The Wrong Kind of Money

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “But not the job he’s been promised.”

  Hannah lowers her eyes. “No. Not yet,” she says.

  “Not experienced enough? Is that it?”

  “No, it’s not that. Not exactly. It’s just that—”

  “What is it, Hannah?”

  “It’s just that I don’t know what the boy would do with that much power.”

  “The boy will be forty-nine years old this year. Isn’t he getting to be a little old to be called a boy, Hannah?”

  “I can’t help it. I think of him that way. If he were given all that power—all that stock, all that money—what if he were to blow it all on some harebrained scheme?”

  “Aesop,” Bathy says. “Does he still talk about Aesop?”

  “No. He hasn’t talked about that for a long time. That’s what worries me.”

  “Why should it worry you? Maybe he’s forgotten all about that.”

  “I worry more about the things he doesn’t tell me than the things he tells me. Or maybe it’s some other harebrained scheme. Save the world! I’ve lived long enough to know that nobody’s going to save the world. Jesus Christ tried it, and look what happened.”

  “In other words, you still don’t trust him.”

  “I just don’t know what he’d do with all that independence. Go off on some crazy tangent, like the Aesop business. Save the world.”

  Bathy twirls the stem of her glass. “So,” she says carefully, “because you can’t be sure what he’d do with his independence, you keep him—dependent.”

  “It’s because I just can’t bear the thought of him getting all that money and all that power, and then—poof!—seeing everything I’ve worked so hard for go down the drain.”

  “And everything Jules worked for. And everything that I worked for. Don’t forget Jules and me.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “And Carol, too. She’s done her share. I’m sure Carol wouldn’t want to see that happen, either.”

  “You bet your socks she wouldn’t!”

  “What do you think Carol wants?”

  “For him to run the company, of course.”

  “And that’s what Jules wanted, too.”

  “Yes. Eventually.”

  “Well, you haven’t asked for my advice,” Bathy says, “but I think eventually is now. Of course there’s a risk. This is a high-risk business. But I think the longer you wait, the greater the risk that he’ll—”

  “Fly the coop?”

  Bathy nods. “Give him the company now. I think you’d feel a lot happier with yourself if you did this now.”

  “Happy? Are you saying I’m not happy?” She puts down her glass abruptly. “You’re right,” she says. “I’m not happy.”

  “I know. I can always tell. Give him the company now. And with no strings attached.”

  “Strings? He’s the one who keeps attaching strings!”

  “Are you quite sure, Hannah?”

  Hannah looks away. “Well, maybe one little string,” she mutters.

  “Detach that string. It isn’t getting anybody anywhere.”

  “Oh, I just wish you could be back in the family again, Bathy,” she says a little distractedly. “All of us, the way it used to be. We could discuss things, argue about things, even fight about things. Didn’t we used to have the best doggone fights? The fights were the best times of all, looking back! We were all a family. Maybe we weren’t exactly happy. But we were us. But now—”

  “Don’t, dear,” Bathy says, lightly touching the back of Hannah’s hand. “I know how Noah feels about me. I’m used to it. It used to upset me, but it doesn’t anymore.”

  “But it hurts me, knowing how you—how much you gave up.”

  “Hush,” she says. “It was just that Noah idolized his father so as a little boy. Worshiped the ground he walked on.”

  “That was my fault. I raised him to think his father was a kind of god, that his father could do no wrong, that his father was an absolutely perfect father in every way!”

  “That’s a good way to raise a son, if you ask me.”

  “It was wrong! No mortal being is a god. There’s no such thing as a flawless human being, and Jules Liebling was hardly a flawless human being. I was wrong to lie to him like that.”

  Bathy hesitates. “Hannah,” she says at last, “do you think it’s time we told Noah the truth?”

  “We promised never to do that, Bathy.”

  “I’ll tell him my part of the truth, Hannah, if you’ll tell him yours. But your part, I think, has to come first.”

  The two women’s eyes meet.

  Hannah’s eyes withdraw first. “Are you ready for another cocktail?” she says. “I think I am. Waiter—” she calls out loudly. “Two more martinis, with Ingraham’s gin!”

  “Don’t change the subject, Hannah,” Bathy says. “Let’s tell him the truth—but you first. Then give him the job, but with no strings. I have my own life now. Don’t try to use my life to control Noah’s.”

  Now Hannah blurts it out. “But if you were back in the company, you could keep an eye on him. You could help keep him under control. After I’m gone, that is.”

  “That is not going to work, Hannah,” she says. “I can never control Noah. For that matter, neither can you. You have got to let Noah become his own man. But if you want someone who might help control Noah, there’s only one person who can do that—and you know who that is.”

  “No. Who?”

  “Carol.”

  “Carol? But she’s only his wife. I’m his mother!”

  “Yes, dear,” Bathy says with a smile. “That’s always been your problem.”

  Once more their eyes meet, then withdraw.

  Their drinks arrive.

  “Now might be an especially good time for you to start being especially nice to your daughter-in-law,” Bathy says.

  From Roxy Rhinelander’s column the following day:

  Glimpsed at Le Cirque yesterday, with their heads together like a couple of li’l ole magpies, were Georgette Van Degan and Carol Liebling, the wife of Noah, who’s the son of Jules Liebling, the late billionaire booze baron. What was on the ladies’ minds? Well, Topic A was the lavish coming-out bash the two will be tossing for their deb daughters, Linda Van Degan and Anne Liebling, who’ve been best of chums since grade-school days. An early June date is planned. And who’ll supply the bubbly and the Barleycorn for the 1000-plus-guest dinner dance? Aw, you guessed it. And Topic B? Could it be the ultra-exclusive dinner party Carol Liebling gave on New Year’s Eve, honoring best-selling author William Luckman, who’s so-o-o tall, so-o-o dark, so-o-o handsome, so-o-o successful and so-o-o sexy that every deb’s mother’s got her eye on him? Has peppy Carol Liebling got the lead position? Watch this space, kiddies.

  The morning newspapers, including the one containing this item, are delivered to Hannah Liebling on her breakfast tray.

  Carol Liebling reads it while sipping her coffee in her dining room at River House. She jumps up from her chair, spilling her coffee all over the newspaper in the process. Her reaction is one of frustration and rage. She hasn’t even discussed Georgette’s plan with Noah—or even with Anne—and already Georgette has made it official!

  “I have an interesting proposition for you, Hannah,” her mother said to her that morning in their house in Park Slope.

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “I met an interesting man at the Joint Distribution Committee reception last night. He was the only gentleman not wearing a dinner jacket, but I suppose that’s understandable. It takes these Russians a while to get accustomed to our American ways. His name is Jules Liebling.”

  “Oh?”

  “He knows who you are, and of course he knows who we are. He’d like to marry you. Isn’t that nice?”

  “Mama! I’m not going to marry anyone!”

  “Now, wait a minute, young lady,” her mother said sharply. “This is a very serious matter we’re discussing—a matter of life and death, as it
were. You don’t want to go to your grave a spinster, do you? That would be a shame and disgrace, and it seems to me you’ve brought enough shame and disgrace on us already.”

  “It isn’t a shame and a disgrace if no one knows, is it?”

  “I’m talking about the shame and disgrace you’ve brought upon yourself, and upon me, even though your father, God rest his soul, never knew.” Her father had died the year before.

  “But I’m not going to marry a man I don’t even know!”

  “I’ll tell you everything you need to know about him. To begin with, he’s very rich, and that’s important. He’s in the liquor business, unfortunately, but he’s made a lot of money.”

  “You mean he’s a bootlegger?”

  “No. He made his money in Canada, where liquor is perfectly legal. In fact, he doesn’t like to be called a bootlegger. He calls himself a distiller. He told me repeal is right around the corner, and he’s come to New York to establish his business here, so he can be ready as soon as repeal goes through. They can be smart, those Russians.”

  “Liebling doesn’t sound like a Russian name to me.”

  “They all do that. They change their names from something like Liebowitz to something that sounds more German. It’s easier for them to get credit that way, you see. Oh, they’re very clever, there’s no gainsaying that. Last night he pledged one hundred thousand dollars for the Joint.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I’d want to marry him, Mama.”

  Hannah had already begun to suspect that her mother was not being entirely truthful in her account of this startling proposal. It seemed quite unlikely that two virtual strangers would casually encounter each other at a large, formal Joint Distribution Committee reception, and that the gentleman in question would proceed to ask for the woman’s daughter’s hand in marriage. There was more to it than that, Hannah was certain. But she knew it would be fruitless to ask. Her mother was much too skillful a liar.

  “But you’ve got to marry somebody,” her mother said airily. “I admit he’s not one of our sort, and not one of our class. But he’s a decent Jewish man, and at least he’s not a Bolshevik, as so many of them are. And remember, Hannah, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “What do you mean by that, Mama?”

  “There are certain facts you’ve got to face, Hannah. If you were to marry one of the nice Jewish boys from the families we know, he would discover right away, on your wedding night, that you had been—well, that you had been tampered with. That would never do, would it? It would be all over town in no time, and he’d throw you out into the street, and that scandal would follow you for the rest of your life. But being a Russian, this Mr. Liebling probably wouldn’t even notice anything that was—well, a little off. I mean, they’re used to that sort of thing, the Russians.”

  “But why does he want to marry me?”

  “They all want to do that. As soon as they make some money, they want to marry up, into one of the fine old Jewish families like ours. It helps them in their businesses. And I’ll tell you something else, Hannah. When a man marries up, his wife almost always manages to elevate him to her level. But when a man marries down, his wife drags him down to hers. Don’t ask me why this is, but it always works out that way. It’s a rule of thumb. It’s another reason why you should accept Mr. Liebling’s proposal.”

  “But I don’t want to get married!”

  “My dear, you must. Think of your future. Think of little Bathy’s future.” Bathy was a toddler then.

  “What’s Bathy got to do with it, Mama?”

  “A great deal, I’m afraid. You see, Dr. Lowenstein has told me I have cancer. I’m afraid I don’t have much longer to live, Hannah. You can’t take care of Bathy on your own.”

  “I can take care of Bathy!”

  “My dear, you cannot. Your father did not leave us a great deal of money. Your father was a great man, and a great scholar and educator, but scholars and educators do not make a great deal of money. When I die, there will be very little left for you. You will need a husband, a husband with money, like Mr. Liebling. I explained this situation to Mr. Liebling.”

  “Explained what situation, Mama?”

  “That there is very little money on your side. That I am ill, and that after I am gone Bathy will be in your charge, and he has promised me that after I die, he will take care of Bathy.”

  And so that was it. It was to be one of those Old World arranged marriages, between two people who scarcely knew each other. And in such an arrangement there was always a quid pro quo. Hannah would provide Jules Liebling with the luster and cachet of her Sachs name. In return Jules Liebling would provide her and Bathy with a comfortable life. Weeks, even months, of delicate negotiations had doubtless taken place before a deal had been struck. And it wasn’t hard for Hannah to guess who the principal negotiator in this transaction had been. Sadie Sachs had performed the same role as a matchmaker in a European shtetl.

  “It was very gentlemanly of him, I must say,” her mother said, “for a Russian.”

  Hannah was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Why do you keep saying, ‘for a Russian’?”

  “Well, there’s a matter of class, for one thing, no matter what you say. Class and background. We Germans came to America of our own volition, and at our own expense. They came because the czar threw them out. He couldn’t tolerate their socialist ways. For another thing, in Germany we were a highly cultivated and respected people. Mendelssohn was my distant cousin! In Russia those people were riffraff. Most of them couldn’t read or write. They spoke a language—Yiddish—that nobody could understand.”

  “Yiddish is Judeo-German, Mama!”

  “We never spoke Yiddish. They did. Still, all things considered, I think Mr. Liebling is the best choice you’re going to have, and I told him so.”

  “You mean you’ve already promised me to him?”

  “Yes, more or less. I told him I thought he was an excellent choice for you. I didn’t tell him that he might be your only choice.”

  “But I don’t love him, Mama!”

  “That doesn’t matter. To be honest with you, I didn’t love your papa when I married him. In fact, I hardly knew him, Met him once or twice. It was one of those marriages that were worked out between our parents. That sort of thing may sound old-fashioned to you but, believe me, those were the best marriages. They lasted. As for love, that will come later. When you children started to come, then love started to come, too. It will happen to you also. You’ll see. And remember, Mr. Liebling is very rich.”

  “I know I’ll never be in love again, Mama.”

  “You’ll see,” her mother said again. “He’s not bad-looking, Mr. Jules Liebling. “He’s a few years older than you, which is fine. Your papa was a few years older than I was when we were married, and ours was considered an ideal marriage in every respect.”

  “Was it, Mama?”

  “Of course it was!”

  “Oh, Mama—why couldn’t you and Papa have let me marry the man I was in love with?”

  “That was out of the question, and you know it. What would the rest of the family have said? We’d have lost all our friends.” Her mother picked up her stitchery canvas—a field of yellow poppies, as Hannah remembers it, against a pale green background. It would become a sofa cushion in the upstairs parlor, the sofa on which Sadie Sachs would die two years later. “I’ve invited Mr. Liebling to tea on Thursday, so you can meet,” she said, pulling a stitch through the canvas. “I want you to put on your prettiest dress—the blue, I think, with the ruffled sleeves. And when he proposes marriage, I want you to say yes to him. Remember, I was at your side during your time of desperate need. Now you must come to my side at mine, when I need most of all to know that your future, and Bathy’s future, are settled and secure before I’m gone. You owe that to me, Hannah. And remember—Mr. Liebling may not be the husband I’d have chosen for you if things had gone otherwise. But he’s the bird in the hand, and he’s very rich.”


  And so he had come to tea that Thursday, and she had worn her best dress, the blue with the low waistline, belted at the hips, and sleeves of pleated chiffon. The dress showed off her shoulders, which she considered her best feature. She was a little disappointed with his looks. He was not, as her mother had said, bad-looking, but his head seemed disproportionately large, and he was shorter than she might have wished, and he had small, almost feminine hands. Her mother left them alone for a few minutes in the parlor.

  “Your mother is a remarkable woman,” he said to her, studying her over the rim of his teacup, his eyes grave.

  “Yes. I quite agree.”

  “Widowhood must be difficult for her.”

  “Yes, it has been.”

  “A man doesn’t really need a wife,” he said. “But every woman needs a husband. Don’t you agree?”

  “I suppose,” she said carefully. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “It’s true,” he said. He set down his teacup on the table beside his chair. “Now let me meet this little sister of yours,” and he stood up.

  Astonished, she realized that what he had just said had been his marriage proposal to her.

  They were married in a large ceremony at Temple Emanu-El, with a reception afterward at the Plaza. Her mother wanted a fancy wedding, with all the families of the Uptown Jewish elite invited—the Schiffs, the War-burgs, the Lehmans, Loebs, Seligmans, Strauses, and Sulzbergers. “It will show people that we’re not embarrassed, that we’re still able to hold our heads up high,” Hannah’s mother said. And of course Jules Liebling paid for everything.

  And they all came, all the best people. Still, at the time there was some whispering among the wedding guests that they had only come out of curiosity.

  Years later, Bathy asked her, “How could you have married, and stayed married to, a man you never loved?”

  “Love is hunger. Marriage is three square meals a day,” was Hannah Liebling’s reply. It was only partly true.

  In 1935, when Hannah’s mother was dying of the cancer that had been riddling her body for the past several years, though she refused to let Dr. Lowenstein prescribe medicine for the pain she was now almost constantly in, she summoned Hannah to her bedside, and said, “Just promise me one thing, Hannie. Promise me you’ll stay with Jules no matter what happens. Do this for me, and also for your own sake, and also for little Bathy. I did something important for you once. Now you must do this for me. Bathy will go to you and Jules now, where she belongs. So you must make this marriage last and last and last. No matter what happens. Promise me you’ll do this.”