The German Suitcase Page 8

  “Good, because we’re going to help make sure the world Never Forgets…and maybe sell a little luggage at the same time.”

  Jake’s eyes had hardened with commitment. He took a moment to process it, then brightening, said, “So, lights, camera, action! When do we start?”

  “First things, first, Jake,” Steinbach cautioned. “You happen to recall what’s in the suitcase?”

  Jake shrugged and splayed his hands. “Who knows. I mean, my neurons are still hooking-up on a regular basis; but it’s been sixty years. A lot of old stuff, I guess. What else?”

  “Well, at your earliest convenience,” Steinbach said, smartly, “We’re going to open it and find out .”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The doorbell rang again as Konrad Kleist crossed the foyer and approached the entrance of the townhouse. The sound was much more piercing, here, than in the distant library, and it made him shiver as if chilled. If it was the SS or Gestapo, he’d be the one to deal with them, not the housekeeper who was standing off to one side with the German Shepherd. Kleist took a moment to compose himself, then reached for the polished brass latch and forced an expansive smile.

  The door opened to reveal the snow-dotted figures and reddened faces of Eva Rosenberg and Jacob Epstein—two faces Konrad Kleist had never seen before; but he had no doubt who they were; and was relieved they weren’t henchmen from either of Himmler’s dreaded organizations. Still, he was painfully aware that hiding two Jews from the SS and helping them get out of the country was extremely dangerous; and his apprehension hadn’t eased.

  “I’m Konrad Kleist, Max’s father,” he said, his cordial demeanor belied by an anxious glance to the street. “Please come in.”

  The two young doctors hesitated and looked back at the Opel that was parked at the curb, engine running. Professor Gerhard responded with a little wave, and drove off into the swirling snow as Eva and Jake stepped into the inviting warmth of the townhouse.

  Konrad Kleist glanced once more to the street before closing the door. He wasn’t looking for a black Mercedes with SS insignia and men in black military uniforms inside. No, he was in search of an unmarked car with men in leather trench coats and wide-brimmed hats that kept their faces in shadow—Gestapo men; but if they were there, neither he nor the Professor had seen them.

  Tovah greeted Eva and Jake with a smile and took their coats along with Jake’s briefcase and Eva’s rucksack and physician’s bag. The elder Kleist led the way down the corridor that was lined with canvases: Klimt, Kirchner, Schiele; Cezanne, Degas, Lautrec, Van Gogh; Kandinsky, Klee, Marc, Munter, among them. The sound of the piano rose as they approached the library. Relieved her guests weren’t vile men in trench coats, Gisela played the final passage of the Mondschien Sonate with joyful abandon, then got up from the piano, and said, “Welcome to our home.”

  Jake nodded awkwardly, rubbing his palms together to warm them before shaking her hand.

  Eva broke into a shy smile, then sighed with exhilaration at the sight of Max, and ran into his arms. She held him tightly, with crushing force, as if this might somehow, miraculously, prevent the psychotic Jew-hunters from tearing them apart forever.

  Indeed, the Reichsführer was right. How could it have gone on for so long? How?! How could they have lived in denial for so many months and years? How could they have allowed themselves to believe it would last when in their darkest moments they knew it would come to this unnerving end? It wasn’t the Critical Skills Exemptions that had made them feel so falsely secure. No, it wasn’t a few pages of bureaucratic boilerplate that they had taken to heart, but rather the exciting and deeply satisfying routine of life, of healing the sick, treating the wounded, comforting the dying, and doing so together, that had lulled the three of them into believing it would go on forever; that had caused them to believe that Himmler’s bloodhounds wouldn’t pick up their scent.

  “Max has told us how proud he is to call you both his friends,” Gisela said, as Max and Eva separated, the tips of their fingers lingering in contact. “And we were especially pleased when he told us of his strong feelings for you, Eva.”

  “We’re very lucky to have found each other, Madam Kleist,” Eva said her eyes aglow with the love and admiration she felt for her son.

  “And we’re both very fortunate to have you and your husband offer to help us,” Jake said. “We’re aware of the chance you’re all taking.”

  “It won’t be the first,” the elder Kleist replied, his eyes brightening. “Perhaps it will be the last. Yes? Well, there’s much to do and little time to do it. If you will excuse us, Max will get you settled and explain what happens next.” The dog sensed he was about to leave and began drifting toward the door. “Kunst. Stay,” Konrad commanded, guiding his wife from the Library.

  The dog stopped in mid-stride, crossed the room and settled next to Eva, nuzzling her hand.

  “Where’s Professor Gerhard?” Max asked as his parents departed.

  “He went back to school,” Jake replied as the three of them gathered in front of the fireplace. “He can’t be seen with us; let alone be seen here, now.”

  “You’re right. He’s taken enough chances,” Max said, lighting a cigarette. “You’ll spend the night. In the morning you’ll be taken to an abandoned cabin in Partnach Gorge. I was hoping the professor could drive you; but we’ll find someone else. You’ll be safe there for a while.”

  “For a while?” Eva echoed incredulously. “No. No, I have to get out of here, now. Out of Germany. Back to Venice. I’d feel much safer there. Not to mention I’m worried sick about my family.”

  “I’ve stopped worrying about mine,” Jake said, disconsolately. He didn’t have to explain. Eva and Max knew he had gone home to Vienna on semester break only to learn that his family had been arrested by the Gestapo. The Leopoldstadt District, the city’s Jewish quarter where Jacob Epstein grew up, was on a large island surrounded by the Danube River and its canal. Hebrew and Yiddish were the languages most often heard on its shop-lined streets. Jake’s father operated a small apothecary on Grosse Schiffgasse just a few doors down from Schiff Shul, the main Orthodox synagogue; and Jake helped out in his spare time until he went off to medical school. “Eva’s right,” Jake concluded. “We should get out of Germany as quickly as possible.”

  “You should come with me,” Eva said with her characteristic decisiveness. “Unlike the Austrians, and the French for that matter, few Italians have become collaborators, and many families, good people like Max’s parents, are sheltering Jews.”

  Max nodded in agreement. “But you’ll have to cross the Alps, all of Austria and half of northern Italy to get there. More than three hundred kilometers in the dead of winter. That would be challenging for the Wermacht’s ski troops let alone two Jews on the run from the SS.”

  “We’ll take the train,” Eva said, undaunted. “That’s what I always do. Six hours and we’re there.”

  “Not without false documents,” Max fired back, using a quick drag of his cigarette for emphasis. “The Gestapo board every train at every stop and check everyone’s papers. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “We’ll walk if we have to,” Jake said resolutely.

  “No, you’ll take the train,” Max said, smartly. “With new passports and travel passes. My parents have connections.”

  “Good,” Jake said with a grin. “Because I don’t even have a toothbrush.”

  “It comes with the room, powder too, and a square of chocolate on the pillow,” Max said with a laugh. “I’ll take care of the passport photos. Mom and Dad’ll take care of the rest.” He flicked his cigarette into the fireplace, then glanced to the dog, and said, “Come on, Kunst, we’ve got work to do.” Max led the way to the entry hall where the elevator was located. The ornate cage-like car ran in an open shaft that was encircled by the four-story staircase.

  Moments earlier, after leaving the library, Max’s parents had gone directly to the chapel just across the corridor. Heads bowed, the Kle
ists crossed themselves and genuflected in front of the altar; then, as Gisela knelt in prayer, Konrad went up a few steps to the tabernacle.

  Carved from a single block of marble, the small, mausoleum-like cabinet was centered atop the altar between two baroque candlesticks. Each seemed to be growing from within an exuberant spray of evergreen ferns and Christmas holly dotted with bright red berries.

  Kleist slid the finely embroidered curtain, which cloaked the tabernacle’s door, aside. Instead of the usual bronze casting with the Latin abbreviation IHS—Iesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus Savior of Men—and a keyed lock, this tabernacle had the case-hardened steel door and combination lock of a safe. He spun the dial several times, then grasped the handle and opened the door, revealing a chalice in which consecrated Hosts were kept. With deliberate reverence he set the vessel aside, reached deep into the tabernacle between banded packs of currency piled against the side walls, and removed a metal strongbox. It contained a supply of blank passports, identity cards and travel passes. He slipped two of each into a pocket, returned the strongbox and chalice to the tabernacle, and locked it; then joined his wife at the foot of the altar. They genuflected together and hurried from the chapel to her office at the other end of the corridor.

  The spacious room was filled with works of art. Racks of canvases ran along one wall. Shallow drawers beneath the worktable held reams of etchings, drawings, and lithographs. Rows of bookcases were crammed with oversized art volumes. The desk was piled with artists’ profiles, provenance reports, transaction folders, and a ledger in which Gisela made meticulous annotations on the works she represented.

  She went to the telephone, put a professionally manicured fingertip in the rotary, and dialed the number of a young graphic designer named Glazer who was one of her Red Orchestra operatives. After two rings, she hung up, waited a moment, and then dialed the same number again.

  “D-K-G…” Glazer answered in a guarded voice. The initials stood for Druck-Knopfe-Grafik, the name of his studio. It was a wordplay on his clever idea to sew druckknopfes—literally, snap fasteners—on the sleeves of his shirts and coats and on his yellow star, so he could easily remove it on entering establishments that barred Jews, or when engaging in clandestine activities.

  “This is the curator,” Gisela Kleist said, cryptically. “We’ve just acquired two new pieces that need authenticating.”

  “You have everything I’ll need to establish their provenance?” Glazer asked matter-of-factly.

  “Yes, everything…” Gisela replied with a glance to her husband whose hand, in a subconscious gesture, was pressed against his jacket pocket. “…as always. All necessary documents and photographs. We can drop them off this evening if that’s convenient—Excellent.” She hung up and said, “The newsstand at the Hauptbahnhof after dark.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The first weeks of June in the Hamptons had been cool and wet, but Bart Tannen still managed to get in a few rounds of golf and spend time with Celine Sentier, whom he’d met a decade ago in Gunther Global’s Paris office. Though Celine’s flair for nouvelle cuisine had won his heart, on moving to New York, she traded-in her whisk and garlic press for a real estate license and a cellphone; and, with Tannen’s backing, got into East End real estate—as in buy it, renovate it, flip it.

  Last summer, after a day of scouting open houses, Celine returned to their East Hampton rental, and said, “I found a house…” She paused, eyeing him from beneath her Gunther Global baseball cap. “…for us.”

  Tannen was on the screened-in porch reviewing a proposal for a client. “You know the one I want,” he said, without looking up from his work. “When it comes on the market, we’ll—” he paused, struck by her inference. “Really?” Tannen asked, his overgrown brows twitching. “It’s for sale?”

  It, as Celine knew, was the cozy bungalow in Sag Harbor on Noyac Bay that Tannen’s parents had rented every summer when he was growing up. “Uh-huh, just listed.” She handed him the offering sheet and, forcing a huffy sigh, added, “You Americans are so sentimental.”

  “Unbelievable,” Tannen said of the asking price. “Would’ve gone for thirty-K back then. What did we bid?”

  “Well…” Celine said, squirming in discomfort, “I think maybe you want to—how you say—weigh-in, first?”

  “What?!” Tannen grabbed her hand and lunged for the door. “If we don’t get it, I’m kicking your little French derriere from here to Sag Harbor and back!”

  “I did—I did! I put in a bid!” Celine squealed, bursting into laughter. “One-point- six. We may have to bump it, but we’ll get it.”

  And they did; and Tannen had been working on it in his spare time ever since. After spending this balmy Sunday morning refinishing the back deck, he spent the afternoon cursing a little white ball that refused to Bite! Get up! Cut! or obey any of the other commands he gave it in flight. The days were longest in June, and it was twilight when he reached Shinnecock’s closing hole. He was lining-up a putt when his cellphone rang. “Sol?” he growled, seeing the caller-ID.

  “Get you at a bad time?”

  “Naw, I was just getting it on in the shower with the Doublemint twins,” Tannen replied with a cackle. “So?” he prompted, aware Steinbach was at the Epstein wedding. “That’s fantastic!—Yeah, let me know. I’ll have Gunther set up the archivist.”

  That same day, Stacey and Adam had ventured downtown to the Highline. Until about thirty years ago, the elevated tracks that cut through Chelsea and the West Village, carried railcars to the factories in meatpacking district below 14th Street. The abandoned right-of-way, with stunning views of the Hudson, had been turned into an urban park with seating areas amidst lacy trees and a variety of horticultural specimens. They had spent the afternoon strolling along the mile-long oasis and were exiting the glass-walled elevator at street level when Stacey’s eyes darted to a swatch of boldly striped fabric amidst some curbside trash. It turned out to be the sling of a classic beach chair. Both the canvas and wooden frame were in good condition. “A scrub in the tub and it’ll be like new!” she exclaimed, convincing Adam to haul it back uptown on the subway.

  Dusk was falling as they returned to her apartment to freshen up; and unlike Tannen and the Doublemint twins, Stacey and Adam actually were getting it on in the shower when he called with the good news. Tannen’s voicemail was more than enough to keep her pulse rate up. “I think we better do take-out,” Stacey said, as she and Adam were dressing.

  Adam frowned. “Why? I thought we were going to that sushi joint over on Columbus?”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to get back up to speed on Steinbach.” Since the disappointing meeting with Dan Epstein, Stacey had been using her time to catch up on the assignments she had set aside to work on it, exclusively. “I haven’t looked at it in weeks.”

  “Come on, it’s an ad campaign for roll-aboards.”

  “It’s a lot more than that, now,” Stacey retorted. “Remember that story idea I mentioned?”

  Adam nodded, his eyes widening with curiosity.

  “Well, heat up your hard drive, Clive, because it’s going to happen. Human interest. Nazis. World War Two. Holocaust survivors teaming up in an ad campaign.”

  “Your Dr. Epstein signed on?”

  “Yup. He and the CEO of the luggage manufacturer.”

  “That’s a helluva headline,” Adam said, envisioning it: “Survivors use Holocaust to sell luggage.”

  “Real catchy, Clive. But the verb has to be more… more altruistic. Survivors Use Luggage To…To Memorialize Holocaust. How’s that?”

  “Terrific,” Adam replied.

  “Pretty damn good,” Adam’s editor at the Times said when he pitched the story the next morning.

  “This is great,” Tannen said when Stacey ran it by him. “Sol will be stoked.”

  “Fucking fantastic,” Steinbach exclaimed when Tannen called. “That little girl is going to own prime time. You can’t buy this kind of advertising and PR!”

  �
�It’s up to my father,” Dan Epstein said, concerned the Foundation might be tarnished if the article was perceived as a public relations stunt.

  “It’s The New York Times,” Jake said brushing off his son’s concern. “All the news that’s fit to print!”

  “I have serious misgivings about that,” Hannah Epstein said when Jake briefed her on his conversation with Sol Steinbach. Barely twenty-four hours had passed since the wedding reception; and they had spent the day at home recovering. Now, cocktails in hand, they sat on the plush sofa in the library of their art-filled triplex above the Foundation’s offices. “I’m not so sure you should be doing this Steinbach thing at all.”

  “Why not?” Jake wondered. “Sol’s one of us, one of the good people. Why shouldn’t I help him out?”

  “I didn’t say you shouldn’t. It’s just that delving into the past has a way of…of stirring things up; things like suppressed emotions, forgotten events…even certain people for that matter.”

  “You sound just like, Dan,” Jake said, wearily.

  “I’m speaking of things Dan knows nothing about.”

  Jake’s lips tightened. He nodded and took a long swallow of his martini; then he reached out and took her hand. “What would I do without you, Hannah? All these years…you take such good care of me.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, now,” Hannah said, ignoring his charm offensive. She held up her glass and exhorted, “Vorsicht, Jake. Gehen sie mit vorsicht.”

  “Enough with the vorsicht,” Jake said, unmoved. “I’ve been proceeding with caution all my life.”

  “Yes, and with good reason. Why stop now?”

  Jake shrugged and drifted off in thought; then, he set his glass aside and, with renewed energy, said, “You’re right. This is no time to be living in the past or the future for that matter. At our age, we should be living in the moment.” He moved closer and began nuzzling her. “What’s wrong with having a little fun with Sol, hmm…” he went on, kissing her neck. “…and raising funds for the Foundation at the same time?”