Stolen Beauty

by Laurie Lico Albanese

  Behind me, Ferdinand was reading aloud from the program that explained the 14th Secession exhibition.

  “ ‘Executed in plaster, paint, graphite and gold leaf at a height of seven feet and a width of 112 feet,’ ” he said. “ ‘The frieze commemorates Beethoven’s tribute to Friedrich Schiller’s poem, ‘Ode to Joy.’ ”

  From the reception room came the sound of flutes being tested and violinists warming their bows, and then the small orchestra began playing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

  “It’s a thousand times better than his University of Vienna murals,” I heard someone remark.

  “An act of self-preservation, I’d say,” was the tart reply.

  By then, Berta and I were standing below Klimt’s naked man and woman embraced in a kiss to save the whole world. The man’s back was muscular and powerful, his buttocks clenched, his head bowed. The woman was pale and dark-haired, her face hidden. Curled at the top of the man’s broad shoulders I saw what seemed—to me, at least—the clearest thing in the room: the woman’s bent and scarred thumb at the nape of the man’s neck.

  “Do you think that’s a self-portrait?” Berta eyed the powerful lover.

  “A flattering one, if it is.”

  My friend looked at me for a second longer than necessary, and the room grew hot and close. I didn’t think Berta could have noticed the thumb; certainly Ferdinand did not.

  “That’s for certain.” She laughed. “Klimt may be strong, but that man looks like a Greek god.”

  Sometime later I found myself pressed against a white wall, staring out at a blur of plumed hats and men in dark suits. I spoke to Elena Luksch-Makowsky, whose startling piece on death and time dominated the third gallery, and was kissed by a sweaty Gustav Mahler. Alma Mahler’s heavy perfume overwhelmed me, Thedy and Gustav appeared briefly, Berta disappeared, and Ferdinand was lost in the crowd.

  When Klimt finally found me alone, it was nearly nightfall.

  “What do you think of the embrace?” he asked.

  I kissed my scarred thumb. He smiled and winked.

  That was all we had time for, but it was enough.

  Following behind Berta Zuckerkandl, Auguste Rodin runs supple fingers through his long white beard and slips into a garden chair at the Prater Café. It is a warm June day. Hummingbirds hover at the honeysuckle planted in pots around the fountain, and a small string quartet adds to the soundscape of summer gaiety.

  Beside the aging sculptor, Gustav Klimt looks like a young man in his white linen suit and straw hat. The two artists could be brothers, or even father and son: they have the same broad foreheads, their bodies are both thick and strong, and their eyes blaze with the same intensity.

  “Coffee with cream,” Berta tells the waiter. “Cheese and fruit, and apple strudel.”

  “Champagne,” Klimt adds. “On ice.”

  It is their first meeting, and the men are in good cheer.

  Klimt’s lithe models slide into empty chairs beside Rodin. Martha and Gerda’s dresses are light and fluid, and their hair is decorated with flowers. Zuckerkandl opens her notebook to record the scene. The sculptor closes his eyes and seems to breathe in the bakery scent of the young women, the honeysuckle that perfumes the air.

  “I’ve never experienced such an atmosphere—your tragic and magnificent Beethoven frieze, your unforgettable, temple-like exhibition,” Rodin says to Klimt. “And now this garden, these women, this music. What is the reason for it all?’

  Klimt understands Rodin’s delight. He smiles, and answers only one word.

  “Austria.”

  ADELE

  1902

  Ferdinand and I summered at a lakeside villa in the Salzkammergut region the year of the Beethoven Frieze. We adored our estate at Jungfer Brezan, but the change was good. The hilly landscape was verdant and soothing, and I felt something fresh and peaceful arise with me each dawn.

  We rowed in a silver boat on Lake Nussensee in the mornings, took afternoon naps in the hottest part of the day, and began trying for a child again. Invitations came, but while Ferdinand worked at his desk I preferred to spend my time reading, walking through the hills, and swimming in the warm baths at Bad Ischl.

  In July we took a carriage through the foothills of the Alps to visit Salzburg for the music festivals. We stayed in a small apartment near the Imperial Palace, where Berta and Emil delighted in introducing us to their friends as “the Bloch-Bauers, who are important art patrons in Vienna.”

  I could see that pleased Ferdinand very much.

  My days in Klimt’s studio seemed far away, and I thought perhaps my husband’s mistress was a thing of the past, too. We hosted a large party for Ferdinand’s business associates in Vienna that autumn, enjoyed a grand Christmas, and celebrated the last night of the year with Thedy, Gustav, and their two little boys. The whole city extinguished its lights at the stroke of midnight, revealing a sea of silver and velvet gold stars against the velvet sky.

  “A shooting star,” Little Karl cried. As the red tail dropped into the heavens I wished for a child—a little girl, then a little boy.

  Klimt’s Judith was sent back from Munich after the New Year. I knew, because Ferdinand received an announcement in the morning mail, along with an invitation from Klimt to see the new exhibit at the Secession before it opened to the public.

  Herr Bloch-Bauer, the pleasure of your company is requested at a private showing for our esteemed and valued patrons.

  “Is Klimt mocking me? Does he know you modeled for him against my wishes?”

  I leaned over Ferdinand’s shoulder and read my friend’s familiar scrawl.

  “We own two of his landscapes now, and everyone knows you just bought a Rodin,” I said. “You’re a patron of the arts, and you are esteemed. I’m sure his invitation is sincere.”

  Berta and Emil were invited to the private showing, too, and we four went together. I wore a high-neck dress and a new hat with a wide brim. Berta wore a turquoise shawl, and a new necklace that Moser had designed. When I admired the long pendant, she said, “You know how I adore the gold choker Moser made for you.”

  That was when I became nervous. Somehow, I had forgotten that everyone knew the fabulous necklace Ferdinand had bought for me. The same one Klimt had clasped around my neck that very first day I sat for him—the one in the painting.

  “Remember, no one but you knows that I was the model for Judith,” I whispered to Ferdinand as we entered the gallery.

  He said nothing. His face was tight, his fat mustache stiff as a horsehair brush. The gallery was dimly lit, but there was a bright light on my Judith, and even from afar I could see that she was everything Klimt had promised: fierce and seductive; sheathed in gold; her face—my face—ecstatic in victory. It was true that it was not a portrait of me, but my gold choker was plain as day around her neck.

  The four of us stared at the painting until Berta finally put a hand on Ferdinand’s arm and broke the silence.

  “You must have him paint your wife’s portrait,” she said. “If he can do something this spectacular with an allegory, imagine what he’ll do with our Adele.”

  I held my breath. There were a few other people in the gallery and they were coming toward us.

  “Really, Ferdinand, you can afford the grandest portrait of all,” Berta said. She was gay but emphatic, and once again I was very, very glad she was my friend and ally.

  “We’ll see,” Ferdinand said gruffly.

  He did not wait for me to get out of the carriage that evening, but left me with the footman and disappeared inside the house.

  I was at breakfast alone two days later when I picked up the newspaper Ferdinand had left folded beside his half-eaten plate of eggs, and found Felix Salten’s review of the exhibit.

  One sees our Judith dressed in a sequined robe in a studio on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, Salten wrote. She’s the kind of beautiful hostess one meets everywhere, whom men’s eyes follow at every premiere as she rustles by in her silk petticoats.
A slim, supple woman with fire in her dark glances, a cruel mouth; mysterious forces seem to be slumbering in this enticing female, energies and ferocities that would be unquenchable if what is stifled by bourgeois life were ever to burst into flame.

  I was horrified; it was as if Salten had seen right through me—as if he knew what was in my heart. I canceled my appointments, stayed at home all day, refused my callers and waited for Ferdinand to return.

  When he arrived long after the supper hour, I checked my face in the mirror, and met him in the hallway between our bedrooms. He stopped, and pinned me with his eyes. It was unnerving, but I held his gaze.

  “I want a proper portrait of you,” Ferdinand said. “Not a half-dressed seductress, Adele.”

  He came very close. I smelled whiskey on his breath, and cigars and cinders on his clothing. I thought there was a smudge of unfamiliar glitter on his jacket lapel.

  “A real portrait, like the one Klimt painted of Rose von Rosthorn with her pearl necklace and diamond ring,” he said.

  “I don’t want a portrait like hers.” I summoned my composure. “I want something entirely new and dazzling. Something that will make a name for us.”

  “You have already made a name for us,” Ferdinand said.

  “It’s not me,” I said. “It’s an allegory. I explained it to you before.”

  I turned back into my room. I thought he would go to his own room, but he followed me inside and closed the door behind him.

  He took me by the shoulders, and ran his hands down my dressing gown. I was astonished at his ease with the buttons.

  “It looks like you,” he said. “Only I’ve never seen that look on your face.”

  In a rough motion, he threw off his evening coat. He kissed me hard, and slid the gown off my shoulders.

  “Lie on the bed, Adele.”

  I did as he said. He turned out the light, and made an animal noise as he lowered himself on top of me.

  “You will have what you want,” I said. Then I threw back my head and pretended that Wantonness and Greed were looking down at me from Klimt’s frieze, taking heated measure of me as my husband growled my name.

  MARIA

  1938

  I survived. That’s not all. I was glad to be alive and away from Vienna. I tried to pretend that a man named Landau had never existed. I made him dead in my mind: I lay in bed at night and watched him burn, watched him choke, watched him drown, watched him die. And every morning, I was alive.

  Bernhard had a new fabric-import business up and running in Britain, and he put Fritz to work as soon we arrived. Even in autumn the Liverpool streets were gray and overcast, and there were none of the cheery red double-decker buses that I’d expected. The buildings were squat, the people kept their heads down and their hats pulled low over their eyes, and their English was unfamiliar gibberish to my ears. Still, I was glad to be there. Whenever I felt homesick, I thought of church bells ringing for Hitler and the red Nazi flags hanging from every building along the Ring.

  It wasn’t our Vienna anymore. It was theirs.

  We settled in. Fritz went to the office or called on Bernhard’s cashmere accounts every morning, and I found a market and a butcher that I liked. The butcher was named Rudy, his wife was from Leopoldstadt in Vienna, and the women who shopped there cooked sauerbraten the way our cook used to make it at home. I bought a heavy stockpot and a potato peeler, took down recipes from Rudy, and learned to be a wife in our new world.

  I used day-old bread for breadcrumbs and made something close to veal schnitzel with creamed potatoes and fried onions for Fritz. When he cut into the fried meat and took a bite, he closed his eyes and sighed.

  “Do you like it?” I asked. I was wearing a new blouse with magenta ruffles I’d stitched on by hand. My hair was newly done, and I’d dabbed eau de toilette on my wrists and behind my neck.

  “It’s like my mama’s,” Fritz said. There was a bit of cream on his mustache, and I wiped it with my napkin.

  Very quickly I met other ladies in Liverpool who’d fled the Nazis. Soon enough we were going from the butcher to the corner bakery together, making jokes about the weak coffee and worrying over our families back home. Everyone had a sister, brother, mother or child who’d stayed behind or slipped out from under the Nazis and disappeared. We were brokenhearted, but we weren’t broken. We told stories of our escapes, and we felt stronger.

  Our apartment was in a three-story brick walk-up in a neat row of buildings on a modest street. It was an unremarkable place, and that was fine. There was an extra room for my mother, and I wanted to bring her to live with us. Mama was willing. Her letters were rare, but when they arrived, she wrote of stores closing and bread shortages.

  “Every day life is harder for the Jews left behind,” my sister-in-law said. We were in her kitchen, and she was using a heavy metal masher to make potatoes. Like me, Nettie had been raised with servants, and like me, she was learning to fend for herself. “If they don’t go out of the houses, they’ll starve. And when they do go out, they risk their lives.”

  “We have to get my mother to Liverpool,” I said. I looked to Bernhard for help, and he made it clear it wouldn’t be easy. Britain, the United States, even Luxembourg—the final hope for so many—had issued their last visas.

  “What about your uncle?” Bernhard asked. “What have you heard from Ferdinand?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  I had not spoken to my uncle in months. I wasn’t even sure if he knew we were in England.

  Waiting is an anxious thing, but that’s what we had to do. We walked along the river Mersey and watched the leaves turning in the park on the corner. We read the small pages in the weekly papers that listed the names of new immigrant arrivals, and studied the ship dockets that were published every Monday. Oskar Kokoschka, the crazy painter who my aunt had loved, arrived in London with his wife. Dr. Sigmund Freud came with his wife and family. There was talk of children arriving without their parents, but I didn’t believe it would come to that. I still expected someone to stop the Nazis.

  At night while Fritz was sleeping, I peered up at the ceiling and remembered how long I’d waited for him. Good things come to those who wait, I told myself. I’d read those words in a ladies’ magazine, and liked the way the English sounded on my tongue. I believed it. I whispered it to myself until I fell asleep.

  “I wish my husband would come,” my new friend said to me one morning. We were in the bakery, eating pastries and pretending the coffee was tolerable. My friend was a large woman who wore sturdy black shoes and covered her head with a flat blue hat. Her husband was a rabbi in Amsterdam, and he’d sent her ahead to Liverpool with the children and his parents. I’d never have befriended her back home, but the world was changing, and I liked her very much.

  “Good things come to those who wait,” I told her.

  She was the first person I’d ever met who could translate from English to Hebrew and German or Dutch. She rolled her eyes toward the bakery window, and said something in Hebrew.

  “I don’t speak Hebrew,” I reminded her. So she said it in German, and then in English.

  “ ‘The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him,’ ” she said. “Lamentations 3:25.”

  I had no use for God. I looked at her blankly, and she laughed.

  “You know there’s a new synagogue on Greenbank Drive,” she said. “There are so many refugees, they say there’s already an instant congregation. I’m going there tomorrow, you can come with me.”

  “Maybe Fritz will want to go,” I said, pressing a few dots of powdered sugar into my finger. “If it pleases him, then we’ll go.”

  But I didn’t tell Fritz about the synagogue, and he didn’t find it on his own. My husband and I each had our secrets. I just didn’t know it yet.

  ADELE

  1903

  If he was nervous about being invited to our home, Klimt showed none of it when he arrived for dinner that evening in May. He was sp
ry in a pale linen suit, and Emilie Flöge wore a turquoise dress that spiraled around her ankles like a mermaid’s tail.

  “I want a dress just like yours,” I said.

  She’d just been to London, and was eager to talk about the new women’s sporting costumes she’d seen.

  “It’s going to be white frocks with blue ribbons for Wimbledon,” Emilie said. “It’s all about freedom. You need movement in your clothing if you’re going to do anything physical.”

  She made us laugh by demonstrating a terrible tennis swing, and tripping on her dress.

  “You see, this is a perfect example of the wrong kind of costume,” she said, and then fell into an overstuffed chair.

  We had hors d’oeuvres and champagne in the parlor, and Ferdinand showed off his porcelain collection. I’d once watched my husband caress a delicate teapot as if it were a fragile child. That evening he grabbed the largest gold-and-ivory platter in the collection, and put it in the center of the table like a trophy.

  “Maybe I can use that gold pattern in your wife’s portrait,” Klimt said.

  “That’s an excellent idea,” Ferdinand said.

  We lit the candles, opened the red wine, and served warm foie gras. I was relieved to see that Emilie put Ferdinand at ease. She was attractive and charming, and seemed a perfect companion for Klimt.

  “I’ve always wanted to make a portrait in gold and silver,” Klimt said as he tucked his napkin into his lap. “But the cost is prohibitive.”

  He was a man of many faces, and on that night, he was the perfect supplicant to Ferdinand.

  “Spare no expense for us,” Ferdinand said. He covered his own glass, but motioned for the butler to pour another cup of wine for Klimt. “Use gold and silver, too. As much as you need.”

  Emilie began to tell me about the divided skirt that was debuting in Paris that year, but I was listening to my husband, who’d leaned forward and was speaking to Klimt in a quiet voice.