The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World Read online

  The whole time the Rijksmuseum stayed open but of course without those famous works of art which my brother had helped to move out in time. The director of the Rijksmuseum now filled in the empty spaces with minor works which he took out from storage.

  The next bad year was 1942. Here comes now the story of how came I to America, and I became from Johannes to John and from the three words van der Waal, I became one word Vanderwaal, like van der Bilt became Vanderbilt and Van Rosenfelt became Roosevelt. But never so rich or famous.

  The writing stopped in the middle of the page.

  Peter hurriedly flipped to the end of the tablet. There was nothing more. None of the other pages had been written on. He folded the sheets back and laid the yellow tablet on top of the other papers in the gray metal box.

  He was closing the box when he glanced to the right and left and saw that those seats had emptied. People were boarding. He checked the gate assignment. It was his flight. He hurriedly locked the box, rummaged in two jacket pockets before finding his boarding pass, and dashed across the waiting room. He presented his boarding pass and put its stub in his mouth as he ran down the jetway with his carry-on in one hand and the gray metal box in the other. Right and left, they bumped against his thighs and his reading glasses slid down his nose. By the time he got to his seat, he was exhausted and haunted. His father had briefly come back to life in that unfinished memoir. He felt that he had lost him again.

  AMEDEO ALWAYS GOT OFF THE bus first. william followed, and by some unspoken agreement, they wouldn’t catch up with each other until they were well down the block, and the bus was out of sight. They walked together to the end of Mrs. Zender’s driveway, said, “See ya,” and parted.

  Before they would start their work, they shared a snack, which Mrs. Wilcox had prepared. It seemed there was no end to the work in the kitchen. The room was quiet except for the sounds of their voices as they talked and the groaning of the air conditioner. There was no music inside the kitchen until Mrs. Zender pushed open the door, and they would hear a slice of sound, sometimes a measure and sometimes a melody—depending on how much clothing had to follow her through the door. Sometimes Mrs. Zender stayed long enough to drink a glass and a refill of the champagne she kept chilled in the refrigerator. Sometimes she stayed and talked; they were pleased and flattered when she did.

  It was hot at the top of the ladder, and they took turns climbing up and handing down. They worked well together. William washed; Amedeo dried. Or Amedeo washed, William dried. They stacked and counted dishes. They polished silver and brass. William inspected. Amedeo inspected. They looked for cracks and chips in cheap coffee mugs and delicate champagne glasses. William had a china marking pen to circle any cracks or chips they found, and he used that same pen to mark prices on old Pyrex dishes and bake tins. William got to do all the marking.

  With his china marking pen, William wrote 50¢ smack in the center of an old pie tin. He said, “Sometimes the kitchen is the most work and the least profitable of all the rooms in our sale.”

  Amedeo asked, “If these old pie tins are so much bother, wouldn’t it definitely be better to donate them to that Emerson House?”

  “We have to leave some stuff heaped up like this in the kitchen. Some liquidators leave all their stuff piled up, dusty and tarnished so that people can sort it out for theirselves and think they have found a prince among frogs.”

  “Isn’t any of this stuff valuable?”

  William used a customary long pause to walk over to a cabinet in the far corner of the room. On a shelf at eye level there was a pair of candlesticks. He very carefully removed one and handed it to Amedeo. “Turn it over,” he said. “Look on the bottom. See that mark? See those crossed swords?” Amedeo nodded. “That’s for Meissen. German. Valuable.” He turned back to the cabinet. “This one has a match, and they’re both in very good shape. Probably worth a whole lot.” After Amedeo checked them out, William returned them to the cupboard. “Very valuable. We won’t even begin to wash them until everything is cleared outta here. We’ll hafta line the sink with towels.

  “After we clean them up, Ma’ll study them marks on the bottom. She’ll study all them marks, not just the crossed swords. She’ll study the big ones, the little ones, the blue ones—what color of blue they are—the ones that are pressed in. By the time she’s done, she’ll know the name of the person who painted them and the year they were painted and probably will even know if the painter took a bathroom break between painting one and then the other.”

  Amedeo laughed.

  “These will probably be the first things that Bert and Ray will buy.”

  “Who are Bob and Ray?” Amedeo asked.

  “Bert and Ray. Better remember those names. Bert and Ray.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They’re antique dealers. They have a shop over in the part of town called Huntington. They used to manage house sales themselves, and actually, they are the guys who got Ma started in the business. When they got too busy in their antique business and didn’t want to spend their time managing house sales, they turned their calls over to Ma. Then after a while, people started calling Ma directly. Word-of-mouth recommendations. About then, Bert and Ray stopped doing house sales altogether, but they’ve kept up their contact with Ma. They like Ma to let them in first; that is, before the sale is open to the public.”

  “Will Bob and Ray get their things wholesale?” he asked.

  “Bert and Ray,” William corrected. He turned away, exasperated, but when he looked back, he saw that Amedeo was smiling.

  William waited a second more, then said,” Bert and Ray will get a discount. All antique dealers like Bert“—here he smiled at the angel on his shoulder—“and Ray get what is called a ‘professional discount.’ As long as they have a dealer’s license. When it comes to quality antiques, it’s harder to buy them at a good price than to sell them, so that’s why Bert and Ray want to get in before the sale is open to the public. Ma always lets them in first.”

  “Didn’t she let Bert and Ray in first at the Birchfield sale when she found the Chinese silk screen?”

  William interrupted a long silence to say, “’Course she did, but they didn’t want any part of it.”

  When Mrs. Wilcox told Bert and Ray that she thought the screen was “something good,” they said that they wouldn’t have it even if she gave it to them. Bert, who was an ex-Marine, said that when he was in the service, every other sailor who hit Hong Kong had brought home at least two.

  When the Freer required that Mrs. Wilcox provide a written offer, proving that she had an authentic bid of twenty thousand dollars for the screen, Mrs. Wilcox called Bert and Ray and asked them to send her such an offer, written on their Huntington Antiques letterhead. Worried that they could possibly be made to honor such a bid, Bert and Ray were reluctant to do it. William took the phone from his mother, and with the same dignified determination that persuaded the receptionist at the Freer to call the curator and the same perseverance that persuaded the curator to look at his photos, William convinced Bert and Ray to send his mother a letter offering her twenty thousand dollars for the Chinese silk screen that they didn’t want even if she had given it to them.

  When the Freer Gallery purchased the screen and William called the Vindicator with the news, Mrs. Wilcox got many phone calls of congratulations from other dealers as well as from other people who had things they wanted her to sell. But for many days neither Bert nor Ray called. When finally they did, Mrs. Wilcox said, “I found out that that there screen was really worth twenty-five thousand. Guess I just still got a lot to learn.”

  When Bert and Ray teased Mrs. Wilcox about how she got “taken” by the Freer, Mrs. Wilcox laughed at herself right along with them.

  That was her way.

  Mrs. Wilcox had figured out that Bert and Ray were having a difficult time accepting the fact that she, Dora Ellen Wilcox, who had once been their student, already knew more than they did. And she had also figured out
how to turn away their subconscious anger.

  “Bert and Ray can’t but admit to theirselves that they made a mistake about that Chinese screen. But Ma is still grateful, so when she’s doing a big sale like this one, she keeps a list of special stuff for them.”

  “Stuff like those candlesticks?”

  “Yeah, they’ll be right up there near the top of Ma’s list. And in this business you also have to know vintage.Vintage means it’s old, but not as old as antique. Like that big stove over there. Someone’s gonna buy it. There’s a big market for old bathroom stuff, too. Bathtubs with claw feet are very popular. And people even buy old toilets. That’s because new toilets are made to low flush to save water, and sometimes, they just don’t—flush, that is. But mostly people like these big old appliances. Appliances don’t get to be old. They get to be vintage .”

  “You just said old kitchen stuff and old bathroom stuff, old toilets, and big old appliances.”

  “But to the customers we say vintage.”

  Amedeo repeated, “Vintage.”

  William motioned to Amedeo to follow him to the other side of the room. From the bottom cabinet of the center island, he pulled out a heavy, metal, domed object. It was covered with a thick layer of sticky dust. “Now, take this here waffle iron. It must be older than toothache.” He pulled the cord from the base and began to wind it into a figure eight. The cord resisted; it was thick as a garden hose and the black-and-yellow cotton insulation was stiff and dry; the plug that connected to the appliance was as big as a hockey puck, and the plug that went into the wall as big as a doorknob. “Somebody’s going to want this old dinosaur of a waffle iron. They’ll get it all rewired and have the neighbors over for a waffle brunch.”

  Amedeo looked at the waffle iron for a long time. He examined the oil drippings that had congealed like amber down its sides. Without saying a word, he went to the sink and wet a wad of paper towel. With it he rubbed enough grime from the top to make a small convex reflecting mirror. He said, “Maybe they will just put it on a tabletop and display it like a piece of Art Deco sculpture.”

  William laughed. “What do you know about Art Deco?”

  Amedeo immediately answered, “The Chrysler Building in New York is Art Deco.”

  William coiled the last foot of the electric cord and pulled the plug through one of the loops, plunked it onto the countertop, and demanded, “What else?”

  “I know that Art Deco was the style between World War I and World War II.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  Amedeo said, “My dad is an artist. I know a lot about art. Jake—my dad—he mostly paints nudes, so I know that a nude is not the same thing as naked. Jake—my dad—has a lot of friends who are artists, and my godfather, Peter Vanderwaal, is an art director. I’ve definitely been to more art exhibits than most kids my age have been to movies.”

  William crossed his arms across his chest and said, “You have twenty-four seconds to list all the other talents you have.”

  Amedeo said, “Well, to start: I am a city child and a child of divorce.”

  “Seventeen seconds.”

  “My mother is an executive.”

  “Fourteen.”

  “I know what ASAP and per diem mean, and I know how to eat an artichoke.”

  William laughed out loud.

  “Knowing how to eat an artichoke is definitely a skill not to be laughed at. When entertaining clients at a fine restaurant that may not be listed—even in small type in the Yellow Pages—you sometimes have to eat an artichoke, and if you are there with my executive mother, you better know how to get to the heart of an artichoke . . .”

  “Or?”

  “Or . . . you don’t want to know.”

  “I do. I do want to know. Or what?”

  “Or you better order collard greens.”

  “Nothing wrong with collard greens.”

  “Wouldn’t know. Never had them.”

  “City child,” William said and reached into his pocket, took out two china markers, and offered one to Amedeo. Amedeo took it as he would a baton in a relay.

  THE FLIGHT TO SHEBOYGAN WAS short and bumpy. Peter hardly knew if the pilot ever turned off the seat belt sign. As soon as he was buckled in and his briefcase stashed beneath the seat in front of him and the gray box securely placed in the overhead bin, he fell into a short, noisy, disordered sleep. Peter either snorted or snored through the announcement that they had reached cruising altitude and passengers were free to move about the cabin. He didn’t care. He was too tired to move. He had a dim sense that the flight attendant had come by, but he would not have lifted his head had she been bringing champagne, caviar, and toast points instead of juice and pretzels. Peter missed the airline peanuts. He hated that they had switched to pretzels—peanuts optional. He stirred when he heard the wheeze of the wheels unlock, but he did not fully awaken until he heard, “Please return your seats to their full upright and locked positions.” Peter had nothing to return. His seat as well as his reading glasses had been full upright and locked for the whole ride.

  He left the plane and was halfway down the concourse before he remembered that he had checked his bag because he had carried on the gray box. He retraced his steps and waited at baggage claim. Like every other part of this journey, the wait was endless.

  Peter Vanderwaal did not own a car and did not drive. He found a pay phone and called a taxi. He waited on the curb by Ground Transportation, so tired his toenails ached.

  When he got to his apartment, he dropped his briefcase by his desk, wheeled his suitcase to the foot of his bed, and put the gray box in the corner of the closet in his spare room. He would break a lifelong habit and wait until morning to unpack. He showered and got into bed. He set the alarm for early the next morning.

  He was up before the alarm went off and immediately unpacked. And then as soon as he dropped the lid on the hamper holding his soiled clothes, he shaved, dressed, and left for his office.

  He would say later that as he slit the first envelope in the waiting mail, the fatigue and the pain of the past week consolidated into a neutrino that bounced around inside his head, firing up every circuit. The envelope contained the list of the thirty works of Modern art that had been selected for Sheboygan for the exhibition that he, Peter Vanderwaal, had been responsible for bringing to town. (Applause! Applause!)

  Like most students of art history, Peter Vanderwaal knew some of the sad, twisted history of Modern art under Hitler’s Third Reich, but he had never concentrated on it until he took a trip to San Francisco to see a collection called Degenerate “Art.”

  Peter had been fascinated by the art he saw there. He saw paintings by van Gogh and Renoir, and sculpture by Picasso. He saw drawings by Matisse. Some of the works were famous enough to have a place in the history of Modern art, but all of the works—every one of them—was famous because it had a place in political history as well, for every piece of art in the San Francisco exhibit of Degenerate art had once been stolen by an official member of a government.

  The government was Nazi, the country was Germany, and the year was 1937, the year when Adolf Hitler erased the line between politics and art.

  That was the summer when Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, appointed a committee and gave it the authority to confiscate (read: steal) all those works of Modern art that it (read: Hitler) did not find acceptable. The committee stole over sixteen thousand works.

  Six hundred and fifty of those stolen works were exhibited in an old warehouse in Munich in a show called Entartete “Kunst.” Entartete means “degenerate,” and Kunst means “art”; the quotation marks around the word “art” were deliberate. The purpose of the Degenerate “Art” exhibit in Munich was to educate the German people about the evils of Modern art.

  The Degenerate art in San Francisco that Peter saw was a collection of one hundred and fifty of the original six hundred and fifty works that had been displayed in Germany in 1937, and it was that exhibit that op
ened Peter’s eyes to how a dictator can condemn something that is new and different simply by labeling it evil.

  The exhibit of Degenerate art traveled from San Francisco to Chicago and Washington, D.C. Record numbers attended, and everywhere it went, it raised the same questions: What gives a government the right to steal art? Who gives a government the right to dictate what people are permitted to like? How did it happen? Could it happen again? Should taste be a matter for a government to decide?

  The original sponsors of the Degenerate “Art” exhibit wanted the dialogue to continue, so they made arrangements to divide up the hundred and fifty works into five sets of thirty and to send one set to each of five regional art centers throughout the country. People who did not have ready access to a major museum would then have an opportunity to see works of Modern art that changed the course of art and politics.

  The regional art centers were to be chosen competitively.

  Peter would later say that he had little hope of success when he wrote the application for Sheboygan.

  When he got word that his art center had been chosen, Peter felt as if he had won the the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the Powerball lottery. He was hailed as a town hero. (Thank you. Thank you very much.)

  And now, on the very day he was back at work, he opened the envelope that told him that works by Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, and other major, major artists would be coming to town. (Applause! Applause!)

  WHEN SHE HAD TO LIQUIDATE a large estate such as Mrs. Zender’s, Mrs. Wilcox took pictures of every room—in whole and in parts—before she disassembled it. She did this to account for everything in her sale and to help make her lists. Most often Mrs. Wilcox’s clients were heirs to the place she was liquidating and other than the profit to be made from the objects sold, the heirs had no interest in the pictures she took.

  But Mrs. Zender was different. Except for her frequent visits to the refrigerator and her occasional joining in the conversation between William and Amedeo, Mrs. Zender had no interest in the kitchen. But she insisted on being in every one of the before pictures in each of the other rooms.