Solomon Gursky Was Here

by Mordecai Richler

  “Congratulations.”

  “Fuck you too,” Barney said, and when the telephone rang he lunged for it. “Yeah, right. Sure he’s here. He’s been here for days. It’s for you, Moe. Your boss wants you to file a report on me. Boy, did I ever have you figured.”

  Moses took the call in the kitchen.

  “Moses, this is Harvey Schwartz. Mr. Bernard has died. No matter what you think, he was a great human being. I say that not because of my unique relationship with the family but from the heart.” Harvey told him what had happened. The raven, the harpoon. “In your opinion could this have been Henry’s doing?”

  “Henry wouldn’t besmirch himself doing such a thing.”

  “If it wasn’t Henry, who was it, then?”

  “Henry would quote Ben Sira to you. ‘Seek not things that are too hard for thee, and search not things that are hidden from thee.’ Was there a ‘gimel’ carved into the harpoon?”

  “Yes. Now tell me why anybody would commit such an obscene act?”

  “You wouldn’t understand, Harvey,” he said, hanging up. Then, his heart thudding, Moses went to pack. The ravens gathering. A sinister influence at work in the White House. A “gimel”. I’m crazy, Moses thought. But he had already decided to fly to Washington. What else could he do?

  The next morning Jim and Moses stood by the dining-lodge window, sipping coffee, as they watched Barney pose for picture after picture with his catch.

  “He belongs to some kind of sportsman’s club back in Chapel Hill,” Jim said, “they meet once a month, and when he gets back he shows them his slides. This time he’s going to boast about how he came out here, fishing salmon for the first time, and came out top rod. The least you could do is cancel your cheque.”

  Moses left Vince’s Gulch after breakfast, stopping at the post office in Campbellton to mail a small box to Chapel Hill.

  “You’ll have to fill out a customs declaration,” the clerk said, taking the box. “Hey, this is awful heavy.”

  “It should weigh exactly five pounds.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Pebbles.”

  “Pebbles?”

  “Pebbles.”

  Four

  Harvey, an insomniac, could sleep comfortably these days, knowing it was not a total waste of time. Even while he drifted off, ostensibly an idling engine, his stocks were working in overdrive for him. His burgeoning shares in Acorn and Jewel. His fattening private portfolio.

  Harvey’s day started out like a bell-ringer. Becky didn’t make one rude remark to him at breakfast. Picking up the front section of the Gazette at the table, he saw that it was Watergate, Watergate, Watergate everywhere. Harvey, as usual, waited until he got to the office to read the sports section. Bad omen. Turning to the box scores, he was brought up short by an item on the opposite page:

  I WAS JAILED

  BY MISTAKE

  MAN SAYS

  A Montreal West man who was thrown into jail when he went to bail out his brother-in-law has filed a $200,000 lawsuit against three Montreal Urban Community police, a provincial policeman, the MUC and Quebec’s solicitor general.

  Hector Lamoureux is claiming for moral damages, humiliation, loss of freedom, anxiety and anguish after his illegal arrest and more than 48 hours behind bars. His problem began—

  Miss Ingersoll buzzed to say Lionel Gursky was on the line from New York.

  “My father’s only been in his grave for a week,” Lionel said, “and it’s started again.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “I’m talking millions of dollars in shares, all of which were acquired in Montreal this time, through Clarkson, Frost & McKay. Isn’t Tom Clarkson a neighbour of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’d just better find out who his client is and what he’s after and call me back.”

  Harvey had now been rooted in his house high in Westmount long enough for him to have grown familiar with his street. Its rhythms, its moods. Eight o’clock every morning, rain or snow, as his chauffeur backed his Mercedes out of his garage, the Jamaican Clean-Up Brigade, eyes swollen with sleep, began to lumber resentfully up the hill. One sullen, parcel-laden cleaning lady following another. And if Harvey was early starting out for the office he was bound to run into the Italian gardeners, a ferocious swarm, blasting compulsively on the horns of their pickup trucks as they swooped from house to house, ploughing the driveways clear of snow in winter and laying in beds of impatiens and petunias in summer, bellowing each to each, no matter what the hour, over the roar of their power mowers or snowblowers.

  Further down the street was that most esteemed of Belvedere residents, Tom Clarkson, with his second wife, his surprising bride of a month, a girl called Beatrice. Tom was tall and thin, almost delicate, with sandy hair and piercing blue eyes. He had about him the manner of a man who would have been disappointed rather than angry with a maître d’ who didn’t show him to the best table. He served on symphony and museum boards because it was clearly his duty. He was also a collector: jade, nineteenth-century porcelain.

  Tonight Tom Clarkson had a problem. Over the past three days Tom hadn’t returned four phone calls from Lionel Gursky’s office and now Harvey, the family’s pet cobra, was coming to the house, having been impulsively invited to the party by Beatrice. Mind you, she hadn’t had much choice in the matter. On Monday she ran into him at Dionne’s, Harvey introducing himself, explaining they were neighbours now. “I’ll bet you’re an Expo fan. Any time you want to use my box, just let me know.”

  Tuesday she met Honor Parkman for drinks at the Ritz and when she called for the bill she found that it had already been paid, which baffled her until Harvey leaped up from another table and waved frantically.

  Out to walk the corgi on Wednesday, Beatrice found Harvey lying in wait. “You’re going to have to cope with a lot of cars on Friday night. I know. We entertain a lot too. In fact, as soon as you’re settled in you and Tom simply must come to dinner.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anyway I just wanted you to know you can direct as many cars as you like into our driveway. We won’t be going out Friday night, so it doesn’t matter if they block the garage entry.”

  Beatrice, of whom Tom’s old friends knew distressingly little, was considerably younger than he was. One night when the Clarksons’ Volvo had broken down on Champlain Bridge, she astonished everybody by leaping out in spite of Tom’s protests, diving under the hood, calling for a rag and a wrench and setting things right. Laura Whitson had once seen her striding down Sherbrooke Street biting into an apple. Betty Kerr, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, felt that she was somehow too experienced for her age. There was something about her, a suggestion that she hadn’t been bred but had scratched to reach her present position, that made the other wives uneasy if not yet censorious. It didn’t help that they were unable to place her, not having been to school with her. Or that their husbands, once having been introduced, gratuitously protested that they found her a tich vulgar, but couldn’t they have her to dinner next week, if only for good old Tom’s sake.

  Her freshly styled bouffant hairdo towering over her like a lacquered black helmet, her fingers swollen with rings heavy as knuckle-dusters, Becky wiggled into a shimmering silvery sheath especially acquired for the party.

  The Clarkson living room was filled with chattering strangers, the sort on whom it only rained capital gains. The men, float of stomach, exuding confidence, their wives languorous, fetching, understated in clothes and manner, easy with each other, but quick to sniff out an intruding outsider. Tom greeted Harvey with a forced smile. “I think it’s awfully good of both of you to come on such short notice.”

  “We’ll talk later,” Harvey said, moving on.

  Tom turned to Beatrice. “I thought he was bringing his wife, not a hostess from Ruby Foo’s.”

  “Now now now. That’s a Saint Laurent she’s wearing.”

  Trailing a morose photographer, the ubiquitous L
ucinda, of the Star’s Lifestyle section, thrust past Harvey, obviously seeking better bets. Pert, bright-eyed, she flitted from group to group, notebook poised. Finally she settled on Nathan Gursky, who immediately froze, like a squirrel caught by headlights as it attempted to cross the highway. “I’m turning tomorrow’s column into the most delicious game, Mr. Gursky.”

  “Oh.”

  “If Hollywood were to film your life story, who would you want to play Nathan Gursky?”

  “Er.”

  Nathan confronted Harvey with his problem.

  “Tell her George Segal,” Harvey said.

  “What about, um, Dustin Hoffman?”

  “I’m picking him.”

  Tom Clarkson had only tolerated Nathan Gursky and the Star’s Lucinda in his home because the party, being held just before a federal election, was actually a fund-raiser for Westmount’s cabinet minister. A most discreet fund-raiser, nobody mentioning the size of the cheque they had brought and the cabinet minister never acknowledging an envelope. He was a lean hound of a man. His wife was a MacGregor. Tom’s Uncle Jack owned a property next to his in Bermuda. Leaning against the mantelpiece, the cabinet minister neatly parried questions about the desirability of a price and wages freeze. Then Becky thrust herself forward, leading with the elbows, as if she were seventeen again and jumping a queue for a table at Miss Montreal. “My name’s Rebecca Schwartz. I’m a published writer. My husband is making a personal donation of ten thousand dollars to your campaign tonight. Now can you tell me if the government favours further wheat deals with Russia while so many Jews, falsely accused, languish in prison there?”

  Holy shit. Before the cabinet minister could answer, Harvey retreated into another room, grabbing Moffat and telling him what he needed to know.

  “Damn it, Harvey, he’s the soul of discretion. How in the hell am I supposed to find that out?”

  Then Harvey, recognizing Jim Benson (CEO, Manucorp), broke into his circle. Since he had last seen him, Benson must have lost thirty pounds. Rubbing his own modest paunch, Harvey winked and said, “Boy, could I ever use a copy of your diet. How did you manage it, Jimmy?”

  An appalled silence settled on the circle as it broke up, leaving Harvey stranded. And all at once Becky was there. “McClure is here,” she said. “He said I looked very soignée.” Becky beamed, pancake cracking. “Oh, something else I picked up. Jim Benson’s on chemotherapy now. They say he’s got six months. Maybe.”

  McClure smiled at Beatrice over the rim of his bifocals. “I must say Tom has done splendidly for himself, but I do hope the children won’t become a problem, devoted as they are to poor Charlotte. Charlotte’s a Selby. Her great-uncle Herbert was my godfather. Her father and I served in the Black Watch together. Are you a Montrealer yourself?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not. Would you be from Toronto then?”

  “Wrong again.”

  “But even a creature as enchanting as you must be from somewhere, my dear.”

  “Yellowknife. I was brought up a Raven kid.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “In those days, in Old Town, you belonged to one mine or another. Raven or Giant. That’s how the kids were known in Yellowknife.”

  “And is that where you met Moses Berger?”

  “Oh my, you are inquisitive, aren’t you?”

  “I only ask because my wife left him a letter and a cherry wood table in her will. I suppose you would no longer know where Mr. Berger can be reached?”

  “Try The Caboose.”

  “What’s that?”

  “His club,” she said, sliding away from him.

  Portly Neil Moffat finally caught Betty Kerr alone. “What about Wednesday?” he asked.

  “I told you not to talk to me here.”

  “It would look a lot more suspicious if I didn’t.”

  Becky was here, there, and everywhere. Busily picking up table lamps to peer at the imprimatur on the underside. Flicking her nails at china pieces. Running the palm of her hand over side-table surfaces. Easing the corners of paintings free from the walls, making a note of the dealer’s name.

  Joan St. Clair kissed Beatrice on both cheeks. “I haven’t seen Tom look so young and fit in years. You’re the best thing that ever happened to him. I understand you’re an Ottawa girl?”

  “No.”

  “But you met there?”

  “Yes.”

  “How nice for you.”

  “Don’t you mean for both of us?”

  Becky sailed into a group that included the Star’s Lucinda.

  “Hello. I’m Becky Schwartz and, talking one writer to another, I think your stuff is wonderfully wicked. If Hollywood were to make my life story, I’d want to be played by Candice Bergen.”

  Quack quack quack. Harvey, who had been stalking Tom Clarkson all evening, finally saw him alone and closed in quickly.

  “Oh,” Tom said, “excuse me, there’s Beatrice.”

  Approaching her from behind, Tom slid his arms around Beatrice’s waist. He kissed her neck. “You’re not being very nice to my friends.”

  “If you mean McClure, he’s insufferable.”

  “He’s so lonely now, darling. His wife was a Morgan. My Aunt Hattie’s cousin.”

  Harvey found the toilet door unlocked, but Moffat was on the seat, his head held back, a bloody handkerchief clamped to his nose. Betty Kerr stood over him. “Get out, you little snoop,” she hissed at Harvey.

  Joan St. Clair retreated to a corner of the hall with Laura Whitson. “She may be God’s gift between the sheets, but the child can only talk in monosyllables and there’s no family there.”

  And Harvey finally cornered Tom in the kitchen. “Your firm put in a huge order for McTavish shares on Monday.”

  “I don’t get to see all the slips.”

  “I’m talking millions and millions of dollars. I want to know who you’re acting for.”

  “That would be privileged information, Harvey.”

  It was three A.M. before a portly Neil Moffat, the sole surviving guest at the Clarkson party turned it into a dirge, lamenting the future of the city, their patrimony.

  “The party’s over, Thomas m’boy. Montreal Piss Quick is not where it happens any more. It’s all Toronto now, perfectly awful Turrono. Outright separatism doesn’t matter. What we’re going to get is de facto separatism. We’re going to be Boston in the new order of things. Or maybe even Milwaukee.”

  Then, overwhelmed by nostalgia, Moffat recalled the good old days, the days when the civil service was still theirs. Not mismanaged by French-Canadians washed and hung out to dry by L.S.E. or the Harvard Business School. Or pushy jewboys out of Winnipeg’s North End. Look at McGill now. Old McGill. Or the Mount Royal Club. In my father’s day they turned down the importuning Mr. Bernard three times. Now Nathan, the old bootlegger’s simpering son, is actually a member. Last Christmas that timorous little twit sent the doorman a case of Crofter’s Best. Compliments of the season. Nobody knew what to say. Where to look.

  Moffat began to tick off possible departures from Montreal on plump pink fingers. All the head offices with contingency plans, prepared to sneak out of town tippytoe if the Parti Québecois ever rides into office. “The Gurskys, I hear, are already abandoning the sinking ship, shifting key personnel into Hogtown. And they know those boys, those clever Semitic mice, they can feel balance sheets in the seat of their pants. It agitates the Jew’s sphincter. Like sex for us, eh, Thomas?”

  Tom yawned. Beatrice began to empty ashtrays.

  “Mind you,” Moffat said, “now that the old bastard’s dead, McTavish is vulnerable. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a takeover bid.”

  Tom glanced pointedly at his wristwatch.

  “Even before the old man died,” Moffat said, “once it was clear he had begun to slip, maybe six seven years ago, our office had a huge buying order.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting. Do you remember who from?”

  “A Brit. A
Sir Hyman Kaplansky. Is that your client?”

  “Mine’s one of those off-shore funds based in Geneva. Corvus Investment Trust.”

  “Preparing to mount a raid, no doubt.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Neil. It would take billions to dislodge the family.”

  “Providing they hang together.”

  Moffat, his nose throbbing, his bladder fit to burst, finally consented to being led to the door, showering benedictions on Tom and his ravishing bride. “You old tomcat, you.”

  Tom found Beatrice in the solarium. Self-absorbed, bending to water the plants, her breasts full. He hurried away to get his camera and began to snap pictures of her, just as he had taken pictures of her reading, combing her hair, descending the stairs in an evening gown.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said.

  He salvaged a chilled bottle of Montrachet, floating in ice and corks and cigarette butts, and brought her a glass. “I’m told Moses Berger can now usually be found in a bar called The Caboose.”

  “We’re going to be fine, Tom. Honestly we are. I have no interest in seeing Moses again.”

  When Harvey got home, he was told that Mr. Gursky had phoned twice in his absence. Glaring at him, Becky peeled off a glittering silver slipper and threw it against the wall. “Shmuck. Why didn’t you tell me they’d all be so underdressed?”

  Then the phone rang again.

  “That must be the massuh,” she said. “Take it, Rastus.”

  But it was Moffat.

  “That doesn’t tell me anything,” Harvey said. “You’ve got to find out more.”

  Harvey retreated to his study, sat down at his desk, and fished a file out of a bottom drawer. There was a killer shark out there somewhere who went into a feeding frenzy, say once every six seven years and then, unaccountably, swam away. A predator of infinite guile and patience who was bound to make a lethal move, sooner or later sinking his teeth into Lionel’s jugular. Well, Harvey reflected, considering his own stake in McTavish, possibly he could be a big gainer in the heat of any takeover bid.