“Oh, stop trying to con me, Sam!” I said irritably. “You’re not about to quit Van Zale’s! You’ve got to think of your sons! Suppose I disinherited them?”
“I’m beginning to think that’s the best thing that could possibly happen to them.”
I had a moment of complete panic. This was no bluff. He really was going to quit. He’d just torn up my trump cards. He was going to take Vicky to Germany. I wasn’t going to get her back. I was going to lose. I was going to wind up in isolation.
“Now, wait a minute,” I said. “Just wait a minute. Surely we can get together on this. I mean, things don’t have to be so acrimonious, do they? For Christ’s sake! Surely we can work something out here. Uh … I can see now I’ve presented this all wrong. You see, the truth is, Sam, that I really need you in New York. That was what I said in my letter, wasn’t it? Yes, well, I decided I wouldn’t push that angle when I saw you, because I didn’t think you’d agree to abandon Germany just because I needed you in New York. So I got involved in this argument about Vicky and the boys, and that was wrong—I see that now, and you were right to get mad at me. I’m very sorry. Of course she’s your wife and I absolutely acknowledge I have no right to interfere in your marriage. And of course I’d never cut out those boys. You know how much they mean to me. I’m sorry I threatened you like that, it was stupid of me, but the truth is, Sam”—I paused for air and inspiration—“the real truth is, I’m in such a jam over this Reischman mess, the repercussions, the awkwardness, the impossibility of reasonable negotiations with Jake on areas where we’ve traditionally had mutual interests … I can’t negotiate with him myself anymore, but all the other partners are useless, they can’t stand up to him, I send them out onto the battlefield and they come back like packaged ground beef. … I know you and Jake are no longer friends, but at least you can stand up to him, at least he respects your abilities, at least you won’t come back from a Reischman meeting in pieces. …”
I continued in this vein for some time, mixing fact and fiction as skillfully as I could to impress upon him that he was now indispensable to me, and all the time I kept waiting for him to interrupt. But he didn’t. He just sat there letting me talk. Presently he even lit a cigarette, as if he were in no hurry to go. At first I was too sick with relief to question the unexpected withdrawal of the heavy artillery, but eventually I became puzzled, and finally I was fascinated. I talked on and on, and Sam listened and nodded until suddenly the truth hit me with such a jolt that I nearly passed out. This was no exaggeration. I ran out of breath, and my diaphragm felt as if it had been handcuffed to my rib cage.
Without a word Sam got me a glass of water and waited by the window till the asthmatic spasm had passed.
“So you do see, don’t you,” I whispered as soon as speech was possible again. “You do understand why I’m so anxious for you to come back.”
“Yes,” said Sam. He sat down again. There was a pause. Then he said slowly, “I’m not saying I can’t imagine a situation in which it would be more attractive for me to return to New York than to go to Germany. But it does take a lot of imagination. Maybe you can give my imagination a helping hand.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “I’m very imaginative. Let me see. Well, of course there’d be extra money, but that goes without saying, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t expect you to give up your German dreams without considerable financial compensation—”
“Joint senior partner.”
“Pardon me?”
“I’ll come back to New York if you’ll make me joint senior partner.”
“Oh … well … uh … yes, why not? I mean, I don’t think I could quite split everything fifty-fifty, but certainly the title …”
“That’ll do for a start. I’m sure you’ll find you’ll have plenty of opportunities to be generous later.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “I’m sure they’ll come along very fast.”
We looked at each other. There was a long, long silence. I wondered why he had let me win just when defeat seemed to be staring me in the face, but I knew better than to push him further by trying to find out. I’d won. That was all that mattered. I’d won, and Vicky was coming home.
“Sure you still want me back?” said Sam.
“One-hundred-percent sure, yes.”
There was another pause. Then Sam said in a low voice, “Neil, I don’t know what kind of problems you have, but believe me, this solution isn’t the answer to them.”
“Well, why don’t we at least try it and find out?” I said, relaxing at last with a smile, but even as I spoke, I was wondering if my triumph would turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.
II
It was still six months before I saw Vicky again. Sam’s successor had to be chosen, dispatched to London, and introduced to all the clients; Sam himself had to wind up his unfinished business, and Vicky once more had to face the complexity of an intercontinental move. After the house had been sold, the staff paid off, and the furniture removed for shipment, I was hardly surprised when she wrote to say she was longing for five days’ peace at sea.
She arrived in New York a week before Christmas with Sam, the four children, and the two nurses, and naturally I was in the front row of the crowd waiting at the pier as the passengers disembarked from the Queen Elizabeth and progressed through the customs hall. Sam’s personal assistant was dealing with the mountain of luggage, so there were no delays. Vicky was almost the first person I saw, and as soon as she saw me she started running toward the barrier.
She looked lovelier than ever. She was wearing a Persian-lamb coat with a matching hat, and from a distance I was unexpectedly reminded of Vivienne, whose figure she had inherited. After she had left her Westchester apartment two years before, Vivienne had rented a house on the English south coast, and Sam had generously allowed her to visit her grandchildren once a month. Whether she would now return to New York, I had no idea, but I hoped her financial circumstances would convince her that life in Europe had more to offer than an impoverished existence in New York. I certainly intended to tell Sam that in my opinion he had done enough for her and that there was no longer any need for him to underwrite her maternal instincts.
“Daddy!” cried my girl joyously, rushing past the barrier into my arms.
I thought of Scott asking: “Has it all been worth it?” and a voice in my head answered: Yes, yes, and again yes. I was no longer alone. Nothing mattered except that.
When I finally relinquished Vicky to Alicia, the first person I saw was Sam.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I whispered, still recovering from my emotion.
The little boys clustered shyly behind him, and beyond them the two nurses were holding the little girls. All the children had grown very much in the year since I had last seen them, and Kristin, now seven months old, was already a large baby. I noticed that like the others she had inherited Sam’s brown eyes.
“Come on, kids!” said Sam, giving Eric a slight push. “Wake up!”
Eric was six, still blond like Vicky but somehow not so like her as he had once been. In response to his father’s cue he stepped forward and politely offered me his hand to shake. “Hello, Granddad,” he said with his stiff little British accent.
“That’s better,” said Sam, who had obviously rehearsed the scene several times. “Now, come on, Paul! Speak up!”
Paul, who had resembled Sam since infancy, was now a plain stout three-year-old apparently incapable of speech.
A bright little thing danced up to me. “Hello!” it said, and jumped up and down like a puppy waiting to be patted.
I picked up Samantha and gave her a hug. She wore a little pink dress and a pink bow in her wavy fair hair, and I was immediately reminded of Vicky. “Hi—who are you?” I said, pretending I didn’t know, and thought how odd it was that all four children had inherited Sam’s eyes.
“Samantha’s cute,” I said to Vicky as we traveled crosstown in my new maroon Cadillac, and tried to stop myself thi
nking: But Samantha can’t take over the bank.
I attempted to talk to my grandsons but soon gave up. If they were an example of a British upbringing, it was no wonder Britain was heading for the rocks.
“Please don’t mind the boys being shy, Daddy,” said Vicky awkwardly later when we were all relaxing in the Rembrandt Room after lunch. “It’s just that everything’s so new and strange to them.”
I at once hated myself for failing to conceal my feelings. “Honey, of course I don’t mind them being shy! Why, I was shy myself when I was small.”
“They’re really very sweet,” said Vicky, and suddenly for no reason she began to cry.
I was shocked. “Sweetheart, they’re wonderful! How could you ever think—”
“I’ve tried so hard to give you what you wanted,” she interrupted, the tears streaming down her face. “I’ve tried so hard to be the sort of daughter you wanted me to be, I’ve tried so hard to make up for not being a boy.”
“Vicky!” I was paralyzed. At the far end of the room Sam left Alicia and moved toward us. “Vicky, I love you the way you are—I’ve never wanted you to be any different! Vicky, I’d rather have you than all the sons in the world!”
“Okay, Neil,” said Sam quietly. “I’ll handle this. Come along, honey. You’re very tired. I’ll take you upstairs to rest.”
Still weeping, she allowed him to lead her away. The nurses took the children off to the nursery, but I barely noticed. I went on sitting in my chair until at last Alicia came over to me.
“What happened, Cornelius?” she asked, puzzled.
“I don’t understand,” my voice said. “She can’t truly believe …” I broke off again, then repeated, “I don’t understand.”
“I shouldn’t worry. She’s probably just overwrought. The last six months must have been very exhausting for her.”
“But what did she mean? She said … Alicia, during all the years we’ve been married, have I ever once said to you that I wished Vicky was a boy?”
“No. But I expect you thought it occasionally.”
“Never!” I felt very upset. “I loved her exactly as she was!”
“But who was she, Cornelius? We all know you’ve always loved her, but who have you really been loving? Was it Vicky? Or was it some ideal image that exists only in your mind? And if it really is Vicky you love, then who is Vicky, Cornelius? I’m not at all sure I know the answer. After all these years, I guess I can finally admit to you that Vicky’s an enigma to me. I’ve never understood her and I doubt now if I ever shall.”
We were silent, but at last she said, not unkindly, but with sympathetic concern, “Well, Cornelius? Be honest. How well do you really know your own daughter?”
“You’re talking nonsense,” I said roughly, and turned away.
III
“Daddy,” said Vicky the next morning when we went for a stroll together in the garden after breakfast, “I do apologize for that ghastly scene yesterday. I think all the upheaval of moving must have finally unhinged me! Please can we treat the scene as if it had never happened?”
I thought of Alicia saying eighteen months before: “We’ll pretend this never happened. … How many people really have the courage to live wholly in the truth? Not me, that’s for sure. And not you either.”
Automatically I heard my voice say, “Vicky, you’ve got to be truthful with me. You’re the most important person in my life, and if something’s wrong, I want to know about it so that I can help put things right. Aren’t you happy with Sam?”
“But of course I am! Darling Sam, he’s been an absolute angel—truly, Daddy, I couldn’t have a more patient, kind, understanding husband. I’m so lucky, you see … always so lucky.”
“Are you upset by Sam’s decision to buy a house in Westchester? Is that the problem? Are you worried about settling down in the suburbs?”
“No, no, I’m sure it’ll be best for the children—I’m sure Sam’s right. Sam’s always right. He’s so wonderful, making all the big decisions and saving me from so much worry and anxiety. I just don’t know what I’d do without him.”
“You really mean that?”
She looked at me with her clear candid gray eyes. “Of course I mean it!” she insisted impatiently, and then she kissed me, slipped her hand into mine, and exclaimed, laughing, “Oh, Daddy, please stop asking such silly questions. …”
IV
We had another fourteen months to go before the catastrophe, but the fourteen months passed with increasing speed. At first Vicky was occupied with house-hunting, and later, when Sam had approved her choice, she had the task of arranging the alterations which were necessary before the furniture could be moved in. I saw less of her than I saw of the grandchildren, who remained at my house on Fifth Avenue during this period of domestic upheaval. Meanwhile Sam had asked Alicia if she could help Vicky, and whenever Alicia wasn’t occupied with my family she was busy with her own. Sebastian, who had married Elsa the previous spring, had quickly become a father, while Andrew and Lori were reproducing themselves with monotonous regularity. Alicia might no longer have a lover, but she could hardly complain that time hung heavily on her hands.
Sam and I were occupied too: with each other. After he had demanded to be joint senior partner I had hardly expected him to slip back into his old subservient role of right-hand man, but I was jolted when he revealed not only a taste for autocracy but a determination to persecute me until the title “joint senior partner” was accurately reflected in the articles of partnership. Before his return from Europe I was indisputably the boss of my own firm, but after Sam started throwing his weight around, I found I had to make concession after concession, until I felt I was carving up my kingdom in order to keep the enemy at bay.
Chilled, I watched him hire as many aides as I had and demand equal office space; he even had the nerve to suggest I should split my office in two and give him the better half with access to the patio. There were, it was true, prewar precedents for this demand from a joint senior partner, but never when the reigning senior partner had been omnipotent for twenty years. Rejecting his proposal, I bit the bullet and allowed him equal office space elsewhere. Biting the bullet yet again, I authorized the lavish expenditure he ordered on the latest office equipment and electronic gadgets.
The bullet began to seem harder and harder. I had taken a huge cut in my share of the partnership profits in order to meet Sam’s extortionate financial demands without upsetting the other partners, but like all extortionists, Sam was never satisfied; soon he was agitating again for an increase in money that would have put his share on a par with mine.
Meanwhile, he had started demanding a portion of the prestige trips I made to Washington to see the secretary of the treasury and (occasionally) the president. He dealt with Morgan’s on a major issue without consulting me. He insisted on two business trips a year to Europe to check up on the London office. He tried to tell Scott how to negotiate with Hammaco. It was rumored he even tried to dictate to Jake, and only backed off when Jake started dealing with him through a Reischman partner who had survived Dachau. I couldn’t help admiring Jake. He was obviously the only man left in all New York who could keep my monster of a partner under control.
By this time I was in a constant state of rage, anxiety, and nervous exhaustion, but the bitter truth, as I had known all along, was that if I wanted to keep Vicky in New York I had to keep Sam happy. He had let me beat him back from Europe once—for reasons which still puzzled me; I supposed he had been unable to resist the opportunity to become a joint senior partner of Van Zale’s—but Sam wasn’t a martyr by nature, and I knew that if I failed to treat him royally, he would resign and take Vicky back to Europe. And Vicky, naturally, would go with him. She loved her husband and children, she was the perfect wife and mother, and no other option would be open to her.
Nineteen-fifty-seven was a terrible year.
Nineteen-fifty-eight looked like being even worse, and when in February Sam asked if he cou
ld meet me after work at the St. Regis, I immediately suspected some new mayhem was about to explode before my eyes.
I kept my face expressionless, but maybe I turned pale, for Sam said dryly, “There’s no need to get excited—I’m not planning another coup d’etat. God knows I’m much too sick of the bank to want to talk about it.”
Nothing he said could have alarmed me more. Sam losing interest in the bank was like God getting bored halfway through the Creation; it just didn’t happen.
I had a meeting midtown that afternoon with the president of our commercial bank, the Van Zale Manhattan Trust, but by five-thirty I was at the St. Regis. Sam was already waiting for me in a quiet corner of the King Cole Bar with a half-finished martini in front of him.
“Have a martini with me,” he said.
“Will I need it?”
“Yes.”
The waiter delivered my martini.
“What’s the problem?” I said, hardly daring to ask.
“I just don’t know how to tell you.”
Taking a sip of my martini, I tried to breathe as if nothing were wrong. “Is it the office?” I said.
“No.”
For a sickening moment I remembered a former Van Zale partner who had fallen so deeply into trouble that he had conspired to commit a murder. “Christ, Sam, is it money?”
“No, Neil, it’s not money.”
“Your health?” I hazarded wildly. Thoughts of lung cancer flashed through my mind. He smoked far too much.
“Not my health,” he said. “Vicky’s. She’s having another baby, Neil, and I just don’t know what to do. I feel as if I’m going out of my mind.”
I was transfixed. “She’s in danger?”
Sins of the Fathers Page 41
