The Attempt (3 page)

Dr. Hartley is of the opinion that unless Madame Alice's condition improves significantly and she begins to eat again, the situation won't last any longer than a week.

Your room is ready; we'll be expecting you.

Respectfully,

Nancy Bodley

Julie was standing behind my back. “We'll be closing soon. I can leave the box here for next time, if you want. Will you be ordering any photocopies?”

3

S
ATURDAY MORNING, MY PHONE RINGS
. The display shows a local number, here in New York. Who could it be? Apart from a few administrators at the university and the head of my department, I don't know anyone here yet. I haven't gotten in touch yet with Professor Kurzweil, whose book-cluttered apartment made such an impression on me twenty years ago. I had come to New York for a week from Washington, D.C. It was late February. When I walked out of the station building onto the street, it was dark and snowing heavily. I can still see it as if it were yesterday: the wind driving the wet snow down a long corridor of buildings as escaping steam rises from the pipes underground.

My phone is still ringing.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Schwarzer?”

“Yes.”

“Jan?”

“That's me. How can I help you?”

“This is the office of John C. Kolman the Third, I'm sorry to bother you. Were you at the reference library of the Kolman Museum yesterday? Did you give this number as your contact?”

“Yes.”

“I'm very sorry, Mr. Schwarzer, but I'm calling to tell you
the library staff made a terrible mistake. They shouldn't even have let you in.”

“Excuse me?”

“There is a regulation,” says the woman on the other end. “Please don't take it personally, but there is a regulation prohibiting anyone German from entering the library. Originally, it also applied to the collection. That was changed. However, there's nothing that can be done when it comes to the library. I'm afraid I must inform you that yesterday was your last visit.”

“But I'm not from Germany.”

“You have a German name.”

“Half the people in the Czech Republic have a German name.”

“Were your parents German?”

“No.”

“Can you prove it?”

“I have a passport. And a birth certificate.” I can't help but laugh.

“You have a birth certificate?”

“I'm sorry,” I say, “but I don't think I understand. . . .”

“If you don't mind,” the woman says slowly, sounding out her words, “could you bring your documents in to Mr. Kolman's office? Eight one three Madison Avenue. It's on the corner of Madison and Sixty-eighth.”

“When should I come?”

“Right now, if you want. We're here. Be sure not to forget your birth certificate. Oh, and one more thing,” says the woman. “Our staff photocopied some letters for you yesterday. Could you bring those with you as well? In the event the matter fails to be resolved to your satisfaction, we'll have to ask
you to return them. Of course there's no way for us to verify it, but I hope you will respect our rules and refrain from making another copy.”

“But I paid for them.”

“Naturally, we will reimburse you. It isn't your fault. Thank you again for your cooperation, and see you soon.”

T
HE STUDIO APARTMENT
I
RENT
from the university is on the West Side of Manhattan, near campus. I can catch a bus crosstown to the East Side and walk the rest of the way. I'm sure I'll find a shop somewhere on Lexington to make a copy of Alice's letters.

Along the way, I wonder how it is they maintain such distinct boundaries between neighborhoods. Even just a few blocks away, the sharp-dressed men of Madison Avenue are nowhere to be found. They cling to their territory like lizards.

A Korean manicurist sits inside a beauty salon, staring out the window into the street. Her face is white as wax, round and perfectly symmetrical, motionless as the bright yellow orchid blossoms keeping her company in the window.

On the corner of Madison and Sixty-eighth, I find the building the woman described to me over the phone. The lobby has thick carpeting, crystal chandeliers, velvet sofas, and a polished gold-plated table with a big bouquet of white irises on it. One of the men at the reception desk calls upstairs, then walks me to the elevator and rides with me up to the fourth floor, where he lets me out in the entryway of a residence.

Margaret is a young woman with very blond straight hair, dressed in a red suit and white silk blouse.

“Will you still be needing access to the library?”

“Yes, that's why I came.”

I pull out my birth certificate. The court interpreter in Prague wrapped his English translation in a tricolor ribbon and affixed a stamp of the Bohemian lion. What more evidence could she want?

She reads it through carefully, then shakes her head, running a polished nail down the names of my parents and grandparents. “Schwarzer, Jäger, Goetz. These are all German names.”

“As I told you, half the people in my country have German names.”

“How is that?”

“Migration. Austria-Hungary . . .”

“I see.”

“So where did this strange rule come from?” I laugh. “Discrimination on the basis of names?”

“Discrimination, yes, quite right.” Margaret nods. “But there's nothing we can do about it. Mrs. Eleanor C. Kolman was the one who introduced the rule, and made several other things conditional on it. Legally, our hands are tied. Mr. Kolman can explain it to you himself.”

“Mr. Kolman?”

“Yes, he'd like to meet you. He likes to meet everyone who's interested in his family. I'm sure once you explain what it is you're interested in, it will be fine.”

“What do you mean?”

“He'll let you into the library, honey.” Margaret bares her teeth at me. Her lips are painted red and she has a thick layer of makeup, but no mascara or eye shadow. Maybe she's allergic to them.

“Just a moment, I'll announce you,” she says, picking up the phone. When she puts it back down, she says, “Mr. Kolman says to go ahead in.”

I need to use the bathroom, but Margaret has already opened the door.

G
REEN CURTAINS.
T
HE WINDOWS
in the study of John C. Kolman III are covered in heavy green velvet curtains, just as in his great-grandfather's house. A lamp shines on his desk. The walls are paneled floor to ceiling in dark wood and are hung with paintings: a view of the Hudson, a still life, and a portrait of a man wearing a black suit and sporting a neatly trimmed white beard.

Along with his great-grandfather's name, the young Kolman inherited his wide, low brow, strong jaw, and bright blue eyes. He also has a smaller frame, with broad shoulders and a short neck. Apart from that, he looks the same as half the other men in the neighborhood. Bright dress shirt, open at the neck, with a light sport coat and close-cropped blond hair. He's suntanned and bristling with energy, as if he just jumped off his yacht.

“What can I offer you? Water, coffee, whiskey?” He shakes my hand. Two white rows of teeth shine dazzlingly. “Have a seat.”

I plop down into a leather chair. Sure, I'll have a whiskey, why not?

“It's a pleasure to meet you,” he says.

“Likewise.”

“Ice?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“I'm interested in anyone who's interested in us.”

I smile, but lacking the training of my American counterparts, the muscles in my face cramp up.

“Naturally, I'm always eager to know what it is, exactly, they're interested in. We've had bad experiences, too. With so-called historians. You understand. One can never be too careful.”

I gather up my nerve. “Why the regulation about the German names?”

Kolman sighs. “There's really nothing we can do about it. I can't tell you how much embarrassment it's caused us. We've had to turn away some famous art historians, professors from German universities. Even though it's been years since the war. But I'm afraid Aunt Ellie won't budge, and she inserted the rule so cleverly into the foundation's bylaws, it's impossible to get rid of it. She just doesn't like Germans, period.” He laughs. “Just like President Wilson.”

“So you mean she—Eleanor C. Kolman—is still alive?”

He nods his head. “Incredible, isn't it? Of course the rule has its reasons,” he goes on. “Ellie was a brave woman. In 1918 she went to a field hospital on the western front. She saw the slaughterhouse in France, but mostly she saw bombed-out cities, churches in ruins. She never forgave the Germans for that. She has a photo album, you know. Filled with pictures of shattered cities next to postcards showing the way the cities looked before the war. Whenever someone in the family objected to the ban, she would show them the photos and say, ‘The monsters who did this don't deserve to come anywhere near a work of art ever again. The rest of the world might not
care, but I do. I will not let them see our paintings.' Then came World War Two, and that only strengthened her in her conviction. The first thing she did was have a bunker built, where the entire collection could be moved. She was obsessed with the idea that the Germans would bomb New York. The Allied bombing, oddly enough, didn't upset her. Medieval towns in Germany leveled to the ground, Tokyo firebombed . . . But that's Aunt Ellie. She sees only what she wants to see. It wasn't until ten years ago that the foundation's board of trustees got her to rescind the rule, at least for the museum. It was pretty embarrassing having to throw tourists out. When it comes to the library, though, I'm afraid she has sole jurisdiction.”

“But I'm not German. I'm Czech.”

“Whose side did your country fight on in the Great War?”

“You mean World War One? Austria's.” I blush. “But there were Czechs who fought on the other side. In France. Russia. England. And after the war, we got our independence. Did you know the state of Czechoslovakia was officially born in Pittsburgh?”

“No, I did not.” John C. sighs. “But tell me, what makes you so interested in my family that you requested the private correspondence of my great-grandmother?”

“I'm doing a study of the daughters and wives of American entrepreneurs from the turn of the century.”

“But what made you choose the women from
my
family?”

“They won't be the only ones, of course,” I say. “I'm also looking at women from the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Guggenheims. . . .”

“I see.”

“It's a fascinating topic.”

“I'm sure. You say you're here on a scholarship?”

“Yes.”

“I don't have too many connections to academia, but my father taught at medical school. And my grandfather was a university professor. I was always more the business type, like the old man.” He gestures, grinning, to the portrait. “So the scholarship you got was for this project?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what for, may I ask?”

“I also study East European history.”

“So what does East European history have to do with the women of the Morgan and Rockefeller families, or, for that matter, my great-grandmother?”

The answer, of course, is nothing. But it does have something to do with the Polish, Czech, and Slovak immigrants who worked till they spat blood in the factories owned by Kolman's great-grandfather. And with Russian anarchists.

“It's a personal project of mine.”

“I'm through interrogating you.” Kolman waves his hand. “My aunt would never allow any exceptions. She's a stickler for principle. The regulations are clear: no German names. And your name sounds very German. I'm sorry about that. Did you bring the letters?”

“Yes. You want them now?”

“Please, if you would. I trust you haven't made other copies?” His smile is meant to suggest the question is just a formality. But his eyes are dead serious.

“No.”

“Do forgive us. We've had some very bad experiences. You'll have to make do with the Rockefellers. Here's a tip for you:
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. She played a major part in bringing European modern art to America. Or the women from the Whitney family. They even set up their own museum.” Kolman stands from his chair.

“I'll look into it,” I say.