Read The Woman Who Heard Color for Free Online Page B

August 2009
     
    Lauren O’Farrell had been sitting for over half an hour with Isabella Fletcher and had learned nothing more about a Kandinsky painting, if such a painting existed. She’d discovered nothing to confirm Isabella’s mother, Hanna, had collaborated with Hitler in disposing of his degenerate art, though she could now almost smell the red geraniums hanging in the green wooden window boxes on the farm in Bavaria and feel the cool Alpine breeze blowing over her skin.
    Mrs. Fletcher talked a little about her mother’s going to Munich, but then circled back, evidently deciding Lauren needed a description of the farm, which necessitated Isabella’s walking over to the bookcase and taking out several maps. Pulling a pair of reading glasses from a drawer in the end table, she settled them on her nose, unfolded the largest map, and spread it out on the coffee table in front of them. She pointed to the small dot designating the village of Weitnau, then the exact location of the farm, and traced the road to Munich with her finger. Lauren imagined she could now drive the route herself, though Mrs. Fletcher explained her mother had taken the train, as there were no automobiles at the time. After the maps, Mrs. Fletcher produced a book filled with lovely pictures of the Alps, followed by a heavy volume with scenes of Munich.
    “My mother once told me that at home on the farm,” Mrs. Fletcher said, glancing at Lauren over her glasses, “the only things hanging on the walls were a frying pan, an axe, and a crucifix. In the Munich home, walls were covered with paintings and drawings. Sculptures sat on tables and pedestals. The only art she’d known was religious art in the church at Weitnau, the village where they attended Sunday mass—paintings of angels, saints, Mary, and Christ. But in Munich the art was like nothing she had seen before. Mother truly fell in love with the concept that an artist could express how he or she saw the world in so many different ways.”
    Isabella Fletcher’s movements were graceful as she rose to find the maps and books in the bookcase. Graceful and refined, yet there was something intimidating about her, reminding Lauren of Mrs. Kline, her eighth-grade English teacher. She and her girlfriends used to call her the Nazi. Everyone knew you’d better stay in line in Mrs. Kline’s classroom.
    And now Lauren sensed that Isabella Fletcher’s expectations were little different from Mrs. Kline’s. Pay attention, she seemed to imply. You might just learn something if you sit and listen. The older woman was certainly leading the conversation. Even when Lauren asked a question, which she was trying to refrain from as much as possible, Mrs. Fletcher inevitably veered off. Lauren wasn’t sure where this story was going, but she guessed the less she attempted to direct the conversation, the more information she might gain.
    As Mrs. Fletcher carefully folded a large map of present-day Germany, then placed her glasses on the end table, Lauren wondered again if she might be on the path to discovering something she hadn’t even considered. Or was the old woman simply playing with her?
    Lauren had written her master’s thesis on art, politics, and cultural censorship, and had done extensive research on the art trade in Germany just before World War II. She’d come across the names of dealers, particularly those in Munich and Berlin, who joined with Hitler to use the art to further the causes of the Third Reich, to fill the Nazis’ war chest, and more often than not to increase their own wealth in the process. Lauren was shocked when she discovered the name of a woman among these dealers. She needed to know more. Over the past several years, in between working for clients or museums, she had attempted to find additional facts about this woman. As far as Lauren could determine, she had escaped, possibly to South America or North America, most likely going through Switzerland, then departing from