Second Generation

by Howard Fast

  Barbara regarded it dubiously. “I guess so. Can I spend a few days here, Mother?”

  “Of course.”

  “And that money you put away for me, the account in the bank, how do I use some of it?”

  “Very simple. Just go to the bank and fill out a withdrawal slip. Good heavens, they know you.”

  The following morning, Barbara walked to Sam Goldberg’s office. She felt wonderful now. It was a clean, cool July morning, and she filled her lungs with the good salt air. This was her place, no question about that, and in all the world there was no other place like it.

  At the office, Harvey Baxter welcomed her warmly. He had a wife and two children, the only reason he could contain his unabashed admiration of Barbara, and, mumbling his delight, he drew her into Sam Goldberg’s old office, now his. “How very good to see you, Miss Lavette. This time, I hope you’ll stay for a while.”

  “I think so.” She plunged right in. “Harvey, I want to buy Sam’s house.”

  “Oh?” He considered it, schooled in the fact that a lawyer should never respond immediately to anything.

  “It hasn’t been sold?” Barbara asked anxiously.

  “Oh, no. No, indeed. The estate hasn’t been settled yet.”

  “And you can sell it to me?”

  “As the executor, yes—no reason why not, if you really want it. It’s not a very fashionable house.”

  “Well, I do want it. How much will it cost me?”

  “What a pity you never said as much to Sam! He would have left it to you in his will. Well, I can put a fair price on it—say, twenty thousand dollars. We can get you a mortgage for twelve, so that would be about eight thousand in cash.” He was aware of the circumstances that had created the Lavette Foundation, and he asked her whether that was too much.

  “Oh, no. No, the price is all right. What about the furniture?”

  “You know, it’s a strange case. Sam had absolutely no one in the world, not a single blood relation. Aside from the money he left to his housekeeper, Mrs. Jones, there were instructions that she could take anything in the house that she wished to have. Very odd, but then, Sam Goldberg was an original. You could say that, couldn’t you?”

  “I guess so. Where is Mrs. Jones now?”

  “Still living at the house. Why don’t you go by and see her?”

  “I will. Meanwhile, Harvey, the house is mine. Agreed?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll work it out for you.”

  On her way to Green Street, Barbara could hardly contain her excitement. Somehow, the simple fact that she had made the decision and would own the house changed everything. There was a place that was her own, at last, a place where the books, the walls, the pictures, would be hers. She had always loved the little house. It had been a place of refuge and security when she needed both desperately, and now it was such a place once again, when her need was almost as desperate.

  Mrs. Jones opened the door, and her face lit up at the sight of Barbara. “I couldn’t wish for no one more,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  Barbara couldn’t contain herself. “I bought the house, Mrs. Jones.”

  “This house?”

  “Yes.” And when the black woman’s face fell, she added, “Oh, no, you don’t have to leave—unless you want to.”

  Mrs. Jones led Barbara into the kitchen, and over coffee, they worked out an arrangement. When the transaction was completed and Barbara moved in, Mrs. Jones would stay on at the same wages Goldberg had paid her. There were a few things in the house that Mrs. Jones wanted as mementos. The rest, except for some pieces of furniture, Baxter would sell, giving the money to Mrs. Jones. At first the black woman refused, explaining that the ten thousand dollars she had received in the will was ample, more indeed than she had ever dreamed of having. But Barbara insisted, and finally Mrs. Jones assented.

  That evening, Barbara called Los Angeles and spoke to May Ling and told her what she had done. “Please don’t let Daddy be hurt by this,” she begged May Ling.

  “He’ll understand.”

  “I’m not choosing between him and Jean. You must make him understand that. It’s just that I must have a place that is completely my own, a place where I can work and live and be entirely with myself.”

  “I know.” Yet when May Ling put down the phone, she felt a chill of cold fear. It was eight o’clock in the evening, and Dan was not yet home. He might call at any moment and tell her that he would not be home tonight. Joe was in the service, and day by day, the threat of war came closer. It was a time of death—her mother, her father, Sam Goldberg. If anything should happen to Joe, well then, she too would die. She walked around the house from room to room. How lonely it was, how empty, how desolate! The old Chinese superstition states that the spirit of the dead stays in his abode for three years, and even though May Ling disdained superstition, she would not dream of selling the house, even though Dan had suggested it, pointing out that a place like Palos Verdes was adjacent to San Pedro and one of the very best up-and-coming neighborhoods. She could leave her job at the library; the shipyard was making more money than he knew what to do with.

  But May Ling would not hear of it. Leave her job? Then she would surely wither away. She could not tell Dan that she must live here, in this house, for at least three years after her mother’s death, obedient to a superstition she had always scoffed at. Yet tonight, after speaking to Barbara, even superstition could not people the empty house, cold as a tomb.

  It was after nine when Dan returned, and May Ling, as if seeing him for the first time, had an impression of a man close to exhaustion, tired and aging. He had not eaten. May Ling sliced ham, fried eggs, and opened a can of beans, apologizing for not expecting him and not cooking, but Dan said, “Baby, there’s nothing in the world in the way of food I put ahead of ham and eggs and canned baked beans. You don’t know how many years I lived on that.”

  “Ugh. Come home tomorrow, Danny, and I’ll cook you a great Chinese dinner.”

  “I may just take you up on that.”

  “Barbara called from San Francisco,” she told him.

  “Oh?”

  “She bought Sam Goldberg’s house. From the estate.”

  Dan went on eating for a few minutes. Then he said, “For herself or for the foundation?”

  “For herself. She’s going to live there.”

  “Well, I had her for longer than I ever dreamed I would. I can’t complain.”

  “I can,” May Ling said miserably. “Oh, Danny, I’m so lonely and so unhappy. I suppose it’s being Chinese. You grow up with a thing about a family, and there was always a family here. Now they’re all gone, Mom and Pop dead, Barbara up there, Joe in the service, and you away so much. I don’t want to whimper about it, Danny. I never have.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you still love me?”

  Dan burst out laughing, almost choking on his mouthful of food, and May Ling cried out, “Don’t laugh at me, Dan. I’m miserable and serious and deeply unhappy.”

  He swallowed the food, took a long gulp of the beer May Ling had poured for him, and said to her, “Now listen to me. I spent the morning with Admiral Land. He’s out here again, and he brought with him two young smart-ass yard managers who were trained by the Maritime Commission and who know more about shipbuilding than I could learn in a hundred years. We have six ways now, and Land wants to put in five more. That’s why I get the two yard managers. They’ll run the whole works. In the next two months, we’ll have eleven keels laid and two hundred and fifty workdays of shipbuilding ahead of us—”

  “Danny, you haven’t heard a word I said!”

  “No? Well, listen. I told Land I was through, finished, that I didn’t want the goddamn shipyard.”

  “You told him that?” May Ling whispered. “Danny, how could you?”

  “Isn’
t that what you wanted?”

  “Oh, no. No. You can’t do that. Why do you listen to me? Betty Hargrave—she was head librarian and just back from her sabbatical in England—told me how it is. She saw them come back from Dunkirk, and then she went through the bombing in London, and Danny, it’s that one little island against those monsters—”

  “O.K., now listen. You know, I’m beginning to like Land. He’s a tough, mean old bastard, but Jesus, he’s got the whole world on his back. He wouldn’t let me walk out of it, and I’m not sure I really wanted to. He’s opened up fourteen yards out here on the Coast, and mine is the best bet. In some ways, the man’s a besotted genius. He’s lined up over two thousand plants in eighteen states—cylinders, pistons, turbines, sheet steel, winches, compasses, cable—all of them being blueprinted and made and shipped, and by God, we’re building ships the way no one ever built them before, and this is only the beginning. Well, we worked it out. I’ll supervise the building of the ways and the hiring of about three hundred men. That will take maybe eight, nine weeks. Then I’m taking three months off—the first vacation I’ve had since I started that lousy shipyard.”

  “Oh, Danny, how wonderful!”

  “Hold on. What was the best we ever had it?”

  “It’s always been the best.”

  “All right, best of the best.”

  “Hawaii?”

  “O.K. I called Matt Brady at Wilmington Shipping. He runs two cargo ships to Honolulu, big ones, sixteen thousand tons each. They take two passengers, just two, cabin twelve by sixteen, double bed, meals with the captain and ship’s officers. Chinese cook who, according to Matt, has no equal. The Angeles sails from Wilmington on the twenty-sixth of September.”

  “Oh, Danny, Danny, is it true?”

  “I booked the passage and sent him my check, so it has to be pretty damn true. Then I got on the horn to Hawaii and called Chris Noel—you remember the Noel brothers? We built the hotel with them, and then we lost it when everything crumbled in twenty-nine. Hell, they had no alternative. What do you suppose was the first thing he asked me?”

  “Oh, Danny, I don’t know.”

  “Was I bringing that beautiful Chinese gal with me? I told him we’re married ten years now. Nothing else to it, but we got to stay with them at that huge plantation house of theirs they call a bungalow. I wasn’t calling for that. Hell, we can afford a hotel.”

  “Danny, we’ll stay with them. That wonderful place!”

  “No way out of it. I said I was calling to see whether he still owned that lovely yawl of his and could we charter it for a few weeks. ‘Charter it, hell!’ he said. It was ours. So there it is. I know you’re miserable, but could you see your way to enduring your misery until September?”

  “I’ll try.” She came around the table and hugged him. “I’ll try, Danny. I sure will try.”

  ***

  In the four years since he had become president of the Seldon Bank and chairman of its board of directors, taking over from Alvin Sommers in 1937, Martin Clancy had restored his office to the dignity it had once—and properly, he felt—contained. Paint remover had disposed of the ivory paint, revealing the walnut panels that Jean had found so depressing. Her Aubusson rug had quietly made its way to an auction gallery, to be replaced by a somber and gloomy carpet, and her chintz-covered overstuffed pieces were replaced by brown leather and dark mahogany, Jean had removed her bright Impressionist paintings, which had belonged to her, and now only the portrait of the first Seldon hung on the wall behind Martin Clancy’s desk.

  Clancy, past seventy now, was sitting behind the desk—and figuratively behind the bank that he had guarded so zealously all of his adult life—when Tom, a week back from his honeymoon, entered the office. Clancy had been expecting him, and he also had a very good idea of Tom’s purpose there. Clancy was a vigorous man, in good health, a teetotaler and nonsmoker, and he greeted Tom with enthusiasm, congratulating him on his marriage, his sunburn, and his uniform. “Old Tom would have been a happy man to see his grandson in that uniform, oh, yes, indeed. Well, Tom, I can guess what brings you here. With your shares and with what John Whittier has bought from your sister, you’re at the helm. A fine man, John. You couldn’t associate with a better one. Of course,” he added, “not literally. But the stockholders own the plant, don’t they?”

  “I’m afraid they do,” Tom agreed.

  “Will you sit down? There’s a good deal to discuss—if, of course, you’re interested.”

  “Oh, I am interested. But not today, Martin. Today I just stopped by for a few words. I’m calling a meeting of the board. I want you to step down. I intend to assume the presidency and the chairmanship.”

  The words came out with the assurance and crackle of a whiplash. Clancy had expected, from all he had heard, a self-assured young man; he had also expected Tom to suggest a place for himself on the board of directors; but this kind of immediate demand and arrogance shook him, and it was a long moment before he was able to speak. “Well, Thomas,” he said finally, “I can comprehend the legality of your position, and with the voting power of John Whittier’s stock, which I presume you have—”

  “I have, yes.”

  “—you have every right. Certainly. But my word, Thomas, you’re in uniform, a most honorable uniform, and with the country teetering on the edge of war, surely you realize the responsibility that such a position would entail, the demands on your time—”

  “Martin, don’t let the uniform trouble you. My assignment is San Francisco, the Embarcadero, and if war comes, few things will outrank the Port of San Francisco in importance. So we can dispense with your patriotic confusion.”

  Clancy fell silent. He stared at his desk, then sighed, looked up at Tom, and said, “Yes, Thomas, it is your responsibility. I can see that. At least I’ll be at your elbow to help you over the rough spots.”

  “Thank you, Martin, but no. I want you to resign from the board. You’re seventy-two years old.”

  Clancy stared at him, took a deep breath, and said, “Thomas, I have served this bank for half a century, and I have sat on its board for thirty-two years.”

  “That’s a long time. You’ll appreciate a rest.” And with that, Tom turned on his heel and left. Staring at the door he had closed behind him, Clancy whispered, “You little bastard—John Whittier’s running dog. I’ll see both of you in hell. If John Whittier thinks he can own this bank and California Shipping as well, he’s mistaken. There’s still law in this state.”

  A week later, Martin Clancy had a stroke that left him speechless and paralyzed. Whatever legal steps he might have thought of taking remained locked in his inarticulate skull.

  ***

  Driving north from Napa on Highway 29, Barbara saw the hitchhiker signaling for a lift, and she slowed to a stop. Ordinarily, she would have heeded the injunction against picking up a hitchhiker, but even in the glimpse she had driving past, there was something about the young man that made her step on the brake and roll to a stop. He could have been no more than eighteen or nineteen, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, tall, skinny, a freckled, grinning face under a mop of red hair.

  “Gee, thanks, miss,” he said as he got into the car.

  “Where to?”

  “About six miles up the road. I’ll walk from there. I should have walked from here, but it got too hot. My sister takes books out of the library at Napa and then forgets to bring them back, so my father drove me down today with the books, but then he had things to do, so I told him I’d hitch back. Only nobody trusts anybody anymore. I had just decided to give up and walk when you came by.”

  “Six miles. Well,” Barbara said, “I think I’ll get you there. I’m going to a place called Higate, a winery. Do you know where it is?”

  “I sure do. I live there.” He turned and stared at her. “Hey, I’ll bet I know who you are. You’re Barbara Lavette. Right?”

 
“Right.”

  “What luck! Sure, Mom said you’d be driving up today. I’m Adam Levy. Sally told me all about you. She’s nuts about you, you know. She thinks you’re absolutely the greatest.”

  “Well,” Barbara said, “we’re both lucky, aren’t we? I’m very pleased to meet you, Adam. How old are you?”

  “Nineteen, I’ll be a sophomore at Berkeley when school starts, and now I’m working my way through the winery. I get Saturday off. You’ve never been to Higate, have you?”

  “First time. But I met your mother and father in Paris, when I was living there.”

  “You bet. You were their interpreter, right? I know your dad. He and my grandfather were partners, and I guess you know all about the crazy sister of mine and your brother Joe.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Not that I don’t like Joe. We’re great friends. In fact, first operation I have—I mean, if I ever have to have one—Joe is going to do. We got it all worked out. There’s a thing they call spinal anesthesia. You can have an operation and stay awake and not feel a thing, and Joe and I got an agreement, he’s going to give me that, and I can stay awake, and we’ll discuss the whole thing, step by step, and maybe he can rig up a mirror, so I can watch it. What do you think of that?”

  “I think you should stay healthy,” Barbara said.

  “Sure. But just in case. Anyway, I’m glad you decided to come, but you got to know that all wine makers are crazy. It runs in the family. Do you know what I’m majoring in? Viniculture. I don’t care. Like they say, I don’t have much ambition, and anyway, I sort of like the wine thing. But my brother Josh—he’s seventeen—all he can talk about is getting out of here. You know, Mom’s father was a sea captain. She doesn’t talk much about him. He went down in one of your father’s ships off the English coast in the last war. Did you know that?”