Acts of Faith (31 page)

“Agreed.” She nodded so vigorously that some of her blond locks fell across her face. “Anyway, there’s no rush. I don’t really need the five thousand.”

“Five thousand?” I was knocked off balance. “What the hell makes you think I’ll need that much?”

“I just want you to have a good time while I’m away.
Besides, maybe you could invest that money wisely and be a rich man next time I see you.”

“But I don’t know the first thing—”

“Well, perhaps I can help. Charles is a kind of genius in wheeling and dealing. Sometimes I overhear little things.…” She suddenly broke off and thought for a moment before continuing in conspiratorial tones. “Danny, I shouldn’t be telling you, but this summer, the biggest bread will be made out of wheat. Think about it.”

The only sense I could make out of Ariel’s generous words was a concern for my health and a warning to avoid bleached flour. I vowed to give it more thought when I got over the initial shock of my sudden wealth.

The next morning Charlie’s Rolls stopped in front of the house to pick Ariel up. I was tempted to go downstairs with her and wave good-bye.

But I could not bring myself to see his face.

My sadness at losing her—something told me that we had parted without saying so—was somewhat mitigated when, at 9:30
A.M.
, my bank called (a first!) to inform me that my account was now healthier, thanks to a transfusion of a full five thousand dollars. I think the clerk was even more impressed than I was.

Flushed with this largess, I went out to Zabar’s and bought mountains of whitefish, Nova Scotia salmon, whole wheat bread, and a few other delicacies, so I could feed my plucky sister when she showed up for her first lesson. As it turned out, we also celebrated my father’s release from the hospital.

Deborah worked like a maniac. Years of academic frustration had built up a head of steam that drove her tirelessly. Not only did we study together from early morning to early evening, but God knows how long she stayed up each night to memorize the stuff we had gone through. In any case, she always knew it cold the next day.

My prediction about Papa proved totally correct. His brush with death mellowed him, and he encouraged Deborah’s decision to become a “Hebrew teacher” and did
not question her choice of academy. Of course, the time would come when she would have to break the news about his unknown grandson. But this could wait till he was a little stronger.

On her first visit to Ariel’s pleasure dome, Deborah could not help asking just how the hell I, who had been kicked out of our own Eden, had landed in this one. So while we were drinking coffee at the end of the afternoon, I told her everything.

Despite all she had been through, she still retained a kind of innocence. Though she had had a baby out of wedlock—with a Roman Catholic seminarian, yet—none of this seemed to have affected her spiritual purity. She’d loved Tim with her soul and felt no sense of sin.

I could see she was shocked by my confession, but she suspended judgment, merely commenting, “Hey, Danny. This doesn’t sound very kosher to me, but who am I to make judgments?”

Yet I also felt it was my duty to look after
her
emotional well-being.

I knew instinctively how much affection she could lavish on her son, but even in my screwed-up state I was aware that adults need the raw material of
being
loved to metabolize into love for children.

Avi Ben-Ami had always been a myth. Timothy, though real enough, would—I believed—gradually fade from memory like a figure on an aging tapestry.

I knew that her life was filled to the brim with anxiety about exams at the moment. But this would only be a short-lived anodyne for the enduring pain of loneliness. How could she sing nursery rhymes like “ ’Bye, Baby Bunting, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting,” knowing all the while that as far as Eli was concerned there was no daddy?

Deborah argued that her life was full, but when I pressed her for the cast of characters back in Israel who supposedly filled it, she volunteered no personal information.

Still I was able to detect a clue.

One of the special topics she was offering for the entrance
exam was modern Hebrew verse, about which I knew nothing, since my seminary reserved judgment on a poet’s worth until he had been dead at least a hundred years.

After a little subtle probing, I discovered that she’d taken courses with a guy called Zev, who, if he had not—as Ariel might have put it—lit her fire, at least had kindled something more than love of words. Of course, she was defensive.

“What makes you think he’s even interested in me?”

“Hey, come on, Deb. College instructors don’t go offering extra tutorials unless they’ve got an ulterior motive. Are you gonna call him when you’re back in Israel?”

She temporized, “Only if I do well on the test.”

Okay, I told myself. I only hope that Zev’s not married or some kind of Jewish monk.

Deborah took the entrance examinations on June 27 and 28, 1972. Twelve hours of written tests on Torah, Talmud, History, and Language, followed by an oral—which I knew she’d pass with flying colors.

Before she left to return to the kibbutz—and her son—Deborah had the awesome task of confronting our parents with the secret of her motherhood.

She waited till the eve of the first Sabbath Papa was home and once again comfortable in his seat at the head of the table. After dinner, with our sisters, their husbands, and children all in attendance—a kind of Greek chorus to react to the drama—she told her story.

They cried for Avi Ben-Ami, and my father pledged to say a month of Psalms in memory of his heroic son-in-law—a response which made Deborah even more ashamed. Everyone agreed it was a blessing that Avi still lived on in their son.

My mother did not hide her joy as she looked forward to the sound of a child’s laughter echoing in the house once more. And, perhaps most important, my noble sister would help to heal my ailing father’s broken spirit.

With my psychoanalytic bent—acquired from Beller—I
concluded that my father viewed young Eli as a replacement for me, thereby consigning me not only to oblivion but to nonexistence.

But Deborah’s departure on Thursday, June 29, left me wholly unprepared to confront the person I had so conscientiously avoided during the frenzy of her preparations: myself. And at this of all times, the July Fourth holiday weekend. The Festival of Independence.

It was—to be poetic—at this sunset of what would be a dark night of the soul that I received the call that altered the course of my life.

I
t was Ariel calling from the banks of the Caspian Sea in reddest Russia. The connection was terrible to begin with, but she did not help matters by whispering.

“Can’t you talk louder?”

“No,” she murmured, even more quietly. “They may be tapping our line.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“I don’t know. The KGB or one of Charlie’s competitors. The only secure phone is on the yacht, and he’s out there using it now.”

Egotistically, I hoped this furtive conversation might be some kind of declaration of eternal love. I was wrong.

“How much wheat have you bought?”

“I don’t know, I’m sort of averaging about a loaf a day.”

“Danny, this is no time for jokes,” she scolded, urgency in her voice. “Charlie’s been brokering for Brezhnev all summer, and the Department of Agriculture’s about to announce a huge sale of wheat to Russia.”

“Really?” I said, wondering what all this had to do with me.

“Why else do you think he’d take me to this godforsaken dump?” she replied. “I mean, how much borscht
and vodka can you drink, anyway? Get into wheat futures as heavily as you can. And you know my little Utrillo?”

“You mean the snow scene?” I asked, my head now really spinning. “What about it?”

“It’s yours. I mean it. I want you to have it.”

“Be serious, Ariel. What could I possibly do besides hang it where it is now?”

She paused and then replied portentously, “Take it to the Fat Man.”

“What?” Things were getting surrealistic.

But Ariel explained: While poor people get into hock for necessities, rich people just as regularly get into hock for frivolities. Naturally, they do not hot-foot it up to Harlem in their minks.

Though he dwelt, in Ariel’s words, “on the shady side of discreet,” the Fat Man conducted a legitimate business from his inconspicuous brownstone in the Upper 80s. The exquisite paintings hanging on his walls gave testimony to the quality of the Park Avenue matrons for whom his loans had provided the wherewithal to maintain their lifestyles.

Despite my uneasiness about her generosity, Ariel at last persuaded me that this would make her as happy as it would me. As I furiously scribbled notes, she explained the slightly Byzantine method of approaching the mysterious broker.

Almost on cue, at the very moment she completed her instructions, there was a sudden silence. I did not know if Ariel had been cut off by the KGB or merely the telephone company.

The next morning, with much trepidation, I dialed the number of the gentleman called, by his customers at least, “Laurence de’Medici.” He answered on the first ring.

“Good morning.” His English-accented voice resonated like a Stradivarius.

“Good morning, sir. My name is Daniel—uh—Lurie.” For some irrational reason I transmuted my last name,
perhaps out of fear of dishonoring my family. “I’m a friend of Ariel Greenough—”

“Ah, how is Ms. Greenough? It’s been a long time.”

“Fine, fine. Uh, could I possibly make an appointment to discuss a painting she’s just given me?”

“Certainly, Mr. Lurie,” he said affably. “Let me consult my diary.” A moment later he was back on the phone. “I have a one-thirty luncheon at Lutèce, but if you could possibly make it here by twelve?”

“That’s fine,” I answered hastily, gratified that I would not be subjected to the strain of anticipation. “I can be there in half an hour.”

“Splendid,” he replied, adding matter-of-factly, “Which is it to be this time—the Braque or the Utrillo?”

“The Utrillo,” I said, amazed that he knew so much.

“Lovely,” Mr. de’Medici commented. “It’s not a masterpiece, but for what it is, it’s quite a nice little picture.”

For once, the image matched the telephone voice precisely.

The Fat Man was, indeed, extremely portly, and his every mannerism seemed to be a studied replica of Sidney Greenstreet, as I had come to know the stout actor in those movies at the Thalia.

“Has Ms. Greenough explained my terms?” he asked, trying to pretend he was glancing casually at the painting rather than verifying its authenticity.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And you’re aware that my rates are higher than those of other lending institutions? Not out of greed, of course, but—as you can see for yourself—I have nearly thirty million dollars’ worth of art on these walls and the insurance companies are absolutely Shylockian.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Lovely. Then I’ve got some splendid news.
This petite toile
has gone up considerably in the last few months.” He patted the frame of the Utrillo affectionately. “It’s just exceeded the one-hundred-thousand barrier.”

I had a retrospective
frisson
at the thought of having lived in blithe proximity to such expensive art.

“That means I can let you have thirty thousand dollars,” the Fat Man said.

“What?” I stammered.

“Thirty-five, then. I’m afraid I can’t go any higher.”

“Yes, of course,” I answered sympathetically. “Your insurance premiums.”

He then dispensed with the formalities as quickly as possible, bidding me peruse his standard contract, according to which he was lending me thirty-five thousand dollars for sixty days at the mind-boggling rate of sixteen percent. After I scribbled my (new) name in the appropriate place, the Fat Man opened a magnificent escritoire, withdrew what looked like rubber-banded, green paper bricks and began to pile up hundred-dollar bills.

“Cash?” I gasped.

“Yes,” he sighed with histrionic nostalgia. “In this barbarous plastic age one rarely gets to see it. But I’m hopelessly old-fashioned.”

Quickly placing the money in a slightly torn manila envelope, he gave it to me, and we shook hands.

“Thank you, sir,” I said politely.

“Á votre service, Monsieur.”

I thought it was a good omen that the only two words I knew in French were fortuitously appropriate at this moment.

“Bon appétit.”

On my way home, I stopped in a bookstore and searched the business section for material on commodities trading. To my chagrin, every text I scanned carried the same warning:

Still, my philosophical mind deduced the unwritten corollary: If you can go bust in a day, the reverse must also be true.

I bought a couple of “How to” volumes as well as the
Chicago Commodities Booklet
, which contained the rules of the game. And I spent a lonely but productive weekend absorbing all I could about the trading of futures.

According to
The New York Times
, wheat for delivery in September had closed on Friday at $1.50 a bushel. Since you could buy a contract for five thousand bushels for only $375, if I merely used a bit of my “summer allowance” to top up the Utrillo money, I could start my career on July 5 with precisely one hundred contracts.

But there was a further problem, as my manuals cautioned:

That, alas, was the chaff in the potential wheat caper. By rights, in order to buy on credit, I would have to prove my ability to sustain a fall in fortune. Since this would involve something closely resembling mendacity, I could not take my business to a large, reputable brokerage firm, but rather had to find one small and hungry enough to look me over with myopic eyes.