Under the Egg (12 page)

“A bird?” Now my voice caught in my throat. “Did the painting have a bird with a mother and child?”

“Yes, that was it.” He looked back at me. “Did Jack tell you about it?”

I pressed on. “Did Max still have it? In the camp?”

“No, that was the thing. He'd traded it. When the Nazis rounded up the Jews in France, they said they'd just take the adults and leave the kids. But who knew how long that would last? Max had a little girl, about four or five years old. He was crazy about her. When he wasn't talking about the painting, he was talking about Anna. Anna this, Anna that. Anyway, when Max got word that he and his wife were being sent east, he promised the painting to some Nazi officer he knew—I'm telling you, he knew everyone—if the guy could get his daughter to safety. There was something about the painting that made him think the Nazi would do anything to get his hands on it.”

“Did Anna get out? Where did they send her?”

“He didn't know. Probably Spain. Maybe Switzerland. Max and his wife were sent to Auschwitz, where the wife was gassed immediately. He figured out soon enough that his family back in Poland was gone, too. Max was a big guy, so they kept him for labor, and pretty soon he'd gotten himself transferred to Buchenwald and then to Berga. He could make any trade, like I told you.” Mo sighed. “But he died without ever knowing if his daughter was safe.”

“He died in the camp?”

“He died with your grandfather! Making that escape almost got the rest of us killed.”

“You were there when my grandfather escaped?”

Mo looked proud. “There? I knew all the plans! Your grandfather knew the Americans were getting close. He figured that with his Aryan looks and Max's German they could bluff their way through the countryside, all the way to the Allied lines.”

“Did you go with them?”

“They asked me to, but I said no. I thought I had a better chance waiting it out in the camp kitchen than in some German farmer's barn. Max got his hands on a couple of Nazi uniforms, and every night after roll call, they'd put them on under their clothes. The guards turned off the electricity during the night air raids, you see, and Max and Jack would be able to crawl under the electrified fence and slip into the forest.

“So finally one night there was a raid, and they ran for the fence as soon as the guards cut the juice. But Max got his jacket caught on the wire, and by the time the lights went up, there he was. And it was all over. One shot.”

“But Jack got away?”

“He got away, although how, I'll never know. They sent guards and dogs out after him. Of course, the rest of us at camp bore the brunt of his punishment. They cut our rations in half for the next week.”

“Cut your rations? In
half
?” Bodhi sputtered. “But half of nothing is—”

“Bubkes. And when the Allied troops started to close in, the guards packed us up and marched us east for two weeks. By the time the Americans finally caught up with us, I weighed a hundred pounds.” Mo chuckled softly. “And to think my mom always said I was too skinny.”

I gasped. At my last physical I'd weighed a little over a hundred pounds. Me, a thirteen-year-old girl. Not a soldier keeping the world safe for democracy.

“What did your mom say when she saw you?”

“The docs fixed me up before shipping me home, and I never talked about it. At the hospital, they made me sign a piece of paper, saying that I couldn't talk about Berga. For ‘wartime and peacetime security,'” Mo shook his head bitterly. “Even then I knew that was a load of bunk. They just didn't want any bad blood while they tried to lure all of Germany's best scientists to the States.”

“You sound angry.” And it was no surprise. Knowing what happened at Berga, I understood why Jack stole back a painting from his friend's killers and hid it away for years. “I think my grandfather felt the same way.”

“Angry? Nah. I don't believe in anger. Only revenge.”

“How did you get your revenge?” asked Bodhi, looking around the room for another painting, waiting to be discovered.

Mo gestured with one shaky hand to the photos that covered his wall: a patchwork quilt of weddings, bar mitzvahs, and family reunions; generations of baby pictures mixed in with vacation photos and more than one snapshot of someone receiving a plaque or presenting a giant check. “Genesis Fifteen. ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars. So shall be your descendants.'” Mo smiled. “That's enough revenge for me.”

• • •

Bodhi and I were quiet on the ferry back to Manhattan. Partly, I think, we were enjoying the salty harbor air on that hot afternoon. But as the Statue of Liberty approached, we both lingered at the railing as she passed by.

“So the painting belonged to that guy, Max?” Bodhi finally broke in.

I nodded.

“How did it end up with Hitler?”

“I'm guessing that the Nazi officer, whoever he was, gave it to Hitler. Or maybe gave it to his boss, who gave it to his boss, all the way up the line. That book on the Monuments Men said that all the Nazis collected art, and they used it to get promoted and stuff.”

“So the painting
really
belongs to Max.”

I thought about it. “I don't know. He did trade it, fair and square.”

“It's only fair and square if Anna made it out alive.”

“Who?”

“Anna. Max's daughter.”

“Oh, right.”

Bodhi tapped my head with her finger. “You know, you should really be writing this stuff down.”

She was right. I dug in my sweater bag for a pen and some old homework pages.

“Okay,” I scratched, “Max was at Berga—”

“And Auschwitz and Buchenwald, too,” Bodhi added.

“Okay . . . Buchenwald . . . got it. March–April 1945, Max, what was his last name?”

“Trenczer?”

“Right, Max Trenczer, daughter Anna Trenczer . . .”

“I wonder if she did make it out. I wonder if there's an Anna Trenczer out there somewhere.” Bodhi hung her shoulders over the railing, her braids dangling, her hands reaching to catch the boat's spray. “We should try and find her before it's too late.”

I looked up from my notes. “Wait . . . what?”

Bodhi stood up and raised her voice over the drone of the engine. “I said, we should find Anna Trenczer before it's too late.”

Anna Trenczer. Before it's too late.

Not “and a treasure.” Anna Trenczer.

It's just what my grandfather asked of me in his dying moments. To find his letter—and Anna Trenczer—before it's too late.

I
didn't exactly race out and search the four corners of the earth for Anna Trenczer. I sat with this revelation and mulled it over for a day or two.

Okay, it was five.

I'm not proud of this. What I was, as Jack would say, was cheesed off.

Nothing against Miss Trenczer. I'm sure she was a lovely girl, or as lovely as a four-year-old could be. No, my growing sense of injustice was reserved for my own grandfather.

Here we have a painting that Jack sat on for sixty years. Did he try and sell it? No. Did he leave me its sales history or background so that I could sell it? No. Did he turn it in himself and claim some kind of reward? No. Did he at least leave me with a clear record of this girl's name and story so that I could find her, if that's what he cared about so darn much? No.

Instead, he promises me a “treasure,” but leaves me with a gurgled mission to find some girl he's never met and give
her
the painting. Her.

So rather than embarking on the Great Search for Anna Trenczer, I spent the next few days dedicating myself to the house. If I couldn't find a treasure, I'd have to do the hard work of making our money—and our house—last.

I brought a panicked determination to my chores. I canned, I pickled, I jellied. I snaked the kitchen sink. I plunged the upstairs toilet. I hauled the remaining Tenpenny silver—now just a jumble of obsolete tongs and prongs—to a pawnshop, netting a much-needed $78. I even ransacked Jack's armoire, the one blocking the leftover connecting door between our house and Madame Dumont's, for loose change. (Jack pushed it there after Madame Dumont complained about his loud snoring. I think he really believed she was going to sneak in and smother him in his sleep.)

All the while, my mom scritch-scratched away on her legal pads.

With one ear always listening for the door, I worked through my to-do list. I also nurtured a fantasy where I'd meet Lydon, the cops, and their warrant at the door with the painting: “It belongs to someone named Anna Trenczer. Good luck finding her.” Slam.

As it turns out, the only raps at the door came from Bodhi. But I skulked around with the curtains drawn, deliberately avoiding her knocks and notes.

Tuesday morning I found a slip of paper shoved through the mail slot:
Googling ‘Anna Trenczer'/‘Anna Trencher', but found 0. Prbly married, chgd name. Wd Eddie know how 2 find out? Meet @ library today @ 12:00. B.

I spent the day taking inventory on the pantry (beans getting low) and doing another round of canning. On Wednesday I got this note:
Where r u? Eddie gave me some books on Holocaust. Also, he has a friend who can help us. Y DON'T U HAVE A PHONE?!?

Thursday I got two notes:
R u trapped under a chiffarobe?
and
?????????????.

Friday morning was particularly stifling, and when I looked in the mirror I saw that I was starting to get crazy eyes like that lady in the park who wears underwear over her clothes. It was time to leave the house.

The day wasn't good for anything besides the city pool, so I put on my mom's old neon bathing suit and a cover-up I'd made out of an old towel. With the garden tended, my mother's tea tray by her door, and a lunch of hard-boiled eggs and green beans in my sweater bag, I headed out the front door feeling quite self-sufficient.

Bodhi was waiting for me on the front stoop.

She brushed the paint chips off the back of her khakis as she stood up. “Finally.”

“Oh, hi. There you are,” I chirped.

“No, there
you
are. Why have you been avoiding me?”

“I haven't been avoiding—”

“—me, yes you have.” Bodhi blocked my way, her arms folded.

“I've been busy,” I sniffed. “Some of us have chores, you know. Some of us don't have a team of assistants to run our lives.”

Bodhi regarded me with more amusement than anger. “I think you're the one who wants a team of assistants. But I'm not doing this alone.”

“What alone? I didn't ask you to do anything.”

“What do you think I'm doing? Finding this girl, this Anna Trenczer.”

Bodhi's big brown eyes were fixed on me, and I looked away. “I'm not sure I want to find her.”

I squeezed past Bodhi and headed down the sidewalk.

“Don't want to find her?” Bodhi trotted alongside me. “Isn't that what your grandfather asked you to do? There's this girl out there—well, a woman now—waiting for her painting. You're just going to hold on to it?”

“Isn't that what Jack did? Why should I do anything different?”

We rounded Seventh Avenue, my course fixed on the pool.

“Listen,” I huffed, “I've lost my grandfather. I've lost the painting that I looked at every morning of my life. I've lost the hidden stash of treasure—if there ever even was one—that was promised to me. And if I give this painting away, I'll lose the last thing—it turns out the only thing—my grandfather left me.” I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “I'm not losing any more.”

Bodhi looked baffled. “You're crazy. Yeah, you've lost some things, but you've found so much. You've found this beautiful painting. You've found a whole side of your grandfather you never knew existed. You've found all this history and all these people and all their stories.”

She smiled shyly.

“And you've found a friend. So have I.” Bodhi linked her arm in mine like a character in a Nancy Drew book. “This is turning into the best summer I've ever had. And that includes the summer I spent snowboarding in Argentina.”

“Why, girls, what fun. I was just thinking of you.”

We looked up to see a familiar figure in black waddling toward us. Reverend Cecily still wore her Birkenstocks, but now with a combination of black Bermuda shorts and shirt with a priest's collar.

“How goes your mystery? Was my friend Gus of any help?”

“Who?”

“Augustus Garvey. My parishioner at Cadwalader's.”

If I had known he went by Gus, I might not have been so intimidated. “Not exactly.”

“Oh, that's a shame. This painting has gotten under my skin, you know. There's something about it, isn't there? One look, and it just takes hold.”

“That's just what I was saying to Theo here.” Bodhi stuck out her tongue at me.

“Well, I was just mulling it over the other day,” Reverend Cecily rummaged around a satchel she carried and produced a folded up slip of paper, “I went back to the poem and found an alternate reading. There's something about this idea of Raphael.”

Bodhi and I exchanged looks. In all the excitement around Nazis and secret missions and missing girls, I'd almost forgotten about the painting itself.

“Raphael, huh?” I reached out my hand. “Well, anything's possible. Maybe I could look at those notes?”

“Of course.” She pressed the paper into my open hand. “But you must promise me to come back and report all your findings. I have become quite entranced by this painting.”

“Will do. Well, thanks, Reverend Cecily.”

“Not at all.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze and waddled away down Seventh Avenue.

Bodhi blocked my way on the sidewalk again. “She's right. And you know she's right.”

“Who's right?” A shadow fell over me as a hulking figure drew near enough to block out the sun. It was Eddie. He flipped his mirrored sunglasses on top of his shaved head. “I thought we were meeting at the diner.”

“We were. But this one's having second thoughts.”

“Who's meeting at the diner?” I looked back and forth between them.

“We are. You are. That's why I came by your house. Eddie found us a lead.”

“Well, not a lead. A friend. Well, not a friend. Although, you know, we're friend
ly
, but not friend-friends,” Eddie blushed. “A classmate. From my Library Science degree. Anyway, she works nearby, and she said she can help you track down this missing girl.”

I looked at Bodhi. “You told him?”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Because—” I must have been yelling, because even a hipster in headphones looked up. “Because this is
my
painting,
my
mystery, and
my
business. And it's
my
decision whether or not to finish it.”

“Oh, hello, Miss Theo.” The smell of roasted vanilla floated over me, and I turned around to see Sanjiv pushing his cart past us. “I was thinking about your dilemma. Latex. It must be latex paint, I think. I have some research to show you.”

Bodhi put her arm around my shoulder.

“Sorry, Theo. It's bigger than the both of us now.”