IN THE LAST WEEK of May 1944, I received a call from Dietrich. There was a phone at the end of the hall on my floor, and somehow he had gotten the number, even though I never gave it to him. He said he would pick me up at the apartment in one hour. “We’re going to lunch,” he said. “Can you make sure Fleury and Pankratov are there, too?”
“Pankratov?” I asked uncertainly. “All right.”
“Valya’s idea of a joke,” he explained. Then he hung up, saving me the awkwardness of trying to think of something else to say.
Dietrich arrived in his magnificent but dusty Horch, Grimm at the wheel as usual. Dietrich had on a plain gray suit with a red tie and his small round Nazi Party badge on his lapel. Valya was there, with white gloves and a salmon pink dress that buttoned at her throat.
Once we were inside, the Horch set off fast through the streets. We sat facing each other, Dietrich and Valya on one side and me, Pankratov and Fleury on the other.
“So what’s this all about?” asked Fleury.
Valya giggled. “We’ve been drinking champagne,” she said.
There was an open bottle of Clicquot on the seat between them.
“You’ve been drinking champagne,” Dietrich corrected her. He smelled of aftershave. “I’m taking you three to meet the boss,” he said. “Your presence has been requested.”
“Which boss?” asked Pankratov.
“Göring,” said Valya, in between her giggles. “Hermann Göring wants to see you. Originally he only wanted to see Fleury and Halifax, but then I put in a call and made sure you were invited, too, Daddy. I think that’s so funny. I can’t believe it! The Reichsmarschall is having lunch with Alexander Pankratov.”
“I’ll try not to embarrass you,” said Pankratov in a monotone.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll try!” Valya laughed.
Dietrich glanced at us apologetically.
“Why does he want to see us?” I asked.
“To be honest,” replied Dietrich, “I don’t know.”
Valya puffed up her cheeks and swayed her body from side to side, in her imitation of a fat man walking down the street. “Bring me this painting!” she said in a low voice. “Bring me that painting!” Then she swung her arms up and down in an awkward imitation of marching.
“That’s enough,” said Dietrich again, not looking at her. “Some things we do not joke about.”
“I’ll do whatever I want, you old Nazi.”
Dietrich’s lips grew pale.
I clenched my jaw, waiting.
“I know what you are behind that suit.” She flicked at him with the tips of her fingers.
“Grimm,” said Dietrich. “Pull over.”
Grimm pulled fast and hard toward the curb, as if he’d been expecting the command.
“Get out,” Dietrich told her quietly.
“I will not!” she shouted. “I’m coming to this party and when I get there—”
“Valya!” boomed Pankratov.
His voice stunned everyone in the car. Even the immovable Grimm flinched.
Valya stopped. She turned toward Pankratov, eyes blazing. For a moment, it looked as if she were about to attack him. Then, slowly and shakily, she opened the door and got out.
Dietrich reached across and shut the door.
Grimm didn’t wait for the order to drive on. We sped off down the street.
I looked back at Valya. She stood on the pavement, hands covering her face.
We drove the rest of the way without speaking, looking anywhere but at each other, eyes craning awkwardly around in their sockets.
It seemed to me that Dietrich and Valya were determined to destroy what they had together, to see how much they could take before love inverted into hate. They would never have anything in between. It would always be one extreme or another. I wondered if they’d gone too far this time.
The Horch pulled up outside the Hôtel Continental on the Rue Castiglione. On one side was a long covered walkway, separated from the street by pillared arches. A globe light hung from each arch. The entire hotel had long ago been taken over by the Germans and their flags hung out front.
Grimm opened the door for us.
Inside the Continental, footsteps echoed on the marble floors. Dietrich shepherded us toward an elevator and we rode up to the third floor. We walked down the pale green–carpeted hallway to a set of doors at the end, in front of which stood a guard in air force uniform. He had a submachine gun slung across his chest.
When we got to within a couple of paces of the guard, he smacked his heels together and opened the door.
The room inside was a small waiting chamber, with another set of doors at the far end. These doors were closed. Dietrich walked up to them and raised his hand as if to knock, but then thought better of it. He turned to us. “Maybe we’re a little early,” he said.
While we waited, Dietrich stood and smoked a cigarette. He looked nervous.
Fleury and I sat down on an overstuffed crushed velvet couch, done in the same pale green as the hallway.
Pankratov tried to make himself comfortable in a chair with ornately carved wooden arms. But the cushion was too puffy and he stood up again.
Dietrich sucked the smoke hard into his lungs. There was no ashtray, so he tapped the ash into his palm and then into his coat pocket.
We waited for half an hour in the airless, windowless space.
Nobody mentioned Valya.
Dietrich puffed down half a dozen cigarettes. The room was tinted gray with smoke.
Then the door into the rest of the suite opened and a short, elderly man in a white coat and black trousers poked his head in. He looked very patient and dignified, with watery blue eyes and thin hair sharply parted down the middle.
“Finally,” muttered Dietrich.
“The Reichsmarschall is sleeping,” said the old man.
Dietrich looked at his watch, which was a black-faced Hanhart chronograph. “We have an appointment for one o’clock. It’s almost two now.”
“The Reichsmarschall is sleeping,” said the old man again, as if perhaps Dietrich hadn’t understood the first time. He ducked back inside and closed the door again.
Another half hour of waiting.
“Jesus Christ,” said Dietrich quietly. He slumped down next to us on the couch.
Pankratov stayed on his feet, picking at the wallpaper with his thumbnail.
When the door opened again, Dietrich jumped up. “All right,” he said.
“Still sleeping,” said the old man.
“Look,” snapped Dietrich, “we had a one o’clock appointment.”
The old man sighed.
“One o’clock,” repeated Dietrich.
“You would ask me to wake the Reichsmarschall?”
Dietrich fell silent.
“I didn’t think so,” said the old man.
At this, Dietrich lost his temper. “You thought wrong,” he snapped. “I am a Stürmbannführer of the SS and I didn’t get to be one by waiting around in hotels. Now wake him up and tell him Thomas Dietrich is at his door.”
“At my door,” said a voice. The door swung wide and there stood Hermann Göring. He was smiling the smile of a man with limited patience. He had a broad, severe face. He was a little under six feet tall, and badly overweight. His big barrel gut was hidden under a double-breasted tunic that was gray like the feathers of a dove except for the lapels, which were white. He wore a white shirt with a pointy collar and a blue and gold cross, which I knew was a Blue Max, at his throat. Then, tacked onto his left side, were more medals, another cross and a circular wreath with an eagle in the middle. His trousers had two wide lines running down the seams.
Behind him was a view out to the Tuileries Gardens. In the distance stood the Eiffel Tower. The room was carpeted in pale green and there were several doors leading off into other rooms. In the center of the room behind Göring a table had been set with a white cloth and silver cutlery. A bottle of white wine was chilling in a bucket beside the table.
Dietrich straightened his back in a fast and almost violent gesture, as if an electric current had rushed painfully down the length of his spine. He cracked the heels of his boots together in one precise movement.
“Thomas.” Göring’s voice was deep and slightly drawling. He shook Dietrich’s hand, placing his left hand over their hands when they were shaking. “You are as obnoxious as ever. Can’t I even take a nap?”
“Yes, Herr Reichsmarschall. Of course.”
I waited for Göring to tell Dietrich to call him something else, Hermann or something. But Göring seemed to like calling Dietrich by his first name and being called “Herr Reichsmarschall” in return.
“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.