5
Adriana followed the woman down a dark hallway and through an open door into what appeared to be the only clutter-free room in the entire house. Zaragova stepped aside and let her guest take a quick inventory of the surroundings.
“This was my father’s office. He spent a great deal of time in here, writing about the war, the things he had seen, the things he had done, and what happened after.”
It was a sobering moment.
A little wooden writing desk sat in the corner. Its deep brown stain had faded with time, and it would now be considered an antique. A matching, simple wooden chair was parked underneath, looking as if it hadn’t been moved in decades.
“I have pretty much left everything alone in this room since my father died,” Zaragova said, breaking the reverent silence. “I wanted it to look the way it did when he was alive.”
Adriana stepped deeper into the room. The closet to the right was closed with folding, shutter-style doors. On the wall to the left, several pictures hung as a silent tribute to times long gone. More than a few black-and-whites featured young men in Red Army uniforms. She assumed the person in multiple pictures with different people was Zaragova’s father. A wedding picture of the same man and a striking young woman with jet-black hair and pale skin mingled with images of family, children, and one or two older people.
“Your father seemed to put a great deal of importance on family and friends.”
“Da,” Zaragova said in her native language before returning to English. “Times were different in those days.”
Adriana turned and examined another wall, this one with a medal hanging in a picture frame.
The older woman noticed what had caught Adriana’s eye. “For bravery in battle,” she explained.
Adriana acknowledged the comment with a nod. “I don’t mean to be rude—”
“But you want to know why I am showing you all this.”
Few things caused Adriana to blush, but in this case, she did a little. The woman was clearly not a trusting person, and the fact that she’d allowed the Spaniard into her home was beyond fortunate. She didn’t want to push the woman’s gracious attitude. Like a deer, Zaragova could just as easily startle and close down.
The Russian gave a nod. “I understand. You are in a hurry. It is okay.” She floated over to the desk and stopped, staring down at it for a moment. “My father was a good man. There were many things that happened during the war that he never talked about. I do not judge him for that. He was an excellent marksman and did his duty for Mother Russia whether he agreed with the Communists or not.”
“He didn’t believe in the Communist government?”
Zaragova shook her head. “Nyet. He believed in a world where people shared their possessions with others, where no one was richer than another, and where everyone helped each other. In many ways, he was a pure Communist, a believer in people working together for the greater good of the community.”
“But that changed.”
“Da. He realized that in a world full of greed and selfishness, that way of life could never truly exist. There is no such thing as perfect Communist society.”
“It’s like that on the other side, too.”
“True.”
The older woman sighed. “My father had to keep his opinions to himself. If he spoke out to anyone about his thoughts on the government or its leaders, he would have been taken into the woods and shot. Our family’s land and possessions would have all been stripped away, and we would have been sent to work in the factories.”
“So he kept quiet.”
The host shrugged. “Mostly,he spoke to my mother about things. But sometimes, he would tell me what he told no one else.”
She pulled out one of the drawers on the left side. It was empty. Zaragova bent down, wedged a fingernail into a narrow seam on the top right side, and pulled. The thin panel dropped down to the bottom, revealing a hidden storage compartment only a few millimeters wide. For what was stored inside, it didn’t need to be much wider. A photograph was stuck to the inner wall. She carefully slid her finger behind the picture’s backing and pried it off, careful not to tear it where the adhesive was attached. After a few tenuous seconds, the photograph was free of its hiding place. Zaragova held it gently in her fingertips and presented it to Adriana.
The guest leaned in close but didn’t touch the picture, instead viewing it from several inches away.
“You see there,” Zaragova pointed.
Behind the image of her father shaking hands with a man with baggy eyes, dressed in a black suit and tie, a painting hung on a wall a few feet away. The photograph was black and white, and it displayed years of aging in less than optimal conditions. Nonetheless, the artwork behind the two men was easily identifiable. Adriana had no doubts it was the missing Bellini.
“When was this picture taken?”
“Three months after the war,” Zaragova’s voice lowered to a whisper. “And if you are wondering where it was taken, it was taken in the basement of this very home.”
That was going to be the next question, but it didn’t really matter. The woman had said before that the painting was no longer here.
“Is this photograph the only thing you were going to share with me, or was there something else?”
The host stood up straight, looking surprised at the bluntness of Adriana’s question. She grinned.
“I like the way you operate,” she said. “No fooling around. Yes, there is more. I wanted you to see the picture so that you would know I wasn’t lying. The painting was here for a short time, but a few days after this photograph was taken, my father sold it.”
Now they were getting somewhere.
Zaragova continued. “He knew that if any of the Communist leaders discovered he had the painting, they would confiscate it and claim that all spoils of war belonged to the government.”
“That’s what governments typically do.”
“Correct. So he did the only thing he could think of. He sold the Bellini to an esteemed collector in Amsterdam. It was a difficult process to find someone worthy of the art, let alone shipping it to them during a time when getting in and out of Russia was a complicated matter. Through several channels, my father was able to make the connection and get the painting safely out of the Soviet Union. He believed that if the government discovered the Bellini, they would destroy it as they had so many other works of art taken during the war.”
Adriana had heard about some of the things the Soviets did to precious artwork during and after the war. It was unclear if the soldiers were obeying orders or simply acting as vandals, burning things as they swept through Northern Europe. Zaragova’s father had, no doubt, witnessed many of those kinds of activities. It was a small miracle he’d been able to get the painting back to his home, which brought up Adriana’s next question.
“I’m sorry to ask so many questions, but I’m curious. How did your father get the painting back here without any of the other soldiers reporting him to higher-ups?”
“Father was in a particularly industrious unit.” She shrugged. “He knew that several of the other men looted homes, businesses, even a bank or two, though I am not sure why. The German currency was essentially worthless at that point. He made a deal with the others to let him bring the painting back. As he described it, they had found it in a German gallery. Many of the paintings there were stolen works of art the Nazis brought in and put on display. The Bellini was one such painting. Soviet soldiers were setting the place on fire and tearing paintings out of their frames. Most of them were simple men who did not know the difference between a finger painting and a van Gogh. The Bellini was the first one he came to that had not been ripped or burned, so he took it, rolled it carefully, and managed to convince the other men it was worthless but would make a good souvenir for his mother.”