Page 98 of The Girl You Left Behind
Paul sits each day at the far end of the bench. She doesn’t look at him, but she feels his presence like an electrical pulse.
Christopher Jenks takes the floor. He will, he tells the court, outline the latest piece of evidence thatThe Girl You Left Behindis, in fact, tainted art.
“The current owners of the painting, the Halstons, purchased it from the estate of one Louanne Baker. ‘The Fearless Miss Baker,’ as she was known, was a war reporter in 1945, one of a select few such women. There are newspaper cuttings from theNew York Registerthat mention her presence at Dachau at the end of the Second World War. They provide a vivid record of her presence as Allied troops liberated the camp.”
Liv watches the male reporters scribbling intently. “Second World War stuff,” Henry had murmured, as they sat down. “The press loves a Nazi.”
“One cutting in particular tells how Ms. Baker spent one day around the time of the liberation at a vast warehouse known as the Collection Point, housed in former Nazi offices near Munich in which U.S. troops stored displaced works of art.” He tells the story of another reporter who was given a painting to thank her for helping the Allies at this time. It had been the subject of a separate legal challenge and had since gone back to its original owners.
Henry shakes his head, a tiny gesture.
“M’lord, I will now hand round copies of this newspaper article, dated the sixth of November 1945, entitled How I Became the Governor of Berchtesgaden, which, we contend, demonstrates how Louanne Baker, a humble reporter, came, by extremely unorthodox means, to own a modern masterpiece.”
The court hushes and the journalists lean forward, pens readied against their notebooks. Christopher Jenks begins to read:
Wartime prepares you for a lot of things. But little prepared me for the day I found myself governor of Berchtesgaden, and of Goering’s haul of some one hundred million dollars’ worth of stolen art.
The young reporter’s voice echoes across the years, plucky, capable. She comes ashore with the Screaming Eagles on Omaha Beach. She is stationed with them near Munich. And then one morning, she watches the troops go out and finds herself in charge of two marines and a fire truck. She tells of Goering’s apparent passion for art, the evidence of years of systematic looting within the building’s walls, her relief when the U.S. Army came back and she could relinquish responsibility for its haul.
And then Christopher Jenks pauses.
When I left, the sergeant told me I could take with me a souvenir, as a thank-you for what he said was my “patriotic duty.” I did, and I still have it today—a little memento of the strangest day of my life.
He stands, raising his eyebrows. “Some souvenir.”
Angela Silver is on her feet. “Objection. There is nothing in that article that says the memento wasThe Girl You Left Behind.”
“It is an extraordinary coincidence that she mentions being allowed to remove an item from the warehouse.”
“The article does not at any point state that the item was a painting. Let alone this particular painting.”
“Sustained.”
Angela Silver is at the bench. “My lord, we have examined the records from Berchtesgaden, and there is no written record of this painting having come from the Collection Point storage facility. It appears on none of the lists or inventories from that time. It is therefore specious for my colleague here to make the association.”
“It has already been documented here that during wartime there are always things that go unrecorded. We have heard expert testimony that there are works of art that were never recorded as having been stolen during wartime that have later turned out to be so.”
“My lord, if my learned friend is stating thatThe Girl You Left Behindwas a looted painting at Berchtesgaden, then the burden of proof still falls on the claimants to establish beyond doubt that this painting was actually there in the first place. There is no hard evidence that it formed part of that collection.”
Jenks shakes his head. “In hisown statementDavid Halston said that when he bought it, Louanne Baker’s daughter told him she had acquired the painting in 1945 in Germany. She could offer no provenance, and he didn’t know enough about the art market to be aware that he should have demanded it.
“It seems extraordinary that a painting that had disappeared from France during a time of German occupation, that was recorded as having been coveted by a GermanKommandant, should then reappear in the home of a woman who had just returned from Germany, was on record as saying she had brought home with her a precious memento from that trip, and would never go there again.”
Along the bench, a dark-haired woman in lime green exhales audibly, leaning forward, her big, gnarled hands resting on the back of the bench in front of her. Liv wonders where she has seen her before. The woman shakes her head emphatically. There are lots of older people in the public benches:How many of them remember this war personally? How many lost paintings of their own?
Angela Silver addresses the judge. “Again, m’lord, this is all circumstantial. There are no specific references in this article to a painting. A memento, as it is referred to here, could have been simply a soldier’s badge or a pebble. This court must make its judgment solely on evidence. In not one piece of this evidence does she specifically refer to this painting.”
Angela Silver sits.
“Can we call Marianne Andrews?”
The woman in lime green stands heavily, makes her way to the stand, and after being sworn in, gazes around her, blinking slightly. Her grip on her handbag turns her oversized knuckles white. Liv starts when she remembers where she has seen her before: a sun-baked back street in Barcelona, nearly a decade previously, her hair blond instead of today’s raven black:Marianne Johnson.
“Mrs. Andrews. You are the only daughter of Louanne Baker.”
“Ms. Andrews. I am a widow. And, yes, I am.” Liv recalls that strong American accent.
Angela Silver points to the painting. “Ms. Andrews. Do you recognize the painting—the copy of the painting—that sits in the court before you?”
