The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World (22 page)

Mrs. Zender said, “When you consider all the baggage that comes with those three words, they were enough.”

“What baggage?”

“Kurt Waldheim and Ivan the Terrible.”

Mrs. Vanderwaal was aghast, and even Mrs. Wilcox was openmouthed.

It was William who asked coolly, “Why do you say that, Mrs. Zender?”

“I do read the papers, you know, and I found out that even after his Nazi past was revealed, the Austrian people elected Kurt Waldheim to be their president. His margin of victory was less than ten percent.” Mrs. Zender exchanged a knowing look with Amedeo and added, “In politics even less than ten percent is enough.

“At the time there was another case about an ex-Nazi making the news. A mechanic in Cleveland, Ohio, was discovered to have been a guard at a concentration camp where he was known as Ivan the Terrible. After his Nazi past was discovered, he was stripped of his citizenship and deported. By then ex-Nazis had become so unpopular
in the United States, the U.S. government declared Waldheim, the former secretary general of the United Nations, an undesirable alien and barred him from coming to America where he had once lived. Well, now, there were the two cases of two men: one who had been living in America for forty years and had been deported, and one in Austria who had been newly elected president and was not allowed back in. So there was I with my finger on two buttons.

“I pushed both.

“I suggested to Mr. Zender that he call Mr. Eisenhuth and have him reroute his trip to Houston. St. Malo would be a wonderful point of entry to America for him. If he tried to come in through any other port, his name could mysteriously appear on a list of ex-Nazis, and he could possibly have trouble getting in.

“So Herr Eisenhuth entered the United States through the port of St. Malo, designed my system, paid for all the materials, and supervised its installation. After he left I put
The Moon Lady
away. Tucked it into a corner of the library. I couldn't destroy it. It is lovely, isn't it? But I never displayed it or enjoyed it.”

Mrs. Vanderwaal was dumbfounded. “You consider that penance? Never enjoying it? Or were you really just protecting yourself and your stolen goods?”

“I hardly came into the library. I more or less forgot about it until I had to move. Then I knew it would be discovered.”

William asked, “Were you counting on Amedeo to do that?”

“Not at first. When I hired Mrs. Wilcox, I knew she had discovered the Chinese silk screen. I do read the papers, you know. But then Amedeo came along.”

“You knew I wanted to discover something, didn't you?”

“Yes. I had heard you say that you wanted to find something that had been lost that no one knew had been lost until you found it. I thought that with your name being the same as Modigliani's and your being Jewish and Italian, there was enough there to pique your interest.”

“You planted it, didn't you?”

“Of course I did. I planted it when I found out that you were going to an exhibit of Degenerate art. The day you recited that little poem about Modigliani, I was sure you would turn
The Moon Lady
over to that person in Sheboygan—”

“Are you referring to my son? Is he ‘that person in Sheboygan'?”

“If he is the person who put together that show of Degenerate art.”

“He is.”

“Then he's that person in Sheboygan.”

“That person in Sheboygan has a name, Mrs. Zender. His name is Peter. Peter Vanderwaal. He is named for Johannes's brother, Pieter. Johannes's brother, parent, guardian, friend. I think you should remember it, Mrs. Zender, because his name is relevant as all memorials are relevant. Say his name, Mrs. Zender. Say Peter Vanderwaal.”

Mrs. Zender repeated, “Peter Vanderwaal.”

Momentarily satisfied, the two women turned from each other.

Then Mrs. Vanderwaal scolded, “You, Mrs. Zender, didn't want Amedeo to save
The Moon Lady,
you wanted him to relieve you of owning stolen merchandise that you yourself had done nothing about for half your life.”

“I haven't had my sound system for that long—half my life.”

“But you did nothing. Nothing! You obviously read the papers, Mrs. Zender. You know that even museums have had to give back stolen works—works that have been hanging on their walls for years. There are laws, Mrs. Zender.”

Worried that this exchange would escalate into warfare, Mrs. Wilcox asked, “When you planted that picture, Mrs.
Zender, did you have any idea that Amedeo would have a personal connection to it?”

“How could I know that? Didn't you just hear Mrs. Vanderwaal need to remind me of the name Peter? Peter Vanderwaal didn't enter into my plans until I found out he was sponsoring an exhibit of Degenerate art.”

William asked, “Were Bert and Ray unexpected?”

Mrs. Zender's reply was vague. “I guess I should have paid more attention to Mrs. Wilcox's lists. But I didn't. I simply found myself sitting in the music room with
The Moon Lady
perched on the piano.” And then, as if a ventriloquist had entered the room, Mrs. Zender launched into a wicked imitation of Bert: “‘What do you think, Ray? Do you think we'll be arrested for dealing in pornography if we display this in our shop?'” Mrs. Zender paused briefly before continuing with an accurate but mean impersonation of Ray. “‘If it's old enough and expensive enough, it's not pornographic, it's antique.'” Slipping back into her normal conversation tone, she added, “Those two men had no more intention of displaying
The Moon Lady
in their shop than they had of running with the bulls in Pamplona.”

Amedeo listened with his heart in his throat. Mrs. Zender was being carried away by her performance, and
she couldn't stop. Gone was the mild, mocking tone that he was accustomed to hearing. He didn't like Bert and Ray. They were jealous of Mrs. Wilcox, but they were not mean. The look on William's face told him that the acid in Mrs. Zender's voice had etched him, too.

Mrs. Zender softened her tone and continued, “Bert and Ray were going to march Modigliani straight to the nearest museum and make a profit that would put Mrs. Wilcox's sale to the Freer in the shade. However, I also knew, as they obviously did not, that no museum would buy it.” She looked at Mrs. Vanderwaal. “Yes, I do read the papers.” She turned back to her audience and added, “But by then Amedeo had allowed things to go too far.”

Amedeo was incensed. “How did
I
let things go too far? You're accusing me of not doing a job you never gave me. Like the telephones. You let me guess at what you want and then you accuse me . . .” Amedeo opened his mouth to say something more, but nothing would come out.

Mrs. Zender purred. “Admit it, Amedeo. It wasn't until I walked out that you realized what a disaster it would be if Bert and Ray bought
The Moon Lady.
”

“Did you play me, Mrs. Zender? Did you play me the way you played Mr. Zender—like a harpsichord?”

“Never! I could never play you like a harpsichord,
Amedeo. You are too
fortissimo,
but I didn't need to. Bert or Ray—one of them—had already plucked a G-string.” And then, like the mimic she was, Mrs. Zender slipped into Ray's voice. “Moe-DIG-lee-ahn-nee . . .”

And then suddenly Mrs. Wilcox jumped to her feet and clapped her hands.

Amedeo jumped. What was happening? Mrs. Wilcox was acting out of character, and so was Mrs. Vanderwaal. They were the peacemakers, and now they were calling attention to themselves the way that Mrs. Zender did.

“Let us just think about Bert and Ray for a minute. Think about why wouldn't they want a signed drawing? The price was right. Mrs. Zender had even approved it. But now think about what would have happened if Amedeo had not stopped it.” She looked around the room. “Mrs. Zender's already given us all a hint about that. We already know that no museum is gonna buy anything unless'n they investigate it. They call it
vetting.
And when the vetting is done, and they find out that there drawing don't have a proper provenance, there's gonna be one right big fuss. And that is when Bert and Ray will be enraged, and rightfully so. They're gonna call the newspaper. And rightfully so. And the paper will print an article. And prob'ly put it on a wire service. Such things make the national news these days. There would be martyrs, namely
Bert and Ray. And why wouldn't they be? They were sold stolen merchandise, and William and me would be caught in the middle of selling it. Something I should'na done. But I didn't follow up as I shoulda. I suspected something about
The Moon Lady
but I never suspected that it had cost a boy his life.”

Mrs. Zender said, “You could say that
The Moon Lady
saved a boy's life.”

Mrs. Vanderwaal was enraged. “How can you say that?”

Mrs. Zender held up the exit visa. “This saved a life.”

Amedeo looked at Mrs. Zender. She lifted her chin and was smiling as she had done the day of her mock dinner party. She was giving a performance.

Mrs. Vanderwaal was seething. She said, “I don't think, Mrs. Zender, that you can possibly call Eisenhuth or Zender a hero. And
you,
Mrs. Zender, do not get to choose.” She folded her arms across her chest; so tightly that Amedeo thought she would fall apart if she let go.

Amedeo looked from one to the other: the prosecutor and the defendant. One lived her life as an executive, and the other as an artist. Like his mother and Jake, he loved them both. Would he have to choose? Or could they share custody?

William conferred briefly with the angel on his shoulder, then he took his mother by the elbow and gently
nudged her forward until she was standing between the two women facing them both.

Mrs. Wilcox spoke slowly. “You might could say that, Mrs. Zender. You might say that
The Moon Lady
saved a young boy's life, but I wouldn't recommend you sayin' that. Not in public anyways. Over to the Waldorf, there's a lot of them cane-and-crutch crowd that's not gonna see it that way at all. They're all old, but most of them has nothin' wrong with their long-term memories, and when they read about how that picture come to St. Malo, they're gonna see it as having
cost
lives, and—much as I know about them—I reckon they're not gonna want to have much to do with someone who was once married to a . . . a . . . foreign person such as Mr. Zender once was.”

Mrs. Vanderwaal said, “The fat lady is finished.”

Looking from
The Moon Lady
to Mrs. Zender and back, Amedeo asked, “Which fat lady?”

“Depends,” Mrs. Zender said. “Which one of us do you want to see naked, not nude?”

There followed a moment as charged as Macy's at Christmas.

Mrs. Wilcox cleared her throat. “I done some reading, and I found out there's a committee up there in Washington that's set up to investigate claims to restore
art stolen by the Nazis to the rightful owners. Mrs. Vanderwaal could contact them, or . . .” Mrs. Wilcox stopped and cleared her throat again. “Or Mrs. Zender could return
The Moon Lady
to the widow of the inheritor . . . or Mrs. Vanderwaal and Mrs. Zender could both take some time to sit down together and make a choice.”

Mrs. Wilcox sat down.

Mrs. Zender turned to Mrs. Vanderwaal, and they turned away from their anger, and then they turned toward each other and made a choice.

I
T WAS WINTER, AND IT
was wisconsin. peter vanderwaal, Mrs. Vanderwaal, Mrs. Wilcox, William, Mrs. Zender, and Amedeo Kaplan stood—freezing—on the loading dock of the Sheboygan Art Center. They were variously bundled up, but it was stabbing cold.

Amedeo had raided the carton of winter clothes that he had not opened since he had moved to St. Malo. He had found a hooded jacket for himself and another—a little short in the sleeves—for William. Mrs. Wilcox was wearing a pair of his mother's boots and one of his mother's coats—a little long in the sleeves—that Amedeo had insisted she borrow. Mrs. Wilcox didn't complain, but Amedeo knew she was cold; her nose was red and her eyes were tearing, but she was smiling. Mrs. Zender was in a full-length fox fur. The shoulders of her coat were so wide that anyone who did not know her might think she
had forgotten to remove the hanger before putting it on. She wore white leather gloves up to her elbow, which had yellowed with age and stiffened with cold, and her fur hat—as wide as a medium pizza—posed a serious rival to Peter's
pelzkeppe.

Peter was wearing fur-lined gloves and a bespoke shearling coat that brushed the ankles of his riding boots. He was not cold, but the cold gave him an excuse to stamp his feet. In truth, he could not keep still. Today was the day they were to deliver both of his new acquisitions for the gallery. As the truck backed up, Peter could already picture them on the wall in the front gallery: the oil painting in its simple, simply beautiful new frame (which he had selected), and the drawing in its original restored frame. He took off one glove so that he could finger the two brass plates he had in his pocket. One said: