Vanishing Point

by Morris West

  “So what are you going to do about it, Father?”

  “Give them what they ask: an indicative answer. Yes, we’re willing sellers. Let’s have the tender documents so we can present them to the board and the shareholders. Then we’ll get the show on the road.”

  I confess I was shocked by his eagerness to do business with Rubens and Larry. I taxed him with it, sharply.

  “You have no questions? No reservations about the company you’ll be courting: Hubert Rubens and Larry Lucas? No thought of our own long fiduciary tradition?”

  “None!” I was startled by the vehemence of his answer. “I’ve been a banker all my life. Strassberger paper has always been prime paper. I kept it like that. Now I can’t do it any longer. The money game is out of control. It’s a floating crap game. The money market is run by twenty-five-year-olds shouting the odds on every trading currency in the world. Can you cope with that? I can’t, not any longer. How can I hold myself accountable to the calls of a kid in Singapore or Hong Kong or New York? I can’t. I won’t.”

  “But if you sell Strassberger, the name has to go with it.”

  “So what? If you don’t breed yourself a son, the name dies anyway. Are you getting married?”

  “I asked the lady. She couldn’t make up her mind.”

  “Because you wouldn’t make it up for her. Well, it’s your life!”

  “For the moment, Father, it’s yours. You asked for it, remember? I gave it back to you, without question. My paper is still prime paper.”

  It was a cruel, cold moment and I could not for the life of me understand how we had come to it. It seemed to last an age until my father reached out and touched my hand.

  “I’m old and I’m tired and I’m scared,” he told me. “Forgive me, Carl!”

  * * *

  Next morning, I went to visit my mother in the hospital. Stretched out in the orthopedic bed, she looked frail and small, like a Dresden figurine; but her makeup was perfectly applied and not a hair was out of place. There was still the ring of authority in her voice.

  “Tell me, Carl! Tell me everything that has happened to you. Don’t stop if I close my eyes. I’ll still be listening.”

  It was, as you may imagine, a long and tortuous tale; but if I paused too long, her eyes would open and she would urge me on with an imperious flutter of her hand. When, finally, the story ended, her first thought was of my father.

  “I want him out of the business, Carl. As soon as possible and to hell with the price. I know he’s afraid that I’ll go before he does, but I won’t. I’ve promised him I’ll stay long enough for him to build us a beautiful house in Hawaii with a garden full of flowers and birds—and no steps to climb. He’s been such an upright man. He’s worked hard all his life. He’s never learned to enjoy himself except with me. I’ve talked to his doctor, who tells me he’s the kind of man who can topple over with a stroke or go out—bang!—with a massive coronary. If he’s stricken and survives, I can be no help to him. So I’m glad you’re back, Carl, though you musn’t stay forever. I’d like to see you married and happy. What about this woman you have in France? Are you fond of her?”

  “Very. I’ve asked her several times to marry me. She feels happier and safer the way things are now.”

  “If I were in her place, I’d probably feel the same. We spoiled you, I’m afraid, Carl. We trained you to be so self-sufficient that you couldn’t bring yourself to depend on anyone else—let alone express the need. I’ve thought a lot about Madi and her future. I’ve wondered, too, how much she gave or withheld from Larry in his lonely times. I’m glad you found him finally, and that you were able to talk freely together.”

  “I’m glad about that too, Mama. One of the few sermons I remember was about hell. The preacher said, ‘Hell isn’t fire and brimstone and devils with pitchforks. Hell is the absence of love—and the loss of all capacity to enjoy it.’ That’s what we’ve had, isn’t it? A lot of love.”

  “Too much, perhaps,” said my mother softly. “And we spent most of it on ourselves.”

  It took four months to tidy the sale of the Strassberger shares, although the essential act was consummated the day my father called Rubens and agreed to the deal. Rubens behaved with impeccable precision. Larry and I conferred on matters of detail. Some of our meetings were held at my house in Cagnes among the brushes and gallipots. He was a model guest, companionable, a very good cook, a patient watcher if I wanted to pause on a walk and set down a sketch. I made him a present of one he admired especially: Arlette, chopping vegetables for a pot-au-feu in the big rustic kitchen.

  I noticed that Larry never brought a woman with him on these visits, although I invited him to do so. He simply grinned and said, “Now is not the time for me.” I was slow to understand that his brightest moments in company were those on which his depression was deepest. When Arlette was there, she would flirt with him and coddle him, and when he demanded to know why she hadn’t married me yet, she would give a big Gallic shrug and the perennial excuse, “He needs more training. And he’s still a banker, isn’t he?”

  I kept in touch with Sergio Carlino, who was and still is an assiduous and witty recorder of the world in which he lives—a fringe kingdom of sybarites and cynics and politicians and captains of industry, dusted over with the gilt of old names and titles. He had kept his promise. Liliane Prévost was safe, passed from woman’s hand to woman’s hand into a fairly secure domesticity with an aging prima donna in the Paris Opéra.

  When the deal with Rubens was finally consummated, my father rented a house and staff in Hawaii, chartered a jet, and flew my mother there. He vowed that he would find a plot on which to build her dream house. The card she sent me said it all:

  “Now he’s an expert on botany, Polynesian navigators, and island miniclimates. I’m trying to push him into buying the place we’re in, which is very comfortable and more than adequate for our needs. Life is too short to be hustled by real estate agents, or plagued by architects and builders. I have my man with me. That’s all I need.”

  Madi, now divorced, very rich, and even more independent, was faced with new dilemmas. She had suitors and male friends galore; but which of them could she trust as stepfather to Marianne and Laurence Junior?

  I retired, as I had planned, to my farmhouse sanctuary and started work again. I also worked on Arlette, who with more reluctance than I expected, agreed to marry me after what she called a six-month trial.

  I blew up and we staged a battle royal that raged for three hours and ended in three weeks’ silence, after which she agreed to marry me as soon as we could get the papers and permission. However, there were conditions. She would keep and run the gallery, and we should be married by a Catholic priest in the Matisse chapel at Vence. I told her I’d marry her in a balloon if that would make her happy. She gave me an old-fashioned look.

  “You could have any woman in the world. Why do you take so much nonsense from me?”

  To which I had no ready answer. Enough that she would marry me; and she did. Sometime in sleepless nights the question haunted my pillow like a mischievous imp, but always by morning it was gone.

  Epilogue

  WHEN WINTER CAME AND CUSTOMERS were sparse at the gallery, we snugged down on the farm at Cagnes while I painted and Arlette wrote letters and made telephone calls to clients and artists around Europe. We lived well together. We were, we told each other, lucky and content.

  Then, one day, when there was snow on the ground and the winds were whistling down the defiles of the Maritime Alps, I had a letter from Dr. Hubert Rubens. It was a strangely formal communication.

  Dear Mr. Strassberger,

  As executor and trustee of the estate of the late Mr. Laurence Lucas, it is my sad duty to inform you that Mr. Lucas passed away in Amsterdam, Holland, on the fifth day of January this year. The certificate of death was signed by the attending physician, Dr. Piet Haan.

  His former wife, Mrs. Madeleine Lucas, presently in Antigua, has been informed of his
demise and of his testamentary dispositions, which she has no intention of contesting.

  Under the will, half the estate, some seven million dollars, passes in trust to his children, Laurence Junior and Marianne Lucas of New York. There are minor legacies, mostly to women friends, amounting to half a million dollars. The rest of the estate is to be dedicated to founding and endowing worldwide research into the origins and the treatment of depressive illness.

  It was Mr. Lucas’s wish that Dr. Alma Levy of New York and Dr. Alois Langer of Zurich be invited to participate as foundation members of the Board of Trustees when it is set up.

  You are not named as a beneficiary in the will, but there is a sealed letter, which, according to Mr. Lucas’s wishes, I send you herewith by registered mail.

  I offer you my sincere condolences on the loss of a relative and friend. I trust you will believe that I share your grief.

  Hubert Rubens

  Doctor of Law

  Larry’s letter was brief and poignant.

  My dear Carl,

  I’m tired of asking questions. I’ve decided it’s time I found out the answers for myself. I’ll be happy to pass them on to you, if there’s any way I can communicate—which I very much doubt.

  Fortunately for poor devils like me, the Dutch permit a civilized choice of exit from an intolerable existence.

  Please keep an eye on Marianne and Laurence Junior. Madi’s a good mother; but every child can use a good uncle.

  For you, Carl, my erstwhile pursuer, I have nothing but goodwill and good wishes and thanks for the brief friendship we were able to enjoy.

  I hear you’ve married your Arlette. She’s better than you deserve and you’re a better painter than you realize. Be kind to each other. The human psyche is a very fragile vessel.

  My debts are all paid. Spare me a memory sometimes and pray that whoever or whatever is out there will receive me kindly.

  Hail and farewell,

  Larry

  When Arlette came into the studio, she found me, with tears streaming down my face, slashing paint wildly on a large new canvas. When she asked me what was the matter, I pointed to the letters on the table and went on with my assault. She read the letters, set them down again, then stood, a few paces away, arms akimbo like a peasant housewife watching my attack on the fabric. Finally my emotion wore itself out and I stepped back from the turbulent mess. Arlette pronounced judgment.

  “That’s good. That’s very good.”

  “I’m glad you understand it. I don’t.”

  “The dam’s broken and the river’s in flood.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “We’re going to drink champagne, chéri. Here and now.”

  “What are we supposed to be celebrating?”

  “The liberation of Larry Lucas. God give him rest!”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  “Then we’ll celebrate Larry’s gifts to us.”

  “What gifts?”

  “That’s mine.” She pointed to the canvas. “A newly minted talent for my gallery! To you, chéri, he gave the gift of tears. You needed that so badly. I needed it in you. Now I believe we can be happy together.”