a world far removed from this lovely apartment in New York. The light in the room had shifted again; the bright colors of many of the paintings along the walls appeared shadowed and dimmed.

“I can only imagine how devastating that must have been for her,” Lauren finally said, thinking of both the sale of the Kandinsky and the horrors that were to follow. With this thought she realized that she believed what Isabella Fletcher was telling her about the painting, though she had produced no evidence. Lauren, who always made every effort to set her emotions aside, to rely on logic, on facts, on proven history, believed her despite the fact that everything she’d read about Kandinsky’s
Composition II
stated that it had been destroyed during the war. Would history have to be rewritten?

“Not only the Kandinsky,” Isabella said, “but much of the art owned by the family. My father sent the money from selling the art to begin a new life in America. It was his intention to join us. Then we would all go home; at least I always believed that was my father’s plan. I’m honestly not sure about my mother’s. No one believed Hitler would be in power for long. But, well . . .” Mrs. Fletcher gave off a shudder and then her shoulders slumped as if a physical weight was bearing down upon her. “Well, everyone knows how that turned out.” She stared at Lauren, but her eyes seemed blank and the younger woman knew the statement required no reply.

Was this her grandfather’s thought, too? Lauren wondered. Had he, like Moses Fleischmann, assumed that Hitler would not last? Dr. Rosenthal had also sent his family away. Had it been his intention to bring them all back to Germany?

“The money arrived,” Mrs. Fletcher continued, “evidently just after Mother left New York to return to Germany. She wrote Uncle Hans and told him not to send it back, though she surely could have used it. She instructed him to invest the money for me and my brother in America. Eventually it was used to pay for my university education.”

“The Kandinsky painting was sold to someone in Berlin?”

“Yes, it was.”

Lauren looked toward the bookcase. She could make out the words on the spines of several of the books. Large coffee table books with titles such as
Expressionism
,
German Art of the Twentieth Century
,
Kandinsky in Germany
,
The Birth of Abstract Art
. She wondered how much Isabella really remembered, how much she’d read in these books.

“This is where the known history of the painting generally stops,” Isabella told her. “Anything I’ve read about
Composition II
refers to the German owner in Berlin, the belief that it was destroyed in bombings.”

“Your mother purchased it back from the buyer in Berlin?” Lauren asked.

“It wasn’t my mother.”

Lauren raised her shoulders as her eyes widened as if to ask—who?

“I assure you it was a legal purchase,” Isabella replied.

“You have documents to verify this?” Lauren asked, instantly wishing she’d stopped to steady her voice, to rearrange her words, to strip away the sharpness. She sounded so eager, so ready to launch accusations, when she was merely excited that this might all be true.

“Yes, there are documents to verify the family’s ownership.” The pitch of Mrs. Fletcher’s voice ascended with irritation, and Lauren prayed the woman would continue. It seemed they were just now getting to the heart of the story. Lauren took in a deep breath, aware that her own emotions were drained and tattered.

“Your father didn’t live to see the painting returned?” she asked quietly.

Isabella shook her head.

“Your mother stayed on?”

“Not that she had much of a choice.” Rage wrapped around the woman’s words as the circles of pink on her cheeks deepened against her pale skin. Lauren wondered what it would be like to carry such anger for more than seventy years. She thought of her own father, who seldom spoke of his parents. She was amazed at times that he went about his life without expressing any harsh feelings regarding his past. Surely there was anger. But he didn’t talk about it.

Lauren knew her grandfather had died in Dachau, but she had never visited the camp during her trips to Germany. She had never visited her ancestral home of Leipzig. She’d never examined the Nazi death camp documents that were being opened up as the years passed. She had never seen the name Felix Rosenthal entered in any official record.

Her efforts had gone into her research on the lost art. She could not bring her grandfather back. But the art. A canvas, a drawing, an artist’s creation could outlast him by centuries. Creativity could live on long after the creator was gone.

She’d been accused of having a vendetta. One modern-day art collector—who even Lauren would admit had been a victim, too, as there had been no knowledge that the painting was anything but a legal purchase—had said there was as much revenge as reclamation involved in her tireless efforts. She’d ruffled at the accusation. Yet, at times she wondered if this was true. And now she questioned why she had become so
obsessed
, as Patrick put it, with tracking down Hanna Fleischmann in the form of her heirs. Hanna’s only remaining heir was Isabella Fletcher.

What did she hope to gain? The recovery of stolen art? The discovery of a lavish life that had been supported by the selling of confiscated, degenerate art?

“I didn’t understand,” Isabella said, her voice calmed, fatigue subduing the fury. “She wasn’t a Jew, but she’d been married to one. I’m not sure that was a factor, if her difficulty getting out of Germany was related to this. By that time just about anyone applying for papers had trouble. Quotas had been filled for emigration to many countries that were willing to take Germans—Jews or otherwise.”

Isabella motioned to the photo with the broken glass, the picture of the young girl with her brother. “This picture was taken in America. Aunt Katie took us to a studio to have it done to send to Mother. I remember how proud Willy was as we posed for the photographer, as he gave us instructions.” Isabella smiled faintly at the memory. “I thought it was so she wouldn’t forget us. It was very difficult for me to understand why she wouldn’t come to us, particularly after Papa died. Or why she didn’t send for us to come home. I didn’t realize at the time that she—we—had lost everything; the art, the gallery, our home. She didn’t write about any of this in the letters she sent to America. After a while she quit writing. I thought she was dead.” The old woman’s lip quivered.

Suddenly Lauren saw Mrs. Fletcher as a hurt, frightened little girl, waiting for her mother. She was the child in the photograph. The old woman blinked away the tears. Then she leaned back into her chair and it seemed her physical form had shrunk as if the large winged chair was about to swallow her up.

“I have never spoken of this,” Isabella said, her voice so quiet Lauren could barely make out her words. “Never spoken of any of this to anyone other than Andrew.” She let out a faint, sad laugh. “And now, here I sit, revealing all this to a stranger.” She picked up her cup from the end table and took a small sip of what by now must have been cold tea, and then she cradled it protectively in her hands.

Both women remained silent, until finally, Lauren spoke quietly. “How did Hanna, your mother, survive with no home, no means of support?”

“Family. She lived with my half sister, her stepdaughter, Helene, who was really more like a sister, and her husband, Jakob, in Berlin, and then with Aunt Leni in Munich.” Isabella set her cup on the table and resumed her formal posture, though Lauren sensed she had not regained her composure. “Eventually she found work for a short while. You must understand, speaking of this was painful for her. So much of what happened to her I don’t really know. Eventually she returned to Berlin and—” Abruptly Isabella stopped. The words ceased to flow. Lauren could see her hand, running over the arm of her chair, was trembling. The woman closed her eyes. Her shoulders shuddered.

“Berlin?” Lauren asked. “She returned to Berlin?” Had they finally come to Berlin in the story? This was, as far as Lauren was concerned, where the story she was originally searching for really began. There was something revealing in this hesitation.

The two women’s eyes locked for a brief moment, and then Isabella looked away, her gaze resting on the grate of the fireplace, as if staring into a fire, hoping it might provide some warmth for a room that had suddenly cooled.

“Did she move in with Helene again?” Lauren asked. “When she went back to Berlin? What did Hanna do in Berlin? Was she able to find work?” Inside she was telling herself to slow down, to shut up, to give the woman some space. Patrick said she tended to talk too much when she was nervous or excited or tired. Yet now she felt as if she were running out of time, as if she would never know what had really happened in Berlin. After Hanna’s husband had died. After she’d sent her children away.

“I’m very tired, Ms. . . . Mrs. O’Farrell,” Isabella corrected herself. “Could you return tomorrow?”

“Yes, I . . . Of course. I appreciate your talking to me.” Lauren sat, waiting, though she wasn’t sure what she was waiting for. Slowly, she reached down for her bag, glancing once more at the photo of Isabella and her brother, Willy. She picked up her teacup, placed it back on the tray, then offered to carry it back to the kitchen, but the woman held out her hand to stop her.

“I can take care of it,” she said as they shared a cautious laugh, both aware of Lauren’s earlier clumsiness, and the result of that. Perhaps both needing something less daunting than the events Isabella had just spoken of to end Lauren’s visit.

“I’d feel much better,” Lauren said, “if you’d let me replace the broken glass on your picture. I could bring it back tomorrow.”

Isabella shot her a look as if to say,
Do you really think I’d let you take off with one of my most valuable possessions?

“The glass, yes,” the older woman finally said. “If you’ll bring a new piece of glass we could replace it.”

Quickly Lauren pulled a small measuring tape out of a zippered pocket in her bag, along with her notebook and pen, and Mrs. Fletcher nodded as if she approved of her organization, her being prepared. The younger woman took the measurements of the frame, jotting the numbers down, realizing it wasn’t a standard size and she’d have to have the glass custom cut. She knew it would be better to take the photograph and frame and have it reassembled in a frame shop, but she didn’t want to suggest this unless Isabella herself brought it up. Which she didn’t.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fletcher,” Lauren said as she placed measuring tape, pen, and notebook back into her bag. She stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Yes,” Isabella said. “We will talk more tomorrow. Sometime after lunch. One o’clock?”

“Yes, that would work for me,” Lauren said, mentally rearranging her schedule, hoping Adam’s day care would have an afternoon drop-in spot.

Mrs. Fletcher escorted her to the door. “Please,” she said as they stepped into the foyer, “I’d request that you speak to no one of what I’ve told you about the Kandinsky
Composition
, about my family.” The woman’s voice had lost its strength.

The smell of the roses on the table in the crystal bowl intensified as they stood in the foyer, but as Lauren glanced over she felt as if they had begun to wither. And she had the feeling that Mrs. Fletcher was now having second thoughts about agreeing to this conversation, about the information she had revealed. Had she given Lauren more than she’d originally intended? Was the offer of tomorrow just a ploy to get her out of the apartment?