15

“He wants to see you at his office?” her mother said to her. “My goodness, I’ve never been to his office! But that makes it much more formal, doesn’t it. If it had been at the house, you could have been more casual. I think a suit, don’t you? How about your beige Davidow with the piping? Or your light blue David Crystal? No, too springy, I think. I think the Davidow, with a very simple off-white blouse—high-neck, of course—and a gold circle pin, or a strand of pearls, but not both. You know how your grandpa hates women who wear too much jewelry! Small gold earrings if you wear the pin, or seed pearls with the pearls. You’ll have your hair done, of course. And a hat? Yes, I think so, Mimi. I do think a little hat, a little sailor, perhaps, or—who knows?—even a little beret might be pretty. Fix me a quick drink, darling, and we’ll run down to Saks and see what we can find. Thank you. Of course, you’ll want to tell whoever does your hair that you’re going to be wearing a hat, so he can leave your hair flatter on the top and fluffed up on the sides. Of course, not too much makeup—lipstick, and a little cream rouge. Not too much with the eyes. Needless to say, your grandpa has some pretty strong theories about makeup—after all, that’s his business! But even though he makes the stuff, he hates it when a woman wears too much. And don’t forget hose. He can’t stand women with bare legs. And shoes with a medium heel. He hates me when I wear high heels because they make me as tall as he is! Don’t you have some beigey alligator-type pumps with a medium heel? If you wear those, I have a beigey alligator Chanel-type bag with a long gold chain that would go nicely, I could let you borrow. And—oh, I almost forgot: gloves! Shortie white gloves, just to the wrist, and make sure they’re white and clean-clean-clean. You’ll remove the gloves, of course, as you enter his office. And, for God’s sake, don’t wear the ring! The ring will make it look as though it’s official, which it isn’t, and won’t be until we’re ready to announce it. Don’t wear the ring, whatever you do. He notices everything.…”

Her mother had planned her wardrobe for this meeting with her grandfather as though it were for her first day at school.

“What did you say the young man’s name was?” her grandfather said.

“Horowitz,” she said. “Michael Horowitz, Grandpa.”

“Horowitz,” he repeated. “There was a family named Horween in Chicago. I believe their name was originally Horowitz. They were decent people.”

“Michael doesn’t believe in name-changing, Grandpa.”

“Well, there are two schools of thought about that, of course.”

They were sitting in her grandfather’s big office on Fifth Avenue—the same office that Mimi uses now, though one would never recognize it.

In those days, Adolph Myerson’s New York office seemed a dark, cavernous, almost forbidding place, with its heavy oak-paneled walls and ceiling, the thick Persian carpet on the floor, and the deep red-velvet window hangings that all but blocked out any sunlight from the street outside. All around the room, on various tables and stands, were the signed presidential portraits, from Harding onward—though Roosevelt and Truman were missing—and, front and center, a photograph of the current White House occupant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, signed breezily, “For Adolph—cheers from Ike.” All the photographs were in heavy silver frames, and in other frames were copies of the various medals, citations, awards, honors, and degrees that had been bestowed upon Adolph Myerson in the course of his long career.

Behind his big, leather-topped desk hung the portrait of Adolph Myerson himself, the man who had guided the Miray Corporation from its inauspicious beginnings on the Grand Concourse to its present world eminence. It was a portrait, naturally, of a more youthful man than the one she sat opposite now. The small moustache had been black when the portrait had been painted, and the pince-nez that he wore about his neck had not yet become a part of his habitual attire. But there was something odd about the portrait that struck her right away. He stood, full length, beside a fireplace, his right hand resting on the mantelpiece, but the painting seemed out of balance, off-center. Her grandfather’s figure occupied the right-hand edge of the canvas, while the rest of the frame consisted of a depiction of the fireplace and empty wall. Later, she learned the reason for the painting’s strange imbalance. Originally, it had been a portrait of the company’s two cofounders, Adolph and Leopold, standing on either side of the fireplace. But when Leopold had left the company, or even somewhat before, Adolph had ordered his younger brother painted out of the picture and replaced with woodwork and an ornamental mantel clock.

Still, despite this oddity, her grandfather’s office was a room designed to announce to the visitor that this was the office of a Very Important Person, who always dressed in dark, English-tailored suits. Behind his desk now, he removed his pince-nez and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a gesture, those in the family knew, that usually indicated displeasure. Though Adolph Myerson was then eighty-seven years old, he was still, Mimi had to admit, a commanding presence—even though he was not tall and had grown somewhat portly. His nose was long and thin, his steel-grey moustache and pointed beard were perfectly trimmed, and he sat ramrod-straight in his chair.

He replaced the pince-nez and, through their glittery lenses, fixed his deep-set, penetrating eyes on her. “Horowitz,” he said once more.

“Yes, Grandpa.”

“In real estate, you say.”

“Yes, a builder. He’s just graduated from Columbia Business School.”

“Columbia. We’ve always been a Princeton and Harvard family, of course.”

“Princeton doesn’t have a business school, Grandpa.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “But Harvard does!”

“Yes, Grandpa, that’s true. Harvard does.” Whenever she was with him, he had a way of making her feel just like a little girl. But that, she supposed, was part of the secret of his business success: he made everyone around him feel insignificant.

“Who are his people? I don’t know any Horowitzes in New York.”

“His family has a catering business in Kew Gardens,” she said. “It’s very successful. They have over a hundred employees. They do—”

“Kew Gardens,” he said. “Where is that?”

“On Long Island, Grandpa.”

“Oh, yes. It’s in Queens, actually, isn’t it? A Jewish section of Queens. But out there they say they live on Lon Gisland.” He laughed, but his laugh was not one of amusement. “Jackson Heights used to be a nice neighborhood. Haven’t been there in years, of course.”

“Michael’s very nice, Grandpa,” she said. “I know you’ll like him.”

“He hasn’t got you pregnant, has he?”

She gasped. “Of course not!”

“A caterer’s son,” he said. “Your grandmother and I never use caterers. We’ve always had our own staff.”

“I know that, Grandpa.”

“And I certainly can’t use any building contractors in this company. Chemists and druggists we use to test certain products, but we can’t use any builders, I’m afraid, in case that’s what he has in mind.”

At first, she didn’t understand. Then she said, “But he doesn’t want to work for Miray, Grandpa! He’s got his own business. He’s building—”

“Tell me something,” he interrupted. “Is he dark-complected? They often are, these Orientals.”

“No,” she said, suddenly alarmed at the way this conversation seemed to be heading. “He has brown eyes, light brown hair, and his skin is … well, no darker than yours or mine.”

“Can’t have you giving me any darky great-grandchildren!” Once more there was the short, unamused laugh.

“Right now, he has a nice tan … from working out of doors a lot on his job in New Jersey.”

“New Joisey,” he said. “Tell me, Mireille, where did you meet this Mr. Moskowitz? Or is it Lupowitz?”

“Horowitz,” she said. “Actually, we met when we were skating in Central Park. I broke a skate lace. He replaced it for me, and we—and he asked to see me again. It was last winter,” she added a little lamely.

Once more he removed his pince-nez and rubbed the bridge of his nose a little harder than before. “Quite frankly, Mireille,” he said, “you disappoint me. This Jewish caterer’s son from Kew Gardens named Horowitz. We’ve never associated with that element in New York. Horowitz.”

“What’s wrong with the name Horowitz? Vladimir Horowitz, the great pianist!”

“I’m not musical,” he said. “I’m talking about the element these people represent. They’re Russians. They’ve just come down out of the trees. You’re a Myerson, Mireille.”

“Were the Myersons all that great—before you, that is?”

“Myerson is a very old and distinguished name,” he said. “Before immigrating to Germany, where my parents came from, and where the name became somewhat corrupted, we were prominent in the seventeenth and eighteenth century in France, where the name was Maraison, from the family motto, ‘Ma Raison,’ which translates as ‘My Right.’ It is a motto closely connected to the royal ‘Dieu et Mon Droit.’ There was a castle called Ma Raison near Epernay, in the Champagne country, and there were Maraisons who were counts and countesses, members of the Court at Versailles. On my mother’s side, the Rosenthal family—”

“But your family were from the Lower East Side, weren’t they?”

There was a stony silence, and then he said, “I have had the family pedigree prepared. I will gladly show it to you if you’re interested.” There was another silence and then, in a different voice, he said, “You’re very pretty, Mireille.”

Startled, she blinked. He had never said anything like that to her before.

“You really are. A very pretty girl. You have a pretty little nose, and unusual grey eyes. You don’t look Jewish at all. I see you’re wearing Pink Poppy.”

“Pink Poppy?”

“On your nails. That’s our Pink Poppy. It’s very becoming. Now here’s a new shade I want you to try.” He pulled open one of his desk drawers. “We’re going to be introducing it for fall. We’re going to call it Fire and Brandy. It’s a bit more sophisticated, more for evening. And here’s another shade you might like: Hot Geranium. Another winter shade.” He began removing the little bottles from his drawer and placing them on his desk. “But for a summer shade, try this: Saffron ’n’ Spice. And the coordinated lipsticks, of course—a Miray innovation, as I’m sure you know. And here’s a new eye shadow that would go well with your coloring. And this: brand-new, a night cream we’re testing in selected markets.”

As the collection of little tubes and jars and bottles grew on his desktop, she realized that he was sampling her, the way he sampled the buyers from Bonwit’s and Bloomingdale’s. “Don’t worry about how you’re going to carry all these things home,” he said. “I have a shopping bag,” and from another drawer he produced one of the small and elegant signature shopping bags that the stores gave out: bright, shiny red with the name “Miray” in white, the long, ribbonlike serif of the letter M curling backward and trailing through the loop of the y.

“Try this,” he continued, producing more samples from the endless collection in his drawer and dropping them into the red bag, “and this: a bee-pollen eye gel …” Then, in the same cajoling tone, he said, “Mireille, you’re my only granddaughter. Naturally, I have a special place in my heart for you. Please consider carefully what you are proposing to do. Do you want to become a Mrs. Horowitz, a name that will associate you with that Jewish element? I suppose you’ve often wondered why your grandmother and I no longer go to services at Temple Emanu-El.”

She hadn’t wondered, but she nodded.

“It’s because that element has completely taken over there. If you let one in, others follow. They bring in their friends and all their relatives, the cousins, their aunts and uncles, their sons-in-law, and before you know it the place is overrun with them. The same thing has happened at the Harmonie Club, which is why I no longer am a member there—which I miss, because I used to enjoy the pool. The place is overrun. The only place that’s left is Century, the only place that’s been able to uphold the standard. But the Orientals are already pounding on our doors out there, trying to get in. There’s some publisher named Kopf or Kupf or something, who’s been put up. Your Mr. Horowitz could never become a member of Century, Mireille.”

“I’m sure Michael has no interest in joining Century, Grandpa.”

“Don’t be too sure,” he said. “They all want to get into Century, these people. They regard it as a status symbol. They fail to realize that a club is a place where people of similar tastes and interests like to gather, nothing more than that.”

“Michael isn’t a golfer, Grandpa.”

“Then look at it another way. Won’t it look a little peculiar that Adolph Myerson’s granddaughter’s husband is not a member of Century? What will people say to that?”

She looked around the room helplessly, looking for some way to counter the illogic of her grandfather’s logic.

“Is he interested in any sports, this Horowitz? Football or baseball?”

“Well, he’s a Yankees fan.”

“Yes. These Orientals often are, though they don’t play sports well.”

“A very moderate Yankees fan.”

“But the point is to find someone whose name will do your family proud, someone whose family and position are in keeping with our own position in New York society. As I say, you don’t look Jewish. Why marry someone whose name and background will stigmatize you unnecessarily and associate you in people’s minds with everything that is deplored about the Jewish race? Of course, if the man you marry has to be Jewish, there are plenty of nice—”

“You sound like an anti-Semite, Grandpa!”

“I? On the boards of the United Jewish Appeal and the World Jewish Congress, not to mention a dozen other Jewish philanthropic organizations across the United States? Surely you cannot be serious, Mireille. And I have no time for jokes.” Then he had spread his hands out flat on the leather desktop in front of him, in his best professional manner, and the expression on his face now was similar to the one he wore when he posed for the portrait that hung on the wall behind him: that of a weary but patient teacher who is forced to explain, all over again, a very simple problem to a particularly dull-witted pupil. “Let me tell you something about the Jews, Mireille,” he said, “something that you seem not to understand. Not all Jews are alike, just as not all Christians are alike. There are essentially two types. There are people like us who, through hard work and a reputation for integrity, have earned themselves prominent positions in the business community, and who have many Christian friends from the highest social and government echelons in the country—like my dear friends Ike and Mamie Eisenhower. We are welcomed in the finest Christian homes and are guests in the finest Christian clubs. We are assimilated Jews, in other words. We recognize that we are a small minority, living in an essentially Christian country, and we realize that we must abide by the majority rule. That is the American way. Then there is another type, which refuses to adapt. I call them Old World Jews. They haven’t changed their ways since the Middle Ages. They abide by archaic dietary laws. They practice their religion in a language no one can understand. They live in ghettos—middle-class ghettos, to be sure, in places like Kew Gardens and Woodmere and Fort Lee and the Green Haven section of Mamaroneck. They’re tight-knit, distrustful of outsiders, still actually afraid of Christians. They tend to be entrepreneurial types. You’ll find many in the entertainment business—catering, for instance. In my business, I’ve had to deal with many of these types—Revson, for example. Because they don’t trust me, I’ve learned that you can’t trust them. They’re the type who, as they say, will try to ‘jew you down’ in a business deal. I don’t personally find them attractive, but I’ve had to do business with this type so often that I know it well.”

“You’re talking about stereotypes, Grandpa.”

“I am indeed! Because the stereotype exists. We used to call them kikeys. I realize that that is not a flattering expression to use, but I still think of them that way. I do not wish to see the only granddaughter of Adolph Myerson marry into a kikey family. Surely the only granddaughter of Adolph Myerson deserves something better than that. Surely Adolph Myerson himself deserves better treatment that that.”

It was, Mimi knew, another danger signal when her grandfather began speaking of himself in the third person.

“Let me tell you something else about these people,” he said. “Typically, they will have three sons. One they make become a doctor, another they make a lawyer, and the third they will make an accountant. Do you know why this is? So that one son can give them free health care, the next will give them free legal advice, and the accountant will prepare their taxes for them—free. If I’ve seen this happen once, I’ve seen it a thousand times.”

“But Michael is a builder!”

“And let me tell you one more thing. Builder starts with the same letter as borrower. These people never put up anything with their own money. They borrow from the government, they borrow from banks, they borrow from their relatives. They are always in debt. They actually measure wealth by how much they owe. I assume that the Kew Gardens caterers are aware that we are a family of means?”

“I don’t know that!”

“I’m sure they are. I’m sure that the Kew Gardens caterers hope that if their son marries a rich woman she will help him extend his line of credit. Why else would they support such a … such an obvious mismatch.”

“But I love him, Grandpa!” she had cried. “You’re making him sound just terrible.”

“I’m saying he’s marrying you for your money, Mireille. And the caterers are aiding him and abetting him in this pursuit.”

“It’s not true,” she said desperately. “He didn’t even know who you were until after he’d asked me to marry him. And besides, I’m not rich.”

“That’s true,” he said quietly. “You’re not rich yet. But you could be one day. Very rich. You are an heiress, Mireille.”

“Michael doesn’t care about any of that! He loves me!”

His gaze at her through the pince-nez was even. “Have you met this young man’s family?” he asked her.

“Not yet.” She felt herself close to tears. She felt her mouth going suddenly dry and could also feel perspiration streaming down her sides, under her blouse.

“Well, let me tell you what you will find when you do,” he said, and he withdrew his large gold watch from a vest pocket and consulted it. “Let me just tell you this, young lady, and then I must send you on your way. You will find a short, swarthy, bald Jewish man with a Bronx accent who chews on a cigar. You’ll find his peroxide-blond wife who has a floor-length mink coat, wears diamonds from head to toe, who goes to the Fontainebleau for Christmas and plays mah-jongg. You’ll find a couple who want a wedding at the Plaza with two rabbis, and the kind of barbaric ceremony where the bridegroom smashes a wineglass with his heel. Naturally, they’ll want to cater the reception, and I’ll be expected to pay for everything. I’m not saying you’ll find this in every exact detail, but this is the element you will be dragging yourself into, and dragging your family, and your family’s good name into, if you persist in pursuing this unfortunate, this totally inappropriate, relationship to the point of marrying this David Horowitz.”

“His name is Michael,” she sobbed. “How can you sit there and say such things about people you’ve never met?”

“Mark my words, young lady—”

“Oh, stop! Just stop this!” she cried, and she reached blindly beside her chair for her gloves and her mother’s Chanel bag to go. Then she said, “I don’t care. I don’t care what you say. I love him, and I’m going to marry him, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me—nothing! You can go to hell!”

He looked momentarily so startled—the pince-nez seeming to teeter on his nose—that she realized that it had probably been years since anyone, within the family or out of it, had challenged him or defied him or even questioned him, and she saw that the experience was so new and so strange to him that he was, at least briefly, caught quite off his guard and was, quite literally, speechless. He removed the pince-nez completely and placed them on his desktop, lenses down, in a gesture of fatigue. Then he said evenly, “That may be true. There may be nothing I can do to stop you, but there are other things that I can do. If you were expecting to receive any inheritance under my will, that instrument can be redrawn so that you receive nothing. I will, in the process, find it quite within my power to forget that I ever had a granddaughter.”

“I don’t care! I don’t need your money! I don’t even want it!”

“And that’s not all that I can do to prevent you from doing what you say you mean to do. If you persist in this, you will see that there are other things that I can do. Now, I have nothing more to say to you. I will, I assume, be apprised of your decision when you have had a chance to think this over.” He looked down at his desk and began quickly moving pieces of paper about with his hands. “Right now I have people—important people—waiting to see me. I have a company to run. Good day.” With one hand, he gave her a quick gesture of dismissal. “Don’t forget your shopping bag.”

“Good!” he said when she was able to reach him on the phone to tell him of her meeting with her grandfather. “Good for you! You told the old bastard off. To hell with him. We don’t need his money, and now we won’t have to go around kissing his ass the way your parents have always had to do.”

“But what about what he said, that there were other things that he could do?”

“Bluffing. Just bluffing. After all, what else could he do?”

But, for the first time, she thought she heard a note of uncertainty in his voice.

Henry Myerson stood in front of his father’s desk while his father affixed his signature to a thick sheaf of documents. Finally, after several minutes, without looking up from his paperwork, Adolf Myerson said, “What time is it?”

“Ten after four, Father.”

“Good. This won’t take long.” Then, still signing papers, his father said, “I understand that you borrowed a certain sum of money from your mother the other day.”

“A small sum, yes.”

“I am aware of the amount. Please let me be the judge of whether the amount is small or not.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Your mother has funds of her own, which she is free to dispense as she pleases,” he said. “But the trouble with your mother is that, though she is not soft-headed, she is soft-hearted. She is generous to a fault, and she has no money sense. I have to go over her accounts periodically and sort things out for her. She is particularly soft-hearted where you are concerned. I am sure that it will not come as news to you that she favors you among the three children. This is natural, and understandable. You are her firstborn, her oldest son, her pet. That you are your mother’s favorite is human nature. In fact, as you were growing up, there were times when I felt that, if I had not applied strict discipline in the household, you might have turned into a mama’s boy, or like your brother.”

For the past several years, due to certain occurrences that had come to light, it had been noticed that Adolph Myerson no longer referred to his younger son by name. He was no longer “Edwee” or “Edwin” but was “your brother” or “my other son” or sometimes just “the other one.”

“These borrowings of yours,” he continued, “these small loans, as you call them, have gone on for some years. I am afraid that you are taking advantage of your mother’s generous nature, that you regard her as a soft touch, an easy mark, that you are using her, bleeding her, because her resources, though considerable, are not limitless. I am not pleased with this situation, Henry.”

“Yes, Father.”

His father put his signature on the last of the stack of documents, and a small smile crossed his lips. “There,” he said. “A four-million exclusivity agreement for our boutique at Magnin’s. All the California stores. We’ve beat that shit Revson.” He looked up at his son for the first time. “I’m not pleased, Henry,” he said, “and I’m also puzzled. You are paid an excellent salary. Next to my own, it is the highest salary in the company. You are paid enough to live well, even luxuriously. Why is it that you find it necessary to run to your mother for these handouts? Why is it that you seem unable to live on what you earn?”

“There are taxes, Father, doctors’ bills, tuition—”

His father waved his hand. “Everybody pays taxes. Everybody has doctors’ bills. Frankly, Henry, your chronic inability to live on what you earn worries me. It is one of the reasons I have been hesitant to turn over the reins of the company to you, which some people think I should have done several years ago. Your seemingly improvident nature makes me wonder whether perhaps you have inherited your mother’s lack of money sense. Is that it, Henry?”

“I’m sorry, Father,” he began. “I’ll try—”

“Or is it your wife, Henry? Is it her inability to control her spending that gets you into these financial embarrassments?”

He lowered his eyes. “No, it’s not that.”

“You’re not a child, Henry. You’re forty-two years old. We can speak man to man. Frankly, it is undignified for a grown man of your age to be running to his mother for handouts.”

“It won’t happen again, Father.”

“You call them loans. Your mother calls them loans. But I see no evidence of interest having been paid on any of them, nor are there signs that any of these loans have been repaid. I suspect that you have begun to think of these advances of hers as outright gifts, with no strings attached. I am considering calling all of these loans of yours in, Henry. Calling them in, with interest. It might teach you a much-needed lesson.”

“But, Father, I can’t—”

“I’m considering it,” his father said. And then, “Your daughter was in to see me yesterday.”

“I know that, Father.”

“She wants me to approve her plans to marry some inappropriate young man. A totally inappropriate young man.”

“I haven’t met him yet, Father.”

“I told her that I thoroughly disapproved. I expect you to exert whatever parental pressure you possibly can against this plan of hers, Henry. I expect you—and Alice—to exert as much parental pressure as you can against this proposed marriage. Do you understand, Henry?”

He nodded.

“Good,” he said. He gathered up the stack of documents on his desk, aligning their edges between his palms. “Drop the Magnin contracts on my secretary’s desk on your way out, will you?”

A little later, Adolph Myerson placed a telephone call on his private line. “Mireille?” he said when she answered. “This is your grandfather calling.”

“Yes, Grandpa,” she said, thinking that perhaps he had had a change of heart.

“I have been doing a little checking on the housing project your friend Horowitz is putting up in Newark, Mireille. This is a million-square-foot project for the low-income and the elderly, most of whom, it seems, will be Negro. It seems that these buildings are being put up with many gross violations of the New Jersey Building Code. There are inadequate fire escapes, for one thing. There are no fire doors between the floors or between the two buildings, as called for in the contract. The list of Code violations is quite long, I’m afraid, and quite shocking, considering the sort of people he plans to have occupy these units. Shoddy work, all around. The New Jersey State Building Inspector is a friend of mine. I would hate to have to notify him of these shortcomings. Or to call this to the attention of my friends at the New York Times.…”

She had never seen Michael so angry. His lips were white, and his eyes blazed. “That bastard!” he said. “That shit bastard! He’s trying to blackmail me! None of that is true! I’ll sue him—that’s what I’ll do. I’ll sue him!”

“Wait,” she begged him. “My mother has a plan. She wants us for dinner tonight. It will be just the four of us—my parents, and you and me. She has an idea, some sort of plan.”

It was a dinner party that never actually took place, where no one ever sat down for dinner.

Michael stood in the center of her parents’ living room, his fists clenched. “He’s bluffing. I know he’s bluffing,” he said.

Looking pale, her father said, “He isn’t bluffing, Michael. I’ve known him, worked with him, for a long time. He’s a man who’s used to getting his own way.”

“He’ll do anything to get his way,” Mimi’s mother sobbed. “Anything!”

“And you’re telling me that your father would actually financially ruin his own son—throw you out on the street, as you put it—for letting me marry your daughter? His own son?”

“Please try to understand, Michael,” her father said. “There’s a portrait in my father’s office that serves as a reminder to me of where I stand with him. It used to be a portrait of two men: my father, and my uncle Leo. When my father decided that it was time for Leo to leave the company, he had Leo’s part of the portrait painted out. He can make people disappear.”

“He’d do that to his own son?”

“He did it to his own brother, Michael. Why not to his own son? I can remember when that happened. Mimi’s too young.”

“What kind of a pantywaist are you, Myerson?” Michael shouted. “What kind of a lousy, lily-livered little cowardly pantywaist are you to let another man walk all over you this way?”

“Michael, please—”

“There are certain other circumstances,” her father said quietly, glancing quickly at her mother. “There are other circumstances, Michael, that you’re not aware of, and that Mimi’s not aware of—circumstances that I can’t go into here—that make it impossible for Mimi’s mother and me to defy him outright. I have to ask that you accept that, Michael, that there are extenuating circumstances!”

“Impossible!” her mother wailed.

“What circumstances, Daddy?”

“I can’t go into that.”

“Well, I say you’re both a bunch of lousy, fucking cowards!” Michael said. “Only a coward puts up with blackmail without fighting back!”

Her father was angry now. “I’m telling you that under the circumstances it can’t be done!”

“Wait!” Mimi’s mother cried. “Why won’t anybody listen to my plan? I’ve got a plan!”

“Yes, let’s listen to your mother’s plan,” her father said.

Mimi’s mother rose from her chair, her drink in one hand, her face suddenly wreathed in smiles, and moved—almost danced—across the room to where Mimi sat. “Have an affair!” she said. “Why don’t you two have a nice affair? This is nineteen fifty-seven, the year of contraception! There are lovely little devices a girl can use today! Don’t look so shocked. When your father and I were going out, before we were married, there was only that little rubber thing that the man used, and we were never sure—”

“Alice, I really don’t think—”

“Why not?” she said defiantly. “You and I had an affair before we were married, didn’t we? Why can’t she have … a lovely affair?”

“Alice, you’ve had too much to drink.”

Suddenly her face fell. “What’s wrong?” she said. “What’s wrong with my plan? What’s wrong with having an affair? People have them all the time! She could be fitted for a pessary.”

“Sit down, Alice, please,” her father said. “There is only one plan that will work. It’s called patience. My father is eighty-seven years old. He can’t live forever—”

“Oh, no!” Alice cried. “Because he will live forever. He already has lived forever. He won’t die, and you know why? Because he’s too mean to die, that’s why! They’re all too mean to die! Your mother’s too mean to die! Your cousin Nate’s too mean to die! They’ll never die, any of them—as long as there’s a way to torture us.”

“Alice!”

“So go ahead: marry him! Forget the affair! Screw everybody! Screw this whole family!”

“Alice, for Christ’s sake!”

“Are you going to hit me?” she said. “Go ahead and hit me! Hit me, Henry! I like it when you hit me!”

“I’m getting out of here,” Michael said. “The hell with all of you. The hell with you, too, Mimi!” He started toward the front door.

“Oh, no …” She followed him to the door, and her mother moved to stop her, but her father held her back. Mimi followed him out the door, out into the corridor, into the elevator, down the elevator to the lobby, and into the street, clinging to his sleeve, whispering, “No … no … no …”

“Sorry, but I can’t cut it with those people. Can’t hack it,” and he thrust his jaw sharply outward and flicked a lock of hair back across his forehead.

“Please, Michael … please …”

“Can’t … can’t … can’t …”

On Ninety-seventh Street he headed east. She had no idea where he was going, but she still clung to his arm. His pace increased, as though he was trying to lose her, and she almost had to run to keep up with him, but she still clung to him; and when they reached the river, she thought for a wild moment that he was going to suggest that they both fling themselves into it from the embankment, even though a police squad car was parked nearby.

He stopped, refusing to look at her. “Don’t you see?” he said. “It isn’t going to work for us. Perhaps it never would have. Too much is going on in that family of yours that we can’t control. It’s over, kiddo. I won’t say I don’t love you. I will say I’ll never forget this. You see, I can’t even say good-bye, because I—I—” His voice broke, and he wrenched his arm from her grip, still not looking at her. “Now let me go,” he said. “It’s over.” He reached in his pocket and pressed a wad of bills into her hand. “Take a taxi, and go home to that crazy-house you live in. Leave me alone now. I don’t want to see you again for a long time.”

“Then take back your ring!” she said.

“No! Keep the ring. You hear me? You give me back that ring, and I’ll—I’ll throw it into the East River! That’s what I’ll do—I’ll throw the goddam ring into the East River, and that will be the goddam end of it for goddam everybody. The ring is yours. Now just get out of here and leave me alone.”

She still has the ring, though of course she never wears it. She showed it to me once. “It’s not a large diamond, is it?” she said. “Of course, at the time I thought it was enormous. I thought it was the diamond as big as the Ritz! Isn’t it funny how, as you get older, things seem smaller than the way you first saw them?”

A few days later, her mother tapped at her door. “May I come in?” she asked. She stepped inside Mimi’s bedroom and closed the door behind her. “I have some wonderful news, darling,” she said.

Mimi lay dry-eyed on the bed, on top of the coverlet. She had cried her eyes dry of tears.

“Guess what, darling!” her mother said, sitting down on the bed beside her. “Your grandfather is giving you the most wonderful trip to Europe. You leave on Friday, so there’s so much we have to do! You fly to London for a week, for lots of theatre, and then to Paris for another week. In Paris, you’ll have tickets to all the couturier shows. Then you go to the south of France, and from there to Madrid, and from there to Florence and Rome. From there it’s to Athens, and then to Istanbul, and finally to Geneva and Lausanne, and you fly home from Zurich. Isn’t that wonderful? A real Grand Tour! It’s his graduation present to you, so, you see, your grandpa’s not all bad! You’ll see everything, the museums, the castles, the cathedrals, and you’ll be part of a lovely group—a very select tour group of young people your age, only twenty young people, from the best schools and colleges in the East! Eight whole weeks! I’m so thrilled for you, darling—envious, too. Because I’ve never been to Europe, never been anywhere … never.…”

In Paris, there was a letter waiting from her mother.

Dearest Mimi,

Jul. 11, 1957

I know that this has been a difficult time for you, darling, but believe me, things will seem better after time goes by. It is good, I think, to get away from things for a while, and let one’s life come into focus. They say life is short, but life is really very long—too long, it sometimes seems—and you are still so young. Time turns all hurts to scars and in time the scars go away too! And I know that there are some things about our situation here that are difficult to understand, but believe me, there are reasons for everything, even though you may not understand what all the reasons are. Believe me, your Daddy and I want nothing but happiness for you—for the rest of your life.

If you should see a pretty scarf or a pair of gloves, not too expensive, in Paris, please buy it for me.

Daddy joins me in love.…

And, in Madrid, there was a letter from her grandfather, which she read sitting on the steps of the Prado while the others in her group were inside, listening to a lecture on Velázquez.

My dear Mireille:

24 July 1957

I trust this letter finds you enjoying your tour, and making many new friends and having many pleasant new experiences. Your grandmother and I have always found travel to be a broadening experience, and I am sure you will return home with a deeper understanding of the breadth and richness of our Western culture.

I understand that your young man made a rather unpleasant scene at your parents’ house that last night, and used crude language. That was of course unfortunate and, though it indicates a certain lack of poise and self-control, it was perhaps understandable under the circumstances. At least it will perhaps help you see why he never could have comfortably been made a part of the fabric of our small family.

Then, rather abruptly, his tone changed.

That day in my office, you spoke of love. I am an old man, Mireille, and I have had much experience with love. Will you trust an old man’s experience? Love—first love—always seems the strongest. It can seem so strong as to be overpowering. But what that first love is, Mireille, is a test—a test of stamina, and of character. Though I am not a particularly religious man, I think that love is a test that God, or Life, or however you think of the force that impels us through this life, gives us and waits for us to pass—a kind of endurance test, if you will. Life is a kind of mountain journey, and the first love is the first crest in the path. But over that first crest lies another, and then another, until the mountain is scaled, and all the crests are conquered, and the journey is done.

“Bad news?” a male voice said. “You look a little sad.”

“No, not really.”

“I’ve watched you on this trip,” he said. He was not bad-looking. “You always look a little preoccupied and sad.”

“Well, I’m not. I’m not neurotic, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“We haven’t actually met,” he said. “My name’s Brad Moore.”