Finally Vogl stopped and turned to her.
“Are you one of those modern-day Monuments Men, searching for Hitler’s looted art? Are you here to arrest me?”
“Arrest you? Good God, no. I told you the truth, I’m a concert pianist. Like Gigi.”
“Museum experts, art scholars, educators, curators—you’ve all been searching for stolen treasures since the war. Hounding innocent Austrians night and day.”
Maggie stood to face him. “My mission here today is personal. On Gigi’s behalf, I’m trying to find any descendants of Felix Hoffman, who owned an art gallery in Florence in 1943—and Gigi’s Matisse. You sent her the envelope with the opera house program and a photograph of a woman called Hannah—is she one of Hoffman’s descendants?”
He watched her silently, his blue eyes fogged with distrust.
She held out her hands. “Gigi would like to return Dark Rhapsody to the rightful owner. She is looking for justice, Herr Vogl, not punishment.”
Johann Vogl’s breath came out slowly as he swiped at his eyes.
“Yes, I believe that the cellist Hannah Hoffman is the heir to the Matisse. I knew how troubled Gigi was by keeping Dark Rhapsody, and so I have been searching all these years. I found out about Ms. Hoffman quite by accident, when she came to Vienna to join the orchestra.”
“Please, won’t you tell me your story?”
“I loved Gisela when I was a boy,” he said simply. “I never stopped. She was the love of my life. But, of course, she was too young …”
Maggie looked at the veined, age-spotted hands that gripped the empty glass. “You would have been twelve at the end of the war?”
“I don’t like to talk about the war.” Vogl turned away to gaze out the window, his eyes on several of the Lipizzaners grazing in the courtyard.
“The war changed so many lives,” he murmured in a low voice. “Not all Austrians supported Hitler. I remember taking three of my Jewish neighbors’ horses and hiding them in the forest.”
“Did they survive?”
“The horses, yes. Not my neighbors.”
He waved a paint-stained hand toward the stable yard. “The war was bad for all of us—and for horses, the Lipizzaners, as well. All the mares and foals, many of the stallions, the whole Lipizzaner line, were taken by the Germans to a Wehrmacht-controlled stud farm in Czechoslovakia. In the last days of the war, when General Patton knew that the Red Army was closing in, he knew what they would do to the horses. He said that no highly developed art should perish.”
Vogl turned to her. “He understood. An American Colonel named Reed and his men were given just hours to herd the horses through the forests to Bavaria. So much risk, bravery, sacrifice. But they did it. Two hundred and forty-four Lipizzaners were returned to Austria. Operation Cowboy, they called it.” He smiled faintly. “Reed said later that he was tired of so much death and destruction. He wanted to save something beautiful. And …” He shook his head and stopped, unable to continue.
“And you and Gigi wanted to save something beautiful as well.”
The blue eyes locked on hers shined like lapis. “Gisela and I lived in a village in the Alps above Innsbruck, the Tyrol. I was almost a teenager in 1945, she had just turned ten. We would meet in her aunt’s loft, not far from the lake, late at night. We would talk, plan our adventures. I would sketch her beautiful face.” He gestured toward the portrait on the wall. “Until that one night …”
“What happened?”
“The Nazis happened. A convoy came, very late, to the alpine lake where her aunt lived. They were sinking chests—boxes of looted treasure—in the lake. Gisela was there, she saw them. Hid from them.” He ran a hand through his hair. “What she told you was true. When I got there, she was terrified. She had stolen one of the smaller chests, hidden it in the far corner of the barn. The Nazis were coming back up the track. We ran.”
There it was again. That look of guilt, as if he were holding something back. What wasn’t he saying?
Vogl’s eyes were closed, lost in his memories. “The next day, we went back for the chest. The house was empty. Her aunt and cousin had left by the back door and run to neighbors in the village the moment the SS took the cart to the lake. A good thing, yes? The SS would not have allowed them to live.”
“Because they knew about the chests hidden in the lake.”
“Ja. The Nazis took the horses, but the chest was still in the barn, where Gisela had hidden it. We carried it to my home, stashed it in a corner of the attic under a pile of blankets. Gisela was terrified that the chest would be discovered. We swore to each other that we would never tell anyone what we had found.” His eyes found hers. “What we had done.”
“You’ve kept your secret all these years?”
Again the hesitation, the quick glance away from her. Finally he spoke. “So many years … I turned eighty-four last week. But mistakes come back to haunt us. I never did tell anyone, but … I began to search once more for Hoffman’s descendants. One night I went to the symphony and I found Hannah Hoffman, the cellist. I think she may be his granddaughter. It’s why I sent the program and photo to Gigi. So she could make things right.”
Maggie nodded, then leaned closer. “Where are the other paintings that were in that chest, Herr Vogl?”
* * *
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. You are as ready to say farewell to Tosca as you will ever be. And believe me when I say she is just as ready to say farewell to all of you. We will give her the send-off she deserves, yes? Perhaps the horns will not come in too early for a change? Do not forget that this is a special performance beginning at five p.m. So, I will see you tomorrow at four. Please be on time.”
Outside the opera house, the sky was just beginning to fill with dusky color when the conductor lowered his baton and stepped down from his podium. The last chords of Puccini’s Tosca lingered in the air.
Finally, thought Sugarman, watching the musicians rise, stretch, murmur to each other as they gathered scores and packed up their instruments. He shifted with impatience against the heavy red velvet curtain, searching the faces that came toward him. The tall, ponytailed cellist zipped her cello into a black case and hefted it on to her back like a backpack. Then she turned toward the exit. He stepped forward.
“Ms. Hoffman? Hannah Hoffman?”
The woman stared at him for a moment. Not the face in the photograph. Then she shook her head and cocked her chin over her shoulder before moving past him.
Sugarman turned. Only the greyhound, and one cellist, remained. She was petite, not more than five foot one, slim, with a mass of unruly black curls hiding her face. Had to be her. He watched as she zipped her cello—damn, almost taller than she was—into a bright red leather bag. Then she, too, hefted the instrument to her back, slipped oversized sunglasses over her eyes, murmured to the dog, and turned toward him.
Sugarman stepped forward, holding out his hand, but she ignored him as she and the greyhound walked right past him, heading toward the backstage door. What the devil?
It was then that he noticed how she held on to the dog’s tether. Not the usual leash. A service dog? Nah, he had to be missing something.
“Ms. Hoffman?” he called after her.
She and the dog stopped, turned as one toward his voice. “Yes?” Lifting the dark glasses to the top of her head, she gazed toward him and smiled. “I’m Hannah Hoffman,” she said softly. “And who wants to know?”
Sugarman looked down at her. “Holy moly, Batman,” he murmured.
The eyes looking up at him were gorgeous. Huge, deep blue, brilliant. And unmistakably blind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
VIENNA
IN THE DUSKY backstage light, Simon Sugarman gazed down at the lovely blind cellist and shook his head mutely.
“Did you want to speak to me?” Hannah Hoffman asked.
“I … You … Geez, I’m never at a loss for words,” he murmured.
She smiled. “Just begin with something
easy. Your name?”
“Sugarman. Agent Simon W. Sugarman, United States Department of Justice.”
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
He grinned. Then heard himself say, “I’m grinning.”
“Thank goodness.”
Jesus, Sugar, you are a class-one idiot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean … I meant to say … Well, damn.”
This time she laughed, a sonorous sound that reminded him of the temple bells in Cambodia. “Please don’t be uncomfortable, Agent. I’m just teasing you. I knew you were smiling by the sound of your voice. What I don’t know is—”
“Why I’m here.” He held out his badge, then stopped, reached for her hand, and set the badge against her palm. Her pale slender hand disappeared beneath his.
Her fingers explored the badge, then handed it back and shifted the cello off her shoulders to rest on the floor beside her. The greyhound stayed close, pressed against her thigh. “An agent coming to see me all the way from Washington. Should I be concerned?”
“No, on the contrary, we need your help. I believe my colleague Dr. Maggie O’Shea contacted you about a meeting?”
“Ah, mystery solved. I’ve been expecting her.” She glanced around. “Is she here in the theater?”
“Just heard from her, she’s running an hour or so late. I’m sorry. She’s been held up at another meeting here in Vienna, at the Riding School.”
“A beautiful place to spend time. And not far at all. Not a problem for us, is it, Jac?” She laid a gentle hand on the greyhound’s smooth silver head, her voice softening. “This is Jac, Agent Sugarman. We have been together for a very long time.”
She pronounced the J soft, “jeh,” in the French way. “Nice dog,” he said, eyeing the greyhound but keeping his distance. “Is he named for Jack Nicholson? Jack Kennedy? Jack be nimble?”
“Jacqueline du Pre, the cellist.”
“She. Should have known by her pearl collar.” He chuckled. “I have a pal at Justice who has a rescue Golden named Shiloh, but—”
She smiled up at him. “But I take it from the sound of your voice that you’re not a dog person?”
“Prefer them to cats, if that counts. But I just have a small condo in DC, and I’m always on the move. Got no patience for all that ‘hail fellow well met’ stuff.”
She looked down at her greyhound. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it, Jac? Maybe you’ll find a way to change his mind.” She turned back to Sugarman. “I’m not sure I can be of help to you, Agent Sugarman. Dr. O’Shea told me she had questions about my family, but the truth is, I no longer have any family.”
“Me either,” he told her, surprising himself once more. “But we’ve come to ask about your grandparents. So what do you say to letting me buy you a Viennese coffee across the square in Café Mozart and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“My grandparents?” She closed her eyes for a moment, as if in prayer. Then she looked up, the sudden flash of bright blue astonishing. “It’s Friday and almost sundown, Agent Sugarman. So how about we pass on coffee and instead you come home with me for a glass of wine and the Shabbat blessing? Dr. O’Shea can meet us there.”
Shabbat? He hesitated, unsure. What the hell was the matter with him?
“You don’t know me,” he said, offering her a way out.
“You’d be surprised at what I can see, Agent. And—I have a 2010 Barolo.”
He reached for her cello. “An offer a man can’t refuse. Lead the way, Ms. Hoffman.”
* * *
Not far from Hannah Hoffman’s apartment in the old town, Johann Vogl was pacing back and forth in his small stable office. He had not spoken in several minutes.
Maggie had resettled in the chair by the window, sipping her whiskey and giving him time to collect his thoughts. Her eyes kept returning to the young girl in the portrait above his desk.
She told herself to focus on the old man standing in front of her. A man who had once been young and in love.
“You said that Gisela was the love of your life,” she said gently, and waited.
Vogl shrugged. “I thought I was in love, yes, as only the very young can be. But after she found the chest—well, she was never the same. The guilt, the fear. The secrets. She found solace in her music. And then she left for America.”
“Can you tell me what was in the chest?”
A distant high whinny somewhere in the courtyard. Vogl gazed out the window and let out his breath in a long, hurtful sigh. “I do not have much time left on this earth,” he said softly. “The truth can no longer hurt my Gisela. And—like your American Colonel Reed—I do not want something beautiful to be lost.”
He lowered himself slowly, as if in pain, to sit on the arm of the chair across from her. “Gigi and I looked at the contents of the chest together in my attic, that first night. A pair of silver candlesticks, a Russian icon. A beautiful violin in a velvet-lined case—a Stradivarius, I think.”
“My God, a strad?”
He smiled. “Ja. And music manuscripts—scores by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky.”
“Music …” Dear God. Maggie put a hand to her heart, suddenly unable to catch her breath. “Do you know”—she had to force the words out—“what the pieces were?”
He gazed into her eyes. “The Mendelssohn was, I think, a score for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As for the Tchaikovsky—it was a violin concerto.”
“God, God,” murmured Maggie. “I may be a pianist, but I think Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. And he wasn’t even a violinist!” She shook her head in wonder. “He wrote it while suffering from depression, and that piece never fails to bring me to tears. He only wrote that one violin concerto. If he wrote another concerto like that …” She closed her eyes, overwhelmed.
Vogl nodded. “I was too young,” he whispered to himself. “I did not understand.”
“What happened to those scores, Johann?”
He looked away. “The war was cruel to all of us, Madame O’Shea. Gisela and I kept the chest’s contents hidden for a long time. Eventually, I gave the violin to my father. He had no idea what it was worth. And—I sold the icon and the music manuscripts to a dealer on the black market.”
“The black market.” Maggie felt her heart clutch in disappointment.
Vogl gave her a thin, mirthless smile. “Starving artists are called such for a reason. I had to survive, and take care of my parents. As for the rest …”
“Gigi’s Dark Rhapsody …”
“Ja. There were three rolled canvases. Oil paintings. The most beautiful I had ever seen.”
“What happened to them, Herr Vogl?”
He locked his eyes on her, blue and shimmering as the twilight sky beyond the window. “We didn’t know what to do with them. There was a gallery name stamped on the back of each item, the Felix Hoffman Gallery in Florence. Of course we had heard the rumors. The looting, the destruction of priceless art across Europe. There was a telephone in the village bakery. I called the number. But it was disconnected. The war …” He shrugged. “Well, we all were disconnected in one way or another, weren’t we? You cannot imagine how it was.”
“No, I can’t. And I honestly don’t know what I would have done in your situation.”
“Thank you for that. I’m sure you would have tried to find the owners as well. But when I could not find the gallery owner in Florence, we did the only thing we could think of, to keep the secret. And I—well, as you have seen, I am an artist of sorts. I moved the canvases to the loft of my uncle’s barn. I covered them with an old tarp, hoping that one day we would be able to tell the truth. But the secret was too terrible for Gisela. She went to Salzburg to study her music, and after her schooling she decided to move to New York. I gave her the Matisse, the Dark Rhapsody, the day before she left. I never saw her again.”
“I’m so sorry, Herr Vogl. It was not the life you had planned.”
“No. I was a thief, was I
not? The years rolled on. Every day I would read about owners suing for their looted art. Millions, billions stolen. There is even a movie about that now—have you seen it? Woman in Gold. A looted Klimt, hanging for years right here in Vienna at the Belvedere Gallery. Ja, I could have gone to prison for the rest of my life. Gisela as well. She would call me, sometimes, late at night, in a panic. I had to protect her.”
What we do for love, thought Maggie.
“So,” she said, “you just kept the other two paintings hidden, all these years?”
He looked at her for a long moment. Then, in a voice she could barely hear, he said, “That is what I told Gisela.”
“My God,” said Maggie. “You sold them?”
“I sold one, five years ago, to an Italian collector I found through the European black market. An art gallery in Rome handled the private sale. La Galleria dalla Chiesa, I think it was, in the Piazza Navona. The Gallery by the Church.”
“And the painting?”
“It was called Madonna with Child. The signature was Bellini.”
“Bellini,” breathed Maggie, closing her eyes. Could it be true? “And the other?”
“Ah, the other …” He shook his head. “I am a traditionalist. I did not like it. Too modern. A naked woman on a beach, I think. All geometric shapes, an eye here, a hand there … now, I think the artist could have been Picasso. I painted over it and hid it.” His gaze shifted to the portrait hanging above the desk.
Picasso? She followed his gaze and felt as if a stone had exploded in her chest.
“No! Gisela?” She crossed the room to look closely at his brushwork. “Oh, my God, Johann, you painted a portrait of Gigi over a Picasso?” Her fingers brushed lightly, reverently, over the oil. “It must be worth millions.”
“You might say that. Just a few years ago a Picasso sold at Christie’s for just over one hundred million dollars.” Vogl came to stand behind her, gazing up at the portrait. “It’s never been about the money,” he said softly. “My Gisela has kept me company all these years.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
ROME FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24
Dark Rhapsody Page 15