Yehuda ben Tema
in the Ethics of the Fathers
says:
fifty years to be prudent
sixty to be wise.
Mayer Lehman
is fifty
and doesn’t know what prudence is
but if it happens to mean: “stopping still and watching”
then perhaps he is prudent.
His father
a cattle merchant
a thousand years ago
—over there in Germany, in Rimpar, Bavaria—
used to say that the prudent man is like those branches
that defy the wind
and refuse to bend.
“If that is so,” Mayer thinks
“I’m all right.”
Yes.
Because while everyone
is now
going crazy
about doing doing doing
building building building
inventing inventing inventing
Mayer Lehman
stays still.
Right now for example:
over the entrance to the New York office
they’ve just finished the sign
with the words:
LEHMAN BROTHERS BANK.
They’ve worked quickly.
Very quickly.
Because the old sign, after all
was just a long narrow rectangle
—as long as the whole frontage—
made of three planks in a line:
LEHMAN the first
BROTHERS the second
and lastly COTTON.
And so.
New York solution:
without too much ado
they just took down the last part on the right.
The last board: COTTON.
It’s down there, on the ground
already old
on the street.
In its place they’ve hauled up a new board
with four letters: BANK.
Looks pretty darned good.
They’ve pulled it up with ropes
and they’ve lined it up to the inch
precise, perfect
beside LEHMAN BROTHERS.
The carpenters are now joining the boards
joining them together
joining them with nails
and it’s all one:
LEHMAN BROTHERS BANK.
Mayer is sitting there, on a seat, watching them.
What does it mean to be a bank?
For us, what will actually change?
A potato generally reasons calmly:
the long period spent underground
considerably
curtails
its capering on the surface.
And here too
indeed
Mayer Bulbe
manages to grasp two simple concepts.
First: when we were in business
people gave us money
and we gave something in exchange.
Now that we’re a bank
people give us money just the same
but we give nothing in exchange.
At least not for the moment. Then we’ll see.
Second point: when we were in business
if your son asked what you did
you’d show him a roll of cloth
a wagon of sugar
a barrel of coffee
and the boy would generally understand.
Now that we’re a bank
whatever words you try to use
your son doesn’t understand, he gives up and goes off to play.
Yes. To play.
“After all”
Mayer Lehman thinks
“there must be some reason
why children play at pretending
to be teachers or doctors or painters
but never
ever
come out with ‘let’s play bankers’
for the simple reason that
the one who plays the part of the banker
has to take money from his friends,
and they have nothing left for buying candy:
so what sort of game is that?”
You try explaining it to children,
that the money in the bank serves for industry.
Try explaining that the system
needs to have a savings fund.
Mayer Lehman
has come to the conclusion
in short
that he’ll feel a deep fondness
for this new side of the job
only when he sees with his own eyes
a banker
explain to children
how the banking game works.
And can get them to appreciate it.
Mayer Bulbe
ponders much upon it
as he gazes at the surname
on the sign
fixed next to the word bank.
His son Arthur
aged two
is sitting on his knee:
he’s half a century younger than him
and pulls his beard up and down with his hand.
Mayer doesn’t react:
he lets him provoke him.
Perhaps it’s because Arthur was born in New York:
in his blood
there’s not even a drop
of Germany
or of Alabama.
Arthur, new.
Arthur, brand-new.
Arthur, son of New York.
So that
to see them together
—he and his father—
they are rather like that old sign
LEHMAN BROTHERS
with that new word BANK beside it.
Is that why people laugh as they pass?
They laugh, yes.
And not because Mayer is strangely dressed
as a rich Southerner
with those striped leggings
that here in New York
no one
no one
would wear
ever
not even by accident.
No: what people notice is not his clothing.
It’s the fact that Mayer is sitting
stock-still, smiling
there
doing what?
Nothing.
Having his beard pulled.
A strange sight.
Strange and funny that here, in the heart of the business area:
119 Liberty Street
where every minute is a shiny dollar
119 Liberty Street
where everything has a price
119 Liberty Street
where even the flies have a value
here
at 119 Liberty Street
there’s a fifty-year-old Jewish millionaire
who is doing absolutely nothing:
sitting like that
in the street like that
with a child on his knees like that
watching an old sign being trodden underfoot
that bears the word: COTTON.
“What do we do with this board?
Shall we throw the old sign away, Mr. Lehman?”
Mayer doesn’t answer.
“If you like, we’ll cut it up
and you can burn it in the stove:
the wood is old but it’s not rotten.”
Mayer doesn’t answer
he smiles, doesn’t say what he thinks:
certainly they wouldn’t understand.
“Okay, in that case we’ll ask your brother.”
Mayer smiles, nods.
Better that way.
Emanuel is an arm, he won’t have any objection
and certain notions he doesn’t really get:
they don’t actually reach him.
Indeed the first thing he did this morning
he—the arm—
was to send out to buy
four buckets of paint
because as soon as the sign is ready
he wants a fresh coat of paint
to be given
straightaway
—but without delay—
straightaway
a fresh coat of paint
straightaway
immediately
since otherwise the new BANK
will be too obvious beside the old LEHMAN BROTHERS
and
“. . . we will look like a grandmother
with a little girl’s bonnet.”
The words of Emanuel Lehman
who has no intention
of looking like an old fool.
“If we turn the page, dear Mayer, we turn it for good!”
Perfect.
So?
So fresh paint: new colors
no more of that faded yellow of a cloth store:
“I want big letters now
the color of gold
on a black background.
And you know why, Mayer?
There’s a reason, for sure!
I don’t do anything by chance:
gold comes out of black
I mean, from the black of coffee
from the black of coal
and then . . . from the smoke of locomotives!”
Locomotives.
Each time Emanuel mentions them
—and he mentions them often—
his lips twist into a strange grimace,
as though the hint of a smile
has turned into a cringe of embarrassment.
Maybe Emanuel is aware of it,
for he promptly exclaims:
“Railroad, Mayer! Railroad, for sure!
The train is not a sum of zero-points:
the railroad will bring us great capital!”
Mayer stares at his brother.
For some time
now
Emanuel
has been obsessed
about this “zero-points” stuff.
And he repeats it
like a refrain
—“zero-points”
—“zero-points”
—“zero-points”
ad infinitum
like once
over there in Germany, in Rimpar, Bavaria,
a thousand years ago
when as children
they heard a Jewish tune
sung by Uncle Itzaekel
and for months
they couldn’t stop singing it.
But now
here
in New York
119 Liberty Street
the question is
from what kind of Uncle Itzaekel
has Emanuel learned
this rhyme about zero-points
and above all
the rhyme about the railroad
which would bring capital
seeing that Emanuel has been talking about it for years
but has never invested even a cent.
The railroad . . .
Emanuel has also put up
—in the doorway at Liberty Street—
a Northern Railway poster
with a locomotive puffing steam.
But then?
Then Lehman Brothers keeps going
on the market for coal
for coffee
for timber
not to mention what is left of cotton.
In short
everything apart from trains.
A mystery.
Meanwhile the days go by,
and the only railroad
to be heard in Liberty Street
is a wooden
canary-colored train set.
A gift from Uncle Emanuel to his nephews
to the youngest
Arthur Herbert and Irving:
“But one day, I swear, I’ll give you a real one.”
It’s always fun to play with trains.