The Butterfly and the Violin (12 page)

She sat and watched him. William’s face was stoic as he sorted through the stack of photos. He looked at each for a moment, photos of a young Adele with her barrel-rolled blond hair and bright, youthful smile. There were group photos of the Vienna Philharmonic, shots of her with her violin, even shots of her while playing onstage. Sera had found one or two pictures of Adele’s family, one of her with a group of schoolgirls at the university she attended in Vienna, even a candid of her as she’d been lost in the magic of playing her violin in a practice studio.

And then William froze. His hand brought a photo up closer to his eyes and Sera watched, knowing which photo he’d found.

“This isn’t real . . . is it?”

The photo was of a performance of the orchestra within Auschwitz, with Adele just one of the group of those playing while a gaggle of SS officers smiled on.

“Yes.” Sera nodded and pointed to a female sitting off to the side of the photo. “That’s her.”

“I had no idea that there was anything like this in the concentration camps.”

“Most people don’t. I didn’t for quite a while,” Sera admitted. “I heard mention of it while in an art history survey course, that there were musicians, even artists who hid the art they created. When the camps were liberated, the armies that came in found art that had been left behind. Paintings . . . sketches . . . poems even, scratched into barrack walls. And they had musicians who played in orchestras right there in the camps. I didn’t know much about it until I went back to research the painting. That’s when
I found all of this. And in the past two years we’ve learned what she must have gone through.”

“How did you find out about her?”

Sera figured he’d ask. She tossed a photocopy of the painting on top of the stack of photos. “We found her by the serial number,” she said, pointing to the numbers scrawled on her forearm. “The tattoo.”

“And you’re sure she is this Adele Von Bron.”

“Quite sure.”

He held another photo up to her. “When was this one taken?”

Sera took it from him and looked over the image. “Well, this image is unique. We’re not sure why, but there are some photographs that were taken inside the camps. This one was actually taken by an SS officer. It’s a photo of what we believe was one of her last performances, from late September 1944. She’s there in the first row, first chair from the left.”

William looked shocked by the explanation. “They had concerts in the camps.”

He didn’t make a question out of it. Rather, he made the quiet statement as his eyes moved over the span of musicians in the image, all with instruments in hand.

“I think performing the occasional concert was the least of what was forced upon them.”

“What do you mean?” William leaned in, his eyes fixed on her.

Sera turned away, feeling a connection building between them again. Deflecting, she turned her laptop around so that they could both see it and typed something into her Internet search browser.

“Have you ever heard the term
selection
in reference to what happened in the camps?”

“I don’t think so.” He shook his head as the search results popped up on her screen. “But I think I can guess what it was.”

She turned the laptop toward him once the search results
popped up. “That was it,” she pointed out. “Selections for who would live and who would die.”

William began clicking through a series of photographs from a Holocaust archival site. Image after image went by, of weary prisoners arriving at the camps, of mothers with little children, some in coats with the large Star of David sewn on the front, others with families huddled in groups as they unknowingly walked the dirt roads to the crematorium.

“The SS guards would have selections when new convoy trains arrived at the camp. In Auschwitz, those deemed able to work were herded to the right. Those who were doomed to the crematorium were often sent straight to the gas chambers, which were in the holding area on the left.”

“Unbelievable,” he said, still clicking forward through the pictures.

“Stop—right there.” Sera brushed her hand over his to stop him. Surprised at her own comfort level, she pulled her hand away and dropped it back into her lap. “That’s the orchestra. It’s debated by some historians, but many believe they were forced to play during the selections. Adele would have been with them.”

“They played, knowing people were being sent to their deaths?”

Sera could hardly believe it herself. But yes, it was true.

She nodded.

“They were forced to play cheerful music—German marches or Hungarian folk music—to keep the prisoners upbeat as they marched out to work and returned to the barracks each day. Can you imagine? Day in and day out, as thousands of people walked past them. Mothers. Unsuspecting families. Children . . .” Sera’s voice trailed off as she tried to envision what it must have felt like to be forced into such a horrific situation. “It was the worst in 1944 through 1945. That’s when the Germans began transporting Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Hundreds of thousands of them
went straight to the gas chambers upon arrival. And the orchestra played through it all. It’s said that the musicians had some of the highest suicide rates of any prisoners in the camps. I wonder how they could even go on.”

“Now I understand the depth of the sadness.” William turned and looked at her. “In the painting? Adele’s eyes look as though they go deeper than the back of the canvas. It’s because of what she saw, because of all the people who walked by her and she was powerless to stop it.”

“We can’t know the full extent as to what actually happened. And she was there for almost two years before our record of her goes cold.”

William shook his head. “So she was a Jew? That’s why she was sent there?”

“No. That’s just one layer of the mystery.” Sera sailed into action, feeling the rush of energy that came with the unraveling of the story a piece of art could tell. “Look at this.”

She opened another file folder and dropped it into his hands. His eyebrows arched up the instant she presented him with a picture of the uniformed man.

“Who is he?”

Sera pointed to the name at the bottom of the photo. “Fredrich Von Bron.”

“Her father was a member of the Third Reich?”

“Austrian. A general,” Sera confirmed, nodding. “And because of his position, we know that whatever happened must have been severe. It was kept quiet too. We haven’t been able to find any news reports about it. Adele was sent away as a reeducation prisoner. That meant she would have been a labor worker as punishment for some sort of offense. She was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau early in 1943—that was well within the time frame that prisoners were tattooed as a means of cataloging them. Those who were sent straight to the gas chambers weren’t registered or
tattooed, but another group that wasn’t tattooed was the reeducation prisoners.”

“But she was tattooed anyway.”

“Exactly.”

William leaned back in the chair and folded his hands behind his head. “There’s a lot here that doesn’t add up.”

“Right,” Sera agreed. “The rank of her father and her notoriety alone should have assured that someone like her would never have been sent to the camp. She was known in Vienna—all over Austria. She was a concert violinist, beautiful, talented, with her whole life ahead of her. So how in the world did she end up there?”

He looked at her curiously and dropped the photo back on the file folder.

It was his close inspection of her face that started tying her stomach into knots. Maybe he was feeling a familiarity, same as she?

“What?” She grabbed the pencil that had been tucked behind her ear to jot down a date on the back of one of the photos.

“I just realized something,” he said, leaning in close to her as he dropped his voice down to a whisper. “This is about more than money for you too, isn’t it?”

Sera noted how softly those blue eyes smiled at her, with enough of a hint of openness that she couldn’t turn away. And she found that she didn’t need to answer him; somehow he could read the words that weren’t yet on her lips.

“Why?” he asked so easily, so openly this time. “Why does all of this matter so much to you? Because I can see that it does.”

Sera dropped the pencil and, trying to cover the nervousness, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

The truth was, she’d taken the case of Adele’s painting out of pure necessity. She’d been broken and needed an escape. With her heart shattered, she needed something—anything else to focus
on. She’d felt the sting of hurt, and though she was a Christian, her faith had been shaken. Her fiancé was a Christian man. He’d promised to love and honor her. But instead, he walked out on their life and left her holding her broken heart in her hands.

The mystery of the painting had been the perfect diversion.

“I suppose it’s the great history of it all . . . to see that a piece of human expression is still alive in something that’s been left behind for us . . .” She shrugged. “Most people would think I’m crazy, that it’s just paint on canvas. But . . . it speaks to me. It’s a living, breathing record of the lives that have gone before us.”

She ran her fingertips over the edge of a photograph, this one of Adele and several other musicians from the orchestra. “Look at this,” she said, and handed the photo to him. “It was taken in the spring of 1942, for the college newspaper. Look at how happy she is here. So different from the painting.”

William nodded. “So that’s why you’re doing this? For her?” He paused, then said, “Or is it for you?”

Funny how this man, who was still a virtual stranger, could pinpoint the one thing Sera didn’t want to admit. His ability to read her thoughts was unnerving. It had her desperate to hold back. She couldn’t tell him that she’d seen the painting once before. The memory was far too personal.

“Let’s find out about Adele first,” she said and took the photo back from him. She looked for something to do to distract her. Tidying up the stacks of photos around them seemed an appropriate task. “I’ll work on myself later.”

“After you’ve found the painting.”

The statement was simply put. It was so simple, in fact, that it drew her eyes to his. He took a last drink of his coffee and then set the cup off to one of the side tables.

“Let’s get started then,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Put me to work.”

“Well, I’ve pretty much told you what we know, and where the
snags are. I was actually hoping that by coming here, we could find out what your grandfather has to do with this. Anything would help.”

“Well, I confess that when I learned what the will stipulations were, I went looking for any connection to the painting. I’m embarrassed to say that I came up without much to go on.” He cocked an eyebrow and continued. “That is, until I received a call from your assistant and you came into the picture.”

Sera nodded. “And we’d hit a dead end ourselves. I can still share what we do have. I know it’s a long shot, but maybe we should check these photos to be sure there’s not a young Edward Hanover in there somewhere. You said your grandfather traveled quite a bit in his younger years.”

“He did.” William continued looking through the photographs without looking up. “But that’s not what I’m looking for.”

His words piqued her interest. “What?”

He’d begun lining up several pictures in a row. They were all photos of Adele, of course, the same ones she’d seen before. “There.” He lined up the last photo and then glanced back at her. “Notice anything?”

Sera leaned in to take a closer look.

Adele was in each photo, smiling and looking happy as she always did in the photos with the other musicians from the Vienna Philharmonic. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a sea of smiling faces. If there was something there, she wasn’t seeing it.

William took his finger and pointed at one of the young men in the first picture. Then he pointed to the same man in the next picture. And another. Another after that. On and on down the line, until he’d found the same man repeated in every one.

A shiver ran the length of her spine.

William held up the last photo in the line and pointed to the young man’s face. “Who is that?”

Sera couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before. But now that the photos were laid side by side, it was as clear as day. The young man with the cello and the dashing smile was in every picture.

“I don’t know who he is.” Sera finished his thought without missing a beat. “But he seems to be in almost every picture that she is.”

“Right. But why?”

Sera’s breath caught in her lungs when she realized exactly what they were looking at. Bravo to the real estate financier for finding it. William was busily going through another stack of photos.

“This guy—he’s in all the photos, but not always right next to her. Maybe that’s why I never noticed it before, because we were always looking at her.”

He nodded. “So maybe we need to stop trying to uncover something in the dead end and instead try digging from a new angle.”

“Track down who this man was, and see if the trail leads to Adele. Do you think he could still be alive?”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

William was lost in another stack of photos and computer printouts from a nearby folder when she saw it. The evidence was tiny to be sure, and overlooked unless someone was on the hunt for it. But now that they were, what she was seeing fairly took her breath away.

Sera dove into her computer bag and tore through each pocket until she found the magnifying glass she kept there. Putting the glass to the image made her one hundred percent certain. They’d been looking in the wrong place.

With a manicured fingertip, she slid the photo across the tabletop until it was right in front of him.

“Look,” she said, pointing to the miniscule evidence in the
picture. “It’s small but you can still see it. Look by the folds of her skirt. She’s trying to hide it but it’s there, plain as day.”

William looked and almost immediately took in a sharp breath.

“She’s holding his hand.”

CHAPTER TWELVE