The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World

  Yes, Mr. Zender insisted, that was exactly the kind of company the widow liked to surround herself with. He looked around Eisenhuth’s office and commented that his view was spectacular. He got up and with his hands behind his back, reminiscent of the officer Eisenhuth once was, walked to the wall where Eisenhuth’s engineering certificate hung. Mr. Zender suggested that perhaps other positions he had held in the past, some other credentials so to speak, should best be forgotten.

  Eisenhuth regretted having made the offer of The Moon Lady when he realized that what Zender really wanted was the two invitations. But he couldn’t renege. His “honor” was at stake, so Mr. Zender got The Moon Lady and the two invitations.

  When the invitation arrived, Vittoria de Capua Tull knew what they were for. She knew that Mr. Zender wanted to marry her. She was not naïve. She accepted the invitation because she had decided that she wanted Mr. Zender as well. But not for herself. She wanted Mr. Zender for her daughter. As the prince’s consort, Aida Lily Tull would be lionized by St. Malo society, and her mother would become the dowager duchess. She had it all worked out. Daughter would get a husband and a Modigliani, and Mother would get a son-in-law who looked terrific in a tuxedo.

  Eisenhuth got Zender’s silence about his Nazi past. Vittoria Tull got Mr. Zender for her daughter. Her daughter got The Moon Lady as a wedding gift. The word blackmail never came up because by the time the negotiations were over, who could tell who was the extortionist and who, the extorted: Eisenhuth? Zender? Vittoria? Or all three?

  Mrs. Zender continued, “Mr. Zender and I got married on December 5 of the same year as the reopening of the Vienna State Opera. We had a small wedding in Venice, Mother’s choice. Mother joined us in Rome, the last stop on our wedding trip, and we all flew back here to St. Malo in time for Easter. We moved into this very house on Mandarin Road, and the parties began—”

  Mrs. Vanderwaal was the first to catch her breath. “Why?” she asked. “Why, why didn’t you return The Moon Lady when you found out for certain that it had been Nazi loot?”

  Mrs. Zender said, “I know this is going to be hard for someone like you, someone who pumps her own gas and who drives a van all over the country by herself, I know it’s very hard for you to understand, Mrs. Vanderwaal, but the truth is, it never occurred to me. Call it the St. Malo Syndrome. I had bonded with my captor.”

  “Worse than that. You used The Moon Lady as barter to get your sound system.”

  “I suppose you could say that, Mrs. Vanderwaal.”

  “I just did.”

  Amedeo said, “Mrs. Zender, the first day I met you, you told me that Karl Eisenhuth installed your sound system because three words, Aida Lily Tull,were enough.”

  Mrs. Zender said, “When you consider all the baggage that comes with those three words, they were enough.”

  “What baggage?”

  “Kurt Waldheim and Ivan the Terrible.”

  Mrs. Vanderwaal was aghast, and even Mrs. Wilcox was openmouthed.

  It was William who asked coolly, “Why do you say that, Mrs. Zender?”

  “I do read the papers, you know, and I found out that even after his Nazi past was revealed, the Austrian people elected Kurt Waldheim to be their president. His margin of victory was less than ten percent.” Mrs. Zender exchanged a knowing look with Amedeo and added, “In politics even less than ten percent is enough.

  “At the time there was another case about an ex-Nazi making the news. A mechanic in Cleveland, Ohio, was discovered to have been a guard at a concentration camp where he was known as Ivan the Terrible. After his Nazi past was discovered, he was stripped of his citizenship and deported. By then ex-Nazis had become so unpopular in the United States, the U.S. government declared Waldheim, the former secretary general of the United Nations, an undesirable alien and barred him from coming to America where he had once lived. Well, now, there were the two cases of two men: one who had been living in America for forty years and had been deported, and one in Austria who had been newly elected president and was not allowed back in. So there was I with my finger on two buttons.

  “I pushed both.

  “I suggested to Mr. Zender that he call Mr. Eisenhuth and have him reroute his trip to Houston. St. Malo would be a wonderful point of entry to America for him. If he tried to come in through any other port, his name could mysteriously appear on a list of ex-Nazis, and he could possibly have trouble getting in.

  “So Herr Eisenhuth entered the United States through the port of St. Malo, designed my system, paid for all the materials, and supervised its installation. After he left I put The Moon Lady away. Tucked it into a corner of the library. I couldn’t destroy it. It is lovely, isn’t it? But I never displayed it or enjoyed it.”

  Mrs. Vanderwaal was dumbfounded. “You consider that penance? Never enjoying it? Or were you really just protecting yourself and your stolen goods?”

  “I hardly came into the library. I more or less forgot about it until I had to move. Then I knew it would be discovered.”

  William asked, “Were you counting on Amedeo to do that?”

  “Not at first. When I hired Mrs. Wilcox, I knew she had discovered the Chinese silk screen. I do read the papers, you know. But then Amedeo came along.”

  “You knew I wanted to discover something, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I had heard you say that you wanted to find something that had been lost that no one knew had been lost until you found it. I thought that with your name being the same as Modigliani’s and your being Jewish and Italian, there was enough there to pique your interest.”

  “You planted it, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did. I planted it when I found out that you were going to an exhibit of Degenerate art. The day you recited that little poem about Modigliani, I was sure you would turn The Moon Lady over to that person in Sheboygan—”

  “Are you referring to my son? Is he ‘that person in Sheboygan’?”

  “If he is the person who put together that show of Degenerate art.”

  “He is.”

  “Then he’s that person in Sheboygan.”

  “That person in Sheboygan has a name, Mrs. Zender. His name is Peter. Peter Vanderwaal. He is named for Johannes’s brother, Pieter. Johannes’s brother, parent, guardian, friend. I think you should remember it, Mrs. Zender, because his name is relevant as all memorials are relevant. Say his name, Mrs. Zender. Say Peter Vanderwaal.”

  Mrs. Zender repeated, “Peter Vanderwaal.”

  Momentarily satisfied, the two women turned from each other.

  Then Mrs. Vanderwaal scolded, “You, Mrs. Zender, didn’t want Amedeo to save The Moon Lady, you wanted him to relieve you of owning stolen merchandise that you yourself had done nothing about for half your life.”

  “I haven’t had my sound system for that long—half my life.”

  “But you did nothing. Nothing! You obviously read the papers, Mrs. Zender. You know that even museums have had to give back stolen works—works that have been hanging on their walls for years. There are laws, Mrs. Zender.”

  Worried that this exchange would escalate into warfare, Mrs. Wilcox asked, “When you planted that picture, Mrs. Zender, did you have any idea that Amedeo would have a personal connection to it?”

  “How could I know that? Didn’t you just hear Mrs. Vanderwaal need to remind me of the name Peter? Peter Vanderwaal didn’t enter into my plans until I found out he was sponsoring an exhibit of Degenerate art.”

  William asked, “Were Bert and Ray unexpected?”

  Mrs. Zender’s reply was vague. “I guess I should have paid more attention to Mrs. Wilcox’s lists. But I didn’t. I simply found myself sitting in the music room with The Moon Lady perched on the piano.” And then, as if a ventriloquist had entered the room, Mrs. Zender launched into a wicked imitation of Bert: “‘What do you think, Ray? Do you think we’ll be arrested for dealing in pornography if we display this in our shop?’” Mrs. Zender paused briefly before continuing with an accurate but mean
impersonation of Ray. “‘If it’s old enough and expensive enough, it’s not pornographic, it’s antique.’” Slipping back into her normal conversation tone, she added, “Those two men had no more intention of displaying The Moon Lady in their shop than they had of running with the bulls in Pamplona.”

  Amedeo listened with his heart in his throat. Mrs. Zender was being carried away by her performance, and she couldn’t stop. Gone was the mild, mocking tone that he was accustomed to hearing. He didn’t like Bert and Ray. They were jealous of Mrs. Wilcox, but they were not mean. The look on William’s face told him that the acid in Mrs. Zender’s voice had etched him, too.

  Mrs. Zender softened her tone and continued, “Bert and Ray were going to march Modigliani straight to the nearest museum and make a profit that would put Mrs. Wilcox’s sale to the Freer in the shade. However, I also knew, as they obviously did not, that no museum would buy it.” She looked at Mrs. Vanderwaal. “Yes, I do read the papers.” She turned back to her audience and added, “But by then Amedeo had allowed things to go too far.”

  Amedeo was incensed. “How did I let things go too far? You’re accusing me of not doing a job you never gave me. Like the telephones. You let me guess at what you want and then you accuse me . . .” Amedeo opened his mouth to say something more, but nothing would come out.

  Mrs. Zender purred. “Admit it, Amedeo. It wasn’t until I walked out that you realized what a disaster it would be if Bert and Ray bought The Moon Lady.”

  “Did you play me, Mrs. Zender? Did you play me the way you played Mr. Zender—like a harpsichord?”

  “Never! I could never play you like a harpsichord, Amedeo. You are too fortissimo, but I didn’t need to. Bert or Ray—one of them—had already plucked a G-string.” And then, like the mimic she was, Mrs. Zender slipped into Ray’s voice. “Moe-DIG-lee-ahn-nee . . .”

  And then suddenly Mrs. Wilcox jumped to her feet and clapped her hands.

  Amedeo jumped. What was happening? Mrs. Wilcox was acting out of character, and so was Mrs. Vanderwaal. They were the peacemakers, and now they were calling attention to themselves the way that Mrs. Zender did.

  “Let us just think about Bert and Ray for a minute. Think about why wouldn’t they want a signed drawing? The price was right. Mrs. Zender had even approved it. But now think about what would have happened if Amedeo had not stopped it.” She looked around the room. “Mrs. Zender’s already given us all a hint about that. We already know that no museum is gonna buy anything unless’n they investigate it. They call it vetting. And when the vetting is done, and they find out that there drawing don’t have a proper provenance, there’s gonna be one right big fuss. And that is when Bert and Ray will be enraged, and rightfully so. They’re gonna call the newspaper. And rightfully so. And the paper will print an article. And prob’ly put it on a wire service. Such things make the national news these days. There would be martyrs, namely Bert and Ray. And why wouldn’t they be? They were sold stolen merchandise, and William and me would be caught in the middle of selling it. Something I should’na done. But I didn’t follow up as I shoulda. I suspected something about The Moon Lady but I never suspected that it had cost a boy his life.”

  Mrs. Zender said, “You could say that The Moon Lady saved a boy’s life.”

  Mrs. Vanderwaal was enraged. “How can you say that?”

  Mrs. Zender held up the exit visa. “This saved a life.”

  Amedeo looked at Mrs. Zender. She lifted her chin and was smiling as she had done the day of her mock dinner party. She was giving a performance.

  Mrs. Vanderwaal was seething. She said, “I don’t think, Mrs. Zender, that you can possibly call Eisenhuth or Zender a hero. And you, Mrs. Zender, do not get to choose.” She folded her arms across her chest; so tightly that Amedeo thought she would fall apart if she let go.

  Amedeo looked from one to the other: the prosecutor and the defendant. One lived her life as an executive, and the other as an artist. Like his mother and Jake, he loved them both. Would he have to choose? Or could they share custody?

  William conferred briefly with the angel on his shoulder, then he took his mother by the elbow and gently nudged her forward until she was standing between the two women facing them both.

  Mrs. Wilcox spoke slowly. “You might could say that, Mrs. Zender. You might say that The Moon Lady saved a young boy’s life, but I wouldn’t recommend you sayin’ that. Not in public anyways. Over to the Waldorf, there’s a lot of them cane-and-crutch crowd that’s not gonna see it that way at all. They’re all old, but most of them has nothin’ wrong with their long-term memories, and when they read about how that picture come to St. Malo, they’re gonna see it as having cost lives, and—much as I know about them—I reckon they’re not gonna want to have much to do with someone who was once married to a . . . a . . . foreign person such as Mr. Zender once was.”

  Mrs. Vanderwaal said, “The fat lady is finished.”

  Looking from The Moon Lady to Mrs. Zender and back, Amedeo asked, “Which fat lady?”

  “Depends,” Mrs. Zender said. “Which one of us do you want to see naked, not nude?”

  There followed a moment as charged as Macy’s at Christmas.

  Mrs. Wilcox cleared her throat. “I done some reading, and I found out there’s a committee up there in Washington that’s set up to investigate claims to restore art stolen by the Nazis to the rightful owners. Mrs. Vanderwaal could contact them, or . . .” Mrs. Wilcox stopped and cleared her throat again. “Or Mrs. Zender could return The Moon Lady to the widow of the inheritor . . . or Mrs. Vanderwaal and Mrs. Zender could both take some time to sit down together and make a choice.”

  Mrs. Wilcox sat down.

  Mrs. Zender turned to Mrs. Vanderwaal, and they turned away from their anger, and then they turned toward each other and made a choice.

  IT WAS WINTER, AND IT was wisconsin. peter vanderwaal, Mrs. Vanderwaal, Mrs. Wilcox, William, Mrs. Zender, and Amedeo Kaplan stood—freezing—on the loading dock of the Sheboygan Art Center. They were variously bundled up, but it was stabbing cold.

  Amedeo had raided the carton of winter clothes that he had not opened since he had moved to St. Malo. He had found a hooded jacket for himself and another—a little short in the sleeves—for William. Mrs. Wilcox was wearing a pair of his mother’s boots and one of his mother’s coats—a little long in the sleeves—that Amedeo had insisted she borrow. Mrs. Wilcox didn’t complain, but Amedeo knew she was cold; her nose was red and her eyes were tearing, but she was smiling. Mrs. Zender was in a full-length fox fur. The shoulders of her coat were so wide that anyone who did not know her might think she had forgotten to remove the hanger before putting it on. She wore white leather gloves up to her elbow, which had yellowed with age and stiffened with cold, and her fur hat—as wide as a medium pizza—posed a serious rival to Peter’s pelzkeppe.

  Peter was wearing fur-lined gloves and a bespoke shearling coat that brushed the ankles of his riding boots. He was not cold, but the cold gave him an excuse to stamp his feet. In truth, he could not keep still. Today was the day they were to deliver both of his new acquisitions for the gallery. As the truck backed up, Peter could already picture them on the wall in the front gallery: the oil painting in its simple, simply beautiful new frame (which he had selected), and the drawing in its original restored frame. He took off one glove so that he could finger the two brass plates he had in his pocket. One said:

  AMEDEO MODIGLIANI

  1884-1920

  The Moon Lady

  Crayon on Paper

  GIFT OF JOHN AND LELANI VANDERWAAL

  IN MEMORY OF PIETER VAN DER WAAL

  The other brass plate said:

  HENRI MATISSE

  1869-1954

  Paysage è L’Estaque

  Oil on Canvas

  MUSEUM PURCHASE

  ANONYMOUS DONOR

  Peter served his impatience by mentally writing his opening statement for the speech he would give at the paintings’ unveiling. Matisse’s Landsc
ape at L’Estaque had a sky that was green and a pasture that was blue, so he could very well begin his remarks by saying, “Works by Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Matisse were once forbidden.” No, he thought, these works deserve a different beginning.

  As the truck backed up, Amedeo watched the three women: Mrs. Zender, Mrs. Vanderwaal, and Mrs. Wilcox. And he thought about the ten percent and the ninety percent.

  And he thought: Suppose you find a tusk and have a woolly mammoth named after you, or you find America and have the capital of Ohio named after you, or you invent a process and have pasteurization named after you; you have to give up some part of that invisible ninety percent. And suppose you find a friend, a real friend; then, too, you have to give up some of that ninety percent.

  William was standing on the loading platform with his hands deep inside his pockets.

  Amedeo watched as he tipped the hood of his anorak to the angel on his shoulder. And even though William was his best friend in the world, and even if he was William’s best friend as well, he would never know what thoughts William sent to that angel on his shoulder, because that angel was part of his ninety percent that had to stay anonymous.

  Then he thought about Pieter and Peter and Johannes and John. And he thought about the three words Aida Lily Tull.

  And he thought about the edge between the ninety percent and the ten percent.

  Sometimes that edge was cunning, and sometimes it was kind. Sometimes it was shabby. And sometimes it was heroic.

  But it was always mysterious.

  Definitely.

  acknowledgments

  to my friends and colleagues—

  at simon & schuster: beth sue rose, emma dryden,

  rubin pfeffer, and rick richter for their enthusiasm;

  at aladdin: ellen krieger for always making it a special

  pleasure to meet with her approval;

  at home: theresa dinuzzo for her italian lyricism;

  at atheneum: jeannie ng for her scrutiny and patience

  with missed deadlines; jordan brown for his