Reka Muller in The Briar Club: A Character Analysis of Art, Allegiance, and Renewal
Overview
Reka Muller is an elderly Hungarian immigrant and former art professor who lives at Briarwood House in Washington, D.C., during the early 1950s. At seventy-one, she works as a library page, scraping by on a pittance while making monthly pilgrimages to New York to keep her connection to the art world alive. Her chapter reveals a woman shaped by loss—she fled Hitler's Berlin with her husband Otto, only to have a powerful senator confiscate their most precious possession: three charcoal sketches by Gustav Klimt. Her arc moves from bitterness and isolation toward a hard-won renewal, driven by an act of theft that reclaims not just the sketches but a piece of her own identity.
Reka is introduced as a sharp-tongued, proud, and often prickly presence in the boarding house. She is also deeply lonely, mourning Otto and the life they lost. Her story is one of found family and community as much as it is about art and justice.
Plot Role
Reka's chapter (Chapter 3) is the third of the novel's rotating perspectives, and it serves several crucial functions. It introduces the Cold War paranoia that pervades 1950s Washington, showing how suspicion can destroy a person's livelihood. It also establishes the novel's concern with hidden identities and secrecy: Reka has a secret past as a left-leaning intellectual in Weimar Berlin, and she hides the Klimt sketches' existence from nearly everyone.
Her plot role is also to demonstrate the cost of the era's political hysteria. When she clashes with Arlene's FBI beau Harland Adams at a Briar Club supper, she is soon after fired from her library job for alleged Communist sympathies—a report the novel strongly implies came from Arlene. This loss of income pushes Reka to act on a grievance she has nursed for years: confronting Senator Sutherland, who stole her and Otto's valuables when they emigrated.
Reka's confrontation with the senator leads to a meeting with his abused daughter-in-law, who slips her fifty dollars. On Christmas Eve, Reka returns to the Sutherland house and steals the sketches back. This act of defiance is a turning point not just for Reka but for the novel's broader exploration of women's autonomy and defiance of gender norms.
Reka is also present at the novel's framing event: on Thanksgiving 1954, her fallen cane is noted in the hallway of Briarwood House as police investigate the murder in Grace March's apartment. She is one of the seventeen people gathered in the kitchen, a witness to the violence that bookends the story.
Motivations and Traits
Reka's motivations are rooted in loss and survival. She is driven by a need for justice—the sketches were stolen from her and Otto when they arrived in America, taken by a bureaucrat's smug smile, as she puts it. But she is also motivated by financial desperation: after losing her job, she has roughly two months' rent saved, and the sketches represent both money and meaning.
Her traits are shown through actions rather than stated. She is proud: she is ashamed to accept Grace's offers of free meals, and she bristles at charity. She is courageous: she walks into the Sutherland house knowing she could be arrested or beaten. She is fiercely loyal to Otto's memory, speaking to him aloud in Hungarian and keeping his traditions alive. She is also capable of humor—the Candle Salad incident, where she collapses into laughter at Arlene's phallic dessert, shows a woman who has not lost her sense of the absurd despite her bitterness.
Perhaps most importantly, Reka is defined by her relationship to art. She is an expert with strong opinions, dismissing pretentious young artists and revering the work of Klimt, Pollock, and Krasner. Her monthly trips to New York are a lifeline; the narration describes her veins singing with paint. Art is not a hobby for Reka; it is her identity.
Chronological Arc
Reka's arc spans decades, though the novel focuses on a few crucial months. In the past, she was a professor at an art school in Weimar Berlin, married to Otto, a journalist. They witnessed the book burnings at the Opernplatz and fled. In America, they were stripped of their valuables by Senator Sutherland, and Otto died bitter and beaten down.
In the novel's present, Reka works as a library page, makes her monthly New York trips, and keeps to herself at Briarwood House. Her chapter traces a rapid sequence of events: the supper clash with Harland, the firing, the confrontation with the senator, the Christmas Eve theft, and the emotional collapse that follows. The arc then turns toward renewal: she cooks haluski for the Briar Club, cuts her hair into a sharp bob, and buys art supplies to start drawing again.
The novel's epilogue reveals that Reka died of a heart attack in the spring of 1955, but her painting of the Briar Club survives her—a legacy that Harland hopes to borrow for an abstract art tour. Her arc is thus one of recovery and legacy: she reclaims what was stolen, rediscovers her art, and leaves something behind.
Relationships
Reka's most important relationship is with Otto, even in death. She carries on conversations with his memory, and her grief is raw: after recovering the sketches, she sobs because she still doesn't have Otto. The sketches are inseparable from her love for him—they were his family's heirlooms, and recovering them is a way of honoring him.
Her friendship with Grace March is the novel's other crucial relationship. Grace nicknames her Attila, sees through her gruff exterior, and comforts her on Christmas Eve with a bottle of pálinka. Grace's encouragement—you're good, Reka—helps push her toward renewal. The home as sanctuary theme is embodied in their bond.
Reka's relationship with the Briar Club women is more ambivalent but ultimately warm. She clashes with Arlene, who reports her, but she shares laughter with Claire, Nora, Bea, and Fliss. Her decision to cook haluski for the club marks her integration into the community.
Her relationship with the Sutherlands is one of antagonism and, unexpectedly, alliance. The senator's daughter-in-law—young, British, bruised—helps Reka, giving her money and later bolting the door behind her. This brief alliance between two women across class lines is a quiet act of solidarity.
Key Decisions and Consequences
Reka's decision to confront Harland at the supper has an immediate consequence: she is fired from her job. This is a turning point that forces her hand.
Her decision to confront Senator Sutherland, despite knowing it is useless, leads to the meeting with Mrs. Sutherland and the fifty dollars that buys her breathing room.
Her decision to steal the sketches on Christmas Eve is the novel's most consequential act for her. It succeeds—she gets the sketches, deposits them in a safe-deposit box in New York under Betty Parsons's name—but it also unleashes a wave of grief. She weeps because the sketches cannot bring Otto back.
Her final decision is to re-engage with art. She buys an easel, pencils, and paper, and begins to draw portraits of her neighbors. This decision produces the painting of the Briar Club that survives her.
Themes and Symbols
The Klimt sketches are the novel's most potent symbol. They represent Reka's past, her identity, her love for Otto, and the injustice of their emigration. They are also a link to a larger tragedy: the original Faculty Paintings were destroyed by the Nazis at Schloss Immendorf, making the sketches irreplaceable.
Reka's arc embodies the novel's themes of found family and community: she moves from isolation to participation in the Briar Club. Her story also speaks to hidden identities and secrecy—she hides her past, her politics, and her art. The Cold War paranoia theme is central to her firing. And her theft of the sketches is a powerful act of women's autonomy.
The haluski she cooks, the bob she cuts, and the easel she buys are all symbols of renewal. The painting of the Briar Club, completed before her death, is her legacy—a testament to the community that helped her heal. For more on how her story concludes, see the ending explained page.
Questions and Answers
Why does Reka get fired from the library, and who reports her?
Reka is fired for alleged Communist sympathies. The novel strongly implies that Arlene reported her, as Reka muses, so it was Arlene who told. The firing follows Reka's public clash with Arlene's FBI beau, Harland Adams, at a Briar Club supper.
What are the Klimt sketches, and why do they matter so much to Reka?
The sketches are three charcoal drawings by Gustav Klimt, preliminary studies for his Faculty Paintings (Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence). The original paintings were destroyed by the Nazis, making the sketches irreplaceable. They were Otto's family heirlooms, and Senator Sutherland confiscated them when Reka and Otto emigrated from Berlin.
How does Reka recover the sketches, and who helps her?
Reka confronts Senator Sutherland at his son's house, where she meets his abused daughter-in-law. On Christmas Eve, she returns and steals the sketches. The daughter-in-law helps by bolting the door behind her and later gives Reka fifty dollars.
What does Reka's renewal look like after the theft?
After weeping and being comforted by Grace, Reka begins to re-engage with life. She cooks haluski for the Briar Club, cuts her hair into a bob, and buys art supplies—an easel, pencils, chalk, and paper—to start drawing again, planning portraits of her neighbors.
What happens to Reka and her art after the events of the novel?
Reka dies of a heart attack in the spring of 1955. Her painting of the Briar Club survives her; in the epilogue, Harland hopes to borrow it for an abstract art tour. An unsigned postcard from New York addressed to Pete mentions illustrations and sends love to the Briar Club, suggesting her artistic legacy continues. For more discussion, see the questions and answers page.