Deja Vu

By Lee Kendrick

“So, Professor Goldstein, what do you make of this painting?” Asked Stephen, the art director of the London art gallery.”

“Well, it's interesting, but something is puzzling me,, Stephen. He said, inspecting the painting with his eyeglass… I have this strange feeling of… deja vu! The brushstrokes are very familiar and I feel I have seen this painting before, but my memory escapes me. In fact the black and white dog in the garden and the house in the background I'm sure I've seen before!”

“Professor, what are you saying?” Asked the art director, looking perplexed.

“What I am trying to say, Stephen, is… I saw this painting a long time ago… just at present, I don't know where!”

“Can you tell me where you got the painting, Stephen?”

A smartly dressed man came into the gallery with the painting on Wednesday afternoon and seemed desperate for money. I gave him £200 for it because I felt it had potential.

“It's a shame you didn't find out where this man lives?” Said the professor. I would've liked to have found out more about the painting and the artist... I suppose you never got to find out the man's address?”

“Please Stephen, whatever you do, don't sell the painting, at least until I can try and find out more about it!” The Professor pleaded.

“Alright, but I think I'd keep it anyway, just because of it being a bit of a mystery!”Stephen said, putting the painting back in his storeroom.

“Hello, Professor, it's Stephen from the gallery; look, there's been a new development about that mystery painting you saw a couple of months ago; can you pop to the gallery tomorrow?”

****

“Good morning, Stephen; what's this good news about that mystery painting?” Said the Professor as he stepped into the art director's office.

“Well, you're not going to believe this, but that same man who brought our mystery painting popped in yesterday afternoon asking me if I would be interested in any more paintings… of course,, I said yes! And look here's his address!”

“Wunderbar! This is a posh address… Belgravia he said… I will visit this gentleman tomorrow morning; Perhaps you can come with me, Stephen?” The professor said excitedly.

“Yes, I would love to, he may have more of those mysterious paintings.

****

After the Professor and Stephen arrived the following morning in a black cab in Belgravia, outside the owner of the painting's home. They walked up to a plush, black ornate door with a brass door knob knocker, letterbox and house number 16, and knocked on the door...

A middle-aged maid answered the big black, ornate door.

“ Hello, gentlemen. Can I help you?”She asked.

“ Please wait, gentlemen; I will tell Mr Carmichael you are here.”

Moments later the maid came to the door.

“Please come in, Mr Carmichael will see you now in the drawing room.”

“Come in gentlemen, please take a seat.”

“Thank you for your interest in my paintings!” Said Mr Carmichael.

The professor started scrutinising a painting on the drawing room wall, looking closely with his eyeglass.

“Tell me Mr Carmichael, have you ever been to Germany?” Asked the Professor.

“Why, yes I was born in Munich in 1935”

“ But Carmichael isn't a German name!” The Professor said,

Ja! Well spotted, you would make a good detective, Professor,” He countered… My Mother was Swiss German…her name was Anna Kaufman. but my father was an English Aristocrat…Charles Carmichael. He recently died. This was his home In Belgravia! Before he moved to Germany to live with my mother before the war. He hoped one day, sadly, to come back to England to continue to live in his old home in Belgravia…sadly he died before coming back here; I am back in England to take over his estate and settle his business dealings.

“Tell me, do you have any photos of your Father and Mother?” Asked the Professor.

“Ja! I have a photograph here.” He took out a black and white photo from his wallet of his Mother and Father sitting on a sofa in their home near the Black Forest in Baden-Wurttemberg.

“Oh, Professor, are you not very well? You have suddenly gone very pale” Commented Mr Carmichael.

“Yes, thank you it must be something I ate! Replied the Professor.

“Let me get you some water.” Thank you, Mr Carmichael.

“Ja! I, too, lived in Germany during the war until my family and I were transported to Auschwitz, concentration camp in 1940!” The Professor said with a lump in his throat.

“ Oh! I'm sorry to hear that, it must've been very harrowing for you?” Mr Carmichael replied, looking awkward.

“But Mr Carmichael I am also sorry for your loss too.” Replied the Professor, "Oh but what of your mother?”

“Thank you, Mother passed on last year in 1968. My wife Eva, helped care for her as she was unable to look after herself. Eva is coming back to live with me in England as soon as she gets her affairs in order.

“Anyway gentlemen, we mustn't forget why you came here today!” Said Mr Carmichael.

“You said you had more paintings!” Asked Stephen.

“Ja! They are in the basement; please follow me, gentlemen.”

As he opened the basement door and switched on the light there was an overpowering musty smell which hit Stephen and the Professor. There was dust and cobwebs everywhere with dozens of paintings covered in dust sheets.

“Now let me see, ah yes, Professor, I think you'll like this painting!”He said as he uncovered the dust sheet and placed it on the easel.

“Hmm, very interesting!” Said the professor, holding his hand on his chin.

He took out his eyeglass from his coat pocket and held it to his right eye…The scene was of a wooded area of trees, carpeted with bluebells.

“Ya!, just like the other painting you brought to the gallery… unusual brush strokes…but familiar to me! Do you know who the artist was who painted these pictures?”Asked the Professor.

“Gentlemen, please check out the bottom right-hand corner, and you'll see the painter's signature.” He asked.

The Professor, with his eyeglass,, glazed over the signature… ‘Charles Carmichael.’

“So, now you know the artist was my father!”

“He had painted prolifically before the war started. Painting in his home in Baden-Wurttemberg near the Black Forest.”

"Coincidentally, I had lived with my parents and sister in Baden- Wurttemberg Before the war," said the Professor.

“Mr Carmichael, what did your father do during the war?” He asked quizzically.

“My father was in the German army but he never really spoke about exactly what he did or what rank he was… I always got the impression he had had some harrowing experiences in his army career which were too painful for him to talk about; And so, the family never pressed him any further for information.”

“ Can I look at another painting?” Asked the Professor.

“Ja! Of course,, help yourself.” Said Mr Carmichael.

The professor uncovered the dust cover of a painting depicting a scene in the Black Forest of some deer grazing near some fencing…with a cottage in the background.

Suddenly, memories came flooding back to him as a ten-year-old boy being in the concentration camp with his father… Watching him painting the deer; He saw the German komandant, praising his father… how good an artist he was. His father would paint from memory, pictures of scenes where he had lived near the Black Forest. The Professor recalled what the Komadent promised him and his family… protection and that one day they would go free…if he continued painting for him.

“Are you okay Professor?” Stephen asked.

“ Ja! I just feel a little tired.” Then he walked over to the next dust sheet and pulled it off the painting.

Sitting down on a bench was a black and white Collie between a little girl and boy about 7 and 8 years old; in the back garden of a cottage.

This stirred up even more memories for the Professor as he remembered his sister, Hansel, and their dog, Beth. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he started crying.

“Oh, please forgive me, gentlemen, it's just that the little girl and boy with their dog reminds me of my sister Hansel and I with Beth, our dog.

“That's alright Professor… Such paintings like these can affect some of us emotionally when they remind us of bygone days.

“Mr Carmichael, I wonder if I may be so bold to borrow this painting for a day or two, just to research your father's brush technique and his colours?”

“By all means Professor…be my guest.”

“Are you interested in any of the paintings, Stephen? He asked.

Well, I would like more time to look at them myself Mr Carmichael…there must be up to fifty paintings here. Can I arrange a van to come and collect them tomorrow?”

“Of course, that would be very good!”

“And then I can get in touch with you to let you know the paintings I'd like to buy from you,” Stephen replied.

“Hello, Professor Goldstein, it's been a long time since we last met, what have you got There ?”Said the Art technician.

“I'd like for you to use your x-ray machine to check out if there is a signature hidden under what I believe is a forged signature on this painting!”

“Very sinister, Professor!”

“When can you do it?” Said the professor anxiously.

“Come with me, we can do it right away!”Replied the technician.

“Now let's see what we've got, shall we.” He said excitedly. After standing in a darkened room for a minute or so behind a lead shield, they both checked out the X-ray of the painting’s signature…

Oh my word, Professor, you were right. It was a forgery. Let's see the real painter's name…Joseph Goldstein!

“But, what a coincidence Professor, your name is Goldstein too!”

“Nein! It's no coincidence…Joseph Goldstein was my father!”

End