The Butterfly and the Violin (32 page)

“Mr. Stahlworth.” Sera sat on the nearest stool. Nothing was making sense. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re referring to. We haven’t found the painting yet.”

The man cleared his throat but said nothing.

Sera waited breathlessly, unsure whether her heart was actually thumping right out of her chest. But to ask at all and have what appeared to be consideration on the lawyer’s part was mind-numbingly suspenseful in the moment. How could she expect to breathe?

“Sir?”

“Miss James, you are perhaps used to clients who have no aversion to the public eye. The art world can be fickle, I know.
And very public. But in the interest of Mr. Hanover’s privacy, we are only able to give you certain information to ensure that the media is not brought into this. I was asked to get involved to tie up loose ends on the matter.”

“Loose ends?” Is that what she was? “I don’t understand. My assistant and I have been doing everything we can to find the painting. If there’s a problem with the fact that we haven’t delivered on it yet, I can assure you that we’re on the right track.”

“Miss James, William Hanover filed suit against the owner of the painting this morning.”

Sera’s heart did somersaults in her chest. She dug her nails into the wood of the worktable just to stay upright. “What did you just say?”

“William Hanover has filed formal papers to have the owner of the painting appear in court over the matter of his late grandfather’s estate. He’s contesting the will that has left the Hanover estate to her.”

“That can’t be true.” Sera’s heart wouldn’t believe it. Not now. Not after the time they spent together and the promise he’d offered. Not now that she’d risked everything to place her trust in him.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, Miss James, but you led him right to her.”

“But I had no idea . . .” She heard papers rustling in the background. The man sounded quite preoccupied.

“Yes, well. Mr. Hanover was quite sorry for the inconvenience and wished me to convey that to you.” More rustling papers mixed with the sound of fingers tapping a keyboard. “Can you be kind enough to send my secretary your banking information? I’ve left our e-mail address with your assistant.”

“I don’t believe this . . .” She shook her head, tears threatening to gather in her eyes. She clenched her fist, wishing to pound it on the table. “This can’t be happening,” she mumbled, forgetting
that the man was still on the other end of the line.

He lied to me. Lied . . . and after everything I shared with him?

Sera’s hand flew up to cover a bottom lip that had begun quivering on its own.

“Will there be anything else, Miss James?”

“Yes,” she answered, and moved her fingertips away from her mouth just far enough to speak. “The painting? Does he have it?”

“No. But we’re sure the woman does. We’ve given her a set amount of time for her attorneys to respond. If she does, and we expect she will, then we go to court and the state of California will rule on the matter. And when they rule in favor of my client, Mr. Hanover has instructed that we wire you your finder’s fee.”

“I don’t want any money.” Sera coughed over the emotion she knew was in her voice. She cleared her throat. “But I would like her name, please.”

Calm down, Sera. It’s going to be okay.

The words flooded over her heart.

But was it really going to be okay? Could her heart take another blow?

She brushed the moisture away from her cheek, and with a straightened spine and strengthening resolve, she grabbed the pencil from the loosely piled bun at the back of her head and readied it against the notepaper Penny had given her.

“I’m not entitled to give out that information.”

“I think you are. My job is to find the painting, right?”

“We’re relieving you of your services and paying out a hefty bonus to soothe your injured pride, Miss James. There’s nothing about the painting’s owner in that deal.”

Sera pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “Mr. Stahlworth, you’re not hearing me. I don’t care about the money. I just want the painting. I’ve been searching for it since I was eight years old. I don’t want to get involved in the court proceedings and I don’t want to make any trouble for the Hanovers. I
assure you of that. But if this woman you speak of has the original, I have to see it. That’s all I want. To see it one more time.”

The man was quiet for a moment, as if thinking it over. “He mentioned that you had an investment in finding the painting. I wasn’t aware that you’d already seen it once before.”

“Neither was he.” Sera paused. Hoping. Praying that something good would come of the hurt she’d experienced all over again.

He cleared his throat again, then began, “I want you to know that there’s nothing illegal in giving you information that is now part of the public record. Let’s just state that first. And Mr. Hanover gave no instruction against it, so I feel that I can share the name of the defendant.”

“I’ll take any information you can share. Gratefully.”

“The woman is quite old. She lives in Paris, and to our understanding, her health does not permit travel. Under the circumstances, you’d likely have to go to her.”

Without a second thought as to the barrier of traveling to Paris on her own, Sera laid the rest of her broken heart out on the table. What good was it now?

“Fine,” she said, pencil at the ready. “Just tell me how to find her and I’ll be on the next plane.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

September 1, 1944

I
t had been five years since Adele had walked home with Vladimir from the dance hall. Five years since their journey apart had begun. She thought back on it now, seeing Vladimir and the old Adele she used to be, alive now only in her memories. She turned the golden butterfly clip over in her fingers as she lay on her cot and noticed how tarnished and dirty the gold was in comparison to the gleaming gift she remembered receiving so long ago.

Except for when she was required to be somewhere, Adele had spent the better part of the last week isolated on her cot. Had stopped saying much of anything to the group. In fact, if she were honest with herself, she’d quit living. She’d not ventured outside except for the mandatory morning counts, and even then she drifted in and out of a sense of bemused consciousness. She still played each day, but her efforts were lifeless as a leaf floating on a gust of wind. Her chair was occupied and her violin still cried with the rest of the orchestra, but Adele felt herself slipping away, further and further from reality.

Her will was no longer shaken; it was dead.

“Get up, Adele.”

She turned slightly, her body too taxed to roll over on her side so she could look at her friend.

“Did you hear me?” Omara came over to the bunks and began tugging her shoulders up off the cot.

“What’s the matter?”

“Get up. You must come with me now.” Omara took a scratchy wool blanket from the overhead bunk and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Here. This will keep you from getting chilled.”

Adele shook her head. “I’m hot.”

Omara didn’t mean to argue, apparently. She tucked the blanket around her anyway. “You can wear it under your coat and they won’t even see it. Can you walk?”

“I think so.” She tottered like a baby learning to stand for the first time, but was steadied by Omara’s strong arms until her feet were firmly planted on the ground. “Where are we going?”

“To Canada.”

“The warehouses?” Adele glanced out their small block window in the direction of the warehouse section of the camp. “But why there? Why now?”

“I have something to show you, Adele. Will you come with me?” Adele noted something strange in Omara’s voice and though her gaze lingered beyond the last words, Adele felt compelled to obey.

She nodded and allowed her friend to lead her out into the broken, early morning light of dawn. Adele walked in a daze. They moved past the execution wall without a second glance. When had that sight become normal?

Omara ushered her to the back of the warehouse where she’d first stayed all those months ago. She remembered it now, that feeling of shock she’d had at seeing the overabundance of wares stacked ceiling high. Her ghostly pale hand ran over those piles now, the worn leather of the shoes in the pile feeling cold and withered against her skin.

They came to a door, small and insignificant as it was, tucked in the back corner behind a tall bin of clothing, its wood aged and shrouded in shadows.

“What is this?” Adele turned to look at Omara.

“Go inside.” The elder woman tilted her head, giving the direction with a stoic expression on her face. Adele trusted her. And because of this, she placed her palm around the aged metal knob and turned. The door creaked, groaning as it opened.

She squinted. There was natural light from a frosted glass window set high up on the brick wall. As her eyes adjusted, Adele saw a small brick-walled room, tucked away beneath the wooden stairwell overhead. It was sparsely equipped, with only a small desk and chair in the corner, a single desk lamp in the back.

“What is this place?”

She stood, arms pulled in tight around her middle to ward off the damp chill in the air.

“It is there,” Omara instructed, standing back in the doorway. She pointed toward the stairway. “Round the corner.”

Adele looked at her friend and found her expression oddly void of emotion. She stood as a fixture in the shadowed alcove beyond the door. Omara nodded her forward. She obeyed, turning and walking, the wooden floor creaking with each cautious step.

When she got around the corner, Adele’s mouth fell open, jaw dropping. Her heart rate quickened. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

There before her on the wall, seared with bright paint and hanging against the concrete background of the inner wall, was an image of her own face.

Adele approached it with caution, as if it were a mirage that would quickly vanish were she to even breathe. How could this vision of beauty exist in such an evil place? The painting was too stunning to have been rendered by an amateur. It was the face she’d seen in the mirror years before she came to Auschwitz—the ghostly image of a young woman who’d not been battered by the horrific truths of the real world. It was a woman who was young and strong and wide-eyed, confidently holding a violin.

Adele touched shaking fingertips over the image of herself, heart thumping, legs nearly unable to hold her upright. The only thing that didn’t fit was that the girl in the image had been shorn of her hair. Adele ran her hand over the tuft of dirty hair at her nape, then touched cautious fingers to her cheeks. What did she look like now? Did she have pale skin and woefully sunken eyes like the rest of the girls? It had been so long since she’d looked in a mirror. So long since she’d seen that girl. Would Vladimir recognize his butterfly now? She was so . . . wounded.

Adele crumpled to kneel on the floor. Omara came up behind her and wrapped supportive arms around her shoulders. Adele looked past the painting of herself, noticing for the first time that there were other paintings—small drawings of the trauma-stricken faces of prisoners working under the dark shadow of armed guards, of stone-faced children in striped uniforms, all with a cold, lifeless sky behind them. Some appeared to be painted on makeshift wooden canvases, others painted on the walls of the closet-sized room. There were words, beautiful, poetic words too, etched in the wooden stairway and scratched even in the ground at her feet.

“What . . .” She sobbed on the words, looking back to the masterfully rendered painting of herself. “What is this place?”

“My dear child. This painting is how I see you. It’s how we all see you. Do you understand? There is still beauty left in the world. It is here.”

They looked around the room in unison. She was still in shock. Humbled. Taken by the beauty born from ashes that fell from the sky.

“Who?”

Omara seemed to understand that she was asking about the many images. Who created them? Whose words were those?

“The artist can’t be killed, Adele. The men and women whose hearts have cried in this place—they couldn’t stay away. The
artists came here in droves. At risk of death . . .” Omara sniffed. Was she crying too? “Some are gone now. But their legacy lives on. There is art like this hidden all over the camp.”

“And the painting?”

Omara tilted her head toward the door. “I found everything there, in that hellish warehouse out there. It wasn’t enough to paint on the brick. The emotion wouldn’t show like I’d hoped it would. I took wood slats from the bins for the canvas. Paints I found tossed in suitcases. A brush made from the piles of hair.”

“Please,” she mumbled. “Don’t tell me any more.”

Adele looked at the image of the beautiful violinist with the shaved head, wondering if she could ever be that beautiful again. She ran her fingers over the bottom of the painting, the paint somehow feeling alive as it grazed the scars on her palms.

“All this time, I thought you were a music professor. I just assumed . . .”

“That I could only play the cello.” Adele saw Omara’s face break into a smile next to her, the laugh lines creating deep creases at her mouth and eyes. Their cheeks rested together for the briefest of seconds. “Ah, and that is why God gives a variance of gifts. The cello may have kept air in my lungs here, but”—she pointed to the painting—“my heart has always belonged to the brush.”