Pictures of the Past (30 page)
D
espite the fact that her pneumonia had kept her bedridden and she rarely spoke on the telephone anymore, Emily Woodmere was agitated by its relentless ringing during this stressful time. And so on this day, she was the one who answered the call from Sarah. Sarah explained that her name was Dressner now, but she was Sarah Berger—that she needed to speak to Taylor Woodmere regarding the painting. No, she told the woman that answered, she was not a reporter. She was calling from Israel. She was the woman in whose home the painting in question was temporarily displayed, but Taylor Woodmere was always the rightful owner.
Unlike her husband who still had a strong constitution, Emily’s mind and body were showing all the signs of her age. But she still remembered the story of Taylor’s trip to Europe and how he returned to her less loving, more distant, and how it was many years before they became a couple again. She remembered the pain that Sarah had caused her. And she was disturbed, even confused, when this woman insisted on talking to her husband. She did not even want to tell her husband that Sarah was on the phone. Even after all these years the past still haunted her.
“I don’t think this could be Sarah Berger. I know that Taylor searched for Sarah Berger after the war— that woman was lost decades ago,” Emily said.
“No, you don’t understand. And—you must be Emily. I am Sarah Berger, now Sarah Dressner, and I eventually settled in what became Israel. Your husband was a special, wonderful person, and I know there is controversy now and I want to help clear his name.”
Even with this said, Emily was hesitant to reconnect her husband with Sarah. And somehow, across the wires, Sarah understood that to Emily she was not an older woman who had survived the Holocaust, but a contemporary rival, who tried to steal Taylor, her precious love. And then Sarah, knowing that she could help this woman and still hold onto her own cherished memories, told Emily that she had verified to the authorities that this painting was always owned by Taylor Woodmere, that she was only holding it for a brief time, that it was bought as a gift for
her,
for Emily.
And with those words, for one more moment in time, Emily was young again. Her handsome suitor, Taylor, had not abandoned her when he went to Europe.
Audible across the lines, Emily was sobbing, yet it was as if her faculties were revitalized. Finally she spoke to Sarah. “Thank you—you are a good person—You have now given me the greatest gift at the most crucial hour.”
I
n the following week, as Rachel Gold Stone deliberated how to handle the situation, to restore Jason’s confidence in himself and in her, the papers carried the resolution of the scandal and the clearing of, even the acclamation of the Woodmere name. But still she knew that she had to clarify and rectify the past. With support and encouragement from her husband, Richard, she made a call to the home of Taylor Woodmere, and was surprised that Taylor not only took her call immediately, but did not even question or resist when she requested a meeting with him. She even wondered if he had misunderstood her identity, perhaps thinking that she might have been a reporter following the story. And she was further confused when he insisted that she bring her family, as his family would all be present. Of course, that was her intent—but how could he have known—that on this visit she would not let Jason be overlooked.
It was on a beautiful Saturday morning, with the sun glistening off Lake Michigan a specter through the eastern windows, that Jason Gold Stone, accompanied by his wife, Lara, and his parents, Rachel and Richard, revisited the Woodmere Estate, for the first time in thirty years.
And greeting him in the foyer, as if resurrected from a dream, was his grandfather Taylor and his half-sister, Sylvie. Introductions were made as they were ushered into the dining room and presented with refreshments. As if leading a board meeting, Taylor said he would like everyone present to listen to a story from the past.
Taylor went on to explain how in 1975 he had overheard the conversation between Rachel and Court and correctly surmised that the wonderful little boy, called Rusty, was actually Court’s son. He then made it his business to follow the life of his grandson. Immediately, he put him in his will to provide for his inheritance. But since Taylor felt he had failed with Court, he kept his money reserved for Jason’s future and let him become a man who could fulfill his own promise without his interference. But through the years he interfered a little, providing anonymously his grant for Northwestern Law School. Many years prior to that, Taylor had even clandestinely helped Rachel secure initial interior decorating writing assignments on Chicago’s North Shore, until she established herself as a writer in the field. Since his investigation revealed that Rachel was marrying a good man—and he felt his son had done enough damage—he chose to remain only in the background.
But he was glad that he finally had the opportunity to clear up the stigma of the anti-Semitic remarks by his son, Court; it was Court’s misunderstanding of a situation. In truth, the Woodmere family had been strong Jewish supporters for generations. Taylor recounted the story of Court’s grandfather Addison, who encouraged Taylor to establish relations with a Jewish businessman when he sent him overseas before World War II. At this point, Taylor apologized for Emily’s absence, explaining that she was ill, but that her anti-Semitic leanings, which Court had picked up on, stemmed only from a valid jealousy of a Jewish woman Taylor had met who presumably perished in the Holocaust. He was careful not to identify her as his “true love,” although the words almost slipped from his lips. (As it turned out, Emily would not emerge from this last convalescence and her funeral would be the following week.)
By the end of the afternoon, tears and hugs and forgiveness united a family with such diverse roots. Sylvie and Jason could not stop exchanging instances of how the haunting, but pleasant memories stayed with them all the years. And Jason promised his grandfather Taylor that he could soon meet his great-grandson, Marcus, another little “Rusty.”
Later that afternoon, content now with the satisfaction of a heartening family reunion, Taylor was finally focusing on a recent memory, when less than two weeks ago he was called to the phone and it was Sarah Berger Dressner from Haifa, Israel. For him, it was like speaking to a ghost from the past…an angel really…as he did not know that she had survived. There was the sound of age and experience in her voice, he was thinking, just as he knew there was in his. But it was recognizably her voice. It was Sarah. It was her beautiful German-accented English, just a little broken by the mechanics of time on the body. And now he was back in time, back to the exact moment that was the movie playing in his head through all the intervening years.
He was not holding a telephone receiver, not in his study focusing on the memories of a lifetime—pictures lining his walls—a wedding and an assortment of events that accompany the raising of a son and then a granddaughter and then great-grandchildren. He was not seeing photos of handshakes with Supreme Court judges and even presidents. He was focusing on one uncaptured picture of the past. It was the moment when he turned his head in the Paris restaurant and he was introduced to the most beautiful young woman he could imagine.
“Sarah, you have to know. I searched for you—I searched for your parents,” he had said to her when he could finally manage words. “Eventually, I found only your father’s name among the victims of the concentration camps…Emanuel, that wonderful and accomplished man. He was an inspiration to me. You must believe that…And when I finally knew his fate, I cried.” The words were not coming quickly or easily. “I cried for the tremendous loss. But your mother, like you, I could not trace.”
She was equally slow to answer him, her abbreviated, tearful breaths audible across the lines. “My sweet Taylor, you have the same soul that I last knew. You could not have known that I used Aryan identification papers during those war years. Yes, we lost my father to the terror, but my mother survived. It is a very long story, and, of course, she was never the same. But eventually I located her after the war in a displaced persons’ camp in Germany, and I was able to bring her to Israel. But as you can imagine, she is gone for a long while now.” And then Sarah was too overcome to continue. There would be time ahead to fill in the story.
“Sarah, you have to know. I never stopped loving you,” he finally said, choking back the emotional tears that in all of his life seemed to only surface for her.
“And I was never complete without you,” she responded softly. “I never stopped thinking of you, dreaming of our time together, honoring the pledge that I would love you forever,” she continued. “But I did not realize that you still felt the same. I thought that you had found happiness and peace.”
“I made a life—that was all,” he responded quickly, “but now I am whole again.”
They both wondered if despite the constraints of age and distance, it would be possible for them to meet in person once more. Or would they have to remain content with this acknowledgement of their constant connection, this mutual validation of their love and their memories?
Through a series of phone conversations, they would bring one another’s histories up to the present. But it was on that very first call that she thanked him profusely for trying to save her then, and he thanked her for saving him now.
O
n Taylor’s instructions, the spokesman for the Woodmere Foundation had been successful in misleading the press as to the day the El Al flight would land at Chicago’s O’Hare International Terminal. Taylor would not deny the reporters their story; he felt even grateful for the role they had played in crafting its conclusion. But just as his introduction to Sarah and their long separation had been private for decades, so he wanted this reunion to remain out of the spotlight.
He was visibly nervous as he waited for her, his assistant straightening his jacket for the second time at his request. He alternated between studying the batches of pictures that she had sent him and pacing within the reception area. Emily had been gone for five months now, and he held Sarah’s condolence card, as her words carried a warmly supportive, empathetic message.
In the most recent photograph Sarah had sent, taken at a child’s birthday party, he could probably best recognize her smile and her eyes. “I don’t want you running to some young, blond Alice who is walking off that flight,” she had told him on the phone. “And then you find out I’m really that old great-grandma in the rear.” In the photo, she was still a striking woman; her physique was lean, without the stoop of age, but her exposed hands betrayed an appropriate frailty. Her blondish-gray hair, at chin length, was pulled back by two tortoise shell combs. Of course, the soft, cream perfection of her seventeen-year-old face now had the lines and color that a harder life reflects, the biography of years in the Israeli sun. But it gave her a strength of character that a fully lived life deserves.
Finally, as the Customs doors opened for this next wave of arriving passengers, Taylor rose and his hands could not help a slight shake. The exquisite bouquet he was holding dropped to the floor. As he bent down frantically to retrieve it, his aide began gathering the flowers and tightening the bow.
And then when Taylor lifted his head, she was there—laughing at him, then laughing with him, then feeling his arms drawing her to him, cocooning in his embrace as he kissed her forehead. They separated and looked at each other, simultaneously smiling and nodding approval, but both finding it hard to speak. Taylor took her hand and kissed it in the style of an old-fashioned suitor, and then brought his lips to hers.
People surrounding them, each involved in the drama of their own lives, enacting similar meetings spiced with a potpourri of international dialogue, were drawn for a moment to the magnetic attraction of this handsome, elderly couple. Perhaps they were each envisioning this as a symbol that time would not diminish their own feelings for the loved ones they now greeted so eagerly, taking it as a hopeful sign that true love endures forever.
Although the initial scandal of a stolen painting had a short-lived play in the papers, it was only the resolution that caught and kept the national and international media’s attention. Even
Time
magazine saved some pages to retell briefly what they termed “a heartwarming story, spanning generations, finally giving peace to those seeking provenance, giving closure to those clinging to pictures of the past.”
Acknowledgements and Historical Notes
W
riting this novel has been a fascinating journey, where a relaxing project became a consuming passion. Attending the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference and New York’s Book Expo early in the book’s development, I was truly surprised and validated by the encouragement of writing colleagues and publishing professionals. During the process, I met and corresponded with two extremely talented writers, Tatiana deRosnay, author of
Sarah’s Key,
and Betsy Carter, author of
The Puzzle King,
who so graciously provided me with their contacts. The enthusiasm for the story from Mitchell Levin of DreamWorks was one more step in keeping my dream alive. Much thanks to respected editor Ann Patty, who has worked with such esteemed novels as Jenna Blum’s
Those Who Save Us,
and who helped to identify areas to expand in the narrative of
Pictures of the Past.
I am especially thankful for the love and support of my family as I worked on the book—my husband Michael, our children and their spouses, Carlee and Keith Londo, Rob Eisenberg, Abby and Chad Eisenberg, and my littlest inspirations, Skylar and Jace Londo. I was guided in my endeavor always by the memory of my beautiful, supportive parents, Berdie and Bernie Rothblatt, and I actually began the novel as a diversion to cope with the untimely loss of my brother Steve, a highly regarded director at the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, and a loving husband and father.
I am forever grateful to more than one hundred readers, friends and relatives (and their friends and relatives) from the Chicago area, Florida, New York, France, Germany, and Israel, who anxiously asked for their turn with the manuscript and so enthusiastically embraced the story that it compelled me to follow it through to publication. Although so many people deserve to be listed by name, a special thanks for their encouragement goes to my very earliest audiences, my husband, of course, and Judy Farby, Essie Landsman and Stan Stein who indulged me to read it aloud to them over iced tea breaks, and Gail and Bruce Greenspahn, our traveling companions, who followed Taylor’s adventures as we had our own.
In some ways I wrote this novel for the Sisterhood Book Club of Congregation Beth Shalom in Northbrook, Illinois, where I have been the leader for over sixteen years. Like the family of book club readers everywhere, they are such a bright, interesting, warm and supportive group of women. They want to learn about people in contemporary times and in the context of history, but they also want to fall in love with a good story. When we are particularly challenged by the literature, I remind them that this is why we are in a book club. We want to expand our vision of the world and enhance our experience with language. And I thank them, as a teacher without a classroom, for joining me in this rewarding venture.
Long before I was drawn to books that influenced me to become a writer, I discovered the books that made me become a reader. Among my favorite classics are Leo Tolstoy’s
Anna Karenina
and Emily Bronte’s
Wuthering Heights.
Chaim Potok’s
The Chosen
and
My Name is Asher
Lev drew me at an early age toward the wealth of Jewish literature, and then I discovered the strength of Holocaust literature with Leon Uris and
Exodus
and
Mila 18.
Taylor Caldwell’s
Captain and the Kings
introduced me to intriguing family saga, and soon I was captured by Jeffrey Archer’s
Kane and Abel,
Herman Wouk’s
The Winds of War
and
War and Remembrance,
and James Michener’s
Hawaii.
Of course today, with such a proliferation of good literature in every format, people are drawn to the hottest, the edgiest, and the most current best sellers. But I do encourage young people to visit many of the best books from the past.
In researching the people and periods covered in
Pictures of the Past,
I must give credit to the following: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center; The Art Institute of Chicago;
Refuge Denied,
by Scott Miller and Sarah Ogilvie;
Rise and Fall of the Nazis,
by Claire Welch;
Jews in Berlin,
edited by Andreas Nachama, Julius H. Schoeps and Hermann Simon, English translation 2002 by Henschel Verlag;
Inside Hitler’s Germany, Life Under the Third Reich,
by Matthew Hughes and Chris Mann;
Can It Happen Again? Chronicles of the Holocaust,
edited by Roselle K. Chartock and Jack Spencer;
The Holocaust Chronicle,
Louis Weber, publisher;
Memories of My Early Life in Germany 1926-1946,
by Ralph Neuman, and
We Survived, Berlin Jews Underground,
by Inge Deutschkron.
While the general framework of the story for
Pictures of the Past
played for me as a movie in my mind, oftentimes my characters, mainly Taylor and Sarah, told me what would happen as the story unfolded. And this was especially true for the incorporation of the
St. Louis
episode. Some years ago, our friend Steven Safran, in relating to us his treasured family history regarding his grandmother, Dorothea Heymann, who had been a passenger on the ship, must have placed the kernel of an idea in my mind. When I reached the point of the story where Sarah and her mother Inga sought to escape Germany, I was drawn to the
St. Louis
along with them. It happened that I had become aware of a lecture regarding the historic voyage scheduled at Chicago’s Spertus College of Judaica, where the speaker was Scott Miller, director of the Benjamin and Vladka Meed Registry of Holocaust Survivors at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I was not surprised to see the Safran family in the audience, as well. Scott Miller and Sarah Ogilvie, director of the National Institute for Holocaust Education at the museum, had researched the fates of all nine hundred thirty-seven passengers on the doomed voyage of May, 1939, in their book
Refuge Denied.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to them, as I found their work both informative and inspirational. Sadly, Dorothea Heymann was among the two hundred and fifty-four passengers who did not survive the Holocaust when the
St. Louis
was turned back to Europe from Cuba and America. Dorothea, Steve’s maternal grandmother, went first to Holland and eventually to Auschwitz, where she was said to have lived no more than a week. I hope that in some small way I have honored her memory.
Although the basic facts of the voyage of the
St. Louis
are true to the documented history, the passenger group meetings, the character of Joseph Levin, and the formation of a Resistance force from the ship, if actual, would be a coincidence of the merging of fact and fiction.
As for Henri Lebasque, while he was an actual French Impressionist painter, both of his paintings described in the book,
Jeune Fille à la Plage
and
Fille de l’été,
are not, and their true provenance can be traced only to my imagination.
In structuring the novel, I chose 1937 as a realistic year prior to World War II when Americans might still seek to travel to Europe for business or pleasure. I admit to having had no prior knowledge of the famous, and for me fortuitous, Paris Exposition of 1937, which revealed itself to me in beautiful detail through internet research. Serendipitously, I had already chosen Henri Lebasque as the perfect artist for my story, accomplished, but not well known, when his showing at the very real Exhibition des Maitres d’Art Independants at the Petit-Palais was confirmed.
Deby Eisenberg