فصل سی ام

30

LADY MURASAKI’S invitation got her into the Jeu de Paume Museum ahead of the big crowd that buzzed in the Tuileries, impatient to see more than five hundred stolen artworks brought from the Munich Collection Point by the Allied Commission on Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives in an attempt to find their rightful owners.

A few of the pieces were making their third trip between France and Germany, having been stolen first by Napoleon in Germany and brought back to France, then stolen by the Germans and taken home, then brought back to France once more by the Allies.

Lady Murasaki found in the ground floor of the Jeu de Paume an amazing jumble of Western images. Bloody religion pictures filled one end of the hall, a meathouse of hanging Christs.

For relief she turned to the “Meat Lunch,” a cheerful painting of a sumptuous buffet, unattended except for a springer spaniel who was about to help herself to the ham. Beyond it were big canvases attributed to “School of Rubens,” featuring rosy women of vast acreage surrounded by plump babies with wings.

And that is where Inspector Popil first caught sight of Lady Murasaki in her counterfeit Chanel, slender and elegant against the pink nudes of Rubens.

Popil soon spotted Hannibal coming up the stairs from the floor below. The inspector did not show himself, but watched.

Ah, now they see each other, the beautiful Japanese lady and her ward. Popil was interested to see their greeting; they stopped a few feet from each other and, while they did not bow, they each acknowledged the other’s presence with a smile. Then they came together in a hug. She kissed Hannibal’s forehead and touched his cheek, and at once they were in conversation.

Hanging over their warm greeting was a good copy of Caravaggio’s “Judith Beheading Holofernes.” Popil might have been amused, before the war. Now the back of his neck prickled.

Popil caught Hannibal’s eye and nodded toward a small office near the entrance, where Leet was waiting.

“Munich Collection Point says the painting was seized from a smuggler at the Polish border a year and a half ago,” Popil said.

“Did he roll over? Did he tell his source?” Leet said.

Popil shook his head. “The smuggler was strangled in the U.S. Military Prison at Munich by a German trusty. The trusty disappeared that night, into the Dragunovic ratline, we think. It was a dead end.

“The painting is hanging in position eighty-eight near the corner. Monsieur Leet says it looks real. Hannibal, you can tell if it is the painting from your home?” “Yes.”

“If it is your painting, Hannibal, touch your chin. If you are approached, you are just so happy to see it, you have only passing curiosity about who stole it. You are greedy, you want to get it back and sell it as soon as possible, but you want the mate to it as well.

“Be difficult, Hannibal, selfish and spoiled,” Popil said, with unbecoming relish. “Do you think you can manage that? Have some friction with your guardian. The person will want a way to contact you, not the other way around. He’ll feel safer if the two of you are at odds. Insist on a way to contact him. Leet and I will go out, give us a couple of minutes before you come into the show.

“Come,” Popil said to Leet beside him. “We’re on legitimate business, man, you don’t have to slink.” Hannibal and Lady Murasaki looking, looking along a row of small paintings.

There, at eye level, “The Bridge of Sighs.” The sight of it affected Hannibal more than finding the Guardi; with this picture he saw his mother’s face.

Other people were streaming in now, lists of artworks in their hands, documentation of ownership in sheaves beneath their arms. Among them was a tall man in a suit so English the jacket appeared to have ailerons.

Holding his list in front of his face, he stood close enough to Hannibal to listen.

“This painting was one of two in my mother’s sewing room,” Hannibal said. “When we left the castle for the last time, she handed it to me and told me to take it to Cook. She told me not to smudge the back.” Hannibal took the painting off the wall and turned it over. Sparks snapped in his eyes. There, on the back of the painting, was the chalk outline of a baby’s hand, mostly worn away, just the thumb and forefinger remaining. The tracing was protected with a sheet of glassine.

Hannibal looked at it for a long time. In this heady moment he thought the finger and thumb moved, a fragment of a wave.

With an effort he remembered Popil’s instructions. If it is your painting, touch your chin.

He took a deep breath at last and gave the signal.

“This is Mischa’s hand,” he told Lady Murasaki. “When I was eight they were whitewashing upstairs. This painting and its partner were moved to a divan in my mother’s room and draped with a sheet. Mischa and I got under the sheet with the paintings; it was our tent, we were nomads in the desert. I took a chalk from my pocket and traced around her hand to keep away the evil eye. My parents were angry but the painting wasn’t hurt, and finally they were amused, I think.” A man in a homburg hat was coming, hurrying, identification swinging from a string around his neck.

The Monuments man will take a tone with you, quickly be at odds with him, Popil had instructed.

“Please don’t do that. Please don’t touch,” the official said.

“I wouldn’t touch it if it didn’t belong to me,” Hannibal said.

“Until you prove ownership don’t touch it or I’ll have you escorted from the building. Let me get someone from Registry.” As soon as the official left them, the man in the English suit was at their elbow. “I’m Alec Trebelaux,” he said. “I can be of some assistance to you.” Inspector Popil and Leet watched from twenty meters away.

“Do you know him?” Popil said.

“No,” Leet said.

Trebelaux invited Hannibal and Lady Murasaki into the shelter of a recessed casement window. He was in his fifties, his bald head deeply suntanned, as were his hands. In the good light of the window, flakes were visible in his eyebrows. Hannibal had never seen him before.

Most men are happy to see Lady Murasaki. Trebelaux was not and she sensed it at once, though his manner was unctuous.

“I’m delighted to meet you, Madame. Is there a question of guardianship?” “Madame is my valued advisor,” Hannibal said. “You deal with me.”

Be greedy, Popil said. Lady Murasaki will be the voice of moderation.

“There is a question of guardianship, Monsieur,” Lady Murasaki said.

“But it’s my painting,” Hannibal said.

“You’ll have to present your claim at a hearing before the commissioners, and they are booked solid for a year and a half. The painting will be impounded until then.” “I am in school, Monsieur Trebelaux, I had counted on being able to—” “I can help you,” Trebelaux said.

“Tell me how, Monsieur.”

“I have a hearing scheduled on another matter in three weeks.”

“You are a dealer, Monsieur?” Lady Murasaki asked.

“I would be a collector if I could, Madame. But to buy, I must sell. It’s a pleasure to have beautiful things in my hands if only for a little while. Your family’s collection at Lecter Castle was small but exquisite.” “You knew the collection?” Lady Murasaki said.

“The Lecter Castle losses were listed with the MFAA by your late—by Robert Lecter, I believe.” “And you could present my case at your hearing?” Hannibal said.

“I would claim it for you under the Hague Convention of 1907; let me explain it to you—” “Yes, under Article Forty-six, we have talked about it,” Hannibal said, glancing at Lady Murasaki and licking his lips to appear avaricious.

“But we talked about a lot of options, Hannibal,” Lady Murasaki said.

“What if I do not want to sell, Monsieur Trebelaux?” Hannibal said.

“You would have to wait your turn before the commission. You may be an adult by then.” “This painting is one of a pair, my husband explained to me,” Lady Murasaki said. “They are worth much more together. You wouldn’t happen to know where the other one is, the Canaletto?” “No, Madame.”

“It would be very much worth your while to find it, Monsieur Trebelaux.” She met Trebelaux’s eyes. “Can you tell me how I can reach you?” she said, with the faintest emphasis on “I.” He gave the name of a small hotel near the Gare de l’Este, shook Hannibal’s hand without looking at him, and disappeared into the crowd.

Hannibal registered as a claimant, and he and Lady Murasaki wandered through the great jumble of art. Seeing the tracing of Mischa’s hand left him numb, except for his face where he could feel her touch, patting his cheek.

He stopped in front of a tapestry called “The Sacrifice of Isaac” and looked at it for a long time. “Our upstairs corridors were hung with tapestries,” he said. “I could just stand on my tiptoes and reach the bottom edges.” He turned up the corner of the fabric and looked at the back. “I’ve always preferred this side of a tapestry. The threads and strings that make the picture.” “Like tangled thoughts,” Lady Murasaki said.

He dropped the corner of the tapestry and Abraham quivered, holding his son’s throat taut, the angel extending a hand to stop the knife.

“Do you think God intended to eat Isaac, and that’s why he told Abraham to kill him?” Hannibal said.

“No, Hannibal. Of course not. The angel intervenes in time.”

“Not always,” Hannibal said.

When Trebelaux saw them leave the building, he wet his handkerchief in the men’s room and returned to the picture. He looked around quickly. No museum officials were facing him. With a little thrill he took down the painting and, raising the glassine sheet, with his wet handkerchief he scrubbed the outline of Mischa’s hand off the back. It could have happened from careless handling when the painting went into escrow. Just as well to get the sentimental value out of the way.