Restitution (20 page)

Mr. Jirák continued talking, but by now Marie had stopped listening. The paintings gone? She couldn't imagine it and, what's more, she didn't believe it. Maybe it was the fact that Mr. Jirák would not meet her eyes, or that he claimed too emphatically not to have the paintings. That intuition, so predominant in Marie, kicked in once more and convinced her that Mr. Jirák was lying. The rest of the property may have been taken, and for that there was no recourse. But in her heart Marie believed that the paintings were safe, and she became even more determined to get them back.

Almost immediately after leaving Alois Jirák, Marie proceeded to the law office of Václav Jukl, where she described the events of her family's departure from Czechoslovakia, Alois Jirák's role, and her strong suspicion that he was now in possession of her property. With her usual determination, Marie made the decision to begin legal action against Alois Jirák.

Several letters were exchanged between Marie's lawyer and the attorney that Jirák retained upon learning that Marie was planning to sue him. It did not take long for Mr. Jirák to confess a new version of his story. In this account, he claimed that the paintings had remained safe in his home during the war. He reiterated that the Gestapo had searched the house, and had questioned him several times as to the origin of the paintings. He reminded Marie of the consequences that might have resulted had they discovered that he was hiding Jewish property. Jirák stated that he had sold the paintings a couple of years after the war ended. He claimed that it was his belief that the power of attorney granted by Victor and Marie entitled him to dispose of the paintings in any way he wished, since he had had no way of knowing whether or not the Reiser family had even survived. Marie's arrival back in Prague had come as a complete shock to him, which had prompted his first lie. The paintings, however, were still gone, he continued to claim, and there was nothing more that anyone could do to retrieve them.

Once again, Marie was not convinced. Several more letters passed between the two attorneys. Marie's lawyer continued to press for the return of the paintings, while Mr. Jirák hung on to his story that the paintings were gone and Marie should abandon her mission.

Meanwhile, back in Toronto, Karl wondered and worried about his mother. By the summer of 1947, the political situation in Czechoslovakia was again becoming precarious. All of the assurances of a moderate transition to power for the Communists, one that would respect the Czech tradition of democracy, were rapidly disappearing. The Communist-dominated police, under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, began to increase its intrusiveness in the lives of Czech citizens. The
, with Soviet support, was beginning to accelerate its drive to total power. Toronto newspapers were filled with ominous predictions that Czechoslovakia would be caught up in the whirlwind of conflict that was spinning and escalating between the Soviet Union and the United States.

“‘Moscow's strategy will be to spark revolutions throughout Europe. And Czechoslovakia will be the first step.'” Karl was scanning the papers and reading sections aloud to Phyllis as the two of them discussed for the umpteenth time the declining circumstances abroad. “Look here. This reporter compares the stand-off between the Soviet Union and the U.S. to a contest between neighbors who are trying to see who can live the longest. The rules of the contest provide that the survivor gets the property of the one who dies first, so it's more than mere academic interest at stake. It is a real ‘we or they' proposition.”
⁸
He looked up incredulously. “I can't believe the world is in this position again. There are some who are even talking of a Third World War.”

“Your mother hasn't written much lately,” Phyllis replied uneasily. “But even the letters that we've had from her say so little about what is going on there politically.”

“Mother would never want to worry us. Don't you know that's her style? She'd rather write about what she can buy with whatever declining currency she has than talk about any danger to her or to Arthur.” In her sporadic letters to Karl, she had written that she was trying to do as much shopping in Prague as possible. Remarkably, the money that she had left in the country years earlier was still there, in bank accounts that had remained untouched, in the same financial institutions where Karl had lined up daily to withdraw small amounts of cash. Now Marie was trying to use up as much of it as possible, though she admitted in her correspondence that there was little to buy.

Karl pointed again at the newspapers. “Look, they're saying that Czechoslovakia is a key location in Europe.” He sat back in his chair, shaking his head. “No wonder Hitler was anxious to control the country years ago. And Stalin is the same. He won't let it be. And he won't stop there. Even if the West ignores what's happening to Czechoslovakia, anyone who thinks appeasement will work on the Communists doesn't know what they're talking about.”

There was a tense silence in the room. “There's nothing you can do,” Phyllis finally said. “You know your mother will decide things for herself.”

“All I know is that I wish she'd leave Czechoslovakia behind and get back here safely.” He looked up suddenly. “My father must have felt like this when he was in Paris and we were stuck back in Prague before the war.” No wonder his father had suffered so much in the absence of his family. Karl now experienced a feeling of complete helplessness. In the face of the rising animosity between the United States and the Soviet Union, he was terrified that if the situation deteriorated, his mother might actually be trapped in Czechoslovakia again, this time under Communist rule.

Karl wanted his mother home for personal reasons, too. By late 1947, he and Phyllis were expecting their first child, and he hoped his mother might be there for the birth of her first grandchild.

Back in Czechoslovakia, the lawyers remained at an impasse. Then, in late 1947, there was a new turn of events. Mr. Jirák finally confessed that he was in fact in possession of the four paintings. Despite his continued insistence that the Gestapo had searched his son-in-law's house on several occasions, Jirák admitted that he had managed to keep the artwork hidden away. The paintings were safe. A letter from his lawyer stated that Mr. Jirák was willing to return three of the four paintings: the children in the bathhouse, the dancer, and the forest inferno. The fourth one, the one called
Die Hausfrau
, would remain in the possession of his son-in-law as payment for having taken such risks to hide the paintings in the first place. It was only fair, the letter stated, that Mr. Jirák and his family be compensated for all they had done for the family during the war. One painting would settle this dispute once and for all.

Jirák's offer was not what Marie wanted to hear. At first jubilant over the discovery that the paintings were indeed safe, she was angry to think that Jirák would hold one back from her. She could acknowledge that he had risked his family's life to hide their belongings, and for that, she was extremely grateful. Indeed, she would have given him a substantial reward for having kept the paintings safe, anything except one of them in payment. It was her decision to determine the fate of the paintings, she reasoned, not his.

More and more, the paintings were taking on a particular symbolic importance for Marie. There were four paintings; there had been four members of the Reeser family. Keeping the family together in their prewar flight from Europe had been Marie's primary objective. Keeping the four paintings together was now taking on the same significance. “They are all that is left of our home and belongings, and I will not abandon any of them. I would no more leave a painting behind than I would have left a member of my family behind during the war,” Marie declared. “I will not separate the paintings.”

The response letter from Marie's lawyer was emphatic. In it, he stated that Mr. Jirák's responsibility had been to protect the paintings as per Marie and Victor's instructions. Jirák had no jurisdiction to sell them or keep them, no matter how much time had elapsed since the end of the war. Marie wished to settle the matter quickly, but under no circumstances would she relinquish one of the paintings. With this stalemate firmly established, there appeared to be no alternative but to move to a court hearing. The fate of the paintings would have to be settled in a courtroom before a judge.

In December 1947, Hana traveled to Prague to be with her mother. Taking a break from the stress of the pending court hearing, the family decided to go on a skiing vacation to
. This scenic resort in the Krkonoše Mountains was one of the most popular sites in northern Czechoslovakia, famous not only for its skiing, but also for its hiking and biking trails. Cottages, chalets, and hotels dotted the valleys in the shadow of several giant mountain ranges. The air was crisp, and the green tops of the pine trees looked beautiful as they emerged from under cascades of snow. Here, it appeared as if nothing had changed from before the war. The trip was a reminder of days gone by when the family had taken many such vacations.

Hana was a strong and accomplished skier. It was while she was there with her mother and Arthur that Hana was introduced to Paul Traub, a man ten years her senior. Paul was a quiet, intelligent, and deeply thoughtful man who had studied to become a physician before the war began. His relatively young life and career, like that of so many others, had been tragically interrupted by the war and his arrest and subsequent deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He had survived while most of his family members had not, and, in the wake of the war, he too had decided to return to his homeland. Paul and Hana decided to ski together, but while descending a particularly difficult mountain, Paul fell and broke his shoulder. This ended his skiing holiday, but it was the beginning of a growing affection between himself and Hana. They knew they were meant to be together.

When the family returned to Prague, there appeared to be a growing political tension in the air. The news was filled with the dissension between the United States and her allies in the west and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the east. Czech military forces were being trained to handle the Soviet equipment and weapons that were regularly arriving in the country in large quantities. It felt as if Czechoslovakia was arming for war. Unbeknownst to anyone, Klement Gottwald and his
party were beginning a covert plan for a Communist seizure of power. They would not wait for the elections due to take place in the spring, and allow the possibility of defeat.

It was during this time that a strange turn of events occurred with respect to Marie's attempts to reclaim the paintings. In a letter from her attorney to Jirák, she appeared to abandon her mission. The correspondence indicated that, while she did not relinquish her right to ownership of the paintings, she did wish to withdraw legal action. In addition, she agreed to cover the legal costs that Jirák had incurred in the intervening months. From Jirák's perspective, this was a complete victory and a vindication that he had done the right thing all along.