My Heart Laid Bare

by Joyce Carol Oates

  He was Abraham Licht, after all—though not known by that name here.

  3.

  “If as Jonathan Swift believed mankind is to be divided into fools and knaves,” Abraham Licht told Elisha and Millicent, “—is there any greater delight than to be assured of a steady income by the former, as the latter look on in envy?”

  Through the long summer of 1913 membership in the Society for the Reclamation & Restoration of E. Auguste Napoléon Bonaparte continued to grow, until by mid-August, shortly before the entire enterprise had to be abandoned, there were approximately seven thousand members in good standing—and an estimated fortune of $3 million. Both Elisha and Millie were dazed by their father’s success, yet apprehensive as well, for were things not going too smoothly? . . . was there not an air, very nearly palpable at certain times, that they were being scrutinized on every side, yet never approached? Owing to the rapid increase in business, Abraham Licht had had to hire twenty-odd employees—“solicitors,” “agents,” “messenger boys,” “accountants,” “stenographers.” These persons, though not in full possession of the facts regarding Emanuel Auguste, were yet experienced enough, and canny enough by instinct, to know that they must not disobey their employer’s directives. (“One false step,” Abraham Licht cautioned each in turn, “—and the entire house of cards falls. And some of you may deeply regret that it does.”)

  At this time the Lichts’ principal residency was a luxurious eight-room suite at the Park Stuyvesant Hotel on Central Park East, though Abraham and Elisha were frequently away on business and Millie was enrolled as a student in Miss Thayer’s Academy for Young Christian Ladies on East Eighty-fifth Street. (Of course, Millie didn’t always attend classes faithfully at Miss Thayer’s, caught up in the bustle of Manhattan and in the flattering attentions of young gentlemen admirers whom she treated with playful coquettish ease—since her heart, in secret, belonged to Elisha.) When things went smoothly and the Society’s demands weren’t distracting, Abraham Licht enjoyed nothing better than to treat his handsome children to a Sunday excursion on the town: an elegant brunch at the Plaza, a leisurely surrey ride through Central Park, afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on upper Fifth Avenue, high tea at the sumptuous Henry IV on Park Avenue. For the elder children Millie and Elisha, amid a small party of social acquaintances, there might be an evening of grand opera at the palatial Met—for, besides Shakespeare, Abraham Licht revered opera as the very music of the gods. (In a single heady season the Lichts attended performances of The Magic Flute, Rigoletto, Madam Butterfly and the American premiere of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier during the course of which Abraham fell in love with Anna Case in the role of Sophie.) These lengthy evenings were often followed by suppers at the Park Avenue or Fifth Avenue homes of Abraham’s new friends, or supper at Delmonico’s, where Abraham, as a lavish spender, was known and admired.

  “How happy we are! And how simple it is to be happy!”—so Millie whispered as if in wonder, giving Elisha a hasty kiss when they were alone together; and Elisha, the more agitated of the two of them, tried to see how this could be so, within a year of their brother Thurston’s disappearance. Regarding Millie’s bright, feverish face and shining eyes, Elisha couldn’t have said if he was “happy”—if indeed Millie was “happy”—or if Abraham Licht, despite the current success of his business ventures, was “happy”—or what, in fact, “happiness” meant. When Millie was gay, irrepressibly gay as an ingenue in a Broadway operetta, Elisha believed he should try to be gay in return; yet, when Millie was gay, perhaps she was testing him to gauge whether such gaiety was, after all, appropriate?

  All Millie knew of Thurston’s disappearance was that, when Abraham and Elisha went to rescue him from a Trenton funeral parlor where his “remains” had been delivered from the prison, her brother was gone. He’d left, he’d walked away, he’d vanished—without a trace. And no message left behind. “But how could Thurston have done such a thing?” Millie asked, incredulous and hurt, and Abraham Licht told her tersely, “We will not speak of the ingrate—a ‘Christian convert’ it seems. He has gone over to the camp of the enemy and good riddance.” Millie protested, “But, Father—” and Abraham said, “I have told you, Millie: we will not speak of the ingrate ever again.”

  And so it was. For Abraham Licht was not to be disobeyed.

  The tale told generally within the family was that Thurston and Harwood had each ventured forth to seek their fortunes. Thurston was in Brazil exploring possibilities in the “rubber trade” and Harwood was in the West exploring possibilities in “the mining of precious metals.” The younger children had no interest in Harwood but begged their father to make a journey to South America so that they could visit with Thurston soon. “At Christmastime, Father! Thurston will be lonely without us.”

  Abraham laughed briefly, surprised; but said, in that tone of voice that indicated a subject was finished, and would not be revived, “Your brother is accustomed by now to ‘loneliness,’ I am sure.”

  (“And was there really no note, no message to explain, or to apologize, even to say good-bye?” Millie asked Elisha, in secret; and Elisha lifted his hands in a gesture of bafflement, assuring her, as gravely as their father had done, “No, Millie. As Father said, there was not.”)

  4.

  Strange, the careening happiness of that swift season in Manhattan. Affecting Abraham Licht in contradictory ways.

  For instance, how frequently he expressed a vague yearning for Muirkirk—“For peace.” Yet of course he dared not leave New York until things were more stabilized. He didn’t trust his hired employees—what employer, in such times of turmoil, did? He complained half seriously to Elisha and Millie that he would have no trouble building a financial empire to rival the Carnegies and the Harrimans if he could only staff his office with blood relatives. (His kin, the Barracloughs, the Sternlichts, the Ligeses, had, it seemed, proved untrustworthy. So Elisha had reason to believe. And why did Abraham never mention Harwood? Were they in communication at all?)

  Then again, perhaps the Society was growing too quickly? Perhaps it would be prudent to limit membership? Even to introduce a new development . . . things being so snarled in Paris, the French courts so mired in corruption, a mistrial had been called and an entirely new case would have to be prepared . . . for presentation in, say, January 1914. This was entirely convincing; and met with strong approval (and relief) on Elisha’s part; for Abraham Licht was by this point in his career several times a millionaire, as O’Toole, Brisbane, Rodweller and St. Goar, and could afford to relax. His fortune was in safe hands in the most reputable Wall Street investment houses and would eventually double, or triple, if the economy continued to thrive.

  And Abraham Licht, for all his vigor and optimism, wasn’t so young as he’d been even a short year before.

  Then, abruptly, after a breakfast of skimming rapidly through the usual New York papers and reading, for example, of the lavish wedding of Miss Vivien Gould, granddaughter of the infamous Gould, to Lord Decies of His Majesty’s Seventh Hussars at Saint Bartholomew’s Church on Fifth Avenue, how could he be satisfied with the meager millions he’d earned?—“It’s preposterous for me to think that I’m a wealthy man, set beside these people.” For the Goulds were so rich, their empire so enormous, it was noted without comment in the papers that two hundred twenty-five seamstresses had labored on the bride’s trousseau for more than a year; the wedding cake alone had cost $1,000, decorated with electric lights and tiny sugar cupids bearing the Decies coat of arms; the bride’s father presented her with a diamond coronet estimated at $1.5 million; and other gifts from such members of the gilded set as the Pierpont Morgans, Lord and Lady Ashburton, Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, the Duke of Connaught, the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and numerous others, were of similar value. “No, Abraham Licht is a pauper by comparison,” he mused, “—he hardly exists, in fact. And what shall he do about it, at the age of fifty-two?”

  So that day and for days following he might be caught up
in a fever of planning: he’d hire more employees, wooing them away from their “legitimate” firms; he’d begin a fresh campaign in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and remote, mysterious Georgia where blood descendants of Emanuel Auguste surely dwelt, awaiting discovery. (“The farther South, the greater the fools”—so Abraham had been assured.) Restless, he’d summon Manhattan’s most prestigious architect to his home to discuss the Italianate villa he hoped to build on the corner of Park and East Sixty-sixth, but a stone’s throw from the Vanderbilt mansion.

  And one day soon, if all proceeded smoothly, and Abraham Licht and his family ascended to the highest echelons of New York society, he would march as proudly up the aisle of Saint Bartholomew’s as had Mr. George Gould, with a far lovelier daughter on his arm to be given away in holy matrimony to a lord, or a count, or a duke—“If not a prince.”

  5.

  By the end of the summer of 1913, however, Abraham was forced to conclude that the Society for the Reclamation & Restoration of E. Auguste Napoléon Bonaparte had become too successful; and would have to be curtailed soon or abandoned entirely. (For Abraham could not trust his employees, in precise proportion as they were sharp, canny young men not unlike himself at their age. Also, he’d begun to discover disturbing news items in the papers having to do with rumors of an “international scandal” involving an illegitimate son of a Hapsburg duke, an illegitimate daughter of the late King Edward VII, several great-grandchildren of Napoléon Bonaparte and, most tantalizing to inhabitants of New York State, a direct descendant of the Dauphin, King Louis XVII, who had, according to legend, escaped France and hidden himself away in the wilds of the Chautauqua Mountains north of Mount Chattaroy.)

  “How Americans, priding themselves on their democracy, yearn for ‘royal blood’! It’s to be pitied, more than condemned.”

  Yet such rumors were alarming, obviously.

  It seemed necessary, therefore, to call a special meeting of the Society’s shareholders, in the Sixth Regiment Armory in Philadelphia, soon after Labor Day. Several thousand heirs of Emanuel Auguste crowded into the building after having identified themselves at the closely guarded doors and paying an admission fee of $5, to help underwrite the expense of renting the armory. (In truth, the armory had been made available to the Society for a token $100, by way of a Philadelphia broker who’d invested $4,600 in the inheritance. So the evening’s “gate” was in excess of $15,000—an uplifting figure.) The atmosphere was expectant and as highly charged as a Wagnerian opera, since members had been alerted that they would at last be introduced to their president, François-Leon Claudel; and informed of the latest, somewhat disturbing news regarding the Parisian lawsuit; and, as a bonus, would be presented with a full-blooded descendant of Emanuel Auguste, who’d arrived in the States only the previous week.

  The Sixth Regiment Armory was a plain, utilitarian space made attractive by strategically placed posters of Emanuel Auguste as a babe in arms, as a toddler, and as a handsome young man—familiar likenesses, of course; though the enlargement process had coarsened and darkened the images. On stage beside the lectern were an American flag and a peacock-blue flag bearing the royal coat of arms of the Bonaparte family; placed about the stage were floral displays of white lilies, carnations and irises, donated by a Philadelphia funeral director who was also a shareholder of the Society. The crowd, beyond three thousand individuals, consisted primarily of men, with a scattering of women, and exuded an air of excited anticipation mingled with suspicion. For all beneath this high vaulting roof were blood relations, however separated by accidents of birth; yet, each having invested in the Bonaparte fortune, wasn’t he in a sense a rival to all the others? Could he, indeed, trust the others?

  Reasoning that the murmurous, excitable audience would be grateful for a familiar face, Abraham Licht opened the meeting in the guise of the brisk, affable Marcel Bramier with his signature moustache and pink carnation in the lapel of a conservatively cut sharkskin suit. In a ringing voice Mr. Bramier commanded that the doors to the armory be locked by security guards, since it was 8:06 P.M. and no more latecomers would be tolerated. This stern measure was greeted with waves of applause from the nervous heirs, many of whom had been waiting since early afternoon for the armory to be opened. In his welcoming address, Mr. Bramier spoke of the Society’s history: its ideals, its fidelity to Emanuel Auguste and the loyalty, generosity and high moral courage of its members; he concluded by vowing that no one in the hall would leave that evening without a “heartwarming vision engraved upon his soul.” Thunderous applause followed this poetic declaration. Mr. Bramier then introduced a Mr. Crowe, a founding member of the Society, tall, deep-chested, with the full-toothed grin of President Teddy Roosevelt in his prime, who spoke with equal vigor of the Society’s aims and ideals. (“Crowe” was played by an out-of-work Broadway actor-friend of Abraham’s. An interim of some minutes was needed for Abraham to leave the stage, change his costume, makeup, etc., before reappearing in his next, more crucial guise.)

  Next, greeted with ecstatic applause, walking with a cane and frowning loftily was the esteemed president of the Society, François-Leon Claudel, upon whom several thousand pairs of eyes avidly fixed. An aristocratic figure, frail with age; filmy-haired; impeccably dressed in a dark suit and gray silk vest; with a stiff, priestly air; hollowed cheeks; tinted spectacles; and, strangely, a skin so dark-complected one might almost have imagined him of an exotic race. Yet all doubts were assuaged when once the applause died away and Claudel began to speak, for it was immediately clear, and reassuring, that by his accent he could be no other than Caucasian.

  Claudel differed significantly from the speakers who preceded him by wasting no time in winning over his audience. As he said, there was urgent business at hand—“Time and tide, my friends, wait for no man.” He stirred the membership by affirming their unity in a common cause for justice; all were blood relations, if only to an infinitesimal degree; they were obliged to trust one another as they trusted their closest and dearest family members—though, he had to warn, there were rumors of informants in their midst in the pay of the government of France. “Of course,” Claudel said, an ironic ring to his voice, “—these are but rumors, and not to be fully credited.” Next, the aristocratic gentleman spent several minutes passionately assailing those members of the Society—“Some of whom have the gall to be seated among us, at this very moment”—who were behind on their dues. Poking the air with a forefinger, Claudel chided such slothful and unworthy descendants of the great house of Bonaparte and went on to criticize as well those individuals who’d tried to bribe certain officials of the Society, including that paragon of virtue, whose morals were wholly above reproach, Marcel Bramier, into allowing them to invest, under assumed names, more than $4,000 in the inheritance. By this time Claudel’s aloof manner had given way to the vehemence of an American campground preacher as he paced about the stage crying, “What do you think would happen, my friends, if certain of your greedy comrades invested five thousand—fifty thousand—one million dollars in the inheritance?” He paused dramatically, staring into the sea of rapt, frightened faces. “I will tell you, gentlemen: there would not be enough money for the honest investors, when the lawsuit is settled.”

  A panicked hush fell over the gathering.

  However, François-Leon Claudel assured them, no member of the Society would stoop to bribe-taking so there was no danger in that quarter. “We are not, after all, members of the United States Congress or inhabitants of the White House,” Claudel could not resist adding, to yelps of laughter and vigorous applause.

  Next, Claudel read a cable from the Society’s Parisian barrister to the effect that the meticulously constructed case for the claimants had been undercut by “subversive” elements, probably from within; that the highest judge of the highest court in the country had confided in him, privately, that it would be in the best interests of the Society for the present suit to be dropped and a new suit initiated after 1 January 1914 to ins
ure a court “free and clear of jurist prejudice.” These words were read in a ringing voice, one might have said a Shakespearean voice that revealed how deeply the president of the Society was moved by this development. (There was, midway, a fearful pause during which the old man seemed about to burst into tears, fumbling to extract a handkerchief from his pocket.) Quickly, however, he recovered, to tell the gathering in a voice heavy with irony that such news would delight the saboteurs in their midst yet would not, he swore, be a source of despair to him; though at his age it wasn’t reasonable any longer to expect that he might live to see Emanuel Auguste restored to his lost honor.

  “Yet having waited so long we can’t object, I suppose, to waiting a few months longer—yes? Do you agree? For Rome, as they say, ‘was not built in a day. And required millennia for its fall.’”

  At this point a scattering of individuals spaced through the armory began to applaud zealously, as if inspired; within a few seconds, they were joined by the remainder of the enormous crowd, uncertainly at first, then with more vehemence, so that wave upon wave of applause filled the hall, and cheers, whistles and shouts of “Bravo, our president!” brought tears to a proud old man’s eyes.