The Time Between

by Karen White

  She was shaking her head as she faced me. “I wanted to help you; I wanted you to get better. I didn’t want Mama to cry anymore, and I was the only person here to do it.”

  “No,” I said softly. “Glen was there, too. But you insisted on playing the martyr, and we let you. And we let you believe that my accident was your fault. But it was wrong of us. I see that now. My pregnancy has allowed me to see my life from a whole new perspective. It’s my second chance, and I want you to have one, too. Because my accident wasn’t your fault. It was mine. But you think you need my forgiveness, so I forgive you. There, I said it. You’re forgiven.” I took a deep breath, knowing that my next words would sting. “I’m the paralyzed one, Eleanor. Not you. So stop acting like you are.”

  “How dare you?” she said, marching toward me. “How dare you presume to know everything about me!”

  I didn’t flinch as she approached. “But I do. Since the moment Daddy placed you in my arms, I have known you. And studied you. And wanted to be you. You were always so brave—and not just all the crazy physical stuff you did, but the way you always said what you meant, and never hesitated to ask questions. Didn’t you ever wonder why Lucy and I always tagged along and tried to do what you were doing? We wanted to be just like you. Maybe I still do.”

  Eleanor just stood there, shaking her head, as if the mere act could negate everything I’d said. But I had to make sure she understood. “Do you want to know where Glen is now?”

  She stilled and looked at me suspiciously. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine.” I paused. “He’s out with a Realtor looking for a house for us and the baby.”

  She slid back down into the chair she’d just vacated. “A house?”

  I nodded. “Just something small—probably a two bedroom—and close by Mama. And a garage. We’ll want to use that as my workroom, and a place where customers can come and be fitted for their costumes.”

  She frowned. “But how can you afford it?”

  “Glen’s boss quit, and because he’s so near to getting his business degree, they decided to go ahead and allow him to be the operating manager for three of the metropolitan-area rental agencies, and when he gets his degree next spring, they’ll make him the official manager.”

  Her smile was tentative. “That’s great, but when did this all happen?”

  “We found out about the promotion last week, but we’ve been talking about the house ever since we found out I was pregnant. We just didn’t expect to be able to afford it so soon.”

  “Last week? But nobody said anything to me.”

  I held her gaze for a moment, hoping I wouldn’t have to point out the obvious.

  She lowered her eyes, finally noticing the neatly folded burgundy suit on the table in front of her. Her fingers brushed the soft wool, then withdrew just like she was a child caught reaching for a gift that wasn’t hers. “What’s this?”

  “It’s your Juilliard interview suit.”

  She looked at me and then back at the suit.

  “I promised that I would make it for you.”

  “When I was fourteen,” she said softly as her hands smoothed over the fabric.

  “Do you want to try it on? I had Mama help me with the measurements, so it should fit just right, but it might need a few tweaks.”

  She stood and held up the pencil skirt with the small pleated flounce at the back split. “It’s just like on the pattern cover,” she said, her voice almost reverential. She placed the skirt over a chair, then picked up the jacket, holding it up to the light and seeing the tiny hand stitches and flared collar. Without further prompting, she slid her arms into the jacket and buttoned it, then stood the collar up at the back to frame her face. Just as I’d predicted, she looked stunning.

  “It fits perfectly,” she said, her face unsmiling.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Don’t you like it?”

  She carefully slid her arms from the sleeves, then laid the jacket on top of the skirt. “It’s beautiful, but I’m never going to an audition at Juilliard.”

  I rolled my wheelchair over to her so I could look her in the eyes and make her understand why I’d made the suit. “It doesn’t matter if you never go to New York or set foot inside Carnegie Hall. It doesn’t even matter if you never wear the suit.” I took her hand again and looked up into her face, hoping to see understanding. “I want you to hang it in your closet as a reminder that you could do all of those things, that you are smart, and strong, and beautiful, and brave. And that’s never changed.”

  Her chin dropped to her chest. “You’re wrong, you know. About everything. You don’t really know the person I am.”

  “I’m your sister,” I said.

  She closed her eyes as if summoning strength, and when she opened them again, her eyes were bleak. “The day of your accident—I knew you were scared. I knew you didn’t want to climb that tree. But Glen was there and we were so eager to show off to him. So I egged you on, trying to get you to admit that you were scared. But you wouldn’t. No matter how much I teased and tried to get you to climb back down, you wouldn’t. I always admired that about you, you know. Your ability to get what you wanted at any cost. I hated you a little for it, too.”

  She held her hands out, palms up, as if to show me she was playing her last hand. “Right before you fell, Glen was looking at you and telling you to be careful, and I saw that he loved you, knew then that he always had even if he didn’t realize it. I hated you so much right then. So much that I closed my eyes and wished with all my heart that you’d fall and die. And then you fell.”

  She grabbed her purse and ran out of the house, leaving the beautiful suit behind. I’d wanted to point out that she’d almost died, too, trying to get to me as quickly as she could. But it wouldn’t have mattered. The truth had become like the scent of a moonflower, easily erased by the wind of hindsight and guilt.

  I watched her go, hearing the old Gullah woman in my head again for the first time since the accident. All shut-eye ain’t sleep; all good-bye ain’t gone. I’d finally come to understand what she’d meant, and I wondered how long it would be until Eleanor did, too.

  Eleanor

  I sat curled up in Bernadett’s armchair in the sunroom at Luna Point, trying to focus on the art book about artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that Bernadett had reserved. It was due on Saturday, and since it didn’t seem that Helena had any interest in it, I figured I should look at it one more time before it went back to the library.

  I was having a hard time concentrating, my mind wandering to my sister’s words and my own confession, and to the previous weekend, when Finn had kissed me out on the dock. I didn’t want to dwell on any of it, having long since learned that the past couldn’t be changed no matter how much we looked back. Yet I still found myself touching my lips and remembering the kiss, wondering at its implications. Wondering, too, why I wished I hadn’t backed away.

  Happily, Finn was in New York all week, and although it also meant that Gigi was with Harper, I was glad I didn’t have to face him every morning in the office.

  Nurse Weber stuck her head into the sunroom. “I just put the broccoli casserole in the oven, and now I’m going to the grocery store. I should be back before it has to come out, but listen for the bing of the timer just in case. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

  I waved her off and returned to the book, skimming through the text and slowly thumbing through the pages. I lifted my head for a moment, listening to see if I’d heard Helena or just imagined it, then turned the page, a photograph capturing my attention. I started, recognizing one of the paintings in a photo that took up one third of the right-hand page.

  I flipped on the floor lamp behind me and held up the page, the glossiness of the paper reflecting the light and making it hard to see. Impatient, I stood and moved toward the window to see it in better
light. It was an oil painting from the eighteenth-century Dutch painter Pieter van der Werff depicting a woman sitting at her dressing table, leaning toward her mirror. She looked at the viewer from the reflected glass as she fastened a necklace, the color of the ruby matching the red of her long velvet dress, which billowed around the bottom of the painting like a crimson dust cloud.

  I stared at it on the page for a long time, trying to tell myself that it couldn’t be the same painting that I stared at every time I sat down to play the piano. Using my finger to mark the page, I made my way to the music room. After flipping on all of the lights and pulling back the drapes as far as they would go, I moved toward the painting, my suspicions confirmed before I was halfway across the room.

  Squinting, I read the artist’s name scrawled in gold paint in the bottom right of the canvas. I could see the brushstrokes in the paint and the hardened tips of color in the drapes of red velvet fabric. Even the woman’s expression, of wariness and welcome, was exact. If this was a reproduction, it was a very good one.

  I scanned down the page to read the caption: Portrait of Woman with Ruby Necklace, 1712. Believed to be one of the premier examples of the aim of Dutch painters to employ words with their images to transfer knowledge and information about the world, and cannot be taken in from a single viewing point.

  I looked up at the portrait on the wall, trying to interpret what I’d just read with what I was seeing, but all I could see was a painting of a beautiful woman in a red gown. My gaze flickered through more description and then stopped on the final line: From the Reichmann Family Collection. Believed lost in the bombing of Budapest, July 1944.

  The words began to jump under my eyes until I realized that my whole body was shaking. I made it to the love seat and sat down, forcing my arms to remain steady so I could read and reread the last two lines over and over to make sure I had them right. From the Reichmann Family Collection. Believed lost in the bombing of Budapest, July 1944.

  Could Helena be related to the Reichmann family somehow? And why was the painting believed lost when it was hanging on the wall in an old house on Edisto Island? I frowned, my mind jumping from one possible answer to the next, but none of them resolving all the questions. Such as why Bernadett had requested this book from the library and why she hadn’t wanted Helena to see it.

  My gaze traveled to the wall across the room, to the other portraits hanging there, the overhead lights emphasizing the waves in the unstretched canvases. Helena had framed them herself and had not wanted anyone to come in and appraise them, despite Finn’s repeated requests. Yet she had sold several of them over the years, according to Jacob Isaacson—an assertion that seemed to be confirmed by the blank spots on the walls.

  Jacob Isaacson. As an art dealer, he could probably answer some of my questions. And maybe even some I was afraid to ask. I thought for a moment about calling Finn first, and just as quickly dismissed it. What I’d just discovered had nothing to do with my job. And if I did find something, I wanted Helena to be the one to tell him.

  Placing the library receipt in the book as a bookmark, I left the art book on the piano bench and moved into the foyer. He’d given me a business card for Helena, with his phone number for her to call, and I remembered it falling to the floor and slipping under the small space between the bottom of the small hall chest and the floor.

  After removing the lamp from the table, I braced myself against the solid piece of furniture and managed to slide it until I spotted the small white rectangle lying faceup, waiting to be found.

  I picked up the card and replaced the furniture, knowing that if Helena saw it she would know immediately what I’d been looking for. Then I returned to the music room, where I’d left my phone, and called the number before I could talk myself out of it.

  He picked up on the third ring. “Jacob Isaacson.”

  “Mr. Isaacson, this is Eleanor Murray. We met a couple of weeks ago, when you came to Edisto. I work for Helena Szarka.”

  “Yes, of course. And please call me Jacob.” From his excited tone, I knew that I had his full attention.

  “I, um, wanted to talk with you, because when you were here, you mentioned a particular painting that Bernadett wanted you to see. I was hoping you could give me a little more information.”

  There was a brief pause. “Eleanor, as eager as I am to discuss this subject further, I hesitate since you’re not a member of the family—”

  “I understand,” I said, cutting him off. “And I’m not expecting you to give me any more details than you feel comfortable revealing. I just need to know a couple of things. So that . . .” I paused, no longer sure of my motive. “So I can put my mind at rest.”

  “All right,” he said, excitement and trepidation wrapped around each other in the two simple words.

  I took a deep breath. “Are you familiar with Pieter van der Werff’s Portrait of Woman with Ruby Necklace?”

  There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone, filled with hushed anticipation. “Yes. I’m very familiar with it.”

  “Is that the painting Bernadett wished to discuss with you?”

  Instead of answering my question directly, he asked, “Have you seen it?”

  I thought for a moment. “I saw it in an art book. The caption says that it was lost during the bombing of Budapest during the war.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “I know.”

  “Who were the Reichmanns?”

  “They were a wealthy Jewish family who lived in Budapest before the war. They were bankers, at least until the Horthy regime allied with Germany and Jews were no longer allowed to be anything but menial workers.”

  “Do you know what happened to them?” I closed my eyes, wanting to block out the images from the history books I’d been reading, images of skeletal humans in rags, and piles of empty shoes.

  “They were put on a train and sent to Auschwitz. All of them died there—the mother, father, three children, grandparents; they all died. Except for the youngest, a daughter, Sarah, who was hidden by neighbors when the Nazis came.” There was a brief pause, and I imagined the somber young man measuring his words. “Sarah Reichmann was my grandmother.”

  I felt pressure on my chest, as if I was lying beneath a wall of stone, and I realized that I had stopped breathing. I recalled Nurse Weber’s words to Helena. Breathe in, breathe out.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, knowing how inadequately stupid those two words were.

  “Did you know, Eleanor, that during the war the Nazis confiscated the personal property of the Jews they forced into ghettos and then sent to the camps? All across Europe, they took jewelry and silver and fine art. Some of it has been recovered, but so much of it is lost now to the survivors. Sold privately over the years, and hanging in homes where most people don’t realize that the painting is more than a lovely portrait of a landscape. Or a beautiful woman. They don’t see the blood of six million Jews. They don’t think to look, or if they know, they look the other way.”

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  “Are you there?” he said, his voice sounding very far away.

  “Yes. I’m here. I need to call you back. I need to speak with Miss Szarka again.”

  “I understand. And Miss Murray—Eleanor. It’s not about the money. It’s never been about the money.”

  We said good-bye and I ended the call, my phone frozen in my hand. A cloud crossed over the sun outside, darkening the corners of the room as if trying to hide all the secrets that had gathered there, unseen, for too many years.

  CHAPTER 29

  Eleanor

  I sat on the piano bench staring at the painting of the woman in the red dress, wondering how many people had seen it in the years it had hung there. Sold privately over the years, and hanging in homes where most people don’t realize that the painting is more than a lovely portrait of a landscape. Or a beautiful woman. They don’t s
ee the blood of six million Jews. They don’t think to look, or if they know, they look the other way.

  I heard the thump of Helena’s cane banging on the wall, but I still couldn’t move. I felt chilled to my core, reminding me of the only other time I’d felt this kind of inertia. It had been the night the storm took my father away from me, and all I could do was sit on the dock and stare out through the pouring rain, thinking that if I just looked hard enough, I’d spot his boat.

  The thumping came again, and I willed myself to move, wishing for a star to lead the way, to tell me what I was supposed to say to this woman whom I thought I knew, and, if I was honest with myself, had grown to like. I considered calling Finn in New York, but I couldn’t let go of the thought that there was some other explanation besides the obvious, that Helena was innocent of any wrongdoing and there was another reason why art that had once belonged to a prominent Jewish family was hanging on Helena’s wall. And why she’d lied and said she had brought all the paintings from their little house in Budapest.

  Slowly, I walked toward Helena’s bedroom. She sat up in bed, her cane held aloft as if she was preparing to bang it against the wall again. I stared at her, half daring her to do it while I watched. She lowered the cane and let it rest against her night table.

  “Where have you been? I woke up and called for you and for Nurse Weber and nobody answered. I thought I had been left alone to fend for myself.” She gave me a petulant smile. “The housekeeper has moved my Herend roosters where I cannot see them. I need you to move them back to the little table by my bed so I can enjoy them.”

  I was glad she was doing all the talking and giving me orders. It gave me a reason to move my limbs and kept me silent while I tried to think of a way to ask a ninety-year-old woman why she had a painting that didn’t belong to her, and why she’d lied to me about where it came from. I wanted to know the truth, but more important, Finn needed to know the truth. If he didn’t already.