Then, Ludovico flopped in a chair and began to peel the pomegranate. Cecilia lay back and watched him extract the plump arils from the center of the fruit as blood-red juice trickled down his hand. A hungry, lustful smile. Then Cecilia watched him press the sweet, ripe fruits to his tongue, letting the bitter, hollow rind fall to the floor.
19
Edith
Pełkinie, Poland
September 1939
THE GIRL’S EYES WERE INTELLIGENT AND ALMOND SHAPED, gazing toward the light as if she were distracted by a flock of birds beyond the windowsill. In her arms, she cradled a white, furry creature the size of a newborn baby, its beady, glasslike eyes focused in the same direction as the girl’s.
Edith had read earlier scholars’ assessments that Cecilia Gallerani was dressed alla spagnola, with her velvet gown, open-armed blue mantle, and square neckline trimmed in a band of gilded embroidery. A small cap and black band held a nearly transparent veil with a scalloped edge across her forehead. Cecilia’s sleek hairstyle was shown in the fashion of the day, parted down the middle and arranged in a long braid bound in a silk casing. A string of onyx beads fell across her breast and was wrapped a second time around her slender neck in an artful arrangement.
Edith ran her finger carefully across the surface. She was already noting the small imperfections, marks of damage that she alone could perceive, thanks to her years of training and experience. A fine craquelure of dried paint had textured the surface of the picture, no doubt the result of dramatic changes in temperature and humidity as the picture, painted on a walnut panel, had been ferried over countless miles along with the Czartoryski family in past decades. Did anyone else see the brown overpaint that made it appear as if her cap were an extension of her hair? That, surely, was the result of a misunderstanding by a later restorer. And the black background, though dramatic in its effect, was surely not original. Da Vinci must have envisioned a distant landscape similar to the one in his famous Mona Lisa, Edith thought. However, some restorer a hundred years ago must have covered this background with black varnish, perhaps to mask some earlier damage to the painting.
But the picture was so much more than the sum of these parts. How many people had had the opportunity to stand before this beautiful portrait of the young woman who might have been the mistress of an important ruler of fifteenth-century Milan? To gaze upon the hand of Leonardo da Vinci himself? Edith had set her eyes and hands on so many paintings of the Renaissance era, but this portrait left her in awe. As much as she hated being torn away from her family and her work in Munich, she had to admit that standing before this picture was a dream come true.
Edith’s heart had nearly stopped when the soldier had pulled the picture from a crate in the back of the walled-up room. She recognized that it was an old panel, probably from the Renaissance, even from the back. The frame was likely made in the eighteenth century, a hefty construction of gilded wood. She knew the size and recognized the walnut panel typical of Italian paintings of the late 1400s. Still, she held her breath until the soldier turned it around for everyone to see.
Now, Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine lay flat on a table in the once-secret room of the Czartoryski Palace. Many of the important pieces reproduced on the folios of Edith’s catalog lay stacked around her: Rembrandt’s Landscape with the Good Samaritan, Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man, all the paintings that Edith had presented to the museum staff, and many more.
Over the course of a few days, Edith had spent nearly all her time in the windowless, vaulted space, documenting and assessing the valuables the family had tried to hide before they fled. Two soldiers were stationed to help her handle the large paintings, furniture, and other heavy pieces, and to guard the extensive collection of antique jewelry against temptations from other soldiers. Even though Edith was awed by the careful selection of priceless objects in the family’s collection, the work must be tedious and dull for these men, she thought. They spent hours waiting around for Edith to finish writing down her copious observations. In addition to the paintings that Edith had already cataloged back in Munich, the family’s collection included vast amounts of furniture, drawings, bronzes, coins and medals, priceless jewels and gems. It would take many hours for Edith to examine and inventory everything in the collection.
The men’s idle bantering formed the background of Edith’s concentration on the works of art and her wondering if Heinrich might have arrived in Poland with his unit by now. They complained about Polish food, about the language, about boredom. They would be reassigned to points eastward, they said, once more troops arrived in the region. The men had tried to make conversation, to question Edith about her work at the museum, her personal life, about how she had gotten here, but Edith did not want to open herself to their examination.
They had also told Edith that there were Polish prisoners being held upstairs. Lieutenant Fischer’s words rang in her ears: resisters in the countryside.
As she worked, Edith’s stomach remained twisted in knots, wondering where the Czartoryski family had gone, and if they had managed to escape capture.
Finally, one afternoon, her answer came.
“Fräulein Becker.”
She turned to see Lieutenant Fischer coming down the stairs. He approached the table where Edith was examining surface cracks in a small seventeenth-century German still life, dark with age and neglect. For a few long moments, he raked his eyes over the picture. Then he turned to Edith.
“I have been told to instruct you to make a selection of twelve or so of the most valuable works here,” he said. “The men may help you repackage them for safe transport.”
“The pictures are being transported? What about the family?”
“It did not take long for the Gestapo to find the prince and his pregnant Spaniard. They have been taken into our custody.”
Edith felt her chest heave. “They were arrested? But what will become of them?” The weight of despair closed in around her again, and the room became a tunnel rimmed in black. Would she be responsible for the fate of the family’s most prized possessions, but also for their own safety, maybe even their lives? Would Edith bear the blame for the fate of the young prince and his wife? Even their unborn child?
“That is no longer any of our concern,” Fischer continued. “I have directions from SS Oberführer Mühlmann. He is the newly appointed Special Commissioner in Charge of Safeguarding Works of Art in Eastern Occupied Lands. Dr. Mühlmann has just arrived in Poland and has sent orders to you.”
“Orders.” The word came out as a nearly breathless whisper.
Lieutenant Fischer nodded. “Oberführer Mühlmann wishes to examine the most valuable pieces from this collection personally. He is en route to another of the Czartoryski residences near Jarosław.”
Edith wondered how she might choose only ten or twelve pictures from the carefully curated Czartoryski collection. Cecilia Gallerani’s lively face caught Edith’s eye, and she focused on it, trying to steel her nerves.
“We will come for them in the morning, so you may start your selection and packaging immediately. And you are to accompany us to Jarosław,” Lieutenant Fischer said. “I would advise you to choose wisely. Oberführer Mühlmann has asked for you directly.”