FIVE
REUNION
SOMEHOW, THEIR FINAL CRIES HARMONIZED. HIS BASS, HER alto a near perfect fifth above.
Through the poverty-thin walls of the misnamed Hotel Superior, someone started to clap. A “Bravo!” came. “Take a bow,” she whispered, and they both began to laugh, the beard he’d grown during their separation tickling her neck. She suddenly went all sensitive, her nerves tingling. She shoved him away. He flopped onto his back and they laughed some more.
Jocco rolled off the narrow bed, went to the window and pulled back the mesh curtains. “Hey!” she called. “We’re not in Africa. No scary beasts here.”
He turned. “You are wrong. The beasts in Berlin are scarier than anywhere else.”
And he’s back, she thought, sighing, pulling herself up so she could lean against the metal bed frame. She reached for the roll-up cigarette that had gone out as they’d made love, lit it and regarded him. She just had to accept that with him she was not going to get any after-sex canoodling. Even after fabulous reunion sex. The short moment of laughter had been unusual—Jocco would always be a “get up and go” kind of guy. Business done, next business.
He came back to the bed, took the cigarette, pulled in a deep drag, then breathed it out as he spoke. “So, Roxy?”
“So, Jocco?”
“You know what today is?”
She sighed again. How many of their conversations had begun with that question? “Let me guess. Karl Marx’s birthday? No, wait! Of course. Silly me.” She struck her forehead. “It’s the anniversary of the storming of the Potemkin.”
He shook his head, sat. “That was in June. Today is August 1. Today the Olympics begin here in Berlin.”
“I knew that.” She did. That rat Schlaben had told her as much in Madrid. He’d stolen the Fall of Icarus to launch some sort of arts Olympiad to go with the sporting one. Then, after Madrid, sitting at Orly in France, she’d had nothing to do, and no money to do it with anyway because of what she’d paid to replace the piston pins that had finally burned out. Only when they arrived from London and were fitted was she able to fly on. So she’d read old newspapers.
The press had been full of the story for what felt like years. She knew that they were controversial, these games. Many countries had wanted to boycott them, to protest Nazi Germany’s behaviour to its own people, especially their harassment of Jews. In the end, the boycotts all fell away when her own country, the US, opted to attend. Quite right, she thought, taking the cigarette back. Politics and sport had to be separate. She was pretty sure Jocco wouldn’t agree. Fortunately, he didn’t launch into one of his diatribes on oppression.
“There will be a big spectacle now. The Nazis will put on a show for the world. So this gives us an opportunity,” he said.
“For what?”
“To steal the painting back.”
“Yeah?” In a snatched phone call with Jocco two days before, he’d cryptically indicated that it was the new game plan. Grabbing the cigarette, she took a last drag till her finger burned, and stubbed what remained of the butt into the ashtray. Even Jocco would struggle to get any more out of that one. “And have you used your time in Berlin to figure out just how we do that?”
“I have.” He stood again, began collecting clothes from the floor where frenzy had hurled them. “Get dressed. You must meet our forger.”
“Uh-uh.” She glared at him. “I’m meeting no one smelling like a Cairo whore. Not until I get the bath you promised me.”
He looked like he would argue, then shrugged. “The bathroom is left, down the hall. I am not sure there will still be hot water, but—”
“Oh, there had better be.”
He continued dressing. “There is a café on the ground floor. Meet you there in twenty minutes.”
“An hour.” She glared at him. “You owe me that, Zomack.”
She didn’t get the hour. The water was lukewarm. Will I never get to soak in a tub again? she wondered, angrily scrubbing. But at least she didn’t have to don her filthy flying suit afterwards. Jocco had brought her valise all the way from Africa. The day looked hot so she pulled on a light floral dress, and tied on a headscarf.
The air in the café was blue with smoke. Some of it shifted to a waving arm. She crossed to Jocco.
Two men stood. “Miss Loewen. Herr Ferency.”
She held out a hand. Ferency took it, turned it, kissed it. “Please—‘Attila.’ Charmed,” he said.
“Attila as in Hun?”
“As in Hungarian, yes. Many in my land are named after him. Though if I may correct so beautiful a lady, the pronunciation is Áttila, not Attíla.”
His accent was light, his voice velvety. He still gripped her hand. She took it back. “ ‘Roxy.’ Only one way to say it.”
“I am also known as ‘Chameleon.’ Because I, uh, alter colours so often.” He tipped his head. “You may call me that if you prefer.”
“I’ll stick with Áttila, thanks.”
He looked disappointed. Then his face creased up and he sneezed. “Aychoo—ah!” He was one of those sneezers who made a meal of it: loud and on a clear sound.
“Gesundheit.”
“Danke.”
“Coffee, Roxy?”
“As a matter of urgency, Jocco. To accompany your finest tobacco. Ham and eggs to follow in swiftest order.”
While Jocco conferred with the waiter, Roxy and Ferency studied each other. He wasn’t quite what she’d been expecting. Jocco, in a passing sentence, had given the impression that the forger was weaselly, so Roxy had been imagining someone small, middle-aged, bespectacled. Someone ash-on-the-collar dishevelled like that Austrian actor always playing creeps in Hollywood, Peter Lorre. But the Hungarian was nearly as tall as her man, if half his width. He couldn’t have been much older than her, and his clothes were stylish, if flamboyant—a loud check on the brown suit, a pale-lavender neckerchief. His face sloped down from eyebrows that were so thin they looked teased, above droopy-lidded hazel eyes. He had a cleft above his mouth that rivalled the one on his chin. Only his nose and his lips were a little larger, disproportionately fleshy. The whole look shouted “artist” at her. And the hand that had turned hers for the kiss had flecks of paint under the nails.
The coffee came, thick and bitter and glorious. She gulped it, alternating it with drags from one of Ferency’s slim cigarettes—gold banded, offered from a leather-and-gold case. It had a filter, forcing her to suck hard. Hell, she thought, back to civilization.
While the waiter fussed and carried, they chatted of the games, of the weather, of half a dozen inconsequential things. It was only when the ham and eggs appeared and Roxy assaulted them that talk turned to business.
“Herr Ferency says he will be done in three days.”
“Done?”
“With the copy, Roxy. The Fall of Icarus.”
She chewed, swallowed. “Why do we need a copy?”
There hadn’t been much time to talk since he’d collected her at Templehof Aerodrome that morning, what with the fucking and all. She knew the heist was on but knew little else.
“Because the painting is still concealed. It is being saved for the big art opening before Hitler next week. So we steal the original and substitute the fake one.” Jocco turned to Ferency. “Are you sure the paint will be dry?”
“Paint is not the problem. It is making the panel look old that is the main difficulty.” The Hungarian waved his cigarette about as if he were conducting an orchestra. “I had to destroy a very valuable antique table, distress it, and create special stains and varnishes that would duplicate the original panels used.” He sniffed. “Sometimes I think I am more chemist than artist. The painting itself is—” he shrugged, entirely failing to look modest “—easy.”
“Easy, huh? So you think you are as good as Bruegel?”
Something combative in Roxy’s voice made Jocco intervene before Ferency could reply. “Our friend spent five years at the Brussels Art Institute, studying the masters, emulating them,” he said.
“I have copied the original Fall of Icarus half a dozen times.” Ferency gestured as if bringing in the woodwind section. “I could do it in my sleep.”
“The original?” Roxy halted the passing of the last piece of ham to her mouth. “The original is the one I saw in Madrid.”
“And Bruegel reproduced that on canvas. He copied himself and I copied him.” He nodded, adding airily, “It is what we artists do. We pattern ourselves on masters then we—”
Roxy dropped the fork with a clatter, interrupting, “But he didn’t just copy it.” The expert Schlaben’s words from the cellar came back to her. “He changed it.”
“What? An extra sheep? My dear young lady—”
“Icarus’s father. Daede…”
“Daedalus?”
“Him. He’s in the painting now. He witnesses his son’s death.” She thought back. “Top left.”
“What?” Ferency’s suavity deserted him. “You are certain?”
“I think I’d remember that. Oh, and the plowman, looking into an empty sky? He’s not. He’s looking at Daedalus.”
“Sheisse!” Ferency slumped back and carried on swearing, switching from German to some language that sounded like stones caught in a gearbox.
Jocco leaned forward, anxiety on his face. “But this is all right, yes? Roxy describes this new figure, you recreate in the style—”
“No. If I do not see the exact figure, the experts will spot it straightaway. And your plan depended on at least a week before it is discovered to be a fake, no?”
“It did. The buyer can’t be in Berlin until then.” Jocco chewed his lip. “So, we hide it better.”
“With every policeman in Berlin looking for it? You have only been here a week. You do not understand how ruthlessly this city is controlled. You would not hide it two days. Two hours!”
While they bickered, Roxy chewed the last of her ham. Then she reached for one of the Hungarian’s cigarettes and one of the German’s matches. After lighting up, she blew a stream of smoke between the two faces, which had gotten closer as the men had gotten angrier. “Hey, fellas,” she said, as they both leaned back and looked at her. “Seems the only answer is to get our friend acquainted with the new old painting.”
“Impossible. It is hidden away and well guarded.”
“Impossible, eh?” She smiled. “Where is it so well guarded?”
“In the new Air Ministry, on the Leipziger Platz.”
“Air Ministry? Why there?”
It was Ferency who replied. “Because the man who is springing this surprise on Hitler is der Führer’s chief deputy, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.” He sniffed. “Göring considers himself an art connoisseur.”
“Göring?” Roxy leaned back. “Heard of him. Flyer, ain’t he?”
“A war hero. Shot down twenty planes. Among his many roles he is also commander of the Reich’s air force, the Luftwaffe.” Jocco shook his head. “He is a notorious seducer of women, and has an apartment at the ministry for this purpose. And, like every other capitalist exploiter, he feasts off the sweat of the workers to throw huge parties that always end as orgies, with him as the main hog rooting at the trough—”
“Jocco!” She snapped her fingers and he stopped. Sometimes she found his Commie rants quite sweet; he was so passionate. But there was a time and place. “Parties, eh? Is he throwing one for the Olympics?”
“The press is filled with little else,” Ferency said. “All the Nazi leaders below the Führer are trying to outdo each other in splendour. Göring has been outfitting the Air Ministry for weeks. There are rumours of a whole Bavarian village. His party is tomorrow night—”
“The Air Ministry? Where the painting is?”
“Yes. Why?”
They stared at her, at the smile spreading across her face. “You know,” she said, “I’ve heard of him. Being a flyer, there’s a chance he’s heard of me too.” She leaned back, shaped an O and shot a smoky circle above their heads. “Stand back, fellas. Roxy’s going to a party.”