The Grandfather Clock

by Jonathan Kile

  “Amazing,” Gasciogne smiled. “Amazing.”

  “Let me ask a question,” I said. “Clearly, this item does not belong to my family, but it seems strange to just hand it over. Is there some process to follow?”

  Desjardins burst out laughing. “Most people get a lawyer. The courts force the issue.”

  “Do you seek a reward?” Gasciogne asked.

  “No, no,” I stammered. “I came here to help the Chateau de Malmaison, and we hoped that the exhibition of this could help raise money for the Chateau. It’s my job right now. People are counting on me.”

  “I guess we need to talk to Monaco and Odense,” Gasciogne said. “This is delicate. The minute this goes public, people will begin to speculate on what has happened. It can get ugly. If the press knows and you don’t hand it over immediately, they’ll paint your family as Nazis.”

  I stood up. “I’m not getting a lawyer. Not yet. Can you arrange to speak with the right people at these museums?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  It was mid afternoon when I walked out of the Louvre. Klara still had an hour at school and I was starving. The adrenaline had left my body and I was feeling light headed. I walked over the bridge toward Notre Dame, though the ever-present throngs of tourists. I squeezed into a cafe and ordered a sandwich and a beer. The last of the lunch crowd was leaving and a tour group of grade school children left.

  I called my mother.

  “Mom,” I said. “The history of the gun is becoming clearer and its only making the question of how Grandpa got it more baffling.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. There’s no one to ask.”

  “I was able to confirm that he got it sometime as he passed through Germany and France when he traveled through Europe. You’ll never believe what I just learned.”

  “What?”

  “We now know that the gun was taken by the Nazis. And it belonged to the Prince of Monaco.”

  “Monaco? Incredible.”

  “But it didn’t just get sent to some massive collection of loot. There’s a picture of Hitler himself, holding the gun,” I said.

  “Hitler? With that same gun?”

  “Not one like it. The same exact one. Hitler admired Napoleon, for all the reasons we don’t admire Napoleon.”

  “I haven’t the foggiest...”

  “You said it hung on the mantle when you were a kid.”

  “It did. He’d polish it once in a while. Maybe he didn’t know.”

  “Here’s the really strange connection. It was taken from the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Odense. It was in the museum on loan. The photos show him traveling through Munich. Maybe someone passed it to him there.”

  “That’s right! He had an uncle that lived in Munich. Alfred.”

  “Alfred?”

  “Alfred was only a year or two older than him, so they were more like cousins or brothers. Alfred was young during the war, so his family sent him to live with your great grandfather. My father and him were boys together. After the war Alfred moved back to Europe.”

  “He’s in the pictures with Grandpa,” I said, recalling a man taller than my grandfather in some of his travel photos.

  “He died before Grandpa. I don’t think he ever married.”

  “Did you know Alfred?”

  “He would visit when I was a little girl. But I didn’t really know him, Michael. I wish I could be more help.”

  “Every little bit helps,” I said. “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, Michael. How is Paris treating you.”

  “Amazing,” I said.

  “Vince said you met a girl,” she said. I could hear her smiling.

  “We just met,” I said. “I barely know her. Her name is Klara.”

  “Oh,” she said, surprised. “Vince said it was ‘Celeste.’”

  “That’s complicated,” I said.

  I knew by now that dead ends weren’t dead ends. They were leading to answers. I called Desjardins.

  “I need someone who speaks German to look up Alfred Andersen.”

  “I speak German,” he sighed, his irritation still apparent. “Mr. Chance. I’ve got my own work to run. Ms. Demers is going to have to work on getting you the resources you need to see this through.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “This really should be left to the experts,” he added in a tone that made clear that I was not included in that group.

  “Dr. Desjardins, you’re the one who told me to be careful who I trust.”

  “This gun is a major find. I work for the Louvre. I don’t know how far I can help you before this museum expect me to advance its own interest in the item.”

  “Will you look into Alfred Andersen?”

  There was a long a long pause. “Yes.”

  I texted Klara and told her to meet me at the cafe. Feeling celebratory, I ordered another beer. A Carlsberg in honor of Denmark.

  Desjardins called back.

  “That was fast,” I said.

  “Der Speigel. It’s like Time magazine in Germany.”

  “I know of it,” I said.

  “Well, it’s published in English too, my friend. Sending you two articles right now.”

  EDUCATOR BELOVED BY GERMANS AND DANES REMEMBERED

  It was an obituary article. A sidebar of three paragraphs. It said that Alfred Andersen was a beloved theology teacher who passed away in 1997. Desjardins had highlighted a sentence near the end. “Andersen came to Germany with a team of Danes who worked to return items removed from Denmark by the Nazi regime.”

  The second article was three pages and dated May 1947. It was in German. The comment from Desjardins said, “This describes the program he worked with. He isn’t mentioned by name, but the records are out there.”

  I called Desjardins. “Did Uncle Alfred steal it?”

  He laughed. “He probably didn’t know what it was. That card was probably in there from when it was taken from Odense by the Nazis. Your uncle was looking for art taken from Denmark. The gun may have been with the painting of Napoleon from Odense. He couldn’t have realized its significance.”

  “My mother said she never knew the story.”

  “More reason to think that your grandfather took it not knowing what it was. You have to remember, the sheer volume of plunder was overwhelming and identifying what was missing, and connecting it to an owner was practically impossible. The Meissonier painting was known. But even today, people are unknowingly buying and selling art that was taken during the war. The Nazis sold stolen art to finance the war machine. By now a painting has changed hands a half dozen times and the original owners probably died in a concentration camp.”

  “And the Hans Christian Andersen connection.”

  “The most plausible explanation is that the famous painting and the gun traveled together. Whether they were recovered by Russians, or Western troops we may never know. Whoever came upon it, knew the painting, but not the gun. So they sat together, waiting to be claimed.”

  “By Uncle Alfred.”

  “He probably bought it as an interesting collectible and returned the painting to the museum, which then returned it to Monaco.”

  Klara arrived and I ordered a carafe of wine. We toasted the great discoveries. Suddenly, in one afternoon, pieces were falling in to place. We ordered dinner and I told Marianne that I had good news. I would tell her when I reached the apartment that evening.

  “So,” Klara said. “It’s not yours.”

  “No. It belongs to the Prince of Monaco.”

  “That’s too bad,” she said with a smile. “I thought it would make you rich.”

  “Does that change things between us?”

  “Yes. It does. I wanted a rich American,” she teased. “Of course, you’ll probably drop me like you did the last girl.”

  “Be nice and I won’t.”

  “I’ll try,” she said with a laugh. “So, if the gun belongs in Monaco, what happens to you and the Malmaison?”


  That was a question I hadn’t pondered. “I can’t worry about that,” I said. “It’s out of my control.”

  When I got back to the apartment, Marianne was on the phone and Celeste was crying. More Marco trouble. He’d been back a few weeks and had reinjured his ankle. She was on pins and needles that the French team would not ask him back.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  Marianne looked serious. It wasn’t Marco.

  Celeste walked me into the living room.

  She composed herself and said, “Claudette. She had a stroke. She’s in hospital.”

  8

  I didn’t get to tell Marianne everything that I had learned until we were over the Atlantic. Claudette was stable but not responding. She needed surgery to relieve pressure and tests to determine the damage. We wouldn’t know anything until we landed, but the news so far was not good.

  It was a mad rush to get tickets and get packed. We spent an hour looking for Celeste’s passport. It would be late morning when we hit the ground in New Orleans. Marianne was stoic about the situation. She took a seat alone and I sat with Celeste. Before we left I called Klara and told her that they had asked me to go to New Orleans with them. I could tell she was disappointed, but I couldn’t be sure if it was because she was going to miss me, or because she was afraid I would not come back. Staying was out of the question, I told her. I would come back to her and, of course, I had to come back to the gun.

  The conversation on that seven-hour flight was something I could not have predicted. It started slow. She asked me about everything I had learned about the gun. She was genuinely thrilled by the story and really felt that I was responsible for a great find that may never have occurred. And she was right. The story of the gun might have been lost with the clock if I’d let it go. The Hitler connection only made the story more remarkable. I thought back to that bar in Orlando, the call to my brother, the frenetic night of volleyball and drinking. Erica, the sweet bartender who almost joined me across the country. Erin, the beautiful southerner who drew me in with her quiet confidence.

  For some reason, I was nervous traveling with Celeste, and I handled it by talking.

  “You stereotyped me when we first met,” I said.

  “Stereotyped? No. How do you mean?”

  “You shrugged me off,” I said, and imitated her accent adding, “Typical American.”

  “You are American,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “When we met at the bar in New Orleans, could you have imagined that I would be living with you within a few months?”

  “No,” she said, trying to contain laughter. I could tell it felt strange to laugh under the circumstances. “I would have never thought that. Actually, to be honest, you aren’t like the Americans I meet in Paris.”

  “How so?”

  “The Americans I know who are living in Paris have their shit together. And they all think they are fucking incredible.”

  “Wow. Ouch,” I said.

  “No, it’s good. You do have a little of that American arrogance, but you’re sincere, and you’re good to people.”

  “Tell that to my ex,” I said.

  “No. You care. I mean, how else does a thirty-year-old man befriend my Aunt Claudette? That’s sweet. She loves you. At first, maybe I thought it was a little strange. But now I know you. And look where you are now.”

  “I sometimes feel like my life has been a series of missed opportunities.”

  “No, that’s me.” Celeste swallowed hard. “Marco is going back to Argentina. Permanently. Don’t tell my mother. I don’t want to see the satisfaction on her face.”

  “She’s just doing her job as a mother. She’s required to disapprove of your dating an athlete. Same for musicians,” I said in an attempt at levity.

  “Whatever. She married an Englishman. She’s a hypocrite.”

  “You are her world.”

  “She wants me to date someone like you,” she said, her tone bordering on resentment. “What’s the fucking difference between an Argentine soccer player and an American bartender or whatever you are now?”

  I didn’t quite know how to respond. I was starting to understand the hot and cold treatment Celeste had given me. And now I was dating her best friend.

  A strange thing occurred to me as we had that quiet talk. I couldn’t ever remember having so much time to talk with one person, without any interruption. When I met Celeste at Claudette’s house in New Orleans she was an aloof French girl with her guard up. A part of her reminded me of the way I had felt with Christie, who always made sure I knew where I stood, and always willing to knock me down a rung. Now I looked at her and she was completely different person. I couldn’t remember her on that visit to New Orleans anymore.

  She walked to the front of the plane to check on her mother and returned with four tiny vodka bottles. She slipped two to me with a wink.

  “Tiny bottles of relaxation,” she said, cracking one open and swallowing the entire thing with a grimace.

  “My mother has never been to New Orleans,” she said. “She’s going to die when she sees what they think is French.”

  “French, Spanish, African, and a little of everything else,” I said.

  “I told her it was what the French become when no one is watching.”

  “You like to get under her skin, don’t you?”

  “You don’t know her. You didn’t grow up with her. My father, he’s wealthy. It was parties, trips and business. For me it was school, nannies and divorce. Suddenly, I turn twenty and she wants to be the world’s greatest mother. Too late.”

  I took a drink from the small plastic bottle. “Remember, she was only a little older than you are now when you were born. Life is going great and then suddenly you are divorced, back in Paris, working in a castle that is a shadow of its former self.”

  “The Malmaison is a metaphor for my mother,” she laughed.

  “Maybe.”

  She leaned toward me with her dark hair falling over half of her face. “Is this where you tell me that my mother is just trying to keep me from making the same mistakes she did?”

  “I hope you don’t think I’m that preachy. I try to mind my own business.”

  “To a fault,” she said taking a sip from the second bottle.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay, we’ll ride the next four hours and ignore it,” I said, pretending to read Sky Mall.

  “You embarrassed me.”

  “What?”

  “That morning, after you stayed with Klara.”

  “How did I?” I said, stunned. “I never meant...”

  “You came back into my home, after being with my friend. And I was throwing myself at you.”

  “Throwing yourself? There was another guy with you!”

  She laughed. The comment took her by surprise. “Yeah. Other than the man. There I was, hardly wearing anything. Never...,” she lowered her voice, “never in my life has a man looked at me with such indifference.”

  I didn’t know what to say. She was right and she was wrong. I wasn’t indifferent. I tried for something. “Celeste, by that point I wasn’t playing anymore. One day you ignored me, the next day you were my best friend.”

  “You have to understand, when this whole thing came about ... you coming to live with us. Between Claudette and my mother, they thought you were the answer to my prayers. I was seeing Marco. I had already met you in New Orleans. Yeah, you were charming. You speak French. You’re too perfect.”

  “The truth is I’m not.”

  “Whatever. Good looking American. Falls into a pile of shit and smells like ... whatever the saying is.”

  “I broke off an engagement. I had a middle management job hawking credit cards, which I quit so that I could tend bar. I have a car parked in Florida and a bunch of boxes in New Orleans, and I sleep on a futon.”

  She interrupted, “And you foun
d a gun worth millions, live rent free in Paris, and date the coolest, most unpretentious woman in Europe.”

  It was all about perspective.

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way,” I said.

  “Oh boy, here we go.”

  “You look at people for what they mean to you,” I said. “You don’t actually see what is happening to them. When I got here, you saw me as walking in like I thought I was going to own Paris.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was scared to death. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “Oh, man. That first weekend. I thought we were going to kill you.”

  “So did my liver,” I laughed.

  “That was the night I knew I’d be okay if Marco left,” she said, looking down.

  She was fishing, so I took the bait. “Why’s that?”

  “You made me think about not being with him. Don’t think I’m trying to say I wanted to be with you. But I realized that there are lots of guys like you. So many that I just ignore.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I smiled.

  “No, sorry. You know what I mean. I do always go for the wrong guy.”

  “The bad guy...” I said.

  “No, not really bad. Just guys who are a waste of time. Marco, for example. What’s the point? He’s a soccer player. He’s a man-child. Here and gone. I know this. Did I think it was going to last? Of course not.”

  “You’re afraid of that,” I said.

  “No, I want it. And yes, I’m afraid of making a mistake.”

  “Like your mother.”

  “I look at my mother and Claudette and I think I’m doomed to their fate. So I make it happen.”

  After our mini-shots of vodka, I made Celeste drink a Budweiser, which she was surprised she liked. I promised her an Abita in New Orleans.

  “Maybe you can show me around a little,” she said. “Of course, if Claudette is doing better.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Klara must have been sad to see you go.”

  “She understood,” I said.

  “She’s probably afraid you won’t make it back.”

  “Well, there’s no way I’m staying in New Orleans. I hope it’s not weird for you, me dating your best friend and living with you. I’m trying to find a place.”