A Death in Vienna

Valley. He asked what had happened to her during the war, what had happened to his grandparents. She refused at first, but finally, under his steady onslaught of questions, she relented. Her account was hurried and reluctant; Gabriel, even in youth, was able to detect the note of evasion and more than a trace of guilt. Yes, she had been in Birkenau. Her parents had been murdered there on the day they arrived. She had worked. She had survived. That was all. Gabriel, hungry for more details about his mother’s experience, began to concoct all manner of scenarios to account for her survival. He too began to feel ashamed and guilty. Her affliction, like a hereditary disorder, was thus passed on to the next generation.
    The matter was never discussed again. It was as if a steel door had swung shut, as if the Holocaust had never happened. She fell into a prolonged depression and was bedridden for many days. When finally she emerged, she retreated to her studio and began to paint. She worked relentlessly, day and night. Once Gabriel peered through the half-open door and found her sprawled on the floor, her hands stained by paint, trembling before a canvas. That canvas was the reason he had come to Safed to see Tziona.
    The sun was gone. It had grown cold on the terrace. Tziona drew a shawl around her shoulders and asked Gabriel if he ever intended to come home. Gabriel mumbled something about needing to work, like Tziona’s friends who had moved to America.
    “And who are you working for these days?”
    He didn’t rise to the challenge. “I restore Old Master paintings. I need to be where the paintings are. In Venice.”
    “Venice,”she said derisively. “Venice is a museum.” She raised her wineglass toward the Galilee. “This is real life.This is art. Enough of this restoration. You should be devoting all your time and energy to your own work.”
    “There’s no such thing as my own work. That went out of me a long time ago. I’m one of the best art restorers in the world. That’s good enough for me.”
    Tziona threw up her hands. Her bracelets clattered like wind chimes. “It’s a lie. You’re a lie. You’re an artist, Gabriel. Come to Safed and find your art. Findyourself. ”
    Her prodding was making him uncomfortable. He might have told her there was now a woman involved, but that would have opened a whole new front that Gabriel was anxious to avoid. Instead, he allowed a silence to fall between them, which was filled by the consoling sound ofMa’ariv.
    “What are you doing in Safed?” she finally asked. “I know you didn’t come all the way up here for a lecture from yourDoda Tziona.”
    He asked whether Tziona still had his mother’s paintings and sketches.
    “Of course, Gabriel. I’ve been keeping them all these years, waiting for you to come and claim them.”
    “I’m not ready to take them off your hands yet. I just need to see them.”
    She held a candle to his face. “You’re hiding something from me, Gabriel. I’m the only person in the world who can tell when you’re keeping secrets. It was always that way, especially when you were a boy.”
    Gabriel poured himself another glass of wine and told Tziona about Vienna.
    SHE PULLED OPENthe door of the storeroom and yanked down on the drawstring of the overhead light. The closet was filled floor to ceiling with canvases and sketches. Gabriel began leafing through the work. He’d forgotten how gifted his mother was. He could see the influence of Beckmann, Picasso, Egon Schiele, and of course her father, Viktor Frankel. There were even variations on themes Gabriel had been exploring in his own work at the time. His mother had expanded on them, or, in some cases, utterly demolished them. She had been breathtakingly talented.
    Tziona pushed him aside and came out with a stack of canvases and two large envelopes filled with sketches. Gabriel crouched on the stone floor and examined the works while Tziona looked on over his shoulder.
    There were images of the camps. Children crowded into bunks. Women slaving over machinery in the factories. Bodies stacked like cordwood, waiting to be hurled into the fire. A family huddled together while the gas gathered round them.
    The final canvas depicted a solitary figure, an SS man dressed head-to-toe in black. It was the painting he had seen that day in his mother’s studio. While the other works were dark and abstract, here she strove for realism and revelation. Gabriel found himself marveling at