by Sol Stein
After Abigail had seated herself near her husband, Jordan said, “I was telling Merle that Cliffhaven place of his is something else.”
“Did you try the restaurant?” Abigail asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it after what Merle said. It’s the honey in the trap, isn’t it? Got a question. How do you make a profit feeding those jewbirds so good and keeping them in fancy buildings?”
“I don’t know that we’re showing a profit yet,” Merle Clifford said, “but we’re getting there.”
“I’d a thought a place like that with a hundred to two hundred people at a time would cost you two and a half, maybe three million a year to run.”
“That’s a very good cost analysis off the top of your skull, Jordan. I figure it’s been running at a rate that’ll work out to two million seven, and the credit card charges and deposits cover less than twenty percent of that.”
Jordan whistled. “Don’t tell me even a Croesus like you is going to fork out over two million a year for his pet project. Come on, Merle, tell old Jordan what you’re up to. Got a silver mine out back?”
Abigail smiled. Jordan was a clever man. Wrong, but on the right track.
“Where do you advertise?” Jordan asked.
“We don’t,” Merle said.
“You could advertise in Jewish publications, couldn’t you?” Jordan said.
“Not a bad idea,” Abigail commented.
“With all due respect, Jordan,” Merle said, “advertising is a bad idea. It’d be seen by too many people. My system of steerers means that most of the people who hear about Cliffhaven actually get there.”
“Steerers?”
“I’ve got more than a dozen now in key cities—room clerks, waiters in good restaurants, people like that.”
“They know what Cliffhaven’s all about?” Jordan asked.
“I doubt it. We just let them know it’s a place Jews’ll feel comfortable in. They get the point. They also get a small stipend per month and a bonus for every person that actually checks in as a result of their steering, when we know it. They call collect and tell us the names. Easy for room clerks. Easy for waiters, too, once they see the credit card.”
Jordan slapped his knee. “Merle, you are ingenious.”
“Why thank you,” Merle said.
“Don’t you ever get a Gentile by mistake?” Jordan asked.
“Rarely. The manager sends them on their way with apologies for being full up.”
“Don’t they get mad?”
“Sure. They swear never to reserve at Cliffhaven again,” Merle said, laughing.
“Don’t any of the guests tell others where they’re going, relatives, friends?”
“Certainly,” Merle said. “We get to keep the relatives who come searching. And the friends if…”
“If they’re Jewish,” Jordan said. “I’ll be damned. You’ve got it all figured out.” He stood up. “Mind if I call Mary? Didn’t tell her I was going to Big Sur or seeing you, ’cause you said it was confidential. For all she knows I’m in Denver or San Francisco.”
“Phone’s right there,” Merle said, pointing. “Behind the screen.”
When Jordan returned, he said, “Damn, nobody home but the servants. No point leaving a message with them, it just comes out in Spanish with the facts all wrong.”
“Why don’t you try again later?” Merle said.
“Thanks. I will.”
As the Japanese manservant appeared, Merle asked, “What are you drinking these days, Jordan?”
“The usual.”
“Sour mash on the rocks for our guest, and martinis for Mrs. Clifford and myself, thank you.”
The Japanese disappeared without a word.
“Could he have overheard what we were talking about?” Jordan asked.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Merle said. “He’s in the United States illegally and has been with me for years. He’s more loyal than a child of mine would be.”
“You’re lucky to have help like that,” Jordan said. “Back home all we get is Mexicans, who sometimes quit by vanishing without notice.”
“Yes,” Merle said, “the Japanese are fortunately not like that at all. A remarkable people. A number of my geneticist colleagues have commented on their high level of intelligence and diligence. They are workers of the first order, and the smart ones are extraordinary. It’s a pity we haven’t devised a way of breeding out their epicanthic eyelids and the slight pigmentation. They’d make perfect Caucasians.”
“And not a Jew among them,” Jordan added, laughing.
Abigail said, “I’ll bet Jordan’s not as forgiving a man as you are, Merle. He probably still holds Pearl Harbor against them.”
“Bet I do,” Jordan said.
“You shouldn’t really,” Merle said, “once you’ve observed their industry after the war and their willingness to ally themselves with us.”
“Hypocrisy,” Jordan said. “Masters of it. The only side the Japanese are on is theirs. Now come on, Merle, out with it. You’re holding back. How do you make that place of yours pay off?”
Merle smiled. Jordan had not guessed after all. “Well,” Merle said, “half a mile behind the compound there are three quite separate small fields under cultivation, worked by perhaps half of the guests in rotation.”
“I knew it,” Jordan said. “Hash.”
Abigail smiled. Jordan was smart.
“Actually, it’s not hash. Do you know what two tons of marijuana is worth in southern California?”
“I’ll be damned,” Jordan said. “You always was the smartest of the bunch. If someone put Jews to good use, it’d have to be you. The staff seemed like nice people. Young. How do you keep the Hebrews from running off?”
A lacquer tray in both hands, the Japanese man appeared, offering Abigail her drink first, then Jordan, and finally Merle. Three thank-yous were the only sounds heard other than the clink of ice until they were alone again.
“It’s all right to talk in front of him,” Abigail said. “He’s completely reliable.”
Jordan wondered whether Abigail had sampled the Japanese man’s favors. He had himself found Mexican women useful from time to time. Hell, she’s probably as nutty on races as Merle is.
“Control is maintained in three ways,” Merle said. “First, the environment itself provides a very nearly impenetrable barrier except for the one road, which is quite carefully, though discreetly, guarded. Nevertheless, we do find that we have a surprising number of troublemakers among the Jews, and not just the young ones. We’ve developed several stages of remedial treatment. Did George show you the lockers?”
“What lockers?”
“You’d remember if you saw them. Next time. Very proud I am of that—inexpensive and most effective. Even our ultimate punishment for the recalcitrants costs next to nothing. Was George Whittaker polite to you?”
“The manager? Very.”
“Did you meet a young staff member by the name of Clete?”
“I don’t rightly recall.”
“Well, both Whittaker and Clete have been trained in a method of permanent disposal that is very American and very secure. However, for the majority the third method of control works best. It was Abigail’s idea really.”
Jordan turned to the woman.
“Whittaker doesn’t sell off the entire crop,” Abigail said. “About six percent is used in the food that the guests eat. They know they’re being heavily tranquilized after a while, but there’s really nothing they can do about it. And the high isn’t bad. It makes up a little for not being able to leave, I should think.”
“Very clever,” Jordan said. “But what about air traffic?”
“Don’t get very much that can see anything,” said Merle. “The PSA commuter run from L.A. to San Francisco flies east of Cliffhaven. Most of the other planes are too high or over the ocean. Helicopters could be bothersome, but we farm under camouflage nets. I’ve been up in a helicopter several times. I know where the fields are, and I
can’t see them from four hundred feet, what with irregular edges and all that surrounding brush.”
Jordan scratched his right cheek with his left hand, a reflex elicited by skepticism. “Suppose you get caught?” he asked. “You can’t afford that.”
“Nonsense,” Merle asserted. “I’ve set aside a contingency fund of a quarter of a million cash for payoffs if need be. What I’m really concerned about is legalization. It’ll drive the price clear down to tobacco, and I’ll have to switch to something still prohibited.”
“You better make sure it’ll grow in California,” Jordan said.
“Not necessarily. I’ve devised a means of transporting the labor force elsewhere if it becomes necessary.”
“You sure have thought of everything.”
“Not true,” Merle said. “That leads straight to complacency. I test the program severely all the time. Does the name van den Haag mean anything to you?”
“Say that again,” Jordan said.
“That’s where the idea grew from. Van den Haag. Dutch. He’s a professor somewhere east. It’s his theory.”
“That fancy resorts ought to be put to better use?”
Merle studied his glass for a moment. Jordan was fundamentally a lightweight. Perhaps he wasn’t up to this. There was only one way to find out.
“Jordan, on the average, do you find Jews smarter than other people?”
“Clever. Shrewd.”
“It’s not just cleverness. Did you know that Jews are proportionately overrepresented in the best colleges?”
“Sure seems that way.”
“But did you know that it’s by three hundred and sixty-five percent?”
“Look here, Merle,” Jordan said, “we all know they push.”
“Surely it can’t be pushiness alone. Jews are only three percent of the population, yet twenty-seven percent of American Nobel prizewinners are Jews. That’s not just drive.”
“Maybe it’s the food they eat,” Jordan said, laughing.
He saw it was a mistake to laugh.
“All right,” said Merle. “It’s about time you gave some thought to this. For over a millennium the only way a Christian with brains and drive could get ahead was to go into the Church. It was the only place that intellectual ability was rewarded in Europe, and if you were smart and not a nobleman, what the hell else could you do? But there was a price to pay.” He studied Jordan’s face to see if he was following.
“This is that Dutch fellow’s idea?” Jordan asked.
“I fully accept his theories. Listen. The most gifted and intelligent members of the Christian population were forbidden to have offspring. Their genes, the best genes, were siphoned off from the genetic supply for over a thousand years, and while all this was going on, the Jews in Europe lived in small settlements where exactly the opposite was taking place. The most intelligent were encouraged to become rabbis. The rabbis were also the political leaders. And their daughters were the prizes for the smart young men. The whole process was directed at getting the best genes together, while their Christian counterparts were leading a monastic life. Just think, if two cars going forty hit head on, that’s an eighty-mile-per-hour impact. And if the same two cars going forty are heading in opposite directions, their speed of separation is eighty miles an hour. When that happens with genes for a thousand years, it’s bound to have had a tremendous impact on relative intelligence.”
“Makes sense,” Jordan said. He wasn’t sure it made sense, but judging by Merle’s high color, it was prudent to agree.
“And what we’re doing at Cliffhaven, Abigail and I, is reversing the process. We’re taking Jewish genes out of circulation!”
“Why don’t we have dinner?” Abigail said. She knew how important it was to Merle to enlist Jordan in his plan to set up a series of cross-country links to Cliffhaven. Jordan was being polite, but he wasn’t enthusiastic. Maybe the dinner she had prepared, laced with an almost undetectable amount of marijuana, would in combination with the bourbon, relax Jordan and make him more receptive.
*
When coffee was being served, Jordan accepted a cigar out of the box of Havanas proffered by Merle, but turned away the cigar cutter, which he considered one of Merle’s pretensions. You could bite the end off with friends, and in uncertain company you could always pinch the end off with thumb and forefinger.
“Merle,” he said, “back in Pinckton ’fore I met you, we had two Jews in that town that I knew of, the fellow that run the jewelry store and the one that owned the clothing store. The clothing fellow made a fair piece of change—maybe he’d make in a year what we’d make in the oil business in a day or two—but that jewelry store sold imitation everything and not much of that. Those two, they were no Nobel prizewinners. I knew them both to talk to now and again, and they were ordinary dumb.”
Abigail thought that if she had both of them in a bed at the same time, Jordan would clearly have her prime attention. But when it came to brains he was no match for Merle, who now sighed, hoping to explain.
“Jordan,” Merle said, “in dealing with population groupings, one has to go by averages, trends, observable differences. Of course, there are dumb Jews like there are dumb everyone elses. What van den Haag makes clear is why Jews taken as a whole tend to be smarter than Gentiles taken as a whole. What I’m about”—he leaned forward on his elbows, bringing his face closer to Jordan’s—“is reversing what happened in those thousand years.”
Jordan burst out laughing. “You and Abigail are starting late if you’re set on having a million smart Gentile kids before you die.”
Abigail hoped Merle would be patient with Jordan.
“It’s a pity we didn’t have any children,” Merle said.
It’s not a pity, thought Abigail, it’s what I wanted.
“My plan,” Merle said, “is to reverse the process that handicapped Gentile genes during all the years the Church was dominant in Europe. It’s not in my power to make Gentiles smarter. But there is one thing I can do.”
Abigail stood. “Why don’t we move back into the living room?”
“Please sit down,” Merle said. He didn’t want to lose Jordan’s attention.
“I am going to deplete the reservoir of Jewish genes.”
Well, Jordan thought, maybe he’s becoming a lunatic, and maybe he’s onto something real smart. Certainly that place he’s got in Big Sur is working out okay.
“You probably think that my accomplishment at Cliffhaven is keeping up to two hundred persons at a time involuntarily out of circulation. Let me tell you the real significance of what we’re doing there. I suppose you noticed that there weren’t any children.”
“Didn’t see any,” Jordan said.
“They are removed at once. They are useless as labor, and just make the parents sentimental and harder to control.”
“Removed?” Jordan asked, letting a questioning stream of smoke escape his lips.
“Disposed of. As are the recalcitrants and the troublemakers. Or those who prove useless in the fields. But the important part—mark this—is that because of the reputation our cuisine has earned—we’re very careful when food editors visit, only the best-behaved residents are allowed in the dining room—and the character as well as the price of the accommodations, we attract, naturally, mainly successful Jews who can afford a place like Cliffhaven. Many of them are past the active childbearing age, but then the interesting thing happens. Their teenage and older children come looking for them. By disposing of them we are gradually eroding the Jewish gene bank, do you see?”
Jordan’d seen fanaticism in religious cult leaders in Texas who’d come to him for money. Merle didn’t want money.
“Look,” Jordan said, “I don’t like Jews any more’n the next fellow, but I really don’t see devoting all that time and energy to knocking off a fraction of one percent of them. It’s like the Klan stringing up niggers long ago. I said that doesn’t deal with the nigger problem. You either ship them all back to Africa o
r leave them alone.”
“You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg,” Merle said. “I see Cliffhavens near Dallas and Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, up past Racine for Chicago people, maybe twenty or thirty of them eventually.”
“You going to run all this, Merle?”
“I envision it more as a series of moral franchises. I demonstrate how it can be done. Others learn what they can from my early experiment, and carry on in their part of the country. In a decade we could have a significant effect on the genetic capability of Jews in this country.”
Jordan glanced over at Abigail. Where did she stand in all this?
“Perhaps you need some more time at Cliffhaven to study what we’re doing,” Merle said. “For instance, did you by any chance notice that there were no pregnant women?”
“I guess I didn’t see any.”
“There aren’t any, at least any that are noticeably pregnant, because the second they are noticeable that’s their last day. Actually, the Jews are smart, as I said, they get the point. Once they’re familiar with the rules, spoken and unspoken, they don’t get pregnant at Cliffhaven. It’s amazing how the human race adjusts to circumstances.”
“May we move to the living room now?” Abigail said.
And so they did, Jordan puffing on his cigar, wondering how much cash this was going to cost him as a donation to get out of any more involvement in this harebrained scheme.
*
Jordan waited till the Japanese manservant brought the brandy for them and Merle had poured.
“What’s next?” he said.
“I’m ready to go national. One step at a time, of course.”
“Jesus,” Jordan said. “You’re really serious.”
Abigail, seeing Merle’s color rise, interjected, “You’ve been there, Jordan. That wasn’t an architect’s plan you saw, it’s a going institution.”
“Jordan,” Merle said, “I’ve taken you into the deepest confidence one man can take another man.”
