by Amy Meyerson
“Tiffany’s was very good to me.” He refills his glass, and Deborah realizes that the prospect of her judging him makes him nervous. “It’s difficult to explain. I didn’t feel wronged or unappreciated. They trusted me, I guess too much. It was easy. I couldn’t fight the temptation. And as your daughter proved, it didn’t violate any trademark copyright laws.” He studies her, trying to intuit her thoughts. “I knew it was wrong, even if it wasn’t illegal. I wish I could tell you some noble story about sticking it to capitalist society, but I saw an opportunity, and I took it.”
Deborah hesitates, stunned by his honesty. It makes her want to be honest, too. “I’ve started thirty-seven companies over the last thirty years,” she admits. “Not one of them has been profitable.” She didn’t realize she knew the number. There it was, thirty-seven bakeries and dog-walking and wellness companies, all failures. This should embarrass her, but she knows she’ll come up another idea. It’s like a Rubik’s cube—the perfect fit is there. She simply hasn’t found it yet.
“Here’s to your thirty-eighth idea,” Viktor says, raising his refilled glass. It’s all she can do to not leap across the table and kiss him.
Instead, she asks, “Will you come with me, to visit the store?”
His response, “There’s nothing I’d like more,” is almost as perfect as the kiss that follows.
* * *
The next afternoon, Deborah parks the Red Rabbit on Lancaster Avenue and together she and Viktor stare at the store’s sign: Spiegel and Sons.
“Do you think they’ll be upset when they find out who I am? What if I’m wrong and he was just a friend, a fellow Austrian?”
“Don’t worry about them. You need to do this for you,” Viktor says, kissing her knuckles.
The brass bell rings as Viktor pushes open the door. With its patterned carpeting and taupe walls, Spiegel’s Jewelers resembles a bank lobby. She’s been to banks that look like this. They’ve laughed her out before she finished her business pitch.
There are no price tags on the jewelry. The cases, while full, are not cramped. Deborah immediately understands that everything in the store is exceedingly expensive.
Viktor takes the lead in a way that would normally annoy her, asking the man at the counter if he’s Daniel Spiegel, the shop owner and grandson of Joseph Spiegel. But Viktor is merely her liaison into this world she doesn’t understand. When Daniel Spiegel takes off his glasses and tells him that he is, Viktor nods for Deborah to proceed.
“My name is Deborah Miller,” she begins. “Your grandfather may have known my mother, Helen Auerbach?”
At the sound of her name, Daniel stiffens. “What do you want?”
A woman nearby, whom Deborah assumes is Daniel’s wife, casts him a confused look.
“She was my grandfather’s...” Daniel begins to explain to his wife. He doesn’t finish his statement, but she grows visibly uncomfortable.
In those angry, unadorned words, Deborah hears that it’s all true—Helen’s relationship with Joseph, his gifting her the Florentine Diamond. The air-conditioned store becomes hot. Her knees buckle, and Viktor grabs her elbow.
“Maybe we should sit down,” he says, guiding her to a chair.
“You should leave,” Daniel says to Viktor. The two men stare at each other until Daniel looks away. “Please.”
“Dan,” his wife says softly, “it’s not her fault.”
“Do you know what your mother did to our family?” Daniel’s voice rises. “My grandmother had to be institutionalized when she found out about the affair, about you. It ruined—”
“Dan,” his wife repeats sternly. “It’s not her fault.” She turns her attention to Deborah. “Why are you here? What do you want to know?”
Three sets of eyes rest on Deborah, making her skin itch. She’s never liked being the center of attention. Viktor begins to speak, but she cuts him off. This is her story to tell. Her truth to uncover.
“My mother told me my father died in Korea,” Deborah explains. Viktor squeezes her shoulder for encouragement. “I never questioned that story, not until a few months ago when we found a brooch in Helen’s bedroom after she died. An orchid brooch that your father designed for her.”
Deborah details the photographs she found of Helen and Joseph, photographs of herself with Joseph, too. She explains the story she’s pieced together, the maker’s mark on the back of the brooch. “I’m assuming you’ve heard about the court case involving the Florentine Diamond?” Daniel’s eyes spark. “It’s my family. We’re the Millers. I think your grandfather may have fashioned the Florentine into a brooch for my mother.”
Daniel studies her more intently than he did before, pursing his lips. “That’s impossible. Other jewelers may have been willing to look the other way, but my grandfather was known for his honesty, in business at least. He wouldn’t have designed a piece of jewelry to hide a stolen diamond. Especially not one that had belonged to the empire. He loved his country.”
Deborah asks to borrow Viktor’s phone, where photos of the orchid brooch are stored. Deborah’s flip phone is too old for things like the cloud and quality cameras.
When Deborah shows him the brooch, Daniel shakes his head insistently. “My grandfather never would have made something so gaudy.”
Deborah flips to another photograph of the back of the brooch, where SJ is engraved on the finding.
Now, it’s Daniel turn to go weak. He leans against the counter, rubs his hand across his face, as if trying to wake himself up.
“He must have records,” Viktor inserts. “If he designed the brooch, there must be some documentation of it in your archives.”
“Our records are kept in storage. Off-site. It would take weeks to locate them.”
“We don’t have weeks,” Deborah says.
“I’m sorry, it’s impossible.” Daniel disappears into his office, and his wife follows him.
“Is that it?” Deborah asks as Viktor reaches out to help her stand.
“For now.” She follows him onto Lancaster Avenue, confident that Viktor’s calmness is the right response.
As they’re unlocking the Red Rabbit, Daniel’s wife runs out of the store, furtively checking behind her shoulder. She spots Deborah and Viktor standing beside the car and holds out a slip of paper to Deborah. “The off-site location my husband mentioned—it’s our attic. It’s completely disorganized, but you’re welcome to take a look. I’ll be home all day tomorrow.”
Deborah stares at an address in Berwyn. “What about your husband?”
She bats the thought away. “He’s so tightly wound you could grow a diamond in his ass.”
Daniel’s wife introduces herself as Heidi, and they make a plan to meet at her house the following afternoon when Daniel will be golfing at the country club. As Deborah and Viktor watch Heidi scurry into the store, Deborah asks, “Do you think they’ll have a record of the brooch? Whatever the particulars, it was a shady deal.”
Viktor shrugs, immune to the shadiness of his industry. “People keep records of illegal deals all the time. That’s why they often get caught. It’s worth a look at least.”
Sixteen
The Millers meet Christian in their hotel lobby and walk to a wine bar the concierge recommends. Evenings in Vienna are perfectly cool, bordering on chilly, and the Millers savor the respite from the heat that plagues both the east and west coasts of home. They button their fall coats—winter coat for Jake—and traverse Stephansplatz Square. Christian has traded his typical uniform of a gray T-shirt and faded, ripped jeans for a blazer over a button-up plaid shirt tucked into black pants. The outfit makes him look older, and Beck can picture him at thirty, at forty, the professor of students’ fantasies.
As they walk past St. Stephen’s Cathedral into the maze of streets that comprises the central shopping district, Christian swings a leather folder. Whatever is in that fol
der will shape their next move, but Christian doesn’t hint at what information rests inside.
The wine bar sits across the street from the premier Wiener schnitzel restaurant in Vienna, its long line wrapping around the corner, tourists dressed to varying degrees of appropriateness for the evening’s dropping temperature. Behind the bar, an older blonde woman fixes them a platter of meat and cheese, bringing it to the table with a bottle of Grüner Veltliner. Christian waits until she pours everyone a glass before unhooking his leather envelope and pulling out a file.
“I didn’t find Flora Auerbach, but I did find Flora Tepper, who was the nursemaid to Emperor Karl’s five eldest children from 1913 to 1918.”
“That’s got to be her, right?” Ashley says excitedly.
Beck studies Christian’s handsome face, which doesn’t mirror her sister’s enthusiasm.
“It would be a pretty major coincidence if it wasn’t.” Jake turns his attention to Beck. “You said Flora wasn’t a common name, right?”
Beck keeps her eyes on Christian, who casts her a look she can’t decipher.
“To know for sure, we can always go to the Jewish archives to locate her marriage certificate.” Christian explains that, until 1938, records were kept by a person’s parish or synagogue. “Here’s the thing—” Christian lays a photocopy of Flora Tepper’s grundbuchblatt, the official employee record, on the table. He translates the categories of information on Flora: office, name, date and place of birth, religion, marital status and children, educational background, languages spoken. Christian’s finger stops on a phrase and date typed at the bottom of the page: wurde aus dem Hofdienst entlassen, 10 November 1918.
“It means she was fired from court service.”
The Millers stare at that indecipherable phrase, their giddiness abating. A fired employee was an employee spurned. An employee who might steal. An employee unlikely to be gifted something as valuable as a priceless yellow diamond.
Christian clears his throat for emphasis. “When the republic took power, there was the question of what to do with all the court employees. Most became civil servants or were forced to retire. Other posts were canceled. I haven’t heard of many being fired, especially not someone from the personal household.” Christian signals to the date at the bottom of the page. “What troubles me is the date. On the night of November 11, the royal family fled to their hunting home in Eckartsau. On the tenth, they didn’t know they were going to have to leave so soon, and at that time, they weren’t strapped for cash. Karl withdrew tons from the treasury, and that was before the krone lost most of its value. There’s no reason they couldn’t have afforded to take her with them.”
“So why do you think she was fired?” Ashley asks.
Christian points to Flora’s religion: katholisch.
“Flora wasn’t Catholic,” Ashley insists, then reconsiders. “Was she?”
“Wouldn’t Helen have mentioned that?” Jake asks. “And wouldn’t that have saved her from the camps?”
“Well—” Christian has his professorial voice on, and Beck wishes she didn’t like the sound of it so much. “It’s possible she converted to Judaism later. Interfaith marriage wasn’t allowed at the time. So, if she was Catholic, she would have had to convert to marry your great-grandfather. On the other hand, if she lied, Zita was extremely devout. Everyone in the household had to go to mass twice a day and make daily confessions. Everyone who worked in her private household had to be Catholic.”
Jake strokes his stubbled chin. “So, if she lied, and the empress found out...”
Christian nods.
“How did she even get a job with the royal family?” Ashley asks. “That must have been a prime job in those days.”
“She’d have needed a personal connection. That’s how those positions were filled. Family or friend,” Christian explains.
“We’re getting sidetracked,” Beck asserts, her disappointment masked in authority. “It doesn’t matter how she was hired, if she was Catholic. What matters is she was fired. Fired employees don’t get lavish parting gifts.”
“If it’s your great-grandmother,” Christian reminds her. While Beck appreciates his efforts to maintain some fragment of hope, it doesn’t change their fate. If it isn’t their great-grandmother, they have no other leads. If it is, she was a thief.
No one has touched the piles of meat and cheese that crowd their table, glistening with sweat from the heat of the stuffy bar. Beck reaches for a piece of salami and tears it into strips. Christian orders a second bottle of wine.
“If she did steal the diamond after she was fired,” Jake poses, “wouldn’t the emperor have gone looking for her? When he noticed the diamond was missing, why wouldn’t he have sent someone to find her?”
Beck wants to say, Who cares? Christian interjects. “Karl had an aide send the jewels ahead to Switzerland while the royal family went to the countryside in Austria. He may not have known it was missing until they arrived in Switzerland. By then, there were so many people who’d betrayed them. He might not have considered Flora a suspect.”
Ashley shakes her head, and a strand of hair falls loose from her ponytail and into her face. “This doesn’t add up. How would she even have had access to the crown jewels? She worked with the children. I don’t see how—”
“Ash.” Beck is surprised by her sister’s distressed face, by how much she needs Flora to be the heroine. This isn’t just about money for Ashley. If they lose the diamond, if Ryan goes to prison, if Ashley loses hope, how will she survive? Not if—when. These are all inevitabilities now.
“I’m sorry the answers I found aren’t helpful,” Christian says.
Ashley blows her hair from her face, her expression turning cold. “If only we’d sold to the Italians.”
“So it’s my fault.” Beck tries to remain calm. She knows her sister is confronting more than the loss of the diamond.
“This all could have been over four months ago. The reporters, the articles, the lawsuit, the people following us. None of it needed to happen and we would be $500,000 richer.”
“Come on, Ash,” Jake says. “Let’s not do this.”
“Sure, take her side. Even though she refused to talk to you for years for something that was her fault, sidle up to Beck like you always do.”
Anger is acidic on Ashley’s tongue, metallic in her nostrils. She can feel the Miller-style blowout building inside her, but she surprises everyone, herself included, by starting to sob. Christian rubs his arms and looks away. The woman behind the bar busies herself with the cheese and meat display, pretending not to notice.
“Hey.” Beck walks around the small table and hugs her sister. Jake stands, too, and clutches them both.
When they part, Ashley laughs self-consciously and wipes the tears from her cheeks. Her siblings laugh, too. Jake punches her arm. Christian watches, bewildered, and Beck figures he’s an only child, that this sort of instant anger coupled with instant forgiveness is foreign to him. Either that, or he’s the rare breed of human that simply gets along with his family.
Ashley waves to the woman behind the counter and leaves a bundle of twenty-euro bills on the table. Jake has noticed that Ashley always pays with cash these days, something she’s never done before.
They step into the brisk night and head toward the hotel. Ashley and Jake linger behind Beck and Christian.
“She might not have stolen it,” Christian says.
“It doesn’t matter. The firing casts reasonable doubt.”
Christian gazes sideways at Beck. “Do you still want to go to Krems an der Donau tomorrow?”
She shrugs. “Peter Winkler’s expecting us. It was so hard to get in touch with him. I feel bad canceling.”
“I’m sorry this trip was a waste.”
“It’s not a waste.”
Christian smiles and reaches for her hand. His palm is
slightly clammy in hers.
Just then, Ashley looks up from kicking at the stone beneath her feet and grabs Jake’s arm, motioning to where Christian and Beck walk ahead, holding hands, melding into an anonymous couple along the cobblestone streets of Vienna.
* * *
In the morning, everyone is quiet as the train pulls away from Heiligenstadt Station toward Krems an der Donau where Peter Winkler lives. The strong sun pierces the windows, warming Beck’s face as she watches Vienna recede. The landscape shifts from thatched roofs to colorful houses to vineyards in various stages of harvest.
When the Millers arrive in Krems, the medieval town is as quaint as they imagined. Peter Winkler owns a gallery on Wichnerstraße, but invites them to meet him at his home in the hills above town. They traverse the main street—one long strip of cafés, apothecaries, outdoor clothing stores, and art galleries—and climb toward a stone church at the top of the hill. The street narrows, and they squeeze through a series of tunnels burrowed into the buildings. At the top of the hill, the street circumvents the church, and they wind their way around to the other side of the hill where they begin their descent. Here, the streets grow wider, the houses larger. They stop at a yellow house covered in vines. It looks older than the other stucco houses on the street, not only because of the vines. The house itself is gothic while everything around it is has clearly been rebuilt.
The Millers have never been in a house this old. Even Philadelphia is young by comparison. The floors creak with every step. The stone walls produce a tangy and cool must that makes the Millers feel like they are in a museum, not someone’s living room.
Peter Winkler has a potbelly and thinning white hair. He looks like Santa Claus, and his willingness to gift them his father’s belongings strikes Beck as equally unbelievable. Of course he speaks perfect English, but Beck is glad to have Christian with them, even if they won’t need his translation services. Whenever she catches his eye, Christian blushes, and she wonders if he’s remembering how she screamed when she came or how he’d giggled when she first touched him. Beck has never been the older woman before. With less than a decade between them, their age gap might not be wide enough to claim that role. Still, it was obvious that she had more experience, which was exciting, uninhibiting. She likes having him here, knowing that it could happen again if she allows it to. That power is arousing.