{"id":5662,"date":"2016-05-17T07:03:43","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T11:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5662"},"modified":"2016-05-17T07:25:18","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T11:25:18","slug":"love-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5662","title":{"rendered":"****Love & Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"peacock

photo: kansaikate, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By Ayelet Waldman \u2013 This lovely novel opens with a prologue set in 2013, involving elderly Jack Wiseman and his granddaughter Natalie. Her new husband has abandoned her, and she\u2019s just quit her Manhattan attorney\u2019s job to come stay with Jack in Red Hook, Maine, and her beloved grandfather is dying. It\u2019s questionable which of them needs more tender care.<\/p>\n

Searching a drawer, Jack runs across a worn black pouch containing a jeweled peacock dangling on a chain. \u201cWhose was it?\u201d Natalie asks, her curiosity aroused. \u201cWell, that\u2019s the thing. I don\u2019t know.\u201d He charges her with the near-impossible task of returning it to its rightful owner, which will require unraveling its history.<\/p>\n

The book then reveals how the pendant came into Jack\u2019s hands at the close of World War II. It had been one item among thousands and thousands on the Hungarian Gold Train<\/a>, a 42-car freight train the Germans were using to remove valuables\u2014most of them looted from Hungarian Jews\u2014to Berlin. The train was seized by French troops and finally came under U.S. military control and the contents warehoused in Salzburg, Austria. (The U.S. government kept most details about the Hungarian Gold Train secret for 50 years.)<\/p>\n

Items were pilfered from the horde by thieves and the soldiers guarding it; U.S. military commanders used the warehouse as a department store for outfitting their quarters with fine china, silverware, crystal, furniture, and oriental rugs. Jack, in charge of the loot, had to comply with his superiors\u2019 orders and was constantly frustrated at his inability to protect and preserve these treasures, much less return them to their rightful owners. His responsibilities as a soldier and as a Jew are at war within him.<\/p>\n

Waldman writes compellingly about Jack\u2019s situation and the treatment of the Displaced Persons flooding Salzburg, many of whom were concentration camp survivors. He meets one, a Hungarian with flame-red hair, Ilona Jakab, and falls in love. Jack keeps the peacock pendant in her memory, but never loses the feeling that taking it was dishonorable.<\/p>\n

In her quest to fulfill her grandfather\u2019s charge to find the pendant\u2019s rightful present-day owner, Natalie travels to Budapest and finds much more than she expects. That section of the book is a treasure hunt, a mystery story, and a romance.<\/p>\n

The last major section of the book dips back in time to 1913. It\u2019s narrated by a libidinous psychiatrist charged with \u201ctreating\u201d Nina S., an early suffragist who wears the pendant, and whom he rapidly concludes is quite sane, just at odds with her repressive father.<\/p>\n

Natalie, Ilona, and Nina are interesting, compelling characters in challenging situations. Waldman doesn\u2019t tell a good story once, but three times. Descriptions are vivid, characters\u2019 motivations heartfelt, and conversations witty and spirited. Occasionally, she may be a little heavy-handed, and occasionally a verbal anachronism or clunky love scene sneaks in, but overall, the stories have strong narrative power. I don\u2019t quite understand all the carping about this book in the mainstream media\u2014each reviewer seeming to fixate on some different issue. I found it not only an exploration of conflicting loyalties, identity, and the struggle to be honorable, but also a fascinating historical mystery.<\/p>\n

Love & Treasure<\/em> is certainly timely, given recent renewed attention to the issue of Nazi plunder. The peacock pendant, silent witness to the pain and abuse of history, is the treasure in Waldman\u2019s story, but love is the constant.
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