I struck out with heigur and Western Import Export. Not expecting much, I tried niederschonhausen.
Fourteen-million-plus hits.
A district north of Berlin, in a borough of the German capital called Pankow.
Pairing niederschonhausen with art filled the screen with narrative.
Schloss Niederschönhausen, a Baroque castle in Pankow, had been the site of a gallery established in 1938. Furnished with over twenty thousand works of art stripped from the walls of German museums after being labeled “degenerate” by leaders of the Nationalist Socialist Party.
Germans during the thirties were a conforming bunch and sales fared poorly due to der Führer’s bad review. Many of the paintings and sculptures ended up in Switzerland, long a bastion of amorality pled down to neutrality. In Basel, Zurich, and Bern, museums, collectors, and dealers attracted by bargain prices pounced energetically, with the pieces soon dispersed around the globe.
The man in charge of what had essentially been a large-scale fencing operation was one Heinz Friederich Gurschoebel.
That made me sit up.
Hei-gur.
I typed.
Well educated, and respected as an art historian until he’d turned war profiteer, Heinz Gurschoebel had been a favorite of the Nazi high command and had also been implicated in selling the treasures of Jewish and gay art patrons sent to death camps. Captured by the Allies in 1945, he’d avoided prosecution by falsely claiming status as an undercover resistance agent and, some said, bribing Russian officers with icons and jewelry.
Gurschoebel had also lied about losing his personal art collection in the Dresden bombing, having sent it in installments to Damascus, where his wife and children had fled in 1942. The family had subsequently moved from Syria to Algeria to Sweden, then Argentina, then Belgium, where Gurschoebel and his wife had settled and died of natural causes.
Nothing more on the family.
Asian-Oriental Concepts had named one of its corporate offshoots after a Nazi agent and another after the site of his plunder-fest, so not a huge leap imagining a link to The Museum of Desire.
As a favorite of the Nazi high command, Gurschoebel might well have had access to Göring’s stash. Had he taken some or all of the collection after Göring’s cyanide suicide?
Passed choice pieces to his descendants?
Did The Museum of Desire hang in some clandestine chamber, to be appreciated in solitude?
Had randy oil paintings been only part of the inheritance? Had Gurschoebel also passed on a cold, callous nature?
The kind of malignant narcissism that segues easily to sadism.
Owning a masterpiece you could never exhibit. Pity.
Oh, well, reinterpret it in human flesh.
* * *
—
I spent hours grouping heinz friederich gurschoebel with museum of desire macao asia, asian occidental concepts aoc asian art, medina okash, and the addresses of the two galleries bordering Okash’s. Came up empty and tossed in Geoffrey Dugong’s given and assumed names, then those of the four victims in the limo.
A harvest of dead branches.
I left a long message on Milo’s office phone and went for a run. Ended up pushing myself harder than usual, reaching the top of the Glen and continuing half a mile east. I got back home drenched and sore, swigged a quart of water, showered, dressed, began heading back to the office, and stopped.
My body was thrumming but my brain felt like a chunk of cement.
Time to follow the advice I give to patients when they talk about feeling stuck: back off, regroup, rest the gray cells.
CHAPTER
41
I was playing guitar when Milo phoned just after nine p.m.
“More Nazi stuff, like it wasn’t weird enough? I put in a call to the Holocaust center, maybe they can tell us something. Still watching Okash’s locales, still nada. Meanwhile, I need your help. Got a call from Haley Moman—Crispin’s mom. While she’s talking to me, the kid’s screaming at her in the background. Apparently he decided he needs to convene with us again, won’t say why. Mom told him no, he had a fit. She has no idea about what, just that he’s freaking out. I told her I could send a psychologist—that she already met you. She said why didn’t you tell me that in the first place, what, you assumed my son’s mentally ill? I said given Todd and Shirin’s complaint, it seemed the cautious way to go. That shut her up for a second then she says I don’t need your shrink, Crispin already has one. Meanwhile, the kid’s ranting in the background. I said maybe the two doctors could collaborate. That didn’t go over well with the lad, he’s screaming at the top of his lungs, wants ‘the Dumas guy.’ Even after Haley told him you were a shrink. Kid says, ‘Even better.’ ”
“Rigid and repetitious. That’s consistent.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Anyway, Haley called the kid’s therapist and she said nice things about you so everything’s set up. Sooner would be better than later, though I’m not convinced the kid really has anything to say. Probably just craves attention.”
I checked my calendar. Custody interview in the morning. Third-time meeting with a cranky, resistant father. I’d warmed him up a bit but more needed to be done.
“I’m free around one.”
“Great, I’ll tell her,” he said. “The kid’s at home all day, don’t imagine you’ll need an appointment.”
* * *
—
At twelve fifty-five, I pulled up to the white Georgian. On the way, I’d slowed and glanced at Clearwater Lane—a quick scan. No cars in front of the blue house.
Haley Moman opened the door, hair combed out, her face coated with full makeup. Cosmetics couldn’t mask weary eyes and worry lines.
“So you’re a therapist. You couldn’t tell me that?”
“It didn’t seem necessary.”
“Honesty’s always necessary…lucky for you, Dr. Sontag says you’re solid. A professor.”
“I do some teaching.”
“Yeah, yeah, at the med school crosstown,” she said. “I looked you up. You worked with kids with cancer. That had to be depressing.”
“For the most part, it was rewarding.”
“Was it? Anyway, you’ve been vetted and approved so I’ll allow you to talk to my baby, let’s get this over with.”
“Any idea what Crispin wants to tell me?”
“As if.”