The Chrysalis (7 page)

nine

LEIDEN, 1646

S
HOUTING ROUSES JOHANNES. THE VOICES REVERBERATE
through his drafty loft, muddling the words and masking the identity of the speakers. He shoves off the sheets and strains to understand. Risking a beating, he slides out of bed and crawls to the top of the stairwell.

He peers through the spindles. The voices belong to his parents. Mother is on her knees. She begs Father for forgiveness. She pleads for Johannes's freedom. She offers herself in exchange.

Father refuses. He has learned their secret. The path to the Catholic meetinghouse was not as empty as they had thought. Judith spied them on it and followed.

Mother beseeches him. She has kept her promise. Johannes has taken none of the Catholic sacraments; he is pure Calvinist.

Father's voice cracks like a whip. “How can I leave Johannes in your charge? The one child God saw fit for us to steward to the next world?” Her leniency with Johannes's games and her soft affection seemed harmless folly, but he sees now that they marked her lack of care for the child's soul. No, Johannes will stay under her supervision no longer.

The house grows silent, except for the howling winter wind. “Where will he go?” Mother whispers.

“To the studio of Nicholaes Van Maes.”

“The painter?”

“Yes, the court portrait artist. His faith is beyond reproach.”

The stairs creak as Father begins the steep ascent. Johannes scrambles back to bed. Feigning sleep, he feels the edge of his bed bow as Father lowers himself down. As he tries to quiet his breathing, a lock of his hair rises with each labored inhalation. Father brushes the lock from his forehead, the first time Johannes recalls his touch, and begins explaining that God's will for Johannes has changed. He now desires Johannes to develop the talent He gave him and apprentice at the studio of a man with the patronage of their very own burgomaster and even members of The Hague. This man will shepherd Johannes well, Father promises, and places his cheek on Johannes's.

         

Judith hands him one last parcel as he climbs into the barge. Father secures the trunks and orders their departure. With his pole, the boatman breaks the ice gripping the barge and then signals for the barge to push off from the landing. Johannes turns back to etch his home in his memory and sees Mother in the turret window, a handkerchief to her eye. Seeing Johannes's lip quiver, Father forbids the tears, reminding him that this is a test of his faith.

Johannes shapes the passing silhouette into a landscape in his mind. Redbrick buildings and orange tiled roofs sail by, their reflections on the mirrorlike surface of the water joining the journey. Clouds, azure, slate, and ocher, color the tarnished pewter sky. The spire of the vast church, where he worships with Father, and the towered city gates darken the canal before them. They must pass through the brackish liquid before they can get under way, out to the open waters.

The surprising jolt of the boat's arrival at their destination interrupts his mind-painting. When Johannes alights from the boat onto the stairs, he feels moisture about his feet and ankles. He looks down. The boat has begun to fill with freezing water. The wetness accompanies him to his new master.

ten

NEW YORK CITY, PRESENT DAY

S
ATURDAY ARRIVED LIKE EVERY OTHER DAY, AND MARA AUTOMATICALLY
got up for the office. The only difference in her routine was that she put on jeans, a sweater, and boots rather than a blouse, suit, and heels. As she neared her office building, her favorite bookstore, her Saturday luxury, pleaded for her attention, its storefront displays seeming to dance frantically to catch her eye. She knew she should ignore the store today, since work summoned her just as loudly, but she pushed open the door anyway.

The familiar jumble of books and crowd of eager readers soothed her restless mind. She made a beeline for the art history and archaeology section, where just opening the books, cracking the new spines, smelling the fresh print, always thrilled her. Here time faded away, and she forgot to measure in tenths of an hour.

She moved from art history to biography: Although she rarely had any time to read, she gathered heaps of books on lives she doubted she'd ever be brave enough to live. Mara bent down to add one more book to the basket she'd have to have delivered to her apartment and then stood just as a fellow browser stepped back and accidentally knocked her to the floor. A hand appeared before her and apologies spilled out before Mara could even get to her feet. The voice was Michael's.

Standing face-to-face, without a conference table and piles of paper between them, Mara noticed that his eyes twinkled and his dimples flashed. Though the bookstore was equidistant between their two offices, she was astonished to see him in the Midtown store on a weekend. After all, his apartment was downtown, and she thought Beazley's didn't demand his presence on Saturday and Sunday. “Michael,” she managed to say, “what are you doing here?”

“Looking for a good book, just like you, I assume. Although maybe not quite so many good books as you,” he answered coyly, glancing down at her basket.

“Sorry, I meant, what are you doing in Midtown? I thought you didn't work on weekends.”

He explained that he had needed to stop by the office to pick up a few contracts to review over the weekend, and since he had no plans for the day, he decided to stop in the bookstore. “How about lunch?” he asked.

She begged off, although she was tempted on many levels. “I've got too much work.”

“But aren't I part of your lawyerly duties? You can bill me.” His logic proved both irrefutable and irresistible.

Lunch turned into a walk in Central Park. The walk in the park developed into cocktails. Cocktails grew into dinner at a favorite Japanese restaurant near his apartment. Throughout the day, Michael was friendly but surprisingly businesslike. Mara expected to feel wary and on guard, but instead, she found herself wondering whether he had fallen for someone else. Deena? She shook her head at her own silliness and tried to feel relieved by the prospect of relating to Michael solely as a client, without the specter of a relationship constantly throwing her off course.

Over fresh sushi and warm sake, Michael enticed Mara into presenting her strategy. She felt nervous about the fact that it was merely a legal sketch awaiting animation by the facts and her performance, and her heart fluttered like a butterfly's wing. “I want to invite the judge to make new law,” she said.

Michael raked his fingers through his hair. “Make new law? Are you sure we should gamble this case on the chance the judge will ‘make new law'?” Her daring didn't impress him. Nonetheless, Mara remained confident; this was her domain, and she knew exactly how to proceed.

“Let me back up a second to explain the landscape of replevin law. Typically, triumph for a defendant in a replevin case hinges on proving that there is a chink somewhere in the plaintiff's chain of ownership—for instance, that the person from whom the plaintiff obtained the property didn't have title to pass. While I know that I'll be able to pull some evidence together along those lines from Lillian—after all, I'm sure she would never have approved
The Chrysalis
for auction if its title weren't airtight—I don't want our success to depend on that argument alone.

“So I have developed a second avenue that we can pursue. I unearthed a line of cases, starting with an old New York appellate case called
DeClerck,
stating that if the claimed ‘rightful owner' in a replevin action hasn't taken reasonable steps to find the stolen article, then the suit's dismissible as time-barred. Based on the rough timeline Hilda Baum sets out in the complaint and simple reality, I think it's improbable that Hilda sleuthed enough in the past sixty years to meet
DeClerck
's standards. I'm going to try to prove that in the discovery phase of the case—in Hilda's deposition, to be exact.” She paused. “What do you think?”

Michael looked at her, impressed. “I like it. Especially that second path, since we'd be able to avoid getting into the Baums' tragic history. It'd be all about what Hilda Baum did or didn't do afterward—her failure to search. We'd get to turn the tables on her, making it her problem. But just how viable do you think it is? How strong is your
DeClerck
precedent?” There was an unnerving excitement in his voice and a cold calculation in his eyes that Mara had never heard or seen before. She was taken aback, and she suddenly thought about the plaintiffs from all the replevin cases she had read: Alphonse Schwarz, Eva Blumer, Otto Stern, even Hilda Baum. She struggled to respond.

After a few moments, she composed herself and assumed the poise she had learned as an attorney. “Pretty viable,” she answered. “But we have two major hurdles to overcome. The biggest barrier is another New York case:
Scaife.
In that one, the court used an entirely different standard, basically holding that it doesn't matter whether a replevin plaintiff exercised due diligence in searching for his or her property. But
Scaife
is another appellate case, just like
DeClerck,
so neither case will automatically govern.

Our judge will have the ability to choose between them, and I'll have to persuade him to adopt
DeClerck,
or some harmonization of the two that mandates investigation on the plaintiff's part.”

“How will you convince him?”

“Public policy, I think.
Scaife
pretty much absolves former owners from any efforts to locate their stolen property, but this makes New York vulnerable to ancient claims that plaintiffs may have allowed to languish for years—even decades. If our judge were to follow
Scaife,
New York would be left without an effective statute of limitations on replevin cases and could become a magnet for stale, questionable litigation over stolen art. Given that New York is the hub of American art commerce, it could chill trade, driving galleries and auction houses elsewhere, to states that are more protective of them. What judge would want that on his conscience? Or on his record?”

“I sure wouldn't, but then no one would appoint me to a judgeship. You mentioned two hurdles to
DeClerck.
What's the second?”

“The facts. At this stage, I've no idea how dedicated Hilda Baum was to the task of finding this painting. The complaint doesn't have to be very detailed, and the facts in it are all we have to go on at this point in terms of her search. If Hilda let her claim languish for years, as I'm only guessing may be the case, we could have a powerful argument and—”

She froze. Deena had entered the restaurant, dressed in black leather pants and a skintight black sweater. Mara felt a surge of jealousy at the memory of Deena and Michael's flirtatious exchange, but the emotion was quickly supplanted by a wave of terror at the lightning-fire gossip that would spread through the firm if Deena saw them.

Michael was speaking, complimenting her on her creativity, but she could not respond. “Mara, what is it?” he asked.

She blushed, realizing she'd have to admit to spying him at the office in order to convince him of the situation's gravity. “You were at the attorneys' lunch at the firm this week?”

“Yes. Did you see me? Why didn't you come over and—?”

She interrupted him. “Do you remember talking to a tall, dark-haired woman in a purple dress?”

He looked down—a little guiltily, Mara thought. “Yes, but—“

“Never mind. That woman, Deena, just walked into this restaurant.”

Michael followed her gaze and craned his neck toward the entrance, muttering, “Oh my God, I think I mentioned to her that I come here.”

Mara grabbed his arm before he turned around fully. “Stop, don't turn around. I don't want her to spot us. This may sound histrionic, but we really need to get out of here.” Mara scanned the narrow room, realizing that they would have to pass directly by Deena's table to leave. She grabbed the jacket of their waiter. “Is there a back door to the restaurant?”

“Yes.” The waiter pointed to a metal door in the front area of the kitchen. It exited onto the side street. He tittered, assuming one of their spouses had wandered in unexpectedly. “Follow me.”

Michael gaped at her. “You've got to be kidding me. We're going out through the alleyway? What's there to hide?”

“Michael, here we are, on a Saturday night, miles away from either of our offices, but very close to your apartment. This is not so easily explained as a work dinner, innocent or not. Besides, her gossip about this dinner will be all over the firm by Monday morning. And you can be sure that the story won't be limited to the associates—it will reach the partners as well. Deena's on her second or third affair with a partner.” Mara held steady. “It'll compromise not just me but
Baum v. Beazley's.
This has been my fear all along. There are very strict rules about relationships between lawyers and clients. I'm sure you've read about the case of Lisa Minever?”

She needed to say nothing more. Michael laid out far more cash than the bill and seized their coats from the waiter. As he shielded Mara from the front of the restaurant, they hustled after the waiter toward the back.

Michael and Mara dashed by the startled gazes of the busboys; straddled the bags of garbage that blocked the entrance to the rear door, no doubt a fire hazard; and finally stepped into the alley. After weaving their way through abandoned boxes and piles of refuse, Mara and Michael emerged onto the street. They walked quickly without speaking for a few blocks, until they reached a local pub. Michael pulled Mara inside, strode to the bar, ordered a Guinness for himself and a glass of sauvignon blanc for her, and then joined her in a booth.

They raised their glasses in a toast and exploded into hysterical laughter.

Wiping away the tears, Mara apologized. “I feel so ridiculous. I'm so sorry to have made you do that.”

He downed his beer. “Are you kidding? That might be the closest thing to espionage that I ever experience.”

She gulped her wine, hoping to stop her heart from racing. “Another?”

Glass after glass later, after a long stroll, he walked her to her apartment door. She protested that such chivalry was unnecessary, but all the wine had made her foggy and vulnerable, and when he insisted, she acquiesced.

She fumbled for the apartment keys in her bag. He turned her toward him and reached for her free hand. He pressed each one of his fingers up against hers in a kind of embrace. She resisted folding her fingers into his.

“Mara, I'd like there to be something between us for Deena to gossip about.”

“Oh, Michael, I don't know. There's so much at stake.”

He whispered. “Please take it down, Mara.”

“Take what down?” She was confused.

“This barricade, this wall, whatever it is that stops your hand from folding into mine.”

“It's not that I don't want to, Michael, it's just that I'm scared.”

“Of what, Mara?”

“Of what will happen to me if things don't work out. You know how Severin would deal with me.”

“What if I promise you that things will work out?”

She knew he could make no such promises, but she was so tired of loneliness. Nor did she want to close herself off completely and marry herself off to Severin, Oliver & Means like Sophia. Michael pressed up against her, backing her into the apartment door. He kissed her, and his fingers began sliding up her sweater. As she wriggled away from him to open the door, he leaned into her back, nibbling her neck, breathing into it, breathing into her. He ran his hands slowly down her back and around to the insides of her thighs. He reached between them and then up. Mara froze. She stopped fumbling with the door and put her forehead on it, letting him touch her. She didn't care if her neighbors could see or hear. For once, she let herself go.