by Maureen Lee
By now he was making three times as much as he’d done before, a sum that would inevitably increase when he was doing more business. Tamara was already talking about moving from the apartment to a house with a yard for John to play in. ‘Brooklyn or Queens,’ she’d suggested.
‘We’ll see when the time comes,’ Levon murmured. John was only six weeks old and couldn’t sit up unsupported, let alone play in a yard. He liked living in Manhattan and didn’t want to leave.
Tamara was so absorbed with John it was almost as if she’d forgotten Levon and Anne existed. She took the baby for long walks and was thrilled when strangers spoke to her and assumed she was John’s mother. Although she was forty-six, she still looked capable of having children. There’d been a fierce argument when she’d wanted to register the baby with her and Levon as the parents.
‘He may as well be ours,’ she pouted when Levon pointed out that Anne was the mother. ‘She shows no interest, never so much as looks at him.’
‘She might feel differently when she’s older,’ he said coldly. ‘It would be like stealing another woman’s child. And, even if Anne doesn’t care, John can’t be brought up without being told at some time in his life that we’re not his parents. It would be extremely deceitful not to tell him the truth, Tamara,’ he added rather more gently when he saw the disappointment on her face.
So John was registered as having a mother called Anne Murray, the address the Grammercy Park apartment, and the father ‘Unknown’. Tamara secreted the certificate in the drawer that held all their other important papers. ‘We’ll tell him when he’s twenty-one,’ she said, ‘and just hope he doesn’t find out before.’
Time was passing. Levon looked at his watch, then at the do-nuts behind the glass-fronted counter, and managed to resist buying another. It was almost half an hour since he’d left Anne with the statuesque Peggy Perlmann. He left the baker’s and went through the narrow door that led to the academy, up the stairs to where the pianist - a tiny old woman who required two cushions on the stool in order to reach the keys - was playing a lively tune that made Levon want to snap his fingers. Anne was at the back of the crowd of dancers, tapping away in her little black boots as if she’d been doing it all her life.
Peggy saw him watching and came towards him, grinning from ear to ear. She grabbed his arm and led him into the kitchen that was also an office, saying loudly, ‘She’s a natural. Has she had lessons before?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. I must explain,’ he went on hurriedly, ‘that she’s not my daughter, but the daughter of a friend, an Irish friend. His wife died and he went bankrupt at the same time, so he sent her to us - my wife and I, that is - to look after. Her name is Anne Murray.’ It was a just about credible lie, but there had to be a reason why Anne spoke with an Irish accent, while his was Eastern European. Peggy, however, either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care.
‘She has rhythm, she moves well - you’d think she had elastic in her bones - and she sings like an angel. I’d love to have her, Mr Zarian. All my kids are talented, I wouldn’t take them if they weren’t, but I only get one a year like Anne. When can she start?’ she asked eagerly. ‘She still has heaps to learn,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.
‘Tomorrow?’ Levon felt as proud as if he really was Anne’s father.
‘Tomorrow would be hunky-dory, but she needs a pile of equipment: shoes for ballet and tap, tights, tops, shorts and skirts . . . I’ll give you a list. Go to Amelia’s on Delancey Street, say Peggy sent you, and she’ll let you have a discount.’
‘I’ll go straight away.’ Hang the business: if any new clients turned up while he was away, they’d just have to come back another time.
By the time Christmas came, Levon had engaged a secretary and acquired a telephone. He wasn’t sure which thrilled him most: the ability to pick up the telephone and speak to anyone in this exhilarating country who had a telephone of their own, or to have the extremely efficient Miss Emily Lacroix at his beck and call. Miss Lacroix, who was of French descent, had impeccable manners, impeccable typing skills, and impeccable taste in clothes. She sat in the corner of the office wearing a crisp white blouse and a smart black skirt, answering the door when people came and the phone when it rang. In the New Year, Levon was moving to a much larger office and Miss Lacroix would have a room of her own.
On Christmas Eve, he gave her chocolates from Dainty’s on Fifth Avenue, noted for their delicious confectionery, and she gave him a grey silk tie from her father’s menswear shop in SoHo. At midday, they shook hands and wished each other Merry Christmas, and she departed, a chocolate already in her mouth. Levon intended leaving soon himself: he was taking Anne to Macy’s to buy a present for Tamara and one for Anne herself, though she didn’t know it. He was reaching for his hat and overcoat when the telephone rang, making him jump - it was unnecessarily loud and could be heard all over the building.
He picked it up. ‘Levon Zarian,’ he announced; he still hadn’t memorized the number.
‘Hi, Levon,’ said a cheerful voice. ‘Ollie Blinker here. My boy, Herbie, and your girl, Anne, are at Peggy Perlmann’s academy together.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Levon replied, rather taken aback by Ollie Blinker’s overly familiar approach. ‘Yes, she often talks about Herbie.’ In fact, she talked about him all the time. They lunched with each other and hung around the local ice cream parlour when the academy finished for the day.
‘I’m throwing a party on New Year’s Eve,’ Ollie Blinker continued, ‘and I’d like Herbie and Anne to do a little turn for the guests. I trust you approve. You and your good lady are welcome to come. Herbie says you’re a lawyer - you might make a few useful contacts while you’re there.’
‘That’s very kind of you. I’d love to come, though I’m not too sure about Mrs Zarian. We have a small baby, you see.’ He felt convinced Tamara wouldn’t agree to be parted from John for an entire evening.
‘I do know, and I can recommend a sitter if you want - a woman who used to sit for my own kids when they were small.’ ‘I’ll tell my wife that. Thank you . . . Ollie. I look forward to meeting you soon.’ ‘My apartment is on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sixty-second Street, top floor. There’s a private lift.’
Levon knew the geography of New York as well as the back of his hand; the Blinkers lived in one of the most expensive and exclusive areas in the city.
He rang off and gave Anne the gist of the telephone call later when they met in the top-floor restaurant in Macy’s. The place was packed to capacity and, like the entire shop, was lavishly decorated for Christmas. ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ issued from loud speakers on the wall.
‘You don’t mind, do you, Lev?’ Anne asked, smiling in a way that only the hardest of hearts could have resisted. She looked a bit like a Christmas decoration herself in her blue velvet coat with white fur on the collar and cuffs and a hat to match, little black curls peeking from below the brim and flowing down her back. It was incredible to think that she was a mother. ‘The party, I mean. Peggy’s coming, and me and Herbie rehearsed the routines all last week.’
‘Herbie and I,’ Levon corrected. A waitress appeared and he ordered two coffees: one with cream, one without.
‘Herbie and I,’ Anne continued without a pause. ‘We’re doing two songs from No, No, Nannette - it’s a new show on Broadway. Peggy wanted to take us to see it, but she couldn’t get tickets.’ She put her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, and said, ‘What shall I get Tamara for Christmas?’
‘Jewellery, she loves jewellery.’
‘I know she does, but I’ve only about seventy-five cents left.’
‘What happened to your allowance? I thought you were saving it to buy presents?’ She got two dollars a week. He ducked as a woman nearly decapitated him with her shopping bags.
‘Sorry,’ she panted. ‘Sorry.’
‘Well, I was saving it,’ Anne confessed, ‘but a lot went on ice cream and coffees after school - Herbie would pay every time,
but I won’t let him - and we all clubbed together to get something for Peggy and Mrs Constantine. ’ Mrs Constantine played the piano at the academy. ‘Though I’ve already bought you a present, Lev,’ she said a trifle piously, as if that excused the fact she hadn’t enough for Tamara’s.
‘What is it?’
‘You won’t know until tomorrow, will you?’ She laughed teasingly and Levon felt as impatient as a child, wanting to know what the present was.
‘Did you buy that with your allowance?’ Until now, he hadn’t noticed the locket around her neck. It was gold and heavily engraved with scrolls and flowers.
‘No, I met Herbie earlier, before I met you, and he bought it me for Christmas. He has loads of money.’ She lifted the locket and squinted down at it. ‘Thank you,’ she said when the waitress came with the coffees. The carol had changed to ‘Away in a Manger’.
‘Did you buy Herbie a present?’ He would be annoyed if she had, leaving a mere seventy-five cents for Tamara.
‘I told him I was broke.’ She giggled merrily and began to sing, ‘The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay . . . ’
‘I suppose you expect a present from me for Christmas? ’ he said jovially.
‘Haven’t you bought me anything yet?’ she cried, pretending to be outraged.
‘Well, I did think of getting you a box of handkerchiefs, or some bed socks, and giving them to you as a surprise, but decided it would be best to get you exactly what you wanted.’
‘Oh, Lev, I’d love a coat,’ she said fervently. ‘A grown-up one, three-quarter length, with a belt, preferably black. I look like a child in this thing.’ She gave the blue velvet coat a look of disgust. He wondered how old she really was. It was almost a year since he’d found her and brought her to his home, but she’d never mentioned having a birthday. Either she’d forgotten, or pushed it to the back of her mind as she’d done so many other things. To most people, she must have given the impression of being a perfectly normal, very exuberant young lady, but Levon knew otherwise.
‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘But we’ll look at coats after we’ve bought something for Tamara, otherwise we might forget about it. And I think I’d better add a dollar or two to that seventy-five cents of yours.’ Tamara wasn’t partial to cheap jewellery - or cheap anything - and he doubted she’d be pleased with anything that cost seventy-five cents.
As expected, Tamara refused to go to the party on New Year’s Eve. She was horrified at the idea of using the sitter Ollie Blinker had offered to provide. ‘I don’t like the sound of him,’ she said. ‘What’s Ollie short for?’
‘Oliver, I guess,’ Levon replied.
‘Blinker is a very peculiar name. I’m sorry, Lev, but you’ll just have to go to the party with Anne, though I would have liked to see her dance,’ she conceded. ‘She dances for us here, but it’ll be different with a partner. You can tell me all about it when you come home.’
At eight o’clock on the night of the party, Levon and Anne set off for the Blinkers’ apartment in a taxi, Anne in her new coat with a bag containing her shoes.
‘What about a costume?’ he asked.
‘Mrs Blinker’s had some made.’
‘Really!’ There seemed to be an awful lot going on that he knew nothing about. ‘Have you met Mrs Blinker?’
‘No, but Peggy has. She’s really excited about tonight. They’re desperately rich, the Blinkers, and she’s hoping Mr Blinker will put up the money for a show written by her young man.’
‘Peggy has a young man?’ He felt slightly envious.
‘Well, she calls him her young man, but I’ve seen him and he looks quite old, almost thirty.’
‘That is old,’ Levon said gravely, wondering where it put him at fifty-one.
‘His name’s Rupert something and he’s written the music too. The show’s called Roller-Coaster and it’s set in a fairground.’
‘It sounds interesting.’
‘Yeah, me and Herbie - Herbie and I - are doing one of the numbers: “Dreaming”.’
‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Levon murmured.
The taxi stopped, having arrived at its destination, and he tipped the driver an extra dollar - it was a cold night and last New Year’s Eve he’d been doing the same thing, driving folk to their parties and clubs and wishing he were back home with Tamara.
‘Wow!’ Anne exclaimed when they got out and found themselves in front of an impressive russet-brick building that looked at least a hundred years old. It had arched windows and a large balcony on each floor - six floors altogether, Levon counted. They entered a magnificent foyer with a marble floor, lots of polished brass, and a carved desk, behind which sat a uniformed figure covered in gold braid.
‘You for the Blinkers?’ he enquired. When Levon nodded, he went on, ‘Take the end lift. It should be back any second.’
They joined a small queue and Levon’s heart dropped fractionally when he noticed the men were wearing dress suits, something he didn’t possess.
The lift came and they shot up to the sixth floor at a speed that made his stomach lurch. The doors opened onto another foyer even more magnificent than the one downstairs, appearing, at first glance, to be considerably bigger, but actually much smaller. Levon came face to face with several versions of himself standing at different angles outside the lift, and even more versions getting smaller and smaller and stretching back for miles, possibly into infinity. He realized it was heptagon-shaped, possibly octagon, or another geometric shape he’d never heard of, and completely lined with mirrors.
‘Always gives folks a shock,’ chuckled a stocky man with beautifully waved grey hair wearing full evening dress, including a ruffled shirt and a red silk cummberbund. He grabbed Levon’s hand and shook it furiously. ‘Ollie Blinker, pleased to meet’cha. You’re Levon, I presume, seeing as how you’re with this gorgeous little lady who can only be Anne, Herbie’s dancing partner.’ He chucked Anne under her chin and she responded with a cute smile.
Ollie grabbed someone else’s hand then, and Levon followed Anne through a door that had suddenly appeared in the mirrors. His coat was taken, Anne disappeared, and he entered a vast room covered with paintings the like of which he’d never seen before and which were comprised mainly of more geometric shapes. The numerous sofas and chairs were covered with white leather and the rest of the furniture was made of wood so pale it was almost white. There was a white grand piano big enough to dance on. A small orchestra was playing a Strauss waltz, though no one was dancing. He was relieved to see a few of the men wore dark suits like himself: the women were draped in silk and satin and precious jewels.
‘Drink, sir?’ a voice enquired. He turned to find a waiter in a white tuxedo holding a tray filled with glasses of what looked very much like champagne, which he’d only drunk once before in his life.
‘Is it real?’ he asked stupidly.
‘Came over on a boat from France only last week, sir. Genuine vintage.’
‘But what about Prohibition?’ He felt even more stupid.
The waiter winked. ‘Mr Blinker, he ain’t ever heard of Prohibition, sir.’
Levon guiltily accepted a glass. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he’d missed having the occasional bottle of wine with a meal since coming to America; Prohibition had arrived in 1920 at about the same time as him and Tamara. It was a crazy law and had brought mayhem to the streets of the major cities, as gangsters fought each other for control of the trade in illicit liquor. His stomach lurched a second time when he wondered if that was how Ollie Blinker made his money. But the champagne, having come into contact with a stomach that hadn’t known alcohol for years, was already having an effect. He decided that he didn’t care what Ollie did for a living.
He finished the glass, took another, and pushed his way through the well-dressed throng to study one of the paintings: a collection of triangles and squares that meant nothing to him.
A few minutes later a small woman
in a plain black evening frock joined him. She wore pearl studs in her ears, her only adornment, a refreshing change from the other women, who appeared to be wearing the entire contents of their jewellery boxes. ‘You seem puzzled, Mr Zarian,’ she said, ‘but if you look closely, you’ll see a face in there. It’s a portrait of a man called Ambroise Vollard.’
Levon stepped back and studied the painting again. ‘Yes, I can see a face,’ he said with the excitement of someone who’d just solved a difficult puzzle.
‘It’s a school of painting called Cubism and was painted by the most famous living artist in the world today: Pablo Picasso. There are three more of his works here, and a couple of Braques. The whole collection cost just under a quarter of a million dollars.’ She spoke in an accent he couldn’t identify. She was a plain woman of about forty - homely, was how the Americans put it - yet there was something attractive about her face with its slightly crooked nose and too-wide mouth. Her eyes were very large and very dark, her brown hair short and straight, but he could tell it had been cut by an expert.
Levon nearly choked on the champagne. ‘That much!’ He wouldn’t have parted with a single cent for any one of the so-called works of art. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘My husband told me.’ She thrust out her hand. ‘Elizabeth Blinker, Mr Levon, Ollie’s wife, though my friends call me Lizzie.’
They shook hands and he said, ‘I’m Levon, but my friends call me Lev.’ He liked her straightforward manner.
‘One of these days, Lev,’ she said, nodding at the paintings, ‘these will be worth ten, twenty times that much.’
‘Is that why you bought them, not because you liked them, but as an investment?’
‘Ollie bought them as an investment: he knows nothing about art. Me, I wanted them for themselves.’
He studied the portrait of Ambroise Vollard again. What had been gained by painting a figure entirely in triangles? He couldn’t think of anything. ‘I suppose you could call it experimental?’