The Woman Who Heard Color (5 page)

After a long moment waiting for Herr Fleischmann, who still stood behind her, to speak, or to leave, she said, “It’s lovely.” She turned with a slight bow. “From Paris? A French painter?”

She knew Herr Fleischmann had recently traveled to Paris, and she imagined it was one of the paintings he had acquired during his visit. She also imagined it would soon disappear from the wall, so she was taking a slow, careful look.

Hanna found herself blushing now with embarrassment. Perhaps her curiosity made her go a step further than she should have in addressing her employer.

“Have you ever been to Paris?” he asked, a question that seemed absurd. She was a dairy farmer’s daughter from Weitnau.

“In books,” Hanna replied. “In dreams.”

He smiled. “Ah, someday you will go to Paris. A girl who dreams of Paris will go one day.”

She nodded politely, though Hanna thought he was again being ridiculous, maybe even mocking her. She continued her dusting and Herr Fleischmann continued standing behind her. Perhaps he was discovering something new, she thought, something he had not seen in the painting before.

“Every time I look, I see something new,” he mused, “something different.”

“Yes, yes,” she said with excitement, again with more animation than she guessed Herr Fleischmann was used to seeing in a maid. She couldn’t help herself.

Then he said, “Very good,” and turned and walked down the hall.

 

 

During her third week of employment, Hanna learned that finally there were to be guests, a real party. Herr Fleischmann was entertaining several art instructors from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and half a dozen of the most promising students, an event the Fleischmanns hosted at least twice a year.

Hanna took wraps and hats at the front entryway as the guests arrived. The first to enter was a handsome man with wavy dark hair and a thick black mustache that curled in such a way as to make him look a bit devilish or at least dangerous. He was followed by a tall, distinguished man with a neatly trimmed goatee, intelligent eyes, a regal posture, and pince-nez glasses, then a younger gent in a tatty coat. A bald man with close-set eyes accompanied a young fellow with greasy hair and a nervous twitch who adjusted his tie as he glanced in the mirror just inside the entryway.

As they were greeted and welcomed by Herr Fleischmann, Hanna picked out one voice, that of the distinguished guest with the goatee. His tone was deep and melodic with an exotic lilt and such a lovely color of blue. He sounded like a foreign prince, and that is what she called him in her mind—The Prince.

Herr Fleischmann addressed the man with the thick mustache as Herr von Stuck. The name sounded familiar and Hanna remembered the signature on a painting that had hung in the parlor for several days. She found the painting intriguing in a dark, sinister way. It was done in deep colors, the flesh of a naked woman, her sleek body wrapped in a snake, catching the only light that appeared in the picture. Hanna studied this man carefully now. The man who wrapped a snake around a woman with his brush and paints.

The Prince was introduced by Herr von Stuck as Wassily Kandinsky. They were led into the dining room. There were no women in attendance at this particular meal, though Hanna thought from the chatter in the kitchen that Frau Fleischmann might appear. She had not yet laid eyes on her.

As Hanna served the guests, she was in a position to catch bits and pieces of the conversation as she came in and out of the dining room.

“It was in Moscow at an exhibition of French art,” Prince Kandinsky said, and Hanna’s mind worked quickly, remembering the lessons in geography her mother had taught her. The Prince was Russian, which explained the way he spoke. “The catalogue identified it as a work by the artist Claude Monet, and informed me that it was a haystack.” The others listen with great respect. “Yet I did not recognize it as such. The object itself seemed to be lacking in the painting, and I wondered if the identification of the haystack was essential to the picture.”

“As long as we have color, Herr Kandinsky is satisfied,” Herr von Stuck observed wryly.

“But perhaps the forms, the recognizable images, become less important. It was the color, the light, the feelings which drew me inexplicably to this painting,” the Prince replied, as Hanna carefully placed the china plate with the second course before him. He glanced at her and with warm eyes nodded, which gave her a small start, as she had been instructed to become invisible as she served.

“Herr Kandinsky wishes the painting to be just that—a painting?” Herr von Stuck retorted.

“It is a concept to consider,” Kandinsky replied.

The guests stayed long into the evening, talking of Paris, of Vienna, of artists named Gauguin, Seurat, Klimt, and Munch, of a young artist named P. Ruiz Picasso whose work had been chosen for exhibition at the Exposition Universelle in Paris that spring.

“I like to keep an eye on such artists,” Herr Fleischmann said. His eyes swept over the men at the table, and Hanna wondered if some of these students would become famous, if their work would soon hang in the galleries in Paris, Vienna, and at the Fleischmann Gallery here in Munich. She felt a little prick of excitement along the back of her neck. What fun it would be to get a glimpse into the academy where they were trained, to observe the artists at work and say,
Yes, this is the one who will set the trend, who will sell at the prestigious galleries.

 

 

“I’d love to go,” Hanna said as she slipped off her skirt and hung it on the hook next to the bed that night.

“To Paris?” Käthe folded back the covers. “To see the artists who paint with light and color?”

Hanna had shared much of what she’d overheard that evening as she and Käthe cleaned the kitchen after the guests had retired to the parlor for a smoke and after-dinner drink. Somehow Hanna felt by repeating it she could hold on to it longer, and she was surprised that Käthe had been listening that carefully.

“Yes, Paris, and Vienna, too,” Hanna replied, unable to hold her grin. She reached up and turned out the light so Käthe would not make fun.

“Where else, you little dreamer?” Käthe laughed as she slipped into bed. Käthe, Hanna feared, had no dreams other than marrying Hans Koebler, the cheesemaker’s son from Kempton with whom she corresponded regularly. Her mouth would turn up into the most ridiculous smile when she received a letter, and her eyes would glow. When too much time passed between letters she could become rather grumpy.

“To the Munich Academy of Fine Arts,” Hanna said.

“Women are not allowed. You want to be an artist?”

“Not as a student.” Hanna sat on the edge of the bed, not quite ready for sleep. She was too excited to close her eyes. She did not want the day to end.

“As what?” Käthe’s voice rose in the way it did when she thought her little sister had said something unrealistic or stupid.

“I want to look at the work of the different students. To see which ones will become famous. To see how they do the colors.”

“To listen to the colors sing?” Käthe teased. “To hear the colors make music?” She stroked her sister’s back. “Come, let’s sleep.”

Hanna crawled in beside her. She had been assigned her own small cot in the servants’ quarters, but she wasn’t used to sleeping alone, and it was so cold in the basement that most nights she slept with Käthe. “Not always music, but sound,” Hanna said quietly. She didn’t talk about it much anymore. Käthe knew. Leni knew. And, of course, her mother knew. The first time she told Käthe she laughed, and then told Mother. Hanna thought it was that way with everyone when she said, “The cows in the barn, what green sounds they are making today.” She didn’t realize that everyone didn’t hear in color. She was only three, just learning the names of the different colors, and was very confused, as there were so many colors and not enough names to call them.

“You could go to the Academy,” Käthe said, yanking the covers which she often accused her sister of hoarding, “if you are willing to take off all your clothes.”

“Take off my clothes?”

“They must have models. Freda’s cousin is a model at the Academy.”

Often Herr Fleischmann brought a painting of a nude, such as that by Herr von Stuck, home from the gallery. And the sculptures were generally of nudes, both men and women. Hanna was more curious than embarrassed, and Frau Metzger said it was art, that the human form was one of God’s greatest creations, and artists for centuries going back to the Greeks and Romans had taken inspiration from the human body. Hanna knew that the artists in the Academy must learn how to draw and paint the human body. Surely they would need real models.

“Freda’s cousin takes off her clothes for the artists?” she asked.

“I’m tired,” Käthe replied, her voice distorted by a weary yawn.

“Where is it?” Hanna asked after thinking this over for several moments. “The Academy of Fine Arts.”

But the answer came back as a soft little snore, and she knew Käthe had already fallen asleep. Hanna was too excited to sleep, but she decided that night that somehow, someday, she would get into the studio of the Academy. Even if she had to take off all her clothes.

CHAPTER THREE

 

Lauren O’Farrell had been sitting for over half an hour with Isabella Fletcher and had learned nothing more about a Kandinsky painting, if such a painting existed. She’d discovered nothing to confirm Isabella’s mother, Hanna, had collaborated with Hitler in disposing of his degenerate art, though she could now almost smell the red geraniums hanging in the green wooden window boxes on the farm in Bavaria and feel the cool Alpine breeze blowing over her skin.

Mrs. Fletcher talked a little about her mother’s going to Munich, but then circled back, evidently deciding Lauren needed a description of the farm, which necessitated Isabella’s walking over to the bookcase and taking out several maps. Pulling a pair of reading glasses from a drawer in the end table, she settled them on her nose, unfolded the largest map, and spread it out on the coffee table in front of them. She pointed to the small dot designating the village of Weitnau, then the exact location of the farm, and traced the road to Munich with her finger. Lauren imagined she could now drive the route herself, though Mrs. Fletcher explained her mother had taken the train, as there were no automobiles at the time. After the maps, Mrs. Fletcher produced a book filled with lovely pictures of the Alps, followed by a heavy volume with scenes of Munich.

“My mother once told me that at home on the farm,” Mrs. Fletcher said, glancing at Lauren over her glasses, “the only things hanging on the walls were a frying pan, an axe, and a crucifix. In the Munich home, walls were covered with paintings and drawings. Sculptures sat on tables and pedestals. The only art she’d known was religious art in the church at Weitnau, the village where they attended Sunday mass—paintings of angels, saints, Mary, and Christ. But in Munich the art was like nothing she had seen before. Mother truly fell in love with the concept that an artist could express how he or she saw the world in so many different ways.”

Isabella Fletcher’s movements were graceful as she rose to find the maps and books in the bookcase. Graceful and refined, yet there was something intimidating about her, reminding Lauren of Mrs. Kline, her eighth-grade English teacher. She and her girlfriends used to call her the Nazi. Everyone knew you’d better stay in line in Mrs. Kline’s classroom.

And now Lauren sensed that Isabella Fletcher’s expectations were little different from Mrs. Kline’s. Pay attention, she seemed to imply. You might just learn something if you sit and listen. The older woman was certainly leading the conversation. Even when Lauren asked a question, which she was trying to refrain from as much as possible, Mrs. Fletcher inevitably veered off. Lauren wasn’t sure where this story was going, but she guessed the less she attempted to direct the conversation, the more information she might gain.

As Mrs. Fletcher carefully folded a large map of present-day Germany, then placed her glasses on the end table, Lauren wondered again if she might be on the path to discovering something she hadn’t even considered. Or was the old woman simply playing with her?

Lauren had written her master’s thesis on art, politics, and cultural censorship, and had done extensive research on the art trade in Germany just before World War II. She’d come across the names of dealers, particularly those in Munich and Berlin, who joined with Hitler to use the art to further the causes of the Third Reich, to fill the Nazis’ war chest, and more often than not to increase their own wealth in the process. Lauren was shocked when she discovered the name of a woman among these dealers. She needed to know more. Over the past several years, in between working for clients or museums, she had attempted to find additional facts about this woman. As far as Lauren could determine, she had escaped, possibly to South America or North America, most likely going through Switzerland, then departing from France. Slowly, in her spare time, Lauren had put bits and pieces of information together.

Patrick had once accused her of becoming obsessed. “What will you do if you eventually fill in all these blanks?” he’d asked. “You know this woman is dead. She was born over a hundred and twenty years ago.”

Lauren was used to dealing with such obstacles of time. In her search for looted art, the crime scene was often long ago destroyed, many of the victims in their graves for more than half a century, the perpetrators of the crimes mere remnants of history. She was generally working with descendents of the victims.

Lauren’s eyes scanned the walls again. Could any of this art be real? Nazi censored? Nazi seized? She needed to get a closer look, perhaps even lift a piece from the wall and check the back for revealing inscriptions or numbers. She knew exactly how the paintings had been marked in Berlin.