by Amy Meyerson
Which page was it? She files through slowly and at last she sees it. Helen Auerbach, a receipt of payment for the sale of two four-carat diamonds to Joseph Spiegel. The date is March 17, 1949. Deborah flips through the book just to be sure, but that’s the first notation she finds for Helen.
Helen’s name doesn’t appear again until May, when she sold another diamond and then another the following month. The largest sale was in February 1952. Eight diamonds. That was a few months before Deborah was born, around the time that her mother bought the house on Edgehill Road.
Deborah finds Helen’s name for the last time in 1954, in October, the diamonds listed not as a sale but as a trade for a custom job. In addition to the diamonds, Helen also traded scrap metal. Silver. Deborah remembers that the hatpin was made of sterling. At the bottom of the page, it reads, Transaction for custom work, paid in full. Diamonds and emeralds used in design, supplied by jeweler at cost. Large yellow diamond provided by customer. No additional monetary payment required.
Deborah reads that sentence, over and over again. Large yellow diamond—he must mean the Florentine. Provided by customer—he must mean Helen. If Helen had traded for the custom job, if she’d paid in full with sterling and white diamonds, if she’d supplied her own stone, then the Florentine wasn’t a mistress’s gift, after all. Maybe Helen wasn’t even a mistress, but Deborah remembers Daniel’s words, his tone when he accused Helen of ruining his family, of driving his grandmother to the asylum, the emptiness Deborah felt when she first saw that photograph of Joseph holding her as a child. Deborah continues to mine the box for sketchbooks. A drawing of the orchid brooch must be here somewhere. Partly, she wants to see it, the careful lines creating the perfect curve of the sepals, the fine points of the petals. Mostly, she knows those few sentences are insufficient. She needs to be able to show the rendering alongside the ledger to prove he’s talking about the Florentine Diamond. If she can find a drawing, maybe the diamond really has been the Millers’ all this time.
* * *
For the next hour, Deborah continues to dig through the archival boxes, working her way into the ’70s. During that time, Heidi does not return to the attic. Deborah gives one box a perfunctory look, open and shut, until a red leather-bound notebook catches her eye. She believes deeply in energy. Not just of diamonds and people, but land, objects, notebooks. Even before she opens it, she knows the drawing of the cattleya orchid is inside.
In the pages of that red leather-bound notebook, Deborah finds dozens of sketches dedicated to Helen’s brooch. Renderings for several potential designs for the Florentine Diamond, birds and leopards, bib necklaces and simple pendants, all drawn to scale, complete with the measurements of the yellow diamond featured in each piece. Then the last quarter of the book is dedicated to detailed drawings of the different petals, variations in sapphires and emeralds, different orchestrations for the two pins on the back of the brooch, coupled with endless notes about how to situate the lopsided, shield-shaped diamond into the finding. Deborah holds the notebook and shuts her eyes. She feels Joseph. She feels Helen. She feels Flora, right here in this sketchbook. Then she feels a hand tapping her on the shoulder and sees Daniel hovering above her.
Deborah makes it down the long driveway before she pulls over beside a field. She steps out of the car and breathes in the invigorating fresh air. Daniel Spiegel rushed her out so quickly she didn’t have a chance to thank Heidi, didn’t get to make a pitch for taking the drawings with her. She doesn’t need a physical copy. She’s committed all the drawings to memory—the studded leaves, the gilded findings, the perfect cattleya orchid, that essential sentence, too: large yellow diamond provided by customer.
* * *
Beck jumps up and down. “Florentine. She just mentioned the Florentine.”
From here Zita continues to discuss Flora’s lover, the chauffeur, who died in the revolt. If they wanted a child together, they should have married first. That’s God’s way. Could I have had more compassion after he died saving our children? Probably. That doesn’t change their sin. And it does not make it right that my husband gave her our diamond.
And Zita keeps going, divulging a story beyond Beck’s wildest imagination. Zita says that her kind, devout, generous, and foolish—yes, she called the emperor foolish—husband was overcome with gratitude to the nursemaid who saved his children’s lives, overwrought with anxiety at having to flee his land. He didn’t challenge Zita when she announced that Flora would be fired. He did not beg the case for the woman who rescued their children. Instead of trying to change his wife’s mind, he gave Flora the hatpin. Sure, it was a sin that she was unwed and pregnant, but to leave her destitute? The Habsburgs had plenty of other gemstones, loads of cash. Besides, the Florentine Diamond was unlucky. They didn’t need that kind of bad omen following them into the unknown. Flora’s life already promised to be unlucky. Maybe the Florentine would have the opposite effect on her. The emperor hoped this was true. Even after they left Switzerland, when their money was worthless, the bulk of their jewels stolen by untrustworthy confidants, when they were penniless in Madeira and he was on his deathbed, Karl never regretted giving the Florentine to their nursemaid Flora.
“She said before they left Austria? The emperor gave the Florentine to Flora as a gift? Before they left Austria?” This is the first time Beck has said their names together: Florentine, Flora. So effortlessly, they belong together.
Christian repeats her speech in German, then translates. “‘My kind and foolish husband felt guilty that we were leaving her behind, when she was with child and had just risked her life to save our children. Before we left, he apologized to her that she could not come and gave her our Florentine. And that sinful girl, she accepted his extravagant gift. Even if the emperor never regretted the kindness he showed to her, it was too much. The sin wasn’t in the giving. It was in the taking, the keeping.’”
If the emperor gave the Florentine Diamond to Flora before they fled, then he also gave it to her before the empire fell, before the Habsburg Law was enacted, before everything that had belonged to the crown automatically belonged to the republic. It meant that, at the start of the republic, the diamond was Flora’s, not the throne’s.
On the couch, the Winklers whisper, growing wary of Christian and Beck crouched on the floor in the front of their television. They’re beginning to realize that this is not merely a trip of Austrian decedents nostalgic for their roots.
Peter stands, looming over Christian and Beck. He ejects the video, returns it to the box, and piles the boxes on top of each other.
When Peter bends down to lift the boxes, Christian asks if he can help. Peter responds in German, then careens with their weight as he carries them upstairs.
“We should go,” Christian whispers to Beck.
The street is empty as they scurry away from the house toward town. Once they’ve rounded a corner, Christian lets go of her arm and leans against a stone building, catching his breath. “Is he chasing after us?”
“I don’t think Peter is capable of chasing after much.”
“He could have called the police.”
“And said what? Christian—” When they lock eyes, Christian leans forward to kiss her. His kiss is relentless. She shuts her eyes and leans into him, gripped by an urgency she doesn’t entirely understand.
When Beck hears her name, she’s still leaning against Christian. Her brother waves. Her sister smiles, bemused. Beck wipes her mouth and tries to hide Christian even though her siblings have seen their bodies curved toward each other on a secluded corner, their stolen moment on a medieval road.
Beck fills her siblings in on the sections of the story they missed, Christian occasionally inserting details Beck overlooks in her haste.
“Wait, she burned Flora’s diary? Why would she do that?” Jake asks, imagining all the details that filled the pages, the minutiae of her daily life that he could never make up,
the quality of her love for the chauffeur that sacrificed his life for her.
“I think she felt guilty,” Christian offers. “Firing her like that was pretty cold. Plus, with the emperor gifting Flora the diamond, she probably didn’t want any evidence around that would suggest he did so willingly.”
“I would have loved to see her journal,” Jake presses.
“Well, it’s gone,” Beck snipes. “So get over it.” She leans against the wall and sighs. “It’s all on those tapes. Everything we need to prove that the emperor gifted Flora the stone before the empire fell, before the Habsburg Law was in effect, is in Winkler’s living room and we can’t use it.” Although her siblings trust the story Beck has told them, a court, the other parties, won’t. Not without proof.
Jake starts walking in the direction of the Winklers’ home.
“Where are you going?” Ashley calls to him.
“To get the tapes,” he calls back as he disappears around the corner. They scurry to follow him.
“He kicked us out,” Christian says as he catches up.
“He didn’t kick me out.” Jake leads them back to the familiar gothic house. He signals for them to stay behind so he can approach alone. They see Peter’s wife open the door but are too far away to hear the conversation that unfolds when a nonplussed Peter materializes beside his wife. Beck sways anxiously as she watches Jake and Peter converse, springing into action when Peter opens the door wider, and Jake motions for everyone to follow him inside.
As Beck passes Jake on the way in, she asks him, “What did you say to him?”
“I told him the truth.”
* * *
The truth is that, whether or not the Florentine was cursed, Flora’s life was riddled with pain. Her husband and son were taken to Dachau. She and her daughter were relocated to Leopoldstadt. The truth is that she managed to get her daughter on a boat to America, promising to follow but never did. Mere days later, the Nazis caught up with her. She never saw her daughter again. She never saw her husband or son, either. The truth is that Flora was a savior. First, she saved the emperor’s children, rescuing them from danger in Hungary. Then, twenty years later, she saved her own child, sending her across the Atlantic, with no family, no one waiting for her on the other side. Only a hatpin with over a hundred diamonds, including the Florentine, to keep her safe. The truth is that the Florentine is the last piece of Flora. The last piece of Helen’s childhood. The last piece of their Austria. The truth is that in the century since the emperor gave Flora the diamond, Helen never sold it. It was worth millions of dollars, and Helen set it in a brooch. Even if they lose the stone to the Austrians or the Habsburgs or the Italians, all of this will still be true. This is no longer about keeping the Florentine; it’s about setting the record straight. Flora Tepper was not a thief. Helen Auerbach was not a thief, either. They were brave women who did what they needed to survive, to save their children.
Jake was persuasive enough to get them inside, to have the tea replaced in the living room, but the box of tapes remains upstairs. A fan churns audibly as the Winklers wait for the Millers to convince them to bring the tapes down again.
“We aren’t trying to steal Austrian national heritage,” Beck insists. “We just want to present the truth as we’ve gathered it to the court and let the judge decide. If the judge still thinks it belongs to Austria, we’ll give up.”
“Willingly,” Ashley inserts.
“We won’t appeal.”
Jake raises his right arm. “Hand to God.” Where’s this come from? He’s never done this before. “We deserve a chance, though, to present the stories we’ve learned. If the diamond returns to Austria, Flora’s story should be part of the Florentine’s history.”
The Millers watch as Mrs. Winkler whispers to her husband. They quip back and forth. It’s unclear if they are agreeing or arguing. Eventually, Mrs. Winkler stands. Halfway up the stairs, she shouts for her husband to follow.
The Millers don’t risk moving or speaking until the Winklers return with the tapes.
They watch the tape again, “Florentiner” just as sublime as it was minutes before. There’s a foreboding silence in the room, when Beck digs her phone out of her purse and asks if she can record. Peter’s face turns a decipherable shade of red, but his wife interjects, “Of course. Tape. Gather what you need.”
The tape continues past where Zita discusses the Florentine Diamond.
“As soon as the emperor died, Zita started searching for Flora to get the Florentine back,” Christian paraphrases. “Only, she was looking for a Catholic girl. At the time, she didn’t know Flora was Jewish, that she should add liar to her list of sins. Zita stresses that it didn’t bother her that Flora was Jewish. The Jewish community was important to the empire.”
To Zita, it was that Flora had lied about religion, that she’d gone to church every day and prayed as though it meant something to her. As she continues to speak, Zita’s tone grows less venomous. Christian’s voice turns deliberate, careful with the words he translates.
There were few she could trust with a mission as valuable as finding the “Florentiner.” She solicited the services of one of Karl’s childhood friends, a man who had helped them escape to Switzerland, who aided Karl in his ill-fated attempt to take back Hungary. She told him only that she was looking for a former nursemaid. For years, he searched futilely for the Catholic Flora Tepper. Zita wasn’t clear how thorough his search was. So she promised him a reward. The girl had the “Florentiner.” If he found her, Zita would split the sale with him. His search intensified. Still, he didn’t find the unwed Catholic mother. Then the Nazis arrived, absorbing what was left of her homeland into Germany. Zita didn’t hear from Karl’s adviser again. By 1940, when she fled to the US, she assumed he was dead and she would never see the “Florentiner” again.
Flora’s death wasn’t her fault, Zita insisted. How could she have known what Karl’s friend would do? Her words grow desperate as she seemingly pleads for forgiveness. Christian glances warily at Beck. She nods for him to continue.
Karl’s friend became a Nazi officer. Early to the party, he grew powerful under Eichmann. How did this happen? How could someone who had loved the empire turn to a hateful party that despised everything the Habsburgs had stood for? He was in the records department. That’s where he found her. Something to do with an American couple that was taking her daughter to America. The exit paperwork included the mother’s maiden name, Flora Tepper. A Jewish woman. That was when he sent his men to look for her and the Florentine.
“They never found the diamond,” Christian relays forlornly. “Zita never learned the details, just that they searched her small apartment and then the soldiers took Flora away. It was one of her greatest regrets, the fate of her nursemaid.”
On the TV, Zita grows quiet, looking down at her withered hands. She squeezes them together until her swollen fingers turn red. She looks like she wants to say more, but there’s nothing left to say. The tape ends there, with Zita’s downturned face, her private communion.
Christian looks as pained as Zita. The Winklers grow forlorn, too. Jake lies on the floor, staring up at the off-white ceiling. He can’t parse through his thoughts. They are muddy, clouded, confused. He feels compelled to do something, only what is there to do? There’s no way to change events that happened eight decades ago.
Beck locks eyes with Christian. You okay? he mouths, and she nods even though she’s far from okay. It’s not like she could have prevented what happened, but she feels responsible for Flora’s death, as though knowing how the pieces fit together in a terribly perfect puzzle makes it her fault. After all, she found the brooch. She wore it to work. She brought the diamond to Viktor. She is the reason they are here, uncovering a past that would otherwise still remain hidden.
Ashley feels strangely empowered. Zita should feel guilty. It helps Ashley to know that Zita carried that regret w
ith her, that forty years after Flora’s death, when the interview was recorded, she still felt culpable.
On the next tape, Zita is wearing the same pearls with a different blouse, blue instead of black. Her face is freshly made. Her voice is loftier, almost nostalgic.
“She’s talking about their life in New York,” Christian says. The tape plays for a few minutes, watching a different Zita detail her time in the gated community of Tuxedo Park.
“We can stop there,” Beck says.
The room grows tense as Beck asks Peter Winkler to put into writing that he has agreed to copy the tapes, that he’s voluntarily giving the Millers his father’s memorabilia.
“We need to be able to tell the court that we acquired all of this lawfully,” Beck explains.
Jake taps his foot, annoyed at his sister’s tone. She’s trying to be gentle but comes off condescending. Still, Peter signs the note that Beck drafts.
As Peter walks them out, he asks, “What will you do with the diamond if you win?”
They have to sell it. Once its worth is established, they will not be able to pay the state inheritance and capital gains taxes. They will have to put it on the market, forced into the choice their grandmother never made.
Beck begins to explain to Peter that they have no choice. What she says instead is, “I don’t know.”
By the time they walk the cobblestoned streets toward the train station, the day has receded into dusk. The sky is red as they wait on the platform for their train to arrive, all four of them squished onto a bench designed for three.
“If we hadn’t come, if we hadn’t found those tapes, we’d think she was a thief,” Ashley says.
Beck studies her sister. She has so much more depth than Beck gives her credit for. There’s no good way to say this, so instead she hugs Ashley.