Mount Terminus (27 page)

Stern agreed it wouldn't look good.

No, said Simon. Not good at all. But Simon wasn't prepared to give anything up just yet. He still believed his plans were sound. Which was why he was here today: to speak with Stern in his capacity as the trustee to his brother's fortune. He assured Stern he had no intention of stealing a penny from Joseph. He simply wanted Stern to arrange for him to become a silent partner in this endeavor. He needed Stern to sell off whatever holdings or assets he needed to raise the money Simon required to continue operating the studio and the theaters, to ensure the funds he'd committed to the county were available. He needed Stern to arrange for Bloom to become an investor in all his business ventures. When the reservoir and the aqueduct were complete, when the land was developed and sold, he would return all he borrowed from his brother, with interest, and provide him a small percentage of each enterprise. But—and this was rather important to Simon—Bloom should be none the wiser. That, Mr. Stern, is my aim here today, said Simon. To coerce your cooperation. Simon, at this point, removed a stack of papers and put them on the table beside the bed. Here is everything you need: the contracts, the banking information, the amounts I'll need, and what Joseph can expect to receive in return. I expect you to sign the agreement before the week is out, and I expect to see the funds deposited into my accounts at the same time … Do you think you can manage this? asked Simon, who was once again holding up one of the lewd images of Stern.

Mr. Stern studied the photograph and said after a short moment of reflection, Let me consider your proposal?

Of course, said Simon. You have the week.

Thank you.

All right, then. Gus? Simon stood up and Gus joined him at Mr. Stern's bedside. Together they untied the bound man from the bedposts. End of the week, said Simon. Not a minute longer. He offered Stern his hand, and Stern, looking to Gus first, took hold of it and reluctantly shook. Bloom watched as his brother and Gus left Stern's side and exited the room. He now closed the door, but continued listening. He heard Stern begin to moan and cry and curse himself for having been such a reckless fool. Bloom was beside himself. He didn't know what to do. Stern still hadn't let up on himself. After listening a moment longer, he couldn't bear it any longer. He opened the door through which he had witnessed his brother embody a character with whom he would have preferred not to have become familiar, and walked into the room to find Stern pacing about the bed in the buff. Oh, come now! Stern declared. Not you, too! Where in the world did
you
come from? Bloom told Stern to calm himself. He told him to get dressed and sit down, and as Stern went in search of his clothes, Bloom explained to Stern how it was he had come to be in the room next door and assured him everything would be all right. He had nothing to worry about. He swore to him his reputation would remain intact, his secret wouldn't be revealed—he could rely on his discretion, and he and Bloom would continue on as they had, as if nothing had happened today. Here, said Bloom as he took the stack of papers from Stern's bedside. Take them. Sign them. He walked over to the desk and returned with a pen. Go on, he said. Stern looked at Bloom and looked at the pen, and said, You're willing to do this for me?

To which Bloom said, Yes.

Stern deliberated a moment longer and then, without looking at Bloom, signed the documents in all the places that required his signature.

All done. Bloom advised Stern to follow Simon's instructions, to do everything he asked of him today and whatever he might ask of him in the future. It is only money, said Bloom. Had he thought to ask me for it, I would have insisted you give him whatever he needed.

Yes, but he was well aware I would have never permitted it. He knew I would never have allowed you to take such a risk. He was well aware I would have felt obligated to protect you from his folly. He's a shrewd man, your brother. I'll give him that. After a long silence, Stern said, You were good to come in, Joseph. I don't know if I could have gone through with it had you not shown yourself.

For Stern's sake, for the sake of his family, Bloom said he would keep today their secret. And for this, Stern said he was in Bloom's debt, and the poor man started to weep all over again. I should have known when Simon sent her to me. I surely should have known when she took an interest in
me
. In
me
, Joseph? I know what I am. But she was just so, so … young and glamorous and … liberated. Stern opened his mouth and bit down on the palm of his hand and cried some more, this time, thought Bloom, not from humiliation but because he would miss Miss Merriweather.

*   *   *

How does one reconcile something like this? Bloom wondered all the way home. He tried to rationalize the events he'd just witnessed as a necessary deception rather than an act of betrayal. It was an act of a desperate businessman. It wasn't personal. Simon did love him. He heard him say as much to Gus. He loved Bloom and didn't wish to hurt him. There was simply no other way, not without damaging a project years in the making, a project bound to the fates of countless lives, Bloom's being only one of them. It was a Machiavellian maneuver, he thought, one that would have likely been considered tepid in the time of the cutthroat Borgias. No one had been murdered. No one had been irredeemably harmed. Stern, as a matter of fact, had enjoyed exercising a middle-aged man's passion. He reveled in his indulgence, felt the thrill of his lapse in judgment, which, in the end, if he was being frank with himself, significantly endeared Stern to Bloom, who found Stern only tolerable before. A little money would be shifted from one investment to another, there would likely be a handsome return, so, really, what harm had been done?

Bloom tried to be a man about it. He tried all the way home to be as strong-willed, as thick-skinned, as his brother. But the only problem with that: he wasn't Simon. He wasn't nearly as malleable or pragmatic. He wasn't practiced in the art of playing roles, and he hadn't yet experienced enough of life's compromising positions to hold a relativistic view of the world. Was it really too much to ask, he wondered, to expect his own brother's loyalty?

By the time he entered the estate's gates, he had relived the days after his father had revealed the omitted truths of their family history, and as he reflected on that period of time he couldn't mitigate the dull ache of disappointment he now felt in his brother; it rivaled the disappointment he had held for his father. He had been used by Simon to set up Stern, was made to be his unknowing accomplice. He had written that letter, given him his entrée. For months Simon had been planning this, in a cold and calculated manner. And for a young, sensitive man like Bloom, it was all too much. Too, too much. There had been too much sadness, tragedy, and disenchantment compounded in too short a time. Bloom wanted to overcome it all, but he simply wasn't equipped to sufficiently distance himself. Not with humor. Not with irony. Not with philosophies whose bedrock relied on humanity's innate moral shortcomings. When the driver dropped Bloom at the villa's entrance, he discovered Gus sitting on the stone bench beside the front door. He was dressed in powder-blue slacks and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Bloom sat beside him and asked him why he had chosen to reveal Simon's betrayal, and betray Simon in the act of revealing the betrayal. He's gone too far, said Gus. I thought maybe he'd see sense. I thought maybe his heart would overcome his head, but it didn't, and, well … I have something at stake here, don't I? Gus looked off in the direction of the kitchen, from which they could hear the sounds of Meralda preparing dinner.

You love her that much that you would do this?

Gus inhaled a big whiff of air through his cavernous nostrils. What would you say if I asked to continue on here? To keep the grounds, look after your general well-being, and such?

I would say, Yes, of course. This is your home now. But what about Simon? You won't have anything to do with him?

Gus shook his head. To do so would mean I would need to deceive you. To deceive you would be to deceive her. To deceive you would be hard enough. To deceive her? I just couldn't do that. I don't have it in me. Not anymore.

But by making this choice, you've deceived him.

That I have.

Why?

For his own good.

Because he's gone too far?

Because he's gone too far.

And now that I know? What am I supposed to do?

I don't know. You should speak with him. Tell him what you know, what you saw and heard.

I'm not sure that I can.

And why not?

I promised Mr. Stern I would keep his secret. If Simon learns that I know what he's done, he might not believe it was you. He might choose to believe it was Mr. Stern who told me.

It will make no difference. He needs Stern's cooperation. It's not in Simon's interests to make trouble for him. So, you let him know, and then …

What?

You can choose to forgive him. Or not. If not, I do wonder who will be left to redeem him.

*   *   *

Meralda was delighted to spend more time in Gus's company. She often joined him in the grove and in the rose garden, where they lunched together on a picnic blanket, on which Meralda would linger afterward, to watch the enormous man delicately work his pruning shears around the garden's lattices, along the muscular limbs of the fruit-bearing trees. On the few occasions Bloom noticed Meralda's full figure sneaking across the courtyard in the early morning, he was tickled by the need she felt to protect Bloom from her liaison by upholding the pretense that she had slept in her own bed.

Why, he asked Gus one day, didn't he ask her to marry him?

Gus said he had. She refused him.

Why?

She's waiting for you.

For me to do what?

To marry. To find love and happiness.

But she doesn't need to delay her own happiness on my account.

No, but she is anyway. She feels responsible for you. Loves you like you're her own.
Mi'ijo
, she says when she talks about you. My boy. My son. Bloom wondered if he should have a word with her, and Gus said no, he shouldn't, absolutely not. She doesn't know you know about us. If you let on, she'll call it quits for sure. As it is, she's down on her knees every night with her
Dios mio
, praying to Jesus to forgive her for loving a big-nosed Christ killer. No need to complicate things any more than they are. Our lives are complicated enough, are they not?

They are, indeed.

*   *   *

Simon had been to and from the estate several times since Gus had taken up work on the grounds, and so far as he let on, all was right with the world. Pangloss couldn't have been more convincing, thought Bloom. Simon couldn't be more pleased to see Gus taking a well-deserved break from the business. The rate of production on the lot and the progress they were making up north was moving along at pace. The construction of his housing development in the basin would soon begin. The spirit of Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake had returned to the syncopated palaver of his brother's speech and their music once again amplified across the lot. Simon related the details of his business to Bloom while taking photographs of him building a miniature replica of Death's fortress out of stones he and Gus had collected on the estate's grounds. Gottlieb had shared the director's credit with his young protégé on
Mephisto's Affinity
and there had been some inquiries about him by
The Motion Picture Story Magazine
, by the Answer Man himself (a herself, if you must know, Simon told him), and knowing Bloom wouldn't enjoy sitting for an interview, and knowing Gottlieb wouldn't permit it, Simon took it upon himself to send them a few publicity photos, along with a page or so of hyperbole about the reclusive teenage genius of Mount Terminus Productions—unequaled scenarist, unrivaled production designer, director extraordinaire.

On each of these short visits, Bloom had every intention of telling Simon that he knew what he had done. There was a part of him that wanted to tell him in order to relieve him of the need to put on a false front. But every time Bloom thought to draw the curtain on his brother's performance, he couldn't bear the thought of the consequences. He wondered if their brotherly bond would survive Simon's feelings of shame and embarrassment. If he wouldn't recoil from having been made the fool by Gus. The irony, of course, was that because Simon had been relieved of the financial burdens that had been weighing him down and occupying so much of his time and energy, his visits to the estate had become more frequent. He began to show up for dinner once, sometimes twice a week, which required Bloom to perform his own false role, to pretend that nothing had happened to alter his perception of his brother. After three or four meals like this, in which Bloom did what he could to hide the displeasure he felt about his brother's deception, without really meaning to, without having planned the moment, Bloom interrupted the silence they shared in the parlor after dinner, and said, I know what you did.

Simon, who was sitting in Jacob's chair, smoking a cigarette and reviewing his handiwork in
The Motion Picture Story Magazine
, turned to Bloom and said, I'm sorry?

I know what you did, said Bloom. To Mr. Stern. To me.

How do you …

I was there. In the adjoining room. Watching through a crack in an open door.

Simon set the magazine down in his lap and began to nod slowly as he searched his thoughts as to how Bloom could know. How he would have been there. And then it came to him. Gus? he said.

Bloom now nodded.

Gus, he said again, as if in a state of disbelief. Simon discharged a heavy sigh.

Bloom wasn't certain what to say next. So he said nothing. He waited for Simon, but for the first time since he had known his brother, Simon, it seemed, was at a loss as well. He sat there tapping his finger against the chair's armrest. And then it occurred to Bloom to say, I heard enough to know why you did it. And Mr. Stern explained why you hadn't come to me in the first place.