Authors: Karen Swan
‘I know, we couldn’t understand it either. It didn’t quite add up,’ Flora said hastily, sliding an accusing stare in Travers’s
direction. She swallowed hard. ‘Until we made another discovery this morning.’
No one said anything but Flora could see that the lawyer was now as alert as a gundog on the peg. She could well imagine his terror at being found out for having deceived them all for so long.
But she didn’t care about him or his self-serving interests.
‘The . . . uh . . . discrepancies that we found prompted me to make some enquiries outside the usual realms we deal with.’ It was true that she had never had cause to check the
veracity of the identity of her client before. ‘I’m afraid there’s no easy way to say this.’
She stopped and took a breath. Once she dismantled this seventy-three-year-old lie, would it break up the family it had been supposed to bond together?
‘. . . There is no record, that we can find, of a man called François Vermeil.’
There followed an astounded silence, one so deafening she swore she could hear the woodworm turning in the joists, the roosting pigeons on the sills ruffling their feathers.
‘I . . . I know that is a truly shocking thing to say,’ she said quickly, holding her hands up for calm as she saw each and every person’s jaw begin to drop open as the words
hit home. She looked straight at Jacques. ‘But I’m afraid everything is pointing to the fact that the man – your father – known as François
Vermeil, was in fact Franz Von Taschelt.’
Another rolling silence and then:
‘Why?’ a voice thundered. ‘Why would he do that?’
It was Natascha, already on her feet, already in attack mode.
Flora flinched. ‘I believe it must have been done for personal safety.’ She looked back at Jacques. ‘Your parents had already fled the Nazis once, leaving Vienna to settle in
Paris. Your mother managed to make it to safety but when Franz, François . . .’ she stammered. ‘When he died, I believe your grandmother changed her name to try to escape
attention.’
‘What kind of attention?’ Lilian demanded, her voice diamond-hard. ‘If she was already safe . . . ?’
Flora felt herself quail as the high emotions charged the room. ‘Franz Von Taschelt is acknowledged as a known dealer for the Third Reich.’
The sound of laughter, as sudden as it was booming, made them all turn in shock. Jacques Vermeil, still sitting in his chair, was slapping his thigh, his head thrown back.
‘I . . .’ Flora didn’t know what to say. She stared at her hands. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Mam’selle Sykes! Flora!’ Jacques chuckled. ‘I have never in my life heard anything so funny. My father with a different name? My father
a Nazi
? Do you know who we
are, the work we do?’
She swallowed. ‘Yes.’
‘She’s a liar!’ Natascha roared, advancing towards her with an open hand, but Xavier caught her by the elbow and pulled her back onto the sofa.
‘Don’t,’ he murmured, his voice perversely soft in the circumstances, his eyes like black stars upon Flora, directing a calm anger towards her that was more terrifying than any
of Natascha’s flailing and screaming histrionics. If he did believe what she was saying, then he hated her more than ever for saying it, for being the one to break this to them.
‘But you know she’s making it up!’ Natascha protested, trying to wriggle free. ‘She’s trying to discredit us! Humiliate us! There’s no—’
‘Natascha!’ Lilian screeched, shaking her head in despair, her face drooping with anguish. ‘Just for once, control yourself, you wretched girl!’
‘It’s true.’
They all turned in astonishment to find Travers standing in his corner of the room, his calm a counterpoint to the passions raging around him. Flora stared at him in surprise. She hadn’t
expected him to admit it.
‘It is why your mother was so desperate that you
not
enter the apartment,’ he said quietly and with exceptional understatement. ‘Everything she did was done – as
Mam’selle Sykes has said – for your personal safety.’ He gestured a hand towards Flora as though she was his collaborator, an ally working with him.
Jacques’ expression changed completely. Flora’s theory he could dismiss as fantasy, the well-intentioned but misguided mistake of a young, naive stranger. But his lawyer? The man who
had spent his entire career – like his father before him – working for and protecting his family?
‘Leo,’ Jacques protested, his skin paling to ash grey. ‘What are you saying? You cannot mean that—’
‘She is right, yes.’ Travers looked directly at Flora. ‘That day in my office,
mam’selle
– you were also correct about the missing papers.
I
had to
remove them from the desk after you had left the apartment. The letter sent to our company from the intruders addressed the owners as Von Taschelt so I had to assume there was paperwork in the
study from my father which identified us all. Naturally, I was under instruction to ensure that did not happen.’
Flora stared at him, having guessed as much, but she was still stunned – and suspicious – to hear him admit it. ‘So then why didn’t you just remove the paperwork
before
we went in?’
‘My hand had been forced,
mam’selle
. The letter was forwarded to the family by a junior who did not know of the existence of the codicil, much less the specifics within it. By
the time I knew what had happened, the family knew too and you had already been called. There was no time. I had to hope that you would be so distracted by the collection you found there that you
wouldn’t think to open the drawers. Or at least, not immediately anyway.’
Flora stared at him, trying to suss his game. He was saying everything she had painstakingly worked out herself as she separated the truth from his lies; he was confirming her hunches, playing
the ally again, but she wouldn’t be fooled a second time.
‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you,’ she replied coolly. ‘If the intruders saw from the papers that the owners were Von Taschelt and sent the note on to you, how did a
junior, who you say supposedly knew nothing about the will or codicil, know to forward it here to a family of an entirely different name?’
It was the very question, the red thread, that had led to her unravelling the secret just a few short hours ago. He would have needed Vermeil’s real name to be kept hidden at all costs; he
could not possibly have afforded for anyone else to have known.
Travers shrugged. ‘Because it is on our computer system.’
‘Your system?’ Lilian repeated, shocked. ‘You mean the information was just sitting there? Just
anyone
could see that the estate belonging to Franz Von Taschelt now
belonged to François Vermeil?’
‘No. Only those associates working directly with me had access to those files,
madame
. In total, two people.’
‘But if they saw the name—’
‘It means nothing to them,
madame
. Why should it? Estates pass through different names in the same family – via marriage – all the time, and the associate in question
here is a twenty-three-year-old law graduate. The name of a Nazi art dealer from the Second World War means nothing to him and it shall remain that way. There is no reason why it should be
recognized by anyone outside the sphere of art history, a small and closed world indeed.’
Travers looked back at Flora. ‘It was not my intention to deceive you,
mam’selle
, only to act according to the strict and very clear wishes of our client.’ Then he
turned back to Jacques. ‘Jacques, I am sorry. I had no choice.’
Jacques, by now leaning forward with his head in his hands, let out a small groan. ‘No. No.’
Lilian rose in a fluid movement, and smoothing her narrow skirt distractedly, began to pace, wringing her hands. ‘How can this be? How can this be? You are telling me we . . . we are not
Vermeils, but Von . . . Von . . . ?’
‘Von Taschelt,’ Travers finished for her.
A sob escaped her and she slapped a slim hand over her mouth, eyes pressed shut. ‘Is it legal, our name?’ she asked finally. ‘Who have I married? Are my children living with
names that are not recognized in law?’
‘Lilian, it was the war. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, emigrated, changed their names, tried to start afresh – nearly all of them Jewish families.’
‘But I don’t understand!’ she cried. ‘How can it be so easy to just . . . change your name like that, change your entire identity?’
‘It was not easy. What Jacques’ father had to do to secure that liberty for his family. He . . . he . . .’
Jacques looked up, then stood. ‘He what? Say it, man. How did he save his family, when so many others couldn’t?’
Travers swallowed, looking down. ‘He cooperated.’
‘Cooperated,’ Jacques nodded, agitatedly, his hands planted aggressively on his hips. ‘You mean he worked with them? He
worked for them! He was one of them!’
‘No—’
‘No? Do you think I am a fool, Leo? Do you think I don’t know what happened to those poor families? She’s just told us he was a known dealer. He . . . he would have . . .
robbed
them. For his own profit!’
‘For his own protection,’ Travers said quickly. ‘
Your
protection.’
‘No!’ Jacques shouted. ‘He got rich, made this fortune robbing those people of their assets whilst saving his own skin, knowing they were the only bartering tools they would
have had – knowing he was trapping them in a country without any means of escape. No negotiation, no deals, just a one-way train ticket to the labour camps!’ he cried, his voice
breaking. ‘My God, he was one of them.’
He dropped back into the chair as though he’d been cut at the knees, his face hidden in his hands, his huge shoulders heaving. Lilian came and perched on the seat beside him, her bony
knees pressed against his thighs as she gently rubbed his back.
‘How many people know about this?’ she asked quietly, her own composure recovered in the face of her husband’s distress.
‘No one but us,’ Flora said. ‘And Angus, of course. I told him just before I left to come here.’
‘Leo?’ Lilian asked.
‘Just me. My father entrusted me alone with the knowledge when I graduated into the company.’
She nodded and stared at a spot on the wall for a few moments. ‘Then that is how it shall stay. We withdraw the Renoir from the sale. We don’t sell a single thing – not so much
as a button – from that apartment.’ She enunciated every word with crystalline clarity. ‘We just close it up again and continue as before.’
‘How can we?’ Natascha cried. ‘Everything’s changed!’
‘Nothing has changed,’ her mother replied, even more quietly. ‘We are the same people we were an hour ago. Your father doesn’t remember his father. Why should he bear the
burden of his mistakes?’
No one said a word. It was true – but naive, surely, to think they could continue as before?
Flora glanced over at Xavier, wondering why he didn’t say anything. He never said anything. He was the only person in the room who hadn’t reacted. Was he made of stone? Was he still
there?
He was standing by the window, his back to them, hands thrust in his jeans pockets and his head bent. The sunlight caught his profile and for a moment – just one – she saw something
different in him: not the taunting arrogance or defiant anger or mocking haughtiness of their previous encounters, but something pale and unvoiced. A vulnerability.
‘Xavier.’
He lifted his head at the sound of his mother’s voice, his eyes catching on Flora’s as he turned, and she glimpsed again what had shimmered between them last night in that split
second before she had decided his agenda was capricious, when he’d asked the simple question, ‘Do you need a ride?’
He blinked, looked away, walked over to Lilian. ‘Yes?’
‘You are to go to Antibes. I want you to speak to your grandmother.’
‘Mother—’
‘Listen to me, Xavier, you are the only one. You are close to her, she will talk to you.’
‘What about me?’ Natascha demanded, her body tense as she sat forward. ‘Why don’t you ask me to go?’
Lilian glanced at her for a beat, before looking back to Xavier. ‘It is clear now why she has been so determined we were not to go to the apartment. She never wanted to be the one to tell
your father the truth. She is ashamed.’
‘Which is why it is between them. She owes Father the truth.’
‘She will never do that. She would never hurt him. Your father is her only child, her obsession. We all know she barely tolerates me for taking him away from her.’ She allowed a
half-smile to stretch her lips as she reached for his hand. ‘I need you to speak to her, find out what happened before it is too late. She is old and her health is not good – we must
have answers.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Tell me you’ll go?’
Xavier stared down at her, the pulse visible in his neck. He nodded, barely.
Natascha sank back in the cushions as though she’d been pushed, her jaw thrust forward as she began to pick at her nail polish.
‘What would you like me to do with the collection?’ Flora asked quietly, into the silence.
Lilian looked over at her, as though surprised to find her still there. ‘You must continue researching it. If we cannot sell it, we at least need to know exactly what it is that we now
possess – whether we like it or not.’
‘Of course,’ Flora replied, feeling faintly nauseous at the thought of discovering the individual horror stories of these appropriated works. To whom had they belonged? In what
circumstances had they been sold? She remembered Angus’s expression again, as the realization had hit – the entire collection had become worthless at a stroke; they couldn’t even
donate pieces to any museums, not without the provenance being established all over again. If this secret was going to stay in the family, the collection would need to stay hidden.
‘It is imperative that the information we’ve been given today never leaves this room,’ Lilian said briskly. ‘Do you understand?’
Flora and Travers nodded.
‘Natascha?’ her mother enquired in a firm voice when the girl remained silent. ‘
Do you understand?
This is not something for you to gossip about with your friends, do
you hear me?’