Sins of the Fathers

by Susan Howatch

  “I concede Cornelius is always anxious to please Alicia, Jake, but I would hardly describe him as a—”

  “Oh, forget it, I don’t give a damn, I’m not interested in their marriage, the hell with it, we’re talking about that son of a bitch Sebastian. The truth is that Neil wants Sebastian in London because he can’t stand him but doesn’t dare fire him for fear of upsetting Alicia—”

  “Jake, it’s you, not me, who keeps dragging up the Van Zale marriage!”

  “—And you want Sebastian in London too because Sebastian’s absence gives you the chance to build up your power as Neil’s right-hand man. You’re cherishing this grand illusion that if you can play your cards right Neil will hand you the bank on a silver platter, but don’t kid yourself, Scott! He doesn’t have any intention of giving you the bank. The only reason why he’s kept you in the firm this long is to enable you to act as a counterweight to Sebastian’s inevitably increasing power—so long as he can play the two of you off against each other, he’s free to carry on for as long as possible in order to hand the bank directly to his grandsons. Those grandsons will get the bank in the end, believe me. Blood’s always thicker than water, and the blood running in your veins, Scott, is all the wrong kind for a transfusion.”

  The ginger ale was a pale gold, and the tall glass reflected the shifting lights of the fountain playing in the middle of the room. Silver knives gleamed upon the surgical white of the tablecloth.

  “What’s all this leading up to, Jake? As far as I can make out, you’re telling me I’m wasting my time keeping Sebastian at bay in London because even though I may be the best man to take over eventually from Cornelius, Cornelius himself will somehow be dumb enough not to pick the best man for the job.”

  “I’m telling you that you’d do better to wash your hands of both Sebastian and Cornelius and throw in your lot with me.”

  “I’m sorry, I think I misheard you. Did you say—?”

  “Yes, I did. You’ve heard, of course, that I’m planning to incorporate? Well, I’ve decided that my last act of despotism is going to be to screw all my incompetent partners who hope to crawl into the shoes I leave behind when I go upstairs to be chairman of the board. I’m going to bring in a president from outside the firm, and I’m going to bring in the best man I can get, Jewish or Gentile. In other words I want someone who has all your father’s virtues and none of his vices. Name your price. The job’s yours.”

  “Well, I … I’m flattered, of course …”

  “You can even have your name on the masthead. Reischman and Sullivan. How does that sound to you? Does that compensate you for your father’s spectacular failure back in the thirties? Oh, don’t think I don’t have you figured out! I’ve been watching you closely for a long time, and I’m one-hundred-percent sure you’re just the man I want to be my successor.”

  “To screw your partners? Or to screw Cornelius? What are you really after, Jake? And while we’re on the subject, just what did go wrong between you and Cornelius back in 1955? Was it something to do with Alicia?”

  Jake raised a cynical eyebrow, looked at me as if he profoundly pitied anyone who could indulge in such fantasies, and said shortly, “If Neil’s never been stupid enough to tell you what went wrong, I’m certainly not going to be stupid enough to embark on unnecessary explanations which are none of your business. Let’s return to the subject under discussion. Well? What do you say? Will you consider the offer?”

  “Of course. It’s a very generous offer and I’m certainly interested. If I may take time to think it over …”

  “We’ll have lunch again when you come back from your vacation. Oh, and meanwhile, do make it clear to Neil, please, that something has to be done to curtail Sebastian’s activities in London. I may be wrong, but I think Neil’s still anxious enough about the relationship between our two houses to treat the exhaustion of my patience with the respect it undoubtedly deserves.”

  II

  “Jake’s cutting up rough, Cornelius, about the way Sebastian’s been smart-assing around in London.”

  “Frankly, I’m not surprised. What the hell do you think Sebastian’s up to, Scott?”

  “Well, it may not be a personal vendetta against the House of Reischman, but it’s sure beginning to look like it.”

  “This is embarrassing to me. I don’t want a confrontation with Jake over this.”

  “Do you want me to go to London to investigate? I can cancel my vacation.”

  “Certainly not. You work very hard and you deserve a break. But I’ll get Sebastian over here, and when you return to the office, we’ll have a full inquiry to find out why he’s been playing brinkmanship with Reischman’s. … Okay, now, let me see … is there anything else we should straighten out before you go on vacation?”

  “Well, that wraps up Reischman’s. But I’d like to talk to you for a moment about a potential client, a young man called Donald Shine. …”

  III

  “Hi, Scott! Good to see you! You’re looking great! How are you doing?”

  Donald Shine was twenty-two years old and had a heap of freshly washed dark hair, wide innocent brown eyes, and a dubious taste in clothes. He spoke in an exuberant voice garnished with a Brooklyn accent.

  “Hi, Don! Take a seat.”

  Donald Shine sat down, still smiling, still exuding exuberance, still convinced he would be a multimillionaire well before he was thirty.

  “I’ve had a word with Mr. Van Zale and he’s willing to see you, but I should warn you that he’s one of the old school and a little suspicious of modern technology. His attitude to your scheme to lease computers is likely to be either ‘There’s no market for it’ or ‘Let’s leave it all to IBM.’ Keep your spiel short and reasonable, and whatever you do, don’t get too excited and make some overly enthusiastic scene. Mr. Van Zale just wants the facts, not a sales pitch or a one-man show.”

  “I get it. I behave like a WASP stuffed shirt, not like a Yiddishe momma. Okay, no problem.”

  “It’s just possible you might feel more comfortable with a less conservative house …”

  “Look, Scott, like I told you, I’ve set my heart on seeing Mr. Van Zale because I figure that since he made it big by the time he was twenty-two he won’t dismiss me on account of how I’m only just through college. Besides, I don’t want to waste time. If I’ve got to deal with investment bankers, I want to deal with the best—forget the second-rate money men! Forget everything second-rate! Time’s ticking by, for God’s sake, and I want to get this scheme off the ground before my hair turns white, I don’t want to wait years and years for success, I want it now!”

  “Uh-huh. Okay, I appreciate the rush, but could you just pause long enough now to let me give you a word of advice on your appearance? Before you see Mr. Van Zale, get a haircut and a dark suit—oh, and a tie too, if you don’t have one—and hide those sandals in a closet and wear plain black socks with conventional black shoes. And make sure your shirt’s white—got it? W-h-i-t-e. If you want to join forces with the Eastern Seaboard establishment, you’ve got to look as if you’ve never heard of the line ‘The old order changeth, giving way to the new.’ ”

  “Well, that’s no problem, I never have. Who said that? Ed Murrow? Hey, Scott, it was a lucky day for me when I bulldozed my way past your secretary into your office! I wish now I could just do business with you instead of having to go bullshitting around with an old square like Van Zale! How about you yourself giving me the couple of million I need to get my scheme off its ass?”

  “Tempting though that suggestion is, Don, I’m afraid it’s a temptation I’ll have to resist. I don’t want Mr. Van Zale turning round on me later and saying, ‘Just who the hell is this wunderkind Donald Shine and why did I never get the chance to meet him?’ I’d rather play safe and exhibit you right away. I need hardly tell you how different you are from our usual type of client.”

  “Brother, it’s the age of youth! Investment bankers nowadays are backing people like me in the rec
ord business, in the garment business, in advertising, in—”

  “Second-rank investment-banking houses are, of course, entitled to take dubious risks. Front-rank houses like Van Zale’s are usually too busy. Three o’clock tomorrow, Don, and remember the white shirt.”

  IV

  “Have you gone out of your mind?” said Cornelius in a rage. “Or do you think I’ve gone out of mine? Do you seriously think I’d take on a long-haired kid like that who comes to an interview in a suit which looked as if it had been snitched from a Lower East Side street market, and who talks a lot of junk about how there’s a market for leasing computers when everyone knows computer technology is changing so rapidly that the only hope you have of keeping up-to-date is to get the latest model from IBM? I concede the kid might make a good salesman—a used-car salesman on a fifth-rate lot in Brooklyn—but as for suggesting we should underwrite his fantasy of becoming a tycoon—”

  “Just a minute, Cornelius. This kid is brash, I agree. He comes from a background which you have trouble even imagining, let alone relating to, and his clothes have to be seen to be believed. But this is a bright boy, Cornelius. I know he only went to a local college, but he does have a college education and he’s made the most of it. He knows the subject of computers inside out—he probably knows just as much as anyone at IBM—and I think he’s hit on an idea whose time has come. Let’s take the chance and back him.”

  “We don’t need that kind of client, Scott. I know we all have to compete for clients nowadays, but there are still some clients who aren’t worth competing for.”

  “You’re making a mistake. What’s your problem? Is it his youth? You weren’t always fifty-five yourself, remember! Besides, times are changing—”

  “Yes, and not for the better! I’m sorry, Scott, but I’m not financing any kid who looks like a no-good beatnik and talks like a Jewish joke, and that’s my last word on the subject.”

  V

  “Jake, would you be interested in an unusual client whom I think has great potential but whom Cornelius has just refused to deal with?”

  “I could be. Tell me about him.”

  “He’s a twenty-two-year-old college-educated computer expert, and his name is Donald Shine …”

  VI

  “What did you think of him, Jake?”

  “Donald Shine? I thought he was an appalling young man. Of course I took him on.” Jake sighed and looked out the window of his office. “He’ll make money. Whatever he does, he’ll make money. He’ll have to be closely watched, but then so do some of my older, more conventional clients.”

  “You were smart not to be prejudiced against him.”

  “I was very prejudiced against him,” said Jake in an ironic echo of Cornelius. “How could I not be prejudiced against a long-haired youth who looked like a Seventh Avenue messenger boy and talked like a bad satirical joke? But after all, one must try to make allowances. We can’t all be born with silver spoons in our mouths. … Why are you smiling?”

  “I was just thinking that Marx was right after all. It’s not race that ultimately divides men, and it’s not religion, either; it’s class.”

  VII

  “Hiya, Scott, I’m just calling to say a big thank-you for all your help. I thought Jake Reischman was just a swell guy. I could relate to him, you know, we got along real good. Hey, can I buy you lunch sometime next week in token of my appreciation?”

  “Thanks, Don, but I’m about to go on vacation. Can I take a rain check?”

  “Sure! Where are you going? Europe?”

  “The Caribbean.”

  “I’m jealous! Well, have a great time around all those schmaltzy palm trees, and we’ll get together later. Oh, and Scott … give my regards to that son of a bitch Van Zale and tell him I’ll wipe the floor with him someday,” said Donald Shine, and laughed not altogether good-naturedly as he hung up the phone.

  VIII

  Conversations.

  Words spoken through Scott’s mouth. Scenes watched by Scott’s eyes. But Scott doesn’t exist except in the minds of other people, for Scott is a mere shadow projected by the power of the will, the will that belongs to me, the individual behind the shadow—and the individual as the medieval philosopher William of Ockham wrote long ago, is the sole reality.

  Scott told everyone he was going on vacation, but that was a lie. Scott never left New York. It was always I who left the city, just as it was always I who relaxed in his apartment after Scott had arrived home each day from work.

  Scott came home on that November day in 1963, and as usual when the front door closed, he ceased to exist, and I was the one who went into the bedroom and looked at myself in the mirror. Then I took off Scott’s clothes, the dark suit, the white shirt, and the plain tie, emblems of a life I despised, and showered to remove the slime of his life from my body, and when I was clean again I put on my clothes, the white slacks, the silver-buckled belt, and the brilliant blue shirt, which I left unbuttoned, but in the kitchen I fixed myself not the drink I was always tempted to try when I was myself, but Scott’s drink, which I knew would never harm me, the tall dark Coke with a dash of lemon juice added to kill the sweetness as the liquid foamed noisily over the ice.

  With my drink in my hand I sat down in the recliner, swung my feet up onto the ottoman, and expelled my breath slowly in relief. The mountaineer had made it back to base camp again after yet another grueling climb on the mountain. Two weeks of rest and recuperation stretched enticingly before me in my mind’s eye.

  I glanced around my apartment. I lived opposite Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side, but I worked such long hours at the bank that I seldom saw the view of the East River in daylight. But on weekends I would watch the sunlight sparkling on the water while I drank my breakfast of black coffee. The river was filthy but in the morning sunlight it looked beautiful, reminding me of the ideal seascape where I longed to live in peace once my quest had been completed. I had never found this perfect seascape, although I could see the scene so clearly in my mind’s eye, the beautiful deserted shore bordering a dark and glassy sea. The sands were clean and white and pure, and I thought there were mountains in the background, although it was hard to be sure.

  I never entertained visitors in my apartment, since I needed every moment of my leisure hours to recuperate from the strain of being Scott, and so I had never bothered to acquire more than the essential items of furniture. The recliner and ottoman stood alone on the carpet. The walls were lined with books, and in one corner wider shelves supported my stereo and record collection. There was no television. As I spent most of my days with the trivial and the meaningless, I hardly wanted to recreate that environment in my leisure hours. Instead of watching television, I read a great deal, not following, as everyone believed, an unrelieved diet of medieval literature, but selecting novels, history, some psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. On weekends I played squash and took long walks, but sometimes when the gap between vacations seemed uncomfortably long, I’d take a plane somewhere—to Bermuda or Canada or even merely to another big American city—and spend the weekend in the pursuit of an alternative physical activity.

  After the war, when I had given up alcohol, I had soon realized I needed another escape route when stress made life intolerable, and although I regarded all escape routes as potential threats to my self-discipline, I had worked out a set of rules to ensure the risk of trouble was minimal. My aim was always to cut short an involvement before it had the chance to develop into an unfortunate obsession, so I kept my affairs brief and made sure they only took place a long way from home.

  This recipe for self-indulgence might have seemed unsatisfactory to many people, but the truth was I never enjoyed sex much. If I merely wanted to relieve sexual tension, I preferred to seek relief by myself, since if there was no other person involved I could safely set aside my fear of losing control for a few minutes, but I sought more than a physical release when I took my trips to those distant cities. I liked the fun of the cha
se and the contact, no matter how brief, with another human being; it was the mental, not the physical, release which meant so much to me, the chance to escape temporarily from the burden of my isolation.

  Even before the postwar decision that had altered my life, I had never managed to sustain an affair beyond the first few dates. The idea of falling in love horrified me. I had been fourteen years old when my father had walked out on Emily in 1933 to pursue his obsession for Dinah Slade, and I saw all too clearly that such obsessions caused nothing but suffering and unhappiness to the innocent people left behind. After the catastrophe of my father’s desertion I trusted no women but my beloved Emily, and for many years I lied regularly to Cornelius when he made discreet paternal inquiries about my private life, but in the navy I was afraid to be the odd one out in case I was labeled homosexual, so I got drunk one night during a shore leave and finally managed to conform to the normal pattern of masculine behavior. After that incident I at least never worried that I was a homosexual, although I knew that Cornelius, who firmly believed that every normal man should have intercourse at least three times a week in order to conform to the Kinsey Report, often worried that I showed no interest in marriage.

  The idea of marriage had always seemed remote to me, but after the war, when I decided what I was going to do with my life, the idea seemed not merely remote but inconceivable. In fact, I was so opposed to any long-term relationship either in or out of wedlock that I was hardly surprised when women sensed this revulsion and reacted accordingly. With my ambitions shrouded in secrecy and a veil drawn over the unhappy past, I presented an enigma which they found both baffling and, ultimately, when my reserve proved impenetrable, repellent. I knew very well that if I ever made the mistake of trying to prolong a relationship the woman would soon make some excuse to walk away.