Mayer Lehman would like to invest in gas.
He likes gas, very much, since it’s transparent.
It’s noiseless. It’s invisible.
It doesn’t dirty your hands, takes up little room.
Coal and oil
which his brother loves so much
disgust him
since black is a violent color.
How can you compare it with gas, which is there yet isn’t?
Emanuel is not naturally opposed:
on the signboard it says LEHMAN BROTHERS,
and until the cousins invade
the two of them will decide
without interference.
But in all honesty
can an authentic arm
find any attraction in putting money
on gas which can’t be touched, has no weight, can’t be held?
No comparison with iron!
Fortunately New York
is the capital of commerce.
Mayer Bulbe
has signed a contract for gas
on the very same afternoon
when Emanuel was buying more iron.
Gas and iron: two steps ahead.
And in fact—as chance would have it—
the family pew
has been moved two rows forward, in the Temple.
Twenty-third row:
the children can see rather better
since there’s more light:
we are under the window.
Maybe this is why
after Mayer Lehman’s gas
they would like to try with glass
Transparent like gas.
Doesn’t dirty your hands.
It’s there yet isn’t.
“Glass? But what are you talking about?
With glass you get zero-points, not capital!
Do you want to become a banker of zero-points?”
he asked his brother sternly.
And Mayer gives no reply.
He often doesn’t answer: instead he smiles.
Like now: he nods and smiles.
Asking himself once again
who
could have put into his brother’s head
this sing-song about the zero-points.
Meanwhile he nods and smiles.
Dressed in striped leggings
that no one here
—including his brother—
would ever wear.
Even yesterday, at the Temple
when Mayer went up to read on the podium
everyone was looking at him.
Laughing.
A potato with leggings.
Never seen such a thing in New York.
“Why is everyone looking at your shoes?”
his son Irving asked him
as calmly as he could
—Irving is an imperturbable child—
after they had found him, by luck
sitting on a Temple step
(for Irving is constantly getting lost,
and not because he runs away,
but for the simple reason
that everyone forgets about him).
“Why is everyone looking at your shoes?”
he asked his father,
who was delighted not to have lost him.
Mayer looked at him
smiled
but made no reply.
He could have told him that when he arrived from Germany
—Rimpar, Bavaria—
everyone used to look at his shoes
and so
if they look at your shoes
it’s a sign that you come from far away
but from too too too far away.
He could.
But he didn’t tell him.
There again
it’s been quite some time now
that Mayer talks less.
He, who at one time
was worthy
of the title—and what a title!—Kish Kish
now bites his tongue
keeps his lips closed.
He smiles. He nods.
He has given up.
And for some time now.
Strange how at a certain point in life
you find yourself
without realizing it
thinking and saying things
just like your old father:
it’s been nearly ten years
since the last note
arrived in Alabama
addressed always to both “DEAR SONS”
and signed “YOUR FATHER.”
And yet it’s as if that Lehmann with two n’s
in his dying moment
had somehow been moved onto American soil
putting much of himself
into the bodies of his sons.
Mayer Lehman for example
often talks by way of pronouncements.
He avoids discussion, prefers sayings.
Was it a tiredness with life?
Or had he perhaps, by force of economizing,
applied his resource-cutting
even to his desire to speak?
Mayer often thinks about it.
And thinks it is no coincidence
that it all began several years ago
in Alabama, in his Montgomery,
when suddenly
even there
everyone was struck down with a “talking disease”:
the idea
—his idea!—
about rebuilding the South after the war
had been transformed
into torrents of words
currents of air, tumults of discourse
and instead of building walls and fences
people made projects.
Sheets of paper.
Pamphlets.
Books.
Work plans
described in detail
promises over ten, twenty, thirty, forty years.
“How can I sign
if in forty years I’ll already be dead?”
“Every good investment, Mr. Lehman,
is now long term.”
“Yes, but how can I sign
if I’ll never see what I’ve paid for?”
“With respect, Mr. Lehman,
all this is irrelevant for business purposes.”
“But it is for me.”
“You as a bank, Mr. Lehman,
are making a commitment: giving your word.”
“What word can I give if in forty years’ time
the bank might even collapse?”
“This too is irrelevant for business purposes.”
“So what is relevant?”
“That you give your word.”
“What word?”
“The word yes.”
Words, that’s right.
Then
it grew even worse
when he and Babette
arrived here in New York
where everyone speaks and there is never any silence.
Even in the Temple
during services
continual whispering
no respite, words everywhere
fixed to the walls, on the posters: words
in the street, in bars: words
in the commercial banks: words
all a nightmare of sound
questions-answers
answers-questions
questions-answers
answers-questions
words and more words
words words
words and more words
a whole ocean of discourse
greater than the ocean seen from Brooklyn
so much that here—Mayer thinks—the people are drugged
with words
and in New York
indeed
even at night
everyone
talks in their sleep.
And what is more:
better not to even think
what they’ll do with the telephone.