The Auerbach Will (42 page)

“Shall I turn out the lights, Madam?”

“No, leave them on for a while,” she said. “I'll do it before I go up.”

“Then good night, Madam,” he said. “It is—so sorry a thing.”

“Yes. Good night, Taki.”

Then she wandered into the first of the two tents, where a hundred and fifty tables for ten were still set up for dinner, each with its long white tablecloth to the floor, each with its floral centerpiece, each set with china and silverware and crystal, each ringed with ivory-colored placecards. In the brightly lit, empty tent, hundreds of unlit candles in candelabra waited to be set ablaze for a party. But already the flowers on the tables seemed to be wilting and losing their color in the warm night air. The bright balloons, with their trailing ribbons, which were still gathered at the top of the tent, had already begun to shrink and wither. The frozen swans, their bowls of caviar gone, were dripping quietly, as though weeping, into dark puddles on the floor, and would soon be melted into unrecognizable lumps. A large moth batted noisily among the hot bulbs of an overhead chandelier. In this bright light—which would have been dimmed, of course, before the guests were ushered in—all the excited preparations for Joan's coming-out party seemed to be translated into garishness and artificiality, and from the fading flowers there was the odor of impermanence and decay. Outside, the star-filled summer sky was uncaring. Essie walked slowly to the main switch and extinguished the lights in the tent.

Then she crossed the short strip of grass to the second tent, where the bar and dance floor had been set up. On the bar, dozens of clean glasses stood in neat rows, and, behind them, the heads of champagne bottles stuck up from silver coolers; on the bandstand, empty chairs and music stands; at the top of the tent, more shriveling balloons.

“Looks kind of spooky, doesn't it?” a man's voice said.

She turned, and there was the tall figure of Charles, in his tuxedo, a champagne glass in his hand.

“Charles!” she said. “I didn't realize you were still here.”

“Well,” he said, “I thought I'd say good-bye to the party with a glass of champagne. I opened a bottle. I hope you don't mind.”

“Of course not. Is Cecilia here too?”

“She's not feeling well. I wasn't going to come, either, when I heard what happened. But then I thought there might be something I could do to help. Thanks to the efficient Miss Lauterbach, I guess there wasn't.”

“Thank God for Agnes.”

“So. Will you join me in a glass?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I will.”

He held up the bottle that dangled from one hand and grinned. “I'm rather afraid I've finished this one,” he said. “Shall I open another?”

“Well, I certainly think we have enough, don't you?”

He went to the bar, took another bottle from the cooler, deftly popped the cork, and filled a glass for Essie. He carried it to one of the little cocktail tables that had been set up around the perimeter of the tent. Then he pulled up two gilt ballroom chairs, placed the bottle in the center of the table, and they settled themselves opposite each other. “I have no idea what we're drinking to,” he said, “but cheers, anyway.”

“Yes.” They clinked glasses.

“How is Jake taking it?”

“Can't you imagine? At this point I'm sure he wishes she
had
been kidnapped.”

“And you, Essie?”

“Numb. I think I'm still in a state of shock.”

“Do you know anything at all about this Frenchman?”

“Nothing. I've never heard her mention him.”

“What are you going to do?”

She sipped her champagne. “I haven't even thought about that,” she said.

Charles stretched his long, black-trousered legs out in front of him and studied the patent-leather toes of his evening shoes. “How could she
do
this to you, that's what I don't understand,” he said at last.

“I think sometimes children enjoy punishing their parents,” she said.

“Punish? But for what?”

“For being born, I guess.”

“And after everything you've been through, Essie. It just seems like the rottenest of rotten tricks.”

He was alluding, she knew, to Prince, even though she also knew that he would never mention Prince by name. By now, Prince was a turned page, an ended chapter, a closed book, and had been for three years.

“Now don't give me a lecture on what you'd do if she were
your
daughter,” she said. “In fact, I'd rather not talk about this at all, if you don't mind, Charles. Let's talk about something else. And I'm ready for more champagne.”

He refilled her glass. “Well, what shall we talk about?” he said.

“You,” she said brightly. “Let's talk about you. It seems as though you and I haven't had a good talk in ages.”

“Fine,” he said with a smile. “First off, I'll say that there are times when I'm glad Cecilia and I don't have children.”

She laughed. “As my mother used to say, if you don't have children, what do you do for aggravation?”

“Well, I have your husband,” he said.

“Yes!” she said, taking another sip of champagne. “Yes, that's something I've wanted to ask you about for years—yes. What's it been like, Charles, for you—you who've always given him his best ideas—to sit back and watch him collecting all the praise? Getting all the glory.”

He was still grinning. “Funny, I thought you'd never ask,” he said. “It's a question my wife asks me almost every day. Actually, the answer's pretty simple—it's in the kind of guy I am, and the kind of guy Jake is.”

“Explain, please.”

“Jake has always been cut out to be a figurehead. When I first met him—remember that day in your little house on Grand Boulevard?—I remember thinking to myself: this is a frustrated figurehead. That's why he was miserable at Rosenthal's—he wasn't a figurehead. I said to myself: inside that fellow's body is an embryo figurehead trying to get out. But me, I'm a different sort of person. I realized that about myself way back at Harvard. I'm a behind-the-scenes man—that's where I work best, and that's where I'm happiest. Behind the scenes. I'm not comfortable in the limelight, Essie. I hate publicity because I know that all the publicity in the world won't get you a free ride on the trolley. I couldn't stand having to do the things Jake does—make speeches, accept awards, honorary degrees, having his picture in the papers all the time. But Jake loves all that stuff, and he's very good at it. He literally eats it up. Each new en—en—
encomium
is the word, and how's that after a bottle of champagne?—seems to puff him up a little bit more.”

Essie swirled the wine in her glass. “In more ways than one,” she said. “I've given up trying to speak to him about his weight. He used to have such a nice trim figure. He just gets heavier … heavier.”

“But you don't understand. He thinks the weight becomes him. I'm sure of that. The more there is of him, the bigger a figurehead there is for the world to admire.”

Essie suppressed a giggle, and Charles reached for the bottle and refilled their glasses. “But don't you—sometimes—just hate him?” she said.

“Uh-uh.
Au contraire
, since we're drinking French wine.
Au contraire
. A company like ours needs a good figurehead, and a good figurehead needs a good behind-the-scenes man. That's why we're all—rich. Hey,” he said suddenly, “I've got an idea.” He jumped up, walked out of the tent, and returned carrying one of the six-branched candelabra from the dining tables and set it in the center of their smaller one. He produced a pack of matches, and lighted the candles one by one. “Now how do we turn out the Chicago Gas and Electric Company?”

“Over there—by the bandstand—there's a switch.”

With the lights out, the big tent was plunged into shadows and silvery reflections from the candles on the canvas over-head. “There,” he said, returning to the table. “That's more like it.” He refilled their glasses once more. “Oops,” he said, looking at the bottle. “Another dead soldier. I'll get some more—”

Returning with a freshly opened bottle and sitting down again, he said, “Ah, this is perfect. Story-book setting. Champagne by candlelight. May I say, Mrs. Auerbach, that this is one of the most beautiful parties you have ever given?” He raised his glass to her in a salute, and Essie laughed softly.

Something was happening to her—perhaps it was the champagne—but she could feel the color rising to her cheeks which, of course, he couldn't see, a flushed feeling of guilty excitement that was … that was a little like that feeling as she watched, with a prurient and nasty thrill … and yet had been unable to take her eyes off … that performance on a bare stage in Paris.

“And now let me ask you the same question,” he said. “You've had some pretty good ideas for Jake in your time. What's it been like for you to see him take credit for them? Are you like me? Content to be a behind-the-scenes man?”

“No, it was hard at first,” she said quietly. “For a while, I thought I was married to a man I didn't know. But now … now I'm used to it. I've put it out of my mind. My father had an expression he used constantly—‘Think of it!' But thinking of unpleasant things made him an unpleasant man. I haven't seen or spoken to him in years, my father. So—what were we talking about?”

“You and Jake.”

“Oh. Yes, well, I try to keep busy with other things. Opera Guild. The children. Working on the art collection. My garden. Entertaining …”

“And it's enough for you?”

“I make it be enough.”

“And—Daisy?”

“Now don't say a word against Daisy. Daisy's on my side, believe it or not. Daisy's my friend. But I miss—”

“Miss what?”

Tears welled in her eyes. “I miss … my little Prince.”

Quickly he covered her hand with his. “Now, no sad thoughts!” he said sharply. “This is a party, remember?” He refilled their glasses once more.

“You're right,” she said. “Can't turn back … the clock.”

They sat in silence for a moment or two. A quieter mood seemed to have settled over them in the uncertain light of the slowly lowering candles, and Essie wondered whether his thoughts were racing as confusedly as her own.

“Babette,” she said at last, clearing her throat. “Babette is … the more stable of the two girls. Don't you think? Joan has always been so … headstrong …”

“Fourteen years …”

“Hm?”

“Fourteen years. I've been with Eaton and Cromwell fourteen years.” He reached out to refill her glass.

“Ah,” she said. There was another silence. Then she said, “The front of her dress was stitched with hundreds of little seed pearls.…”

“Dress?”

“The dress she was to wear tonight—Joan.”

“Ah,” he said. And then, “So still out here tonight.”

“But not hot.”

“Not hot. Just right.”

“I saw a deer in the woods this morning.”

“A deer.” Another silence. Then he said suddenly, “I have a rotten marriage.”

She had hoped he would not bring up Cecilia, whom she had never really liked. Cecilia did not belong with them here in this party tent tonight. There was no room for her, but Essie said softly, “Do you, Charles? I'm sorry.”

“She calls me a … a … a
sycophant
. Sycophant is what she calls me. She resents the fact that I don't want to be a Jake Auerbach. She doesn't understand that I enjoy being a behind-the-scenes man.”

“Well, then she—” But Essie couldn't remember the rest of the sentence she had composed in her mind to say.

“And when she's drinking—but wait. I forgot the rules. No sad thoughts. No sad talk.” He reached for the bottle again, and the candles guttered in a light breeze that made the sides of the tent heave inward and outward like gentle breathing.

“I hear music,” he said.

“Music?”

“Listen—” He gestured toward the empty bandstand. “Hear it? They're playing that new song. ‘Someone to Watch Over Me,' from that new Broadway show.
Oh, Kay
. Can't you hear it?”

“Oh, yes …”

“May I have the pleasure of this dance? Or is your dance card filled?”

“Let me see,” she said, studying an imaginary dance card in her hand. “No, as a matter of fact … believe it or not … I have an empty space right here.…”

He led her, carrying her champagne glass, out onto the empty dance floor, where they began to dance to the phantom music, while he part-whispered, part-hummed the lyric. “‘There's a somebody I'm longin' to see …'” whirling her, spinning her, dipping her around the floor. Then he held her more closely and said, “April tenth, nineteen thirteen.”

“What's that?” she asked him dreamily.

“Don't you remember? Don't you remember April tenth, nineteen thirteen?”

“Should I, Charles?'

“That was the date I met a lovely woman on a train going west, and fell in love with her.”

She said nothing, but let her forehead fall against his shoulder.

“But you've known that—haven't you? Always? I thought I could force you out of my thoughts with Cecilia. It didn't work. You know that's why I've stayed with Jake, don't you? Not to be a behind-the-scenes man. To be near you.”

“Fourteen years …”

His persuasive body began to move in the exquisite falling arcs, the slow recoveries, the erotic pauses of the tango. And now they danced more slowly to the silent music of whatever song it was now—a slow tune—that the orchestra had segued into, and as though she was in a dream she felt her partner lead her in a dance, out across the floor, out through the entrance of the tent, out into the darkness of the late night, across the damp grass, down along the shadowed pathways of Essie's wild garden.