Henry Lehman was too intelligent
to leave his business
without an heir worthy of that name.
How could they
—Emanuel and that potato of his brother Mayer—
imagine that a head like Henry
would really stop giving them help
even if it were split between the brains of two sons?
In short, turbulent David
and his mute brother, Dreidel,
shared between them
—in different proportions through biological deficit—
the great cerebral heritage
of a founding father
of a pioneer
of a trailblazer.
This assumption
had to be borne in mind.
Henry Lehman was, after all, an inspiration.
During his life he dealt with everything.
And whatever path he took
proved to have some practical sense
except for
that wretched time
when he fell prey to yellow fever
and the cotton market
lost a leading figure.
And there again,
the name on the signboard
was still his own
while Emanuel and Mayer
were running over the meadows
in a mythical place called Rimpar.
This they couldn’t forget.
All the more now
all the more at this stage
now that
Aunt Rosa’s children
were in their teens, no longer babes:
both David and Dreidel
were wearing long trousers
with the first promises of a beard
on their faces.
They had to be included.
Sooner or later.
Exactly: sooner or later.
For the idea of handing over command
of having someone else beside them
didn’t go down too well
with the arm or with the potato.
So they took their time.
All the more because—let’s not forget—
Aunt Rosa’s family
had never stopped receiving its share:
a third of the profits, promptly.
About this they could not complain.
So there was no great haste.
Or at least so it seemed.
All the more since gradually
day by day
something was changing
inside Lehman Brothers.
Was it perhaps the New York air?
Or simply the fact
that Mayer and his brother were aging?
In short, questions
about the future
arose from time to time.
And Henry’s sons
were entitled to be a part of it.
First of all, David.
Agitated
in his constant jittering
incapable
of sitting still at a table
infused
from his ankles to his jaws
from his big toe to the tips of his ears
with a formidable electric tension
David Lehman
had just deserved
in his uncle’s view
a heroic promotion:
the coal deal was due to him,
and even more
he was owed the highest recognition
for having jolted the family
out of its slumber.
What was this if not genius?
What was this if not business?
What was this if not the sign
of a Henry Lehman
so sorely missed?
And so
while Mayer remained doubtful,
Emanuel
prompted instead
by a “thank you” never adequately expressed,
wondered about involving him
indeed
in the management of the bank. Heyyah!
And the more he thought about it
the fewer difficulties he saw,
bearing in mind moreover
that David
in that explosive excess
was showing appreciable gifts
not so much of intelligence
as of physical resistance to stress
a factor by no means secondary
in the great rodeo of the New York market.
On more than one occasion
at parties and dinners
his unshakable good humor
—a commodity much in demand—
“Heyyah! A joke? You like it? Shall I?”
together with a German tolerance of alcohol
“More! Pour it out! Bottoms up! Another round?”
had given the Lehman Brothers
a seal of solid business trust
so much so that
compared to his uncles almost three times his age
he abundantly exceeded
the critical threshold of four uninterrupted hours of public relations.
So that if Mayer
on quite a different battleground
had deserved the status of Kish Kish
his nephew David
outclassed him pitilessly
as happens with new machinery
in comparison to the cogs and wheels of a century ago.
For his repertoire was far wider:
Mayer in the end had
a fine smile and an ear for music
but David
topped this with
numerical acrobatics
conjuring tricks
a store of Yiddish tales
German songs
a perfect knowledge of the English language
together with a brazen impudence
far beyond the limits of a healthy education
yet whose excesses
were instantly forgiven
by everyone
for
their profoundly American spirit,
a Buffalo Bill
in Jewish and metropolitan vein
with an inner ray of Alabama sunshine.
Moreover
young Lehman
turned out to be a figure much admired
by customers of the fair sex
mothers as well as daughters,
where the former admired the élan of the twenty-year-old
and the latter—en masse—
his wild antics
as they danced at a Rosh haShanah
until the first light of dawn. And would have started all over again.
In industrial circles
people asked
with serious interest
whether David
was a machine fueled by coal, diesel, or kerosene.
Emanuel Lehman
therefore felt
that having his very own Achilles
was an ace up his sleeve
and in his own mind
had already counted him
among his band of Atreides.
Yet there was a problem.
And it was the fact that between David and Dreidel
the position in the bank
was not really intended for the buccaneer of the polka
but was rightfully due to the silent prince.
Now, it should be said
that both Mayer and Emanuel
due to a kind of sacred respect
had never spoken to anyone
in the whole family
not even to Aunt Rosa
about that strange moment
when Dreidel
to all intents and purposes
had transformed himself
into the brother they needed for a majority vote:
in fact it was thanks to him
that Lehman Brothers
had now taken off in New York
as a bank.
The uncles
by tacit agreement
not wishing to unduly burden the boy
had kept the memory well to themselves,
promising each other
to award him a share of the company
once he had come of age,
since after all
though he never spoke
the episode of the window ledge was more than enough
to put an end to any question.
So they prepared for the day
when Henry’s voice
would once again be heard
to all intents and purposes
inside Lehman Brothers . . .
assuming that
this voice would be heard
seeing that Dreidel
not only gave no hint of making any sound
but the few times he had done so
could not be considered a success.
Even the typewriter
had served no purpose:
a gift from Uncle Mayer
who had hoped at least
he might put down in writing
what he was hiding from the world in terms of speech.
To no avail: the sheets of paper remained blank.
No use either
trying to appeal
to the boy’s pride
making him understand
in a roundabout way
that maybe one day
he would be the one
to take his father’s place
at the very heart of the bank.
Nothing. The silence continued.
All hope was thus enclosed
in the seemingly broad lapse of time
that separated Henry’s mute heir
from the official threshold of twenty-one years.
But time, we know, is a strange factor.
Man imagines he has it in his grasp
but its workings often operate in reverse
and what seems far away
is here in a flash.
Which is what happened
more or less
in the Lehman household
and the fateful birthday of a spinning top
however far away it seemed,
began all of a sudden
to be imminent.
And critical.
Why, alas
does the passage of time
catch us
nine times out of ten
unprepared?
Everyone
had now developed
the clear notion
that the boy’s silence
had extended over time
into a semblance of ill will
like a repudiation of humanity in its widest sense.
There again, there was no doubt
that the intermittent moments of speech
to which he had so far accustomed them
had always amounted to
subtle variations on the theme of repugnance,
for which he gave no advance warnings.
But there was something more.
On watching his behavior
there was a clear impression
that Dreidel himself was becoming
like those insects
which, when attacked, yield to the first instinct of reacting
with all their strength
and in their reaction are ready even to die.
In short, a hornet
disguised as a spinning top
whose sting
was designed to strike just once in its life
violently
then all would be over.
But if this were the general impression,
why was it never expressed?
And yet there was no doubt:
year after year
everyone
starting with Aunt Rosa
felt more and more
first the doubt
then the certainty
that Dreidel was developing
the proud inner conviction that he had a deadly weapon
whose charge
he would fire
suddenly
sooner or later
on who-knows-who and for who-knows-why
in exactly the same way
that he had insulted the King of Sugar
on a veranda in Louisiana
or the southern flag
on that stage in Alabama.
While in the first instance
Dreidel was saved
by the margin of waywardness
that is granted to children,
on the second occasion
the situation was far more serious,
and it was only the town’s remembrance of his father
that muffled the outcry
of those who hurled imprecations of
plague cholera and worse upon them.
In both cases
however
—and now it was clear—
Dreidel had offered
no more than a taste
—a preview, for those who chose to understand—
of just how much poison a hornet possessed.
They might underestimate.
They might minimize.
But meanwhile he was sharpening his sting.
They would see.
Sugar!
Did anyone really think
that Dreidel Lehman would stop at this?
The flag!
Did anyone in the family
think so little of him
as to believe that a real hornet
would stop at the risk of being lynched
for spitting on the standard at the start of a war?
Of course not.
He was capable of much more.
And if those had been
annoyances of an insect,
they were nothing
compared to the real sting
which at the critical moment
would be, yes, fatal.
And unforgettable.
The prospect was this.
Not exactly a pretty one.
The boy was preparing himself
like a volcano
to allow all his anger to explode
and he didn’t care
whether in doing so
he would be banished
not only from the bank
but from every human frontier.
It would happen.
But for now he was perfectly quiet.
Silent.
Somber.
Dreidel Lehman
was waiting
coolly and calmly
for his moment.