Page 99 of The Girl You Left Behind
“I certainly do. That painting sat in our drawing room my whole childhood. It’s calledThe Girl You Left Behind, and it’s by Édouard Lefèvre.” She pronounces it “Le Fever.”
“Ms. Andrews, did your mother ever tell you about the souvenir she refers to in her article?”
“No, ma’am.”
“She never said it was a painting?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Did she ever mention where the painting came from?”
“Not to me, no. But I’d just like to say, there is no way Mom would have taken that painting if she’d thought it belonged to a victim of those camps. She just wasn’t like that.”
The judge leans forward. “Ms. Andrews, we have to stay within the boundaries of what is known. We cannot ascribe motives to your mother.”
“Well, you all seem to be.” She huffs. “You didn’t know her. She believed in fair play. The souvenirs she kept were things like shrunken heads or old guns or car license plates. Things that nobody would have cared for.” She thinks for a minute. “Well, okay, the shrunken heads might have belonged to someone once, but you can bet they didn’t want them back, right?”
There is a ripple of laughter around the courtroom.
“She was really very upset by what happened in Dachau. She could barely talk about it for years afterward. I know she would not have taken anything if she thought it might be hurting one of those poor souls further.”
“So you do not believe that your mother took this painting from Berchtesgaden?”
“My mother never took a thing from anyone. She paid her way. That was how she was.”
Jenks stands. “This is all very well, Ms. Andrews, but as you’ve said, you have no idea how your mother got this painting, do you?”
“Like I said, I know she wasn’t a thief.”
Liv watches the judge as he scribbles in his notes. She looks at Marianne Andrews, grimacing as her mother’s reputation is chipped away in front of her. She looks at Janey Dickinson, smiling with barely concealed triumph at the Lefèvre brothers. She looks at Paul, who is leaning forward, his hands clasped over his knees, as if he is praying.
Liv turns away from the image of her painting and feels a new weight, like a blanket, settle over her, shutting out the light.
•••
“Hey,” she calls, as she lets herself in. It is half past four, but there is no sign of Mo. She walks through to the kitchen and picks up the note on the kitchen table: “Gone to Ranic’s. Back tomorrow. Mo.”
Liv lets the note fall and releases a small sigh. She has become used to Mo pottering around the house—the sound of her footsteps, distant humming, a bath running, the smell of food warming in the oven. The house feels empty now. It hadn’t felt empty before Mo came.
Mo has been a little distant for days. Liv wonders if she has guessed what happened after Paris. Which brings her, like everything, back to Paul.
But there is little point in thinking about Paul.
She takes off her coat and makes herself a mug of tea.
Liv puts on some music, just to take the edge off the silence. She loads some laundry into the machine. And then she picks up the pile of envelopes and papers she has ignored for the last two weeks, pulls up a chair, and starts to plow through them.
The bills she puts in the middle; the final demands to the right. On the left she puts anything that is not urgent. Bank statements, she ignores. Statements from her lawyers go in a pile by themselves.
She has a large notepad on which she enters a column of figures. She works her way methodically through the list, adding sums and subtracting them, scoring through and putting her workings on the edge of the page. She sits back in her chair, surrounded by the black sky, and stares at the figures for a long time.
She walks through to her bedroom and gazes at the portrait of Sophie Lefèvre. As ever, Sophie’s eyes meet hers with that direct stare. Today, however, she does not appear impassive, imperious. Today Liv thinks she can detect new knowledge behind her expression.
What happened to you, Sophie?
She has known she will have to make this decision for days. She has probably always known it. And yet it still feels like a betrayal.
She flicks through the telephone book, picks up the receiver, and dials. “Hello? Is this Berrington Realtors?”
