The Auerbach Will Read online

  In the center of the larger of the two drawing rooms which flank the entrance, stands Mogie Auerbach’s ancient rolltop desk, a Chippendale piece of considerable importance, its tambour top rolled upward to reveal a certain amount of gentlemanly clutter—a massive crystal inkwell and quill-tip pen on an ivory base, purchased by Mogie in Venice in 1949, and thought to have belonged to Felipe II of Spain; a Chinese abacus from the twelfth century, with ivory bars and counters of pink jade, which Mogie actually uses to figure his accounts; a heavy pair of silver library shears with inlaid mother-of-pearl handles, which Mogie uses to cut clippings from newspapers and journals; and the clippings themselves, secured beneath millefleur Baccarat paperweights; a magnifying glass with a carved baleen handle; a photograph in a silver frame of Mogie and his father at the railing of a sailing vessel; a photograph by Man Ray of Mogie himself, and a great deal else.

  It is at this desk that Mogie does what he calls his “serious” work, which is writing art criticism for various small and usually obscure journals. A partly written article, in longhand, on India paper, is also on Mogie’s desk, conspicuously in preparation. Mogie is the first to admit that he writes slowly. Often it will take him weeks to produce a piece of criticism just a few hundred words long. At the same time, Mogie’s writing displays certain mannerisms, fond as he is of such phrases as “catholicity of taste,” “insightfulness,” and “meaningful juxtapositions.” Just this afternoon, for example, he has written, “Joan Miró’s skeinlike line suggests not only the artist’s catholicity of taste, but reveals his wit, insightfulness, and philosophy through meaningful juxtapositions.” Mogie is rather proud of that sentence.

  It is in this room, too, that Mogie now sits with his sister Joan and his young wife, also having a nightcap after his mother’s party. Joan, whose husband went directly home complaining of a headache, had offered to drop Mogie and Christina off in her car, and was invited in. Now Joan would like to light a cigarette, but knows that she may not, since smoking is not permitted in Mogie’s house. To emphasize this rule, the house on Beekman Place is not furnished with a single ashtray. “If you must smoke, please go out into the garden,” Mogie rather irritably tells his smoker friends at the small, formal dinners for six or eight he is fond of giving.

  “Well,” Joan is saying, twirling the stem of her champagne glass, the contents of which she has not touched, “what did we all think of that performance tonight?”

  Mogie picks a speck of lint off the shawl collar of his dinner jacket and says, with a trace of sarcasm, “Whose performance are you talking about, dear?”

  “Mother’s, of course. Just getting up and stalking out of the room like that.”

  “I can’t stand that secretary of your mother’s, that Mary O’Brien or whatever her name is,” Christina says.

  “Farrell.”

  “I just can’t stand her. She’s so snippy. She acts like she owns the place.”

  “Stalking out—right in the middle of a conversation. Such rudeness. Really.”

  “Weren’t people singing?” Christina says. “I thought people were singing when she walked out.” She kicks off her shoes. “I don’t know about you, honey,” she says to Mogie, “but I’m pooped.”

  “Christina, darling,” Joan says, “if you’re tired, why don’t you just run upstairs to bed? There’s something I want to talk to Mogie about. And alone, if you don’t mind—family business.”

  “But Christina’s family,” Mogie says.

  “Would you mind, Christina?”

  “Oh, sure,” Christina says, reaching down to pick up her shoes. “Because I’m really pooped.” Slowly, she rises from the sofa, goes to Mogie, puts her arms around his shoulders, and kisses him on the top of the head. “Don’t stay up too late, honey,” she says.

  “I won’t, darling,” Mogie whispers, stroking her hand and running his lips along her lower arm. “I promise.”

  “Good night, Joanie,” Christina says, stifling a yawn. “You and Richard have got to come by and see us real soon. I’ll do a little din-din.”

  “Good night, darling,” Joan says, blowing her a kiss.

  After Christina has left the room, Mogie Auerbach sits quietly, a dreamy smile on his face. “Wonderful girl,” he says. “Don’t you think so, Joan?”

  “Oh, yes. Wonderful. Very pretty.”

  “I’m a lucky man. A very lucky man.”

  “I’m so happy for you, Mogie.”

  “Do you know that she’s the first woman with whom I’ve been able to achieve a full erection?”

  Joan makes a small choking sound. “Really, Mogie,” she says at last, “why did you think I’d want to know a thing like that?”

  “My doctor says I should tell people. ‘Extemporize your feelings,’ he says. ‘Act them out. Free associate, in order to get into your primary process.’ It’s really very helpful. He’s very pleased with the way it’s going.”

  “Of course you go to that damned Jungian,” Joan says. “But what I really want to talk about is Mother. Mogie, we’re going to have to do something about Mother.”

  “Really? What’s wrong with her? She seems perfectly fine to me.”

  “She’s becoming senile, Mogie. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Do you really think so, Joan?”

  “Oh, there’s no question about it, darling. Going quite gaga. That business about giving her paintings to the Metropolitan—sheer insanity. If that collection went into her estate, it’d be taxed until there’d be nothing left. It’s got to be sold, Mogie, and soon. We’ve got to do something before she—well, dies.”

  Mogie studies his sister across the quiet room, and carefully crosses one elegantly tailored knee atop the other. “Speaking of performances,” he says at last, “I thought yours was rather spectacular tonight. Quite worthy of a Bernhardt, if you ask me.”

  “Well, I did get angry.”

  “And of course it was me you were talking about, wasn’t it. Not Josh.”

  “Nonsense, Mogie.”

  “Nonsense? That business about Josh not knowing what it was like to be poor. You were looking at me when you said that. It was directed to me.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “You’ve always hated me, Joan. You know that. You never wanted me to be born. Miss Kroger told me that when I was little. ‘Your sister never wanted you to be born,’ she said, and a nanny doesn’t lie.”

  “Well, she was lying. I always hated Miss Kroger, if you want to know the truth!”

  “So you’ve been punishing me for being born for sixty years.”

  “That’s your Jungian talking again.”

  “I only mention it because it’s pivotal to this particular dynamic,” Mogie says.

  “But it has nothing at all to do with what I want to talk to you about. Nothing at all.”

  “Then what do you want to talk about, Joan?”

  “Mother. And what we’re going to do about her.”

  “Well,” he says carefully, “what do you propose we do, exactly?”

  Joan hesitates, setting down her glass of champagne. “I don’t suppose you’d bend the rules just once, and let me have a cigarette. Just one. A quick puff.”

  “Now, Joan—”

  “Sorry. Shouldn’t have asked. Anyway—” She picks up her glass and studies it. “Anyway, you’re almost ten years younger than I am, so I don’t suppose you remember Uncle Abe. Mother’s brother—Abe Litsky.”

  “Oh, I know he was somehow in the picture for a while,” Mogie says.

  “Yes. Very much so. He lived with us on Grand Boulevard when Babette and I were children. He helped Papa get started at Eaton’s. He was important long before Charles Wilmont came along.”

  “Then something happened.”

  “Yes. And I’m not sure yet exactly what, but there was something, some kind of falling out. Papa bought Uncle Abe out, and as far as I know the two never spoke to each other again.”

  “This is all very ancient history,” Mog
ie says. “We’re talking about pre-World War One, before I was even a glimmer in Papa’s eye, as they say.”

  “I know.” Joan stands and begins to pace back and forth across the room, a thin, moving exclamation point in her short black dress. “Now—second question. Does the name Arthur Litton mean anything to you?”

  “Vaguely. Prohibition. Bootlegging—”

  “And extortion. And the rackets. And the longshoremen, and the Teamsters, and Las Vegas gambling. And prostitution, and drugs—probably.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Very much so. Alive and well and living in Hollywood Beach, Florida, with a new wife and two Welsh corgis.”

  “Fine. But so what?”

  “They call him Mr. Untouchable. A life spent in and around organized crime, arrested dozens of times, but never spent a night in jail. They couldn’t even get him on income tax. The worst they could do to him was revoke his passport, so he can’t skip the country.”

  “All very interesting. But again, so what?”

  “I had my people at the Express go through all the old files, all the old newspaper clippings, asked them to find out everything they could about the early days of Eaton and Cromwell, and everything they could about Arthur Litton.” She goes to the table where she has laid her handbag, opens it, and takes out a sheaf of papers secured with a rubber band. “I brought some of these things along to show you, Mogie,” she says, “because what would you say if I told you that Arthur Litton is Abe Litsky?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I am quite serious. It’s all here—photographs, news stories, everything. Arthur Litton is our Uncle Abe—Mother’s long-lost baby brother!”

  Mogie slips the rubber band from the sheaf of clippings and spreads them in his lap.

  “Look at these two pictures,” Joan points. “One of Abraham Litsky, Eaton and Cromwell partner. Another of Arthur Litton, wanted on an illegal gambling charge. It’s obviously the same man.”

  Mogie studies the photographs. “There is a resemblance,” he says at last. “But tell me, Joan—if this is true, why has no one uncovered it before?”

  “Because not too many people are around who remember what Uncle Abe looked like, and I do. Because he lived with us when Babette and I were little. And because the company has conveniently forgotten that anyone named Abe Litsky was ever connected with it. At the office, I also have a copy of the company history that was published in nineteen seventy-five. I’m sure you got a copy of it too. There’s a whole section in it called ‘Early Struggles.’ It’s all about Papa, and there’s a lot about Charles, but I assure you that Abe Litsky’s name is not mentioned even once, even though he was Papa’s first partner. And for good reason.”

  “An untidy branch of the family tree.”

  “Precisely, Mogie.”

  Mogie Auerbach sets the sheaf of clippings aside. “Have you mentioned any of this to Babette?” he asks her.

  “No. I wanted to get your opinion first.”

  “Opinion? What sort of opinion? What I’d like to know is, now that you have this information, what do you intend to do with it?”

  “Well, I happen to run a newspaper, and this in my opinion is news. Can you imagine the reaction in the business community if this came out? The stockholders, for instance. What would this do to Eaton’s sacred image—honesty, integrity, public-spiritedness, the customer is always right? Think of what Charles’s reaction would be—because he’s been part of the cover-up. And dear little Josh’s reaction, who I’m sure doesn’t suspect a thing. And Mother’s reaction—her own brother.”

  Mogie looks up at her. “Would you really do that, Joan? Use your newspaper to expose your own family?”

  Joan laughs a little shrilly and sits down in the nearest silk-covered chair. “I’m not saying that I would do that,” she says. “But I’m saying that I’d certainly have that option, wouldn’t I? And frankly, Mogie, I keep thinking that this thing may go even deeper than what we know already. Because what I keep asking myself, as a newspaperwoman, is this—why has Arthur Litton, or Uncle Abe, kept so quiet about his Eaton connection all these years? What would he have to lose by spilling the beans?”

  “Unless—”

  “You’re reading my mind, my darling. Exactly. Unless the company—or someone in the company—has been paying him off. Regularly. Steadily. For years and years. Paying him to keep his mouth shut.”

  Now it is Mogie who rises, his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, and walks to the lighted vitrine where some of his antique toys are displayed—fire engines, a miniature Ferris wheel with tiny passengers rocking in their seats, their faces painted in expressions of delight and awe, a regiment of tin soldiers, muskets in firing position, cannon aimed, a corporal ramming gunpowder into its cascabel, another standing ready with a torch to ignite the fuse; his have been called the finest collections of tin and lead soldiers in the world; behind the cannoneers and artillerymen are arrayed the mounted cavalry, ready to charge. Mogie Auerbach studies the frozen scene in the glass case as though for the first time. “Of course this is a very serious allegation, Joan,” he says at last. “And you have absolutely nothing to prove it.”

  “No, but I think I know where to go to find proof if I need it.”

  “Yes,” he says quietly. “You know, you mentioned tonight the lemonade stand that you and Babette had. Of course I have no memory of that. I wasn’t even born. You’re right. I don’t remember the house on Grand Boulevard at all. I never lived there. I grew up at The Bluff. I don’t even have a clear memory of Prince. I was only six when all that happened.…”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re right. It was like having two different sets of parents. And then, after Prince … left us … you were the oldest, and I was the youngest, and I was always more than a little afraid of you. I used to feel that you were always jealous of me. And then, a few years later, when Josh came along, he was the baby, and I was very much relieved, because then you transferred your jealousy to him.”

  “I suppose that’s true enough,” Joan says easily. “I was jealous. Of both of you. Because both of you had things as children that I never had. It was as simple as that.”

  “Funny. Years of analysis, and I’m still trying to deal with your ability to intimidate me. Perhaps it’s part of the cause of what Dr. Gold calls my too-introverted nature, why I must concentrate on immediate conflicts rather than the conflicts of childhood. Why I must think more about my will to live than my sexual drive. I remember being even more relieved when you went off to boarding school. It’s good to talk about these things, Joan—to get these conflicts out in the open.”

  “Listen, Mogie,” Joan says impatiently, “please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want to do anything that would hurt Mother. Please believe that. The only thing I’m thinking of doing is using what I know to get her to think sensibly. Doesn’t that make sense? What she should be doing now is disposing of some of these things—these possessions, these objects that are simply cluttering up her life—and turning the proceeds over to us children. For tax purposes, she should begin dividing up her estate right now. Before it’s too late, and the government steps in to take a big fat slice. She’s eighty-nine, Mogie. She can’t last forever. What does she need with an art collection now? She hardly ever entertains anymore. What does she need that enormous apartment for—that takes five people to run it? She should be living in some smaller place. It’s ridiculous—all that acreage for one old woman. What use does she have for all that Eaton stock? She can’t take it with her. It should be distributed among the next generation. That means you, Mogie, and Christina, and me, and Babette, and even Josh. And her grandchildren—why, you may even have children of your own soon, Mogie, now that you’ve got Christina. It’s the sensible way to do things, don’t you see? All I want to do is talk to her, and try to make her use some sense.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you realize what three hundred and twenty-five tho
usand shares of Eaton stock are worth in the marketplace?”

  “I have a fair idea.”

  “And the art collection? So that’s my point. Imagine that amount reduced by half—at least—by taxes when she dies.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do I have your support, Mogie? Can I talk to her? Try to convince her? Maybe apply a little pressure? In a nice way, of course.”

  “What about Babette?”

  “Babette will do whatever I tell her to do. First, I need your support. All I want is to be able to say to her, ‘Mogie agrees with me that if any of this came out a lot of people would be hurt.’”

  Mogie smiles, still gazing at the tin militia. “Well, I do agree with that, Joan,” he says.

  “Then you’re with me?”

  “Let me think about it for a day or so,” he says. “I’d like to talk it over with Dr. Gold.”

  “Don’t talk it over with Dr. Gold. He’ll get it all involved with childhood conflicts.”

  “Well, at least let me study these clippings.”

  “Certainly. That’s why I brought them. I have Xeroxes of everything at the office.”

  “You know,” he says, “you’re my sister, but you never fail to surprise me. I don’t think I’ve ever understood you.”

  “I think that may be because I’m tougher than you are, Mogie,” Joan says. “And I think that’s because I had a mother who used to tell me stories of what it was like being a little Russian Jewish immigrant girl growing up on the Lower East Side.”

  “The Litsky genes coming out,” he says, still smiling at the miniature battle scene. “But, you know, you were lucky. I never had a mother at all.” He pauses. “Say, I think that’s a meaningful insight. I must remember to tell that to Dr. Gold.”

  After Joan has said good night, Mogie Auerbach, who is in his early sixties but who, thanks to the ministrations of a caring therapist, now often manages to feel much younger, juicier, more resolved in his will to live, moves about the lower floor of his town house, turning out the lighted cases one by one. I never had a mother, he thinks. Joan did. I am the one who should be jealous. The thought gives new lightness to his step, and to his mood. And now, he thinks, Joan needs me. He leaves burning only the lamp by his big desk, where he returns and picks up the sheaf of clippings and slowly thumbs through them, whistling softly to himself. Then he stops. One photograph in one of the yellowed clippings strikes him in particular, and he goes back to it, studying it intently under the light, turning it this way and that. He rises slowly from his chair, the clipping still in his hand, and takes a deep breath. Help is needed.