The Wrong Kind of Money

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  And now she lies in her bed on this sunny Sunday morning, and her thoughts are filled with him. Why?

  He never told her that he loved her. She thought she knew why. It was because to have done so would have been an act of betrayal to Hannah. If that was the case, she admired that in him. For the same reason she never told him that she loved him. It was as though they had a silent pact, always to leave those words unspoken. For Hannah’s sake.

  The most romantic thing he ever said to her was when he once said, “You’re one person I can always count on. Miss Fix-It.” Not the one person. Just one person. One thing he could always count on her to do was to forgive him. She did, even though they never made love again after that morning at Grandmont when Noah burst in on them together.

  His greatest disappointment, of course, was Cyril. He never really got over that. A famous psychiatrist named Dr. Edmund Bergler once told Cyril that his problems with homosexuality stemmed from his hatred of his father. Dr. Bergler recommended that Cyril buy a gymnastic punching bag, pin a picture of his father to it, and “work out his rage” there. This always struck Bathy as an absurd notion. Cyril didn’t hate his father. To be sure, he didn’t always see eye to eye with him. Indeed, there was a long and painful period when Cyril did not see his father at all. Cyril didn’t always see eye to eye with his mother, either, for Hannah has always been a woman who wanted to have her cake and eat it, too, and who has usually managed to do so. Hannah has always been a woman whom it is difficult to feel close to. And Hannah certainly did not handle the Cyril situation well. Though Hannah would never admit it, there were a number of situations that Hannah did not handle well. But Bathy thinks—playing devil’s advocate—when Jules was alive it was difficult for anyone else to handle any situation! It wasn’t until after Jules’s death that Hannah began to come into her own. She proved herself to be a woman of many talents. But being a mother was never one of them.

  Dr. Bergler also suggested that Cyril hated Noah. Not so, Bathy thinks. True, Cyril was often jealous of Noah, because he became so clearly his father’s favorite. But Noah was too kind and sweet to hate. Cyril loved Noah. He loved his parents. He loved them all unbearably, for isn’t love that is not returned the most powerful, cruel love there is? Bathy thinks so.

  The kidnapping episode has always struck her as a case in point. It was certainly a bungled enterprise from the outset. It was originally the brainchild of Joey Fernandez, a youth with whom Cyril made an unfortunate acquaintanceship. Ruth had recently eloped with the Brazilian named Antonio Fernandez-Just, and there was much published about this in the press, due to the wide discrepancy in the couple’s ages. The similarity of the names—they were obviously not related—caught the eye of Pal Joey. Also in the press was the notation that Sr. Fernandez-Just was the heir to a copper fortune estimated at 2.5 million dollars, but that this was “little more than lunch money to Jules Liebling, the billionaire booze baron.” With Joey, Cyril had tried to conceal the fact that his father was rich. But now the cat was out of the bag, so to speak.

  Joey Fernandez’s rationale was this: “If your sister can latch on to two-point-five million dollars just by marrying some spic, why don’t you deserve the same amount? And my brother and I are two spics who’ll help you get it.” And so the kidnapping plot was hatched. Since Cyril’s cooperation was essential to the endeavor, the plan was for Cyril to receive half the ransom money, while the other half was to be divided between the brothers. Cyril went along with the scheme, as he explained to Bathy later, for two reasons. For one, he had made the mistake of falling quite madly in love with Joey Fernandez. But even more important, he was curious to see whether his father, into whose disfavor he had increasingly fallen, would actually pay that much money for his life. Was Cyril’s life worth that much to Jules? Cyril felt he had to know. Was Cyril worth Jules’s lunch money?

  Of course, the answer to that question will never be known, since the money, when it was delivered—with the exception of a few hundred-dollar bills placed on the tops of the packets as decoys—consisted of cut-up newspaper stuffed into garbage bags by Jules, Hannah, Kevin Shaughnessy, and Bathy.

  Of course, the whole scheme was badly botched from the beginning. But as Bathy once suggested to Jules, “I wonder whether Cyril didn’t really want it to be botched—perhaps unconsciously. Unconsciously, he really wanted the plot to fail. He didn’t really want to extort money from you. He just wanted to see how much you loved him.”

  “Bullshit” was Jules’s reply.

  Today, Cyril strikes most people as a very silly man. But, Bathy thinks, what most people don’t realize about Cyril is that his silliness is calculated. Silliness is his defense, his only remaining weapon against the world, his mask. Behind the mask lurks a shy and sensitive and deeply hurt man whom Bathy has always cared for very much.

  Well, Bathy thinks, now at least the trial is over. Another hurdle in their lives has been crossed, more or less successfully. There were at least three bad moments in it, to be sure. One occurred when a particularly dogged reporter for one of the New York tabloids, who kept trying to inflate the case into some sort of sensation, quoted the author William Luckman as saying that Carol’s mother was a patient at a sanitarium called Greenspring Hills, and that Carol’s family had “a long history of mental illness.” Luckman hinted that he might have more to say about the Liebling family later on. This story prompted a small-town parish priest in New Hampshire, claiming to be an old friend of Carol’s family, to call a press conference. In it he declared that he had predicted that Noah’s and Carol’s marriage would end disastrously, and added that Noah and Carol had never really been married “in the eyes of God.” These linked stories made Bathy very apprehensive.

  But this publicity was quickly deflected by, of all people, Yale University. Weary of the bad press their institution was receiving as a result of William Luckman’s best-selling book, Blighted Elms, the university reluctantly instituted lawsuits for criminal libel against both Luckman and his publisher—fully aware that such an action, if it came to a trial, could only generate more publicity, and sales, for Luckman and his book.

  But the gods were kind to Yale, as they often are. If Mr. Luckman had consulted with Cyril at the time, he might have received sounder advice. But, on his own, Luckman decided to act as his own counsel in the case. He figured there would be a public-relations advantage if he were depicted as a struggling young writer being legally harassed by a big, cold university. But in his initial deposition he was unprepared for the plaintiff’s fiveman legal team that faced him in the offices of Cravath, Swain & Moore that day. “Where are your notes?” they demanded. “Do you have copies of taped interviews? What is your basis for these allegations?” After six hours of brutal grilling, Mr. Luckman finally caved in and admitted that the assertions in his book were unsupported by evidence, and were without basis in fact. Thus satisfied, Yale gratefully dropped its suit and settled for a public apology from the publisher.

  The gods were less kind to William Luckman. Less than happy with these various turns of events, his publishers promptly canceled their contract for his next book. Discredited as a news source, Mr. Luckman left town under something of a cloud.

  What Bathy most feared was that Noah’s and Melody’s names might be romantically linked in the press. This almost happened in a “blind” item in Roxy Rhinelander’s column, but as usual, Roxy got things a little wrong:

  Cherchez la femme, as they say in France. Was a recent society slaying the result of a love triangle? Could be. They say it could entail a Certain Somebody’s Best Friend. But isn’t it always? F’rinstance, two best friends were planning a joint coming-out party. Then those plans went pffft. How come? Could it entail a prominent glass manufacturer whose company is going pffft?

  Bathy also worried that Beryl might turn out to be a loose cannon in the case, and might come forward to say that she had evidence to prove that Noah and Melody had been having an affair. But as it turned out, Beryl Stokes h
ad more pressing matters on her mind, which had nothing to do with the disappearance of Bill Luckman from her life.

  At her insistence, Frank Stokes moved out of the River House apartment and took a small room at the Athletic Club. But he also took Noah’s advice and hired a lawyer. As a result, it was discovered that Noah had been wrong about one thing. Frank and Beryl did not own the apartment jointly. All their co-op’s shares were in Frank’s name only. A prenuptial separate-property agreement also turned up. And so, at his lawyer’s suggestion, Frank Stokes put the apartment up for sale.

  The first Beryl learned of this was when the building’s agent telephoned her to ask if that afternoon would be a convenient time for him to show the unit to a prospective buyer. In a panic Beryl called Frank and begged him to come home. After demurring for a few weeks, Frank finally agreed.

  And so the Stokeses’ marriage continues on its uneven, unsteady course.

  But now, Bathy thinks, all this is behind them, thank God. And this morning, after that unsettling dream, Bathy had a sudden urge to get out of the city for a few hours, to get in her car and drive up to Tarrytown to see what had actually become of Grandmont.

  She expected to find a suburban sprawl of pretentious houses, each priced to sell for more than Jules had paid for all of Grandmont to begin with. But what she saw when she drove through the old wrought-iron gates—now emblazoned with a large sign that read MORE-WEALTH VILLAS—LUXURY HOMES AND ESTATES—MODELS OPEN—was something else. The sprawl was there, all right, but it seemed to exist in pockets. Clusters of Tudor and Georgian houses were set apart by wide and empty spaces, with LOTS FOR SALE signs decorating them, as though the developer of Morewealth Villas had abandoned his grand scheme halfway through completion. Here and there an empty lot triumphantly proclaimed itself SOLD!!! Still, the vacant lots looked like the landscape of the moon.

  Probably this was because all the trees were gone. The tall rhododendron and privet hedges, the boxwood parterres, the clumps of dogwood and the old live oaks and copper beeches that once covered the hillside had all been cut down, though their stumps had not been removed. The honeysuckle-covered riparian wall had been taken down, perhaps to improve the view, but a spring rain had left a mudslide at the foot of the hill that ran down to the exposed railroad tracks. The only sight that remained unchanged against this treeless terrain was the curve of the wide river below, where the sight of a few sailboats on the river provided the only suggestions of humanity.

  Gazing at this barren, rocky scene as she drove along, she had the unpleasant feeling that she was attending her own funeral. The streets—some built up, others empty—were narrow and winding, and she noticed that they had all been given the names of French wines: Montrachet Place, Chardonnay Court, Sauterne Crescent, Cabernet Lane, and so on. Had this been done in tribute to the late Billionaire Booze Baron, Bathy wondered. Probably not, she decided. More likely it was just a part of the developer’s fancy. But it might have amused Jules.

  Then, turning a corner, she suddenly came upon a big Lincoln Town Car parked alongside the road. At the wheel sat Hannah’s driver, Mr. Nelson, in his cap and uniform, but the passenger seats were empty. She drove along a little farther, and then she saw her, standing alone in the middle of an empty building lot, dressed in black, looking—from that distance—small and frail and all at once old. Bathy pulled her car over, stopped it, got out, and walked across the weedy, gravelly stubble to where she stood. “What in the world are you doing here?” she asked her.

  She didn’t seem particularly surprised to see her. “I thought I could find where my dahlia beds used to be,” she said. “But it’s no use. Everything’s changed. Do you remember the big white hybrid I developed and the Garden Clubs named after me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I had a whole bed of them planted somewhere around here. But everything’s been bulldozed under.”

  There was a large, flat piece of stone projecting upward from the ground where they were standing now. It looked familiar, and then Bathy recognized it as a piece of one of the stone garden benches that used to be scattered throughout the garden. There were a great many of these benches, all alike, and so it couldn’t possibly have been the same stone these two sat on that night in the heat lightning fifty years ago. But it might have been. “Let’s sit here for a minute,” Bathy suggested.

  Hannah lowered her frame carefully to the stone, one buttock preceding the other as she sat. If she recognized the stone, she said nothing.

  “You didn’t drive all the way up here just to find your dahlia beds,” Bathy said.

  “I had some upsetting news this morning. Ruth called me. She’s going to marry that dreadful young man. That Ector.”

  “Let her, Hannah.”

  “I just smell more trouble brewing for the family. I just smell it.”

  “Let her go, Hannah. Release her. Let them all go.”

  “Oh, I’ve made some mistakes in the past. I know that. Terrible mistakes I’m not proud of.”

  “We’ve all done that.”

  “And I thought perhaps if I came back here—”

  “That you might succeed in turning back the clock? That’s what I thought, too. But we can’t do that, can we?”

  “No.”

  “Each time we try turning back the clock, it just ticks a little further forward. All we can do is keep putting one foot down after the other, as Jules used to say.”

  “I made one decision this morning. I’m going to undivide the apartment and give the whole thing to Cyril. I don’t need all that room. I’ll find a smaller place.”

  “That’s a good decision, Hannah. That will make Cyril very happy.”

  “Yes, I’m rather proud of that decision. Sometimes I make decisions that I’m proud of. Have you ever been proud of me, Bathy?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “When? When were you proudest of me?”

  “Well, for the way you kept our secret, for one thing.”

  “But I don’t think I kept it very well. I’m sure there were some people who suspected you and Jules. I know there were.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But at least we both stood tall. We Sachses do that.”

  “Yes.”

  “We never bowed our heads in shame!”

  “No.”

  “So perhaps there was no need to have it be a secret in the first place. Perhaps it was a lousy secret.”

  “Perhaps all secrets are lousy secrets, Hannah.”

  “Yes. That may be true.” She hesitated. Then she said, “There’s another secret perhaps I ought to tell you, Bathy. It’s such an old secret. I’ve kept it for so long.”

  She held up her hand. “Please don’t,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to know any more secrets.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking at first disappointed, and then almost relieved. “All right,” she said, and nodded.

  She and Bathy had come to the edge of this precipice once before. Bathy could have told her that she already knew what this secret was, and that in some intuitive, almost primitive way she felt she had always known it. As a little girl, there were those searching, guilty looks she sometimes noticed passing between Hannah and the woman they both called Mama, and the sorrowful looks she sometimes caught in Hannah’s eyes when Hannah looked at her, and which she pretended not to notice. Bathy began to wonder if somehow she was different and, if she was different, whether there was something wrong with her. But when she looked at herself in the mirror, she could see that there was nothing wrong with her, and, if anything, that she looked a lot like Hannah. So if there was something wrong with her, was there also something wrong with Hannah? She used to puzzle about this. But then she decided that if there was something wrong with both her and Hannah, at least they had each other’s company, and their differentness, to share. They weren’t alone.

  And then there were the passport pictures. Every few years as she was growing up, ther
e were new passport pictures to be taken, and when the date for the photo session approached, there was great tension in the air. “Next Wednesday at three o’clock sharp, you must be ready to have your new passport pictures taken,” Hannah would say to her, and the date would be circled in red on the calendar page. She used to wonder about this. She wasn’t going anywhere, and none of her friends at school seemed to have this worry about passport pictures and passport-renewal applications needing to be submitted on time. Gradually, though, she began to piece things together. The passport pictures were important to both Hannah and her. They were in this conspiracy, whatever it was, together. The passport pictures were to prove who she was, or who she wasn’t.

  Then, when she was about fourteen, dear Aunt Settie Kahn blurted it all out to her. She’d come to call at Grandmont, as she often did, and her visits were always like Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Settie criticized Bathy, she criticized Hannah, she criticized Jules and Cyril and Ruth and Noah, she criticized the household servants and the gardening staff, who were all people Bathy loved. Bathy hated Big Sister Settie, as she was known to her, even more than the Liebling children hated her.

  That morning, for some reason, Bathy put her hair up in pigtails. And Settie suddenly turned to her and said, “You look stupid in pigtails, Bathsheba. You look like a Polish peasant.” “Polish” was the worst word in her battery of insults. And Bathy, who must have been feeling a little fresh that day, stuck out her tongue at her and said, “I don’t give a pig’s rear end whether or not you like my pigtails, Settie!”

  Her eyes got all narrow and squinty, and she said, “You’re illegitimate, you know. You’re what’s called a bastard baby. Hannah’s not your sister. She’s your mother. Your father was a radio repairman who came to the house to fix the radio. Nobody knows what became of him. Hannah was a fornicator who brought disgrace on the family. The disgrace was you. Before she died, you know, our mama, God rest her soul, tried to foist you off on me because I was the oldest and the most responsible. But I wouldn’t have you. I wouldn’t have you in the same house with decent, proper children.”