“Great!” Hancock said enthusiastically as they completed the tour. “I’m off to check up on the new works arriving.” He beamed and headed off.
Instead of heading to the makeshift hall that had been converted to a mess room, though, Weaver and Dominic wandered back through the paintings stacked in the hallway, chatting about this piece and that. Their new friendship had begun to heal the edges of the ragged gap Paul’s death had left in Dominic’s life.
Best of all, he’d been drawing again. They headed for a bust of a young woman that Dominic had been wanting to draw for days, and he settled down on the floor opposite. The moment Dominic had picked up a charcoal pencil again, a gift from Stephany back at Siegen, he had started sketching and couldn’t stop. Soon running out of human subjects to draw, he’d taken to using the pieces of art for inspiration. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Dominic pulled out one of the index cards he had taken from the stacks near the loading docks. The bust took shape briskly; first just the oval of the face, then the curves of the cheekbones, the locks of hair, the eyes. The nose. He brought it to life by sketching the eyes in, dark and vibrant. When he was done, the portrait of some long-forgotten young woman blushed prettily up at him, and he found himself doodling a couple of freckles across her nose.
“It’s great, Bonelli,” said Weaver when he flipped the card to show his friend.
“Mail call!” A skinny private with a canvas mailbag strode into the room, and the men snapped to formation.
The young man’s voice cracked as he called out the names written on the envelopes in his hand. “Ackerman. Barnes. Bonelli . . .”
Dominic’s heart leapt in his chest. The young private pressed an envelope into his hand.
Bonelli, the return address said. Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Dominic recognized Sally’s neat handwriting, the careful letters with controlled loops. Dominic pressed the envelope to his face and inhaled as if he might catch Sally’s scent imprinted on it. He fumbled to tear open the flap of the envelope.
“Bonelli.”
His name again, but this time it was Hancock, approaching Dominic and Weaver. Both men saluted the officer as he approached, but Dominic thought he detected a hint of sadness in Hancock’s eyes.
“I’ve got news,” he said. Dominic fingered the letter from Sally, hardly able to keep himself from ripping it open. He struggled to keep his attention on Hancock. “You’ve both been reassigned.”
Dominic’s stomach flipped. He had just started to enjoy the peace and quiet in Marburg. Gripping the envelope, he tried to keep the fear out of his voice. “Why?”
“Seems that it’s too peaceful here for the likes of you, soldier. You’ve proven yourself too valuable as a front-line man. Gotta keep moving forward toward the action.”
Hancock handed Dominic a thin slip of paper, his orders stamped out on it in large impersonal letters, changing a life in a few lines of type.
Dominic’s heart sank.
And just like that, just as he began to throw himself wholeheartedly into the Monuments Men’s mission, Dominic was being forced to leave them behind. He and Weaver were going back to the front lines.
59
Edith
Kraków, Poland
January 1942
AT A TABLE, A LITTLE BOY WAS WORKING ON HIS LESSONS, his legs swinging freely under the chair. Light filtered through the window beside him, a luminous reflection from the snow collecting and drifting in the courtyard of Wawel Castle. A fire crackled loudly in the tremendous fireplace that occupied one wall of the great room. Several couches and chairs with deep cushions furnished the room. Throw blankets, newspapers, and books were scattered across the tables.
Edith had expected to be led back to the office of Hans Frank, but instead, a soldier led her to a room where Frank’s secretary, Hilda, was straining tea leaves into a ceramic pot, and the boy was deep in concentration on forming the alphabet.
“Fräulein Becker,” Hilda said. “Make yourself comfortable. Herr von Palézieux is on his way here to see you.”
She hesitated. “Herr . . . Who?”
“They have not informed you? I am sorry. Wilhelm Ernst von Palézieux. He is a renowned architect who has come to us from Switzerland. He was appointed as Governor Frank’s new personal curator. You will be working with him.”
Von Palézieux? Personal curator? Was he another one of Kai Mühlmann’s protégés?
But Edith did not have the chance to ask for further details. Hilda had already disappeared into the next room with the tea tray, the door swinging behind her.
Edith sat at the table across from the little boy. “Hallo,” she said. “I’m Edith.”
The boy ignored her, writing out his letters. She looked at his flaxen hair and his perfectly formed face in the snow-reflected light of the window. Edith watched the boy write careful characters in the antique style, elegant, sharply defined letters that looked as though they belonged in the German Renaissance rather than the twentieth century.
“You have very good penmanship,” she said. “What’s your name?”
This time, the boy raised his head and met her gaze. In contrast to his blond hair, the boy’s eyes were nearly black. Just like his father’s. “Michael.”
“What are you working on?”
“Practicing my letters,” he said. Edith spied several other pages of handwriting protruding from a notebook at his side.
“Michael.” A teenaged girl appeared in the far doorway, “Come. Your tutor is waiting.” Michael slapped his folio together, flashing his eyes at Edith again. Then he slid down from the chair and marched across the room toward his sister.
Edith watched two more of the Frank children make their way through the snow-covered courtyard below the window. Seemingly oblivious to the cold, the older boy and younger girl removed their gloves and began throwing snow at each other until a woman appeared, ordering them to stop it immediately, that she could not tolerate them soiling their clothes. With one hand, she dragged the younger child, who stumbled along reluctantly at her mother’s side.
Brigitte Frank. The governor’s wife. Edith had only glimpsed her from the window as she strode across the lawn with her five children, or in grainy black-and-white pictures in the newspaper, but she recognized the tall woman immediately. She was a picture of severe elegance, wearing a long woolen coat with a mink collar that shifted in the wind. Even from the high vantage point of the window, Edith felt as intimidated by Brigitte as she was by her husband.
Somehow, Edith had become enveloped into the family’s private wing of Wawel Castle. Into their private business. How did she get herself into this position? As much as she had felt trapped in the countryside villa, she now wished that she could return there, far from the clutches of Frank and his family.
“Fräulein Becker.”
Edith stood.
Before her was a slight man with large glasses. He bared his crooked teeth in a strained smile. “Governor Frank has heaped praises upon you. It is an honor to meet you finally.” He extended his hand. “I’m Ernst.” Edith took his hand, warm and confident, not too firm. “Governor Frank is away from the palace. We might meet in the front room adjacent to his office. We will have space there to get to know each other. Please.”