Edith watched another shadow pass over Kai’s face, aging him years in just a few seconds. The train whistle let out a shrill cry. They passed into a tunnel, and the interior of the train car fell into blackness.
28
Dominic
Aachen, Germany
January 1945
NOT LONG AGO, THE SEURMONDT MUSEUM MUST HAVE been splendid. Dominic observed the grand staircase running through the center of the building, the colonnades of the atrium, the vaulted ceilings painted to resemble the sky with mythical creatures floating above his head. Now, just like the many other old buildings he’d seen in the past months, the museum stood in ruin. Even inside, frigid gusts of wintry air blew through the weave of Dominic’s fatigues, chilling him to the bone.
Judging by the unhappy expression on Captain Hancock’s face, this latest walk through another art collection was a disappointment. Dominic kept one eye on his surroundings for possible threats as he watched his commander pull open the drawers of a hulking, dirt-covered desk in one of the museum offices, looking for any clues as to the whereabouts of the Seurmondt’s masterpieces. Dominic stepped over broken bricks and powdered plaster from the gaping hole in the wall to reach the other side of the room, where two men were exploring the contents of a file cabinet.
A thick spread of dust was settling on everything, and not just from the battle. Fall had slipped into winter; Dominic knew that, outside the museum, the landscape around them was reduced to rubble covered with a sparkle of ice. A few sheets of paper fluttered out into the breeze, mingling with the snowflakes that blew in through the hole.
Across the room, Captain Hancock spun into the nearest dust-covered office chair. He pulled open a drawer and yanked out a stack of notebooks; he grabbed the nearest one and began to flip through it. Dominic’s legs felt leaden; he wondered where Hancock found all his energy.
“They have to have taken them somewhere, maybe even somewhere close by,” Hancock said.
Instead of responding, Lieutenant Commander Stout slammed the cabinet drawer shut. It shuddered, and a scattering of shell casings and snow slid off the top. The three men looked up simultaneously at the gaping hole in the ceiling of the office. It had punched through the floors of the building, leaving a tattered array of splintered wood and crumbled stone all the way up to a circle of gray sky.
A knock on the doorjamb heralded the arrival of another MP to relieve Dominic so that he could slink off to wolf down his tin of C-rations. As he wandered into an adjacent gallery, Dominic saw evidence of the hot battle that had taken place between the Allied forces and the Germans. Whole galleries and corridors were filled with debris. Many darkened pictures, pieces of ceramic, and small sculptures were still standing here and there, but for all their combing through the wreckage, they’d found no evidence of the major masterpieces this museum was supposed to house. Abandoned bits of equipment were scattered in the elegant passages where the upper class of Aachen had spent many a peaceful evening enjoying the centuries-old art that had disappeared. Gaping spaces and bare hooks on the walls counted the missing pictures.
The gallery’s floor had once been polished to a mirror finish. Now, it was cracked by war and scratched by the heavy boots of the soldiers who had dumped themselves and their belongings around the floor. The cold gnawed at Dominic’s gut; when he pushed the door open and stepped inside the gallery, he was greeted with the smell of cooking soup. Despite himself, he took a deep breath and smiled. Somehow, Vicar Stephany could make even their meager and tasteless rations smell like a real meal.
“Dominic!” The vicar was bent over a pot on the little campfire he’d cobbled together out of bits of wreckage. “Come! Sit. Eat. You look frozen.”
While Stephany concocted an unlikely meal in an unlikely place, two servicemen and the German art professional whom they had located in one of the refugee camps were examining the few pictures still hanging on the gallery’s walls. One of the men scribbled furiously while the German called out details for a hastily documented catalog.
Dominic sank his weary body down onto his pack and gratefully accepted the bowl that the vicar offered. He spooned up a mouthful of hot soup and relished the warmth as it slid down his throat.
Stephany’s transformation from the gaunt, shaking man they’d fished out of the cathedral wreckage was startling. At first the officers had resisted his attempts to follow them; but later, realizing the value of having a native German on their side—especially one so personally invested in the recovery of stolen art—they had relented. Now, Stephany seemed like a new man. His skeletal face had filled out into an enthusiastic, ruddy visage with an easy smile. He traveled everywhere with the unit, praying over them and occasionally attempting to sprinkle the grubby troops with holy water. Those who were not as practiced as Dominic grumbled, calling him a crazy old man, but everyone appreciated his sunny presence—and his talent at reviving army rations with scraps of food picked up along the way.
Dominic glanced across the room at the German museum worker they’d located in the refugee camp. Stephany followed Dominic’s gaze. “Ach,” he said, spooning up another bowl of soup. “He is getting better.” He limped over to the old man and proffered the bowl, speaking rapidly in German. Wide-eyed, the old man took it and sipped tentatively. A smile spread across his features, and he turned back to the giant ledger lying on the floor beside him with more enthusiasm, eating the soup as he turned the pages looking for evidence of where those masterpieces might have gone.
Stephany’s gesture of kindness reminded Dominic of Paul. A pang of agony shot through him so powerfully that nausea rose in his stomach. He set the bowl down, his appetite gone, and stared sightlessly at the floor. Every night he saw the agony in Paul’s eyes, the cracked quality of his voice as he choked out his last words: Keep drawing. And every day, when he sat to one side at meals, when he faced the gunfire among the other men, when he listened to the unfamiliar breathing of the man in the bunk above him, he missed Paul a little more.
When would the longing cease? Dominic closed his eyes against the pain and hugged himself, sick of yearning for people he loved. He did his best to hold out hope of seeing Sally and little Cecilia again. Would he ever hold his new baby?
As for his own drawing, he hadn’t put pencil to paper since Paul died. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was for art that his best friend’s life had been sacrificed. Hancock had begun to receive intelligence reports about possible hidden stashes all over Germany and even farther east. And Hancock and Stout were crazy enough to risk everything for their quest. But was it really worth it?
Stephany had been watching Dominic. He spoke gently, prompting him out of his reverie. “You are Italian, yes?”
Dominic looked up, relieved that his thoughts had been interrupted. “Pittsburgh, actually. But my parents came over from Italy.”
“You know Leonardo da Vinci?”
Dominic smiled despite himself, still feeling a stirring at the name of the grand master. “Of course. One of my favorites.”
Stephany beamed. “We keep looking. Before long, we find one.”
Dominic chuckled at Stephany’s assessment. At least one of them remained optimistic, he thought.
“You are troubled,” Stephany said, setting his bright eyes on him.