ON FRIDAYS, FINN STARTED coming home first instead of going straight to Schumann’s, and taking Isabelle with him to visit the tailor. Vanessa, who had been momentarily excited to see Finn home so early, balked and said, “What are the girls going to do without her?”
As gently as he could, Finn ventured the obvious. “Couldn’t they make do with their actual governess . . . or their mother for an hour?”
On the way, Isabelle said only two words to him. One was “Truro?” That one word was filled with such longing, it tugged at him.
Finn told her no, they weren’t going back to the Cape because he had to work on Saturday, and because it had gotten considerably colder. Isabelle looked so crestfallen, Finn didn’t have the heart to tell her there would probably be no more visits to Truro until next spring.
The second word she said to him was, “Lucas.”
And sure enough, across the street, winding his way through the paths of Boston Common was Lucas, trailing but not trailing. When he saw Finn notice him, he gesticulated like a wild man. Finn walked faster, ignoring both the wave and Isabelle’s questioning gaze.
“Is she doing all right, Schumann?” Finn asked when they had a moment alone, after the tailor showed Isabelle a tabletop of separates in the back of the shop and told her to pick out some warm pieces for the coming fall. Finn listened to them talking to each other in Ukrainian, noting the cadence of it, trying to understand the words, the meanings, hoping to catch something that would answer his million curiosities.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“I don’t know. She is quiet. The language barrier is a real obstacle.”
“I think you’ve just answered for yourself why she is so quiet. But she was the only girl in a family of three brothers. Believe me, she is full of verve. And she is tough. Don’t worry about her. She is fine.”
“Does she want to come to church with us?” Finn said. “Or is she Jewish like you?”
“She is not Jewish,” Schumann said. “Her father was Eastern Orthodox, her mother a Polish Catholic. But does it matter? All the lines are crossed when the Orthodox, Catholics, and Jews live side by side. That’s how we lived. As for church, if you can, give her Sunday mornings off. That way she can find her own place of worship and come visit me afterwards.”
Finn said he’d talk to Vanessa about it. “Is she family?”
“Family by association.” Schumann’s voice barely registered. “I’ve known Isabelle since she was four years old. Her father was one of my closest friends. And Cici, the daughter of the woman I was with for fifteen years, married Isa’s brother.” Schumann looked ready to cry.
There were many things a discomfited Finn didn’t understand. Why didn’t the mother and daughter escape with Schumann? Finn didn’t feel it was his place to ask. “Cici wasn’t your daughter?”
“I’ve known Cici since she was born,” Schumann said. “So she was mine, but not mine, you understand?”
What happened to Isabelle’s family? Finn wanted to ask but didn’t know how to. They weren’t with her, that much was obvious, and she looked hollowed out. Finn’s face must have shown his struggle because Schumann said, “Finn, if you want to know about her life, ask her. She’ll tell you.”
“She can barely tell me if she is thirsty.”
“Patience is its own reward,” Schumann said. He blew his nose. “What a sweet kid she once was.”
“Yes, weren’t we all. But you just said she was tough. Define tough.”
Schumann stared at Finn for a few moments before he replied. “Tough as in, she will do whatever needs to be done.”
“You don’t say.” Finn was even more intrigued. She did get herself to America all the way from Ukraine, so he supposed toughness was a prerequisite for accomplishing something like that.
“Isa! Come here,” Schumann called. He pronounced Isa not Issa but Eeza, with a long e and a z. Inaudibly, Finn mouthed it to himself.
She came out carrying a bundle of cardigans like they were small children. “I found nice yellow sweater for Yunie,” she said. “And blue for Mae. They will like.”
“I said find warm things for yourself,” Schumann said with an eye roll.
“Yes, my children have three closets of clothes,” Finn said. “But it’s true, they will like these, thank you.” Eeza.
“Would you like to have a drink with us, Finn?” The tailor brought out a flask from behind a secret compartment in the cabinet and set out three glasses. “I must be quick because the evening rush is about to be upon me.”
“It would be rude to refuse,” Finn said, his mouth watering, “seeing as you already took out a glass for me.”
“And poured it for you, too. I can’t explain to her what Prohibition is,” Schumann added. “She doesn’t understand even in Ukrainian.”
“It’s inexplicable in any language,” Finn said, raising a glass to them both.
“To life,” said Schumann.
“To life,” said Finn.
“L’Chaim,” said Isabelle.
If only Vanessa knew that Finn had stopped drinking with the no-good Lucas only to take up drinking with the tailor and the Lavelle girl instead.
At the end of September, during one of their weekly family get-togethers, Walter and Adder Day had a boisterous discussion about the pros and cons of aggressive investing. Adder ran the Massachusetts Insurance and Investments brokerage, and he kept trying to wheedle Finn into giving him some of the Adams Bank’s investment business. But Finn dealt with Lionel Morris’s firm instead, much to Adder’s chagrin. Lionel and Finn had been good friends since their Harvard years, while Adder was someone Finn barely tolerated even before the sordid business with Isabelle.
Adder was a devil’s advocate and a naysayer. His main activity in life was taking the opposite of whatever position Finn held. If Finn liked a utility company, Adder found something wrong with it. If Finn was cautious on a stock, Adder went in on it full cocked. If Finn liked Coolidge, Adder hated him. If Finn said the weather was pleasant, Adder forecast three weeks of rain. Finn had long recognized this pattern. In his dealings with Adder, he tried to follow his father’s example and keep his mouth shut. It wasn’t easy because Finn generally didn’t like to keep his mouth shut and because Adder aggravated him like a canker sore. But the main reason Finn avoided doing business with Adder was because he simply didn’t trust him, and you couldn’t give your father-in-law’s money to someone you didn’t trust.
Adder, his eye still bloodshot and bearing the yellowing marks of his alleged encounter with a door, was particularly vexing that Sunday afternoon. Even Walter was getting steamed. “Adder, why do you keep arguing?” Walter said while Finn pretended to read the paper. “Trust me—everything is better than it’s ever been. Didn’t Finn tell you? Our quarterly earnings came in.” He smiled proudly at Finn. “The average growth for Boston banks was 31 percent. Ours was seventy-three! We’ve outperformed the outperformers by double, Adder. All thanks to Finn. We are tremendously well positioned, and our revenue streams are diverse. There’s nothing to worry about, right, Finn?”
Finn grunted, wary of being sucked into an unwanted discussion. “When is lunch? Wicker, are you there?” he called down to the cook. “And where are the girls?”
“They’re getting your immigrant ready for her first family viewing,” said Vanessa, her eyes shielded behind a pair of sunglasses.
Adder rolled his eyes, though whether at Walter’s pride parade or at Isabelle’s imminent appearance, Finn wasn’t sure. Walter was always bragging about Finn, and Finn particularly enjoyed how much it ticked off Adder. Eleanor’s husband ran his investment firm cautiously, and his earnings were correspondingly cautious. Last quarter Adder barely broke even, and this was clearly incensing him.
Trying not to sound sour, Adder resumed harassing Walter into limiting the bank’s risk exposure, what with the bank’s “sky-high liabilities and dynamic (read ‘uncertain’) liquidity.” The market had been off its highs lately. “Buying more stock only makes sense if the market doesn’t keep going down,” Adder said.
“Why in the world would the market keep going down?” Walter shouted. “For goodness’ sake, Adder. We had some profit-taking. Inevitable when the market’s been at record highs. We took some ourselves.”
To support his position, Adder gleefully recited the latest construction figures for August 1929. They were down. Manufacturing figures were down too. “Even Finn said the other week that the real estate market was flattening,” Adder said. “Many companies on the market are overpriced and overvalued.”
“Who’s overvalued?” asked Walter. “Finn, do you hear this? Is General Motors overvalued?”
Finn grunted.
“Maybe Steel? Is that overvalued?”
The mere mention of U.S. Steel prickled Finn because of his recent conversation with Schumann about it. The tailor was also not impressed with America’s largest publicly traded company. Finn had had enough.
“Adder is right about one thing, Walter,” Finn said to his father-in-law. “You can’t maintain an inflationary boom indefinitely.”
“Who said?” boomed Walter. “Money is so cheap to borrow, to lend, to invest!”
“Yes, but money is not as cheap as it was,” Finn said. “The Fed just raised its lending rate. I think we are going to proceed more conservatively.”
“Oh, bollywocks,” said Adder. “The Federal Reserve is always doing too little too late to control the market.” He turned to Walter. “It’s fine,” he said. “No need to be cautious. The market is inching back up to 400. Mark my words, Walter, October 1929 is when we’ll make a real killing.”
There it was. As expected, Adder had switched sides midstream and was now vigorously defending more aggressive investing! Smiling, Finn went back to pretending to read the paper.
“Enough bank talk,” said Olivia, putting down her book. “It’s time for us to meet this girl of yours, Finn. Where is she?”
“She’s not my girl, Mother,” Finn said.
“Just a figure of speech, dear.”
Flanked by a beaming Mae and Junie, Isabelle emerged in a new blue dress Schumann had made for her. It was pressed and well made and fitted around her long, slender form. On her feet were her leather boots. A light blue silk scarf was tied around her head. The girls had found a string of orange beads their mother had given them and wrapped it around her neck and dabbed some pink lipstick on her generous mouth.
She approached the family gracefully, without fidgeting. With her little support birds flanking her, she cleared her throat and said, “How do you do, Lucy, Walter, very nice to meet you.” She turned to Finn’s parents. “How do you do, Olivia . . . Earl . . .” Mae and Junie clapped, delighted with the success of their student. Isabelle had trouble getting the word Earl out of her mouth, so she had to resort to an imitation of Mae, who had taught her to say it. She could say Earl in Mae’s voice, but not her own.
“The girl is much too thin,” declared Lucy. “She’s not eating?”
“Nonstop, Mother,” Vanessa said. “Eating us out of house and home.”
“I eat white bread and tomatoes, Lucy,” Isabelle said. “Very delicious.”
“Well, the girl seems perfectly adequate,” Lucy said. “I don’t know what you were complaining about, Eleanor.”
“I wasn’t complaining, Mother,” Eleanor said. “In Truro, we did not find her very approachable, did we, Vanessa?”
Still standing tall, Isabelle glanced coldly at Adder. “In Truro,” she said in Eleanor’s voice, “I was not very approachable.”
“How in the world does she do that?” Olivia exclaimed. “That’s quite remarkable. Does she know what she’s saying?”
“Oh, no, not at all.” Vanessa studied her nails.
Finn asked the girls to take Isabelle back inside. He had noticed the way she stared down Adder, and he didn’t want a confrontation to mar their agreeable afternoon. Finn had not told Vanessa what transpired between Adder and Isabelle, because he knew it would become a thing (another thing) between his wife and her sister, and in any case Adder would simply deny it. Finn feared that Vanessa, not knowing whom to believe, might challenge Isabelle about it. Finn had no intention of injuring Isabelle further when she couldn’t defend herself—not with words, anyway.
“Finn, darling, did you hear what I said?”
“Sorry, Mother, lost in thought. Come again?”
“Has the girl been out and about?”
“I think so,” he said. “Vanessa would know more about it.”
Vanessa shrugged. “She has been out and about. My husband takes her on promenades throughout Boston.”
“Yes,” Finn said. “I promenade her to North End so she can visit with the one person she can speak Ukrainian to.”
“I think it’s unseemly for the vice-president of a respected Boston bank to be walking the streets with the hired help, that’s all,” Vanessa said.
To which Finn responded after a laden pause, “Who am I of so high a station? What do I have, that I have not received?”