She paused. Her father did not respond, but his laughter died away.
“They were trying to influence the other students to do the right thing . . .” Edith looked over her shoulder self-consciously. “Do you remember anything about that?”
Silence.
Edith sighed. How she wished her father could share something she could hold on to, some bit of paternal wisdom that might help her see more clearly what was in her power to control—and what was not.
“I have something to tell you, Papa.” Edith searched for the right words. “I have to go away again for a while. You remember that I work at the Alte Pinakothek, right?” Her father continued to stare at her blankly. “The art museum?”
Edith waited for a spark of recognition that never came. She continued. “I have to go to Berlin, and then back to Kraków, to take care of some important, very valuable paintings.”
Her father looked out at the barren trees. “Hhmp,” he acknowledged.
“It’s not my choice, Papa, I have official orders. They want me to . . . safeguard these works before they are destroyed. You have always taught me that life is nothing without art. Remember?”
Her father seemed to be working hard to process what she was telling him. “Edith,” he said. She grasped his hand in relief.
“Yes, Papa.”
He turned his eyes on her. “Wehret den Anfängen.”
Edith recognized the flash of clarity. “Beware the beginnings.” Her stomach fluttered.
When she saw her father’s jaw begin to rattle with cold, Edith helped him up to begin their slow walk the few blocks home. Frost coated the bare branches of the trees along the park paths. Newly fallen leaves curled under the weight of the white coating, making a jagged pattern on the gravel pathways that wended their way back to their block. They passed the dusty, neglected doorway to the Nusbaums’ apartment, and Edith’s heart sank. Her mind flickered with the image of the many trains she had seen in recent weeks, heading east. She wished she had known back then, could have urged them to flee. If only she could have foreseen all of it, she thought.
In the apartment hallway, Edith hung her coat and opened a drawer in the table where the shiny black telephone sat. Inside the drawer were two letters she’d received from Heinrich. The first was dated the day after she first left for Poland. The other was dated a few days afterward. She had read and reread them dozens of times. It had been almost a month now and she had no idea where he was. He had been safe then, but what about now? Was he keeping warm? Was he secure? Alive? Her heart ached for him. She lowered herself into the chair by the desk and read through both letters once more with tears in her eyes.
The stack of mail also included all the letters she had written home to her father while she was in Poland. None of them had been opened. Her heart sank. Weeks had passed, and her father had not heard from her. When Frau Gertzheimer had taken him to the sanatorium, had he wondered where she was? Had he remembered that he had a daughter at all?
In the kitchen, Edith heard Rita talking to her father, describing her process for making beef and cabbage soup. Edith felt her heart fill with gratitude for Rita’s presence. She could not imagine what might have happened if her father had stayed in the sanatorium, nor could she imagine what Rita had told her about the numbers of disabled dwindling there.
In her sparse bedroom, Edith packed a few necessities into a leather bag for the train ride to Berlin. The telegram had only given her the basics—Kai Mühlmann’s office had been destroyed but he must be all right if he was calling her to meet him. It hadn’t said whether anyone else was hurt or whether anything had been salvaged. What had happened to da Vinci’s Lady? Edith couldn’t imagine the possibility that the picture might be damaged or destroyed. If that happened, Edith would never forgive herself as long as she lived. No. It was her job to save works of art, not to put them at risk. But would she put her own life at risk for a work of art? While she pressed her warmest gloves down on top of her few pieces of clothing, she pondered Manfred’s proposal. How far would she go to save a painting?
What would her father have done? She only wished he could tell her.
36
Edith
Kraków, Poland
December 1939
AS DAWN BROKE, EDITH WATCHED THE ONION-SHAPED towers of Wawel Castle come forth into the light. She felt the train car sway into the curve following a promontory of the Vistula River, where a thin blanket of snow outlined the water’s edge. The sound of freezing rain was like small bullets, pelting the metal roof of the sleeper car.
She stood and stretched. Her entire body felt wrung out and achy. She had forfeited a night’s sleep on the train, tossing on the narrow, hard bunk and watching the shadows of the trees clip by against the night sky. Finally, she had dozed fitfully to the rocking of the train in the darkness, her hand resting on the wooden crate that held da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine.
The picture was packed in the proper way now, thanks to the work of a fellow conservator at the Alte Nationalgalerie back in Berlin. It stood encased in a wooden crate made especially for it, with a sturdy leather handle for easy carrying. Edith took some consolation in knowing that the picture would be transported more safely this time; she trusted herself more than she trusted the soldiers who knew nothing of handling this treasure.
“It wasn’t easy,” Mühlmann had told Edith as he escorted her to the Berlin train station in a black Mercedes with a uniformed driver. From the back seat, the crated painting wedged between them, Edith had examined Kai’s haggard face. “Governor Frank made an argument that the pictures we brought from Kraków were state property,” he had told her. “He demanded that all of them be returned to Poland. Immediately.”
Edith had felt herself sink down into the leather seat as she considered the audacity, the greed of this man to demand a Rembrandt. A Raphael. A da Vinci. Many other priceless works. All for himself. At the same time, Edith was not sure that taking the masterpieces back to Germany had made them any safer than they would have been in Poland. It was only a stroke of luck that had kept the pictures from being destroyed in that air raid on Berlin, Edith thought. Mühlmann told her that he had moved the pictures into the Kaiser Friedrich Museum just days before bombs began to fall from the sky.
But now, only the Lady with an Ermine was once again in her care. Edith had gripped the leather handle of the crate as the darkened apartment windows of Berlin had clipped by outside the car window. “And the others?” she had asked.
“Don’t worry; they’re safe. The curator at the Dresden Gemäldegalerie is personally seeing to their care in their storage vaults. They’ve already been tagged for the Führer’s museum in Linz.”
But of all the pictures he demanded, Mühlmann had told her, Frank only succeeded in securing the return of the da Vinci. The governor negotiated for more than just Lady with an Ermine, though. He wanted Edith to deliver it to him personally. “Only this painting,” Mühlmann had told her, patting the top of the wooden crate as they had pulled into the circle before the Berlin train station. “And only you.”
Stepping out of that car with her bag in one hand, the crated painting in the other, was one of the hardest things Edith had ever had to do. Kai had stood awkwardly before her, seemingly unsure if he should shake her hand or embrace her. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his back and bowed slightly in her direction. “You should be proud of your contributions, Edith. Safe travels.”