by Morris West
“When he sent me to Europe on the Suez takeover, I was scared witless. I was the new boy from New York. The French put me through the hoops like a circus poodle. I was trying to put together a list of investors, and Vianney and his crowd would hardly give me the time of day. I felt like a leper with a bell around my neck.
“Then someone gave me the name of Dr. Hubert Rubens in Geneva. They also gave me chapter and verse of his family history: how his father had set up funk funds for war criminals and Nazi bigwigs and wartime profiteers and the looters of Jewish properties and estates. His father had retired long since, a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. Rubens had settled into a bunker existence, a kind of armor-plated anonymity from which he ran the funds and trusts which the accidents of time and war had left under his control. The stretch and variety of his interests is enormous: South America, Africa, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Arab states, Indonesia.
“At first, I found him a daunting figure—and he is daunting, because he has deliberately anesthetized himself to normal emotions. That was my key to him, as it is the key to all of us odd ones, Carl. We have to concentrate on survival, because we live in a state of recurrent siege. Anyway, I listened and Rubens understood. He agreed to invest and to bring in other investors. It was almost a magical process. Rubens made telephone calls and suddenly the air was full of angels with buckets of bullion. But they weren’t phantoms, they were real!
“Somewhere in the process of working together, we began to understand each other. Very little was spelled out. We developed a kind of shorthand. He was trying to live with a past he hadn’t created. I was trying to create a future built on a vacuum. Each of us had guilts. Each of us had fantasies too. There are no fantasies in the schedule of Strassberger assets, but there are a few on Rubens’s list! Simonetta Travel is one of them. It is marginally profitable, with the possibility of large capital gains. Falco is a known rogue, but Rubens manages to live with him and control him. The concept of providing safe havens for dropouts appeals to his sense of humor, and it also is a modern analogue of his father’s early days. Rubens suggested, more as a joke than as a serious project, that I should give myself the experience of finding a safe haven for myself if I ever needed it. I took him up on it, because all the time I was in Paris I was suffering bipolar swings and the Simonetta connection helped—just as Claudine Parmentier helped at the office.”
My puzzlement must have been written on my face. I sat gaping at him, waiting for an explanation. He gave me a small, rueful grin.
“One of the problems with this ailment of mine is that it affects the sexual drive. In the downtimes, I’m not interested. I guess I’m looking for comfort and not congress. So it helped to know girls like Claudine and Liliane, who preferred lesbian love but were happy to have a well-turned-out male companion. In the high times I couldn’t get enough sex, and sometimes at home, Madi’s rhythms and mine were out of kilter. That didn’t help either of us.” He shrugged away the allusion. “That’s just a sidebar, a footnote. No blame to Madi. She deserves a lot better than I gave her.”
There were still questions I wanted to ask, but I could see the energy seeping out of him again. I asked point blank, “Are you up to this? You’re looking tired.”
“It’s time to clean house, Carl. Let’s get on with it. What more do you want to know?”
“How did a brilliant banker like you come to tie himself hand and foot to a man like Rubens, not to mention Simonetta’s bolt-hole bargains for the brokenhearted? From what I learned, they cost a pretty penny as well.”
He hesitated a long time on his answer. I signaled for more coffee. The waiter refilled the cups. There was another silence. Finally, Larry found voice and words for his answer. His voice was low but firm. The words were very simple.
“The Simonetta situation was a sideshow, nothing more. I used their services. I paid for them. Their new-life projects became like parlor games. The fact that I paid through the nose was unimportant. Rubens was a different matter. I trusted him. He understood, at least as well as Alma Levy or Langer, the financial follies someone like me can commit in the manic phases. One day he put it to me quite bluntly: ‘Why don’t you let me look after your money, Larry? I charge more and I’ll tie you hand and foot, but you’ll always eat well, you’ll die a damned sight richer than you are now, and you’ll have something decent to hand on to your children.’”
“He was asking you to take a hell of a lot on faith.”
“He was, but he had backed me in the Suez affair. However, I did haggle with him, because he likes a haggle. I went through the same exercise as I did with you. I asked him to put a figure on Strassberger shares. He came up with fifty dollars tops. I asked him what they would be worth if he merged the two entities: Rubens and Strassberger.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked first who could plot such a merger. I told him I could. He asked me who would run the new entity. I told him that was his affair. I couldn’t offer stable management, because I live always at risk. I could consult, advise, all of that.”
“His reaction?”
“He told me it made sense in theory. He asked me what I would charge for planning such a deal, as I had done for Strassberger. I said I’d want the same percentage as he was charging me for trustee management, plus an extra half percent as a reward for genius. He laughed in my face. ‘What makes you think old man Strassberger would let you or me past the front door with a proposal like that?’ I told him money talked all languages. The trick was to pick the right moment to start the conversation. He wasn’t laughing now. He gave me that cold, baleful stare of his and then stuck out his hand. ‘Go to it, then. We’ve got a deal.’ I didn’t shake his hand. I told him we didn’t have a deal until he’d given me a best-offer figure for the shares. He said he’d given it: fifty dollars. I told him I wanted to go in with sixty-five. He told me I was crazy even to dream it. I told him I had accounts to settle with the Strassberger family. In money terms, at least, this would be one way of doing it. He suggested I take a long holiday in the Seychelles to get the beetles out of my brain. The idea had a certain merit. I knew I was coming up to the crest of a big high. So I took off. I got as far as Sirmione before I cracked up. Rubens moved in Dr. Langer, who brought me here.”
And that, it seemed to me, had to be the end of the story. The rest was wishful dreaming, a phantom horse on which a beggarman would ride to wealth and power. All I could find to say was, “It was a nice try, anyway.”
“It was more than a try,” said Larry calmly. “I spoke with Rubens yesterday. I told him we’d be lunching together. First thing this morning, he sent me this fax from Geneva.”
He fished in his breast pocket and brought out an envelope embossed with the legend Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Burgholzli.
Inside the envelope was a facsimile message marked with the date and the place of origin, Geneva. It read:
“For Laurence Lucas from Hubert Rubens:
It was a pleasure to talk with you. I am delighted to know from Dr. Langer that you are sufficiently recovered to contemplate early discharge and a restorative vacation. I commend your willingness to make a friendly contact with your family. I have given much thought to the merger proposal we discussed some time ago. It is my present view that we could make a once-for-all tender offer, valid for thirty days, of sixty-five dollars per share. You are authorized to convey this information to the person with whom you are meeting at lunch. We would require at least indicative response within thirty days of this date. Get well soon.”
When I looked up from the paper, Larry Lucas was watching me. There was mockery in his eyes and a crooked grin on his lips.
“The message is authentic. The offer is genuine. I’d say you had a legal obligation to convey it to your father and the other members of the board.”
“I will.”
“And if you take my advice, you’ll press for a speedy response. Available money like that doesn’t lie around for long.”
; “What more can I tell them about the subscribers, apart from Rubens?”
“Nothing. From Rubens’s point of view, I’m sure that’s the cream of the joke. It is from mine, too. You can’t sit in judgment on money—only on people. When will you go back to New York?”
“Tomorrow, if I can get us all on a flight. And what about you? Where do you go from here?”
“Where? God knows—but I don’t know him well enough to have him tell me. That’s where Simonetta comes in handy, you see. They’ll plan it all for me: coral atolls in the Seychelles, the silk road to China, archaeology in Yucatan, sex tours in Thailand and the Philippines. And they’ll supply a nice clean chaperone of either sex to take care of me. You’re asking the wrong question, Carl. ‘Where’ doesn’t matter because Larry Lucas is where it happens, and he’s always the same. Up, down, or sideways, drunk or sober, with medication or without, coupled or alone in bed, he is what he is.
“The question he has to answer is quite different. Can he last the course? Is there enough thrill on the upswing to make the gut-wrenching downward slide worthwhile? Will the black bird ever fly away and leave him at peace in the sun? Not easy questions, Carl; but there’s a harder one still: Why? Why did the Creator design a tooth-and-claw universe whose creatures live by devouring each other? Why do the gears of the cosmos slip so often? Why Siamese twins and anencephalic babies? Why am I, Larry Lucas, as drug dependent as any dropout junkie? Do you have answers?”
“No. I have only the same questions.”
“So don’t judge me! Protect my children, if you can, from the judgments other people will make of their father.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I believe you. Do you mind if we leave now? I’ve had more than enough for one day.”
I paid the check and we walked out together. The lake was ruffled by a small spring breeze. A pair of swans cruised lazily past the redd fringe.
“Look!” Larry Lucas laid a hand on my arm and we halted to watch the stately progress of the birds. “Thank you for the lunch,” he said quietly. “It was a pleasure to be with you. We could have been good companions, I think.”
It was a long time since I had been so close to tears.
Back at the hotel, I stopped by the concierge’s desk and asked him to book us all out to New York on a morning flight. The morning flights were full. We compromised on Swissair at one in the afternoon, which would get us into Kennedy at eight in the evening. I went to the bedroom to collect the tickets and take them to the concierge for emendation.
I found Madi moody and tense. Her only comment on her visit to Larry was, “Thank God, it was short for me and sweet for the children. Now we can get on with our lives.” She showed neither resentment nor curiosity about my luncheon with him, and I made no mention of the financial proposal he had made.
I did, however, rehearse all the conversations with Alma Levy. I needed her professional opinion on Larry’s mental competence. She delivered it with much more freedom than I expected.
“He’s out of my hands now, Carl. I’m writing my last notes and closing the file. It’s sad but inevitable. Langer is a good and ethical practitioner. He has chosen a therapeutic method which does show results but with which, fundamentally, I disagree. He is moving Larry forward, yes; but he is moving him like a locomotive, on rails, to a series of predetermined arrival points. Each arrival represents a triumph for the patient, an accomplishment, an assurance of ultimate cure. My own method, which is far more difficult—and more risky—is to encourage excursion, diversity, curiosity, a variety of goals and interests, so that if one arrival is delayed, or one project fails, there is always another. So far, Langer is succeeding. He is focusing Larry on the exercise of his most evident talents—finance! He admits freely that he is encouraged in this by the patronage of Hubert Rubens. He sees no ethical conflict in that because, to a large extent, it supplies Larry’s psychic needs: protection, respect, an activity that forces him out of the cave of his own mind and into the turbulence of the social arena.”
“And you have no answer to that?”
“I have no satisfactory alternative. I do not control Larry’s life. To a large degree, Rubens and Langer direct it. Larry has handed them control by a legal contract. I have, however, exposed to Langer my reservations and my fear.”
“And what is your fear, Alma?”
“Not for his sanity, Carl, which is the nub of your question. I ask myself where he may arrive on this one-track journey—”
She broke off. I waited. Finally, I had to prompt her.
“Talk to me, Alma. We’re friends. I have to make recommendations to my father, to the shareholders. I have to face a cross-examination on every statement I make. Can I trust what he has told me?”
“You can, yes.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
“The end of the journey. The tracks recede across a flat desert landscape. As they recede, they converge. Finally, on the line which separates earth and sky, they meet.”
“The vanishing point?”
“That’s the limit of our vision. But what happens then, we can only guess. I feel very old this evening, Carl. Old and helpless. I feel I should quit practice and take a teaching post at some very dull university. Then I could spend my life churning out paper and never have to lose another patient.”
I called my father to tell him of our travel arrangements. He had some good news. My mother was mending slowly. Tomorrow, with any luck, she would be out of intensive care, but it would be a long road to full recovery. He himself had kept his promise to me and scheduled a full physical examination for the following week. The market pressure on Strassberger shares seemed to be easing. They were trading more modestly around the forty-three-dollar mark. He would be glad to have us all home. He would send a stretch limousine to the airport for Madi and her tribe. He would send another car for Alma Levy and myself. I should drop her off at her own apartment and spend the night at his house. There was much to talk about; we should prepare for my formal installation—a short address from me to the board might be appropriate.
I was reminded of Larry’s mordant comment: “Pure, unadulterated Strassberger response!” As soon as we were back on Strassberger ground—and he without my mother to temper him!—we should all march to his tune, and God help the hindmost!
Finally, I managed to contact Arlette in Nice. I told her I had made a number of attempts to reach her.
“I guessed you would be busy, chéri,” was her only comment. “I was much occupied too, repainting the gallery, new lighting, putting in movable display panels. I think you will be very pleased when you see it. When will you be back?”
I told her I mightn’t be back for a long while. I explained why. I asked her to tell my house couple at the studio, and arrange to pay them for me. I would send funds to her bank account as soon as I reached New York. She took it all with her usual calm, affectionate interest.
Then, bumbling fool that I was, I blurted out, “I love you, Arlette! I miss you so much it hurts. Will you marry me?”
“And be a banker’s wife in New York?”
“Would that be so bad?”
“It would be hell, chéri, and if my guess is right it will be hell for you! When you can’t take it anymore, come back here and be a painter again. Then ask me the same question. I miss you. I think we are good for each other.”
“Do you love me, Arlette?”
“In my fashion, chéri. The problem is I’m getting out of practice in the language of lovers. Look after yourself. Call me when you can. Wish me luck with the summer shows.”
I wished her the best of luck in the world—and wondered, with a certain gallows humor, whether Larry would ever come up with sixty-five dollars a share, to pay for my own upcoming season in hell.
On the evening of my arrival in New York, I sat up late with my father over a decanter of his favorite port. He looked more worn and tired than I had expected. After a few defensive conversational passes, he
let down his guard and talked freely of the fears he still held for my mother and the bleak prospect of life without her. He told me flatly that he prayed he would not survive her too long. Madi and I would make our own lives. The grandchildren would not fill the void which the loss of my mother would leave in his life. The reason he had called me home was that he wanted desperately to retire and take the sunset road with the only woman who had endowed his life with meaning.
It was a perfect moment to tell him of my meeting with Larry in Zurich and the extraordinary proposal he had put to me. I showed him the fax from Rubens. I gave him my own impression of the man. I gave him Alma Levy’s reading of the relationship between the two men.
My father listened in silence, chin cupped in his hands, weighing every word with the grim solemnity of a hanging judge. When I had finished, I expected an outburst of anger or contempt. Instead, he refilled our glasses, nodded thoughtfully, and made a toast.
“To your mother! She still brings luck into the house!”
“You mean you’re interested in the offer? You believe Rubens could make good on it?”
“Yes to both questions, my boy! Yes! Yes! What I can’t figure out is how Larry guessed that Rubens might go for the idea. I wouldn’t—not in a hundred years.” He gagged on his drink, then set the glass down carefully and wiped his fingers and his mouth with his handkerchief.
“Carl, my boy, I love you dearly. I love you more than I can say because you were willing to throw up your own career, which I know you love, and stand with me against the vandals in the marketplace. I know you hate the business. You’ll never be a banker’s bootlace, but you went after Larry and found him and now you’ve come back like the Angel of Deliverance.
“Larry—may God have mercy on the poor tormented devil!—Larry is a shining genius. He planted the idea and let it grow. Let me show you how it works. All those strange animals that Rubens controls—trusts, Anstalten, Panamanian companies, entities in the Antilles—have served him well for years, but they’re falling out of fashion and they cost more and more each year to run, and they’re more and more vulnerable to the tax man. So, says our Larry, if they could all be sold, severally or at one stroke, into a legitimate, international public company like Strassberger, then Rubens could grab a large chunk of capital gain and the new Strassberger-Rubens combination would come to market with a sudden new glow of asset value. Rubens obviously did his sums carefully, but Larry had the genius to figure the situation long ago—even while he was heading for his crackup.”