by Cathy Ace
“Is that Loes with you in the painting?” asked Ana. “Loes was Bernard’s wife before me,” she explained, as if she’d read my mind. “She died,” she added. “Bernard and I met some time later. We’ve only been married for a year.”
Eager to find a point of connection, I said, “Bud and I married at the end of last year.”
Ana leaned over and flung her arms around as much of me as she could, hugging me. “It’s wonderful to be a newlywed, don’t you think?” She beamed. I smiled and agreed. “And look at us all, so long in the tooth. To have found love at our ages? We are so lucky. Were you divorced, Bud?”
Bud shook his head. “My wife also died.” I didn’t think they’d noticed the slight pause before he said “died,” and I knew he’d rather not recount the tragic tale of Jan’s murder when she was mistaken for him by an idiot gang-banger, so I said nothing.
“I’m sorry for your loss, and I understand it,” said Bernard. “Congratulations to you both as well. I think all this calls for something better than Amstel. Ana?”
Ana ran lightly to the giant, restaurant-style refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of champagne plus four chilled glasses. Unless that was their normal, everyday way of life, I decided they’d been planning to celebrate the arrival of the pictures. Or maybe something else?
Popping the cork and pouring, Bernard said, “The other piece is beautiful too. In a different way, of course. Jonas had a wicked sense of humor. I recognize this as Still Life with a Fish painted in 1647 by the wonderful Dutch artist Pieter Claesz. They have it at the Rijksmuseum. But look at how Jonas has perfectly used the style of Dali to make the composition a real work of surreal art. How about we keep that one here, Ana, and take the other to the city house? It would suit that place more than this. It would work well on the top landing.”
“But we never use that part of the house; we’d hardly ever see it,” replied his wife with a playful pout. Was Bernard trying to hide it away?
“It would get great light up there, from the roof windows.”
After “Prost” and “To Jonas” all round, Ana sipped her drink thoughtfully. “You’re right. The light would be good. But the light’s good on that wall too. We could keep it here.”
She turned to me, her lean, toned, honeyed legs effortlessly curled beneath her on the whitewashed wooden chair, and added, “We come here in the winter too. We like to watch the storms while we snuggle in front of the fire.” She glanced toward a massive fireplace with a carved wooden mantel that dominated the sitting-room part of the open area. “We have people to visit here more often than in Amsterdam. It would be fun to let everyone see it, then work out that you’re in it. They would all assume it’s a print. One of those clever ones on canvas. Then they’d see it for what it really is.”
Bernard didn’t reply, though his intelligent eyes regarded Bud and me. I suspected he was wondering if we knew about Hannah, or had recognized her. He hadn’t offered up the information that she was the woman in the painting, which I found fascinating.
With this omission in mind, I decided it was time to see if I could help Bud in his quest for insights to pass to his mom in a practical way, so I waded in with, “Bud and I have been hoping to learn about his uncle from you and your fellow members of the Group of Seven to pass on to Jonas’s sister. She never heard from him after he left his family in 1946. We understand you were the last to join the Group. Was it your joining that allowed the title to arise?” It seemed like an obvious question, Greta’s claim to having allowed the name to be coined having puzzled me.
Bernard smiled. “No. I didn’t meet up with them until 1963. It had been the Group of Seven before I joined, though they had lost one member some time before I met Jonas.”
This was the first we’d heard of a lost member, and I immediately wondered if this might be the man in the photographs and portraits we’d found, so I followed the lead.
“How did they ‘lose’ a member, exactly?”
“I think he died in a boating accident on one of the canals. He was called…” Bernard looked toward the plaster-decorated ceiling for inspiration, “…that’s it—Charlie.”
“Is this him?” I asked, pulling the photograph of the unknown man from my handbag.
Bernard looked at the photo, then shook his head. “I don’t think it can be. I gather Charlie was of African heritage. Dutch, but black. Jazz trumpet player, and an artist too. They often talked about how they missed Charlie’s playing when we’d all get together for a drink or two. Seems he used to entertain everyone back in the fifties. I think he died in the late fifties or early sixties. But don’t quote me on that.”
“It’s interesting that the Group lost a member to a drowning,” I mused. “Tom Thomson, the Canadian artist, drowned too. Though he wasn’t really one of that Group of Seven—because they didn’t properly form as a group until after his death—he was certainly influential.”
“Of course, you are Canadians,” replied Bernard. “Yes, Jonas liked the work of Edwin Holgate, who was of the Ten, not Seven, Group. You know what I mean?”
I replied, “He was one of three artists invited to join the original Seven. I have to admit I like Lawren Harris’s style the most. We have a print of a piece by him, and one of a Tom Thomson too. We even have a couple of limited-edition prints signed by A.J. Casson himself.”
“We do?” asked Bud. “Where?”
“Spare bedroom, with the Brangwyn panels.”
Bernard looked surprised. “You must have a large home to accommodate anything by Frank Brangwyn.”
I grinned. “Ha! Yes, we have a few small-scale prints of some of the panels he painted that hang in the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea. It’s where I’m from originally.”
“Jonas went there,” said Bernard, surprising both Bud and me.
“When?” asked Bud. Simultaneously, I asked, “Why?”
Bernard smiled easily as Bud and I grinned at each other. “I do not know when exactly; I can’t recall. I believe the early seventies,” said Bernard. “He traveled a great deal, always following in his beloved Vincent’s footsteps. He went to London to see the house where Van Gogh lived.”
“87 Hackford Road, just off the Brixton Road in Stockwell,” I said. Bernard raised his glass to me. “I used to live close by, and passed it often on my journey to an advertising and PR agency where I worked in Soho, London. It was a sadly dilapidated house back then, and it’s in a pretty poor area. I recall it was a local postman who worked out exactly where Vincent van Gogh had once lived. He’d done a lot of research by 1971, and they placed a blue plaque on the house in 1974. It must have been the seventies when Jonas went there, and, if he was as fanatical as you suggest, most likely in ’74, when the address was made known to the public.”
“I expect someone with money will buy the house and take it in hand,” said Ana. “Everything associated with Vincent is gold. Like sunflowers.”
I didn’t want to get sidetracked. “There’s a thought, Bud. Perhaps I even saw your uncle Jonas on the streets of Swansea and didn’t know it,” I said wistfully. “Was Jonas a fan of Frank Brangwyn’s work, Bernard?”
Our host shrugged again—the action suited what I judged to be a laconic nature. “Although he spoke of his work, and told me he’d been to see the panels of which you speak, I only knew of his great affection for all things Dutch. Maybe he saw something in Brangwyn’s work that delighted him. It’s grand—even the small pieces. That’s what he said about Vincent—his work was huge, even when it was small. Vermeer, Rembrandt, Hals too. These were his idols.”
I felt suddenly close to Jonas, and could imagine him admiring the massive panels I’d grown up seeing. “What was Jonas like, Bernard? We’re desperate to know.”
Bernard relaxed back into his chair. “He was a complicated man, yet lived a simple life. I met him at a concert at the Bimhuis, in
1963. It was almost completely dark, extremely noisy, full of people smoking all sorts of things, and we fell on top of each other at the bar.”
“You—drinking? How unusual,” said Ana laughing.
“We weren’t drunk—then,” grinned Bernard, “though we got that way later in the night. He was welcoming. He was with Willem Weenix and Dirk van der Hoeven. By the early hours of the morning we were all like best friends—you know how it goes. We met again a few nights later, by arrangement that time, at a brown café. That’s where I met Hannah. She did some modeling for our group, and worked at a bar. I suppose it’s not surprising that I was attracted to her. She was a lovely girl, but we were too young. We should not have married. We both realized it wouldn’t work, so we moved on. I…I moved on by leaving school and didn’t return to the Group for a couple of years.” I was interested to hear Bernard’s take on the failed marriage, but at least it was clear that Ana knew about Hannah.
“Hannah and Ana, with Loes in the middle,” said Ana. “That’s funny, I always think.”
“So you had an interest in art at that time too?” Bud pressed.
“I was at school studying chemistry. I didn’t want to be a chemist, but it was my father’s profession, so I followed him. I enjoyed the precision of the processes involved, but I never saw any way I’d ever be able to do anything but be stuck in a laboratory all my life. I wanted to draw, but I knew I didn’t have a truly artistic ability, so I am glad I became a draftsman—I was better at that than I would ever have been as a chemist.”
“I expect you’ve worked on some fascinating projects since the seventies,” I said. “So much has been built hereabouts since then.”
“Indeed,” replied Bernard with enthusiasm.
“He worked on the renovation of the Van Gogh Museum, didn’t you, and he also worked on the original building that opened in 1973, right?” Ana swelled with pride as she spoke. “This year has been big for the Netherlands—we have a new monarch, and all our best museums and galleries are open again. It is like a spring for the country. We need the tourists, and now they will come again.”
“That must have been quite something, to work on the original Van Gogh building back in the day, and then on the more recent changes,” said Bud. “I guess Uncle Jonas was jealous of your involvement.”
Bernard shook his head. “He was never a jealous man. He was happy for me, and pleased that there would be a Van Gogh Museum. He was a great supporter of the idea. Even before it first opened he applied to work there, and he did so for almost twenty years.”
“I can imagine him caressing the paintings at night, when everyone had gone home for the day,” I said.
Bernard raised his eyebrows. “I’m not an expert, but Jonas worked security long enough to know how to get around most things. Maybe touching the paintings would be something he would do…when no one was looking.”
“Was he rule-breaker?” asked Bud.
Bernard gave the question some thought as his wife poured him an inch of champagne. “I think Bernard was a man for whom the normal rules did not apply. He observed those he thought correct, and ignored those he thought wrong. He was a moral man, except when he chose to be immoral. He was an ethical man, except when ethics got in the way of his obsessions. He lived simply, except when he chose to indulge himself.”
“A man of contradictions?” I asked. “We are all that.”
“True,” replied Bernard thoughtfully. “That is what a psychologist would say. What do you do for a living, Cait?”
I grinned. “I’m a psychologist. Well spotted. You remained a draftsman all your career?”
“He still is,” said Ana. “He will not retire. Though we have more than enough money to live well, he insists upon choosing projects to work on. Do you still work, Bud?” Bud shook his head. “Then speak to my husband and tell him how good it is to be at leisure.”
“I’m not sure about ‘at leisure’,” replied Bud. “Cait and I moved into a new house—well, a house that is new for us—less than a year ago, so I am rather busy working on that.”
“You are traveling now, together. That must be fun,” said Ana.
“You’re right,” said Bud, “it is fun to see new places and people. Do you two travel much?”
Ana snorted. It reminded me of Ebba, and why we were there. “Not enough,” she said. Her smile disappeared, just as the sun vanished behind a cloud. The mood in the room shifted perceptibly.
“So far all I can tell my mother is her brother grew up to be a man of contradictions, with an obsession for art, and a few good friends who shared that love with him. Did he ever speak to you about his early life in Sweden, Bernard? Anything at all?” Bud sounded desperate.
Bernard shook his head. “I didn’t even know he was Swedish. It never came up. His accent was that of a Dutch man. I had no reason at all to suspect that he was born and raised anywhere but the Netherlands. If he wasn’t Dutch, why would he have performed his National Service, his dienstplicht, after all? We all tried to get out of it—or at least put it off as long as we could. But they got us in the end. No one would pretend to be Dutch, knowing they’d have to serve. Of course, if he hadn’t, they’d never have all met.”
I gave myself a moment to let what Bernard had said sink in. Bud looked puzzled.
“Of course,” I said, “conscription in the Netherlands didn’t stop until—what?—1992 was when they stopped calling men up, I believe. And although it’s still on the books—so they can re-enact it whenever they like—the Dutch government ended the whole process four years later. I suppose you served, Bernard?”
The man looked resigned. “We all did. Of course, some studied until they were too old—which was what my father had planned for me. I decided I would rather do it when Hannah and I separated. To get it over with. My father didn’t agree. He tried to get me discharged on medical grounds even then. Many people did—and it often worked, especially in the later years. Back in the fifties, sixties, and seventies they used the conscripts for all sorts of projects. Tasks were not purely military, and many conscientious objectors took the option of volunteer service instead.”
“You said Jonas wouldn’t have met the other members of the Group without having done his service?” I pressed.
Bernard spoke casually. “It’s where I believe they all met. Not Greta, of course, because women were never conscripted—and she certainly would have avoided it if they had. But the others? Army buddies.”
“You’re the first person to mention this, Bernard,” said Bud. “I’ll be honest and say the notion hadn’t occurred to me that my uncle had served with the Dutch military for—what? A couple of years?” Bernard nodded. “Why wouldn’t the others we’ve met have been open about how the Group formed? Were they open about it with you?”
Bernard looked somewhat taken aback by Bud’s passion, and sat a little more upright. He looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean to speak improperly. I think they were all at the same camp, at the same time. They found they all enjoyed art, and kept that link going after they finished their service. To be honest, no, they never spoke of those times. In fact, thinking about it, I recall they were quite…secretive is not the word, but they didn’t mention it at all. None of those ‘didn’t we have a great time when we were serving in the army’ stories, that sort of thing.” Bernard emptied his glass. “That’s not normal, when you think about it, is it? All old soldiers have stories, even if they never went to war.”
“They do,” I agreed. I was trying to do some quick calculations in my head to work out when it was most likely that Jonas and the Group members had been conscripted. 1950-ish? I knew all Dutch men were registered when they were seventeen and could be told to report from age eighteen onwards. Of course, I didn’t know when Jonas had “become” Dutch. What I did know was that this was a whole new area of investigation for Bud and me.
“Thanks for that,” said Bud quietly. “Do you happen to know where, or when, my uncle served?”
Bernard shook his head. “As I said, it never was discussed in detail, though 1950 was mentioned. I only know what little I do because Jonas told me about their meeting when he was extremely drunk—and I was less so.” He flashed a grin at his wife. “It’s a night I shall not easily forget. He was crying. I don’t know why. It was a hot night, in the summer. Possibly around this time of year. We had been drinking all day, and it was well past midnight. I would say it was in the late seventies. I can’t be more accurate than that. Something had reached his heart and made him sad. He wanted to be held, like a child. It was the night he spoke to me about loss. I hadn’t felt real loss then—I was too young. No one I loved had died. Jonas talked about loss in a way I couldn’t understand. Now that I know he left behind his Swedish family, it makes more sense. I remember he told me he was haunted by someone. I don’t think he was clear about who, or why.” Bernard shifted in his chair. “Jonas was not without his demons, Bud. His birthmark?” We nodded. “He did a good job of pretending not to notice how people looked at him, but he always knew they did. Sometimes, in bars after a lot of drinking, he would thrust his face into another man’s and dare him to take a good look. He could be aggressive about it.”
“We’ve heard about his temper from Pieter van Boxtel,” I said, “and we’ve seen the scar Jonas made on Pieter’s face.”
Bernard looked puzzled. “Jonas gave Pieter his scar? I never knew that.”
The dynamics within the Group of Seven were becoming more interesting by the minute. For a group of people who were supposed to be close friends with a shared passion for art, they were now beginning to look more like a bunch of old army buddies with a fair few secrets. I decided to ask one more key question.
“When you and Jonas were close, did you ever find out how he managed to have enough money to buy the house he lived in—and enough to lend to Hannah for her to buy her bar?”