The Painting

by Alison Booth

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me years ago?’ her father said, his voice raised so that Anika could now distinguish every word. ‘You think I don’t worry about you? You’re always on my mind. You’re too secretive. Think about what’s going to happen to us when you pass away, heaven forbid. Let’s face it, it looks pretty strange that you’ve got that huge collection that I’m going to be left to deal with and with no evidence of how the pictures came into the family. Or I assume you’re leaving them to me.’

  ‘Of course I am.’ Nyenye was almost shouting now. ‘Who else would I leave them to with Tomas long gone?’

  Though there was a pause in their conversation, Anika judged that now was not a good time to open the door and take in the tray of drinks. Her father said, his voice resigned but carrying, ‘There’s always the art gallery.’

  ‘I’m leaving the paintings to you,’ Nyenye said, crossly. ‘Whether you like it or not. And I expect you to look after them well.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  There was another pause before Nyenye spoke. ‘You’re a good boy, György.’ Her voice was soothing now that she had the guarantee she wanted. ‘And Anika has reminded me that it is important that you know where the provenances are.’

  Her voice dropped and Anika retreated down the hallway. The kitchen door was shut and her mother was clattering around inside with her dinner preparations. A moment later there was a tremendous roar from the living room. Anika’s father was shouting and Anika could made out the words, ‘That is the stupidest place in the world to keep them, Mama!’

  ‘Don’t shout at me, György, you know my nerves can’t stand it.’

  ‘I’m not shouting!’ he bellowed. ‘I never shout.’

  Anika moved further away and out of earshot. The seconds ticked by and still there were raised voices from the living room. When she could no longer hear Nyenye and her father yelling at one another, she rattled into the room with the tray of drinks. Nyenye’s cheeks were pinker than usual. Even her father’s usually sallow face was flushed, and his habitually anxious expression more pronounced.

  ‘What’s up?’ If the cheerfulness in Anika’s voice irritated rather than calmed them, neither gave any indication.

  ‘I’m trying to convince Nyenye that it’s OK to own paintings, and that it has been for some time. She mustn’t worry any more about getting caught by the AVO. If she wants to worry about anything it should be about getting a burglar alarm installed as soon as possible. And a wall safe for the documents. A few barrel bolts and a door chain are certainly not going to keep a determined thief at bay.’

  ‘And I agreed,’ Nyenye said, her voice indignant. ‘Surely we don’t have to go through it all again, György. We don’t want to spoil Anika’s last evening with us, no?’

  ‘You call that an agreement? You were just embarking on telling me it was a waste of money.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind now, as long as you’re willing to organise it all. I don’t want to be bothered with great hulking men marching through my home with mud on their boots and superiority on their faces.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen like that, Mama. They will be skilled security experts not labourers off a construction site.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. I’ve agreed that it should be done and you will agree to organise it all. Division of labour, no? And what about getting the phone installed at the same time, so you can call me up day and night to see if I’ve been broken into?’

  Rather fortunately, Miklos turned up at this juncture, bursting through the front door in a blast of fresh air. He was carrying a bottle of something in a brown paper bag and a briefcase.

  ***

  ‘I think paintings are like people,’ Nyenye said over dinner.

  ‘Why is that?’ Anika said, puzzled.

  ‘You can’t own a painting for ever, you can only borrow it for a while. Just like having children. They stay with you for a time and then they grow up and go away.’

  ‘It’s easy for you to think like that about paintings,’ Miklos said. ‘You’ve got a living room crammed full of them, just like an art gallery.’

  ‘It’s a bit like memories,’ Nyenye continued, as if Miklos hadn’t spoken. ‘The passage of time means you never possess moments. You have memories of those moments but they won’t last for ever.’

  ‘Why not?’ Miklos finished his glass of wine and reached for the bottle to refresh everyone’s glasses, although his and Nyenye’s were the only empty ones.

  ‘Because we don’t live for ever,’ Mama said. ‘And anyway, even within a lifetime, memories are limited by the way our synapses connect. Just think, each time your brain pulls out a memory and then files it away again, that memory is altered.’

  ‘Some memories will just disappear,’ Miklos said. ‘They’ll drift away and never come back. But a picture is a physical thing. A store of value, like money.’ Miklos had done a minor in economics and liked to speak like this sometimes. ‘Its worth is determined by what you can sell it for.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell shopkeepers that,’ their father said, grinning. ‘But there’s emotional value too, don’t you forget that, son.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to forget tonight,’ Nyenye said. ‘The five of us together and darling Anika off tomorrow in the metal canister.’

  ‘But you’re getting the phone connected.’ Anika patted Nyenye’s hand and her grandmother seized hold of her fingers. ‘You committed to that with Papa just now. So we’ll be able to talk. No more coded messages from anyone. Those clicks have gone.’

  Anika glanced at her father, who had a doubting expression on his face. ‘We can never be absolutely sure of anything. It’s always best to be careful. Remember what we saw on television last night.’

  ‘What was that?’ Nyenye said.

  ‘There’ve been leaked documents from the Internal Security Service,’ Mama said. ‘Apparently, leaders of the opposition parties are still having their phones tapped and their meetings infiltrated. Old habits die hard.’

  ‘It’s illegal now,’ Miklos said. ‘That’s what the Interior Minister said.’

  At that moment Anika thought of what Jonno had written in one of his newspaper articles, the one she’d read in the Mitchell Library. That when an old order vanished – together with most of its records – new opportunities arrived for the perpetrators of crimes: they could change their identity as well as their destiny, and escape justice.

  ‘Best to be careful anyway,’ Mama said. ‘More and more fascists are coming out of the woodwork and who knows where Hungary will end up.’

  Nyenye coughed. Her brow was furrowed and her shoulders were hunched over. She might have been modelling suspicion for a life drawing class or changing her mind about having the phone connected.

  ‘It’s easy to keep phone conversations simple,’ Miklos said quickly. ‘You can talk about the weather and what you’re having for dinner. Anyway, Internal Security are only interested in politicians. Once the March elections are over, there’ll be no more wiretaps.’

  ‘I love getting your letters,’ Anika told Nyenye. ‘You write the most wonderful descriptions of shopping and spring cleaning and the seasons changing. That’s the sort of stuff I like to hear about. It doesn’t have to be politics, just whatever you feel like writing about if you don’t want to talk on the phone.’

  ‘I’ll be able to talk about domestic things on the phone,’ Nyenye said. ‘But not about other things. I’m a bit like the Internal Security Service in that regard: my old habits die hard.’

  Chapter 32

  At the airport Nyenye’s expressive face was like the sky on this blustery afternoon, Anika thought. Wind-gusted dark clouds of sadness interspersed with bright rays of vicarious satisfaction that her granddaughter was setting off on new adventures. Anika’s father looked anxious but that was the mask he wore mos
t of the time, and who knew what was concealed behind this. Miklos was the only one of the family to appear radiant, but that was because he’d already moved away from them and into the new world he was establishing.

  Just before Anika headed through the departure gates, Mama began to weep, fat tears rolling down her cheeks that she swiped away like bothersome flies as she struggled to regain her composure. ‘I’m going to come and see you, Anika,’ she said. Her voice sounded choked and her eyes were greener than ever against the redness around them. ‘Your father and I talked about this last night. Maybe next Christmas holidays. And Nyenye might come too.’

  Anika held her close. ‘That will be lovely,’ she said into her mother’s shoulder. Mama smelled of the eau de cologne that she liked to wear for special occasions and that, wherever Anika was, she could never get a whiff of without thinking of home. She hoped she wasn’t going to cry herself; there was a prickling in her eyes and sinuses. She needed to get this farewell over, to disappear through the doors that led into passport control, to put behind her this harrowing pain of departure.

  At last she was in the departure lounge area with some twenty minutes to fill in before boarding. There were several other flights departing at much the same time. One to Berlin, one to Rome, and the third was her flight to London. Sadness and regret, excitement and anticipation were spinning about in her head like garments in a washing machine. Sadness at leaving her family behind but happiness at the prospect of returning to work, to her studies, to some warm sunshine.

  Ah, the push and the pull. On the plane she would have too much time to reflect. Leaving home but going back home: once you crossed the ocean you were always on the wrong side. That was the lot of the immigrant, belonging everywhere but nowhere. Displaced, and unplaced, and already she was missing her family.

  But you had to look forward, not back. And weren’t there also advantages in knowing two cultures, in having a foot in the old world and another in the new? Right now, she just wanted to get into that metal canister and fly high above the clouds.

  She was unfastening her travel bag to find something to read when a loud voice booming above her made her jump. ‘Well, if it isn’t Anika Molnar.’

  ‘Jonno Jamison!’ In her surprise she let go of her boarding pass and it fell on to the floor. ‘Surely you’re not on the same flight as me?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Sydney, via London and Bahrain and Singapore. And you?’ She picked up the boarding pass and dusted off some fluff.

  ‘I’m off to Berlin. I’ve got a terrific new storyline to follow there. I’ve done all I can in Budapest.’

  ‘My grandmother has the provenances for all the paintings in her collection.’

  ‘I know that, Anika.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I met a very interesting man a couple of days ago, the nephew of a Mrs Szabo. Does her name mean anything to you?’

  ‘It does. And what did Mrs Szabo’s interesting nephew have to say?’

  ‘He said quite a lot about his aunt and about your grandmother’s provenances, once I’d given him a hefty inducement to talk, that is. I dropped around to see your grandmother early this morning to tell her. Did she say anything?’

  Anika shook her head. ‘She didn’t. Now tell me, Jonno, why were you harassing her?’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? I was searching for a story. And it would have been a good one.’

  ‘Looted paintings turn up in Budapest apartment, is that what you had in mind?’

  ‘You’ve got it, Anika. That’s what I thought. And if your grandmother had been more forthcoming, I could have killed off that idea a week ago. You’ve got a cagey family, haven’t you?’

  ‘I would have thought that you’d understand why, after all your researching and reporting in the Soviet Bloc countries. And that you’d know enough not to mention any caginess, if that’s what you want to call it.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I mention it? That’s all over now.’

  ‘The memories remain. For many as vivid as ever.’

  ‘That’s why I became a journalist, Anika. My grandfather was a collaborator in Slovenia, you see. He died in the war but my grandmother and mother ended up in a displaced persons camp and eventually got into Australia.’

  ‘So you write to atone for him?’

  ‘I think of it more as redressing wrongs. But it’s also for my mother and all she went through.’

  ‘And what about my grandmother? Didn’t you think about how frightened she might feel when you came banging on her door the other day?’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. I hope I didn’t scare her too much. Anyway, she kept the chain securely fastened, and she might be small but she managed to shut that door pretty damned fast when she saw me.’

  That’s because she was terrified, Anika thought, eyes fixed on Jonno. He was now sporting a charmingly rueful smile. It made him look like a schoolboy offering an apology after being bawled out by the headteacher. He might have worked hard over the years at perfecting that air of contrition, or perhaps he was born with it. She said, ‘You’ll do anything it takes, won’t you Jonno, to get your story?’

  ‘I’m only trying to get at the truth.’

  A voice came over the tannoy calling the last remaining passengers for the flight to Berlin. Jonno leaned forward as if to plant a kiss on her mouth. Quickly she averted her face and he kissed her cheek rather than her lips. ‘Goodbye, Anika. I’m so glad things have worked out for you. It wasn’t you I was really after, it was the truth.’

  ‘I knew all along you weren’t really after me. The truth is what I’ve been after too and I’ve got it now.’ Or most of it at any rate, she thought. There were still those mysterious circumstances to confront.

  Jonno grinned before loping off. She watched him, his easy gait, his broad-shouldered physique. Now it was all over, she felt a reluctant but growing sense of gratitude towards him. Without his irritating presence, she was sure that Nyenye wouldn’t have been so quickly forthcoming with information about the provenances.

  Jonno turned and raised a hand in farewell before heading towards the doors to the airbridge. Five minutes to go before boarding for her own flight commenced. Delving into her bag for a book, she saw that an envelope had been inserted into it, with her name scrawled across it in Nyenye’s hand.

  My darling Anika,

  Although I’m sad to see you depart again, I am glad for your sake that you’re heading off to a new country with new opportunities and a loving aunt for support, for all of us need a crutch to lean on from time to time.

  Nyenye’s words made Anika feel happy. A loving aunt for support. She knew that she hadn’t imagined the antipathy between Nyenye and Tabilla but maybe her visit had smoothed some of it out. Their love for Tomas had pushed them apart but their affection for her would bring them together again. It had been over three decades since they’d last seen each other and when they met up again next Christmas – if Nyenye could be induced to travel – they surely couldn’t fail to get along. But if they didn’t, they’d just have to work at it. That’s what families did. Anika read on.

  I’m so happy too that you will be an architect, with the opportunity to create beautiful and functional things. What a lovely career choice – and so good to get away from the butchery. God knows, we’ve seen enough of all of that. I also wanted to say that I value the conversations we had about the past and how they have made me feel more at peace. I think you will understand what I mean.

  That man who said he is your friend visited me again just now. Of course, I didn’t let him in. I thought it better to tell you this in a quick note rather than talk about it at the airport. So that is why I am sitting down now at my kitchen table composing this brief letter to you. All I told him was that I have the provenances for everything – absolutely everything – th
at I own. But the strange thing was that he seemed to know this already. He’d tracked down Mrs Szabo’s nephew, apparently. And at that moment your father turned up with a contractor for the wall safe I’m getting, and your friend left soon afterwards. He’s off to Berlin, he said, so he won’t be pestering me any more.

  Safe travels, dearest one.

  With much love,

  Nyenye

  Anika folded up the letter again and slipped it into the zip pocket of her handbag, next to her passport. The voice on the tannoy announced that boarding for the flight to London had begun. After picking up her hand luggage, she joined the queue of passengers waiting to show their boarding passes, waiting to climb into the fragile canister that would hurtle them across the world.

  * * *

  Four hours out of Sydney Anika woke abruptly from a deep sleep. Outside it was still dark but the moon illuminated the cloudscape, long wisps veiling the vast continent of Australia that they were already flying over, though there were still several thousand more kilometres to go.

  While she’d been away, her mind had made a seismic shift; it was as if she could now see life from a new perspective. Outside, the darkness was beginning to fade. Soon the streaks of thinning cloud to the east assumed a salmon-pink glow that morphed into a fiery orange before the sun blazed in triumph over the horizon. The air was thinner seven miles high and there was less friction to slow down their progress. Her thoughts floated free. Free of drag, free of resistance, and she felt an expanding sense of detachment. Not only was she seeing the earth from a different vantage point but she was seeing her life in a new way too. Generations of her family had been scarred by upheavals, and their stories were multiplied millions and millions of times all over the globe. Everywhere there were people like them. Damaged people, displaced people. But there were survivors too.