Sins of the Fathers

by Susan Howatch

  “Take her,” said my shaking voice. “She’s yours, you bastard.”

  And before another word could be said, I left them and stumbled out of the house.

  IV

  It was raining. I walked to the corner of the block and paused, unable to remember where I was. There were no cabs in sight. The Village was a blurred mass of bright lights and shiny windows and people trying to dodge the rain. Later I seemed to be on Eighth Street west of Fifth Avenue, although I had no memory of walking east from Kevin’s house. A prostitute accosted me. I could not understand what she wanted. The sound of one of Frank Sinatra’s songs was drifting through an open window nearby.

  Later I realized I was on the subway in a train crashing dizzily uptown, but I struggled to the surface at Herald Square because I knew I was going to be ill. I vomited into the gutter, stumbled forward a dozen paces, and vomited again. People looked at me as if I were a Bowery bum, but presently another prostitute accosted me and I had to cross the road to get rid of her. Standing shivering by Macy’s amidst the brilliant city lights, I felt as if I were part of some huge sordid canvas, the antithesis of Teresa’s paintings, a hell on earth bounded by concrete and great barred doors marked “No Exit.”

  I somehow got hold of a cab.

  “Park Avenue and …” I could not speak properly, and the vomit had left a bitter taste in my mouth. As the car rocketed along Thirty-fourth Street, I looked up as if searching for a glimpse of the natural world in the wet night sky, but all I saw was the blazing hulk of the Empire State Building and beyond it the glow of manmade light canceling the darkness of nature.

  At my apartment building I paid off the cab and groped my way into the lobby.

  “Sam … at last!” It was Kevin. I had forgotten about him, and as I stopped, my eyes mechanically recorded the details of his appearance, the figure which made casual clothes look smart, the fine lines at the corners of the eyes which needed no glasses, the fighter’s jaw which marred his matinee-idol looks. It was only then, as I watched him with a stranger’s detachment, that I realized what a stranger he was to me. We might have shared all the usual adolescent confidences long ago at Bar Harbor, but in later life we had never had one single conversation on any meaningful subject.

  He took one look at my face and saw what had happened.

  “You fool,” he said. “I tried to head you off.”

  “You tried too damn hard.”

  Some indefinable change in his expression dissolved the mask of his exuberance, and for the first time in my life I saw him not as the boisterous extravert who gave the best parties in town but as the enigma who wrote plays in blank verse which I did not understand.

  “Let me come up to your apartment,” he said, “and I’ll fix you a drink.”

  “I’ve got to be alone.”

  “No. Not just yet. Better not.”

  I had no strength to argue with him, so we rode the elevator together in silence to my penthouse. In the den I slumped down on the couch while he poured out the brandy, but it was only when he sat down opposite me that I realized how grateful I was that he had stayed. Violent emotions were struggling at last to the surface of my mind, and the violence frightened me. I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone.

  “What a mess I made of that phone conversation,” he said. “I guess it was because I was so upset.”

  “Tell me—I want to know exactly …”

  “He turned up at eight. Teresa had been cooking, and when the doorbell rang I assumed it was you. I don’t mind her using the kitchen for an important date so long as I’m out, and I was supposed to have plans for the evening—but I was stood up. That’s why I was there when he arrived. He was very embarrassed when I answered the door, and even tried to embark on some explanation, but I cut him off, told him I didn’t want to listen because I had problems of my own. Then I shut myself up in my study and tried to work. Needless to say, I couldn’t.”

  I drank my brandy. Kevin poured me another.

  “Listen, Sam,” he said at last, “this is a disaster of catastrophic dimensions, I realize that, but if you and Teresa really have something going for you, for God’s sake see if you can’t still work things out—no, listen to me! Just listen! The one fact to focus on in this mess is that the situation’s not just horrific, it’s inexplicable.”

  I looked at him blankly. “Inexplicable?”

  “Yes—totally incomprehensible! Just think for a moment. We both know Neil well enough to realize that, incredible though it may seem, he’s not your usual run-of-the-mill millionaire like Jake, who routinely goes around screwing whoever catches his fancy. He’s a one-woman man. Have you ever known him to be unfaithful to Alicia before?”

  “No, I … never have.”

  “Okay, so you can concede that this is extraordinary behavior for him. But it’s extraordinary behavior for Teresa, too. Given her absorption in her work, she just doesn’t have the time, let alone the inclination, to practice bed-hopping on a grand scale.”

  I tried to sort this out, but it was too difficult for me. “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m trying to say that I think tonight’s episode is more likely to be a freak accident than the opening scene of some grand passion.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” I said. My lips were stiff and it was still hard to form the words properly. “I think she’s fallen for him in the biggest possible way.”

  “Why?”

  “She showed him her pictures.” I could hardly get the words out. My hand reached automatically for the glass of brandy.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Kevin in disgust. “Couldn’t she see that Neil’s the world’s biggest philistine? He can only define art in terms of a checkbook and a balance sheet!”

  In the hall the buzzer sounded, making us both jump. Brandy slopped onto the table as the glass jerked involuntarily in my hand.

  “Stay where you are,” said Kevin. “I’ll deal with this.”

  But I followed him to the hall.

  “Yes?” he demanded, picking up the receiver of the intercom. There was a pause. I could hear nothing, and I was just moving closer when Kevin said tersely, “Take my advice and beat it. You’ve caused enough trouble for one night.”

  I grabbed the receiver from him. “Teresa?” I said.

  Down in the lobby Cornelius cleared his throat.

  “Come up,” I said, and severed the connection.

  Kevin looked skeptical. “Are you sure you can handle this right now?”

  “Yes. I want to kill him, but I won’t. I’m glad now I was too shocked even to beat him up in the attic. I think you’re right, Kevin. There’s got to be some sort of explanation. I just can’t believe …” I paused to wipe the sweat from my forehead, but at last I was able to say evenly, “I’m not working anymore at Van Zale’s. That’s finished, along with my friendship with Neil. But if I could only take Teresa with me to Germany, maybe—”

  “Take Teresa to Germany?”

  “Yes, I’m going to work for the ECA. They’re recruiting investment bankers to help rebuild the German economy. I’m going to work for a new Europe. I’m going to put everything right.”

  “But, Sam … Sam, Teresa would never be able to work if she were removed from America and isolated in some country where she couldn’t speak the language!”

  “But she wouldn’t be isolated! I’d marry her—of course I’d marry her! We’d have a nice new home with one of those modern kitchens where she can practice all those creole recipes, and we’d have three or four kids, and … Why are you looking at me like that?”

  The bell rang, and turning abruptly away from Kevin, I unlatched the door.

  Cornelius, looking chilled and delicate, walked past me without a word and halted beneath the center light in the hall. His fists were shoved deep into the pockets of his pants. He was huddled in his corduroy jacket as if the temperature outside was below zero.

  “Sam, can I see you alone, please?” He did not look at Kevin.


  “No.”

  “But—”

  “No, goddammit! Stop arguing and get into the den!”

  We went into the den.

  “Have some brandy, Neil,” said Kevin.

  “No, thanks. Kevin, how the hell did you get in on this act?”

  “I might ask you the same question! Sam and I have just agreed it’s inexplicable that you and Teresa should have ended up in bed together. How did it happen?”

  Cornelius swung to face me. “Sam, do we really have to air our most private troubles in front of someone who isn’t interested in women and therefore can’t understand a single word we say?”

  “I’m very interested in women,” said Kevin, getting up to leave. “Probably more interested than you are. But I agree I’m not interested in seducing my best friend’s girl. I leave that kind of pastime entirely to men like you.”

  “Stay where you are, Kevin,” I said abruptly. “He’s only trying to get rid of you because he’s planned the entire conversation on the basis that there would be no third party present.”

  Cornelius sat down very suddenly on the edge of the couch, and without a word Kevin brought a third glass from the living room and poured out the brandy. We all drank in silence, and when I saw Cornelius was drinking fastest of all, I felt better. As soon as my nerves were steady I said, “Okay, I’m listening. Talk. But tell me the truth, because if you start lying to me, I’ll—”

  “Okay,” said Cornelius rapidly. “Okay, okay.”

  I waited. Kevin waited. Cornelius looked increasingly miserable but finally said, “It was all kind of an accident. I was feeling upset. Personal problems. But I’d like to make it clear that I love my wife, and if you think I’m on the verge of divorce, you couldn’t be further from the truth.”

  No one argued with him. We went on drinking and waiting.

  “I had to talk to someone,” said Cornelius, “but I didn’t know anyone suitable. Maybe I should have gone to a call girl, but I didn’t think I wanted sex, and anyway I don’t approve of that kind of thing. Finally I decided to go to see you, Kevin, because you always seem to cheer me up if I feel depressed.”

  “Make up your mind,” said Kevin. “One moment you’re behaving as if my sexual preferences make me some kind of moron, and the next moment you’re saying you were craving my company.”

  “Oh, hell! Listen, I’m sorry—”

  “Okay, forget that. Go on. You wanted to talk to me … so you arrived at my house and asked for Teresa. Let’s hear you talk your way out of that one.”

  “I only asked where she was because I wanted to talk to you on your own! But you were in such a filthy mood that you gave me no chance to explain anything!”

  “This is all so unlikely,” said Kevin, “that I suppose it just has to be true. But can you please explain why, if your visit was so spontaneous, Teresa had spent at least two hours cooking dinner for you?”

  “I don’t think she was cooking specifically for anyone. She said cooking was therapy—she liked to cook when her work wasn’t going well. She said she was depressed about everything, so depressed that she’d canceled a big date with you, Sam—”

  “—so the two of you sat down in the kitchen,” I said, painfully remembering the abandoned filé gumbo and the bottle of California red, “and had dinner.”

  “That still leaves you a long way from the attic,” said Kevin cynically to Cornelius. “What happened next?”

  “Well, I didn’t feel like talking, but I was grateful to her for being hospitable, so I felt I ought to make an effort at conversation. I asked her if she’d seen the Braque retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and we talked about modern art for a time, and I told her about the Kandinsky I’ve just bought for my office—”

  “All right, we get it. You gossiped about art. And then I guess she invited you upstairs to see her pictures.”

  “Wrong,” said Cornelius. “She didn’t. She tried to hand me some garbage about how her paintings weren’t good enough for anyone to see. Of course I was fascinated. Jesus, when I think of all the artists in New York who try to ram their stuff down my throat … and here was this girl behaving as if she’d rather die than let me look at her work. ‘It’s just junk!’ she kept saying. ‘Only junk!’ ‘So what?’ I said. ‘I see a lot of junk in the art world. Junk holds no terrors for me, none at all.’ And I set off up the stairs to the attic. She ran after me, and all the way upstairs she kept saying she was no good, useless, a fifth-rate Norman Rockwell. I thought it was cute she should be so shy … Anyway, I got up to the attic and took a look at the pictures, and they weren’t bad at all, in fact some of them I liked very much. The style is American primitive, of course, but she’s got strong classical overtones in her draftsmanship. I said, ‘Your work reminds me of Breughel,’ and she said, ‘That’s the most wonderful thing anyone’s ever said to me,’ and suddenly … well, I don’t know … she looked so sweet and earnest, and … the bed was right there and … it happened.”

  He stopped. When nobody said anything, he drained his glass of brandy. “Of course it was unforgivable,” he said at last. “I won’t make excuses for myself except to say that I was very upset, emotionally unbalanced by my private problems—”

  I lost my temper and sprang to my feet. “Are you trying to tell me that’s the whole story?” I said, my voice shaking with rage. “Do you really think I’m going to believe this fairy tale?”

  Kevin’s eyes widened. Cornelius looked sick.

  “I told you not to lie to me!” I shouted. “I warned you—”

  Kevin stepped between us. “Take it easy, Sam. What makes you so sure he’s lying?”

  “He’s telescoped two separate occasions into one!” I elbowed him aside. “You first slept with her the very night you both met, didn’t you?” I shouted at Cornelius. “You slept with her last Wednesday! That was the night you had your big row with Alicia as the result of my revealing to her that you wanted me to marry Vicky. And it was the next morning—Thursday—that you nearly passed out with asthma in your office when I told you I planned to marry Teresa. She’d given you the impression that her affair with me was over, and you’d assumed it was as much my decision as hers—you were horrified when you discovered my feelings for her were far stronger than you’d been led to believe! In fact, you were so bursting with remorse that ever since you’ve been bending over backward to be nice to me, telling me to forget about marrying Vicky, telling me not to worry about the Hammaco disaster, offering me your private plane for a weekend in Bermuda—”

  “Right,” said Cornelius. “Right. Absolutely right. Yes, that was the way it was. It was all her fault for giving me a false impression of the way things really were. I’d never have deliberately taken Teresa away from you, Sam, I swear it.”

  “Then if that’s the way it was, you son of a bitch, why did you go back to her tonight when you knew beyond any shadow of doubt how I felt about her?”

  “She invited me,” said Cornelius.

  Kevin had to restrain me from hitting him. Words streamed from my mouth, but I was speaking German and no one could understand. I groped for the right words, but my vocabularies were inextricably mixed and at last I gave up, slumped down on the couch, and put my head in my hands.

  “I didn’t want to tell you that,” said Cornelius, “because I knew you’d be hurt. That’s why I tried to make out that last Wednesday’s scene happened tonight. Last Wednesday happened just as I’ve described, except that you’d gone to bed, Kevin, by the time I got back to your house, and Teresa, who was clearing up the jambalaya in the kitchen, invited me to have some coffee instead of some filé gumbo. As I said, it was all a sort of casual accident which I’d made up my mind was never going to be repeated. And then late last night at the office—after you’d gone home, Sam …” He stopped.

  “Go on,” said Kevin when I still could not speak.

  “Teresa called me and invited me to dinner tonight. I said, ‘You’ve got one hell of a nerve,’ but she cou
ldn’t see it. ‘No man owns me,’ she said. ‘I’ll do what I like. I’m sorry for Sam,’ she said. ‘He’s a nice guy. But he’s not for me and never will be.’ ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘if that’s the way you feel, so be it, but you’d better damn well straighten things out with Sam so that he knows where he stands.’ ‘Oh, sure,’ she said, ‘but I’m fond of Sam and I don’t want to hurt him more than I have to—I’ve got to find the right moment to tell him.’ ‘Find it real soon,’ I said, and hung up. Then I sat around and thought about the situation. I knew I was being stupid. I knew it would be much better to leave her alone. But you see, I had these problems …” He stopped again. “I can’t explain any further.”

  There was a silence. I suddenly felt very, very tired, so tired that even my rage toward him was impossible to sustain. I myself might have made his mistakes if I had been laboring under similar misapprehensions, and I believed him when he said he had only lied to save me from further unhappiness. It would have been so much easier for me to have thought of him as the aggressor, with Teresa the reluctant victim. The thought that their roles had been reversed was intolerable to me.

  “I won’t go back to her,” said Cornelius at last. “I couldn’t. Not after this.”

  I repeated the words I had spoken in the attic. “Take her. She’s yours.”

  Kevin said strongly, “I think you should talk to Teresa before you make any final judgment on the situation.”

  “Kevin, can’t you see that I’ve been given the gate in the biggest possible way? If it hadn’t been Neil, it would have been someone else. Teresa was evidently ready to move on. Perhaps I’ve subconsciously known that ever since she started inventing excuses not to see me.”