Solomon Gursky Was Here

by Mordecai Richler

  “Does your father know about this?”

  “Henry, this grieves me, but Mr. Bernard ain’t what he used to be.

  He drools. He falls asleep at board meetings. Or he sits there, sucking on one of those damn Popsicles, farting away, while decisions involving millions are being made. You think the word isn’t out on the street? The word is out. He also gives in more frequently to that notorious temper of his. Important executives I took considerable pains to recruit are fired, lost to our competitors. Why? Because they’re too tall. Appointments with merchant bankers aren’t kept. It’s the old Henry Ford syndrome all over again. He’s stuck with his first hard-on. He’ll make you a Model-T in any colour you want so long as it’s black. Ms. Bernard won’t allow us to drop old dark heavy Scotches, no longer popular, because he once had a hand in the blending. He knocks down any new light blend if it comes from what he calls my marketing pricks. He could destroy the empire he built, and destroy me, just like the senile Ford all but destroyed his son and empire. No, Mr. Bernard doesn’t know I’m here. This is between you and me, Henry. Our secret. I have decided to trust you, that’s right, and I want you to trust me. Twenty-five percent above market value. What do you say, Henry?”

  Henry, his head aching, leaped up. “It’s time for my evening prayers.”

  “Henry, you’re an example to all of us. A really exceptional Jew. It’s heart-warming.”

  “I’ll say them in the kitchen. I won’t be long.”

  So Lionel was left alone with the boy, which he found unsettling.

  “What’s your favourite colour, son?” he asked, impatiently tapping his gold Cross pen against the table.

  Isaac simply stared.

  “Come on, everybody has a favourite colour.”

  “Red.”

  “How would you like your Uncle Lionel to send you a big red snowmobile?”

  “Do you believe the Moshiach is coming?”

  “The Messiah?”

  Isaac nodded.

  “Well, that’s a big question, isn’t it?”

  “I do.”

  “Hey, that’s very nice. I’ll buy that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it speaks very well for your character and your future

  development as a caring person.”

  The boy continued to stare. “What’s interest?” he asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said my father lost a lot of money in interest by not cashing a cheque.”

  “You don’t want to worry about that, son.”

  “If my father doesn’t sell, will it all be mine one day?”

  “McTavish?” Lionel asked, resisting an inexplicable urge to swat him one.

  Isaac nodded.

  “I’m afraid not, son.”

  Henry was back. He had brought Isaac along for insurance. Alone, he feared that he would agree to everything, sign anything, just to escape Lionel. But with Isaac there, a witness, bound to spill the beans to Nialie, he was safe. He didn’t dare acquiesce. “There’s my son to consider. How could I sell his inheritance?”

  “Booze isn’t exactly booming these days. We might even have to report a loss in the third quarter. If you sold, and took good advice, you could double your yield, maybe better. The boy would be bound to inherit more.”

  “Please, Lionel, I can’t sell.”

  “Would you sell if you were approached by others?”

  “No.”

  “What if your infallible Rebbe asked you to sell?”

  “The Rebbe is not in the takeover business.”

  There was a knock at the door. Two men had come with boards that had been hammered together to slide under Lionel’s mattress. “It’s no longer necessary,” Lionel said. “I have to leave within the hour.”

  “But what about the commissioner’s dinner party? It’s being held in your honour, Mr. Gursky.”

  “Please convey my sincere regrets, but I’ve just had an urgent phone call from my father. He wants me to leave for Montreal at once.”

  The men left and Henry, his eyes welling with tears, reached out and touched Lionel tentatively on the shoulder. In spite of everything, he was a cousin: he was entitled to know. “It’s coming to an end,” Henry said.

  “Family control?”

  “The world.”

  “Oh, that,” Lionel said, relieved. “Good to see you again and thanks for the tip. Knowing you it has to be insider’s information.”

  A FLOCK OF THE FAITHFUL, on the annual pilgrimage out of Grise Fiord, was camped on the edge of the settlement. It was that time of year. So now, at six P.M., as proscribed during the season of Tulugaq who had come on the wooden ship with three masts, the most pious among them gathered before the front door of Henry’s pre-fab and waited, their heads bowed, until he came out to receive them. A disgruntled Nialie retreated to the bedroom with Isaac and promptly drew the curtains.

  “Why can’t I watch for once?” Isaac asked.

  “Because I forbid it at your age.”

  Isaac parted the curtains defiantly and Nialie, though she was distressed, did not reproach him, but withdrew meekly from the room.

  The men wore parkas trailing four fringes, each fringe made up of twelve strands. Beating on their skin drums, they paraded their traditional sabbath eve offerings before them. Some of the older women, plump and gap-toothed, were already drunk. Their cheeks rouged, their lipstick unevenly applied. Two of the younger ones wore imitation-leather miniskirts and red plastic boots with high heels, probably acquired in Inuvik or Frobisher Bay. Henry averted his eyes, he blushed, but listened gravely as one by one the men stepped forward, their manner deferential but their words explicit, calculated to inflame. Effusive in his gratitude, Henry nevertheless declined each offering. Then, signalling that the ceremony was over, he smiled and sang out, “Good shabbos.”

  The men gathered in their disappointed and scornful womenfolk and turned to troop back to their camp, beating mournfully on their drums.

  “Some shabbos,” one of the women said.

  “It will be different when it is the younger one’s time. He was peeking through the curtains.”

  Nialie blessed the candles at seven-thirty and the family sat down to their sabbath dinner. Henry regaling Isaac with tales of Moses— “No, no, not your Uncle Moses, but the original. Moses, our Father”—that great angakok of the Hebrews who could turn his red into a serpent, bring forth water from a rock, and part the seas with a command. Only Moses, Henry explained, had seen God plain, as it is written: “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”

  Later, Henry lowered his son on to the bed he had built for him. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet had been painted into the head-board. It was cleverly done. A seal barked a “shin.” A “resh” was tied to a caribou’s tail. A “daled” danced with a muskox. And out of the raven’s beak there flew the deadly “gimel”. The sign of the great one who had come on the wooden ship with three masts.

  Nialie stood in the doorway, watching over them. Her husband, her son. Isaac was stealing again, shop-lifting at the Co-op and the Hudson’s Bay trading post. She had found things that he had hidden. Two packs of Player’s Mild cigarettes, a girlie magazine, a pocket knife, a gold Cross pen. She wanted to talk to Henry about it, but once more she procrastinated. He was so devoted to the boy. He had such faith in him. Nialie wished she could admonish the boy herself, but that was out of the question—impossible—as she was understandably fearful of Isaac’s name-soul or atiq, who was Tulugaq, the name she had cried out immediately before giving birth to Isaac.

  While Nialie did the dishes, Henry retired to his rocking chair with the latest copy of Newsweek. In the outside it was still Watergate above all. Eighteen and a half minutes of a Nixon tape had been mysteriously erased. A committee, chaired by a Senator Sam Ervin, was in daily session. The people were perturbed.

  Overcome by restlessness, a sudden tug of unease he couldn’t account
for, Henry hurried into his parka, slipped outside, and headed for the camp of the Faithful. Mingling with them always calmed his spirits. He could do with that now. But when he got there, he was surprised to find the camp abandoned. They had gone without a word to him. It was odd, very odd. Old Pootoogook was sifting through the camp’s detritus.

  “What happened?” Henry asked.

  “Somebody came. Somebody from Spence. He was very excited. They gathered their things together fast fast and they were gone,” Pootoogook said, beating his arms to scare off the other scavengers, the swooping ravens.

  Ravens, ravens everywhere.

  Henry jogged all the way back to the nursing station. When Agnes came to the door in her fading dressing gown he didn’t even apologize for wakening her, which was certainly not like him. All he said was, “I must send a cable. It’s urgent.”

  The Faithful had left a message scrawled in the snow:

  WE WANT THE MOSHIACH NOW!

  Two

  MOSES BERGER

  CARLETON UNIVERSITY

  OTTAWA ONT

  THE RAVENS ARE GATHERING. REPLY SOONEST. HENRY.

  HENRY GURSKY

  NURSING STATION

  TULUGAQTITUT NWT

  MOSES BERGER NO LONGER EMPLOYED HERE. WE HAVE FORWARDED YOUR TELEGRAM. DAVIDSON. BURSAR. CARLETON UNIVERSITY.

  HENRY GURSKY

  NURSING STATION

  TULUGAQTITUT NWT

  I’VE GOT PROBLEMS OF MY OWN RIGHT NOW. REST, PERTURBED SPIRIT. MOSES.

  MOSES BERGER

  THE CABOOSE

  MANSONVILLE QUE

  SOMEBODY MUST WARN MR. BERNARD. REPLY SOONEST. HENRY.

  HENRY GURSKY

  NURSING STATION

  TULUGAQTITUT NWT

  RABBI JANNAI ONCE SAID THE SECURITY OF THE WICKED IS NOT IN OUR HANDS. BEST. MOSES.

  Three

  Mr. Bernard, as was his habit, charged out of his chauffeured limousine at 7:50 A.M., cursing the driving rain, the unresolved problem of numerous vacancies in his latest Montreal shopping plaza, the high cost of French-Canadian unrest, the uncertainty of sterling, a spread of northern oil leases as barren as his daughter (though penetrated as often, God knows), and Lionel’s foolish investment in a sinking TV series (all in the name of more pussy, no doubt). Lionel had phoned Mr. Bernard at home that very morning, catching him just as he came out of his shower. “How are you feeling this morning, Daddy?”

  “Bad news. I didn’t croak during the night. So it isn’t yours yet.”

  “I’m returning your call.”

  “I’ve enjoyed bigger honours in my time.”

  “Aw, come on, Daddy.”

  “The Dow-Jones is down again. Everybody knows we’re going to announce a loss this quarter, but my little cabbage patch has put on another two points. Tell me why?”

  “Some, raiders out there are buying in New York, Toronto, and London, but your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Mr. Bernard doesn’t guess. He knows. I say it’s a real impatient putz, namely you, warehousing shares and hiding behind the skirts of surrogates.”

  “Daddy, if you would only sign those trust papers, delegating me as CEO upon your retirement, I’d stop those speculators cold in their tracks.”

  “Whatever you’re into I’m not shaking in my boots. But one thing I want to lay on the line, you whoremaster. You absolutely mustn’t try to buy out Henry or Lucy. There are things you haven’t

  been told. Family things. So I want your word. No finger-fucking with Solomon’s crazy kids.”

  “Daddy, I swear on the heads of my children.”

  “From which marriage?”

  “I—”

  “I-I-I. And I suppose you expect me to believe that I-I-I doesn’t know how many shares changed hands in Tokyo yesterday?”

  “Did you say Tokyo?”

  “Don’t act innocent with me,” Mr. Bernard said, hanging up. Lionel immediately buzzed Miss Heffernan. “Get me Lubin on line one and get me Weintraub and put him on hold.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I thought you were in Montreal,” Lubin said.

  “I’m flying in this afternoon. Sol, have we been buying McTavish in Tokyo?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought. I’m putting you on hold. Yes, Miss Heffernan?”

  “I’ve got Mr. Weintraub on line three.”

  Lionel asked him about Tokyo.

  “Not us.”

  Shit.

  THERE WAS, THEY SAID, ice lodged in Mr. Bernard’s heart, glacial ice, but he had come by it honestly. From Ephraim walking out. A ball of phlegm percolating in his throat, Mr. Bernard negotiated the slippery sidewalk with care, mindful of bones grown brittle with age. Then he swept through the doors of the Bernard Gursky Tower on Dorchester Boulevard, stumbling into unaccustomed darkness—gloom—when he was startled by a sudden and blinding explosion of light.

  Oh, my God!

  Automatically throwing up his arms to shield his face, Mr. Bernard fell to his knees. He subsided, moaning, to the marble floor, curling into the fetal position, fearing the mindless guns of Arab terrorists even as he had once ridden out the fury of Detroit’s Purple Gang, hunkered down with the bats, two hundred feet below ground, in that freezing talc mine shaft in the Eastern Townships for three terrifying weeks, waiting for Solomon to arrange a truce.

  Miss O’Brien, surveying the scene, turned to Harvey Schwartz, flicking him with that special look of hers. “Oh dear,” she said with a certain asperity, “are you ever in for it now, Mr. Schwartz.”

  A rattled Harvey Schwartz raced toward Mr. Bernard, helping him to his feet, a shivering blinking Mr. Bernard, whom he nervously pointed at the banner that flowed from wall to wall in the lobby:

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. BERNARD

  SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS YOUNG TODAY!

  The banner was revealed to Mr. Bernard just as one-hundred-odd office employees of James McTavish Distillers Ltd., his corporate creature, burst into “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

  His eyes brimming with grateful tears, if only because his body remained unpunctured, Mr. Bernard scampered forward to accept a sterling silver tea service from a delegation of his employees. Applause, applause. Dabbing his eyes, surreptitiously hawking phlegm into his handkerchief—a surprisingly hot wad—Mr. Bernard extended his tiny spindly arms to offer his benediction. “God bless you. God bless each and every one of you.”

  Two office girls wheeled out a cake on a trolley—massive—shaped like a bottle of Canadian Jubilee, their most popular rye, and crowned with figures of Mr. Bernard and his wife, Libby.

  “I don’t deserve such love,” Mr. Bernard protested. “You’re wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Not my employees,” he cooed, blowing wet kisses as he retreated to the elevator, “but my children, my family.”

  Only a bemused Miss O’Brien and Harvey Schwartz, carrying the tea service, rode with Mr. Bernard in the express elevator to the forty-first floor. “Everybody chipped in,” Harvey said, beaming. “From vice-presidents to office boys.”

  “But some people didn’t think it was such an inspired idea,” Miss O’Brien said.

  “Their idea, not mine. I was enormously touched on your behalf, Mr. Bernard.”

  Mr. Bernard began to clack his dentures. “I have to piss,” he said. “I have to piss something terrible.”

  “But weren’t you pleased?”

  Cursing, Mr. Bernard backed into the elevator wall, gaining purchase before he charged forward to kick Harvey in the shin, sending the tea service flying.

  “You little runt, I could have fractured my hip out there. Now pick up that stuff; I hope nothing’s bent.”

  Mr. Bernard, a short man, no more than five foot four, bald except for a silvery fringe, had the body of a carp. The wet brown eyes protuberant, his cheeks scaly, bleeding red whenever he was in a temper. Darting into his office, he pinched his nose with two fingers, snot pinging into the florentine tooled leather wastepaper basket. Then he pitched
his homburg on to his Queen Anne walnut settee which was upholstered in velvet and had been built in Philadelphia for William Penn. Over the settee there hung a Jackson Pollock, one of his daughter’s fershtinkena acquisitions. Mr. Bernard was fond of using the painting, which reminded him of curdled vomit, to jab petitioners or job applicants who were visiting his office for the first time. “You think it’s good?” he enjoyed asking. “I mean, hoo boy, you’re a Harvard MBA. Tell me. I’d value your considered opinion.”

  “It’s first-rate, sir.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it? Take your time, sonny. Have a good look.”

  “Wrong? I think it’s lyrical, sir.”

  Then, his eyes bright with rancour, he would pounce. “It’s hanging upside down. Now what can I get you?” Mr. Harvard Tuchus-Face MBA.

  Only Moses Berger, that drunk, had outmanoeuvred him. Of course that had been years ago, when Mr. Bernard had first discovered that Moses was poking his nose into Gursky family affairs, asking questions about Solomon.

  “You don’t think there’s anything wrong with the painting?”

  Moses had shrugged.

  Shooting forward in his desk chair, Mr. Bernard had barked, “It’s hanging upside down.”

  “How can you tell for sure?”

  “Hey, you’re some smart cookie,” Mr. Bernard had replied, brightening. “Come work for me and I’ll pay you double what you can get at some shitcan university.”

  “I’m not looking for a job, if that’s why you sent for me.”

  “I sent for you because I don’t care for strangers trying to dig up dirt about the Gurskys to feed anti-Semites, as if they’re going hungry these days. But if any trouble-maker dares to cross my path I’ll squash him like a bug.”

  His face hot, his mood vile, Mr. Bernard ate lunch in his private dining room with his brother Morrie.

  Mr. Morrie, who never forgot a cleaning lady’s name, a secretary’s birthday, or the illness of a filing clerk’s wife, was adored by just about everybody who worked for McTavish. He occasionally ate in the employee’s canteen, refusing to allow anybody to fetch for him, but lining up with his tray like the rest. It was amazing, really amazing, that he and Mr. Bernard were brothers. One a saint, they said, the other a demon.