Windy City Blues (9 page)

“Now it’s my turn to ask to be spared a lecture,” Max interrupted gently. “But if you feel so strongly about him, maybe you shouldn’t go to his party this afternoon.”

“And admit that he can beat me? Never.”

“Very well then.” Max got up and placed a heavily brocaded wool shawl over Lotty’s shoulders. “But you must promise me to behave. This is a social function we are going to, remember, not a gladiator contest. Caudwell is trying to repay some hospitality this afternoon, not to belittle you.”

“I don’t need lessons in conduct from you: Herschels were attending the emperors of Austria while the Loewenthals were operating vegetable stalls on the Ring,” Lotty said haughtily.

Max laughed and kissed her hand. “Then remember these regal Herschels and act like them,
Eure Hoheit.”

Caudwell had bought an apartment sight unseen when he moved to Chicago. A divorced man whose children are in college only has to consult with his own taste in these matters. He asked the Beth Israel board to recommend a realtor, sent his requirements to them—twenties construction, near Lake Michigan, good security, modern plumbing—and dropped seven hundred and fifty thousand for an eight-room condo facing the lake at Scott Street.

Since Beth Israel paid handsomely for the privilege of retaining Dr. Charlotte Herschel as their perinatologist, nothing required her to live in a five-room walk-up on the fringes of Uptown, so it was a bit unfair of her to mutter “Parvenu” to Max when they walked into the lobby.

Max relinquished Lotty gratefully when they got off the elevator. Being her lover was like trying to be companion to a Bengal tiger: you never knew when she’d take a lethal swipe at you. Still, if Caudwell was insulting her—and her judgment—maybe he needed to talk to the surgeon, explain how important Lotty was for the reputation of Beth Israel.

Caudwell’s two children were making the obligatory Christmas visit. They were a boy and a girl, Deborah and Steve, within a year of the same age, both tall, both! blond and poised, with a hearty sophistication born of a childhood spent on expensive ski slopes. Max wasn’t very big, and as one took his
coat and the other performed brisk introductions, he felt himself shrinking, losing in self-assurance. He accepted a glass of special
cuvée
from one of them—was it the boy or the girl, he wondered in confusion—and fled into the melee.

He landed next to one of Beth Israel’s trustees, a woman in her sixties wearing a gray textured minidress whose black stripes were constructed of feathers. She commented brightly on Caudwell’s art collection, but Max sensed an undercurrent of hostility: wealthy trustees don’t like the idea that they can’t out buy the staff.

While he was frowning and nodding at appropriate intervals, it dawned on Max that Caudwell did know how much the hospital needed Lotty. Heart surgeons do not have the world’s smallest egos: when you ask them to name the world’s three leading practitioners, they never can remember the names of the other two. Lotty was at the top of her field, and she, too, was used to having things her way. Since her confrontational style was reminiscent more of the Battle of the Bulge than the Imperial Court of Vienna, he didn’t blame Caudwell for trying to force her out of the hospital.

Max moved away from Martha Gildersleeve to admire some of the paintings and figurines she’d been discussing. A collector himself of Chinese porcelains, Max raised his eyebrows and mouthed a soundless whistle at the pieces on display. A small Watteau and a
Charles Demuth watercolor were worth as much as Beth Israel paid Caudwell in a year. No wonder Mrs. Gildersleeve had been so annoyed.

“Impressive, isn’t it.”

Max turned to see Arthur Gioia looming over him. Max was shorter than most of the Beth Israel staff, shorter than everyone but Lotty. But Gioia, a tall muscular immunologist, loomed over everyone. He had gone to the University of Arkansas on a football scholarship and had even spent a season playing tackle for Houston before starting medical school. It had been twenty years since he last lifted weights, but his neck still looked like a redwood stump.

Gioia had led the opposition to Caudwell’s appointment. Max had suspected at the time that it was due more to a medicine man’s not wanting a surgeon as his nominal boss than from any other cause, but after Lotty’s outburst he wasn’t so sure. He was debating whether to ask the doctor how he felt about Caudwell now that he’d worked with him for six months when their host surged over to him and shook his hand.

“Sorry I didn’t see you when you came in, Loewenthal. You like the Watteau? It’s one of my favorite pieces. Although a collector shouldn’t play favorites any more than a father should, eh, sweetheart?” The last remark was addressed to the daughter, Deborah, who had come up behind Caudwell and slipped an arm around him.

Caudwell looked more like a Victorian sea dog than a surgeon. He had a round red face under a shock of yellow-white hair, a hearty Santa Claus laugh, and a bluff, direct manner. Despite Lotty’s vituperations, he was immensely popular with his patients. In the short time he’d been at the hospital, referrals to cardiac surgery had increased 15 percent.

His daughter squeezed his shoulder playfully. “I know you don’t play favorites with us, Dad, but you’re lying to Mr. Loewenthal about your collection; come on, you know you are.”

She turned to Max. “He has a piece he’s so proud of he doesn’t like to show it to people—he doesn’t want them to see he’s got vulnerable spots. But it’s Christmas, Dad, relax, let people see how you feel for a change.”

Max looked curiously at the surgeon, but Caudwell seemed pleased with his daughter’s familiarity. The son came up and added his own jocular cajoling.

“This really is Dad’s pride and joy. He stole it from Uncle Griffen when Grandfather died and kept Mother from getting her mitts on it when they split up.”

Caudwell did bark out a mild reproof at that. “You’ll be giving my colleagues the wrong impression of me, Steve. I didn’t steal it from Grif. Told him he could have the rest of the estate if he’d leave me the Watteau and the Pietro.”

“Of course he could’ve bought ten estates with
what those two would fetch,” Steve muttered to his sister over Max’s head.

Deborah relinquished her father’s arm to lean over Max and whisper back, “Mom could’ve used them, too.”

Max moved away from the alarming pair to say to Caudwell, “A Pietro? You mean Pietro d’Alessandro? You have a model, or an actual sculpture?”

Caudwell gave his staccato admiral’s laugh. “The real McCoy, Loewenthal. The real McCoy. An alabaster.”

“An alabaster?” Max raised his eyebrows. “Surely not. I thought Pietro worked only in bronze and marble.”

“Yes, yes,” chuckled Caudwell, rubbing his hands together. “Everyone thinks so, but there were a few alabasters in private collections. I’ve had this one authenticated by experts. Come take a look at it—it’ll knock your breath away. You come, too, Gioia,” he barked at the immunologist. “You’re Italian, you’ll like to see what your ancestors were up to.”

“A Pietro alabaster?” Lotty’s clipped tones made Max start—he hadn’t noticed her joining the little group. “I would very much like to see this piece.”

“Then come along, Dr. Herschel, come along.” Caudwell led them to a small hallway, exchanging genial greetings with his guests as he passed, pointing out a John William Hill miniature they might not
have seen, picking up a few other people who for various reasons wanted to see his prize.

“By the way, Gioia, I was in New York last week, you know. Met an old friend of yours from Arkansas. Paul Nierman.”

“Nierman?” Gioia seemed to be at a loss. “I’m afraid I don’t remember him.”

“Well, he remembered you pretty well. Sent you all kinds of messages—you’ll have to stop by my office on Monday and get the full strength.”

Caudwell opened a door on the right side of the hall and let them into his study. It was an octagonal room carved out of the corner of the building. Windows on two sides looked out on Lake Michigan. Caudwell drew salmon drapes as he talked about the room, why he’d chosen it for his study even though the view kept his mind from his work.

Lotty ignored him and walked over to a small pedestal which stood alone against the paneling on one of the far walls. Max followed her and gazed respectfully at the statue. He had seldom seen so fine a piece outside a museum. About a foot high, it depicted a woman in classical draperies hovering in anguish over the dead body of a soldier lying at her feet. The grief in her beautiful face was so poignant that it reminded you of every sorrow you had ever faced.

“Who is it meant to be?” Max asked curiously.

“Andromache,” Lotty said in a strangled voice. “Andromache mourning Hector.”

Max stared at Lotty, astonished equally by her emotion and her knowledge of the figure—Lotty was totally uninterested in sculpture.

Caudwell couldn’t restrain the smug smile of a collector with a true coup. “Beautiful, isn’t it? How do you know the subject?”

“I should know it.” Lotty’s voice was husky with emotion. “My grandmother had such a Pietro. An alabaster given her great-grandfather by the Emperor Joseph the Second himself for his help in consolidating imperial ties with Poland.”

She swept the statue from its stand, ignoring a gasp from Max, and turned it over. “You can see the traces of the imperial stamp here still. And the chip on Hector’s foot which made the Hapsburg wish to give the statue away to begin with. How came you to have this piece? Where did you find it?”

The small group that had joined Caudwell stood silent by the entrance, shocked at Lotty’s outburst. Gioia looked more horrified than any of them, but he found Lotty overwhelming at the best of times—an elephant confronted by a hostile mouse.

“I think you’re allowing your emotions to carry you away, Doctor.” Caudwell kept his tone light, making Lotty seem more gauche by contrast. “I inherited this piece from my father, who bought it—legitimately—in Europe. Perhaps from your—grandmother, was it? But I suspect you are confused about
something you may have seen in a museum as a child.”

Deborah gave a high-pitched laugh and called loudly to her brother, “Dad may have stolen it from Uncle Grif, but it looks like Grandfather snatched it to begin with anyway.”

“Be quiet, Deborah,” Caudwell barked sternly.

His daughter paid no attention to him. She laughed again and joined her brother to look at the imperial seal on the bottom of the statue.

Lotty brushed them aside. “I am confused about the seal of Joseph the Second?” she hissed at Caudwell. “Or about this chip on Hector’s foot? You can see the line where some philistine filled in the missing piece. Some person who thought his touch would add value to Pietro’s work. Was that you,
Doctor?
Or your father?”

“Lotty.” Max was at her side, gently prising the statue from her shaking hands to restore it to its pedestal. “Lotty, this is not the place or the manner to discuss such things.”

Angry tears sparkled in her black eyes. “Are you doubting my word?”

Max shook his head. “I’m not doubting you. But I’m also not supporting you. I’m asking you not to talk about this matter in this way at this gathering.”

“But, Max: either this man or his father is a thief!”

Caudwell strolled up to Lotty and pinched her chin. “You’re working too hard, Dr. Herschel. You
have too many things on your mind these days. I think the board would like to see you take a leave of absence for a few weeks, go someplace warm, get yourself relaxed. When you’re this tense, you’re no good to your patients. What do you say, Loewenthal?”

Max didn’t say any of the things he wanted to—that Lotty was insufferable and Caudwell intolerable. He believed Lotty, believed that the piece had been her grandmother’s. She knew too much about it, for one thing. And for another, a lot of artworks belonging to European Jews were now in museums or private collections around the world. It was only the most god-awful coincidence that the Pietro had ended up with Caudwell’s father.

But how dare she raise the matter in the way most likely to alienate everyone present? He couldn’t possibly support her in such a situation. And at the same time, Caudwell’s pinching her chin in that condescending way made him wish he were not chained to a courtesy that would have kept him from knocking the surgeon out even if he’d been ten years younger and ten inches taller.

“I don’t think this is the place or the time to discuss such matters,” he reiterated as calmly as he could. “Why don’t we all cool down and get back together on Monday, eh?”

Lotty gasped involuntarily, then swept from the room without a backward glance.

Max refused to follow her. He was too angry with her to want to see her again that afternoon. When he got ready to leave the party an hour or so later, after a long conversation with Caudwell that taxed his sophisticated urbanity to the utmost, he heard with relief that Lotty was long gone. The tale of her outburst had of course spread through the gathering at something faster than the speed of sound; he wasn’t up to defending her to Martha Gildersleeve, who demanded an explanation of him in the elevator going down.

He went home for a solitary evening in his house in Evanston. Normally such time brought him pleasure, listening to music in his study, lying on the couch with his shoes off, reading history, letting the sounds of the lake wash over him.

Tonight, though, he could get no relief. Fury with Lotty merged into images of horror, the memories of his own disintegrated family, his search through Europe for his mother. He had never found anyone who was quite certain what became of her, although several people told him definitely of his father’s suicide. And stamped over these wisps in his brain was the disturbing picture of Caudwell’s children, their blond heads leaning backward at identical angles as they gleefully chanted, “Grandpa was a thief, Grandpa was a thief,” while Caudwell edged his visitors out of the study.

By morning he would somehow have to reconstruct
himself enough to face Lotty, to respond to the inevitable flood of calls from outraged trustees. He’d have to figure out a way of soothing Caudwell’s vanity, bruised more by his children’s behavior than anything Lotty had said. And find a way to keep both important doctors at Beth Israel.