Reka's Chapter 3: Summary and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
Reka Muller, a Hungarian immigrant in her seventies, works as a library page at the Smoot Library in Washington, D.C. She lives at Briarwood House, where she deliberately cultivates unpleasantness to keep her younger neighbors at a distance. The one exception is Grace March, who works alongside her at the library and asks questions without demanding answers.
Each month, Reka takes a train to New York City to visit art galleries and meet her friend Betty Parsons, a gallery owner. These trips are her lifeline to the art world she once inhabited as a professor at a Weimar-era art school in Berlin. Betty urges Reka to return to painting, but Reka deflects, insisting she hasn't held a brush in years and couldn't afford materials anyway.
At a Briar Club supper, Reka clashes with Arlene Hupp's FBI beau, Harland Adams, over Communism. Reka dismisses Communists as harmless college boys and mocks the Red Scare rhetoric. Harland is visibly offended.
Shortly after, Reka is fired from the library. Miss Sexton, the head librarian, tells her the library cannot employ someone with Communist sympathies. Reka initially suspects Grace reported her, but later learns from Grace that it was Arlene who informed on her.
With her income gone, Reka decides to confront Senator Sutherland, the man who sponsored her and Otto's emigration from Berlin in the 1930s. When they arrived in America, they discovered that the valuables they'd sent ahead—silver, emerald earrings, embroidered wall hangings, and three Klimt sketches—had been stripped from their crates. The senator had taken everything of value, telling them to be grateful for their passage and papers.
At the Sutherland house, Reka meets the senator's daughter-in-law, a British woman with a black eye and split lip. The younger Mrs. Sutherland is clearly being abused by her husband, Barrett, the senator's son. She tells Reka about the beatings, the pills, and the family's efforts to hide the violence.
On Christmas Eve, Reka returns to the Sutherland house and steals the Klimt sketches back. The daughter-in-law helps her escape, bolting the door behind her. Reka returns home with the sketches, but instead of triumph, she feels overwhelming grief—for Otto, for the life they lost, for everything destroyed.
Grace March finds Reka sobbing and comforts her with pálinka, a Hungarian brandy she'd hunted down as a Christmas gift. Grace sees the sketches and understands.
In the aftermath, Reka begins to re-engage with life. She cooks haluski for the Briar Club, cuts her hair in New York, and buys an easel, pencils, and paper. She plans to paint portraits of her neighbors, linked by Grace's painted wall vine. The chapter ends with Reka standing before the easel, terrified but determined.
Key Events
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Reka's monthly art pilgrimage to New York and her friendship with Betty Parsons
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The Briar Club supper where Reka argues with Harland Adams about Communism
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Reka's firing from the Smoot Library for alleged Communist sympathies
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Grace reveals that Arlene reported Reka
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Reka's confrontation with Senator Sutherland's daughter-in-law
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The revelation of the senator's theft of the Mullers' valuables
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Reka's Christmas Eve theft of the Klimt sketches
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Grace's comfort and the pálinka gift
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Reka's re-engagement: haluski, new haircut, art supplies
Character Development
Reka Muller: The chapter traces Reka's arc from bitter isolation to tentative re-engagement. She begins as a woman who has deliberately made herself unpleasant to avoid connection, but by the end she's cooking for her neighbors and buying art supplies. Her grief for Otto and her rage at the senator have defined her for years; the theft of the sketches gives her a measure of justice, but also forces her to confront that justice doesn't restore what was lost.
Grace March: Grace emerges as a quietly persistent presence in Reka's life. She doesn't push, doesn't pity, and doesn't judge. Her gift of pálinka and her willingness to sit with Reka's grief show a deep understanding of what Reka needs.
The younger Mrs. Sutherland: Though she appears only briefly, the senator's daughter-in-law is a haunting figure. Her matter-of-fact description of her abuse—the weighing, the pills, the careful placement of bruises—reveals a woman trapped in a violent marriage, yet she still finds the humanity to help Reka escape with the sketches.
Harland Adams: His brief appearance establishes him as a true believer in the Red Scare, a man who sees Communists everywhere and is offended by Reka's dismissal of the threat.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
The Klimt sketches: The three preliminary sketches for Klimt's Faculty Paintings represent everything Reka and Otto lost—their cultural heritage, their financial security, their dignity. Recovering them is an act of restitution, but it can't restore what was truly lost.
The wall vine: Grace's painted vine, which spreads through Briarwood House, symbolizes the slow growth of community and connection. Reka's plan to paint portraits linked by the vine suggests her tentative embrace of that community.
The easel: Reka's new easel represents a new beginning, but also a terrifying one. She's afraid her skills have atrophied, that she's too old, that it's too late. The easel is both hope and risk.
Invisibility and aging: Reka's observation that old women are invisible—and that she doesn't mind, because invisibility means freedom—is complicated by the chapter's events. Her invisibility allows her to steal the sketches, but it also means she's been erased from the world she once inhabited.
Immigrant experience: The chapter explores the gap between America's promise and its reality. Reka and Otto were welcomed with one hand and stripped of everything with the other. The senator's theft is a metaphor for how immigrants are often treated as resources rather than people.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter is a turning point for Reka's storyline and for the novel's exploration of the immigrant experience in mid-century America. It reveals the cost of the American dream for those who arrived with nothing, and it shows how the Red Scare could destroy lives on a personal level—Reka loses her job not because she's a Communist, but because someone with a grudge reported her.
The chapter also deepens the novel's portrait of domestic abuse through the younger Mrs. Sutherland, and it sets up Reka's re-engagement with art and community. Her decision to paint again, after years of refusing, is a quiet act of defiance against everything that's been taken from her.
Study Questions
1. Why does Reka deliberately cultivate unpleasantness with her neighbors?
Reka has learned that if people dislike you, they leave you alone. She's tired of being pitied, and she finds the compassion of younger women like Fliss condescending. Her unpleasantness is a defense mechanism, a way of protecting herself from the vulnerability that comes with connection. Grace is the exception because she doesn't pity Reka and doesn't push for answers.
2. What does the theft of the Klimt sketches represent for Reka?
The sketches represent everything Reka and Otto lost when they emigrated—their cultural heritage, their financial security, their dignity. The senator's theft was a betrayal of trust, and recovering the sketches is an act of justice. But Reka's grief on Christmas morning shows that the sketches can't restore what was truly lost: Otto, their old life, the years they spent struggling in America.
3. How does Grace March's response to Reka's grief differ from what Reka expects?
Reka expects to be left alone, but Grace ignores her protests and comes in anyway. She brings pálinka, a thoughtful gift that shows she's been paying attention to Reka's Hungarian heritage. Grace doesn't ask questions or demand explanations; she simply sits with Reka in her grief. This is exactly what Reka needs, and it's the beginning of her re-engagement with the Briar Club community.