Indecent Proposal

by Jack Engelhard

  No, I had not known what the price would be. So in that sense I was blameless. But from the beginning I knew there’d be a profit in Ibrahim, a man so rich that the leftovers he scattered behind could plant a thousand fortunes. So I had played him as surely as he had played me.

  True, he had seen us first, caught a whiff of that gorgeous wife of mine on the casino floor of the Galaxy and was smitten. Then--with the help of Sy Rodrigo--he set out on a campaign to win her, first by luring me to his blackjack table at the Versailles. How did he know I’d be there at the Versailles? I could have been at ten other casinos that day, or none at all. That was a mystery. No figuring that out.

  But it was also true that I had seen him before he had ever seen me or Joan. Somewhere in my life, I knew there’d be a messiah. I had no idea what shape he’d come in. I certainly had not figured on an Arab. But I knew there’d be a savior to gather me up and deliver me to a land of plenty.

  The next day I had lunch with Adolph. Just the two of us, plus Jules Corson. Jules would not trust me alone with Adolph--or with any client, really. The purpose was to get acquainted. Knowing that I was allergic to fish, Jules had made reservations at the Philadelphia Fish Company on Chestnut. I filled up on bread.

  “Josh here is very excited about writing speeches for you,” Jules said to Adolph.

  Jules never lied. He also never told the truth.

  “I am so happy,” said Adolph.

  “Josh is our best,” said Jules. “He’s written speeches for senators and governors.”

  “Ah!” said Adolph, nodding in polite admiration.

  Jules was making conversation. It was always difficult with a client. You had to be charming and entertaining and you could never relax. But you had to act relaxed. That was what made it so difficult.

  “But I am not a senator or a governor,” said Adolph.

  How about a führer? I thought.

  “Oh,” said Jules. “I was just giving some background on your man.”

  “I already know his background. I am very impressed.”

  Say thank you, I urged myself.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “There will be many speeches to write,” said Adolph.

  “Josh doesn’t mind,” said Jules. I don’t? “He’s looking forward to the challenge.” I am?

  “Josh,” said Jules, “did you know that you’ll be traveling the country with Mr. Friedrich?”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  I had thought I’d be writing a single fill-in-the-blanks speech, an “evergreen” as we called it in the business. But no, I’d be writing a separate speech for each plant visit.

  I had done that once before for another CEO and it had been a two-week nightmare, sharing breakfast, lunch and dinner with the same man--a man who, by force of being a client, owned rights to your every mood.

  Most unbearable were the “plant tours” I had to submit to. Machines pounding, grinding, mashing. You were obliged to wear hardhats here, protective goggles there, and the foreman, over all that din, kept explaining things and you kept nodding in fascination, though you couldn’t hear a word. “Oh really?” you said.

  “We will be spending much time together,” said Adolph.

  “Josh is looking forward to that,” said Jules.

  “Maybe you will even teach me good English,” said Adolph. “You will be my expert.”

  “Josh wasn’t even born in this country.”

  I knew he meant well, but why, I wondered, why did Jules have to bring that up? This wasn’t smart.

  “Oh? Where were you born?”

  “In France,” I said.

  “You must have been very young when you left.”

  “I was.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  Jules said, “Josh left after the...when the...because of the...”

  “The war,” I said.

  “Ah!” said Adolph.

  “Josh was too young to remember anything,” Jules said by way of dismissing World War II. “And besides, his whole family got away,” he added by way of dismissing the Holocaust.

  “Not quite,” I said. “Most of my family, in fact, perished at the hands of the...the...”

  “The enemy,” said Jules.

  “Ah!” said Adolph.

  How do you talk to a German about the Germans? I had never had this before. As for Jules, he was experienced in making history disappear. Once, when we were pitching a Japanese account, he deleted his entire war record from his résumé.

  I had always had trouble with that, as I was having trouble with this. To let the past be the past was fine with me, but to trade in your medals for the sake of business--well it made sense, it was practical, but it stunk.

  So to make amends quickly, I now said, “The enemy of course, being the Nazis.”

  Jules laughed--the laugh of a man who had just been kicked in the balls.

  “But not all Germans were Nazis,” he hastily explained.

  “Ah!” said Adolph, who didn’t seem to mind either way.

  “Most of the German people did not know what was happening,” Jules continued, now giddy from panic.

  “That is so,” said Adolph, still unruffled.

  Jules’ eyes sought mine to deliver a message--shut up or I’ll kill you! Your job depends on this? No, not your job. Your life, you motherfucker!

  “That is not so at all,” I said. “Every German knew.”

  Now the odd thing was this: Adolph had done nothing to ignite this exchange, except for being Adolph. No, Jules was at fault and so was I. This was between the two of us. Adolph hardly figured.

  Adolph could sense as much, so he had remained aloof. But the last remark of mine shot him down.

  “All Germans were Nazis?” he said, screwing his eyeballs into mine.

  Blink! I could hear Jules thinking. Blink, you son-of-a-bitch motherfucking cocksucker, or I’ll kill you not once but twice.

  So here was the question: were all Germans Nazis? Even a better question was this: do you tell the truth, at least what you believe to be the truth, or do you say what’s good for business? Or do you hedge? You don’t have to say all Germans were Nazis. You could say a few or some or many or most.

  To say a few or some--either would be safe. Adolph would approve and Jules would rejoice. Yes, there were a few Nazis in Germany, maybe even some. Nobody would be foolish as to insist that there weren’t any Nazis in Germany. The evidence was too formidable.

  A million-dollar account rested on my saying a few, some, many, most or all.

  Adolph repeated the question: “Are you saying all Germans were Nazis?”

  I was about to say “many,” but my father stopped me. His image formed in my mind and he said: “For this I carried you across the Pyrenees? To cower before your tormentors? To compromise? Did Abraham our father compromise? Did Rabbi Akiva compromise? To compromise is to be true to two gods. There is only one. To compromise is to be false. Shame!”

  My father came to me often, in a number of guises--the man of action gathering up his flock and shepherding them to safety between the fires of the Holocaust; the pious man, bent over his books; the frightened man, unable and unwilling to understand this new world; the defiant man, his fist raised to the heavens in protest.

  What was he protesting? I never was sure. There was the obvious. He’s been routed from country to country, beginning in Poland, where the goons had taken his father to the village square, wrapped him in his prayer shawl, and set him ablaze as he cried, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” He’d been made to witness that, at a time when he was a yeshiva boy complete with sidelocks, which he shaved when he arrived in Paris.

  In Paris he met my mother, the daughter of an aristocratic book publisher, bred three kids and prospered. Big factory in the leather trade. Then the Nazis came. For a price--such deals were still made at the beginning of the Occupation--for a cut of his profits they would have let him keep the factory. He declined. For a price he co
uld have left behind one or two or three of his children in the safety of the church, on the thinking that to split a family would assure that at least some would survive. That too he declined. We would all make the escape together. No, he’d never been one for compromise. It was all or nothing.

  Even later in Montreal, and even much later in Philadelphia, he refused handouts that were made available to refugees. Yes refugees. Now he was a refugee again and perhaps that caused his great silences, silences that stretched out like the desert Sinai. Without provocation he would enter the kingdom of silence and remain there for weeks, sometimes months.

  Was it something that he saw? Something that he heard? I used to wonder as a child. What did he know that I didn’t know? There was a secret, a hidden outrage. Something spiritual, Biblical. Did he hear from Abraham, Jacob? Did he see Isaac? Did he see Isaac on Mount Moriah?

  Whatever he knew was not of this world.

  He died with the secret; but the outrage, that he passed on to me.

  “Yes,” I said. “All Germans were Nazis.”

  Chapter 16

  JOAN WAS being entirely too cheerful. Sometimes I wondered if there was depth to her. She seemed suffer-proof. Out there on Main Line they pasted a smile on your face and sent you out to meet the world camera-ready.

  She was the product of manners over feelings. She wept, she bled, but she mended so speedily that I doubted her capacity to know true emotion. Or maybe I envied her show of steadfastness against life’s trials.

  Where I came from people anguished. Ships and planes moved the remnants of a generation from continent to continent. Trains gathered up loved ones. The parent became childless. The child became an orphan. The wife became a widow. The husband became a widower. The patriot became homeless. Separations, farewells, reunions quickened the days. People knew great upheavals, great sorrows and even great jubilations.

  But Joan--Joan was a child of peace. Sometimes I needed conflict. I sought the drama of my youth. Not Joan. Joan sought harmony, which, idiot that I was, I often mistook for complacency--because Joan was deeper than I would ever be. She knew--and this was the only difference--she knew how to manage pain. She made herself cheerful. The worse things got, the more cheerful she became. This evening, before I even had a chance to bring her up-to-date on Adolph, she was more cheerful than I had ever seen her.

  She had heard from Ibrahim.

  “Oh?” I said. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  Why, I wondered, was she being so triumphant? That should be bad news, not good news.

  “You seem pleased,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m very pleased. Shouldn’t I be? Not every woman can say she’s worth a million dollars.”

  “Surely he didn’t mention money to you.”

  “Oh yes he did. It’s quite clear that I’m the merchandise in this transaction.”

  Her smile widened to include a million dollar’s worth of resentment.

  “There is no transaction,” I said.

  “He’s madly in love with me, you know.”

  “How flattered you must be.”

  “Oh, you can’t imagine. One night with me would keep him for a lifetime. That’s what he said.”

  “Are you about to start crying?”

  “Me? I’ve never been so happy.”

  “I don’t think you’re happy.”

  “Of course I am. My husband has made a million-dollar business deal. Of course I’m happy. I’m thrilled.”

  “We never made a deal.”

  “He said you did. Very much so.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  Ibrahim was a genius. He had planned that, too. To tell Joan that I had agreed. That could only divide us and surely send her to him, if not for the money, then for the defiance. From one faraway glance and a single follow-up dinner, how perfectly he knew her.

  He saw the rebel in her that I never knew. Appearances did not fool him. She was not a contented woman...what woman was? What woman lived without forbidden yearnings and fantasies? Ibrahim knew Joan from knowing women. But Joan he mastered in particular. He saw right through her, beyond the layer of sunniness and directly into her naked heart.

  * * *

  When I told Joan about my lunch with Adolph--well, that was the clincher. There was no doubt now that I had insulted him with malice, on purpose, the purpose being to lose my job and force a desperate situation that could only be resolved in Atlantic City, in bed with Ibrahim.

  “You, you’re the manipulator,” she said, “not him.”

  Anyway, I had not lost my job. True, Adolph had been startled by my accusation that all Germans were Nazis, and Jules had hid back a fit, but it all ended without bloodshed--or worse, losing the account. Adolph’s response was mild. He said he could appreciate how I felt. He said, further, that hatred against any people was unjust, but that he was willing to forgive me.

  “You are willing to forgive me?” I was about to say, but Jules had had enough.

  He gulped down some water and began to choke. He had performed this trick once before when another conversation with another client turned grim. This time I thought he was really going to die, so vehemently was he coughing, gagging and gasping, both hands at his throat. His eyeballs were about to pop out.

  Everything in the restaurant came to a stop. The waitress rushed over with the manager, while I slapped Jules on the back, administering first aid to the best of my knowledge. I had once taken a company course in CPR. But now, when it came time, I forgot everything. Worse, I got mixed up between what you were absolutely supposed to do and what you were absolutely not to do.

  Everybody shouted out advice. Stand him up. Sit him down. Bend him frontwards. Bend him backwards. Loosen his tie. Punch him in the spine. Punch him in the belly.

  “Give him water,” said the manager.

  “That’s what did this,” I said.

  “Water?”

  Later, when just the two of us were back at the office, Jules denied that it had been an act.

  “You’re trying to kill me,” he whispered.

  When word got around that I had saved his life--for that was how I had spread the word--I was reprimanded by the entire staff, except Myer. No, Myer was jealous. Jules, according to Myer, would now be indebted to me forever, heaping on me raises, bonuses and promotions.

  “You’re his hero now,” said Myer.

  In a sense I was. Adolph, before goose-stepping off to his room at the Holiday Inn, had told Jules in private that he admired me. I was such an honest person. Business needs more men like me, he said.

  “Now you and I both know that business needs fewer men like you,” Jules said. “But you won the guy over. You never know with clients. But someday you’ll kill me, Josh. I know you will. I’m on your list.”

  Actually the entire public relations profession was on my list. I got into the business while I was with the newspaper and was making a reliable dollar. I needed something unsteady. I’m that sort. A fast-talking but well-meaning politician persuaded me to write his campaign speeches. The catch was that I’d have to quit my newspaper job.

  To offset that was the possibility that someday this politician might become president of the United States. He promised to bring me up with him and make me secretary of state. How could I turn down secretary of state?

  So I accepted. First, of course, he’d have to win the congressional seat he was after. He lost, and not only was I minus secretary of state, I was minus a job.

  So I decided to start my own business. The speechwriting business. I placed an ad in the classified section of the newspaper, advertising myself as a speechwriter for all occasions.

  The people who needed speeches written, it turned out, were white supremacy advocates, loonies who wanted to declare Pennsylvania a separate nation and a sex therapist who had everything but a diploma. The ad--it brought them out like a full moon.

  My life as an independent speechwriter lasted exactly two weeks, and before I k
new it I was working for Jules Corson in public relations, where nothing was sacred and everybody was scared. I’d never seen so many frightened people in all my life.

  So many times I had thought of quitting. In fact, I once did. I saw Jules and I said:

  “Jules, I resign.”

  He laughed in my face.

  “Presidents,” he said, “resign. You don’t resign. You quit.”

  “Right. I quit.”

  “You can’t quit. Get out of here.”

  So I’d have to get fired. I devised scheme after scheme. Anything to rouse me from this complacency and impel me to go out there and do something. So I arrived late for work, left early, took two-hour lunches, ignored memos, failed to show up for new business meetings, refused to join the Birthday Club, defamed my colleagues by declaring them useless to their faces, publicly ridiculed computers, made sexist remarks in the presence of feminists and even fell asleep in the conference room while Jules went on and on about expense accounts.

  My conduct with Adolph was my most brazen attempt, but it was nothing special.

  So Joan was wrong about my motivations, although who was to say what lurked in the subconscious?

  This much was true: I could not imagine myself touring the country with Adolph, a Nazi who was prepared to forgive me. Nor could I imagine enduring the routine of another day in Philadelphia, Slob City USA. For this I was born?

  Surely the creator had something loftier in mind. What I had in mind was to excavate in Jerusalem, take part in the dig for the City of David. Find the radiance of my past. Maybe even find David or something about him that would lead me to his faith. I wanted to emerge from a cave utterly changed, divested of my earthly soul, aglow from spiritual transformation. That was my dream. Not this.

  The twentieth century was not my idea anyway. There was no place for me here, where men deceived themselves into importance by devising Towers of Babel in the form of mighty computers and buildings that reached for the heavens.