St. Anne’S Legacy: Behind the Graves at Shattawa

By Clifford Lueck

Emilys teenage daughter, Susan, creates her version of the history of her mothers art collection after reading The Diary of Anne Frank and studying the Nazi era on the Internet. She decodes the Dutch ledger, listing the art as part of the personal collection of Reichsmarschall Herman Goering. Emilys emotional state, because of her pregnancy and her insatiable drive to find the missing art, leads her back to South America and her involvement with the drug lord that sold her the collection. The stress level and fatigue from Emilys relentless traveling threatens her pregnancy. Young Susan, who is charged with helping her mother to protect the unborn child, uncovers the secrets behind the graves left in the wake of the hijacking of the Goering art train. Their reward is the legacy found in the Church of St. Anne.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524526559

Clifford Lueck

The Beach House is Clifford Lueck’s sequel to Emily, The Inheritance that continues the saga of conflict with Emily’s mother over the estate and the tropical paradise home left to her by her father. He continues his writing while enjoying his three children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren with wife, Anita, in Connecticut.

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Copyright © 2016 by Clifford Lueck.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016911658

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-2657-3

      Softcover      978-1-5245-2656-6

      eBook         978-1-5245-2655-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/19/2016

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Excerpt from the book:

Emily, The Inheritance by Clifford Lueck

Excerpt from the book:

The Beach House by Clifford Lueck

Excerpt from the book:

The Santa Gabriela, Challenging the Drug Cartel by Clifford Lueck

Excerpt from the book:

The Madonna of the Veil by Clifford Lueck

To Anita … my wife, my love, my lifeline.

Thank you for making our life together so successful and fulfilling.

Chapter One

The formal dedication of the Deane Keller wing of the Yale Art Center was impressive. Emily Robinson-Logan’s grant funding the building addition drew high praise both at the podium and after the ceremony. The Art Center director expressed his appreciation for this opportunity to house the recovered artifacts in the wing named in honor of the alumnus of the University and patriot from the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) operation during the Second World War. This is a fitting tribute and extension of his heroic efforts, the director proclaimed. Patricia Marchant, Emily’s stepsister beamed through the dedication and could not have been more proud of her accomplishment to bring the Art Center expansion to fruition. The minor demonstration of the Jewish Artifacts Recovery Organization did not cause a disruption as was feared.

In her formal remarks, Patricia reminded everyone that this is just the first step of the program and the major effort to locate the heirs of the artifacts from the Nazi looting is yet to begin. She went on to remind the audience that she hoped these treasures would not be housed here for long but acknowledged the formidable task of finding the original owners – now seventy-five years later. Emily’s relentless effort to bring the items out of South America was emphasized in the presentations.

Although Patricia felt strongly about repatriating the artifacts to their owners, she was equally excited when she listed the many masterpieces replicated and on display in the new wing. These would remain prominent in the galleries with additional pieces added as the owners of the repatriated materials are located and the items returned.

The reception following the dedication enabled many of the well-wishers and patrons to express their sentiments about Patricia’s work. Frances Thibodeaux, the director of the National Register of Lost Art was especially complimentary of Emily’s success in curbing the underground market in stolen art. She looked forward to reducing the long list of missing artifacts on the National Register.

Susan, Emily’s thirteen year-old daughter was standing with her grandmother at the reception when a middle-aged man approached her. He did not introduce himself but rather asked Susan to point out John Logan, her new stepfather. Susan corrected him saying Mr. Logan was her father not her stepfather. Mrs. Robinson-Marchant watched as her granddaughter explained why Jack was her father, disparaging the biological definition of fatherhood citing artificial insemination and sperm donors as examples. Mr. Logan, as she referred to him, was her father because he was always in her life as her father. And he is my mother’s husband so that makes him my father, she stated emphatically.

I’d like to meet him. Can you point him out?

No, he’s not here, Susan answered.

Mrs. Robinson-Marchant watched the stranger as he worked his way around the gallery. On the surface, this questioning about Jack’s whereabouts did not seem significant. The man was unobtrusive and Margaret had no reason to worry other than an uncomfortable feeling that something was amiss. She wondered how he knew of Jack and the recent marriage. Importantly, why does he want to speak to him? She did notice the extended conversation with Frances Thibodeaux, the Director of the National Register of Lost Art.

The man found Patricia, questioning her about the balance of the artifacts from Argentina with such a limited number of items on display. He was anxious to view the entire lot and offered to help identify the owners.

The man introduced himself as Karl Reischl. Patricia explained the artifacts were in storage, and due to limited space would not be on display for a number of years. Karl argued that without unpacking them they could not locate the owners, inferring Patricia had no intention of returning the lost items. Patricia tried to close the conversation by committing to give the Argentina items priority when they start the identification process.

Karl asked whether it’s true that Jack Logan had viewed the entire lot when he packaged them for shipment from Cartagena. Patricia said she was not present for the packing and deferred his question to Emily, who was busy with other patrons at the moment.

Karl attempted to interrupt Emily’s conversation with her group of patrons including Mr. Marchant, her stepfather. David Marchant, an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told him the conversation they were having was private and he would appreciate it if he would step away until Emily was free.

Karl was not deterred and introduced himself saying he had a quick question that would only take a minute. Mr. Marchant’s involvement in the CIA before his ICE assignment triggered a protective reaction for Emily and he again asked him to please wait a moment. Karl became verbally aggressive challenging Mr. Marchant. As he was leaving, he called back that he was just looking for Jack Logan and he didn’t see that as such a big deal.

After the dedication and reception, the Robinson-Marchant family adjourned to a local restaurant. Emily’s mother, Margaret, asked Patricia about her conversation with the man that seemed to be soliciting information from whomever would speak to him. Emily recognized the name, Reischl, in Jack’s family’s background. She believed it was on his mother’s side but wasn’t sure. Mr. Marchant expressed his concern although he had no basis to judge Karl Reischl other than his discourteous interruption.

When Emily phoned Jack that evening in Innsbruck, he confirmed the name Reischl was in his mother’s family some generations back. He did not know of any relatives named Reischl. If Karl is related it would be a distant relationship, if any.

The following day, Emily and Patricia visited the offsite storage facility holding the artifacts that came from Argentina, stored for years in Pasacaballos, Columbia, and then Cartagena before shipment through Nassau to the U.S. These items were also identified in a ledger claiming them as the property of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Emily and Patricia expected to trace the items back through their contact at the Dutch museum but because of the lack of cooperation with the Director, they relegated these particular items to a lower priority for identification. Karl Reischl’s interests raised their curiosity as to the nature of the items in the wooden crates.

They opened a number of boxes that contained oil paintings. A few had names penned on the back including: Jungwirth, Kloiber, and Reischl. All of the names appeared to be in the same handwriting. One of the paintings included what appeared to be a German address, Schönau. Emily identified Schönau on her iPhone as a community in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic.

The Reischl name on one of the paintings suggested that Karl Reischl might indeed be a relative of one of the original owners. Patricia set the painting aside and made a photo record of the items before repacking everything.

Emily opened additional crates making a cursory search for identifications. Two additional names were found, Bayer and Spanbauer. None had addresses. This is strange, Patricia said. The names are German. She expected to find Jewish surnames assuming the paintings were taken from Jewish families during the reign of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Emily phoned Jack the following morning to check on his progress with the expansion and startup of the Art Reproduction laboratory in Innsbruck, Austria. When she finished talking business, Emily mentioned the names found on the paintings from the Pasacaballos grouping. They were familiar surnames from his childhood in Oshkosh.

Jack confirmed they are Austrian-German names associated with immigrants back in the late eighteen hundreds that settled in Oshkosh. He did not recognize the village of Schönau. She said it is in the Czech Republic not that far from Innsbruck.

Jack moved the conversation to his problems with the start-up of the new computer system in the lab. He thought they had some gremlins in the software and he wasn’t sure how to debug the system. As he was speculating about a fix, Emily suggested he drive to Schönau to see what he could learn about the area and the people back during the war.

Jack was not familiar with the Czech language and although he was interested, he thought they should get more insight from this Karl Reischl person first. They sparred briefly before Jack said he needed to sleep on it. He might consider a visit if he had time.

Emily booked a flight back to Nassau and left Patricia to finish the repacking. Susan inundated her mother with questions during the flight about the man at the reception and why he wanted to meet her dad. Emily didn’t know but that did not prevent Susan from speculating about different scenarios that involved the lost art. To quell Susan’s constant questioning, Emily suggested Susan research the history of the region in the Czech Republic to see what she could learn. Susan reminder her mother she could not connect to the Internet in the plane a zillion miles from nowhere. She settled into her seat playing a computer game on her tablet.

Emily opened her laptop to a file titled Creative Writings. She opened the sub-folder she had been working on.

The Crickets in Our Life.

She was sitting in the middle of the double bed in the motel room with her knees pulled up under her chin. Her glare and lack of response to my greeting deterred me from offering the usual welcoming kiss. Everything, was her response to my inquiry of, What’s wrong?

I was not successful in uncovering the events of the day that contributed to her discomfort until she waved her arm and said, I can’t live with these bugs. I looked around the room identifying a significant number of crickets jumping around on the carpeting.

The outside door had a gap at the threshold allowing easy access. These were not your average run-of-the-mill crickets. They had a very good year, not only in numbers but also in size. Motel management sprayed the carpet with insecticide to control the invasion, however, in the final stages of life, the crickets experienced what we, as non-insects, would describe as a convulsion. In the case of crickets, they utilized their primary assets to jump. Really jump. Some made it up on the bed.

My reassurance that everything will be all right, the insecticide will do its job and we will be free of crickets shortly – didn’t sell. New invaders were marching in at regular intervals and seeing their fallen comrades – ate their dead and wounded. And the cycle repeated.

What are you doing, Mom? Susan asked.

Writing. I’m writing a story.

Can I read it?

Sure. You can help me if you’d like.

Is this a love story?

Yes.

"Why did you call it Crickets in Our Life?"

The Crickets are a metaphor. They represent the problems we encounter in life.

The year was 1963. We were moving to rural Alabama leaving a small city in Wisconsin. We joked about moving to the boonies but had no idea what lay ahead. We left behind our ‘forever home’ purchased earlier the same year. We loaded our new furniture and moved away from our families, friends, and the familiar area where we grew up.

The world had its problems. Vietnam was smoldering. Antiwar demonstrations were popping up around the country and court injunctions forcing integration were fanning the flames in Alabama. None of these events were on our radar. I was not subject to the draft. We did not have children to educate, and we had minimal knowledge of the issues associated with forced integration.

Our first taste of segregation came with the literacy testing required to register to vote – and pay a poll tax. I can’t say we were appropriately appalled at this overt practice of segregation. The two-dollar poll tax was not a hardship nor was demonstrating our ability to write by copying a portion of the U.S. Constitution. We were white, educated and financially able.

Did this really happen, Mom?

I’m writing fiction, Honey. It’s a story around real things and events. That makes it sound like it really happened.

Susan became engrossed in the story. When Emily paused, Susan questioned her, urging her to write more. Before long Susan was offering ideas faster than her mother could respond.

During the year prior to the move we were involved in an adoption process. Our experience with the screening was onerous. We were being evaluated by a young social worker in a Catholic adoption agency. The process was frustrating. We were being screened to determine our fitness as parents. The judgment of this young woman, who had no children of her own, and likely only recently left the shelter of her parent’s household, would determine our suitability as parents.

What criteria, projected into the future, determined whether we could properly raise a child? The basic conditions of providing food and shelter could be projected with a degree of certainty, but what about the intangibles? Would you love the child through the troubled teenage years if they take a self-destructive path?

We left the state, terminating the adoption process.

The lady is the cricket?

Yes, or you could think of the move as a cricket.

What happens next?

They adopt a baby in their new home.

Make it a girl. Will that make the mother really happy?

Oh, Yes. The father too.

The letter arrived on a February day, less than four months after we moved. We have a baby girl awaiting her new parents. The instructions to pick up the child included bringing certain clothing and baby things. The single general store in town that sold the necessary items was closed for the day. We explained our situation to the storeowner who obligingly opened the shop. By morning the town of 2500 was aware of the pending trip to get our baby.

When we picked up the one-week-old baby girl we were totally disarmed. How did they do that – find the absolutely perfect fit to us, the new parents. She was everything we could have dreamed. She was our baby.

Is that the end?

No, that’s not the end. What do you think happens next?

Make something funny happen.

I recall the trip to Wisconsin the summer after her birth. We were showing our baby to my former co-workers. Handing the baby to my previous secretary, the baby welcomed her by barfing down the front of her dress. Some of us thought it was funny, she – not so much.

The baby threw up on her?

Yes.

That’s not funny. That’s gross.

The announcement that the plane was on its final approach to the Nassau airport interrupted their writing. Emily closed her laptop and returned her table to the upright position as instructed. Susan did not want to quit. Her mother assured her they could continue at home and offered to let Susan do some ghost writing if she wanted.

Naomi met them in the baggage claim area to drive them home. She had little news. Everything was fine at the bank.

How is Charles?

Do you mean the new father?

What? Are you pregnant?

Naomi grinned. Are you having a regular baby? Susan asked.

I hope it’s not an irregular baby, Naomi answered.

She means not an adopted baby, Emily told her dearest friend. I’m so happy for you both. We were writing a story on the plane about an adopted baby. That’s what is on her mind. Both women beamed over the announcement. Emily watched Naomi as they drove, recognizing how pleased she was over her projected motherhood.

With Susan back in school, Emily did some research of the Schönau region in the Czech Republic and did a people search on Karl Reischl. Nothing significant was found on Karl other than an address in Wisconsin. A genealogy search of the names on the oil paintings showed a concentration in the Wisconsin area in the censuses from 1880 to 1940. There were some scattered around the country, with a few on the west coast. The Spanbauer name was more frequent than the other names. Reischl was not.

The following days crept on with regular phone calls exchanged with Jack. He made progress with the software bug and things seemed to be settling down. He thought he would drive to the Czech Republic on the weekend. I guess some of my ancestors are from there so I’ll see what I can learn. He said he expected to come home by the end of the following week barring any new surprises in the lab.

Emily contacted Umberto Franco in Cartagena, Columbia to reestablish communication since completing the relocation of the art reproduction equipment to Innsbruck. She assured him that the volume should pick up soon and expected to begin paying down her debt for the equipment.

She asked about the artifacts from Argentina. He acknowledged they were bartered for a sizable drug shipment of raw opium and heroin years ago. She asked him about the names on the paintings. Franco did not recognize any of them. The name Karl Reischl was not familiar either. He thought there were German nationals involved with the drug trade he had with Argentina but could not remember any specific names.

Emily’s long-standing close relationship with Naomi bloomed further with Naomi’s pending motherhood. She admitted being a little envious and when she told Naomi that she had been thinking about having a baby, Naomi urged her to go for it. Emily wasn’t sure. Susan is starting her challenging years. Could she deal with a new baby and a maturing teen at the same time?

The drive to the Vltava valley in the Czech Republic was spectacular. The Vltava River weaved along the valley floor bisecting wooded areas scattered between the manicured farms. At one time the area had been clear-cut but new growth forest returned much of the land to its former life. Jack paused in his touring when he came to an old stone church. He parked and went inside.

The dimly lit vestibule held tables holding a variety of religious booklets. The literature was in German. The Holy Water font beckoned as he passed. His early religious training triggered an automatic dip in the font followed by a waving gesture of crossing himself. This would not have passed muster with the teaching nuns.

The main church was unoccupied. The stained glass windows cast an array of colors over the dark oak pews. He hesitated in the main aisle. To his left was a confessional followed by a cove containing vigil lights illuminating a statue of a saint. The simple main altar was modestly lit with overhead incandescent lights. Jack moved to the right side aisle toward a small cove housing a brass plaque fastened on the wall.

The plaque was a war memorial containing two lists of names. Although it was in German, Jack guessed it commemorated soldiers lost in the two world wars. Some of the names were familiar: Kellerman, Jungwirth, Egner, Reischl … all had male given names with some of the surnames appearing in both columns. A feeling of loss swept over Jack as he read the plaque. Brothers, fathers and sons, uncles and cousins lost in the wars. He crossed himself again and uttered a quick prayer of acknowledgement for the lost souls.

The church was quiet. Jack stood at the memorial lost in thought. Two wars – for what? Who were all these men? He flinched when a hand touched his shoulder.

The priest wore a black cassock with a biretta sitting squarely on his head. He spoke softly in German so as not to disrupt Jack’s prayer. Jack responded in English saying he did not speak German. The priest answered in broken English, introducing himself before asking what brings Jack to his church. Jack pointed at the memorial saying these were some of his relatives lost in the war and he was just visiting the area.

The priest read in Jack’s response that he was a traveler that sought the sanctity of The Church of St. Anne to rest his soul and praise God for the many favors bestowed on him. He could tell by this young man’s demeanor that he was a man of the faith and was pleased that he chose this modest church for his adoration. He offered Jack a cup of coffee if he cared to stop by the rectory. He would like to know more about him and his pilgrimage.

Jack was pleased with the warm welcome but was disquieted by the ensuing questions that would accompany the cup of coffee. Not wanting to be discourteous, he smiled and accepted the offer. Besides, he didn’t know how to politely excuse himself to avoid an extended conversation in broken German/English that would result in a lot of head nodding to things he did not understand.

The coffee took considerable time to prepare and perk. The conversation was a series of questions about Jack and his journey. Jack was able to get the priest to understand his ancestors were from the area and he was interested in the history of the region. He learned little. The priest kept referring to his poor parishioners and the church’s financial problems. Jack sensed he was looking for a contribution rather than insight into his visit.

When Jack asked about the time of the Second World War, the priest frowned. After a pause he said that was a bad time. He was too young to remember, but understood there was a lot of suffering. The cemetery behind the church was a reminder of those times. When it was apparent the priest was not going to offer Jack any details, he asked to be excused and permission to visit the cemetery behind the church. The priest walked him to the door pointing out the cemetery and thanked him for stopping by.

Jack walked among the graves looking for names. There were family plots housing multiple graves often with just a single-family headstone. Some names were added in what appeared to be an after-thought in the stone engraving. As with the memorial plaque, the names were all too familiar. He noticed a number of death dates clustered around June 1945. That was strange. He thought the war was over by then.

When Jack walked back toward his car, he noticed the priest had been watching him through a window in the rectory. The concerned look on the priest’s face left Jack uneasy. Rather than ask the priest about the frequency of dates in 1945 as planned, Jack left.

He continued driving slowly on the country road. Downed leaves swirled as he passed. This is God’s country he thought reminiscing about similar drives with his father in northern Wisconsin. The thoughts of the cemetery faded.

He passed through Záton, a small village, quaint and old. He did not notice the cemetery set off behind a wooded area until he passed the arched wrought-iron entrance gate. The elaborate scrollwork read Shattava Friedhof. He drove on past then stopped abruptly, turned around and went through the gate.

The graves close to the entrance were old. Headstones were engraved with German script and various religious figures. Age had reduced the legibility but he could make out dates back to the seventeenth century. He watched the headstones as he drove slowly. The dates were increasing, jumping abruptly to the nineteen hundreds. As in the church cemetery, a series of graves clustered close together showed dates of May, June and July 1945. Surnames were primarily German with a mix of both men and women with life spans from young-middle-age to elderly. Jack guessed there was some kind of purge after the war.

He photographed the graves with his cellphone. Jack checked the photos then returned to the car. He drove back to the main road, hesitated before turning to retrace his route to Innsbruck.

He stopped at the small graveyard behind the church he visited earlier to photograph those graves of interest. The priest appeared and warned Jack that taking picture of the graves violated the sanctity of the dead. He’d rather Jack not offend these parishioners and let them rest in peace. Jack apologized claiming he didn’t realize it was not allowed. He turned to leave when the priest said it was for his own good. He didn’t think it was in his best interest to dig up the past.

The drive back to Innsbruck gave Jack time to think about his experience in the church and his visit to the cemeteries. He pondered the cluster of names in mid-1945 recalling the vengeance killing the Russian armies inflicted on the German population in Poland. He didn’t think this occurred in Czechoslovakia but the Sudeten region that the Germans occupied could have experienced the same slaughter.

While Jack was in Austria, Emily worked on her writings. Susan was intent on introducing many crickets in the characters’ lives but each time proposed a happy conclusion. They worked a number of Susan’s suggestions into tangible episodes in the story. Emily was pleased with the exchange with her daughter but was troubled by the childhood memories Susan raised. Those were troubling days she was not anxious to revisit.

Emily dwelled on Naomi’s pregnancy. She wondered if the time was right for her to have a baby with Jack. How would Susan deal with it? What if Jack disagrees? She thought about Susan’s biological father. Letting herself get pregnant with Susan did not trap the love of her life. She was young and naive at that time in college. She could not risk losing Jack. She had better talk to him first about having a child.

Jack returned from Austria tired and a little bewildered. The reproduction lab was up and running and the software glitches seemed to be fixed. The episode with the priest and the graves of familiar ancestral names was on his mind. He checked his cellphone to see if the pictures were intact before downloading them to his computer for storage.

When Emily asked about his trip to the Czech Republic he indicated it was fine but he didn’t learn much. Yes, he did find some evidence of his ancestral names, mentioning the war memorial in the church.

It was about a week after he returned home when she asked if he would like to consider becoming a father. His mind was still on the graves and he turned the question around asking her if she wanted that. She said, Naomi and Charles are expecting and maybe it’s time for us to think about it. Jack said it takes more than thinking about it. She dismissed his remark saying, I don’t mean that. I mean stop taking the pill and let it happen.

Jack continued to duck the question. He wasn’t sure they were ready, and what about Susan? Emily was disappointed in his answer. She hoped Jack would be enthusiastic and want to consider becoming a father. As she had done in the past, Emily consciously suppressed her mothering yearnings by focusing on her current tangible problems. When Patricia called about her contact with Karl, she put the baby idea out of her mind.

Patricia put Jack in contact with Karl Reischl and after a limited exchange of ancestral lines, probing for a common ancestor, Jack told him about the grave markers he stumbled upon. I know, Karl said. I’ve seen them.

The conversation between Karl and Jack was tentative as each questioned the other. Jack was curious about Karl’s relationship to him or his family. He told Jack that his great-grandmother was a Reischl. Jack knew that. He asked again how he was related to his family. Karl said the tie is farther back, at least two generations before his great-grandmother. Jack pretended he didn’t know his great-grandmother’s name and asked Karl if he knew. Karl paused before answering, Mary.

It was common practice in Germany to name Catholic children with a baptismal name followed by the given name, then the surname. Mary (Marie) was often used for female children. Jack’s great-grandmother was Augusta but he didn’t know if she was named Marie Augusta Reischl.

Karl mentioned his interest in the artifacts from Argentina. Jack explained he was not involved with the Yale Art Gallery and he should deal directly with Patricia. Karl was interested in a very specific item and since Jack did the packing for shipment from Columbia,