The Auerbach Will (39 page)

Still, there were times with his father that his mother never knew about, never suspected happened. Sometimes, when he was alone in his room at The Bluff, working at his work table, when Prince would hear a tap on his door, and his father's voice asking, “Are you decent?”

Yes, Daddy. Decent, but going crazy
.

Then his father would slip into his room, close the door behind him, and sit on his bed, and Prince would put down his thin strips of balsa wood and his tube of paint or glue.

“What are you making this time, Prince?”

“This is a model of
Flyer I
—the Wright brothers' first airplane that they flew at Kitty Hawk in nineteen-o-three. This paper is for the wings. These are the struts.”

“Very good,” his father said. “That takes careful work.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Prince,” his father said, “have you ever thought about what kind of work you'd like to do when you grow up?”

He hesitated. “I think I'd like to be an airplane pilot,” he said finally.

“Really, Prince? Why does that appeal to you?”

“I think it'd be fun to fly people all over the country, Daddy.”

“Hmm. Well, I think it's good that you're thinking of something that will be serving people,” his father said. “A service business. Of course that's the kind of business we're in at Eaton's. Service. Service to our customers.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know, before I took over Eaton's it was a pretty shabby business. It was a dishonest business. They sold things that were no good—medicines that wouldn't cure anything. Machines that didn't work. People who bought them were pretty unhappy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But I changed all that. I saw to it that our customers got what they were paying for. That made them happy. That's why we've been so successful.”

“Uh-huh.”

“A service business. And—you know—now that you're getting to be a young man, and beginning to think about your future, I hope you'll also think about coming into Eaton's with me. It would be a good feeling to know that you're at least thinking about it. Will you at least think about it. Prince?”

“All right, Daddy.”

“Thirteen is a good age to begin thinking about things like this.”

“Fourteen.”

“Right. It's funny, when I was your age and even older, I didn't think that way at all. I didn't think that it was important to go into a business that was a family business. Of course, my circumstances were a little different. My father didn't own the family business, he just worked for them—his wife's family. I was always under somebody's thumb.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But to go into a family business which your own father heads—that can be a wonderful advantage for a young man. It can be a wonderful opportunity.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And it would give me a wonderful feeling if you did, Prince.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I'll tell you this. From the way things look right now, in nineteen twenty-two, our possibilities for expansion seem downright limitless. For instance, we've been following very closely what Mr. Woolworth has been doing. On our drawing boards right now are plans to move out of mail-order and into stores all over the country, all over the world. Same honest merchandise, same honest prices, but in a chain of stores. It's the coming thing. Does that sound exciting, Prince?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“After all, an airplane pilot can only serve a few people at a time. We serve hundreds of thousands, millions of people every day.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I'll tell you what. Would you like me to take you down to one of our plants and give you a little tour—give you an idea of how our operation works? Would you like that?”

“Sure, Daddy.” It was an offer that had been made often in the past, and it was always postponed.

“Good. Maybe next week, when I get back from Washington. When I get back from telling President Harding what he's doing wrong.” His father laughed. “How do you like that, Prince? Your dad going down to Washington to tell President Harding what he's doing wrong.”

“Yeah, that's pretty funny.”

“Anyway,” his father said, “think about what I've been saying. No need to make a big decision now. Plenty of time. But it's good to be able to talk to you about things like this because, you see, my own father—” He hesitated, clearing his throat. “I could never really talk to my own father because he wasn't—successful. Oh, he was perfectly nice to me. But we all lived together, in one big house—my mother, my father, and my two uncles, and nobody ever listened to anything my father said. They had no respect for his judgments, and so finally he sort of just stopped talking. Can you imagine what that was like, Prince, when I was your age—to realize you had a father nobody paid any attention to? Not even my mother. Oh, he was very good looking, quite the blade, when he was a young man, and I suppose that was why my mother—I suppose that was what she saw in him. But he seemed to lack basic intelligence—in the business sense, that is. He was a disappointment to the family, and I knew that from the time I was a little boy.”

“Basic intelligence?”
Crazy
.

“Not clever in a business sense. They all criticized him behind his back. Or maybe it was because they refused to give him any real responsibility. And my uncles—they just didn't believe in talking to children. And when I was growing up, with a father nobody listened to, and with nobody to listen to me, I got the impression that nobody thought I had much basic intelligence, either, that I was rather worthless, too, like my father. And it was rather lonely for me, even in a house that was filled with people. Nobody ever thought I'd be successful, but I guess I've managed to prove to them that I could be. Do you see why I'm telling you this, Prince? I grew up with a father who I thought had nothing to teach me. I want you to grow up with a father you believe has something to teach you, from my own success. And I want—I hope—you'll grow up with a father you can respect. Do you mind me talking to you like this?”

“No, Daddy.”

“And so I grew up feeling that I was some kind of accident. Why didn't I have brothers or sisters? It must mean that I was an accident, a baby they didn't want. And then I found out that—in fact—I was an accident.”

“An accident?”

“A son they didn't really want is one way to put it, Prince. But you weren't an accident. Your mother and I wanted you very much. There's a big difference. And then, a few years ago—” He broke off.

“What happened a few years ago, Daddy?”

“A few years ago, when he was in his fifties, my father became—well, the doctors diagnosed it as a kind of premature senility.”

“What's that?”

“He became—funny in the head, I guess you'd say.”

Crazy!

“He had to be watched all the time because he did—terrible things. To keep an eye on him they—”

“What things?”

“Children. Little boys and girls. He'd try to touch them, and hurt them. But I don't want to talk about that.”

But there it was again, with its coiling and outreaching arms and thorny tail in the deep water the Undersucker.

“But do you know they still keep him in the office?” He laughed. “For appearances sake—can you imagine that? But that's why you've never met your grandfather. He's become the secret family shame. To keep an eye on him, they keep him at the office. But it's taken my mother and her brothers—how my mother does it, I'll never know. But she's very strong—” He broke off once more. “Funny, but from a distance, it's made me love him even more, but in a pitying way. And it's funny, but I've never told anyone about this—not your mother, not Uncle Charles, not my doctor, not even Aunt Daisy. Only you. Because still, when I get to feeling low in my mind—even with the success I've had, Prince, I still sometimes feel that there's something shameful about the Auerbach name. I wanted to change it once, but now it's too late. And I wanted you to know all this because I never want you to be ashamed of your name, or to have a father you mostly pity. I want you to make the name proud.” Tears seemed to glisten in his father's eyes.

“Aren't you proud, Daddy?” It embarrassed him to think that his father might be going to cry. Whenever his father talked intimately to him like this, he felt vaguely uneasy; it was as though, whenever small cracks appeared in the mask, it was a black reminder that there was a mask. The cracks revealed uncharted territory, and he was on safer ground when the mask was intact and in place.

“How can an accident be really proud? But I've taught myself pride, trained myself, by trying to forget the past. Some days, I actually believe there wasn't any past. That's why I'm telling you this, Prince. You have no past to hide. You only have a future. You're going to be my pride. Do you understand?”

“Uh-huh.” But no, sometimes when his father talked to him like this, he did not completely understand. From where he sat on the edge of Prince's bed, his father reached out a little awkwardly and tousled Prince's dark hair with his big hand and said in his gruff voice, “You know, Prince, I love you very much. I really do.”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

Then his father stood up, cleared his throat once more, and the mask fell into place again. “Well, I'll leave you to whats-its-name, the Wright brothers' plane. Anything you need?”

“Daddy—”

“Yes?”

“Daddy, could I have a lock put on my door?”

His father looked down at him, frowning slightly. “A lock on your door? Which door? This one?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Doesn't this door have a lock? There's a key—”

“Yes, but I mean a lock that I can lock from inside, and that can't be opened with just a house key.”

“Why would you want that, son?”

“I don't know. At school, they don't let us have locks on any of our doors. Guys are always barging in and out. And they have these surprise inspections. I just thought—”

“Well, at school I suppose there are a lot of reasons,” his father said, still frowning. “Such as fire, and—” Then he smiled. “Still, I see no reason why a young man your age shouldn't be able to have a certain amount of privacy in his own home. I'll get somebody to take care of it in the morning. I'll speak to Hans.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Prince said, and his face flushed, for he had just had the sensation of having driven a small stake into his father's heart.

Because there is a monster in this house. It has a name. Its name is Auerbach, Undersucker Auerbach
.

Of such scenes, as has been noted, Essie Auerbach had no awareness. But there must have been other scenes, which, given hindsight, occurred that same year or thereabouts. Hans. Hans the bodybuilder, the bodyguard, the keyholder. Here, for example, is a scene which Essie only imagines happened. It happened—where? Who knows? But it happened. Perhaps it was at Lawrenceville. Perhaps it was at the horse ranch in Wyoming, during that first European summer. Hans—Hans and young Jake are alone somewhere, somewhere in a room. Hans—Hans for Handsome—has been playing his mandolin. Have we mentioned that Hans plays the mandolin? Because he does, he plays the mandolin not badly and smokes many black cigarettes, so put in the mandolin, for music and for magic, and paint the colors dusk.

“You're a beautiful boy,” Hans says, laying down his instrument. Which is true. Young Jake—Prince—is beautiful—too beautiful, some might say. With large dark blue eyes, smooth skin—no adolescent acne for our Prince—dark, curly hair, what used to be called a Roman nose.

“A very beautiful boy,” Hans says, perhaps touching his knee, perhaps running his hand softly along his thigh, perhaps covering the boy's bare foot with his own, while Prince—who knows what Prince is thinking, feeling? One can only guess.

“A beautiful boy,” Hans repeats in that lazy, hypnotic way, smiling that crooked, lazy smile, moving closer until their knees touch, saying, “Look here, Princey, I want to show you something.…”

Who knows whether this scene actually occurred? Essie was not there to see it, and the two principals involved in the scene are no longer here. But something of the sort did. And given foresight—but none of us is ever given that.

Here, on the other hand, is a scene Essie remembers very well. That extravagant decade—the Era of Wonderful Nonsense that was the 1920s—is under way, and Essie has come home late at night from an Opera Guild benefit. It is spring, and Jake is in New York on business. Prince is home from Lawrenceville for the spring holidays. The servants have retired for the night, and Essie goes directly to her room, where the coverlet has been turned down and where a glass of warm milk has been placed for her on her bedside table.

Some time later, she is awakened from a deep sleep by the sounds of some sort of commotion in the hallway outside her room. She turns on her lamp and tries to identify the scratching, scuffling sounds. She rises, goes to her door, opens it, and there, in the weak light from her open doorway, she sees her son, fifteen, in the dark hallway, struggling to open his bedroom door just down the hall. His dark hair is tousled, his necktie is loosened, and his shirt front is unbuttoned. Half-leaning against the door jamb, he is twisting nosily at the knob, which seems to resist him.

“Prince,” she cries, “what is it? What's the matter?”

“Party,” he mumbles. “Kids from school … drove me home … can't get …”

“Is your door locked?”

He mutters something she cannot understand. Then, as she watches, he leans back against the closed door and slides slowly to the floor, where he lands in a kneeling position. Then, falling forward on his hands, he vomits noisily onto the carpet.

“Prince, what's the matter with you?” Essie cries, running to him. Dimly, from the far end of the long corridor, she sees a pale shape approaching. It is Hans, wearing only a white terry cloth robe, carrying his heavy ring of keys.