In the years following Prince’s death, Jake had begun taking long trips to distant places. The 1920s had been the years of the company’s most vigorous expansion, and much of this travel had been in connection with that, though Essie suspected that much of it was also a kind of miserable self-exile. Often he didn’t tell her of the imminence of these trips, or their duration, though Charles was always careful to keep her informed of her husband’s whereabouts. At some point in their lives, though Essie could not tell you precisely where, there had been an almost-audible snap! in their married existence, and Essie no longer cared that they now led essentially separate lives, and she would hear with equanimity that her husband was in the Far East, in Tokyo, where he would be dining with young Emperor Hirohito, or that he was in Belgium, where he would confer with the king about a new plant there, or that he was in Hawaii, battling with American Factors, Inc., and threatening to build his own steamship line when there was some question as to whether Matson Navigation would agree to ship goods to the Islands which would compete with another Big Five enterprise—American Factors’ Liberty House department store—or that Eaton & Cromwell had sold 50,000 refrigerators in the year 1926, as opposed to 27,000 the year before. Sometimes it was necessary for Charles to accompany him on these travels. At other times, the always-obliging Daisy was his escort. For some reason—his odd sense of propriety, perhaps—he never requested that both Charles and Daisy join his entourage at the same time, though there were times when both Essie and Daisy were invited to join him. For such trips, Daisy’s role was that of “close family friend.”
Daisy’s position in the Auerbach household was by now so secure that her companionship was no longer a subject for discussion within the family—though, outside of it, who knew? At home, she was simply Aunt Daisy. On the passenger lists of the ships on which she traveled with Jake, Daisy was always listed as “Private Secretary,” and had her own stateroom, though she no longer performed any secretarial chores. Though she frequently spent weekends at The Bluff, even when Jake was away, where she had her own suite of rooms, she had also been provided with a comfortable apartment at 1430 Lake Shore Drive. “Appearances” were thereby observed. Were there also other women? Who knew? There were whispers to that effect. Obviously, this was something Essie and Daisy never discussed and, ah, the power of money to suppress gossip and malicious talk! In some ways, Essie had begun to see hers as a household like that of a Chinese aristocrat, in which Daisy Stevens was Number One Concubine, with all the privileges thereunto entailed. If there were numbers Two or Three or even more they did not intrude. The charm of Daisy—perhaps that was what kept Jake attracted to her—was that she never lost her temper, never complained, never made demands. As for Essie, she was simply, officially, Mrs. Jacob Auerbach, Number One Wife, patroness of the arts, with all the privileges thereunto entailed. It was an arrangement that worked. What more can be said?
And, needless to say, Essie came to welcome the times when Daisy was chosen as her husband’s companion on his travels. It made her meetings with Charles easier to arrange.
It was in this period, too—the years between 1924 and 1929—that Jake Auerbach began expanding his personal scale of living. Perhaps because The Bluff evoked bitter memories, there were now additional residences required—a small, pied-à-terre apartment in New York at the new Hotel Pierre, a big house at Seagirt, on the New Jersey shore, not far from where his parents had once had a place at Elberon (he preferred Seagirt to Elberon, because Elberon was already being called “the Jewish Newport”), and a large camp, with many outbuildings, on Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, where he liked to spend the month of August. Unless there was a special reason for her to be at his side as hostess, a command performance—a dinner for a head of state, or a visit from a celebrity such as Horace Dodge, Charles Lindbergh, or Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks—Essie herself spent little time at these places. While her husband preferred to banish Prince’s memory from The Bluff, she preferred to keep it alive in her walks through her gardens, though the idea of replacing him had not yet occurred to her.
“Weary of them,” she had repeated to him that afternoon after completing the financial paperwork with Joan. “I thought the point of children was to take care of you in your old age. Not to have to keep taking care of them until they’re middle-aged and older. Dependents. You’re lucky you never had children, Charles.”
What was the year Joan started the Express? Nineteen seventy-one or seventy-two. Essie could look it up.
“You made me independent, Essie.”
“Oh, well. That was long ago.”
They had been in her bedroom at The Bluff, she remembers, and it was a late autumn afternoon. Outside, the surface of the swimming pool was scattered with fallen leaves. Emboldened by the fact that Jake was traveling in Germany, where he had gone to appraise the deteriorating political situation and to decide what its effects might be on Eaton’s; that Joan was honeymooning in Arizona with her second husband, who would become Karen’s father; that Babette was off for her freshman year at Smith; and that Mogie was visiting his grandmother Auerbach in New York—emboldened by these circumstances, they had not bothered to meet at the Palmer House apartment. Instead, he had come to The Bluff, and Essie remembers that it was a Sunday. Essie was giving him a back-rub, which he liked because he said it relaxed him and because, that afternoon, she had thought that he did not look well. Suddenly, beneath her fingers, she felt the muscles of his shoulders begin to twitch and quiver. She turned his body to face her. “Are you all right, Charles?”
His face was pale, and his forehead was beaded with perspiration.
“I’m all right.… It’s just …”
She covered his forehead with her hand. “I think you have a fever,” she said, even though his skin was strangely cold to the touch.
“No … no …” But now his hands were shaking violently, and he seemed to be having trouble speaking. His jaw was clenched, and the chords on his neck stood out, his mouth stretched in a terrible grimace.
“Charles, I think we should call a doctor!”
“No … Medicine … in jacket pocket … flask.…”
She rushed to the closet where his jacket hung, and found a silver flask in his left-hand pocket. She quickly opened it, returned to him, and held it to his lips. He took a few sips, then lay back against the pillows. His eyes closed, she saw his face relax, and his mouth softened into a smile. “That’s it,” he whispered. “That’s it.…” There was a faint medicinal odor in the air that Essie had noticed at hospitals.
“What is it, Charles?” she asked.
“Something I take for nerves,” he said. “That’s all.”
“You never told me you suffered from nerves.”
“Close the curtains, Essie.”
Mystified, she did as he asked—went to the windows and drew the curtains. Then she returned to his bedside. His eyes were open now, and he was smiling, and in the semidarkness his color seemed to be returning to normal.
“Ah, I feel so good now,” he said softly. “So good.”
“Please tell me what’s the matter.” She picked up the open flask and sniffed it. The smell, rather like ether, was very strong, and she felt suddenly dizzy.
“No—don’t sniff,” he said in the same dreamy voice, and reached for the flask. “Here, put the lid back on.” She handed him the cap, and watched as he screwed it on.
“Charles,” she said, “please tell me what this is.”
“Phenanthrene sulfate,” he said, “for nerves.”
“But why do you need it?”
“Ah, Essie,” he said in that same sleepy voice. “Essie, Essie, Essie. I love you so. I love you more than all the world. I need it because sometimes I’m frightened. Shall I tell you all my secrets? Yes, I think perhaps it’s time.”
“Please do.”
“So many lies. I don’t want to lie to you anymore. I didn’t know that I’d end up loving you so—that’s the only reason. Will you for
give me?”
“Of course,” she said. “But tell me.”
“Do you love me too?”
“Charles, you know that,” she said.
“Then you shall know the truth,” he said, settling his head back against the pillows and staring up, still smiling, at the ceiling, “and the truth shall make you free—make us free. You see, when I met you on the train, I had no way of knowing we’d end up in love.”
“Just tell me,” she said.
“To begin with, my parents. Haven’t you noticed I never mention them, that they didn’t come to my wedding when I married Cecilia? They’re not suburban Boston. I grew up on a farm in the western part of Connecticut, near Torrington. My parents were ignorant farm people, but I always had big ideas. At seventeen, I ran away from home.…”
“But—Harvard.”
“I never went to Harvard, though of course I’d’ve liked to. Never went to the Wharton Business School. I went to Detroit, first, and worked on the assembly line at the Ford plant in Dearborn. That’s where I learned something about mass production—but I wasn’t satisfied there. So I went to New York, and worked for a while at Macy’s, as a stock boy. That wasn’t getting me anywhere either, but at least I could buy decent clothes at a discount and think my big ideas and have my big dreams, and that’s where I learned a bit about retailing and merchandising. Then a friend said to me, ‘You’ll never get anywhere in New York without a college education. You’ve got to have a college education to be a success in New York.’ And then he told me about Chicago, that it was a young city getting bigger every day. That’s where the future is, he said, and in Chicago they don’t ask questions. In Chicago, nobody gives a damn about your past or where you went to school or your family connections. In Chicago, they’ll believe whatever you decide to tell them. And so I scraped together all the money I’d been able to save, put on my best suit, and bought a ticket on a train going to Chicago. And met you.”
“And the calling card … the address on Lake Shore Drive …”
“Ah,” he said, “you remember the calling card. That was a little luxury in which I indulged myself. But the only things that were correct on that card were my name and the telephone number I gave you—the rooming house where I’d arranged to stay.”
In the darkened bedroom, sitting on the bed beside him, Essie said nothing, thinking: Why have my own children been afraid to tell the truth to me?
“And you brought me to Jake Auerbach.” He laughed. “At first, with the story I’d decided to tell, I didn’t know whether I could pull it off. But now, fourteen, fifteen years later, I guess you could say I’ve pulled it off.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you forgive me?”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “I understand ambition.”
“But it’s been a nervy ride, ever since that train,” he said, hunching himself up on his elbows on the pillows and looking straight at her. “A few years ago, a friend, a druggist, said, “Try this—it’ll relax you. It’ll take the tension away.’ It did. It does. Phenanthrene sulfate. But the only trouble is—”
“Yes. What is it?”
He laughed again, uneasily. “I try not to take it unless I—but the trouble is sometimes I need to, and the longer this damn Prohibition lasts—well, it’s becoming harder and harder to get.” His smile faded, and he was staring at her intently, worriedly. “Am I an addict, Essie?” he asked her. “Am I?”
And so, in the weeks and months that followed, whenever one of the seizures of craving came, with the cold sweats and the violent trembling, she would circle his body with her arms, clutching him tightly against her, whispering over and over to him, “Make one more minute last until two. Make two more minutes last till five. Make five minutes last fifteen. Let fifteen minutes last an hour. Let an hour last a day … a day a year.…”
Until he would finally cry out, “Now! Please!” And she would fetch the silver flask for him.
“Now what’s that damned brother of yours trying to pull?” Jake had shouted at her. It was the winter of 1927 and 1928, and Arthur Litton had reappeared in Chicago.
Essie, seated on a sofa in the large solarium, said, “I have no idea.”
“He’s claiming that he and I signed a private buy-back agreement, allowing him to buy back into the company when profits reached a certain figure.”
“Well, did you?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then you’ve nothing to be upset about.”
“Damnit, it was Daisy’s job to keep him as far away from me as possible.”
Though she did not smile, it amused her to hear that this was his description of “Daisy’s job.” “Daisy’s in Ohio, visiting her parents,” she said.
“I know where Daisy is!” he said. “But the minute she turns her back, your brother shows up like a bad penny. He’s a crook and a liar, and he’s not getting anything from me.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.
“Why was Papa yelling at you?” she heard Mogie’s small voice ask. She had not seen him curled in a chair in the corner of the room with a coloring book.
“It’s just grown-up business,” she said. “Don’t let it worry you.”
“Do you have a brother, Mama?”
“I told you it was grown-up talk, and sometimes when grown-ups talk they say things they don’t mean. Besides, it’s not nice to eavesdrop, is it?”
“This document is an obvious forgery,” Charles said, handing it back to him. “If I were you, Jake, I’d have no further communication with him whatsoever. We’ll turn the whole matter over to our lawyers, and let them deal with it. He’ll discover that extortion is a very serious charge.”
But of course Abe Litsky—or Arthur Litton, however one prefers to think of him—had other strings to his bow, other arrows in his quiver.
“Please see me, Essie,” he said to her on the telephone. “For old times’ sake. After all, you’re my only sister.”
“Jake doesn’t want me to.”
“Do you do everything that Jake tells you?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t.”
“Then see me, Essie. There’s so much we need to talk about. It’s been ten years. I’m your family, Essie. Even if there’ve been differences, a family has got to stick together somehow.”
“Well—”.
“Let me come by. Besides, I have some news of Mama.”
“Jake mustn’t know.”
“He won’t find out from me, Essie—you know that.”
“You mustn’t come here. I’ll meet you tomorrow at the Palmer House. Two o’clock. We have an apartment there. Meet me there. It’s apartment seven-B.”
“It’s a date,” he said. “Thank you, Essie. Thank you, bubeleh.”
Twenty-four
“This is my last-ditch effort to get you to say you’ll come to the dedication of the building, Mother,” Josh is saying to her. It is June, and they are sitting at one of the umbrella tables on Essie’s wide terrace overlooking the city. Nearby, the men from Woodruff and Jones are pruning the boxwood hedges and setting out geraniums and petunias and marigolds in window boxes. In one corner, the big old flowering plum tree in its concrete planter spreads its branches like a tent set up for weddings, and Essie is thinking how becoming the early summer sunlight is to Josh’s full, handsome head of graying hair, which has just the right amount of curl to it.
“Hm?” she says.
“Now, Mother. You heard me. You know perfectly well what I came here to talk about.”
“Oh, yes. The building. Well, that’s still a long way off, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but we need to know now, Mother. Programs have to be printed. Invitations have to be sent out. A lot of important people are involved in this. There’s a chance that the Vice-President will be coming.”
“The Vice-President of the United States?”
“Yes.”
“You know, I can’t remember who the Vice-President of the United States i
s,” she says. “Edith Wilson said a kind thing to me once. Of course your father was just trying to get war contracts, and did get them, but President Wilson didn’t know that.”
“Mother, please try to stick to the subject.”
“Anyway, if you have all these important people coming, why do you need me?”
“Well, you’re—you’re a kind of a symbol, Mother. Of the company.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. I don’t like being a symbol. What am I besides being the oldest living person who remembers Jake Auerbach?”
“A sense of continuity—”
“Bah. Humbug. You’re the continuity, if you ask me.”
“All the generations of the family together. Four of them.”
“Our last get-together was a lulu. Remember that?”
“Is that what’s bothering you? That was months ago.”
“There’d be another fight, I know it. I’m too old to fight.”
“We can hardly have a fight sitting on a stage in front of half of Chicago, Mother. With television cameras, and—”
“Those too? Oh, no, no. I don’t want to, Josh.”
“Please, Mother.”
“You’ll want me to make a speech, won’t you.”
“Not a speech. Just a few words. A greeting. Something remembering Dad.”
“Is the building to be a memorial to him?”
“In some ways, yes. The employees tend to think of it that way. His bust will be in the lobby, as the founder.”
Essie laughs. “But he wasn’t the founder! There was your uncle Abe. And everybody seems to have forgotten about poor old Mr. Eaton and Mr. Cromwell.”
“But he’s thought of that way.”
“If you ask me, none of this makes any sense. A memorial. I detest memorials. Have I told you that I don’t want a funeral? And no memorial services, either. I just want to be planted in the ground, as quietly and quickly as possible. Of course all that’s in my will.”
“There are other reasons why I want you to be there, Mother.”
“Why? What are they?”
The Auerbach Will Page 35
