The café was a confectioner’s fading dream. Pink vinyl booths, pink cushions, heart-shape–backed chairs, scalloped wainscoting on the walls, a countertop made out of some fake substance that didn’t look like marble but didn’t look unlike it either. “It’s been this way for decades,” Rose told Lizzie, “ever since Thomas and I moved into the neighborhood. If they ever renovate, I will take my business elsewhere.”
The restaurant was nearly empty, a few metal chairs upturned and resting on tables. They slid into a booth up front. “The pink is altogether too much, I know,” Rose said. “But there’s always a seat and the coffee is hot and still less than a dollar, as it should be.”
“I love it,” Lizzie said. It reminded her of Café Edison around the corner from her old firm, where on those rare days when she actually had time to leave her desk, she would go and order a bowl of matzo ball soup and eat it slowly, imagining the soup dissolving the hardened knot that had taken up residence beneath her rib cage. “You okay?” she remembered a waitress once asking her as she gave her the bill. “I’m fine,” Lizzie had said, handing over a crisp twenty, winding her scarf around her neck, thinking of a citation she forgot to include on the draft of the brief; she’d add it once she got back to her desk. The waitress gave her an inquiring look as she took the money in her palm. “You’re crying,” she had said.
Now the waitress brought two coffees, and Lizzie tipped in milk and sugar.
“You know what you can do for me?” Rose asked.
“Name it,” Lizzie said, stirring.
“I’d like to see the reports from the investigator your father hired years ago.”
“The investigator?”
“The one he hired after the paintings were stolen.”
Lizzie didn’t remember hearing of an investigator. Was this something else Joseph hadn’t told her? “I’ll look for them,” she said. “What was his name?”
“You know,” Rose said after a pause. “I can’t recall. This is what happens now. I hate that this happens.”
“I’m sure it won’t be hard to find,” Lizzie said. “If I can’t come across it, I’m sure Max will know.”
“Max?”
“My father’s friend,” Lizzie said, nodding forcibly. “He’s the executor of the estate.”
“Ah, yes,” Rose said. “Max. I’ve heard of him. Another thing I forgot.” Her hands were wrapped around the coffee mug. Her nails were manicured, painted a lovely taupe color, and her fingers were short, stubby, not unlike Lizzie’s own. She wore a gold wedding band on her left hand. “It’s good to have someone helping you,” Rose said. “It’s good to have someone like that.”
“It is,” Lizzie said, and she heard her voice carry. The place was cavernous. Past Rose, a lone man was reading the paper at the lunch counter, his plate of eggs untouched. Lizzie did not want to talk about Max. Toward the back, a busboy filled saltshakers from a pitcher. Were they the only other customers here? The emptiness made her lean into Rose, made everything seem more intimate. “You said your mother bought the Soutine in Paris. At a gallery? From Soutine himself?”
“A gallery. My father had business in Paris—he was an importer, and he bought clocks, I think, in France—my mother rarely traveled with him, but she did on that trip, and she spotted the Soutine. It wasn’t all that long after Dr. Albert Barnes, who was on a buying spree for the collection he would eventually amass for his Barnes Foundation, outside of Philadelphia, bought a large number of Soutines. That purchase made Soutine’s career.”
Lizzie nodded. She had taken a trip down to Philadelphia to the Barnes Foundation when she was in college, not long after The Bellhop was stolen. She had gazed at the other Soutine portraits—a baker’s boy dressed in white, a thin, heavily browed man in a sea of blue—knowing that she wouldn’t see The Bellhop, wishing for it to appear nevertheless. She asked: “After you left Vienna, what happened?”
“Our apartment was seized—my parents were still living there at the time. My brother and I only learned this after the war, from friends of theirs. Our parents were writing us daily at the time and never said a word. The Nazis took everything of value from the apartment, and there was a lot: jewelry and paintings and knickknacks, my mother’s furs, the silver service. The Bellhop too, of course.”
Lizzie was nodding, thinking of when The Bellhop was stolen from her house. To think that everything had been taken from Rose’s family, every last possession of value, and how possessions were the least of what Rose had lost. “I’m so sorry,” Lizzie said.
“My parents were ordered to Theresienstadt,” Rose continued as if Lizzie hadn’t spoken. “That’s where I thought they were through the war. But we never learned—anything more.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lizzie repeated, wishing there were something else she could say. The clatter from the kitchen sounded. And then stupidly—Lizzie would later think, here was the moment where she should have stopped talking: “Did you ever file a claim against the Austrian government? You know you can, right?”
“I do know,” Rose said. “And no.”
“I could help, if you needed it.”
“I don’t want their money.”
“But it’s not theirs, really,” Lizzie said. “It’s compensation for what’s rightfully your family’s.”
“Please,” Rose snapped. “Let me be clear: I don’t want that money. It’s blood money. It makes what happened about property, and it most certainly is not. Besides, I’m not the victim here; my parents are.”
“Of course—” Lizzie said in retreat. It was not hers to decide. Why hadn’t she stopped talking?
“I am not a victim,” Rose repeated, her voice emphatic. “I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me. Do you understand? I don’t want their money.”
Lizzie nodded. Later recalling the moment with a sting of embarrassment, she would think: I just thought I could help. “I do understand,” she said, though understand was not exactly the right word. “It’s none of my business. It’s unimaginable, what happened. Of course you’re handling it as you see fit.”
“It might seem unimaginable, but it did happen,” Rose said.
“I know,” Lizzie said, miserable.
Rose downed her coffee. When she spoke again, her voice was firm. “I’m sorry. This is my problem, not yours. Let’s not talk about the war or The Bellhop or what Austria might owe me. I’ll tell you what I do want to talk about: your father.”
“My father?” Lizzie said.
“He was a good friend. I bet he was a better father.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Lizzie said immediately. “But he was a great father.” The best, she could hear him saying in her mind. Why can’t you say I’m the best? Why can’t you be unabashed, wholly enthusiastic for once? She shook her head, thinking. “Did he ever take you to dim sum?” she finally asked.