NOW JOAN was nested in. Again the house belonged to her as a house could only belong to a woman. A man was only a visitor, even in his own home. She had made lunch plans for the week with Tilly, Bobbi and Sandi, all from the Main Line, and tennis plans for the weekend with Vera--also, of course, from the Main Line. She had been to the Acme, done three loads of wash, made an appointment with Roberto her hairstylist, and vacuumed and dusted the apartment. She was back in the center and life could revolve around her again.
Now--when I arrived home from work--she was in the kitchen preparing dinner. I had once told her that that was my second favorite moment, coming home and finding her in the kitchen. She was sure enough about herself to understand that as praise.
I took a quick shower and didn’t bother to get dressed. I dashed for the kitchen and stripped her as she was mixing vegetable soup. Then I led her to the bedroom and we made love. This was a good one, with all the appropriate sighs, whimpers and then the big yell. I made love to her this day as a reaffirmation of ownership, because I knew that I did not own her.
I was finally beginning to realize that two people could never be one.
We showered together and then started dinner.
“How was it at work?” she asked.
“The same.”
“That’s good.”
“It is?”
“Some things should be different. Some things should be the same.”
“Well--not everything was the same.” I told her how the bus cost me ten dollars this morning, and how I hit a guy on the bus.
“So you smacked him?” she said.
“He had it coming.”
“That’s not like you, Josh.”
“I had a tough day, actually.”
Now I told her about the Friedrich account.
“I should have known,” she said. “You always get horny when something goes wrong.”
“Passionate, Joan. I wish you wouldn’t say horny. It’s not a Main Line word.”
“Please don’t write my lines, Josh. I don’t need a speechwriter.”
Somehow you know it’s coming, another quarrel, and you also know it can’t be stopped. You want to stop it but you can’t. It has its own power. It is fueled by who knows what pains and frustrations. The quarrel may have nothing to do with what you are quarreling about. It may be a memory of something else. But all the same it’s a quarrel. One remark leads to another. Accusation follows accusation. Nastiness turns to meanness.
“Maybe you don’t need me,” I said--and this just after we had made love.
“Let’s not talk anymore,” she said. “I know what’s coming.”
She did. She had that sixth sense.
“Maybe,” I said, “what you need is an Arab prince.”
Now why did I say that? There must be another person inside all of us who says these things.
“Oh, so that’s what this is all about. Well, sweetheart, maybe what you need is a million dollars. Fix you right up.”
“No, I’m not the one who said let’s do it.”
“But you’re the one who thought it and don’t tell me otherwise. You were willing. You still are. Listen to you go on about Philadelphia, and now this Friedrich. You think I don’t know what that means? You want out, Josh. Say it, Josh--say you want the money!”
“Let’s stop this, Joan, before we do permanent damage.”
“I never started.”
“Stop it, Joan!”
“You actually struck a man today. What does that tell me?”
“It tells you I’ve had enough. Okay?”
“You need another vacation.”
“That’s exactly what Jules said.”
“Well he’s right.”
“Is he also right about me working for a Nazi? An Adolph yet?”
“That doesn’t make him a Nazi. Adolph is a common name in Germany.”
“You can say that again.”
“Josh, you’re looking for an excuse.”
“An excuse for what?”
“To quit your job.”
“That’s no secret.”
“So quit!”
“Then what?”
“You know darn well what.”
“Send you off for breeding?”
“I see no other way out. We’ve only been back a few days and it’s already tearing us apart. Think what it’ll be like in days to come?”
“It’ll get better.”
“It’ll get worse. I know you, Josh.”
If only, I thought--if only I hadn’t stopped in at the Versailles. If only I hadn’t responded when he had called me over for good luck. If only we hadn’t had dinner with him. If only I hadn’t gone up to see him later on. But I had. The answer was yes to all the above. The trap had been set and I had stepped right in. Hello, I had said, did you advertise for a sucker? Well here I am. But really, who had set the trap? Maybe it had been me. After all, I knew what I was doing. All along I knew what I was doing. I had set the trap.
No, I had not known what the price would be. So in that sense I was blameless. But from the beginning I knew there’d be a profit in Ibrahim, a man so rich that the leftovers he scattered behind could plant a thousand fortunes. So I had played him as surely as he had played me.
True, he had seen us first, caught a whiff of that gorgeous wife of mine on the casino floor of the Galaxy and was smitten. Then--with the help of Sy Rodrigo--he set out on a campaign to win her, first by luring me to his blackjack table at the Versailles. How did he know I’d be there at the Versailles? I could have been at ten other casinos that day, or none at all. That was a mystery. No figuring that out.
But it was also true that I had seen him before he had ever seen me or Joan. Somewhere in my life, I knew there’d be a messiah. I had no idea what shape he’d come in. I certainly had not figured on an Arab. But I knew there’d be a savior to gather me up and deliver me to a land of plenty.
The next day I had lunch with Adolph. Just the two of us, plus Jules Corson. Jules would not trust me alone with Adolph--or with any client, really. The purpose was to get acquainted. Knowing that I was allergic to fish, Jules had made reservations at the Philadelphia Fish Company on Chestnut. I filled up on bread.
“Josh here is very excited about writing speeches for you,” Jules said to Adolph.
Jules never lied. He also never told the truth.
“I am so happy,” said Adolph.
“Josh is our best,” said Jules. “He’s written speeches for senators and governors.”
“Ah!” said Adolph, nodding in polite admiration.
Jules was making conversation. It was always difficult with a client. You had to be charming and entertaining and you could never relax. But you had to act relaxed. That was what made it so difficult.
“But I am not a senator or a governor,” said Adolph.
How about a führer? I thought.
“Oh,” said Jules. “I was just giving some background on your man.”
“I already know his background. I am very impressed.”
Say thank you, I urged myself.
“Thank you,” I said.
“There will be many speeches to write,” said Adolph.
“Josh doesn’t mind,” said Jules. I don’t? “He’s looking forward to the challenge.” I am?
“Josh,” said Jules, “did you know that you’ll be traveling the country with Mr. Friedrich?”
“No, I didn’t know.”
I had thought I’d be writing a single fill-in-the-blanks speech, an “evergreen” as we called it in the business. But no, I’d be writing a separate speech for each plant visit.
I had done that once before for another CEO and it had been a two-week nightmare, sharing breakfast, lunch and dinner with the same man--a man who, by force of being a client, owned rights to your every mood.
Most unbearable were the “plant tours” I had to submit to. Machines pounding, grinding, mashing. You were obliged to wear hardhats here, protective goggles there, and the foreman, over all that din, kept explaining things and you kept nodding in fascination, though you couldn’t hear a word. “Oh really?” you said.
“We will be spending much time together,” said Adolph.
“Josh is looking forward to that,” said Jules.
“Maybe you will even teach me good English,” said Adolph. “You will be my expert.”
“Josh wasn’t even born in this country.”
I knew he meant well, but why, I wondered, why did Jules have to bring that up? This wasn’t smart.
“Oh? Where were you born?”
“In France,” I said.
“You must have been very young when you left.”
“I was.”
“Why did you leave?”
Jules said, “Josh left after the...when the...because of the...”
“The war,” I said.
“Ah!” said Adolph.
“Josh was too young to remember anything,” Jules said by way of dismissing World War II. “And besides, his whole family got away,” he added by way of dismissing the Holocaust.
“Not quite,” I said. “Most of my family, in fact, perished at the hands of the...the...”
“The enemy,” said Jules.
“Ah!” said Adolph.
How do you talk to a German about the Germans? I had never had this before. As for Jules, he was experienced in making history disappear. Once, when we were pitching a Japanese account, he deleted his entire war record from his résumé.
I had always had trouble with that, as I was having trouble with this. To let the past be the past was fine with me, but to trade in your medals for the sake of business--well it made sense, it was practical, but it stunk.
So to make amends quickly, I now said, “The enemy of course, being the Nazis.”
Jules laughed--the laugh of a man who had just been kicked in the balls.
“But not all Germans were Nazis,” he hastily explained.
“Ah!” said Adolph, who didn’t seem to mind either way.
“Most of the German people did not know what was happening,” Jules continued, now giddy from panic.
“That is so,” said Adolph, still unruffled.
Jules’ eyes sought mine to deliver a message--shut up or I’ll kill you! Your job depends on this? No, not your job. Your life, you motherfucker!
“That is not so at all,” I said. “Every German knew.”
Now the odd thing was this: Adolph had done nothing to ignite this exchange, except for being Adolph. No, Jules was at fault and so was I. This was between the two of us. Adolph hardly figured.
Adolph could sense as much, so he had remained aloof. But the last remark of mine shot him down.
“All Germans were Nazis?” he said, screwing his eyeballs into mine.
Blink! I could hear Jules thinking. Blink, you son-of-a-bitch motherfucking cocksucker, or I’ll kill you not once but twice.
So here was the question: were all Germans Nazis? Even a better question was this: do you tell the truth, at least what you believe to be the truth, or do you say what’s good for business? Or do you hedge? You don’t have to say all Germans were Nazis. You could say a few or some or many or most.
To say a few or some--either would be safe. Adolph would approve and Jules would rejoice. Yes, there were a few Nazis in Germany, maybe even some. Nobody would be foolish as to insist that there weren’t any Nazis in Germany. The evidence was too formidable.
A million-dollar account rested on my saying a few, some, many, most or all.
Adolph repeated the question: “Are you saying all Germans were Nazis?”
I was about to say “many,” but my father stopped me. His image formed in my mind and he said: “For this I carried you across the Pyrenees? To cower before your tormentors? To compromise? Did Abraham our father compromise? Did Rabbi Akiva compromise? To compromise is to be true to two gods. There is only one. To compromise is to be false. Shame!”
My father came to me often, in a number of guises--the man of action gathering up his flock and shepherding them to safety between the fires of the Holocaust; the pious man, bent over his books; the frightened man, unable and unwilling to understand this new world; the defiant man, his fist raised to the heavens in protest.
What was he protesting? I never was sure. There was the obvious. He’s been routed from country to country, beginning in Poland, where the goons had taken his father to the village square, wrapped him in his prayer shawl, and set him ablaze as he cried, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” He’d been made to witness that, at a time when he was a yeshiva boy complete with sidelocks, which he shaved when he arrived in Paris.
In Paris he met my mother, the daughter of an aristocratic book publisher, bred three kids and prospered. Big factory in the leather trade. Then the Nazis came. For a price--such deals were still made at the beginning of the Occupation--for a cut of his profits they would have let him keep the factory. He declined. For a price he could have left behind one or two or three of his children in the safety of the church, on the thinking that to split a family would assure that at least some would survive. That too he declined. We would all make the escape together. No, he’d never been one for compromise. It was all or nothing.
Even later in Montreal, and even much later in Philadelphia, he refused handouts that were made available to refugees. Yes refugees. Now he was a refugee again and perhaps that caused his great silences, silences that stretched out like the desert Sinai. Without provocation he would enter the kingdom of silence and remain there for weeks, sometimes months.
Was it something that he saw? Something that he heard? I used to wonder as a child. What did he know that I didn’t know? There was a secret, a hidden outrage. Something spiritual, Biblical. Did he hear from Abraham, Jacob? Did he see Isaac? Did he see Isaac on Mount Moriah?
Whatever he knew was not of this world.
He died with the secret; but the outrage, that he passed on to me.
“Yes,” I said. “All Germans were Nazis.”