Shadows of Berlin полностью

She takes the Seventh Avenue Local uptown. The gallery is housed in an elegant Upper East Side monolith of polished sandstone. The G. Albert Glass Gallery of Fifth Avenue, universally known as the House of Glass. She is surprised to find that the door is unlocked when she tugs on it. Aren’t they concerned that any vagabond might steal into the temple? She steps inside, feeling her heartbeat rise. What does she think she’ll find? La muse du rouge on the wall restored to glory? But no. It’s a Chagall. The true Jewish artist, he is called. After all, he was born Moishe Segal of Vitebsk. And God knows how many prints she has seen of his wistful gouaches and watercolors depicting dreamy Yiddish motifs from the shtetlakh of his childhood, all neatly framed in doctors’ offices and dental waiting rooms from Midwood to Washington Heights. Even her mother-­in-­law has a lithograph of The Three Candles in a frame over the dining room table in Flatbush.

But the dream is not always airy pastel washes for mass-­market merchandising. A plummeting red rocket hangs on the wall. An angel’s descent exploding the scene. A fiery seraph—­L’ange tombant. The Falling Angel. It took him a quarter century to paint. She’d read this. Stretching from the twenties till after the war, and every year—­she can see it, it’s so apparent to her—­every year the raging destruction of the earth stained and ignited the colors of the angel as it descended, till its wings were burning red. Till its body was gorgeous with blood.

Chagall was an innocent, her mother tells her, wearing her paint-­stained smock. Naive as a child. It’s amazing that he survived himself, much less survived the war. But that was his luck. Always in the wrong place but never at the wrong time.

A college girl in a black turtleneck, her blond hair in a boyish garçon bob, approaches Rachel as if she is something that needs sweeping back out onto the sidewalk. “May I help you?”

“Yes. I want to see Mr. Glass,” Rachel tells her.

“Mr. Glass is not available.”

“Tell him, please, that I’m the niece of Mr. Landau?”

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Glass is not available.”

“Tell him I’m the daughter of Lavinia Morgenstern. She knew Chagall. When he was in Berlin. Tell him I’m here to see The Red Muse.”

“The red?”

“My mother’s painting. I want to see it. Is it in the back room? I could just take a peek.”

“Uh, no. No, that’s not possible.”

“Just a peek, nothing more.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“Rachel Perlman. That’s my name now. In America, but once, I was Rokhl Morgenstern. He knows my uncle—­Mr. Glass, that is. I’ve seen them together in the photograph.”

“As I said, Mr. Glass is unavailable. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do for you.”

“I think they must have struck a secret bargain.”

“And I think I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“So I’m being polite. I’m being polite,” Rachel tells her. “But you must understand. He had no right, my uncle. He thought he was still the great Kunsthändler, making his deals, but he had no right. That painting, if it belongs to anyone, it belongs to me.”

“Miss, this is private property,” the girl says.

“She was a monster. Der Engel. But if she is anybody’s monster, she is mine. I paid for her in full. And now, you think you can deny me? Pretend that I am nobody? I am the daughter of Lavinia Morgenstern! The founder of the Berolina Circle of Artists! A member of the Prussian Academy!” She hears herself shouting at this young slip of a girl, whose eyes are now bright with fear at the onslaught of the crazy lady.

“I can call the police! If you won’t go, I can call the police.”

“Call the police! I am an artist. Don’t you understand that? An artist! I have my rights too! That painting is mine! So tell the exalted Mr. Glass that he made his deal with the wrong Jew! Tell him that!” Rachel shouts and then abandons the room, sweeping back onto the sidewalk, her face streaming in tears. She hears the door lock behind her to keep out the mad interloper. But she doesn’t look back.

***