The Lover's Portrait

by Jennifer S. Alderson

  When Arjan reached the third floor landing, he reached out his hand and felt along the wall for the light switch. A jovial voice called out from the darkness, “There you are.”

  Arjan froze in his tracks. He could sense Philip Verbeet, a few steps behind him, doing the same.

  Oswald Drechsler switched on the lamp, illuminating his wide grin and the Luger in his right hand. “I stopped by your gallery twice this week; a sign on the door said you are ill. I must say, you don’t appear sick to me. But then, I am not a medical doctor. What is ailing you?”

  Arjan’s eyes blinked in protest, unwilling to accept what they saw. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

  His blackmailer plowed on. “When I went by your gallery this morning and saw all of the walls were empty, I thought it prudent to see if you were still ill. Lo and behold, you seem to have recovered nicely.”

  I should have known better then to close the gallery for so long, Arjan thought. But what other choice did I have?

  The SS officer stepped towards him, glaring down at him over his long nose. “Where are my paintings?”

  Arjan gulped audibly. The ten pieces his blackmailer sought were crated up with those of his friends. He’d packed them up last, figuring they would serve as the foundation for a new gallery in Marseille. How stupid of him! He should have known his blackmailer would notice their absence immediately.

  Drechsler sensed his hesitation. He waved for Philip Verbeet – motionless since the Nazi made his presence known – to climb the last three steps up to the small landing. Arjan’s acquaintance did so reluctantly, moving as if he knew he was walking towards a death squad. When he was close enough, Drechsler grabbed Philip’s arm and shoved the Luger’s barrel against his temple. “Where are my paintings?” he asked again, his voice calm and unwavering.

  Arjan remained speechless as he rapidly considered his options, unsure of what to do.

  Drechsler cocked his pistol.

  “I can get them for you!” Arjan screamed.

  “You will take me to them.”

  “No,” escaped his lips as a whisper. How could he? If he did, Drechsler would find the rest and then all of their work was for naught.

  Drechsler pulled the trigger. A cloud of red mist exploded out of Philip Verbeet’s forehead seconds before his body crumbled to the floor.

  “Yes, you will.” The colonel whipped his pistol across Arjan’s face.

  The art dealer dropped to his knees, blood streaming out of a gash in his cheek. Drechsler kicked his boot into his victim’s stomach, lifting him off the ground. When he landed, Arjan coughed up dark red mucus and instinctively tried to rise again.

  “Where are my paintings?” Drechsler kicked out the backs of Arjan’s knees, dropping him onto Philip Verbeet’s torso. He squealed instinctively, the warmth of his friend’s lifeless body rattled him completely. He thrashed around, struggling to stand when Drechsler kicked him in the back, throwing him off balance. He could feel himself teetering towards the staircase and began flailing his arms, searching helplessly for a holdfast.

  His blackmailer screamed, “My paintings!” and grabbed ahold of his shirt, momentarily halting his fall until Arjan’s body weight pulled him forward, tumbling down the darkened stairwell.

  What have I done, went through Arjan’s mind as his ankle cracked on a marble tread and his shoulder popped out of its socket, only moments before he fell further, his neck snapping on the first floor landing, killing him instantly.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Konrad Heider eased his Audi into a cramped parking space on the Frans Halsstraat, directly across from the empty lots in the middle of the block. Through the sections of wire-mesh fence, Zelda could see a broken wheelbarrow and a few forlorn buckets lying about, but no workers. She breathed a sigh of relief, glad to see that construction hadn’t resumed since her last visit. Now they wouldn’t have to disturb Eva or her family to get to the shed. No more innocent victims, she chanted in her head.

  The lawyer switched off the ignition and turned to study his passenger, clearly still debating as to whether or not he could trust her.

  “That construction site butts right up against Rita’s old house and backyard. We can easily climb through that first fence there,” Zelda explained, keeping her voice neutral as she pointed at a large gap between two sections of fencing running along the sidewalk. “Two strings of barbed wire are all that’s separating their garden from the open lots. We can slip through both fences and get into the shed without the current residents even knowing we’re there.”

  “If this is some sort of trick, if you try to deceive me, I won’t hesitate to kill you. And Friedrich, too.” The lawyer tried to look her in the eye as he spoke, but Zelda was only aware of the gun pointed at her abdomen.

  She nodded solemnly, knowing he would keep his word.

  Heider reached across her, opened the glove compartment and pulled out a small leather bag. Its contents rattled and clinked as he slipped it into his tweed blazer’s inner pocket. “Lead the way.”

  Zelda stepped out of the car and took in her surroundings. The small residential street was dead quiet this Saturday morning, she didn’t see anyone walking or biking by. After a quick scan of the apartment windows all around them, she didn’t spot any busybodies watching them from above either. She puffed out her chest and muttered to herself, “Here goes nothing” before walking swiftly over to the fence. The lawyer watched while she squeezed through two sections of the metal mesh barrier. He mimicked her moves, looking over at her expectantly when he’d made it to the other side.

  “There it is,” she said, gesturing towards the shed a few feet away in the garden on their right.

  The lawyer paused to stare at the crumbling concrete structure. “My uncle’s artwork is under there?” He sounded incredulous, yet Zelda swore she saw him blink away a tear before motioning for her to get a move on.

  Fifteen steps later and she was standing inside Rita’s childhood garden, holding the two strings of barbed wire open so Heider could climb through. As much as she didn’t want to die in Rita’s old shed today, she knew if she screamed out or tried to run away, he would shoot her dead before killing any neighbors who tried to get in his way. Zelda had enough blood on her hands as it was. Besides, if she could get him to drop his guard before they found the artwork, she might be able to escape without getting a bullet in her back. Right now, helping Konrad get into the shed as quickly and quietly as possible was her only option if she wanted to survive this day a little bit longer.

  The lawyer strode over to the thick wooden door and unzipped the leather bag he’d taken out of his glove compartment, revealing a small set of metal tools. “A useful skill taught to me by one of my less savory clients,” he said, picking the lock with little effort. As he pushed open the door, Heider winked at her. “Ladies first.”

  It was pitch-black inside, save for a thin shaft of light streaming in through a narrow window placed high up on the opposite wall. Zelda looked back at Rita’s childhood home before she entered the concrete shed, relieved she didn’t see movement through the windows. Heider pushed her further inside before closing the door and switching on the light.

  A single bulb hung in the middle of the room, its weak glow cast eerie shadows along the interior walls. Zelda studied the ceiling, letting her eyes adjust. Here and there, chunks of concrete had come loose, revealing the thick steel beams that held the structure together. It was larger than it looked from the outside, roughly fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long. The shed clearly served as both a storage and workspace. Dominating the right side was a sawdust-covered workbench with two large steel vices screwed onto one end. A plethora of well-worn tools – hand drills, screwdrivers, chisels, saws, hammers and a hatchet – hung from pegs on the wall behind it. At either end of the room, boxes were stacked up shoulder high, ‘Christmas’, ‘baby’s room’, ‘King’s day’, ‘kitchen’ scrawled onto the sides. Jumbled together in one corner were rakes, s
pades, hoes, shovels and a hand mower.

  If only I could whack him with a rake or smack him with a shovel, Zelda ruminated, that might give me enough time to get away and warn the police before Heider can hurt anyone else.

  Her thoughts turned again to Friedrich. What would he think when he came home and saw she was gone, along with the letters and their translations? Where would he look for her first? Would he think she’d gone back home to wait for the police? Or was following up a lead at the university’s library or the city’s archives? Considering her strenuous objections to visiting Rita’s old house again, would he even think to check for her here?

  “Where is the door?” Heider demanded as he scoured the room for an entrance to the root cellar. Rough concrete tiles covered the entire floor; a mixture of sawdust and sand filled in the narrow seams between them. There was no sign of a door or other way into the space below. If there ever was one, Zelda thought, hoping she’d guessed correctly.

  Heider began shoving boxes and tools aside in his desperation to locate the entrance, seemingly unaware of the hoes and rakes clanging and banging to the floor. Despite his agitated state, he kept his weapon trained on Zelda the whole time.

  She shook her head, scowling at him for making so much noise. “I don’t think you’ll find anything over there. Rita said the door was in the middle of the shed, built into the floor. The current owner didn’t know there was a root cellar. The entrance must be buried under these tiles.”

  The lawyer stopped to wipe the sweat off his brow, considering. A few moments later he said, “Well, get digging then.”

  How, was on the tip of her tongue, but she knew there was no point in arguing. She looked around the room, taking inventory of the tools at her disposal.

  “Get on with it,” he barked.

  She grabbed a flat-edged spade and whipped around to face him, the sharp blade scarcely missing his knee.

  “Watch out,” Heider growled.

  “Oops, sorry,” she replied innocently, wondering what would have happened if she’d swung the spade out a tad further. With difficulty she worked the thin blade between two tiles in the center of the room, managing to lift one slightly before it crashed back down, sending a plume of sand and dust into the air. Zelda coughed violently, choking on the grit in her lungs. When she finally caught her breath, she glared at the spade, wondering if she had chosen the proper tool for the job. She looked up at Konrad expectantly, but he just waved his gun at her, clearly not planning on helping.

  She shoved the spade back into the narrow, sand-filled gap. Pressing down and forward with all of her might, she tilted the tile up and got the blade under it, enough so it didn’t fall back into place immediately. She curled the tips of her fingers around the rough surface, and lifted it out of the floor, relieved it wasn’t more than ten pounds or so. She laid the tile in front of the stack of boxes on her left, briefly considering throwing it at the lawyer. But he’d apparently read her mind and already had his weapon aimed at her skull. Zelda let the tile be, choosing instead to scrape the thick layer of sand away, ultimately revealing another concrete tile.

  “Shit,” she muttered half-heartedly, secretly glad she hadn’t found the door right away. She needed more time to think of a way out of this predicament. While she removed the top layer of tiles, her mind ran through her options. Right now, she could only see this day ending with her getting shot, probably mere seconds after Heider found Arjan van Heemsvliet’s cache of artwork.

  Slowly but surely, she cleared a wide circle of twenty tiles from the middle of the floor, stacking them in neat towers to her left. She tried to make as little noise as possible so the homeowners had no reason to come investigate.

  When she paused to wipe the sweat off her forehead, the lawyer handed her a broom. She smirked at him. “Thanks,” asshole, she added in her mind, dutifully sweeping the sand aside. When she’d finished up, they both studied the floor intently. There was still no sign of a door or any other opening, only another layer of concrete tiles.

  “Looks like you have more work to do,” the lawyer grumbled, nodding towards the spade. He remained by the door, the shed’s only exit, blocking any hope of escape. Zelda bit her tongue and picked up the tool, wishing for the hundredth time she had the guts to smack him across the face with it, consequences be damned.

  As she tugged and pulled at the second layer of tiles under her feet, a fit of anger welled up inside her. Once they’d found the entrance, there was no way Heider would let her walk away unscathed, she knew far too much. He was just using her to do his dirty work before killing her. She slammed the blade into the floor, glaring at him while she ground the edge deeper into the sand-filled crack. His smug expression made her blood boil. Despite all of the information she’d uncovered and pieced together, he still regarded her as nothing more than a nuisance, even though she was the one who’d figured out where Arjan’s art was, not him or his sadistic uncle. Indignation seethed through her veins, briefly overruling her fear of getting shot.

  “So Arjan outsmarted Oswald Drechsler, eh? Hid all of his artwork right under his nose, and your uncle never even came close to finding it,” Zelda goaded him, letting her anger bubble to the surface. If she couldn’t fight her way out, she could at least try insulting him into making a mistake.

  Heider chuckled. “You have done your homework. Oswald Drechsler was indeed my uncle. His only mistake was trusting a double-crossing faggot.”

  “Trusting him? Your uncle was blackmailing Arjan van Heemsvliet!”

  “Is that how Arjan described their arrangement in his letters? That pervert owed his life – and his manhood – to my uncle. If he hadn’t tried to be a hero, we wouldn’t be here today, would we?”

  Zelda stopped digging, genuinely curious. “What are you talking about?”

  “My uncle only wanted what was rightfully his, the contents of Galerie Van Heemsvliet, as they’d agreed. When he noticed Arjan had removed all the paintings from his gallery’s walls, Oswald went to his home and found several packed suitcases by the front door. Van Heemsvliet was obviously preparing to flee Amsterdam, with the help of that Philip Verbeet fellow. If Arjan had only told my uncle where the artwork was hidden, instead of trying to be coy about it, Oswald wouldn’t have had to kill Verbeet. How could he have known that Arjan would try and wrestle the gun away from him?” The lawyer grinned as he registered her shocked expression.

  “Drechsler killed Rita’s father and Arjan van Heemsvliet because of the artwork in Arjan’s gallery?” she whispered. Arjan couldn’t tell Drechsler where he’d stashed his gallery’s inventory without revealing the location of all of the pieces he had hidden for his friends, she realized. It was clear from his letters to Gerard that Arjan felt as if he had betrayed their trust by getting caught running away from that gay club. The art dealer would probably rather have died then tell Drechsler where all the pieces were stored. Meaning Rita’s father was simply a victim of circumstance, nothing more. Zelda felt like weeping. She hoped she would survive this ordeal if only so she could tell Rita the truth – her father didn’t abandon them but died trying to help a friend. Finding out what happened to her father was far more important to Rita than regaining possession of Irises, yet she would never know the whole story unless Zelda could find a way out of this shed.

  “What did he do with the bodies?”

  “He buried them in Arjan’s backyard,” Konrad smiled sweetly as he motioned with his gun for her to get digging again.

  Zelda picked up her spade and lodged it under another tile. “How did he get ahold of Arjan’s inventory ledgers and business papers? I take it you inherited them from your uncle?”

  “Oswald Drechsler was more than my uncle. After my father died, he raised me as his own. His search for these paintings was always our search. When he passed on, I gladly continued where he left off.” Heider stood a little straighter and squared his shoulders as he talked, clearly proud of the sadistic SS colonel Zelda had read about a few hours earlie
r, the same man Konrad saw as a father figure.

  “It was pure happenstance that Oswald found those documents. After he’d shot them, my uncle discovered inventory ledgers in Arjan’s suitcases which showed the art dealer’s collection was far greater than he had indicated. Oswald had written down the titles of all the works hanging in Galerie Van Heemsvliet each time he visited, yet he recognized only a fraction of the unsold works listed in those books. That’s why he stayed in Arjan’s home for the remainder of the war, tearing up the walls and floors in his quest to locate the rest. He did find several secret compartments and concealed rooms, but all of them were empty.”

  That the Nazi was unsuccessful in finding a single piece of artwork was oddly comforting to Zelda. Arjan van Heemsvliet and Philip Verbeet must have finished hiding all of them under this shed mere hours before Drechsler shot them both. Which meant Rita’s father’s art collection must be safe too. She smiled to herself, pleased to know Arjan and Philip hadn’t died completely in vain. That thought delivered a flash of satisfaction before confusion set in.

  “But why was Irises found in Arjan’s mansion on the Museumplein after the war and not buried here? It was listed in his gallery’s inventory book along with the rest of Philip Verbeet’s collection.”

  “Took you long enough,” the lawyer said, his mouth twisted up in a perverse grin. “The bags by the door. My uncle never understood why Verbeet put Irises in his suitcase. The five Rembrandt etchings Arjan tucked into his bags made more sense.” Heider chuckled. “Oswald would have liked to have known that Verbeet was taking Irises with him because of its sentimental value, not because it held a clue to the location of the rest of the paintings.”