Priceless Page 7

  “What kind of cuisine?”

  “International.”

  Forty-five minutes later they were sitting wrapped in their overcoats, hats, and scarves on a tree stump in a clearing by Lake Łagów, which was partly frozen over, and the silver car was parked on a forest path against a backdrop of snow-covered pines.

  “Coffee?” asked Karol, holding a thermos out toward Majewski, pink-cheeked from the cold.

  “Sure. Is there any chicken left?”

  “Hold on, I’ll check.” He glanced in the picnic basket, but there was no more chicken in the aluminum foil. “No, but how about a kabanos sausage or a hard-boiled egg?”

  “Oh, the kabanos please, and another tomato. Where do you buy such perfect tomatoes?”

  “I grow my own; I have a farm outside Mszczonów. A two-and-a-half-acre orchard and a greenhouse. Not much, but it’s enough for my needs, so I don’t have to eat what they generously call food in the stores. When I’m not there, my aunt and uncle take care of it.”

  Karol sprinkled pepper on a hard-boiled egg (from his own happy hens) and bit into it. He pretended not to notice the look on Majewski’s face, who was staring at him, mouth agape. Here in the meadow, in his suit, his custom-made patent-leather shoes, and expensive cashmere overcoat, with half a bitten tomato in one hand and a kabanos bending in the wind in the other, Majewski looked pretty comical.

  Beyond them, the lake stretched long and narrow, as did the forest, with the redbrick tower of Łagów Castle rising above the trees. Karol gazed at the snowy landscape, bathed in the last rays of sunlight, and thought how little he actually knew Poland. A person goes around the world thinking he’ll get to know new places, but often he wakes up and has no idea where he is—all luxury hotels are virtually identical. Whether in Dubai, or Vancouver, or Honolulu. And only two counties away there were unique places like this one. Lately his mother had asked if he was really looking for something or just running away from it all.

  He shook the crumbs off his hands and got up. Time to go.

  Illuminated by the fading sunset, the car seemed to shine with an inner glow.

  “Fabulous machine,” said Majewski. “I’d never have guessed that company made a station wagon.”

  “Luckily they do. You couldn’t even fit a picnic basket in their coupe.”

  6

  Major Anatol Gmitruk and Captain Clifton Patridge were sitting in the hotel café at Kalatówki, unaware that they were repeating a moment from almost seventy years ago, when in this very spot the Polish and American intelligence officers had met—and only one of them had come out alive. This time, however, nobody was being held at gunpoint, and instead of threats and shots, there was a warm atmosphere as they sipped a last beer before parting.

  “All the best for your retirement,” said the American, tapping his frosted glass against Anatol’s.

  Anatol thanked him and ignored the mocking tone. He didn’t feel like explaining why his decision was irrevocable.

  “I still don’t understand why you don’t want to reveal your identity if you’re leaving the service. Don’t you think people need real heroes, guardian angels making sure they sleep peacefully? You could work for a charity, maybe go into politics, or tour schools telling the children it’s worth being kind and good. Don’t you think all that would mean more than simply being modest?”

  He wanted to say that he had no one to be a hero for at home so he had no desire to be a hero for the rest of the world, but that would be too personal. After a few weeks together in the mountains, he had come to like Clifton, but he hadn’t forgotten who they were and what they did for a living. And that they both knew plenty about each other and had their own hidden motives.

  For six weeks, Patridge had supervised the team of American experts, not just military, who had been helping the Poles with their inquiry into the case of the first terrorist attack in the country’s history. He was one big American smile, nothing but support, friendship, and “how are you doing today?”—everyone really loved him, but by now he could hardly cope. He’d had to supervise a mission consisting of experts from various armies and civilian services, and in collaboration with the Poles, gather evidence to solve the mystery of the attack. That had been relatively simple, especially since he was the only one who knew that the entire investigation was a fraud. The rest of them had worked away in good faith.

  He also had to keep the locals ignorant of his real mission—that was harder. Back in the day, he had spent some time with the Poles in Iraq, and he knew that these guys had an innate sense of threat, which meant they were always on alert. The average American starts off by taking everything at face value. The average Pole is convinced from day one that everyone’s trying to screw him, cheat him, stab him in the back, and declare war. As a result, they never let down their defenses, which is handy at the front, but a major obstacle when you’re trying to conduct a secret operation right under their noses.

  And finally he had to perform his actual task, which was supposed to be simple but had turned out to be impossible. After six weeks, Washington had agreed that he must call off the search; if they hadn’t managed to be successful, nobody would.

  He was exhausted and glad this mission was coming to an end.

  Anatol was the liaison between the Americans and the Poles, but in reality he was tasked with keeping an eye on the allies, because there was a justified concern that the Americans weren’t telling them everything. The Yankees clearly took the matter seriously, seeing they’d sent Captain Patridge, commander of the Sixty-Sixth Military Intelligence Brigade, the most important American intelligence unit in Europe.

  He too was exhausted and glad this mission was coming to an end.

  “This is a strange country,” Anatol finally said. “The first day I’d be a hero, and they’d want to name streets after me. The next someone would notice how strange it was that just when an unprecedented attack occurred, a special agent happened to be in the mountains, right on the scene. After that I’d still be the focus, but only of conspiracy theories as part of a covert agreement between our authorities and the Russians. Soon, if they tried inviting me to speak at a school, two demonstrations would march through the village: one in favor of the hero, and one against the traitor. No, thank you.”

  He picked up his glass in his good hand, got up, and went over to the window to gaze out at the deserted, snow-powdered clearing. It crossed his mind that he’d never have the Tatras to himself again as he did now. Since the terrorist attack on the cableway to Kasprowy Peak, the mountains had been closed to everyone except for a small group of Polish and American investigators. Even the national park employees and mountain rescue guys were banned from entering the area, which was guarded by patrols deployed in the valleys. He’d been taking advantage of this to go on solitary walks off the trails. He’d wandered in the forest, climbed cliffs, and observed animals, which, sensing the absence of humans, had become bolder by the day.

  He knew an experience like this would never come again and that it was a good time to close the mountaineering chapter of his life. He wanted to learn how to sail and go elsewhere, far away from these heaps of stone, where only a miracle had saved him from the grim reaper.

  7

  A week later, instead of boarding a plane to a sunny country, newly retired Polish Army major Anatol Gmitruk was sitting in an all-too-familiar room at the headquarters of the Military Counterintelligence Service in Warsaw. If he hadn’t retired, he wouldn’t be here. Soon he’d be assigned to a mission so secret that no active-service officer could participate.

  He smiled at the woman sitting across the table, whose eyes were incredibly black.

  In his professional life he’d only had male commanders, but now, just as soon as he had entered civilian life, he’d been given a female boss. Clearly, life on the other side really did play by different rules.

  8

  It was hard to believe, but this man looked like a finance ministry clerk, the kind who’s accepted t
he fact that he’ll always be a finance ministry clerk and nothing more. The slim man sitting in front of her in the oversized, ill-matching suit had a gentle, apologetic smile, thin blond hair, and a large, none-too-aristocratic nose typical of central Poland. He wouldn’t have looked at all distinct if not for his small, protruding ears, which made him look interesting in a rakish sort of way.

  Gagatek had spent two hours convincing Zofia that Anatol Gmitruk was absolutely essential to her team. And that he wasn’t some trigger-happy soldier-boy who’d turn a discreet operation into an action flick. First, he was a top-rate expert on intelligence matters and had spent many years on foreign missions. He knew the allies and their operating methods, and that knowledge could be invaluable at critical times. Second, they needed someone who—as he euphemistically put it—was capable of handling more than just a stapler. And third—here Gagatek had paused and leaned toward her, making it clear to her that none of these high-ranking men were quite right in the head—he was the Mystery Guardian Angel from Kasprowy Peak.

  It had all made an impression on her. For two months, the disaster on Kasprowy, which had entailed the death of two people and terrified the entire public as Poland’s first genuine terrorist attack, had graced every newspaper headline. And along with it the Mystery Guardian Angel—the guy who had appeared out of nowhere like Batman, saved the lives of all the people in the second cable car, then vanished. The authorities had only said he was “a national security officer wishing to remain anonymous.”

  All of Poland was talking about the events, Zofia included, admiring the Guardian Angel and imagining him a bit like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, sitting astride the cable car lines as he disarmed the explosives with a red pocketknife while calmly singing, “When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah! hurrah!”

  Well, in her fantasies the Guardian Angel hadn’t looked like a finance ministry clerk with ears that stuck out. But when Gagatek told her that the Guardian Angel might be on her team, she perked up. And now she wanted to share all these thoughts with him, but she realized it made no sense to show admiration to a possible subordinate.

  “Let’s wait for the others; they should be here any minute,” she suggested, fixing her black eyes on him, which as usual didn’t betray any emotion.

  Anatol nodded, just like a mundane finance ministry clerk.

  A little later the door opened. Zofia and Anatol stood.

  “Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you,” said Zofia. “Major Anatol Gmitruk from the Military Counterintelligence Service and Karol Boznański, international art dealer and expert on the art market. I suggest we get on a first-name basis to make life easier.”

  “Really? So I don’t have to call you Dr. Lorentz?” said Karol, smiling; he hadn’t lost his charm. “Zośka?”

  She didn’t deign to answer; the cute nickname was the perfect way to antagonize her.

  “Gentlemen, I ask you for your patience,” she said. “General Gagatek, who answers directly to the prime minister, is going to bring in one more person and explain a few things. If you agree to join the team, we’ll spend the rest of the evening together.”

  She figured the meeting with the next person being brought in would be the hardest for her. Aware of her concerns, Gagatek had devoted the most time to promoting the fourth member. Pushing fifty, Lisa Tolgfors was the oldest of them all, though nobody in their right mind would have guessed that from the photographs of her in the files.

  “A genuine aristocrat,” Gagatek had said. “And not just in terms of style—she’s a princess related to the Habsburgs, the daughter of one of the grandest Swedish noble families, industrialists from the Far North. Of course they’ve disowned her, but blood is blood. She’s a real lady who speaks seven languages to perfection, has had the best education, and was offered a chair at Uppsala University—before she was thirty! Of course she turned it down. I understand that you’re not likely to be a fan of hers, but someone like her is essential to achieving our goal.”

  Zofia had accepted it. Though if asked to make a list of people she never wanted anything to do with, the famous “Ronia” would only come in second. Right after Karol Boznański.

  And now these two characters would be accompanying her for the most important enterprise of her entire life. Unreal.

  Gagatek brought Lisa Tolgfors into the room. With a confident stride, she went up to Lorentz and offered her hand.

  “Stick it up your ass,” said Lisa, almost without an accent, and smiled amicably.

  The genuine Swedish aristocrat, whom the media had nicknamed Ronia—after the heroine of Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter, the children’s book by Astrid Lindgren—famous as the world’s most ingenious art thief ever, had spent the past eight months at a women’s penitentiary in Grudziądz, serving time for the theft of a Monet from the National Museum in Poznań. That was probably why Polish was the only language she spoke in a cruder style.

  9

  Zofia was dreading this visit. Of course it was the logical choice. The best place to meet was a private apartment, but whose? Her own place consisted of two small rooms cluttered with books. The Mystery Guardian Angel lived out of town. The Swedish woman’s latest address had been a women’s prison. And Karol—first in any competition, as usual, damn him to hell—had a huge, empty apartment in a modernist block on Wiejska Street in downtown Warsaw.

  She emerged from the elevator and shook her head in disbelief at the brass plaque engraved with fancy lettering: “Karol Z. Boznański—art dealer.”

  What a poser, she thought.

  She knocked, hoping they were all there by now. But of course she was first.

  She smiled at the sight of her host and went inside, so tense that every muscle ached. She remembered the last time she’d walked down this hallway, where there was nothing but a bookshelf full of crime novels and photos on the wall of the two of them together vacationing in France. She’d slammed the door so hard the number had fallen off (the brass plaque wasn’t there yet), run down the stairs, and hadn’t seen him since. That was four years ago. Almost—in three weeks, on January 6, it would be exactly four years.

  She couldn’t care less, but she was afraid that if she saw a picture of him with another woman on another exotic vacation it might be hard for her.

  But the walls were empty, and the bookshelf full of crime novels was still standing.

  “Congratulations on recovering the Wyczółkowski,” she said, handing Karol her coat. “I’ve heard what they say about Frey—apparently he’s a total lowlife, even for an art dealer. I don’t like stereotypes, but he’s probably the kind of guy who would have driven a truck around occupied Europe with a list of artworks to ‘protect.’ Did he really just give it back? Out of the goodness of his heart?”

  “I’m rather apprehensive about telling you—I know you don’t approve of buying back lost works of art.”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding!” Her brow furrowed. “Don’t tell me you paid him. You know perfectly well what that means, but you don’t give a damn, do you? As long as you get your commission.” Here she was, reproaching him again, as if no time had passed. “You can’t pay for stolen items! You should recover them through the courts, even if it takes longer and isn’t spectacular. There’ll always be someone willing to pay five, ten, fifteen thousand, but what happens when something really valuable comes through? The Royal Casket, for instance? Or a Bordone? A Cranach? A Poussin? A Rubens? What firm is going to pay out a million? Or several?”

  “A euro,” he said.

  “Euros, dollars, pounds, it doesn’t matter. Even so, no one will give them back, thanks to such shortsighted—”

  “One euro! I literally paid him one euro for it. Four point two three zlotys. Come on!”

  He took her hand and pulled her farther into the apartment. She gritted her teeth, flooded by a wave of warm memories. He always got impatient this way. In stores, in museums, in galleries. In bedrooms. “Come on,” and he’d pull her along, because he was losing patien
ce, he was getting wound up, he hadn’t the time to explain—he just wanted to show her what it was all about.

  They went into the dark sitting room; one wall consisted entirely of windows, giving a view of Warsaw’s new city center rising above the roofs of the apartment buildings across the way—a Central European poor man’s Manhattan, with a handful of glass skyscrapers standing around the Soviet Palace of Culture that still dominated the skyline.

  “Look at this,” he said, switching on the light.

  She saw a painting hanging on a wall that was otherwise empty. The beautiful woman with thick black curls seemed happy in her new place of residence.

  Zofia moved closer. A decent portrait; it didn’t thrill her, but it was a pretty good piece of work. It gave her satisfaction to think that her own portrait, painted by Wojciech Fangor and which used to hang in the exact same spot, had far greater artistic value.

  “What barbarity, they’ve cut off Wyczółkowski’s signature and the date. Greedy bastards. What’s it doing here anyway? It should be in a museum.”

  “We only got back from Berlin yesterday—the ceremonial handover to the National Museum is on Monday . . . Why should she sit in a box? Such a pretty girl. I don’t know why, but I can’t help thinking that she looks like she needs a good roll in the hay.”

  Zofia burst out laughing. “You know, that’s a real insult to Wyczółkowski. As far as I know, if any of the models who turned up at his studio were suffering from a lack of intimacy, it didn’t last long. It’s incredible to see it in color.”

  She wasn’t lying. The catalogue of wartime losses that she maintained was a pretty gloomy volume. Small prewar black-and-white photographs, in some cases only descriptions. After years on the job, it was easy for her to forget that behind those little gray images stood real color canvases, many of them enormous. She was highly familiar with a photograph of this dark beauty by Leon Wyczółkowski, and she had seen a color reproduction in the newspaper when it recently came to light at a German auction, but only now could she see the power of this painting. What looked like a seductive gaze in the photos was in real life more like a challenge. Come on, touch me if you dare.