by Morris West
“Suppose you tell me, Mr. Strassberger.”
“Because she had embarked on a lesbian love affair with a senior employee at Strassberger and there was some indiscreet talk over a dinner table.”
“You are better informed than I expected.”
“The charade helped.”
“You have helped me also, Mr. Strassberger. A review of our own security seems overdue. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have your letter prepared.”
“Please, indulge me a little longer. Doctor. There are questions I need to ask.”
“I’ll take the questions. I may decline to answer.”
“Your privilege, Doctor. First question. Are you in any fashion involved with the present market raids on Strassberger shares?”
“I am. The extent and nature of my involvement are confidential.”
“Was Larry Lucas the initiator, or is he now a participant, in this market action?”
“No comment.”
“He holds a substantial parcel of shares in the company. These presently lie under your power of attorney.”
“They do, yes.”
“Have you disposed of them?”
“No comment.”
“Did you yourself plan the raid using information supplied by Larry Lucas?”
For the first time, his control cracked. There was a flash of anger in his eyes. He lifted his palms from the table and slammed them down against the polished surface.
“Enough, Mr. Strassberger! Let us have some reality here! Your company is a public corporation. It is subject to market strategies and the operation of market forces. This is end-of-century capitalism. This is how it works, like it or leave it. It’s clear the company is defending itself by buying in its own shares. There’s a limit to that game. Once the cash runs low, you have to start buying on margin. Then the real battle begins. You’ve made one big mistake, Mr. Strassberger.
“You’ve totally misread my interest in Larry Lucas. You’ve seen him only in the light of his affliction—a man haunted to despair by his own demons. I watched what he did with that takeover of the old Suez company properties—a five-billion-dollar deal put together like a first-class Swiss watch. The man is a genius! He’s flawed, yes, but name me one genius who wasn’t. He’s repairable, he’s usable, and I made up my mind to get him. I have him now. I’m taking care of him, not for the sake of his personal assets—which, in banking terms, are small—but for the talent which resides in him, talent which Strassberger recognized but seemed unable to protect and nurture.”
“And how do you think Strassberger failed him?”
“They let him drive himself too hard and too fast. Finally, like an overheated mill saw, he exploded into fragments. No company should do that with a brilliant man. No family should ignore the danger signs.”
“And will you recognize the danger signs, Dr. Rubens?”
“I have lived with it all my life, Mr. Strassberger. My father built this business out of the decaying fortunes of the Thousand-Year Reich. Out of the twilight of the fallen gods, all sorts of people, victims and villains alike, came to him to save the relics of their onetime wealth or the loot they had plundered. My father’s creed was a very ancient one. Pecunia non olet, money carries no smell.
“I learned differently as I grew older, that the stink of the slaughterhouse hangs over every money market in the world. I don’t quarrel with it anymore. I live with it as a fact of human existence. My problem is I have no children and therefore no one to whom I can even delegate the powers I exercise—or the acquisitions I may make in the empire my father left me. It’s a very large empire, Mr. Strassberger. There are some very strange people in it.”
“And you see Larry Lucas as your vice-regent?”
“For all his flaws—possibly because of them—he’s the best I’ve seen so far. Dr. Langer tells me that once he is through this phase and stabilized again, the condition can be much better controlled.”
“It’s your own business, Dr. Rubens, but I’d say you were taking a hell of a gamble.”
“Strassberger gambled on him and cleaned up fifty million dollars in fees and commissions. Then they lost control of the game. You know what the Strassberger problem is? I’ve analyzed it very carefully. You’re a good, solid, respectable family company—too good, too solid, too respectable, too much family for a dog’s world like this one or an erratic genius like Larry Lucas. You deserved to lose him. You deserve to lose the company too. You yourself, the son of the house, are not interested enough to fight for it. I’ll say good-bye now, Mr. Strassberger. My secretary will bring your letter in a few moments.”
I had an hour to kill before my flight left for Zurich. I spent it in the airport lounge, sipping whiskey and trying to make some sense of my talk with Dr. Rubens. There was a winter quality of despair about the man which made a stark contrast with the passionate contempt of his final outburst.
He did not strike me as an evil man, but as one who lived in defiance of a flawed universe and exploited it as an act of anger, rather than for a profit, which he was sure of making but incapable of enjoying. He would insist, as I was sure he was doing, on the last cent of his contract with Larry, yet he would nurture and protect and—more importantly—respect the erratic genius which he perceived in him.
The compassion and tolerance he expressed were genuine. I was sure of that, because I knew he could afford them. His strategy to acquire Larry’s services was risk-free. He was the trustee of his estate. Larry, therefore, was paying for his own rehabilitation. If the funds ran out, he would reward Larry quite richly for services to be rendered. Either way, the donkey would trot toward the carrot in front of its nose.
That was my cynic’s reading of a cynical bargain, but it was not the whole text. Dr. Rubens was a man who supped comfortably with the devil, not only because his spoon was long enough but because he was not hungry enough to fight over the food. Either he was served his rightful portion or he left the table. He had discovered, as a result of his father’s education, that the devil, in many of his disguises, was a gentleman, and that it was possible to have a mannerly, and even pleasant conversation with him. I knew what he meant when he said success in business brought one halfway to heaven. He implied much more: that the road to riches ended at hell’s gates, where the devil was no longer a gentleman.
I had been insulted and angered by his dismissive comments about my father and Strassberger & Company. I was less angered by his reference to me as the son who disdained to stand and fight for his own heritage. I had enough guilt about that already. I had reasoned with most of them, but now the linchpin of my logic had dropped out. Larry Lucas, who had been nominated as successor to my father, had abdicated. So unless Madi moved in—and I could not see her doing it—the house of Strassberger would be left without an heir and my father without family support in the years when he would need it most.
Which brought me to a moment of musing on Strassberger & Company itself. Rubens had described it aptly: “too good, too solid, too respectable, too much family.” They were words of praise, yet he had turned them into insults. In my father’s mind, they stood for enduring virtues: honesty, trust, the handshake as the bond of faith. Yet, to tell the truth, I had left the company because they seemed, to me at least, to impose unacceptable limitations on modes and manners and attitudes in a changing world—to be too inflexible, too judgmental, as though the mess of an evolving creation were simply an exercise in double-entry bookkeeping.
Larry Lucas had accepted the role I had rejected; but the effort to conform and, at the same time, to function in what Rubens had called “this dog’s world” had cost him too much. The pressure plates in the fault zone of his mind had shifted and the foundations of his reason had rocked. My father made the proper Strassberger judgment. The family must hold together, the lost sheep must be found and brought back to the fold, the gates must be closed against intruders, gossip must be silenced.
The problem, as I saw it now, was that the prop
er Strassberger judgment wasn’t a judgment at all. It was a law and a tradition, inscribed on tablets of stone. It dealt with tribe and family. It took little or no account of the individual, the strayed or maimed one. It ignored the secret war between reason and unreason which was being waged inside his brain-box. It recked nothing of the question which must even now be haunting him, as he huddled in the clinic like a fetus in the womb, waiting for the installment of reason: What happens tomorrow when I am expelled from this refuge into reality?
Rubens had an answer for him. It seemed more adequate than any his family could offer him, because, although it did not offer love, it predicated respect, a clear measure of his personal value, an acknowledgment that genius, with all its flaws, was genius still. We, caught in our own private crises, offered only an exasperated love, familial duty, a resumed career, but one always monitored and under surveillance. Why, I asked myself, did that death’s-head fellow, Rubens, look like a better bet for Larry than the Strassbergers? Good question. I had better find the answer before we came face-to-face at the Burgholzli Clinic.
They were calling the Zurich flight. I dozed from takeoff to landing. When I finally reached the hotel, I found the roof had fallen in on the Strassberger family.
* * *
Madi had arrived with the children, both of whom were prostrate with an attack of gastroenteritis. The nanny was near tears. The house doctor had come and gone, leaving a prescription and a counsel to keep the patients rested and hydrated. He also left a piece of sour comfort. The worst should be over within twenty-four hours; if it weren’t, he would arrange hospitalization and intravenous feeding.
That, however, was only the hors d’oeuvre to a menu of disasters. My mother had fallen in the bathroom at home, fractured a hip, and broken a couple of ribs. She was now in the hospital for surgery. Because of her frail health, there were postoperative risks. My father could not, would not, leave New York. Communication might be difficult, as he was back and forth to the hospital. I had all the authority I needed to act for him and the company.
Then, by way of a dessert to disaster, Madi told me that our father himself was far from well. The stress of company business was taking its toll. He looked gray and old. His senior colleagues were worried. They had urged him to slow down, to have a full medical checkup. He had brushed them aside. I could almost hear him doing it: “Later! Later! We have problems here and abroad! Let’s clean those up. Mine will cure themselves in short order!”
Finally, Alma Levy had come to Zurich as she had promised, but she had offered only a curt greeting and left immediately to meet her colleague from the Burgholzli. She had no idea when she would return to the hotel. She, too, had problems in New York. She was dubious about her New York replacement. A schizophrenic patient, apparently in a stage of remission, had run berserk with a kitchen knife and almost murdered his wife…and so forth and so on.
I listened with what I thought was admirable patience to the litany of lamentations. I helped Madi minister to the children while the nanny took tea in her bedroom. Then Madi and I went down together to the bar, which in the Dolder is so spacious and formal and old-fashioned that it is the worst place in the world to drown a load of sorrows.
Madi, herself, had a private list of complaints. She was not at all sure that this proposed meeting with Larry was a good idea. If he were bad enough to be hospitalized, he could be in no shape for rational discussion about their future as a family. Besides, she had already done what he had asked: She had briefed an attorney to prepare and file a divorce petition. She hoped Larry would be prepared to sign the consent documents she had brought. She was worried about his first contact with the children. She wondered whether he would have enough grace and control to spend some tenderness on them.
For herself, she had passed a crisis point. She was no longer prepared to be torn on the rack of conflicting emotions. She was ready to admit that she might still be in love with Larry, but she was no longer prepared to pay a high price for the painful experience. She was even less eager to hear of my adventures in search of Larry than I was to recount them.
Much more important, from her point of view, was what was going to happen to our parents: to Mother, if she deteriorated into chronic invalidism, to Father, if the stress of market battles proved too much for him. Had I thought of that? No, dear sister, I had not. It was scarcely an hour since you had delivered this sackful of bad news. Before that, I had been like an old-fashioned Pinkerton man, chasing one Laurence Lucas, husband and father, lost, stolen, or strayed. I had found him at last; now I was waiting for instructions on how to deal with him.
Madi and I were walking on eggshells. She was travel-weary, distressed about the children, disturbed about Larry, and near to tears. I was worried too, plagued by my own guilts, still smarting under the lash of Dr. Rubens’s contempt.
I felt a sudden surge of relief when I saw Alma Levy enter the bar and look for us. I stood to greet and embrace her. I strung out the ceremony of settling her at the table and ordering her drink—which to my surprise was a very large neat vodka on ice.
“I need it,” she affirmed emphatically. “I’ve earned it! I had a long briefing session with my Swiss colleague who has connections with the Burgholzli. You will remember that I spoke about him. I had hoped he might invite me out to the clinic to see Larry, but he thought that would be unwise until all the protocols were settled. However, he made a number of useful phone calls. He was able to assure me that Dr. Langer has an excellent reputation. He is a good clinician and a compassionate carer for his patients. In legal terms, the problems are not excessive. As a foreigner, Larry required a Swiss doctor to admit him to the clinic and the consent either of his next of kin, or a Swiss attorney representing his interests. If we want access to Larry now, we have to take the process in reverse order. The attorney agrees, the admitting physician accepts his direction, the clinic is happy. If there’s a dispute, it can be resolved by a decision of the District Court of Zurich, which may be appealed in the High Court. I understand we are prepared for that.”
“We’re two steps ahead of the game. The attorney consents to access. The only condition is that Alma is to confer with Dr. Langer before any family contact is made with Larry.”
I handed her the Rubens letter of authority, which also contained confirmation of his call to Langer and Langer’s contact number. Alma read swiftly, then raised her glass in salute.
“Good! Very good! This saves us much time and heartbreak. I’ll call Langer now. Then you can buy me another drink and take us all to dinner.”
She got up hurriedly and walked out to the phone booths, which in the Dolder Grand are located behind the concierge’s Office. Madi reached out and laid a hand on mine.
“I’m sorry, Carl! I haven’t even said thank you for all you’ve done. I’ve been snapping and snarling since we met.”
“Forget it, love. That’s family!”
“I love you. You know that.”
“I love you too, little sister. But we’ll talk later about the parents. One day at a time, yes?”
“One hour at a time is as much as I can manage. I’ll see to the children and join you and Alma for dinner. If I’m not down in time, start without me.”
I ordered a second drink for myself and another for Alma Levy. I asked the waiter to make our reservations for dinner and settled back to contemplate the comings and goings of the good Swiss burghers and the moneyed folk of Europe and the Middle East who were still very happy to do business with these solid sober folk.
It was nearly half an hour before Alma came back to the table. She was grave and preoccupied. She reported with deliberate care.
“First, Dr. Langer himself. I am impressed with him. On the phone he was pleasant and helpful. His diagnosis is sound. His medication is on the conservative side, but it seems to be working. In psychiatry, he is a Jungian. He has taken advantage of his association with Larry, outside and inside the clinic, to embark on a series of exploratory analytic s
essions with him. He claims some interesting insights which he is eager to discuss with me. He admits freely that Dr. Rubens is Larry’s legal custodian. He sees it as a necessary situation made more imperative by the fact that Larry is traveling on a Dominican passport and is, therefore, deprived of any protection by his own embassy. It seemed a curious point to bring up in a medical discussion; but in fact it was a very ethical disclosure. He claims that Rubens has—and I quote—‘an attitude of benevolent patronage in respect of Larry’s future career after he is through this episode.’”
“I know about Rubens’s patronage. I mistrust it greatly. What is Langer’s prognosis for Larry?”
“Please, Carl!” She silenced me with a gesture. “Let me take my time with this. I am, I always have been, more deeply involved in Larry’s problems than you may realize. From the beginning, he fixed on me as the substitute for the mother he lost. It’s not the best role for a therapist. It makes me an object of both love, dependence, and resentment. Larry has similarly ambivalent feelings toward your father. He sponsored Larry’s career. Later, he became his father-in-law. However, he was never able to demonstrate a personal, emotional support in Larry’s life. You Strassbergers are such a tightly knit group, you find it hard to understand the loneliness you impose on the outsider. It has taken Madi herself a long time to understand this. Her love for Larry has always been modified—and in some sense diluted—by her family ties. Even their children became mixed up in this psychic soup—the phrase is Langer’s, not mine.” She took a mouthful of liquor before she went on.