And After the Fire

by Lauren Belfer

  He said nothing, so she continued, “If the attorney tells me I can proceed, my plan would be for three categories of charitable donations, touching on the past, present, and future.”

  Last night she’d stayed up late doing Internet research into the possibilities, and the formulation had come to her this morning: one third to groups that were restoring Jewish cultural monuments in Eastern Europe; a third to organizations creating libraries around the world; and a third to environmental groups, to help the earth, and the human race, to survive.

  She shared this with Scott.

  “You’d set up a foundation?”

  “No. I wouldn’t want to be involved in administration. I’d make onetime gifts, outright, to established charities. I realize my plan goes against your preferences, but I’d appreciate your help. If only as a sounding board.” She suspected this area was outside Scott’s expertise, but she wanted his reaction.

  “You should talk to Freddy Fournier.”

  “I’m reluctant to consult with him. I know how you and Dan feel about him.”

  “Susanna, in this undertaking, I insist upon your having the best. That’s how much I care for you, if you don’t mind my saying and even if you do mind. He’s the best. I’ll arrange a meeting for you. My prediction is that after he’s found you a lawyer who’ll fight for your rights, and after he’s made a plea for you to sell the cantata to Yale, he’ll advise you to consign it to Sotheby’s in London. I can virtually guarantee that he’ll become the front man for whatever happens next.”

  “That would be fine,” Susanna said. “I like the idea of having a front man. I want to stay in the background. Do you think Dan would be okay with this? He has a stake here, too.”

  “I can’t speak for him. My guess is that he’d want you to do what you think is right.”

  That was most likely true. “I’ll talk to him about it.”

  “After you discuss the German translations.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You do realize that Freddy will want to look at the entire manuscript, not just a few photos. And if you’re going to auction it, you’ll have to turn it over to Sotheby’s. That means you’ll have to take it out of the bank vault and place it into Sotheby’s guardianship.”

  “I’m ready to turn it over,” Susanna said. “I wasn’t ready before, but I am ready now.”

  Chapter 53

  In the early morning, Reverend Frank Mueller sat on his rooftop. The weather was bizarre. It was late January, but temperatures were expected to reach 60 today. Normally he never sat on the roof in January. No complaints, however. He was exceedingly happy to be here, coffee in hand. Today on his iPod he was listening to the Bach Trio Sonatas for organ, transcribed for strings and splendidly performed by the group London Baroque. The music was suffused with verve and filled him with the same.

  Until he examined his newspaper.

  Previously unknown Bach cantata with anti-Semitic content discovered in Buffalo, he read in a box at the bottom of the front page of the newspaper. Taken from Weimar by an American soldier at the end of World War II; authenticated by scholars, said the subheading. See page C1.

  The story took up most of the front page of the Arts section, complete with several photographs. It continued inside the section. Excerpts from the cantata’s libretto were singled out, including horrifying passages drawn, alas, word for word from the works of Martin Luther.

  Too late for him to intervene, Mueller finally understood what Dan and Susanna had been struggling with.

  He could have stopped this. He could have convinced Dan and Susanna to destroy the cantata, or at least to keep it hidden. He could have spared himself, and his faith, this embarrassment. If only he’d seen and understood.

  “The family involved wishes to remain anonymous,” said Frederic Augustus Fournier, Centennial Professor at Yale University, who was empowered to speak for the family. “The artifact was stumbled upon while family members were clearing the home of deceased relations. It was discovered in a piano bench . . .”

  On and on the story went, sparing no detail.

  “At my suggestion, the family has decided to bring the artifact into the light of day, auction it at Sotheby’s, and donate the proceeds to charity. By this means, the artifact, despite its dismaying polemical overtones, can itself be put to good use.”

  Who was Frederic Fournier, to determine what constituted good use?

  “My colleagues and I have completed an extensive research process to authenticate the artifact. Sotheby’s has examined this research and also independently confirmed the artifact’s authenticity.”

  Mueller was confident that Dan’s research, and that of his colleagues, was thorough and reliable. The artifact, as both the reporter and Fournier persisted in calling it, would be auctioned in London in the spring. The artifact’s value at auction was difficult to determine, Fournier noted, because nothing like this had ever been auctioned before. Nonetheless there was already tremendous interest from around the world, et cetera, et cetera.

  The news story was accompanied by an opinion piece by one of the newspaper’s music critics. The purpose of this essay was to inform readers that the unenlightened beliefs of long ago weren’t pertinent to our appreciation of masterpieces of art from the past. We listeners and viewers of today should simply enjoy the beauty of any music, of any art form, and ignore the now-irrelevant context of its creation.

  What claptrap. No Bach cantata was an artifact.

  Mueller felt as if the blood had drained out of him. How was he to reconcile himself to this appalling work? It forced him to confront again a question he’d spent tremendous energy, over many years, attempting to suppress: How much had his church, his heritage, his faith, contributed to what happened in the war?

  Because he kept up on all things German, he knew that current research demonstrated overwhelmingly that, contrary to the common postwar myth, the vast majority of Nazis and their followers were not in fact anti-Christian. A great many Christian parishioners were members of the Nazi party, and the party’s long-term plans for the Reich included a restructured Christianity.

  Hardly anyone ever talked about this. Rarely even raised the issue. Were they ashamed?

  Shame was a strong motivator, he knew from his years of providing pastoral care.

  Mueller also knew that church leaders, Protestant and Catholic both, had spoken out against the Nazis’ so-called euthanasia program, the widespread murder of the disabled. As a result, the program had been curtailed.

  The overwhelming majority of church leaders had said nothing, however, to help their Jewish neighbors.

  This past summer, Mueller had been devastated by his visit to Buchenwald. He hadn’t been able to put what he saw into any kind of perspective or understanding.

  After his time in Weimar, he’d returned to Leipzig to visit a colleague at the theological school of the university. Together they’d gone on a day trip to Dresden, to see the Frauenkirche, destroyed during the war and now spectacularly restored. Mueller wasn’t moved by the church. With its overly brilliant colors, it seemed fake, more like a Disneyland attraction than a historic house of worship.

  Afterward he and his friend had walked to the nearby Kreuzkirche, on the Old Market Square. Outside, a plaque on the wall of the church caught his attention. He’d been so touched by the words that he’d taken a photo of the plaque with his phone. He still remembered much of it:

  * * *

  IN SHAME AND SORROW CHRISTIANS KEEP IN MEMORY

  THE JEWISH CITIZENS OF THIS CITY.

  IN 1933, 4675 JEWS LIVED IN DRESDEN. IN 1945 IT WAS 70.

  WE WERE SILENT AS THEIR HOUSES OF WORSHIP BLAZED . . .

  WE DID NOT RECOGNIZE THEM AS OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

  WE ASK FOR FORGIVENESS.

  * * *

  Maybe he was wrong, in his wish that the cantata had remained concealed. From his work with parishioners, he knew that bringing painful facts into the light could heal the soul.
<
br />   Susanna Kessler had found the cantata—where? He checked the article. In a piano bench. Mueller’s family secrets were in a shoe box under the bed. He could bring them out, too.

  Yes, he decided as he mulled this over, the time had come for show-and-tell. He’d display his family photos on the bulletin board in the church basement. He would discuss them, as well as the newly discovered Bach cantata, in his sermon this Sunday. He’d encourage others to put similar family photos on the bulletin board.

  His parishioners wouldn’t be pleased about it. Too often recently, his role as a pastor seemed to have devolved into being upbeat, reassuring, and always ready with a smile.

  But in truth it wasn’t his job—or at least it wasn’t his only job—to make his parishioners happy.

  Chapter 54

  The auctioneer banged his gavel on Lot 186, a letter from Ludwig van Beethoven to the manager of the Court Opera Houses in Vienna. “Sold, to the online bidder, for one hundred and sixty thousand pounds.”

  Keeping herself occupied, Susanna made a note of the price in her catalog. The auction continued. Eighteen more lots to go, before her lot. She sat in the sales room of Sotheby’s on New Bond Street in London. Concealed behind the building’s historic façade, the room was sleek and high-tech. Echoes of tradition and stateliness were provided by architectural ornaments, such as the moldings on the ceiling and the doorways. Along the front of the room and down one side, on desklike raised platforms, Sotheby’s officials were positioned at land-line telephones, covering their mouths as they talked.

  The following lots sold in brisk order.

  “And so, ladies and gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, “we reach the end of today’s sale of fine musical manuscripts.” He was about forty, dark hair brushed back, lithe body relaxed. He wore a dark suit, white shirt, and gray tie. He was alert, animated, and responsive to every detail around him. He was also supremely confident, a benign ruler surveying his kingdom.

  His realm was surprisingly varied: an older man in a plaid jacket obsessively studied the catalog, holding it close to his face. A dashing, bearded man stood at the side as if showing off his striped fisherman’s shirt. A sprinkling of women who could pass for fashion models sat at the edge of their chairs. A clique of gentlemen in baggy suits exuded a weary sense that this auction was all in a day’s work for them; Susanna concluded they were professional art and manuscript dealers. A teenage girl with a nose ring, arms tightly crossed, clothing skimpy, focused a hostile glare at the innocent-looking middle-aged couple beside her. People entered the room, others left.

  “We’ll proceed directly to our final event of the day. This, of course, is the lot we’ve all been waiting for.” Sotheby’s had printed a special booklet about the cantata, providing illustrations of several pages from the manuscript and featuring brief scholarly essays about its authenticity and provenance. “A flagship lot, as we say in the business,” the auctioneer added.

  He was having fun, and why not? On any given day a river of life flowed through his hands, the creations of humanity—paintings, sculpture, furniture, pottery, stained glass, books, manuscripts. Items that represented heartbreak or happiness, dreams fulfilled or defeated, and hard cash. Susanna had brought her contribution, too.

  “And here we have it.”

  The first page of the cantata appeared on the large screen to his right.

  “This artifact is the full-length, complete autograph composing score of a previously unknown Leipzig church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . . .” The auctioneer gave a description of the autograph and its condition. He used the word artifact as if it provided a shield against the cantata’s horrific text.

  When Sotheby’s first announced the pending sale several months earlier, an uproar had ensued. The German government had protested, demanding the return of stolen German property. The descendants of the Mendelssohn family had made inquiries because of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s handwriting on the wrapper, indicating her, and their, previous ownership. How had the manuscript ended up being owned by the Genslers in Weimar, they wondered. This was a question that couldn’t be answered.

  Frederic Fournier had handled the German government adroitly, through a highly publicized accusation: first you murder the owners, then you claim possession of their property. The German government dropped its demand.

  Fournier went to Berlin and met with a representative of the Mendelssohn family, and he persuaded the family to take the same approach to the cantata as Susanna did: she wasn’t going to profit from it personally, and neither should they. The family’s endorsement of the auction was specified in the catalog. The issue of whether the family actually had any legal claim to the manuscript was ignored (and had in any event, through their endorsement of the sale, become moot).

  Occupied as she was with her own work, Susanna had followed the developments from afar. For the ability to do this, she was grateful to Frederic Augustus Fournier, seated near the front of the room. At Sotheby’s, only Ian McCloud, director of the department of books and manuscripts, knew her identity, and he would preserve her anonymity, as was customary in the auction business.

  Fournier never referred to Susanna as the owner of the artifact. She was the anonymous consignor. Who did own the artifact? Apparently no one. It was something called an orphan work, according to Fournier and his attorney. They’d somehow convinced the IRS that Susanna certainly didn’t own it, and her uncle hadn’t owned it, and besides, the funds realized from its sale were to be given to tax-exempt charities.

  Because the sale was to benefit charity, Sotheby’s had agreed to waive the usual seller’s premium, or commission. Sotheby’s would, however, receive its customary commission from the buyer, so the company’s work wasn’t without remuneration.

  The catalog gave the estimate for the artifact as between £7 million and £8 million.

  “We’ll begin at six million, five hundred thousand pounds.”

  A near-silent pandemonium broke out, paddles raised here, there, Susanna unable to track them. But the auctioneer found them effortlessly, the numbers going up and up, seven million six, seven, eight—in the room, from the telephone, and in the room once more. Eight million one, two . . . the monetary figures became a kind of code. Eight million eight, nine, nine million, nine million one, a barrage of numbers spinning around her.

  She focused on the small overhead screens. Whoever was operating them fell behind, and abruptly the number was twelve million and rising, fifteen million, a swirl of numbers. “Sixteen million six online,” the auctioneer said, ever affable and calm, as if he were at a garden party. “Sixteen million seven, eight . . .”

  At the Sotheby’s telephone bank in front, an older woman raised her hand. She was demure, wearing pearls and a sweater set.

  “With Lily on the telephone,” the auctioneer said, acknowledging her, “eighteen million. Thank you, Lily.”

  At the end of Susanna’s row, a woman on a cell phone, taking directions from whoever was on the phone with her, began bidding. She had short dark hair, and wore a plain black blouse and skirt. Her entire body looked tense, as if she’d been entrusted with responsibilities she wasn’t certain she could handle, now that the moment to exercise them had arrived. She gripped the phone like a lifeline, pressing it hard against her ear.

  “Eighteen million one, to the lady on the cell phone at the end of the row,” the auctioneer said. Others bid against her: “Eighteen million two online . . . three, four . . . nineteen million—”

  The woman on the cell phone raised her hand again and again.

  Susanna glanced at Fournier on the far side of the room. From the way he positioned himself, turned aside from the woman with the cell phone instead of eyeing her as the others did, Susanna guessed that she represented his interests. From hints he’d given, Susanna suspected that Fournier had put together a consortium of wealthy supporters of Yale who would purchase the manuscript as a group and donate it, in his honor, to the Beinecke Library. Be prepared, his
motto, had been mentioned somewhat frequently by him during the dinner they’d shared last evening.

  “Twenty-one million with Owen on the telephone . . .”

  Attention shifted to the phone banks, to find Owen. He sat two places down from Lily. He was in his twenties, and he looked as if his tie was too tight. Susanna again glanced at Fournier, who—as the auctioneer said, “Twenty-two million, six hundred thousand, for Lily on the telephone”—appeared confused.

  Within seconds the auctioneer said, “Twenty-four million pounds, do I have . . . twenty-four and a half, thank you, Lily . . . I have twenty-five million online . . .”

  Audience members pointed to the phone bank, where Owen was calling for attention. “Twenty-six million from Owen. Thank you, my dear audience members, for the prompt.” The auctioneer was having so much fun, he looked as if he were performing the role of an auctioneer in a play.

  As the number went over twenty-six million, five hundred thousand, the woman with the cell phone put her phone in her lap. Fournier looked incredulous. The numbers had spun away from his control.

  The ever-cool and concise Lily at the phone bank raised her pencil and kept it raised. Bidding for the cantata had become a contest between Owen and Lily, with numbers that shocked and shocked again, through the required increments, in a battle of raised pencils and hand waves—twenty-eight million, twenty-nine million, thirty-two million.

  And then, stillness.

  The auctioneer gazed around the room. He studied Owen and Lily. His serenity appeared boundless. After some time passed, he said, ever so gently, “Fair warning, Owen.”

  Owen was talking intently on the telephone, his body arched around, concealing the phone and hiding his conversation. At last he straightened, his dark hair disheveled, a look of exhaustion on his face. He shook his head no.

  “Sold, ladies and gentlemen, for thirty-two million pounds, to Lily’s telephone bidder.” The auctioneer banged the gavel. “Lily?”