“Is that the original frame?”
“Certainly not.”
Edith did not look up as she gently pressed the last corner from its frame. “Very few pictures from the Italian Renaissance have their own frames unless the wood was originally an integral part of the painted wooden panels.” Straightening, she stepped back. Her chestnut hair curled up at the ends; it tickled her cheek now as she examined her handiwork with a critical eye. “Most likely, da Vinci designed his own frame for this picture; it probably looked different from this one. It must have gotten detached from the picture at some point.”
By now, Edith answered Dominic’s questions automatically. It had taken Dominic weeks to work up the courage to show her one of his sketches. Even then, it was not his personal favorite—a drawing from memory of Sally, not her entire face, but just a part of her that he could not forget: the sharp line of her jaw joining to the smooth curve of her neck. Instead, he showed Edith one of his many reproductions of the enchanting girl da Vinci had painted centuries ago. But ever since, Edith had taken his questions seriously. And he had many.
“What kind of panel was it painted on? How come the solvent cleans the painting, but doesn’t damage the paint? How did you learn to restore art?”
This last one led to more questions, questions that didn’t always have to do with art. At first, Edith’s answers had been evasive. Quick and patient as she was with answers to his multitude of art questions, Edith had been guarded about her personal life, and when she finally did open up, Dominic saw why. Those gray eyes could turn storm-dark with pain when she was asked about her family. He knew that she lived at home with her sick, elderly father; he seemed to be the only family she had left. When Edith had told him about losing her fiancé in Poland, it had nearly broken Dominic’s heart.
As the weeks, then months, ticked by, Dominic was amazed to learn that Edith Becker, this modest conservator, had not only survived as a personal assistant to the man the newspapers were now calling the Butcher of Poland. She had also personally couriered the portrait by Leonardo da Vinci on trains and armored vehicles across Poland and Germany, multiple times.
Dominic sat on one of the tables of the conservation studio. His job as a security guard was a piece of cake after everything he’d encountered in the field. He watched Edith, wearing a brown canvas apron over her plain dress, lay down gold leaf on a frame with a fine brush.
“You were never tempted to run away with it?” he asked. “Keep it for yourself?”
“No.”
“But surely you deserved to keep at least one masterpiece,” he joked. “You worked so hard to keep the picture safe all that time. You put yourself at risk.”
Her smile faded. “All of us have been at risk, Dominic, whether we liked it or not.”
“Fair enough.”
“This might seem strange, coming from someone who has made a career around art, but I have never wanted to own one of these myself. I only wish to study them, to save them. And now, ultimately, to return them to their rightful places. When I get back to my job at the museum, that will be my mission. To return each work to its original owner. Those who are left.”
Dominic wondered what could be said of the shattered continent, the broken world all around him, blackened by the war. It would take more than art to pick up the pieces of the conflict-torn world. But now he knew that art would play a role whose importance could not be denied.
“You yourself should see that. You have played an important role,” she said.
Dominic shrugged. “We only did what we could to save lives. And to save whatever art we could.”
At that moment, the doors behind them opened, and two men entered the room. Dominic jumped from the table and immediately saluted, recognizing one of them as the director of the Central Collecting Point. “Sir!”
“At ease, soldier,” said the director. “I’m looking for the lady.” He nodded at Edith.
Edith set down her brush and wiped her hands on her apron. “Sir?”
“Fräulein Becker is one of the best art restorers we have,” the director told the other man. “She has been working on the altarpiece as well. Edith, this is Major Karol Estreicher. He is a Polish officer who has been working with us to identify works that must be returned to his country.”
Major Estreicher nodded vaguely, but his eyes were not on Edith. They were set on the rising beauty of the great Veit Stoss altarpiece, now disassembled in the shadows.
The room was far fuller now than it had been when Dominic had first come here almost a year ago. Half of it was occupied by the enormous Veit Stoss altarpiece, a hulking shadow in the dark room. The multipaneled altarpiece towered against one wall, a gigantic collection of painted panels and elaborate sculptures, dismantled into several pieces. Dominic imagined that, fully assembled, it might reach some forty feet in height.
Dominic had already spent hours sketching it, and he’d only managed to finish all the figures from one of the panels. He had recognized the Virgin Mary and most of the apostles, but there were other scenes he could not interpret. He had watched conservators and curators swarming around it for weeks, examining the armatures that held it together, studying it and talking about how it might be safely packed for its return transport to Poland. Edith had told him that it was one of the greatest national treasures of Poland. It had always stood behind the high altar of Saint Mary’s Basilica in Kraków before the Nazis took it.
Now, Dominic watched the Polish officer take a few steps closer to the altarpiece as if in a dream, and he reached out with one hand to touch one of the gilded reliefs. His handsome face crumpled, and tears gathered in his eyes. Turning back to Dominic, Edith, and the director of the Collecting Point, he choked out two words in a heavy accent.
“Thank you.”
Then he removed his hat and fell to his knees, staring up at the altarpiece as if he could drink it all in with his eyes. For a few long minutes, the room fell into a silent reverence that Dominic had not encountered since he saw Vicar Stephany fall to his knees before the relics of Charlemagne in the Siegen mine.
Major Estreicher finally gathered himself and rose to standing. He replaced his hat and swallowed. Red-eyed, he walked back to them, his back rigid and resolute. “I am here to take her home,” he said. “I am most humbled and honored to have been selected for the task. It is one of Poland’s greatest treasures. It is one of the few things my country has left. Thank you for taking good care of it all this time.”
Dominic saw Edith’s composure wobble for a second, but she swallowed it down. “Major, I must introduce you to Dominic Bonelli.” She touched his arm. “He is one of our very best guards. He has done a fine job making sure the altarpiece and other pieces of art are kept safe here in Munich. But also, he is responsible for protecting many works of art across Europe. He even helped to rescue the da Vinci from Hans Frank’s private villa.”
Estreicher’s eyes settled on Dominic. Dominic felt the tall Pole study him, running his intelligent-looking eyes over his short frame from head to foot. “Is that so?” he said. “Then I will make sure that you come with us to Poland to return these works, Mister Bonelli. Clearly, you are the right person for the job. Besides, we will need high security on the train.”