The Genius (48 page)

WHEN THEY PRINTED THE PIECE in the
Times
, David brought it in to show him. Victor saw the photograph of his drawings and turned pale. He dropped his bowl of soup. He clutched the page, crumpled it, turned on his side and pulled the blanket over his head, refusing to respond to David’s questions or to come out. For two days he didn’t eat. David, grasping his mistake, made a promise to Victor, one that seemed to reassure him a little. Then David called Tony and told him to get those drawings back at any cost.

THE PAGES WERE OLD AND FRAGILE; they’d been disassembled into individual panels. David stood at the bedside while Victor flipped through them, lingering over a picture of five dancing angels and a rusty star. David asked if Victor was happier now. Instead of answering, Victor got out of bed and limped down across the room to the window overlooking Ninety-second. With difficulty he raised the sash, then took the drawings and, one by one, shredded them out over the sidewalk. It took ten long minutes to get rid of everything, and David had to work not to raise objections. They’d probably be fined for littering. Add a hundred dollars to the two million they’d already spent. But money was just money, and when Victor was done he looked calmer than he ever had. For the first time in weeks he looked David in the face, wheezing slightly as he crawled back into bed and turned on the TV.

THAT ISN’T THE ONLY WAY in which Tony’s plan has proved a disappointment. It has failed altogether at its primary goal. His youngest son never wrote a thank-you card, never called. David supposes that this is fitting. He reaps what he has sown. Born alone, he will die alone.

At least he has Victor. They are, he supposes, two of a kind.

And he has the house on Fifth. In a way, it has been his most constant companion, if not the most genial one. Since inheriting it, David Muller has had four wives, four children, countless domestics, and several lifetimes’ worth of headache, both literal and metaphorical. Drafty as ever, it remains a constant source of aggravation: rust-chewed pipes and falling plaster and windows that never seem to stay clean longer than a few days. Only an overgrown sense of filial loyalty has kept him from turning the place into a museum, and when he’s gone, that’s exactly what he intends to happen.

His doctor likes him to exercise, and so David skips the elevator in favor of the stairs. Three times a day up and down he goes, from the reception rooms and the portrait gallery to the ballroom to Victor’s bedroom and then to his own bedroom, his father’s former suite. He will sometimes stand in the hallway where as a boy he listened to the sound of breaking glass. He never goes to the fifth floor.

TONY SAYS, “ETHAN CALLED.”

David looks up from his paper.

“He wants to come by.”

“When.”

“Tomorrow.”

A silence.

David says, “What does he want?”

“He wants to give the rest of the drawings back.”

A silence.

Tony says, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

THE NEXT DAY DAVID RISES EARLY, showers and dresses and walks downstairs to greet his son, who arrives in a taxi and who seems ambivalent. They shake hands, then stand there reading each other. David is about to suggest that they head upstairs to the study when his son asks to have a look at the portrait gallery.

“By all means.”

There is Solomon Muller, smiling kindly. Beside him, his brothers: Adolph with the crooked nose and Simon with the warts and Bernard with the bushy balloons of hair at either side of his head; Papa Walter, looking like he has eaten too much peppery food; and Father, his long, thin body forced out of joint to keep him within the frame. Bertha’s is the only portrait of a Muller woman, and it is slightly bigger than the men’s. There is a spot for David’s own portrait and two panels that remain undedicated. Leading to the awkward and unstated question of where—

Preemptively: “I don’t want one.”

“You might change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

David looks at his son, who is staring angrily at the blank burled maple, and for the first time, he understands how difficult it must be for him to be here.

As they climb to the second floor, David talks about bringing Nadine to see the house, and what she did when she saw the ballroom.

“She screamed.” He smiles. “She really did.” He opens the door on the vast, dark room, its expanse of unused wood like a frozen sea. Their footsteps echo. Above them the gilt is dumb, and the bandstand seems to be hunkered down and shivering. He really ought to turn up the heat a notch.

He says, “We danced. There was no music but we were going for an hour or more. Your mother was a terrific dancer, did you know that?”

“I didn’t.”

“She was.” Then David has the crazy impulse to grab his son and waltz him around the room, so he says, “Should we talk turkey?”

THE NEGOTIATIONS LAST less than five minutes; his son will not take any money.

“Something, at least; you’ve worked hard, they’re yours—”

“All I did was put them up on the wall.”

“I understand that you feel a sense of—”

“Please don’t argue with me.”

David studies his son, who has grown to look more like Nadine than he ever could have imagined. He could never deny her. And yet he’s had no problem denying his son. He could argue with him now; in fact, he wants to argue with him, wants to show him the error of his ways.

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Okay.”

“They’re back at the Courts. Tony can handle it, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s that.”

A silence.

David says, “I don’t want to keep you.”

“I don’t have anywhere I need to be.”

A silence.

“In that case,” David says, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

THE DOOR IS SLIGHTLY AJAR. David knocks anyway. When they enter, the man in the bed is half asleep, almost invisible beneath two heavy comforters. He sits up a little at the sight of visitors. His eyes are watery; they move and search; but as Ethan steps forward—saying to David a word he has not heard in a long time, in a way David can never remember hearing— asking, Dad?—they begin to focus.

Several people made this book possible by providing information, personal references, or both. Many thanks to Ben Mantell, Jonathan Steinberger, Nicole Klagsbrun, Loretta Howard, Stewart Waltzer, Jes Handley, Catherine Laible, Barbara Peters, Jed Resnick, and Saul Austerlitz.

As always, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Liza Dawson and Chris Pepe. Thanks also to Ivan Held, Amy Brosey, and everyone at Putnam.

Thanks to my parents and siblings.

I could not write anything without the ideas, support, and advice that my wife supplies, selflessly, day after day. Her name belongs on the cover as much as mine.