While their stock of recovered works of art grew slowly, Hancock’s list of art repositories was reaching into the hundreds. At every opportunity, he located a secure telephone line to make calls to Allied commanders on the front.
Bonn had given them their strongest lead yet. The home of Count von Wolff-Metternich, a leading Konservator of the Historical Monuments Commission, the city had promised to yield a gold mine of information. Dominic had spent so many hours following Hancock and the others through the all-too-familiar desolation, combing around for any sign of Metternich. But his university office had been razed almost to the ground. Dominic remembered most vividly the desk, or rather, what was left of it; the flagstone that had fallen on it in the explosions had not so much crushed as splattered it. Papers and splinters had lain in all directions. The Konservator himself, it turned out, had fled east—behind enemy lines, where Dominic’s unit wouldn’t dare to go, at least not yet.
Starting, however, with a pay slip found among the rubble and continuing with painstakingly slow sleuthing work, the trail had led them here to Bad Godesberg and this relic of a house. And to Herr Weyres, the Konservator’s assistant, hiding in his cousin’s kitchen.
The cousin, one of those splendid German women who had somehow managed to maintain her strapping figure despite the ravages of war, bustled between the soldiers with steaming mugs in her hands. She elbowed them aside as if they were little more than naughty children, tutting and clicking her tongue. “There,” she said, stumbling over the English as she held a mug out to Weyres. “Warm. Be thanking this good young man.” She turned to Dominic and gave his cheek an affectionate pat. Dominic felt his face flush as two of the servicemen struggled to stifle a chuckle. Weyres had looked so pathetic huddling there, he’d felt compelled to offer him his ration of powdered coffee. It was cheap and brackish stuff, but it was worth something in this bone-chilling air.
Herr Weyres brought the mug close to his face and savored the steam as if it was the most inexpressible luxury. He took a huge gulp, choked a little, and spluttered as his cousin pounded him on the back.
“So you have no record of where any of it went?” Hancock prompted him, drumming his long fingers on the kitchen table; it stood on three rickety legs, the fourth a pathetic stump.
“Ach, no, no, that is not what I said.” Herr Weyres wiped his bristly mustache and clasped the mug in both hands, his shivering subsiding. “To start, I was writing down a list of the repositories in a small ledger book. I kept it hidden in a metal compartment on the side of our fireplace. I thought that no one would find it there, connect it to me. We had some small resistance groups in town. I did not have enough courage to join them, but I thought that maybe, sometime, I would have an opportunity to hand over my ledger book to the leaders of that group. Maybe they would be able to recover the works, or at least help prevent them from being destroyed. But then, someone whispered my name to the authorities. I heard they were coming to find me.”
Dominic could hardly believe his ears. This man had risked his life for a handwritten list of artwork?
Herr Weyres continued. “As quickly as I could, I lit a fire in the hearth. And I threw the ledger book on the flames. By the time the Gestapo arrived, there was no longer any evidence. I was lucky.”
“And so the lists are destroyed,” Hancock said, his shoulders falling.
“No, I still have them.”
“What do you mean?” Hancock said.
“I still have the lists of the repositories. All here.” He reached up and shakily tapped his head with one finger. “Maybe not all of it, but much. I had a feeling about these men who were taking my collection, so I tried to remember.”
“Can you tell us?”
“Of course.” Herr Weyres took another sip. “You bring the art back to my museum, to my people.” He gestured as if writing in the air. “You must bring paper, yes?”
Hancock plucked a notebook and pencil out of his coat pocket. “Fire away.”
At surprising speed, Weyres began to rattle off a list of repositories all over Germany, so fast that Hancock’s writing grew drawn-out and scrabbled in his attempt to keep up. He covered three pages on both sides before finally, as suddenly as he’d begun, Herr Weyres stopped. He took a long pull at the bitter coffee and then sat staring at Hancock for a few seconds.
“That is all I remember. There can be one or two that I have forgotten.”
“This is brilliant.” Hancock pushed his back against the chair and huffed a sigh of relief. “We can do a lot with this. Thank you, sir.” He rose, prompting the rest of the unit to prepare to leave, shuffling toward the door. Hancock extended a long hand to the old man. Herr Weyres clasped it in both of his own, staring intently into Hancock’s eyes.
“You will find the art in all manner of strange places, Amerikaner. Look in places you cannot imagine. Castle dungeons, monasteries, bank vaults, restaurant storage rooms, hotel rooms, school gymnasia, even beneath ordinary homes. But what you really want is in Siegen.” His grip tightened so that Dominic saw the blood leaving Hancock’s fingers. “There, below the citadel, is a copper mine. You will find the greatest treasures there.”
Siegen. Hancock nodded at the name they had come across in Aachen.
The men stepped outside into the icy rain, which pounded hollowly on Dominic’s helmet. His head felt the same: empty, shallow, a shell. He knew “the greatest treasures” had to refer to Charlemagne’s relics, perhaps even other lost masterpieces. But while he felt a pang of relief that dear old Vicar Stephany was one step closer to the possibility of seeing his beloved treasures again, after all the death and destruction, Dominic could summon no emotion at the thought of art anymore.
Keep drawing, Paul had said. Right now, the distance between himself and home yawned ever greater. But Dominic knew that with this hastily scribbled list of art repositories, Hancock would move ever eastward with a renewed sense of purpose. They would be busy for a long time.
If he was in this for the long haul, Dominic thought, then he might as well get on board. Men like Weyres were putting their own lives on the line to save works of art. And maybe Stephany was right. They must not only live. They must find something to live for.
Dominic resolved that as they headed eastward, if he were to come out of this war with any ounce of sanity, he must hang on to the idea that art made life worth living. His life depended on it.
33
Edith
Munich, Germany
November 1939
ART MAKES LIFE WORTH LIVING, HER FATHER HAD ALWAYS said. Edith tried to hang on to the idea that she had done her best to care for some of the most precious works in the world, to atone for having once put them in danger.
“Make way.”
Edith stepped aside as two men managed an unwieldy canvas—an expansive landscape darkened by time—through the middle of her conservation studio. As they passed, Edith noticed the layers of dust that had settled into the crevices of the ornate, gilded wooden frame.
All that mattered, she told herself, was that her father was safe and as well as could be expected under the care of a new home nurse. For that, she was ever grateful.
But to Edith’s dismay, her normally quiet conservation studio had been commandeered as a station for classifying and prioritizing paintings brought in from far afield. She had looked forward to a return to her work and her peaceful laboratory, but the room had been transformed into a thoroughfare, with the few staff members left at the Alte Pinakothek managing the organization, cataloging, and storage of the new works pouring in from across Europe.