After the embarrassing events
above,
the Lehman family
was demoted:
from the twenty-first row
they have fallen back to the twenty-fifth.
“Do we have to go so far back?”
Irving asks, holding his mother’s hand.
Yes: so far back.
Philip Lehman
sitting next to the rabbi on the first row
is almost ashamed
to catch sight, down at the back,
of the gray and white hair of his uncle and his father.
His cousin Arthur
who has taught himself to count
and no one can explain how he’s done it
refuses to accept the idea
of having to sit so close to the exit.
Even his brother Herbert
has said in front of everyone
that he doesn’t agree.
For Herbert the problem lies deep down
and becomes a political question:
why must the error of a single person
be answered with a punishment for all?
Here once again
the difference between him and his brother
is that while Herbert just says it
Arthur changes the argument
always
into open attacks
acts of urban warfare
and concrete sabotage.
Since the age of two
if the soup was not to their liking
Herbert would turn his nose up
and moan and whimper
(for even then the problem was deep down,
and became a political question)
whereas Arthur
more than once
hurled his plate
violently at the cupboard.
Between the two young boys
there was therefore a vast difference,
one that distinguished drawing room politics
from militant struggle.
Today at the Temple
for example
Arthur is sitting on a low wall
outside the entrance
with no intention of going inside:
“You go to row twenty-five,
I’m sitting here on the forty-eighth
so far away that I’ll sit in the street
to make sure there’s no chance
of going any farther back.”
And there they were out front
trying to make him see sense
when a sudden silence fell
and they saw the Lewisohns arrive
like out of an illustrated magazine
no longer in a carriage
but on a wondrous machine
all lamps and horns
a mechanical carriage
which no doubt has horses all the same
—and how could it not have them?—
but they’re stuck inside the metal, poor beasts,
closed up in a box
so they aren’t distracted
and don’t get wet in the rain.
“A Studebaker! Then they really exist!”
whispered Sigmund
with a broad rabbit grin
before actually applauding them
and giving a candy to the chauffeur.
“I can well understand why they sit in the first row, look:
for the cost of a Studebaker
they could buy the whole Temple”
said Harriett who had a natural talent
for the well-turned phrase.
And Herbert:
“The problem lies deep down:
the Lewisohns travel in an autocarriage,
they sit in the front row,
and what’s more they have their name spelled correctly,
not like us who they’ve written with two n’s
as if one extra was a luxury.
Can someone tell me why
I have to walk here
and sit almost in the forecourt?”
Fortunately
before Herbert Lehman
—in the prime of his young years—
could arrive at a doctrine not far from Marxism
he was saved
by his brother Arthur.
It was he who diverted attention
with one of his usual spectacular gestures:
he ran behind the Lewisohns’ automobile
and as soon as a young girl
climbed out of the vehicle
he literally threw himself at her
shouting like a lunatic
“In my house
they say everything you touch
turns immediately to gold:
I want to see if you’ll turn me too!”
The little girl
(who answered to the name of Adele)
clearly wasn’t accustomed
to fending off protesters
nor to dealing with public discontent.
Her only interest
seemed in fact aimed
at the irreparable damage
to a large bright blue bow
—absolutely disproportionate—
that adorned her head
with an effect frankly somewhat bizarre.
So she burst into floods of tears
while Babette Lehman
tried fruitlessly
to calm her son who in his fury
had trampled the aforesaid bow
into the mud.
How curious
the workings of the human memory.
For the family conserved
two quite different memories of that day.
Some remembered it as
that time when a Lehman
damaged Lewisohn property,
and it mattered little that the damage was a six-dollar bow.
For someone else
however
it was simply
that time when we envied
their Studebaker.
Yes. Because
for the adults it was a harsh blow.
The Lewisohns in an automobile.
There they are.
Who could ever imagine it.
Emanuel on seeing them
feels an instinctive disdain
and only later is he excited about the future unfolding:
automobiles are already on the street
and are we, instead of investing in them,
to carry on sleeping as if nothing had happened?
Mayer on the other hand is horrified:
if these monsters take over New York,
his brother would return to the attack
with his zero-points.
And that, in effect, is what happened.
The only one
who made no comment
on seeing the Studebaker
was Dreidel.
But this proves nothing.
Two hours later
once the service was over
Emanuel Lehman
took his brother by the shoulder
pulling him to one side
red-faced as if he had a fever:
“There are those who travel in an autocarriage.
There are those who go by train.
And Lehman Brothers what does it do, damnation?
It travels by foot or at most by horse.
We are behind, Mayer: we’re behind.”
“In the twenty-fifth row.”
“Worse: in the eightieth, in the ninetieth.
There: do you hear how that engine roars?”
“In all honesty, Emanuel, do you actually trust these machines?
Would you take your family in one?”
“Of course! What are you saying?
I’m already in the twentieth century,
but you, you’re old, you’re out of date!
The truth is you still have cotton on the brain!”
“Let me remind you
we are Lehman Brothers
we owe it all to cotton!”
“But read the newspapers, Mayer, for goodness’ sake!
In Egypt they want to dig a canal. Did you know that?”
“What the Egyptians do is irrelevant to Lehman Brothers.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong, yes sir:
they want to dig the canal, they’ll dig it, and they’ll come out at Suez.”
“I’m not following you.”
“There will be a small port on the Indian Ocean, you understand?
A service port, opening onto the Mediterranean:
at that point Indian cotton, Mayer,
will take just a moment to invade Europe.
And you know what? Indian cotton costs less!
Which is why I’m already elsewhere.”
“Where are you?”
“Engines, trains: everything that moves!”
A genuine mystery of science
is the aging process of an arm.
Instead of remaining more stationary
it is desperate to move about like a lunatic.
Emanuel has an obsession about movement.
Another mystery
for Pauline
is why Emanuel
—now that cotton is obsolete
since the Egyptians will do goodness knows what—
has gone down to Alabama
with his brother
saying he has a pending shipment of cloth.
It’s an excuse that few believe.
The truth is that there was no choice.
It was worth making a long journey
to talk to Aunt Rosa
in person
about Henry’s share
in the running of the bank.
They tell her they’ve given it much thought.
And have decided that at least for now
it is better not to go ahead
with any new appointment:
Aunt Rosa and her children
will of course keep their slice of earnings
—a third of the proceeds, as it has always been—
but as for allowing Dreidel
into the room with the word Management written on it . . .
In short, let us not be hasty:
under the age of thirty
you understand, Aunt Rosa
a young man is not ready
and under thirty
you understand, Aunt Rosa
he’s only interested in girls
and then a bank
you understand, Aunt Rosa
it’s not the right business for twenty-year-olds.
Aunt Rosa makes no objections,
she listens in silence
putting slices of spiced aniseed cake
onto tea plates.
Finally, though,
before her brother-in-laws’ forks
have reached their mouths for the first taste,
Rosa Wolf—who demolished a glass door—
bangs her fist on the table
as though it were a Bronx tavern:
“Let me and the two of you get something clear, face-to-face.
You’ve come down here now, at the last opportunity,
rather than talking about it before:
let’s pretend it has happened by chance,
since I don’t wish to think badly of you.
Having said this, I repeat: I want to get something clear.
When my husband founded Lehman Brothers
he was twenty-six, and there’s no mistake about that.
Emanuel, I saw you arrive in Alabama
when you were still a kid and you used to pull cats’ tails,
and your brother told me
“I have to be a father to him or he’ll land me in trouble.”
As for you, Mayer: you came crying to me
because you missed your mom, or don’t you remember?
I do, I remember it. And remember it pretty well.
So please, enough of this nonsense:
have you come to tell me that below the age of thirty
you’re not ready to work in a company?
Fine, then: let’s not fall out over it.
But any agreement—if that’s what you want, my dears—
has to be written down in black and white:
my children are entitled to have a say,
not just to have the money you earn for them.
You must therefore take one of mine.
It wasn’t you who set up that business:
over it all is my dear Henry, the head,
and you come later, as a result.
So, if all is agreed then there’ll be no trouble:
for the present everything remains as always,
but as soon as our firstborn sons
all reach their majority,
then the day after—you have to promise—
you hand everything over to them.
You were three brothers:
they will be three cousins.
You were equal: one-third per head,
and the same for them, without distinction.
For you, Emanuel, there will be Philip who’s the oldest.
For you, if I’m not wrong, it will be Sigmund,
and for me you’ll give a place to Dreidel:
he has a right to it, and I don’t want to hear otherwise.
You have no alternative, this is the way ahead.
And listen: I’m not saying this for me, I’m saying it because it’s right.
Is that clear? That’s all I have to say.
Finish off the cake, which is as good as always.
After which,
go back home: mission complete,
greetings to your wives, a kiss to the nephews and nieces
and as for you
be careful
for Henry sees everything
and once a month
he comes to me in a dream.”
She said no more
as there was nothing else to be said.
As for the two brothers
they ate the cake.
What could they do? It wasn’t right to leave it.
They finished it, in fact,
as proof of the alliance.
Not a slice was left.
And it remained heavy on their stomachs.