Restitution (42 page)

Karl lurched for the telephone and caught it on the first ring. His hand trembled as he brought the receiver to his ear. “Hello,” he said.

The voice on the other end was clear and succinct. “Mission accomplished,” said Theo. “You can come and get your paintings tomorrow.”

By the time Phyllis returned from her library lecture, Karl had opened a bottle of wine and was waiting for her with a huge smile on his face and outstretched arms. “We did it,” he exclaimed, as he wrapped his wife in a warm embrace.

“
You
did it,” she replied. “This is your accomplishment.”

They toasted one another and the arrival of the paintings in Toronto. As Karl sipped his wine, he experienced a sense of freedom that he had not felt in some time. The burden of having fought to regain the paintings was suddenly gone, lifted from his shoulders like a ten-ton weight. Tonight he could breathe more deeply and perhaps sleep more soundly, knowing that his family treasures had come home to him and were now firmly on Canadian soil. He called Hana to report the news. She was also delighted and relieved that all had gone according to plan.

Early the next morning, Karl and Phyllis walked over to Theo's apartment and knocked on the door. He answered immediately and ushered them into a back room. There on the floor were the paintings, now off their stretchers and stacked one on top of the other. They were dusty, slightly wrinkled from having been rolled around the container for the trip to Canada, but undamaged. Karl stood in muted disbelief. As much as he had prepared, dreamed, obsessed about this moment, he was simply overcome. As he stood in Theo's home staring down at the paintings, he understood it all: his mother's determination to retrieve something of their family's past, her resolve not to separate them or leave one behind. Everything had finally come full circle. Karl had fulfilled his mother's dream and he could be at peace.

He turned to face Theo and grabbed his hand, pumping it furiously. “Words can't express,” he began. “I simply don't know how…”

Theo stopped him. “It was my pleasure to help you,” he replied, with genuine sincerity. He truly felt the enjoyment of this moment along with Karl.

“You know,” Karl continued, “Some members of my family were not as convinced as I was of your honesty.”

Theo smiled. “We can all learn something in this, I suppose,” he replied.

Karl reached into his pocket and withdrew the envelope containing the remaining payment. “It's the best money I've ever spent,” he said, extending it to Theo.

Theo accepted the envelope, reminding himself once again that he had fulfilled the conditions of a contract here. Tomorrow he would go about his business as usual. He had fifty paintings that would soon arrive in a shipment, ready to be restored and sold. There was a lot of money to be made from this trip and he was eager to begin to reap the rewards. No time to be distracted by useless sentiment. He would likely never see Karl Reeser again, and that was as it should be. Theo cleared his throat. “You'll need to get the paintings cleaned, remounted on their stretchers, and framed,” he said.

Karl nodded again. “I know someone who can do that. The paintings need to be brought back to their former splendor.”

In the following week, Karl met with Joseph Cach, an art restorer who had mounted and framed several other paintings that Karl had collected over the years. When Joseph came to look at the paintings and Karl explained their situation, Joseph was surprised and delighted. The canvases were in remarkable condition, though dusty from years of having sat unprotected in coal-heated homes in Czechoslovakia, where soot layered the furniture, clothing, and paintings. Varnish had been applied decades earlier to try to protect them from dirt, dust, and pollution in the environment. But through the years, it had yellowed the paintings considerably. Several pieces of the stretchers were warped and decayed. They would have to be rebuilt. Both the Swoboda and the Geoffroy were cracked in several places. But other than that, there was minimal damage.

“Can you fix them up?” asked Karl.

Joseph was an exuberant, burly man, with a full head of curly hair. He scratched thoughtfully at his beard and replied excitedly, “They're marvelous, Karl! From what you had told me on the phone, I thought they would be in disastrous condition. All four of them will need to be cleaned and the varnish removed. There is some decay and cracking here, which is normal over time. I'll need to fill in and retouch these two.” Joseph scrutinized the paintings like a doctor triaging a group of patients, pronouncing his diagnosis and then stating the necessary remedy. “They'll need new linings on the back. And I'll apply a non-yellowing varnish.” His foot kicked the pile of wooden stretchers. “These are pretty bad. This one's practically disintegrated. I'll need to construct new stretchers in some cases.” He spoke as much to himself as to Karl. Finally, he turned. “But this will not be a difficult job at all. Once I'm done, they'll be as good as new.”

In the third week of May 1990, Joseph completed the restoration and framing of the pieces and called Karl to pick them up. Fifty-one years after his family had acquired the canvases in Rakovník, and one year after Karl had carried them to the Canadian embassy in Prague, the paintings were finally home.

EPILOGUE

SEVERAL YEARS AFTER retrieving the Reeser family's paintings, Theo returned to Prague for another buying spree – and with another commission from Karl. The intervening years had brought democracy to Czechoslovakia, and with it, a loosening of many of the restrictions that had gripped its population. However, it was still proving difficult to export art from the country without going through the complicated red tape that the National Gallery continued to impose. The benefit of this for Theo was that his art-buying business continued to flourish. In addition, he continued to add other paintings to his shipments, smuggling these valuable pieces across the border with the help of several accomplices.

On this trip, Karl had requested that Theo retrieve the portrait that had been done of Karl's father by Rudolf Puchold, Karl's old high school art teacher. Karl had received a letter from Puchold's widow saying she had it and wanted to find a way to get it to him. When Karl heard that this painting of his father still existed, he was desperate to have it, and thought of the one man who could do the job for him. He contacted Theo and asked him to bring this painting out. Theo was happy to oblige, and even offered to retrieve the painting at no cost to Karl. Theo left Toronto with two hundred dollars in his pocket, a gift from Karl to Puchold's widow, and, a couple of weeks later, he returned to Toronto carrying the portrait of Victor, which he presented to a jubilant Karl. That was the last time Karl saw Theofil Král. But the painting of Karl's father hangs in his home to this day.

Several years after the four paintings arrived in Toronto, Hana and Paul traveled to Prague for a vacation. While they were there, they made contact with Jan Pekárek, wanting to thank him for having safeguarded the paintings for their family. He had never asked for any kind of reward, but Hana believed that he was entitled to something. While in Prague, she met with Pekárek and left an envelope with him containing one thousand dollars. Later that same day, when Hana and Paul returned to their hotel, they found waiting for them the envelope with all of the money still inside. Pekárek had returned it and that was last that any of the family heard from him.

There was however, one final and interesting encounter with the Pekárek family. Shortly after Hana and Paul returned from Prague, Paul received a letter from a man who identified himself as Petr Pekárek, Jan's brother. The letter outlined Petr's belief that his family had been entitled to the painting,
Die Hausfrau
, as compensation for having hidden all four paintings during the war. He wrote:

I was definitely opposed to my brother surrendering all four paintings to you. I was of the opinion that we should give you only three paintings, and that the fourth one, in accordance with the disposition of the court case, would be kept by our family as compensation for the problems our family had with these paintings.

Petr went on to write that since the four paintings were now in Canada and he would have no opportunity to enforce this claim for one of them, he believed that he was entitled to receive compensation and was asking the Reesers to accept what he called the “western custom of paying ten percent of the value of the four paintings.” He concluded:

I think that we are entitled to this, even though it is inadequate
considering what our family did in hiding the paintings.

No one responded to the letter.

Karl began a search for Richard VandenBosch approximately one year after the four paintings arrived in Toronto. He never felt he had adequately thanked Richard for all he had done to reunite him with his family property. But the diplomat had moved from his posting in Prague, and Karl hadn't been able to track him down. Letters were returned with no forwarding address, and telephone calls and e-mails went unanswered. Karl spent the next few years searching the Internet in an effort to locate VandenBosch, but to no avail – until he suddenly and unexpectedly discovered him working as a member of a Canadian Mission to the United Nations in New York City. Karl and Richard experienced an emotional reunion in Toronto on August 12, 2009.

Even before the paintings were returned to him, Karl had grappled with the dilemma of how to divide them between himself and his sister, Hana. They represented so much to Karl, not the least of which was family unity. After all, Marie had never wavered from her resolve to keep the paintings together. So the idea of separating them now, and worse, doing this in a manner that might be perceived as unfair to himself or Hana, tortured Karl and caused many sleepless nights.

He considered solving this problem with a toss of a coin; he and Hana would each own two paintings and would choose them based on the results of the toss. But that too was unsatisfying. Karl feared that tossing a coin would create a “winner” and a “loser” in terms of the ownership of the paintings and Karl was adamant that this should not happen, not after all that his family and the art had been through. The paintings stood for reunification, family love, and triumph over adversity. Karl was determined to preserve that.

In January 1991, after the paintings had been in his home for eight months, Karl came up with what he thought would be the perfect solution to his dilemma. He resolved that he and Hana would jointly own all four paintings. That was a critical decision, stressing the importance of preserving the paintings as one unit. Karl and Hana would rotate the artwork between their two homes in groups of two over the course of their lifetimes. The rotation would take place in September of every year, the anniversary of the family's arrival in Canada, and the beginning of their new and free life.

It was a perfect solution, and Hana thought so, too. The first time they divided the paintings, Karl asked Phyllis to toss a coin in order to determine the grouping. Karl won the toss and chose
Le lavabo à l'école maternelle
. Hana then chose
Ready for the Ball
, and Karl selected
Die Hausfrau
. The final painting,
Forest Fire
, went to Hana. Karl and Hana discussed that at some point, they would need to determine the absolute ownership of the four paintings, and find a way to divide them fairly and equitably. But they would do that when it felt right to them. They also vowed that, no matter what, the paintings would remain “in the family” forever, if possible, being passed down from generation to generation. In this way, they would establish the family legacy that Marie had always wanted. This property which had been so much about the past of the Reeser family would now also be about its future.

After a couple of years of rotating the paintings in their established groupings, Karl and Hana realized that it was simply too onerous a task to continue to do this. It required art movers, and the constant fear that the paintings might be damaged in the move. Hana, sensing that Karl had a greater affinity for the painting of the children, offered to allow him to keep it. She selected
Forest Fire
as her first choice. Karl kept
Die Hausfrau
, and Hana kept the painting of the Spanish dancer. The four paintings are still owned by Hana and Karl, and they hang in their respective homes to this day.

I hope that my grandsons will understand what the four paintings have come to mean to me. Every time I admire them, they remind me of the dark years of persecution, when our people became nearly extinct.

The torturous road of the four paintings from Rakovník to Toronto symbolizes my innermost and ever-present thought – the good fortune that all four of our family members survived those terrible years. This story is my way of “bearing witness.”

May my grandsons understand – and if they do – may they remember.

Karl Reeser, May 1990

References

¹
Adolf Hitler, speech at Koenigsberg, March 25, 1938. “Former frontier” refers to the border into Austria. In Alan Bullock,
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny
, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962.

²
Neville Chamberlain, national broadcast, London, September 27, 1938. In Robert C. Self,
Neville Chamberlain: A Biography
, London: Ashgate Publishing, 2006.

³
Neville Chamberlain, speech, September 30, 1938. Full text available via the Modern History Sourcebook at
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1938PEACE.html
.

⁴
Adolf Hitler, speech, January 30, 1939. Available at
www.historyplace.com
.

⁵
Neville Chamberlain, national broadcast, London, September 3, 1939. Full text available on the BBC website at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/08/99/world_war_ii/430071.stm
.