The Auerbach Will (49 page)

She tapped lightly on her husband's bedroom door, and heard him call out, “Come in!”

He was sitting up in bed, propped up by many down pillows, a heavy man of forty-four who, with the thick mustache he had worn for the last seven or eight years, looked older—his dark hair graying and thinning on the top. He was wearing white cotton pajamas and a blue silk robe and half-spectacles, and spread out on the coverlet in front of him were many file-folders and loose sheets of paper. The room smelled of his pipe smoke and the cologne from his bath, and he looked startled, as she had expected he might, to see her.

“I thought it was the butler with my hot milk and fruit,” he said. “Where are my hot milk and fruit?”

“I'll get it for you,” she said.

“No, no,” he said, reaching for the enunciator button by his telephone. “You've got to stop running errands for the servants, Essie. What do you think we have servants for? The butler, what's-his-name, is supposed to come in here every night at nine, bring my milk and fruit, and close the curtains.”

“Well, at least I can do that part,” she said easily, and moved to the windows and drew the heavy curtains closed.”

“What can I do for you, Essie?” he asked a little crossly. “No Opera Guild tonight?”

“No,” she said, returning from the windows. “And I was feeling a little—well, lonely. And I thought maybe you and I could talk. It's been a long time.” She sat on the corner of his big bed.

He shifted his feet uneasily under the blankets. “Lonely? With all you have to do? Why don't you find Daisy and have a game of Patience?”

“Daisy's in Ohio with her family, remember?” Did he really care so little for any of them, she wondered, that he had forgotten where Daisy was?

“Oh, yes. Forgot. And I thought you were in New York.”

“I came back on the overnight this morning.”

“Ah. Good trip?”

“Yes.”

“Shopping, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

There was another tap on the door, and the butler, whose name was Yoshida that year, appeared with a goblet of milk, with an apple, an orange, a banana in a Meissen bowl, a white folded napkin and a fruit knife and fork, all on a silver tray. He padded on slippered feet across the room and placed the tray on the nightstand by Jacob Auerbach's bed.

“I've closed the curtains, Yoshida,” Essie murmured. “But you should remember that Mr. Auerbach likes his milk and fruit, and the curtains closed, precisely at nine.”

Yoshida bowed and, just as quietly, padded out of the room again.

“That was good, Essie,” her husband said. “Got to keep reminding them. Keep them on their toes.” He reached for his fruit knife and began to slice his apple.

“So can we talk a little, Jake?” she asked him.

“Certainly. What about?”

She was wearing a silver kimono with a silver sash and a white maribou collar, and with one hand she drew the collar a little closer about her shoulders. “I was thinking, coming back from New York,” she began. “So many memories. I was thinking of Union Square, where we used to meet, and of my school, when you taught there. And of the pictures I used to draw of you—remember?—when you thought I was taking notes.”

With his hand, he made a new arrangement of the papers in front of him on the coverlet. “If you've just come in here to reminisce, Essie—” he began.

“No. Wait. Let me finish. It was because I went to see my mother, and the car drove me through Union Square. Yesterday. She's very ill, Jake. And she won't go to a hospital.”

“Well, I'm certainly sorry to hear that,” he said. “Of course for the life of me I've never been able to understand your mother. How many times have we offered to help her out? How many times have we invited her to come here? She won't be budged.”

“No. She won't leave Norfolk Street. She'll die in Norfolk Street.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, now—”

“But that's not what I wanted to talk about,” she said. “It was more that I realized, coming back through Union Square, what a long distance we've come, Jake. You and I. What a terribly long distance—from there to here. From Mr. Levy's shop, and the egg creams. We've moved into a completely different world from that one, and it seems so short a time. We've been married twenty-one years.”

“But—”

“Wait,” she said, holding up her hand. “Hush. Let me finish. When I met you, I thought you were the handsomest man I'd ever seen, did you know that? It's true. Just the handsomest! And I always knew you'd be successful. But you've been more successful than anyone—surely I—ever dreamed, Jake. I mean, it's just extraordinary the success you've been. Who would have dreamed all this success? Did you?”

“Hard work is the answer.”

“But surely some kind of vision, too. You must have had some special kind of vision.”

“Well, yes, perhaps.”

“Extraordinary. And yet, in the process, Jake, we've grown apart.”

His voice had a guarded tone. “Well, perhaps that was inevitable. Separate interests. My business—”

“Oh, I don't fault you for that at all, Jake,” she said. “No one could have had your success without complete devotion to your business—no one. I'm so enormously proud of you. I could just burst with pride, but—”

“But what?”

“But I just wanted you to know that I still have feelings for you.”

“Feelings?”

“Yes. For all that our lives have changed, I haven't changed. Do you remember when you kissed me that first night you walked me home through Hester Street? You're that same man, for all your success, for all your fame. I'd like to be kissed that way again. Just once.”

Once again, his feet shifted under the blankets. “What are you driving at, Essie?” he said.

“Jake,” she said, reaching out to touch his knee beneath the covers. “Now don't interrupt, because this is the most important thing. I know you don't like to talk about little Prince, we both loved him so, and after what happened everything changed between us, between you and me. But what I want to say, what I've wanted to say to you for the longest time, is that I blame myself for what happened. For much of it, anyway.”

“Nonsense, it was that damned—”

“Hush. Listen to me. I was too busy—building this house, decorating it, too busy watching and trying to adjust—that's it, adjust—to your enormous success. I was simply awed by it all, Jake, and so overwhelmed with what was happening to my
own
life, and yours, that I didn't give Prince the time I should have as a mother. Though he had everything in the world I thought he wanted, there was so much more that
I
could have given him, but didn't. I know better now. I would have done it all so much differently if I'd known then what I know now. And so I want another chance, Jake. I want to try it again. I'll be so different this time, Jake, I promise. Even with Mogie I didn't know what I know now. I want to be a mother again, Jake, but a different one this time—”

“Essie, are you saying—”

“I want to be a mother again, Jake—it's not too late! I want to give you a splendid son, the kind of son you deserve. I want you to make love to me, so that I can try to give you one more splendid son.”

Slowly, he reached out and covered her hand with his.

She was weeping now. “Don't you see? I want to fill up your life again and mine. I want to fill that empty place in my heart, and in yours. I want to fill that empty bedroom. I want to replace my little Prince! Please let me replace my little Prince. Please let me try!” She fell forward across his knees and, with her cheek pressed tight against his chest, repeated, “Please let me try.” His hand moved up her arm to the back of her neck.

“Essie,” he said softly, “I had no idea—”

Later, when it was over, and she lay beside him on the big bed, in the darkened bedroom with tears still standing at the corners of her eyes, she said to herself: There. It is done. You have done it. You are what your father said you were, the Whore of Babylon.

Twenty-six

Joan Auerbach and Cecilia Wilmont had, interestingly enough, become good friends, even though there was a difference in their ages of nearly eighteen years, and the two women often had lunch together at Eddy's, a popular speakeasy in the Loop where both were known. Cecilia used Joan as a kind of channel for information about the senior Auerbachs, of whom she saw little. Cecilia had long been aware that Essie Auerbach didn't like her, and she would happily admit—though not to Joan—that the feeling was mutual, thank you. Cecilia Wilmont also made no secret of the fact that she felt that her own husband's brilliance was responsible for Jake Auerbach's great fortune. And she also resented the fact that, though her husband was paid a handsome salary and though she and Charles lived in great comfort on the North Shore, Charles had hardly become a multi-millionaire like Jacob Auerbach. Through Joan, Cecilia was able to enjoy her resentment vicariously.

Joan, at twenty, had just married Horace Schofield, whom she had met in Palm Beach at a dance at the Everglades Club. They had danced to “Sweet Sue—Just You,” and Horace had admired her legs. They had gone to bed together that night, and been married the next morning by a Florida justice of the peace who asked no questions. The fact that he had asked no questions created certain difficulties at the time, since Joan's divorce from Jean-Claude de Lucy was not yet final, and it had cost her family a certain amount of money to straighten everything out with Mr. de Lucy, who threatened to sue his wife on bigamy charges. Joan's father had also been distressed when he read in the newspapers that his new son-in-law was “a Palm Beach socialist.” Joan explained that this was a misprint, and should have read “Palm Beach socialite.” Of course all this was long ago in what Joan sometimes referred to as “my Flaming Youth Period.” You had to admit that, when you looked at photographs of Joan in those days, she was a striking, haughty beauty.

Today, she and Cecilia were sitting at their regular table, sipping gin rickeys, prior to what would typically be a very light lunch, and Cecilia was saying, “You never really drink a drink, do you, Joan? You just sort of play with it with your straw. Here I'm ready for another, and your glass is still full.”

“I can't seem to get used to the taste of alcohol,” Joan said. “Mother can toss off three martinis just like that, and not feel a thing. Not me.”

“Really …”

It was a delicate subject, Joan knew, because Cecilia had a certain reputation in Chicago for drinking a bit too much on occasion, and making a fool of herself at parties. “Speaking of Mother,” Joan said, “are you ready for some perfectly revolting news?”

“What's that?” said Cecilia, all ears.

“She's gotten herself, as they say, in an interesting condition.”

“Really!”

“
Enceinte
. I think it's disgusting.”

“Really? Why?”

“Don't you think she's a little
old
to be having another baby?”

“How old is she?”

“Thirty-seven. And how can I possibly relate to a baby brother or sister that much younger than myself, who'll be spoiled rotten, you know that.”

“Yes …”

“And suppose Horace and I decide to have a child. I'll have a baby brother or a sister just about the same age as my own child. It's embarrassing.”

“I see what you mean,” Cecilia said.

“I think older people ought to use a little more—restraint.”

Cecilia's fresh drink had arrived. “Of course, I don't really have to worry about that,” she said. “My husband's not really interested in sex.”

“Really, Cecilia?”

“Minimally. For a while I wondered if he was—you know, one of those. But then I decided that it's just because all his energy goes into business.” She sighed and sipped her drink. “How's Horace in that department?” she asked. “I must say when I saw him in his tights at the Souters' masquerade party, he looked awfully—well hung.”

Joan giggled. “He likes to tie me up,” she said.

“Really?” Cecilia said, leaning forward eagerly. “Is that
fun
, Joan?”

Joan extracted a cigarette from her gold case and lighted it with a gold lighter that matched. She inhaled, blew out a thin stream of smoke, then put her head back, shook her short bobbed hair, and smiled mysteriously. “'Nuff said,” she said at last.

Of course it was not until several years later, after Joan's daughter Karen was born, that Horace Schofield accidentally tied his wife up too tightly in that California hotel room, and there were screams, and blood, and the police came, and the ambulance, and there was all that unpleasant business in the newspapers, and Horace tried—but all that was long ago, and ancient history. If you read about it then, you wouldn't want to hear about it here.

It was not from Essie, but from his wife, that Charles heard the news, which was not the way she had planned for him to hear it, but then she had developed no clear plan for how to tell him, or what to say, or when.

“There's a question I could ask you,” he said quietly. “Unless you'd rather that I didn't ask it.”

She thought about this for a moment. “I think I'd rather you didn't ask,” she said finally.

“Very well. I won't,” he said. “Ever.”

“I'll just tell you that Jake suspects nothing.”

He nodded.

“And he never will.”

“Yes.”

“Will this affect the way you feel about me, Charles?”

“Everything that happens to you affects the way I feel. I can't help that. It always has. It always will. Nothing ever happened before I met you. Cecilia was supposed to drive you out of my thoughts. It didn't work. Nothing worked. This won't do it either.”