The Imperfects

by Amy Meyerson

  The only thing Beck can think to do is get ahead of it. And the only way she can get ahead of it is to find out everything she can about Helen.

  At work, she begins with the passenger manifests from the SS President Harding that Ashley sent, the newspaper articles on the heroism of an everyday Jewish couple who traveled to Vienna in 1939 when no Americans traveled to Nazi Germany, particularly not Jewish Americans. They used expired visas the US government had agreed to allocate to the kids and brought the fifty children back with them to Philadelphia. In these articles, the children are a unit. Cute and grateful, without names or families perishing at home. Beck knows that one of these children is Helen, one of the families is the Auerbachs, but she learns nothing about them from the fluff pieces of old periodicals.

  Somehow, the Florentine Diamond traveled from the museum in Vienna to the brooch lodged behind Helen’s dresser. She begins with the brooch, which is hidden in her nightstand. Viktor said it was midcentury. By New Year’s Eve, 1955, Helen was wearing it with her mystery man, which means the latest it could have been fabricated was 1954. If she didn’t get the brooch made, she likely acquired it soon thereafter. Beck can picture the soft curves of the S and the J on the back of the brooch, the signature of the company that crafted it.

  From her desk, Beck texts Viktor: What are the chances of finding the maker’s mark on the back of the brooch?

  While she waits for him to respond, she searches legal databases for information on the Habsburgs and their crown jewels. She downloads a newspaper article from 1924 in the Hawera Star about a baron who was arrested after attempting to illegally sell Austrian crown jewels. A court case in the ’80s where a would-be Habsburg heir was suing the youngest child of the last emperor for what crown jewels remained. Neither matter turns up in the database search again, not in the papers nor the court records. Still, the Florentine Diamond was one of the Habsburgs’ prime stones. There must be a record of it somewhere. She just has to keep looking.

  Later that afternoon, Viktor texts back, Highly unlikely. It requires finding the right trademark guide from the right year. But I always relish a challenge. Want me to look into it?

  Please. Beck wants to compensate him for his time, but Viktor doesn’t need money. And when you find it, I’ll cook you dinner at your own peril.

  I never took you for a Suzy Homemaker, he writes back.

  After work, Beck heads to the Central Branch of the Free Library, where she locates an entire shelf on the Habsburgs. One book catches her eye, The Death of an Empire, a day-by-day account of the last moments of the Habsburgs’ reign, of an empire that for centuries seemed too vast to fall. Somewhere in those day-by-day accounts, there has to be mention of the crown jewels the royal family took from treasury, some sales they made in exile. Possibly, this book might include an essential detail to uncover the provenance of the diamond.

  During her lunch breaks, she reads the book, careful to check the surrounding tables at Liberty Place to assure no one is watching her. The first thing she discovers is that while the empire may have collapsed, Karl never abdicated the throne. Even on his deathbed in Portugal in 1922, he held a crucifix to his lips as he told his wife, Zita, that he was dying so the empire could live again. While Karl was the last recognized emperor of Austria, his son Otto went on to be the unofficial king. As she reads about Otto’s involvement in the creation of the European Union, Beck is struck by the frequency of one name that does not end with Habsburg, Kurt Winkler. He was one of Otto’s closest friends, an excessive drinker who quit the bottle after Otto commanded his abstinence as Winkler’s emperor. What’s crazier than a twenty-year-old man pronouncing himself emperor of his friend was that it worked. Winkler never took another sip. Instead, he devoted his life to documenting the history of the exiled royal family.

  Kurt Winkler’s name appears in the footnotes and indexes of Habsburg photos attributed to his private collections. Quotes are taken from his books, Die ungekrönten Habsburger and Das Vermächtnis des großen Imperiums, which Google translates into something like The Uncrowned Habsburgs and The Legacy of the Great Empire. His collection also includes interviews with the last empress, Zita, where she discussed her family’s financial struggles in exile. What if Zita mentioned the illicit sale of the Florentine Diamond in one of her interviews? What if Zita told Winkler how the Habsburgs lost the diamond? Beck needs to get her hands on these books.

  But the library doesn’t have Winkler’s books. When she checks Amazon, the website offers copies in German, each for several hundred dollars.

  While Beck waits for one of the lawyers to get back to her on research she’s collected for him—a second-year who speaks to Beck like she may be hard of hearing—she googles Kurt Winkler. German floods her screen. When she asks Google to translate, the fourth link is to a newspaper obituary. It includes details Beck already knows about Winkler, that he was the official biographer to the Habsburgs, friends with Otto, plus a few details that she didn’t know. He had two children, a daughter who died young, a son and wife who survived him. The obituary is ten years old. Beck looks up his wife, Marietta, who has also passed. His son, Peter Winkler, is still alive and owns a gallery on Schlüsselamtsgasse in Krems an der Donau. The gallery’s website includes an email address. Peter might know what happened to his father’s Habsburg collection. Without overthinking it, she opens her email and begins typing.

  Dear Mr. Winkler,

  I am an Austrian history enthusiast who recently came across your father’s name in my research of the fall of the Habsburgs. The biographies I’ve read give the impression that your father was in possession of the Habsburgs’ private collection of memorabilia. I think there might be something in his collection that could help with my research. I’m wondering if it might be on public display somewhere, or if I can access it remotely?

  Thank you for your time and consideration.

  Sincerely,

  Beck Miller

  The email is intentionally vague. Beck’s not sure what she’s looking for nor how direct to be with a stranger in her desire to locate information about a diamond that’s been missing for a century. She doesn’t even know if Peter Winkler speaks English.

  “Hello? Earth to Beck?” Beck jumps when she finds the second-year lawyer knocking on her cubicle wall. She quickly hits Send and the email disappears. He drops the research she gave him on her desk. “This isn’t right. I asked for precedent on investor and shareholder rights.”

  Beck skims the case briefings. “That’s what this is.”

  Flustered, he grabs the paperwork and scurries away. All the new lawyers know that Beck has two years of law school under her belt. Her knowledge and expertise should make them like working with her, but she’s the least popular paralegal with the greener lawyers. While she tries to hide it, she enjoys putting them in their place. It’s one of the few pleasures she derives from her job.

  * * *

  Beck intends to tell her mother about the men who are tailing Jake and Ashley, how she’s worried she might be being followed, too. She promises her siblings she will. Even if neither of them wants to talk directly to Deborah, they still don’t want her to unknowingly be in danger. Over another curried lentil stew at the now colorful house on Edgehill Road, Beck asks Deborah if she’s noticed anyone unusual lurking around the house, bracing herself for a frantic response.

  “Like who?” Deborah asks vacantly.

  “No one,” Beck says.

  Deborah shrugs, scooping another helping of bright yellow mush.

  She’s better off not knowing, Beck texts her siblings. I’ll keep an eye on her.

  She adds checking in with her mother to her list of daily responsibilities.

  Deborah has her own ghosts following her as she relocates her business from New Hope to Bala Cynwyd. She cannot escape an altered image of her childhood, of her younger self, bouncing on that man’s knee. How happy they looked
together. How much like father and daughter.

  Relocating Deborah’s business makes it sound like a greater feat than it actually is. There’s nothing to move beyond leashes and mixing bowls. She never legally registered her business or even had a website. It’s a figurative move, symbolic, one that allows her to take on clients closer to her new home.

  Deborah’s dog-walking service blossoms overnight, but her vegan catering company isn’t as popular in Bala Cynwyd as it was in New Hope. Deborah has four dogs she walks each morning, four others in the afternoon. Each day, after dropping the dogs at their homes, she returns to the house on Edgehill Road and soaks her bloated feet in warm water. She watches Helen’s old television with the photo album resting open on the coffee table. During commercial breaks, she inspects the photograph of Helen and the man on New Year’s Eve, looking for clues. Helen’s dress, the stole, the dimly lit dining room—it’s all unfamiliar. In 1955, Deborah was not yet three. Who was staying with her while her mother dined with this man? She doesn’t remember any babysitters, not a single night where Helen had left her. Often, as a teenager, she wished her mother would go out, that she would date, have a life beyond the walls of their row home. If she’d had her own life, maybe she wouldn’t have been so invested in Deborah’s.

  Deborah closes the album, unable to look at that photograph anymore. It never occurred to her that Helen was lying about her father. It’s just a photograph, a scarce resemblance, but there are no photographs of Helen on her wedding day. No portraits of a soldier in uniform. No dog tags. No Purple Heart or any other recognition of a life lost in battle, nothing to corroborate the past as Helen had presented it to Deborah. When Helen spoke about Joseph Klein, she always reminded Deborah, How many people can say their father died a hero? It was romantic, brave, patriotic. A fantasy, one that now seemed to highlight all the qualities her real father must have lacked.

  Eight

  Since seeing the man in the leather jacket at Palermo, there’s been an edge to Jake and Kristi’s interactions. Kristi doesn’t kiss Jake goodbye before she leaves for work. When she returns at the end of the day, she asks what Jake’s brought home for dinner without pressing him for anecdotes from Trader Joe’s. Normally, she loves his stories about the actors who come in wearing stage makeup, about the man who buys an entire shopping cart full of pita chips, the balloons Jake gifts to rowdy children. She still lets him rub her feet when they watch television, but her sighs are resigned, as though his touch feels good against her will.

  At work, Jake restocks vegetables, distracted by Kristi’s terse goodbye again that morning. She never answered his question—What do you mean if we’re going to do this?—and it continues to linger in their apartment. He’s already bought her lilies and cooked chicken cacciatore. Now, he needs to do something bigger. Maybe he should buy her a promise ring, a prelude to the bigger ring he can buy when they sell the Florentine Diamond.

  It happens in a flash. A black leather jacket in his periphery and then it’s gone. Jake drops two bags of Meyer lemons on the floor and begins following the jacket.

  The man turns down frozen foods, bends around to the next aisle. Jake trails him, peeking down each lane until he finds the man surveying bottles of pinot noir. When Jake storms toward him, the man looks up with a smile and begins to say, “Maybe you can help me—” but Jake grabs him by the lapels and pushes him into shelves of red wine. Bottles clank against each other. Several fall to the ground.

  “All right, who do you work for?” Jake gets close enough to the man to smell his hair gel. “Why the fuck are you following me?”

  The man raises his hands in protest. “I’ve never seen you before.”

  Jake pushes him farther into the shelves. More bottles shatter on the ground. “Who hired you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He flinches like Jake is about to punch him. “Please. I think you’re confused.”

  Jake doesn’t even realize what’s happened until he feels someone lift him by the stomach and throw him to the ground, away from the man now hunched over, a puddle of wine spreading around him. Jake’s knuckles sting. He opens and closes his fist, checking to see if his fingers are broken, realizing that he must have punched the man.

  “What the fuck, Jake?” Randy, the manager, says as he runs over and blocks Jake’s path. “Chill.”

  Suddenly, Jake becomes aware of his surroundings, the crowd of horrified customers. Two of his coworkers help the man up from the floor.

  “He just attacked me out of nowhere,” the man says as he follows Jake’s coworkers toward the front of the store.

  Jake wants to chase after him and shout to cut the bullshit innocent act but Randy is practically carrying him into the back. Once they’re in Randy’s office, he warns Jake to stay put while he goes to check on the customer Jake punched. “If you move from that chair, I’m calling the police.”

  Jake drums his thumbs against the arms of the chair, growing increasingly impatient as he waits for Randy. The sounds of the store trickle into the office as Trader Joe’s resumes its afternoon rush—the carts’ wheels against the linoleum floor, the faint shitty music, the bustle.

  Eventually Randy returns and tosses Jake a bag of peas. “For your hand.”

  The icy bag stings as Jake rests it on his raw hand. Jake has never been in a fight before. He’s never felt the softness of flesh against his knuckles, the tingling that radiates through his fingers.

  Randy plops into his office chair across the desk from Jake. “He’s not going to press charges.” Randy shakes his head, relieved.

  “Him press charges? He’s been following me for the last two weeks.”

  “He says he’s never seen you before.”

  “That’s bullshit. He was at the gym. And Palermo. And Mixto.” As Jake lists his evidence, he hears how preposterous this sounds. The gym? Two restaurants? Now the local grocery store? “He’s been following me all over the neighborhood?” It comes out as a question rather than a statement.

  “I know you’ve been dealing with some family stuff lately—” How does Randy know about Kristi? Jake’s only told his sisters, not even Rico. When he sees the expression on Randy’s face—those doe eyes people give you when they say, I’m sorry for your loss, without conviction—Jake realizes he means Helen. “But you can’t go assaulting customers.”

  Jake starts to stand. “I’ll find him. I’ll apologize. I’ll explain that it was a misunderstanding.”

  Randy gestures for Jake to stop. “I’d strongly advise against that. You got off lucky.” Jake sits back down. “Just go home, all right?”

  “Are you firing me?”

  “Jesus, Jake, you just attacked a customer and broke, like, twenty bottles of wine.”

  “I’ll pay for the wine.”

  Randy shakes his head. “You’re late for work, everyone else’s hour lunch break is somehow an hour and a half for you, and don’t even try to claim you aren’t stoned all the time.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I’m going to have to ask you not to come into the store. Otherwise, we’ll have to get the authorities involved.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay? You’re right. My grandmother’s death, it’s been way harder on me than I imagined. We’re finding out all this stuff we never knew about her, and it’s got me spiraling. I’ll take some time. I’ll clear my head. I promise nothing like this will ever happen again.”

  “My hands are tied here.”

  The men eye each other for a few moments until Randy looks away. Jake has won nothing in this stare-down. He nods resignedly and heads out of the office.

  Randy stops him. “Can you go out the back? And please, don’t talk to anyone in the parking lot.”

  Jake walks out the back in a daze. A heat wave hit earlier in the week, and the oppressive temperatures make his limbs heavy. As he cuts through the parking lot,
Manuel, who guides the traffic, watches him warily. Trisha also gives him that sideways eye as she pushes a row of shopping carts toward the store. As he walks past the cheese shop, the sushi restaurant, the gelato place, he feels everyone staring at him, disappointed and disgusted.

  In his dark, cool apartment, Jake can finally breathe. He takes off his damp Hawaiian shirt uniform and sits bare-chested in his reclining chair, staring at the water stains on the ceiling. What the hell just happened? Did he really just assault some random guy? He was certain he was being followed. He tries to determine what made him so sure. Of course, the Millers. He laughs, although it isn’t funny. He used to be able to regard them as an outside observer would, but he’s lost his critical eye. Ashley has always jumped to conclusions. Beck has always been quick to anger. Jake, he again realizes, has always managed to fuck a good thing up.

  The moment Kristi walks in the door, she notices Jake’s hand.

  “What happened?” she asks as she inspects his swollen knuckles. They are bruised and raw, but they didn’t crack open. “Can you bend it?” Jake bends his fingers a third of the way. Kristi walks into the kitchen. “You need to ice it.”

  While he waits for her to return, he reaches for his shirt, dangling from the chair, then remembers it’s his work uniform. He tosses it across the room, wondering if they’ll take the cost of it out of his final paycheck.

  He flinches when she puts the ice on his knuckles.

  “I don’t think it’s broken,” Kristi says.

  Jake means to tell her that he punched someone. He plans to be honest, to banish the if with a confession and the promise of how he’s going to make up for it.