Sins of the Fathers

by Susan Howatch

  “Just fine,” I could say nothing about Germany, but I did try to tell her about Paris. I drew on my memories of my visit there before the war.

  “How was Germany?” said Cornelius casually later.

  “Not so bad.” But I knew, as soon as I returned to Willow and Wall, that I could no longer go on pretending nothing had happened. If I was ever going to live at peace with myself, I would have to make some far-reaching changes in my personal and professional life.

  I wanted to call Paul Hoffman of the Economic Cooperation Administration, who was at that time recruiting investment bankers to help rebuild the economy of Europe. I even got as far as lifting the receiver to ask for the ECA’s number in Washington, but I replaced the receiver because I knew that before I talked to Paul Hoffman I had to talk to Cornelius. There was no question of my resigning from Van Zale’s. Van Zale’s was my life, the symbol of my success, the embodiment of that classic American dream which had nurtured me for so long. But I wanted a leave of absence, and only one man had the power to give me what I wanted.

  Unfortunately the prospect of the unavoidable interview with Cornelius was far from appealing. Cornelius was an isolationist, although in theory he had broken with the doctrine after Pearl Harbor in order to conform with official American policy. He had never been able to offer me a rational explanation of his dislike of Europe, but dislike it he did and I knew that he would balk at giving me a leave of absence that would enable me to work for European reconstruction. It made no difference that he agreed in theory with the economists who argued that America’s own welfare depended ultimately on the generous use of Marshall aid; in practice he grudged every dollar spent propping up the countries which had so unforgivably dragged America into a second world war.

  In addition to this incurable chauvinism I knew I would also have to deal with his reluctance to dispense even temporarily with my services. Although I had never fooled myself I was indispensable to Cornelius at One Willow Street, I was well aware that none of my other partners could match me as a confidant and collaborator. As Cornelius himself often said, there were few people he trusted completely. In the circumstances it was just my bad luck that I happened to be one of them.

  I had thought my position could hardly be more awkward, but I was wrong. It took a sharp turn for the worse when Vicky Van Zale tried to elope with her beachboy and Cornelius conceived his preposterous matrimonial pipe dream. Far from wanting to unlock the handcuffs of our shared past, which had shackled us together for so long, he was now apparently eager to throw away the key, and as I drove up to Kevin’s house that evening to see Teresa, I wondered in despair how I was ever going to extricate myself from that golden cage Cornelius was busy reinforcing for me at Willow and Wall.

  I got out of my Mercedes-Benz. “You needn’t wait, Hauptmann,” I said. “I’ll take a cab home.”

  As the car drove away I glanced down the tree-lined street and up at the pastel sky. It was a beautiful evening, and suddenly against all the odds my despair receded and I even smiled at the memory of my last meeting with Cornelius. Had he seriously thought he could bribe or blitz me into marrying his pampered little daughter? He must have been out of his mind. I was going to marry Teresa. Of course I was going to marry Teresa. That was why the idea of marrying anyone else seemed so absurd, and I knew then that I had wanted to marry her for some time but had suppressed the truth from myself. However, now I could openly acknowledge how much I loved her because I no longer had to tell myself that she would never fit into my wealthy New York world. My world was going to change and I was going to change with it. With my leave of absence secured by some brilliant diplomatic stroke which I could not yet imagine, I’d go to Europe, commit myself to the idealism of the Marshall Plan, and fight at last as a loyal American for the Germany I had loved so much before the war.

  And later? Later the anticipated postwar boom would be in full swing and I would somehow persuade Cornelius it was in his best interests to open an office of Van Zale’s in Europe. … My new life stretched ahead of me as far as the eye could see, and Kevin’s front door swung wide to welcome me as I ran up the steps. She was there, smiling at me, and when I saw her my heart felt as if it were about to burst not only with happiness but with relief, as if I had finally succeeded in resolving all the conflicts that had tormented me for so long.

  It was a brilliant seductive illusion. But I shall never forget how happy I was on that April evening in 1949 when I saw Teresa smiling at me and I ran up the steps into her arms.

  “Hi, honey!” she said, kissing me. “Leave your latest million bucks at the door, come on in, and I’ll fix you a martini which would stop even General Sherman dead in his tracks. Gee, you look almost as exhausted as you sounded on the phone! Just what the hell’s been going on?”

  Chapter Two

  I

  TERESA HAD A SMUDGE of dirt on her unpowdered nose and scarlet lipstick on her full-lipped mouth. Her dark hair streamed wildly in unexpected directions, as if defying the law of gravity. Her turquoise dress, worn with a white belt which matched her high-heeled sandals, looked as if it had been punished at the laundry, for the seams were strained around her hips and the buttons barely met across her bosom. As usual she wore her gold cross but no other jewelry.

  “You’re looking wonderful!” I said, kissing her again. “Where did you get that sexy dress?”

  “In a street market down on the Lower East Side. Now, don’t avoid answering my question! Why did you sound so desperate on the phone?”

  I had no wish to embark on an explanation of my tortuous relationship with Cornelius. “Well, there’s this big corporation called Hammaco who want to float a ninety-million-dollar issue—”

  “Oh, God. Let me fix those drinks. Are you sure you don’t mind sitting in the kitchen? I’m just making the rice for the jambalaya.”

  “Where’s Kevin?”

  “He’s not back yet from rehearsal.” She led the way down the hall to the back of the house.

  Kevin’s kitchen was the masterpiece of his perfect house, and represented all the qualities I liked about his home. The room was simple and uncluttered, but it had that uncluttered simplicity which only money can buy. The kitchen, a replica of a room Kevin had admired in a New England farmhouse, was large and airy. An old-fashioned range, installed for ornamental purposes, gleamed black beneath a partially exposed brick wall. The closets were solid maple. A sturdy rectangular table stood in the middle of the room with four matching wooden chairs. Herbs grew in pots on the windowsill, copper pans hung on the wall, and the warm red-tiled floor glowed in the soft light. Kevin employed both a cleaning woman and a daily housekeeper to maintain his home in the immaculate order he demanded and which one meal cooked by Teresa promptly destroyed.

  “Sorry everything’s in such a mess,” said Teresa, clearing a space at the table. “It’s the housekeeper’s day off and I offered to cook this meal for Kevin because he gave me five dollars to buy a pair of shoes. The soles finally dropped off the other pair and the little guy around the corner said they couldn’t be fixed anymore. … That’s odd, I’m sure I had some olives for your martini. I wonder what I did with them.”

  “Kevin lent you money?”

  “No, it was a gift. He never makes loans.”

  “That’s what I thought. Well, if you can accept money from Kevin …”

  “I can’t. That’s why I’m cooking him this meal in return. I guess I’ll have to look around for another job now my savings have run out. … Sorry, honey, but I can’t find those olives, maybe the cat ate them. Two ice cubes in the martini?”

  “Thanks. Teresa, you don’t have to go looking for another job. I’ve just had this great idea—”

  Without warning she turned on me. “I’ve had just about enough of your great ideas! And I’ve had just about enough of you talking about money! I’m sorry, but I’m in a filthy mood today because my work’s going so badly. That’s why I’ve got to get back upstairs to the canvas as soon as
I’ve presented Kevin with his dinner.”

  “Hey, wait a minute!” I was thrown mentally off balance by this totally unexpected attack and could only stammer in protest, “What I’ve got to say’s important!”

  She slammed down the packet of rice. “So’s my work!” she shouted at me. “You think it’s just an amusing hobby because I don’t make any money at it—money, money, money, that’s all you think about, day in, day out! Or do you think of anything else? I’m damned if I know. I’ve known for some time now that you don’t understand the first thing about me, but now I’m beginning to wonder if I understand the first thing about you. Oh, you talk and talk and talk on a surface level, but what really goes on beneath all that big-time charm and sexy savoir faire? I can’t make up my mind whether you’re a nice decent guy or a real bastard. I guess you have to be a bastard if you’re prepared to waste your life in a corrupt, materialistic, repulsive profession like banking, but—”

  “Just a minute.” I had pulled myself together by this time and knew exactly what to say. I did not raise my voice but I altered my tone, just as I did whenever a client became truculent and had to be painlessly put back in his place. “Let’s get this straight. Banking’s a fine profession. You may not think it’s as much God’s gift to humanity as painting pictures, but if you knew a little more about banking and were a little less busy assimilating some fallacy-ridden Marxist crap, you’d see that bankers perform a necessary service for the economy—and therefore for the country as a whole. So quit pushing me this 1930’s fable about the bankers being the bad guys, okay? Just pause to think for a moment. What’s happening right now in 1949? It’s the bankers who are going to put Europe together again after all the soldier-heroes and politicians have blown it to bits! And that brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve seen how I can use all my training and experience as a banker in the best possible cause—”

  “Oh, forget it. That kind of rat race is all so meaningless, so futile—”

  “For Christ’s sake!” I was now very angry. “Don’t you try to hand me some garbled philosophical junk about the meaning of life! Who the hell knows what it all means? In the long run isn’t it just as meaningless to paint a picture as to make a buck? I guess you think I’ve always been too busy making money to ask myself the usual fundamental questions, but I’m not the money-making robot you seem to think I am and I’ve often wondered, particularly lately, what life’s all about. Is there a God? It seems inconceivable, but if there is, his managerial skills would appear to be pretty damn poor. Is there a life after death? Again it seems inconceivable, but if it exists and God has a hand in it, it’s bound to be a lousy mess. Personally I’m not interested in fantasy, just in hard facts which I can organize into a coherent order. We live in a capitalist society, and it’s not going to change in our lifetime. Money keeps that society going. You need money to live, you need money to do the things you really want to do, you need money to do good—which brings me to what I came here to say. In Europe right now—”

  “Europe!” blazed Teresa. “I don’t give a damn about Europe! All I care about is us and where we’re going! At least I’ve tried to accept you as you are, banking and all. But when have you ever made any effort to accept me as I am, Sam? When are you ever going to stop trying to buy me and turn me into some kind of domesticated mistress?”

  “Jesus Christ!” I shouted, finally losing my temper. “I don’t want to turn you into a domesticated mistress! I want to turn you into my wife!”

  Far away at the other end of the hall the front door clicked open. “Hey, Teresa!” called Kevin. “Guess who’s just picked me up in a Rolls-Royce the size of a beer truck at Forty-second and Broadway!”

  In the kitchen we were motionless, staring at each other. Teresa’s lips were parted and the little gold cross had disappeared between the curves of her breasts. I wanted to make love to her.

  “I’ll wait for you upstairs,” I said in a low voice. “I don’t want to talk to Kevin.”

  “No.”

  “Teresa …”

  “I’m sorry, I know I’m being mean to you, but I can’t help it, I just can’t help it. … My life’s in such a mess. If only I could work—I’ve got to try to work tonight or I think I’ll go out of my mind.”

  “But I must talk to you!”

  “Not tonight. I can’t. I’ve got to be alone. I must work, I must.”

  “But I love you—I’ll help you sort everything out.”

  “You just don’t even begin to understand.”

  The door of the kitchen was flung wide as Kevin made a grand entrance in the best show-business tradition.

  “Teresa, my angel! What’s that extraordinarily sinister aroma emanating from the stove? Why, hullo, Sam—no, don’t go! Why are you looking as flustered as if I’d caught you in flagrante delicto? You know I permit my female staff to receive gentlemen callers!” And as I sank down reluctantly on the nearest chair, he exclaimed, laughing as if he could wipe the tension from the room with his exuberance, “Christ, those asinine actors have driven me clean up the wall! It’s a wonder I’m not dead of apoplexy!”

  Kevin looked younger than forty-one. Dark and six feet tall, just as I was, he had, unlike me, kept both his figure and his hairline. His frivolous air was deceptive. Like Wall Street, Broadway was a tough world and only the fittest survived. The dimpled chin, claimed by many to be the source of his appeal to both sexes, was set in a hard unyielding jaw.

  “… and now look who’s here!” he was saying, gesturing toward the threshold with the air of a conjurer about to produce six white rabbits from a hat, and glancing past him, I saw Jake Reischman in the doorway.

  Immaculate as always, surveying the world with his habitual expression of infinitely sophisticated cynicism, Jake had paused on the threshold of the kitchen to inspect his new surroundings much as an experienced traveler might have paused at the gateway of some forbidden city. Kitchens were no doubt a novelty for Jake, since he would so seldom have had the opportunity to see one. Unlike Cornelius, who had been born on an Ohio farm and had grown up in middle-class surroundings near Cincinnati, Jake had lived all his life in the upper reaches of New York’s German-Jewish aristocracy.

  Our glances met. He never hesitated. His mouth curved in a formal smile, although his eyes remained a clear chilly blue.

  “Guten Tag, Sam.”

  “Hullo, Jake.”

  We did not shake hands.

  “Jake, you know Teresa, of course …”

  “On the contrary,” said Jake, “I’ve never yet had that pleasure.”

  “No?” said Kevin, surprised. “But I distinctly remember … Ah, but that was Ingrid, of course. Well, let me introduce you: this is Teresa Kowalewski, Jake. Teresa, this is Jake Reischman, yet another of my notorious banking friends.”

  “Miss Kowalewski,” said Jake smoothly, again producing his formal smile as he held out his hand. His instant mastery of the Polish surname was so dazzling that for a moment we all stared at him in admiration.

  “Hi,” said Teresa shyly at last, wiping her hand hastily before offering it to be shaken.

  “Now, what are we all drinking?” said Kevin sociably. “Jake, I’ve got this magnificent Southern hooch which Teresa introduced me to—she brought a bottle all the way from New Orleans to New York, and now I order it direct from Kentucky by the case. Have you ever tried Wild Turkey bourbon?”

  Jake shuddered. “I’ll take some Scotch, please—Johnnie Walker Black Label, if you have it. No soda or water. Three rocks.”

  As he spoke, the rice began to erupt stealthily over the stove, and Teresa with an exclamation of dismay rushed to attend to it. Kevin had already left the room in search of the Scotch, and as I watched, Jake indolently removed an onion ring from the nearest chair in order to sit down opposite me. I looked away; I was trying to think how I would escape from the room but could find no excuse that would not imply I was snubbing Jake by making a quick exit, and at last in an awkward effort
to appear friendly I said, “How are things with you?”

  “Moderate. Let’s hope the FRB’s cut in the price for stock purchases will help the market out of the doldrums. I became so tired of listening to Truman talking of the danger of inflation, when it was so patently obvious all danger of inflation was past. … I hear you’re only just back from a European vacation?”

  “Yes.” I wanted to say more, but no words came.

  “How nice,” said Jake, unperturbed. “Incidentally, did you see the Times today? Groups wearing jackboots and singing ‘Deutschland Über Alles’ were parading in the streets of north Germany … how little life seems to change sometimes! But no doubt you found Germany very changed. You did go to Germany, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” I tasted the martini but could not drink it. I put the glass back on the table just as Kevin walked back into a silent room.

  “How’s Neil, Sam?” he said cheerfully, referring to Cornelius. “Has that daughter of his succeeded in giving him a nervous breakdown yet?”

  I just managed to say, “She’s still working on it.”

  “Poor Neil! Of course I saw it all coming a mile off. If I were Vicky, entombed like Rapunzel in that antediluvian architectural relic which Neil calls home, I’d certainly have let down my hair to the first young man who came along. God knows no one’s fonder of Neil and Alicia than I am, but frankly I think they’ve no idea how to bring up an adolescent girl. When I think of my four sisters—”

  “When I think of my two daughters,” said Jake, who had three children approaching puberty, “it seems clear to me that Neil and Alicia have always made the best of a very difficult job.”

  “Well, we all know what hell it is being a parent,” said Kevin, who had given Jake his Scotch and was pouring gin generously into my half-empty glass. “Shakespeare knew what he was doing all right when he wrote Lear’s part. … Teresa, is that really jambalaya? It looks like some unmentionable organ of goat, an ethnic dish undoubtedly, probably Turkish or perhaps Lebanese.”