Sins of the Fathers (4 page)

Jake looked around as if he were surprised there was no butler – or at the very least a uniformed maid – to attend to the
door.

‘Teresa,’ said Kevin, ‘don’t we have any olives for Sam’s martini?’

The doorbell rang again.

‘Will one of you goddamned millionaires get off your backside and answer that door!’ shrieked Teresa.

For the first time Jake looked at her with considerable interest but I was the one who left the room as the bell rang for
the third time.

Confused thoughts slowed my progress down the hall. Why had I tried to leave? Of course I had to stay. I could hardly leave
my conversation with Teresa on such an unfinished note. If there were problems they had to be talked out. The work could surely
wait until the problems were solved … but what kind of problems were they? And was Teresa right in saying I just didn’t begin
to understand?

In a haze of exhaustion and acute anxiety for the future I pulled open the front door and found Cornelius on the doorstep.
We stared at each other in disbelief.

‘What are you doing here?’ I said stupidly.

‘I thought Kevin might be the one person in all New York who could cheer me up. What are you doing here? I thought you and
Kevin hardly ever met nowadays!’

‘I had a date with Kevin’s caretaker.’

The kitchen door swung open as Teresa glanced down the passage.

‘Bring him in, Sam, whoever he is, and maybe he’ll eat some rice. I seem to have made enough to feed the entire Allied forces
in Europe.’

For lack of anything better to say I replied: ‘Teresa, I’d like you to meet Cornelius Van Zale.’

‘Hullo,’ said Teresa. ‘Do you like rice? Come on in and have some Wild Turkey bourbon.’

‘Some what?’ Cornelius whispered to me as Teresa retreated.

‘Southern liquor.’

‘Good God. Is it very strong?’

‘I believe it’s about a hundred and one proof.’

‘That sounds exactly what I need.’

We went into the kitchen. Enthusiastic greetings followed coupled with tactful inquiries about Vicky.

‘I would have called you yesterday when you arrived home with her,’ said Jake, ‘but I figured that if you wanted to talk you’d
call.’

‘Thanks, Jake, but I was beyond speech. I couldn’t even get to the office today until noon.’

I was moving around the edge of the room to the stove where Teresa was stirring the jambalaya, but before I could reach her
Kevin raised his glass and said laughing: ‘Well, it’s not often all four of us are together in one room! Let’s drink to the
Bar Harbor Brotherhood – may we continue to prosper by worshipping at the altar of Mammon just as our great benefactor – ah,
Mephistopheles! – would have wished!’

I reluctantly picked up the drink I did not want just as Cornelius retorted acidly: ‘Forget the altar of Mammon – as anyone
who’s ever been rich knows, money doesn’t guarantee you one damn thing except problems. Do you think this disaster with Vicky
would have happened if she hadn’t been heir to the Van Zale fortune?’

‘It might have done,’ said Kevin. ‘She’s very pretty. Incidentally what happened to the beach-boy who caused all the trouble?’

‘I paid him off, of course.’ Cornelius was drinking his bourbon almost as fast as his host.

‘How much?’ asked Jake with interest.

‘Two grand.’

‘For a beach-boy? You were too generous!’

‘They didn’t quite make it to Maryland, did they?’ said Kevin, more interested in the unsuccessful elopement than in its financial
consequences.

‘The police picked them up at the state line.’ Cornelius drained his glass which was promptly refilled.

‘The press coverage was disgraceful,’ said Jake. ‘What kind of aides do you have? Couldn’t they have bought off the editors
and issued a single dignified press release?’

‘I’ve fired my chief aides.’

‘I should think so too! When you hire people to pick up after you, you don’t expect to be deafened by the noise of the bricks
they drop.’

Teresa was no longer making a conscious effort not to look at me. She had forgotten my presence. I saw her listening round-eyed,
the unshredded lettuce poised in her hands.

‘What do you think of all this, Teresa?’ Kevin said kindly, drawing her into the conversation. ‘You’re the only one of us
who’s had practical experience of running away from home at eighteen.’

Teresa looked shy again as if she had peeked through the curtains of a lighted room and glimpsed an obscene yet titillating
tableau. I had a moment of immense anger and automatically took a large mouthful of my martini.

‘Well,’ she said awkwardly with an embarrassed glance at Cornelius, ‘I’d say Vicky was lucky that she had a father who cared
enough to run after her and bring her back.’

Cornelius looked shocked, as if it had never occurred to him that some fathers might sanction their daughters’ elopements.
‘But what happened to you when you left home?’ he demanded with the air of a man who feels compelled to ask a question no
matter how little he wants to hear the answer.

‘I went to a big city – New Orleans – met a man I liked, moved in with him and started to paint.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ said Cornelius.

‘Oh, the guy wasn’t keeping me!’ said Teresa hastily. ‘I got a job waitressing and we shared the household expenses fifty-fifty.
Of course I’m not suggesting your daughter should follow in my footsteps, but—’

‘—but a little sex never did anyone any harm,’ said Kevin comfortably.

‘I categorically disagree one hundred per cent,’ said Cornelius, very pale.

‘Hell, it never seemed to do you much harm! When I think of those wild parties you and Sam used to give back in 1929 – say
Sam, do you still have that great record of Miff Mole and his Molers playing “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”?’

‘You’re missing the point, Kevin,’ said Jake. ‘I’m with Neil all the way on this one – every man wants his daughter to be
a virgin till she marries. You’d better get Vicky married off as soon as possible, Neil. Surely you can arrange something?
It doesn’t matter if it only lasts a couple of years. Even a short marriage would give her the experience to cope with the
fortune-hunters who’ll close in after the divorce.’

Cornelius immediately assumed his most neutral expression and took care not to look in my direction.

‘You’re missing the point too, aren’t you, Jake?’ said Kevin. ‘If Vicky’s no longer a virgin why should Neil bother with this
antiquated solution of the pragmatic marriage? Why not just let her go her own way, make her mistakes and learn from them?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Jake. ‘How can you possibly let a girl go her own way when she’s heiress to several million dollars?
It would be criminal negligence! And who said Vicky was no longer a virgin? She thought she was going to be able to marry
the beach-boy after twenty-four hours in Maryland, didn’t she? Of course she would have saved herself for her wedding night!’

‘Well, if you believe that,’ said Kevin, ‘you’ll believe anything.’

‘STOP!’ shouted Cornelius so suddenly that we all jumped. ‘This is my daughter you’re discussing, not a character in one of
Kevin’s plays! Of course Vicky’s still … well, there’s no question about it, none whatsoever.’ He pushed away his empty glass
and levered himself to his feet. ‘I’ve got to get home. Kevin, can I use your phone to tell Alicia I’m on my way?’

‘Sure, use the extension in my study.’

‘Gee, he was real upset, wasn’t he,’ said Teresa in a hushed voice after Cornelius had left the room. ‘I almost forgot he
was a famous millionaire. He was just like a regular guy.’

I was at once immensely angry again. I also could not understand why Teresa, normally unimpressed by wealth, should have been
so entranced by this fleeting glimpse into a rich man’s muddled domestic life, and I felt humiliated on her behalf when I
saw how amused Jake and Kevin were by her naïveté.

‘I can see you don’t know much about millionaires, Miss Kowalewski!’ said Jake, suddenly producing a social overture so polished
that it was hard to believe any woman could have found such
artificiality attractive. ‘Let me buy you a drink some time and widen your horizons!’

‘Forget it, Jake,’ said Kevin. ‘Sam’s been teaching Teresa all she needs to know about millionaires. Teresa, how’s that old
Lebanese goat in the pot shaping up? Jake, stay and have some jambalaya with us!’

‘Unfortunately I’m dining out tonight so like Neil I must be on my way … Goodbye, Miss Kowalewski – no doubt we shall meet
again. Good night, Kevin – thanks for the drink.’ He turned to me, old money facing new riches, a Fifth Avenue aristocrat
confronting a provincial immigrant, one German-American facing another German-American across six million Jewish corpses and
Europe’s six years of hell.

‘
Auf Wiedersehen
, Sam,’ he said.

I experienced an unbearable longing for something valuable which had been lost, and for a second I saw not the remote head
of the House of Reischman but the friendly youth who had exclaimed to me with such enthusiasm long ago at Bar Harbor: ‘Come
and stay with us – we’ll make you proud to be German again!’ And I remembered how I had felt when I visited his Fifth Avenue
home; I remembered how I had drunk German wine and heard his sisters playing German duets on the grand piano and listened
to his father talking to me in German of German culture in the golden days before 1914.

‘Jake,’ I said.

He stopped and looked back. ‘Yes?’

‘Perhaps some time we might have lunch … I’d like to talk to someone about my vacation, someone who would understand … You
know how impossible Neil is about Europe.’

‘I’m afraid Europe has no interest for me at the moment,’ said Jake politely. ‘Paul Hoffman’s been trying to recruit me for
the ECA and I had to tell him frankly to look elsewhere. Unlike people such as yourself who preferred not to fight Hitler,
I was away from home for four years and now all I want to do is stay in New York and let other people sweep up the European
mess. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really have to be going. Kevin, I’ll see you at the next board meeting of the Van Zale
Fine Arts Foundation – or the first night of your new play, whichever is sooner.’

‘That’s assuming I survive rehearsals! I’ll see you to the door, Jake.’

They left the room. I finished my martini in a single gulp and waited. I didn’t have to wait long.

‘Christ Almighty, Sam!’ whispered Teresa shocked. ‘Were you a Nazi sympathizer?’

I threw my empty glass at the wall. Of course I had had too much to drink. I realized that as soon as the glass shattered,
and taking a grip on myself I said rapidly: ‘I’m sorry, I’m not mad at you – I’m mad at Jake. Back in 1933 I visited Germany
and was impressed by the way Hitler was pulling the country back on to its feet. A lot of people were similarly impressed
at the time, and yet just because I made one casual pro-Hitler remark Jake immediately turned against me and spread the story
that I was a Nazi from one end of Wall Street to the other. I’ll never forgive him for that. I’m a loyal American. I totally
reject the propagandist view that any German who wasn’t Jewish was automatically pro-Nazi. I was rejected from the services
because of my eyesight, not because I was a fascist fanatic with a load of swastikas in the closet!’

‘It’s all right, Sam,’ said Teresa embarrassed. ‘It’s okay. I understand.’

But I was unable to let the subject rest. ‘I know I was opposed to America getting into the war before 1941,’ I said, ‘but
so were a lot of other good loyal Americans – and I
am
an American. I’m not a German. I’m not a Nazi. I never was. Never.’

The door opened as Kevin returned to the room. ‘Well, that’s that,’ he said, ‘Jake’s purred off in his Rolls, Neil’s swooped
away in his Cadillac and we’re all back to normal again – or are we? Sam, you look as if you could use another drink. What
on earth possessed you to bring up the subject of Germany with Jake? Hasn’t it been patently obvious ever since Jake returned
home in 1945 that he’s even more mixed up than you are about the goddamned war?’

I stood up unsteadily. ‘I’ve broken one of your glasses. You must let me replace it. I’m real sorry about all the mess.’

‘Oh, stop talking bullshit and sit down again, for Christ’s sake. Teresa, I’ve got two scenes to rework so if you’ll serve
me up some of that old goat on a tray I’ll retire to my study and leave you two free to make love on the kitchen table or
do whatever you feel is necessary to exorcise all the heavy Teutonic
angst
—’

‘Sam won’t be staying, Kevin,’ said Teresa. ‘I just have to work tonight. Nothing went right for me today.’

‘Teresa—’ I could hardly speak.

‘Sam, I’m sorry – I did try to explain—’

‘You explained nothing!’

‘Oh, stop arguing with me, stop persecuting me, just stop, stop STOP—’

‘Okay. Sure. Sorry. I’ll call you.’ I hardly knew what I was saying. I groped my way towards the door. ‘So long, Kevin. Thanks
for the drink.’

When I was halfway down the hall I heard Kevin mutter to Teresa: ‘Go after him, you fool! Can’t you see he’s at the end of
his rope?’

‘He’s not the only one,’ said Teresa.

The front door banged shut behind me and I stumbled down the steps into the street. For a moment I stood still while I wiped
the mist from my glasses, and then I began to walk blindly uptown.

[2]

As a result of a strike over half the city’s cabs were off the streets, and on Sixth Avenue I boarded a bus for the ride north.
The rigours of the subway were more than I felt prepared to endure.

Behind me two businessmen began to discuss Germany, and I wondered in despair how long I would have to wait before Germany
ceased to be a topic of obsessive interest. Even now, four years after the war, Germany prostrate seemed to fascinate Americans
as much as Germany rampant.

‘Even if they lifted the prohibitions against investing in Germany, who would want to invest? The country’s still occupied,
there’s nothing back of the German currency, and besides there are too many open questions – the Ruhr, for example. If the
Ruhr industries are dismantled … yes, I know the ECA are against dismantling, but just tell that to the French. Keep the German
bastards on their knees, they say, and who can blame them?’