Marina stands at her side and looks around the vacant room. In some ways, it is more beautiful now. Stripped of the paintings and furnishings, the room itself comes to the fore, austere and grand. Frost has etched elaborate patterns across the walls, swirls that glitter in the morning light. Still, the empty frames remind one of all the people who are missing. The Earl of Danby and Queen Henrietta. Charles the First in his armor and Thomas Wharton with his feathered hat. A new family with a baby girl and a pair of young sisters dressed in their finery. The elder sister gazes proudly at Marina as she passes and identifies them, Elizabeth and Philadelphia Wharton, but the younger one looks as though she would like to be released from the uncomfortable pose that the artist has put her in.
There are others that she cannot see, but last week Anya described every detail of the paintings, and so when Marina passes the approximate spots where they hung, she calls back to Anya, still lingering near the door, describing a lord and then a lady and, last, a mother and daughter.
“She’s wearing a crimson dress and a ruff,” Marina says. “And the daughter, who is about seven or eight, stands to her left. She looks like a little adult in her dress.”
“Can you picture them?” Anya asks hopefully.
“Maybe a little,” Marina lies.
She circles nearly back to where Anya is still standing. Here is the artist van Dyke himself, a romantic-looking man with curls and a long nose. And just beyond him, in the enormous frame that Anya was dusting, is a Madonna and child. They look out of place among all these Flemish gentlefolk. The painting is called The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, but two birds on the wing over Mary’s head give the painting its nickname, Madonna with Partridges.
“Are you all right now?” she asks Anya.
“Quite,” Anya says.
Marina takes her arm. “If we want to get to the Rembrandts today, I think we’d better keep moving.” And so the two of them walk, arm in arm, through the Rubens Room. They are moving so slowly that Marina can give a running commentary, though she skips over a few pieces. She resolutely ignores Bacchus and wills his corpulence to fade back to silvery frost, merely noting for the record that he is there. The same goes for Rubens’s painting of the daughter suckling her starving father.
“Mars and Cupid. Venus and Adonis. The Coronation of the Virgin. Hagar Leaving the House of Abraham.”
At this pace, even if they turn around now, she will be late for work. She assists the museum carpenter in the construction of coffins. The museum’s storerooms are the only remaining source of lumber in the city, and so coffin building has become the main occupation of the displaced workers on the staff. They are not craftsmen, but then again these are the most utilitarian of boxes, a few boards of pine slapped together to hold bodies that weigh next to nothing. There are so many workers out ill now that those who are still able are driven even harder trying to keep up with the demand. If she is late, she had better have a very good reason. Something better than strolling the picture gallery and cataloging missing art.
When they get to the Tent Hall, Marina moves them right down the center of the hall, not even bothering to comment on what is on either side of her. She expects Anya to scold her, but the old woman has also focused her attention on the doorway at the end of the hall leading to the Rembrandt Room. Halfway down the length of the hall, Anya suddenly weaves and then grabs at Marina ’s chest.
“I’m fine,” she says, still gripping Marina ’s jacket. “I just lost my balance there.”
“We really should turn around, Anya. You’re looking tired. Besides, I’ll need to go to work soon.”
Anya pulls herself upright and releases Marina. “If you must go, you must go. I will go on to the Rembrandt Room.” She picks up the pace, weaving wildly toward the doorway, as if to suggest that it is Marina who is holding them up.
“Okay, okay, slow down,” Marina says, taking her arm again and steadying her. “We don’t need to get there yesterday.”
Just inside the door, Anya stops in front of the wall that held Danae, but her eyes move beyond the right edge of the frame. “This was one of the first,” she says. “I came to work one morning and he was gone. Quite full of himself, don’t you think?”
It is all Marina can do not to remind Anya that she has never seen this painting, whatever it is. “Who is he?” she asks.
“Oh, well, Rembrandt said he was a Polish nobleman, but he doesn’t look like any Pole I’ve ever seen. He’s Russian. Look.” She points. “He’s got that bearskin cap and the fur cloak like they used to wear here. And that big pearl earring. He thinks he’s quite the catch with that mustache of his, but look at those jowls under his chin.”
“And what was it called?”
Anya pulls out of her reverie and gives Marina a sharp look, as though she has asked a foolish question. “A Polish Nobleman.”
A Polish Nobleman, pearl earring, mustache, bearskin cap. Okay, good enough.
“Now that one looks a bit like you,” Anya says, pointing to the next wall. “But younger. She’s got your red hair, though.”
Anya goes on to describe a girl leaning on a broom and looking directly at the viewer. Girl with a Broom. And then a portrait of a lady with a carnation, and another one of Pallas Athene, and another of an old man.
“Now here is the scene where Peter denied Christ. This was one of his best, in my opinion.”
“Another one?” Marina wonders if perhaps Anya is confused. It’s hard to believe that Stalin would sell off so many masterpieces. Hasn’t he always said that this art belongs to the people, that it is their heritage? She is not so naive as to believe everything she is told, but to sell even one Rembrandt seems inconceivable. Anya has already described half a dozen.
“Do you know this story, Marina? At the last supper, Christ told Peter that he would deny knowing him. Before the cock crowed three times. And the Gospels tell us that this is in fact what happened. You see him here”-she points-“he is sitting around the fire with some people in the town. Romans. Now, this is the touch of the master. Rembrandt used the firelight to make the scene more dramatic.”
Anya’s voice blurs behind the thought taking shape in Marina ’s mind. She knows Anya wouldn’t lie outright, but might these all be fabrications? Might Anya have invented these paintings? They are very specific visions, but that doesn’t mean they are real.
“Are you sure it was a Rembrandt?”
Anya turns very slowly to Marina. “When you see it, you’ll know.” Her eyes are as bright and blank as coins. “No one else could paint like that.”
Marina determines in that moment to ask Olga Markhaeva if she’s ever heard of these missing paintings. She doesn’t know why this didn’t occur to her before. Anya is, after all, a very old woman.
The return trip to the stairs is even more protracted, though they are stopping only for Anya to rest. But if Marina is tempted to rush her, one look at Anya dispels the idea. With each step, Anya’s appearance grows grayer, and soon Marina is half carrying her, Anya’s feet dragging almost weightlessly.
They stop again near the Madonna with Partridges. She slumps Anya against a marble vase, propping her up with one hand. Anya is perilously close to collapsing to the floor, and if she does, Marina isn’t at all sure she will be able to get her up again.
The Madonna is also resting. Holding her baby in her lap, she looks distracted and even a bit alarmed by a flock of putti who are dancing ring-around-the-rosy nearby. She doesn’t look at all anxious to take on anyone else’s troubles. But Marina petitions her anyway. She’s not asking for much. “Help me get her downstairs,” she whispers. “Don’t let her die here, please.” She adds another “please” for good measure and with her free hand furtively touches her fingers to her forehead.