Property Of, the Drowning Season, Fortune's Daughter, and At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

Lisa encouraged Max to quit the business. And, when she heard of the cruel way in which Esther had sold Max, she cried out that Max should get every cent, every piece of linen, silverware, and jewelry that he could from his brother. And, really, she was disappointed in circus life, and felt that she and Max could do much better, now that they had seen the wealth that flowed in America. Jules handed over half of all the partners had saved; and the two shook hands solemnly. The dwarf walked by the sea turtle’s cage one last time; there were tears in his eyes, but since his marriage their relationship had become nothing, mere memory—and the sea turtle barely blinked an old yellow eye when the taxi came to a stop in front of her cage, and collected Max and his wife.

  Max was not overflowing with family feeling, of his childhood he remembered little; but his feet had begun to ache from the years of dancing, and from the constant traveling, and he knew Lisa was unhappy.

  When the taxi pulled up in front of the porch of the main house, the family was drinking tea. Esther the Black was days old; her cradle rocked of its own accord, with the air. When Esther the White saw the small figure of a man in the cab, she felt faint. She walked to Mischa and placed a hand on his arm.

  “Company?” Rose asked.

  “No,” Esther said. “Not company.”

  What seemed to Rose and Phillip to be a child of ten stood on the dirt road. Behind followed a tall, blond woman, carrying an enormous leather pocketbook. The taxi driver began to unload suitcases and trunks.

  “What do you know!” Phillip said happily. “That’s not a child, he’s a dwarf.”

  As Max climbed up the porch steps with great difficulty, Esther the Black began to wail in her cradle. The dwarf did not look very much different, so perhaps Mischa was only dreaming that his brother, the Baby, was walking up the stairs of his house, dressed in a three-piece sky-blue suit. For Mischa had dreamed of his brother for a quarter of a century. It had been the Baby who appeared to Mischa each night, faithfully, and advised Mischa in matters of business and matters of the heart. At times, most often at three or four in the morning, Max would appear at the foot of Mischa’s bed, covered by a small imaginary quilt, and knowingly he would call Mischa a dog, a traitor, a flea. Mischa blinked his large brown and yellow eyes; for here the brother of his dreams stood before him. He was speechless. But Esther the White was not. She was furious that Max had found them; she had helped the dwarf escape from their childhood village, she had found a career for him, and, in return, she expected him to leave her and Mischa alone, free of the past.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing here?” she said to Max as he peered into Esther the Black’s cradle.

  Max chuckled; he bent over the crying child and stroked her small forehead. Max then walked to Mischa, stretched out his small hand, and said: “Let’s let bygones be bygones.”

  Mischa was speechless, but he nodded his agreement, and embraced the dwarf with such power that he lifted his brother into the air and spun him around.

  Mischa and Max continued to embrace; Lisa dropped her heavy pocketbook on the porch with a thud; and Phillip ran off to the parlor for a bottle of sherry to celebrate his new uncle’s arrival. Only Esther the White was silent; she sat heavily in her wicker chair, and she placed a hand on Esther the Black’s cradle, and she rocked so hard that the wooden cradle nearly flew off the porch, carrying the child into the air. The dwarf’s arrival was, Esther the White then believed, a bad omen: if the past could track her down so easily, anything might happen, the earth itself might move.

  And now, as she watched the brothers, as the two stood in secrecy by the sea wall, Esther knew she had been right. No good was to come from a bond between her husband and Max. Esther the White shrugged. Let those two do as they want, she thought, as long as they don’t involve me. As long as they leave me and my Compound alone. But she wondered if Max could forget that it was Esther who had sold him to the circus, and she wondered if Mischa could forget his guilt; and it seemed to her suddenly, as she poured lemons and cream and gelatin into a blender, that she was without power. Perhaps she had never really had any control over Mischa; perhaps she had always been alone.

  She watched the brothers for a while longer, until she could smell the salmon burning in the oven. And then she had to hurry to remove the pan before dinner was completely ruined. She burned her hand, though only very slightly; and when she poured cold water over her pale skin, no one would have noticed how her hands shook.

  Chapter Four

  THAT evening, at dinner, just as Esther the White’s lemon mousse was served, Mischa announced that he had decided to sell the eastern section of the Compound. Only the dinner guest, Ira “Pagan” Rath, continued to eat his dessert; everyone else grew silent.

  “Frankly, I think you should sell the whole Compound,” Max called out. “It was a lousy idea to begin with, and every one of us could use some cash.”

  “Of course,” Mischa said to the family, “every idiot thinks he’s an expert.”

  Lisa spooned sugar into Max’s teacup, but the dwarf pushed her arm away. “Did you just call me an idiot? Is that what I just heard?”

  “My god,” Esther the White said, so softly that she could barely be heard.

  But Mischa ignored his wife; it was certainly easier to argue with his brother than to explain himself to Esther the White. He had never made an important decision without her before, and he would not have now, if the accountant, Solomon Rath, hadn’t forced his hand. “Did he hear what I said, or is he deaf?” Mischa asked Lisa, as if she served as the dwarf’s interpreter.

  Esther the Black, who had planned this dinner so carefully around Ira Rath and who had expected to ask for her trousseau money that very evening, now realized that they had all forgotten that her fiancé was there. Pagan, himself, seemed oblivious to any commotion—he turned and asked Cohen if he could eat the landscape artist’s dessert. Cohen’s answer was an impatient wave of his arm; he was too busy watching Esther the White to waste time talking to the accountant’s son.

  In the center of the table stood a vase of white roses and tall, pale daisies. Max could not see over the vase. “Just a minute,” he called out to his brother. “If you want a discussion with me, move the flowers.” He raised his small voice. “Move the flowers.”

  “Esther,” Rose said, and Esther the Black rose, lifted the flowers from the table, and placed the vase on the liquor cabinet.

  “I like to see you when I talk,” Max said. The brothers stared at each other. “So,” Max said finally. “Tell me to my face that I don’t have your best interests at heart. I agree with Solomon Rath—it’s the right time to sell. In my opinion, if you let Rath sell everything now you would be smart.”

  Mischa had realized too late that he had lost control of the family’s holdings. The decision to sell a large area of the Compound to Sam Gardner, the builder who had surrounded St. Fredrics with cheap housing developments, had been made by Solomon Rath. Rath had not even needed Mischa’s signature on a piece of paper. As she sat at the table, pushing the untouched lemon mousse away from her, Esther the White did not have to be told that Mischa would never had made so huge a decision without her. She reached for a glass of water, but she could not swallow; all her life she had wanted a place that belonged to her, and she was about to lose a part of it, maybe the whole thing. There was no one to blame; she did not even bother to raise her eyes to Mischa. There was no one to blame but Esther the White herself—for she had been the one to help Solomon Rath gain power of attorney.

  When Max arrived at the Compound, Esther the White was afraid. She imagined that the dwarf might ask for half of all their property—she imagined that Mischa might agree to make up for the years Max had traveled with the circus. And so, Esther the White had struck a bargain with Solomon Rath.

  She had gone into Solomon Rath’s office, as she always had; Mischa trusted her to take care of the family’s finances, and since the failure of the Compound, he had no real heart for business anymore. The office w
as air-conditioned that day; ice formed on the window, even though Madison Avenue was steaming with heat. Esther the White quickly expressed her fear that Max might try to gain control of the family fortune, and she ignored the plate of rugulach Rath’s secretary had set by her arm.

  “Well,” Rath had said, “we can’t have that. No. We have to watch out for pikers and lost relatives.” He reached for a piece of cake; crumbs stuck to the corners of his lips.

  “My husband’s naive,” Esther the White said. “My husband’s trusting. I know that everyone has to watch out for himself, and I want control of the property.”

  Rath tapped his forehead. “Smart,” he said.

  “But I don’t want Mischa to get any funny ideas,” Esther the White had said. “I wouldn’t want him to think that I don’t trust him.”

  “Of course,” Rath had said. “What else is a marriage for?” He walked around his desk three times. And then he stopped, motionless on the beige Oriental rug. “Of course,” he said. “What you need is an executor. Someone who knows the score—someone who’s legally responsible for all business transactions and profits—but who knows whom to turn the profits over to—you.”

  “Yes.” Esther the White smiled, and she accepted a styrofoam cup full of steamy dark tea from Rath. “Solomon Rath, you’re just that person.”

  The necessary papers were drawn up that very afternoon. And when Esther the White returned to the Compound, she left the Cadillac’s back seat so quickly that Cohen did not even have time to turn his head.

  “Mischa,” she said, when she walked in the front door. “Sign this.” Esther the White handed him three copies of legal forms, and then sat on the velvet couch.

  Mischa pulled a silver pen from his vest pocket. “Esther,” he said, as he signed his name, “is this another of Rath’s bad investments? Is this another chemical plant?”

  “No,” Esther the White had said, believing herself to be the perfect, careful wife. “It’s insurance. Insurance against thieves.”

  But soon after, Esther the White discovered that Solomon Rath was not on her side; the accountant was watching out for himself.

  “You have to understand,” Rath told her at their next meeting, when Esther the White complained about a bounced check, “that I have to be very careful about the money you spend. I have investments to make. You and Mischa would be better off with a monthly allowance.”

  “What kind of investments?” Esther the White had asked.

  “Esther,” Solomon Rath sighed. “What do you know about business? Leave it to me.”

  “And what if I say no?” Esther the White asked.

  Solomon Rath opened up his large palms and shrugged. “Then I’ll have to insist,” he had said.

  But Esther the White had never thought Rath would sell the Compound; especially not to Gardner, a man who designed housing developments where every tree was uprooted; bulldozers would level every curve in the earth.

  “Mother,” Esther the Black called out, because she had no time to lose—the Compound was crumbling and she had to make her move if she wanted the cash she would need to make her escape. “Did you know that Ira is quite interested in music?”

  Pagan Rath nodded as he spooned up his lemon mousse.

  Rose had a lot to lose, and maybe something to gain, and her attention was focused on the brothers. “That’s nice,” she said absently to Esther the Black.

  “If we’re going to be honest with each other,” Max said now, “the truth is that morally, and legally, I’m entitled to half of what the sale of the eastern section will bring.”

  “Here, you’re a guest,” Mischa said.

  Max was confident, and a little arrogant; he was fat from two decades of being cared for like a guest in the Compound’s largest cottage. So he finally mentioned the past that had always angered him. “Who threw me into the jungle?” he said. “Who threw me to the beasts, even though I was defenseless? I would ask you these questions, but the fact is that I already know the answer. I know who was responsible for my misery.” He stood up on the velvet seat of his dining-room chair. “You,” he pointed dramatically to Esther the White, “you are the one.” Max sat once more, and watched Esther the White for a reaction. He lit a cigar and the smoke spiraled in a thin blue stream across the mirror on the dining-room wall.

  “Max,” Mischa’s tone softened, “let bygones be bygones.”

  So far, Esther the White had ignored Max’s attack; she hadn’t had much of a choice when she had led Max by the hand to the docks where the circus stood. And if it meant coming to New York, if it meant buying the Compound, and watching the green stone beach from her window, she would do it all again. She would have sold him to the circus again in a minute.

  “Then listen to me,” Max said to Mischa. “Take my advice and push even farther than Solomon Rath. We’ll double our profits if we sell everything now. The houses, all the beach rights. I never got along with Esther the White, it’s true: we have a past that divides us. We could split up. Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Los Angeles. Everyone goes where he wants to go.”

  “I would just like to say,” Esther the Black said, “that Ira and I are getting married.”

  “First you sell the houses, beachfront, with a water view. Then you drain the harbor and sell more houses, beachfront, with a water view,” Max said dreamily.

  Rose shushed her daughter. “We all know that you’ll marry Ira someday.”

  “But right away,” Esther the Black insisted, as she wondered what Phillip’s reaction might be once he heard that the harbor he loved might be drained, so that new houses could border the sea wall. “Next month,” Esther the Black cried, “we’ve set a date.”

  Rose brightened. “Did you hear that, Mother?” she said to Esther the White. “They’ve made it official.” She clapped her hands. “We must talk about the wedding.”

  “Who gives a damn about the wedding?” Mischa said.

  “But bands and halls and flowers have to be reserved,” Rose said. And as her mother spoke excitedly, Esther the Black looked around the table, and knew that she could forget her plan—the trousseau money she had dreamed of spending on plane tickets now seemed unobtainable.

  “Rose,” Esther the White said, slowly, as if she spoke to a child, “this isn’t the time.”

  “You’re goddamn right this isn’t the time,” Mischa shouted. “And I’m not so certain that I would allow that wedding to take place.” Esther the Black’s eyes widened; she had always believed that was the one thing her family had wanted from her—a good, safe marriage to the accountant’s son. “If you want to mention someone who throws people into the jungle, then just mention Solomon Rath.”

  “Really?” Pagan Rath asked.

  “If you want to know who’s bleeding me of every cent I ever had, because my wife signed everything over to him, ask your father,” Mischa said to Pagan. He then turned to Esther the White. “Rath told me about it when he brought the papers he had signed with Gardner for me to see. Esther,” he said, “how could you?”

  Esther the White shrugged. “I trusted him,” she said.

  “You always were so smart,” Mischa said. “I could always depend on you.”

  Cohen suddenly turned to Mischa. “What about the fishermen?” he asked.

  “To hell with them,” Max said.

  “Let them find another beach to ruin,” Mischa agreed.

  “They’re just going to disappear?” Cohen said.

  “Since when are you so interested in the poachers? Since when is it your business?” Mischa scowled.

  Cohen pushed his chair away from the table. “I am the guard,” he said.

  “And since you never did such a good job, you should be thankful,” Mischa said.

  Cohen was standing now, his hands were clenched, his knuckles were white as ice. Who did the brothers think they were, to dispossess nearly thirty people, to make Esther the White so unhappy that she stared unblinkingly at the polished table top. “You better think,” Co
hen said, “exactly what is going to happen when the fishermen hear about this. I won’t be responsible.” He waved his arms in the air. “I won’t be responsible,” he promised.

  Cohen turned, and as he left the room Mischa called after him. “Why should you start being responsible now? If you were any kind of a guard the fishermen would have been gone years ago.”

  Cohen did not turn or answer, but he was wishing he were not so old, that he were a hero, that he could rescue the fishermen and Esther the White, and laugh at the brothers from atop the sea wall.

  “That bum,” Mischa said, after Cohen had left the room. “Who does he think he is?”

  Esther the Black stared into her coffee cup, as if she could find something floating above the sugar and the cream. There would be no money, there would be no escape, the eastern section would be lost, and the green stone beach that Phillip loved. She swallowed and said, “What will happen to my father? What do you think he’ll do when he finds out you’ve sold so much land, that houses will line the beach?”

  “He’ll have to adjust. He’ll have to forget about the drownings,” Mischa said.

  Esther the White raised her eyes. “What if he can’t forget?” she said.

  Esther the Black looked across the table. Her grandmother’s eyes were watery, and she had pulled the scarf which had hung loosely about her shoulders around her head. Her pale circled eyes stared like those of a gypsy or a ghost.

  “We have to think of Phillip,” Esther the White said, “of his reaction.”

  Esther the Black thought that if she stared any longer across the table at the woman she had been named for, the woman whom she never expected to defend Phillip, the lump in her throat would jump like a frog onto the white linen tablecloth. And so, she nodded in agreement with her grandmother, and then she pushed her coffee cup away.

  “We won’t tell him,” Rose said.

  “Oh yes we will,” Esther the White said, wondering if she should have unlocked the padlock on the sea gate before the beach rights had been sold out from under them.