The Forger (38 page)

“These are the people you wanted,” said Dietrich, and stepped aside to give Göring a clear view of us.

Göring nodded at me and at Fleury, but when his eyes came to Pankratov, Göring raised his head slightly and did not seem to know what to make of him.

Pankratov returned the same confused stare.

“Are you an old soldier?” asked Göring.

“Yes, sir,” said Pankratov. “Cavalry of the Tsar.”

Göring nodded. “And were you an officer?”

“Yes, sir,” said Pankratov. “As a matter of fact.”

“I knew it,” said Göring. Then he turned to the rest of us. “Old soldiers get like this.” He held his hand out to Pankratov, who stood there in his ratty canvas coat. “They spend half their lives dressing up for people and then when they are done with the army, they refuse to smarten up for anyone. Ever. Not even for me.”

“That is exactly right,” said Pankratov. “I have tried to explain it—” Göring brushed aside the idea with a sweep of his hand. “Only an old soldier would understand.”

He insisted that Pankratov sit beside him. The two of them walked off toward the window, speaking in lowered voices. Göring made some expansive gesture at the skyline, and when he heard Pankratov’s mumbled reply, burst out laughing so loudly that it made the rest of us flinch. Göring pounded Pankratov on the back with the flat of his hand, as if he were trying to save him from choking. A small puff of dust rose up from the place where Göring’s hand made contact with Pankratov’s jacket. It caught Göring by surprise at first, but then he laughed even louder.

Dietrich stared at this in disbelief. The rest of us stood by our places at the table. Place cards had been made for us, which the old man in the short double-breasted jacket had immediately shuffled around when Göring changed his mind about Pankratov. Now, instead of the choice seat, Dietrich was placed at the other end of the table.

The old man opened the wine. Even though he appeared to be concentrating on the task, the corners of his mouth were turned up, enjoying Dietrich’s discomfort. Göring and Pankratov reached the table, sat down and then the rest of us sat. Soup dishes with one thin blue line around the rim were set in front of us. The old man served us lobster bisque, with bread still warm from the ovens and a huge block of real butter on a bed of ice which he set down in a glass dish on the table.

Göring stabbed a chunk of butter off the block and set it onto a piece of bread, folded the bread around it in an envelope and ate it.

When the wine was poured, it beaded condensation on the glasses.

Göring raised his glass to toast us. “I would like to thank all of you,” he said, “for allowing me to share in your success.”

We drank to that and then Dietrich made some toast in return and we drank to that, too, and then Göring decided that we ought to be drinking vodka to remind Pankratov of the good old days, whatever they were.

The plates were slipped away from under us and the next course was wheeled in on a trolley. It was a whole leg of roast lamb with a crust of rosemary, and new potatoes and baby carrots and asparagus. The roast was carved by the old man. Göring watched the process carefully, then gestured toward the pieces that he wanted.

Göring did not say one word to Fleury or Dietrich or me through the appetizer, or the main course, or the fresh strawberries, which were served with Chantilly cream, or the coffee, and not until we were drinking brandy and the old man was walking around to each of us with a box of cigars. Through all this time, he had grilled Pankratov about his days in the Tsar’s army, as if he had been starved for too long of talking about anything that really interested him.

At one point, Göring raised his hand above his head, grasping a spoon. Then he lowered his straightened arm in one slow gesture, recalling some great cavalry change.
“Mit Volldampf Voraus!”
he shouted.

This was followed by a roar of laughter from Göring. When the laughter had died down, Göring sat back, arms folded across his belly, face serious, shaking his head. Later, Göring’s hands began to twist and turn in front of him as he described some moment of air combat.

“Ah,” said Pankratov, nodding to show he understood. Throughout dinner he had remained quiet and observant.

Dietrich could not take his eyes off any of this. He reminded me of a young boy witnessing for the first time conclusive proof that his father was not perfect.

When the brandy was served, I noticed that Göring was given brandy different from ours. It was discreetly poured for him at the side table out of a crystal decanter which had its own leather traveling case.

Göring talked in a hushed voice to the old man in the white waiter’s tunic.

The man nodded and left the room. He returned a few seconds later with a leather folder. He handed this to Göring and then set about clearing the last of the plates. He pulled something that looked like a straight-edge razor from his pocket and scraped the breadcrumbs off the tablecloth.

Göring opened the folder and took out a photograph. He held it out for us to see. “Have you seen this painting before?” he asked us.

“Yes,” said Fleury at once. “It is Vermeer’s
Geographer.
One of a set of two.”

“Exactly,” said Göring. “It was purchased from the Charles Sedelmeyer Gallery, here in Paris, in 1885, by the Frankfurter Kunstverein. It’s still in Frankfurt, at the Staedelsches Kunstinstitut.” He flipped the photo around to look at it himself. “The irony is not lost on me that if we had waited fifty years or so, we could have gotten it for free.” He put the photograph back inside the folder and took out another. When he showed it to us, Fleury didn’t wait to be asked.

“
The Astronomer.
The second painting in the set.”

“Yes,” said Göring. “In 1886, this painting was bought in London by the Baron Alphonse de Rothschild. It was last known to have been hanging in the home of Baron Edouard de Rothschild, in France. But it, and several other very valuable works, have managed to disappear.” He set the painting down on the tablecloth, then picked up his brandy snifter with both hands, rocked it in his cupped palms, breathing the fumes, but did not drink. “Despite his enquiries—very forceful enquiries—Mr. Dietrich, a Hauptstürmführer of the SS…”

“Stürmbannführer.” Dietrich attempted to correct him. “I am a Stürmbannführer.

Göring ignored him. “… has turned up nothing.”

Dietrich went red in the face. “With respect, Herr Reichsmarschall,” he said.

“With respect,” replied Göring, “I am talking.” Then he set his little finger on the photo of
The Astronomer,
as if to stop it from blowing away in the breath of his words. “I want this painting,” he said, “and have what I think will be an interesting offer. Thomas tells me that you specialize in exchanges. Modernist paintings in particular.”

Fleury nodded slowly, eyes masked behind the light reflecting off his glasses.

“Have you heard of the Gottheim Collection?” asked Göring.

“I have,” said Fleury. “It was the property of Albrecht Gottheim, a Berlin art dealer in the thirties. The collection was confiscated in January 1939 and in March of that year it was burned in public as a protest against
entartete Kunst.
”

Göring shook his head. “Not true.”

“Indeed they were, Herr Reichsmarschall,” Dietrich interrupted. “I saw those paintings burn with my own eyes.”

Göring shook his head again and smiled. “We had copies made. The burning was carried out at night and no one was looking too closely. We didn’t have to burn the originals to make our point. I have the actual works in storage. I will give you the entire inventory, over sixty paintings and drawings, if you will bring me
The Astronomer.
”

“But we don’t know where it is,” said Fleury.

Göring stood up wearily. He rested his knuckles on the tabletop. “No,” he said. “I don’t think you do, or you’d have offered it to Dietrich by now. But I think you can find it. Thomas tells me if anyone can turn it up, you can.”

There was total quiet in the room.

“The truth is,” said Göring, after a moment, “that I would like to make a gift of it. I will be candid with you. I would like to give this painting to Adolf Hitler, and as soon as possible. The fall of Stalingrad has caused a rift in our ability to understand each other. I made certain implications about the capacity of the Luftwaffe to supply the troops within the city.” He rolled his hand in front of him, as if to shape the words as they came out of his mouth. “These implications led to expectations which were sadly not fulfilled. There was blame. There is a need to make amends. Hitler has become, I think I can say this, mildly obsessed with the missing Vermeer. He has cleared a space for it on the wall of the Berghof and has declared that it will stand empty until
The Astronomer
hangs on his wall. And I think it would be a good idea for me to be the one who puts it there.”

The sunlight had gone now. The room felt cold.

“Thank you,” said Göring.

I wondered why he was thanking us, but as Dietrich got to his feet, I understood that this was the signal to depart.

We said our good-byes, Göring looked impatient, as if wondering whether he had wasted his time with us. The only time a smile returned to his face was when he said good-bye to Pankratov. “I hope there will be other times,” he said.

Out in the street, the Horch was there to meet us.

Back inside the car, Dietrich opened up his silver cigarette case and offered us each a smoke. “The big man took a shine to you,” he told Pankratov, still unable to mask his amazement.

Pankratov didn’t answer.

Dietrich lit our cigarettes with his clunky lighter and the car soon filled with smoke. “You’ve got to find that painting,” he told us. “If there’s anything you need from me, just name it. I’d put a Panzer division at your disposal if I knew it would help.”

“Could you get me a list of the Gottheim paintings?” asked Pankratov.

“Done,” said Dietrich.

No more was said about it. Dietrich dropped us off at the far end of the Rue Descalzi. Pankratov came, too.

“What did Göring talk to you about?” Fleury asked him as we walked toward our building.

“The glory days,” said Pankratov.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” asked Fleury.

“No,” said Pankratov, “but I can tell you that is the most dangeous man I have ever met. He has set his mind on that painting, and whether we want the job or not, he expects us to find it for him.”

We reached my apartment and put the water on to boil for tea. It wasn’t really tea, but a mixture of camomile and mint that I grew in my windowbox. When the drink was ready, we sat at the bare wood table, cradling the cups in silence. Outside, the streets were quiet except for wind rattling padlocks on the Postillon warehouse doors, like the ghost of the old Dragon come to check that all was well.

“Gentlemen,” said Fleury, “in case you were thinking about it, a forgery is out of the question.”

But of course that was exactly what Pankratov and I had been thinking about.

“If we used a period canvas,” Pankratov thought aloud. “Period frame.”

“No!” Fleury cut him off. “This isn’t going into some warehouse. This is going up on the wall of Hitler’s bedroom! He’ll be showing it off to every art connoisseur he can drag in there.” Steam rippled across the lenses of Fleury’s glasses. “Even if Vermeer himself were painting your canvases, you still couldn’t do it without having the original in front of you. We don’t know where that original is. The forgery would have to be perfect and you said yourself that such a thing cannot be done. Let’s face it, we could never make it work.”

Pankratov set his mug down on the table. “Yes, we could,” he said.

Chapter Sixteen

“Y
OU’RE MAD
!”
SHOUTED
F
LEURY
, throwing his hands in the air and walking off to the far end of the apartment, only to come pounding back a second later. “Completely mad!”

It was the day after our meeting with Göring. I’d just returned from the warehouse, where Pankratov and I had been talking all morning. We thought we had worked out a plan. “Will you meet with Pankratov and listen to what he has to say?” I asked.

Fleury shook his head. “It’s crazy. The whole thing.”

I tried to reason with him. “Pankratov says Madame Pontier might be able to get the painting for us. Then we can do the forgery.”

Fleury pressed the heels of his palms against his temples and groaned with frustration. “No, you
can’t!
Who the hell do you think you are? Are you so obsessed with the challenge that you just can’t turn it down? You’ve lost touch with reality working in that warehouse all the time. Do you remember what Pankratov said about the Mona Lisa’s smile? About how it could never be forged? Do you remember?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, to offset his shouting.

“Well, there’s a good reason for that and it doesn’t have to do with anything unearthly about the painting. The reason it can’t be forged is that no one would be foolish enough to try. It’s too well known. And the same goes for the Vermeer. You would have to
become
Vermeer!” Fleury shook his head. “You no longer understand your limitations.”

I sat there in silence. I knew that nothing Fleury could say was going to change my mind, no matter how much sense he made. I understood what he was telling me. I saw the logic in it. But my mind had raced ahead of his words. I kept thinking of the moment when Pankratov had said we would be able to make the forgery. I trusted his judgment of my skills more than I trusted my own. Fleury was right that I didn’t know my limitations. Only Pankratov did. Over the years, he had become an almost supernatural presence for me, as if he were the creation of a spell, drifting in and out of human shape. And yet for all my faith in his mysterious powers, a warning image of that Mona Lisa smile flickered half alive in my brain, like a death-watch moth in the darkness. “I’ll go to Madame Pontier. Get her to find us
The Astronomer.
Then, when I finish the work, if you don’t think it’s good enough, we won’t give it to Dietrich.”