Schmidt Steps Back (8 page)

It hurt his feelings, Schmidt realized, to tell her she was right. He added, I had always hoped it was more.

You were taken in by that joviality—and those unbeatable good manners. It was the same with the law clerks he had served with in New York and D.C. and all those Yale and St. Paul’s classmates. Lots of good cheer. Lots of laughter. Beyond that? Nothing. Boreal cold, like his father and mother. With Bruno he became a real person, and I was grateful for that. Bruno was also wonderful with the children and me. Completely attentive and always truly interested in what we thought, what we were doing, ready to take part in anything that was proposed. He had come to New York to reconnoiter—that was the way he put it—and told both of us that there were tremendous opportunities in advising French flight capital. People who had succeeded in getting parts of their fortunes out of France, or had great sums of money hidden outside France, all that money that was “in the shadows,” needed to be invested, and the most attractive place to invest was the U.S. That created a great need not only for a banker like him but also, he claimed,
for an American lawyer like Tim, provided he was based in Paris. He had to be in Paris to deal with people who were there and who wouldn’t do business by telephone and to get to understand local conditions and constraints. In effect he was saying to Tim, Move to your Paris office, and I will open for you every important door in France and also in Switzerland, where most of the money is parked. I believe Bruno, Tim told me. This is an opportunity that neither the firm nor I can miss. By the way, he was quite right about what Bruno could accomplish. He introduced Tim to some amazing clients.

Schmidt nodded. He hadn’t known about the source of Tim’s European business, but both the quantity and the quality had been impressive and had been regularly commented on at firm lunches.

You know how Tim was, Alice continued. Once he decided to do something he couldn’t be stopped. He got the firm to call Billy Higgs back early. As soon as he had Dexter’s word that the office was his, he went to Paris to organize our move. Bruno showed him this apartment, which had belonged to an aunt of his who had died some months before. His two nieces wanted to sell, and Tim bought it from them without asking me to come over to look at it first. It’s comfortable enough, and it worked for our purposes, but I dislike the neighborhood. My parents’ apartment had already been sold, but I’m not sure that Tim would have seriously considered it even if it had been available. It hadn’t been recommended by Bruno! I did put down my foot when it came to the schools. Bruno had the idea that the children should go to private schools, Sophie to one near the Trocadéro run by nuns and Tommy to the Jesuits, way over on the Left Bank. There Tim agreed with me: Catholic schools weren’t for us, and besides they were too
far away. So we sent them instead to a public school near here, and that worked out fine.

Schmidt had opened his mouth to put in a word for the advantages of a Jesuit education, having been sent to one of their schools on Manhattan’s Upper East Side by his father, who had swallowed his anti-Catholic bile to take advantage of a first-rate education offered at a bargain-basement price, but managed to hold his tongue.

We settled into a routine. Tim worked long hours, staying at the office even later than in New York. The business that came in was often more than the office could handle. I was making sure the children were adjusting to the French system and did their homework, and I tried to run a Parisian household. My parents had a small but very pretty house—a
pavillon de chasse
—near Chantilly, just north of Paris, that they turned over to us. When the weather was agreeable, we’d drive out there on Saturday afternoon and stay until Sunday evening. There are wonderful walks to go on in the forest, which the French government keeps very clean, removing dead trees and fallen branches, clearing paths. Everyone liked it, including Bruno, who came with us regularly. It turned out that he liked to shoot, as did Tim, so during the season he and Tim would kill birds together. When the children had colds, or there were birthday parties, I stayed with them in Paris, and Tim and Bruno went to Chantilly alone. It all continued this way very serenely until the disastrous summer of 1985.

She began to cry again. They had long since left the table and returned to the library, and once again Schmidt hobbled over to the sofa and, putting his arm around her shoulders, tried to comfort her.

Thank you, she said, perhaps you don’t know what happened.

He shook his head.

Sophie went to camp that summer. Camp Horned Owl, in Maine, one of those girls’ camps that have been going strong for one hundred years. It was the third time, and she really looked forward to it. Her two best friends from Brearley were going as well. My mother was in very bad shape, so it was clear that I would have to skip Bar Harbor. But Tim said he would take Sophie to Horned Owl in July so that she’d be there when the camp started, return to Paris and work until August, and then make another trip to Bar Harbor with Bruno and get in his sailing. She would stay with them after camp, and they would bring her back to Paris. I was going to Antibes as soon as school let out at the beginning of July, with Tommy and our au pair. I wanted to be with my father, take turns with him talking to my mother, reading to her, changing CDs—she was listening to music a great deal—and watch the occasional TV program with her. It was more than a full-time job, because she hardly slept at night and wanted company. The physical side was taken care of by the nurses. She was by then completely paralyzed but able to breathe, chew food, and swallow, and she still spoke, but more and more feebly. It was very hard to understand her. We were waiting for the end, when she would need a tracheotomy or a breathing machine to get enough oxygen. She had decided—all three of us had decided—that we would not expose her to that torment; she said that she would stop eating and drinking, and turn her head to the wall, except that of course she couldn’t turn at all, was incapable of any movement. Schmidtie, you cannot imagine how hard it is to die, how hard it is to kill even a very
sick, very feeble, paralyzed old lady. Or do you know? Did you have to go through that with your parents?

No, Schmidt replied. My father died suddenly of apoplexy, and my mother in the hospital after a huge operation. There was almost nothing left in her belly when they got through.

I’m sorry, said Alice. No, I’m not, anyway not for your father. It’s so much easier when they go quickly. I was reading
Emma
to my mother, one of her favorite novels, when the phone rang. It was three in the morning. Tim said, I’m at the camp, Sophie is sick, she has a high fever and seizures, I’m driving her to the hospital in Portland. I think you should come over. The au pair was a good girl, but I couldn’t leave Tommy and her with my father. All three of us took the morning plane from Nice and I was at the hospital late that evening. Sophie never recognized me. She died after two terrible days. It was meningitis caused by a staphylococcus infection. Three other girls got sick, and one of them didn’t make it either. The camp director had been slow to react; she called the parents instead of ambulances. You can imagine the anger and the recriminations, but I don’t think you can imagine the horror of seeing the little face of a twelve-year-old contorted in pain and empty. Completely empty, somehow turned inward.

She broke off and said, I can’t go on today. Would you have time to see me again?

The next day was Sunday. Where could he invite her? Brasseries would be crowded and noisy. Except for hotel restaurants, all the good and half-decent restaurants he knew would be closed. The one in his hotel was renowned for its cuisine. She agreed to meet him there at one and, as he was leaving, offered him her cheek to kiss.

Y
OU
’
RE SHOCKED
, she said, I can see it in your face. I’m wearing trousers, and I’m not made up.

She did look terrible, her face pale and haggard, the pallor accentuated by her dark lipstick.

You are lovely, he replied, and why wouldn’t you wear trousers to Sunday lunch unless you had been to church?

She smiled. We don’t go to church much in France, except for christenings, marriages, and funerals. She bit her lip and added, There was an Episcopal service for Sophie before she was buried in the family plot at Verplanck Point. Tim is buried there too. The same priest said the mass. I’m going to be cremated. My mother didn’t want it because of Auschwitz, but I don’t think that’s a good reason. Cremating the Jews they killed was the least of what the Germans did to them.

Schmidt was going to say something signifying agreement, but noticing his hesitation she broke in. Forgive me, she said, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I can’t get yesterday’s conversation out of my mind, but I want to. And I’m not sure I can or should go on with the story. What a splendid room this is! she added inconsequentially, looking around her.

Too much marble for my taste, but the food is good, said
Schmidt. Let’s order our lunch. I have to admit, though, that I would be disappointed if you did not finish what you have begun to tell me. She nodded and said, I’ll try. I’ll see.

She ate and drank with frank enjoyment, and, not wanting to press her, Schmidt found himself doing most of the talking. He explained that the foundation he worked for had been founded by his country neighbor and now friend Mike Mansour, the billionaire Egyptian Jew who came to the United States with his parents as a young boy. The parents prospered making and selling curtains. Mike parlayed that small prosperity into a huge fortune and, having left Ronald Perelman behind, was ascending smoothly to the highest sphere of
Forbes
’s list of billionaires. He created the foundation to support democracy, the humanities, and capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe and former member countries of the Soviet Union.

So far I’ve rather liked preaching the gospel of democracy and the humanities, he continued. That of Ayn Rand and joyous market capitalism is another matter. On balance, though, I’m truly grateful to Mike. He’s gotten me out of the house, I’m working again, and I’m traveling on business to places I’d never go to on my own. You probably know that I retired early, when Mary got sick with a cancer that spread pretty much everywhere. I wanted to be with her, and it was the right decision. All the same, losing both her and my life’s work left me in a desert—without direction.

Oh, I didn’t know that Mary was dead, she said. That’s how cut off I am from the firm. I did notice, though, that there was no mention of her in your letter, and I wondered about the reason. She was so very nice. Of all those partners’ wives she was the kindest to me and the funniest. I remember her
making huge round eyes and rolling them when we sat across from each other listening to Mrs. Wood give a little speech at one of those firm functions for wives. I had trouble keeping a straight face.

Schmidt nodded. Making round eyes had been one of Mary’s special accomplishments. She had been famous for it at Radcliffe and at the publishing house.

After a minute or so of silence he added, Alice, please go on with your story. I am eager to hear it, even if it’s very painful.

All right, she said, but it is painful. More than painful—devastating. Let’s see, the morning after Sophie died Tim arranged for her funeral in Verplanck Point. There was no difficulty about doing it the following day so we all drove there, behind the hearse. Five of us in a limousine, Tim, Bruno, the au pair, Tommy, and I. The drive was a nightmare, and once we arrived it was even worse. It was impossible not to stay at the big house with Tim’s parents and the sister and her husband without making a public row, so in addition to all our pain and all our regret we had to face the Verplanck wall of meanness and dislike and horrid insinuations. Mrs. Verplanck actually said Tim and I were at fault. Considering the risk of infections at summer camp we shouldn’t have sent her to Horned Owl. I didn’t reply, but Tim flew into a rage and yelled. Have you ever heard him yell? It wasn’t a nice sound. We didn’t stay for the lunch after the funeral—none of us could face it—and after having a bite to eat at a mall got back into the limousine. We spent the night in some motel, and in the morning drove to Bar Harbor nonstop, except to let Tommy and Bruno—yes, Bruno too—pee at the side of the road. We were a mess when we got home, and the next day I allowed myself to sleep late and to lie down in our bedroom after lunch. Tommy and the au
pair were taking a nap. I tried to go to sleep perhaps for half an hour but couldn’t, and finally I got up and went to the window. It was a gorgeous, cruelly gorgeous, afternoon. The sea was so brilliant that after a moment I had to turn my eyes away from it. I looked instead down at the garden, and there, next to the gazebo, directly in my line of vision, were Tim and Bruno, absorbed in a conversation I couldn’t hear over the pounding of the waves. I was about to call out to them when suddenly I realized the import of what I was seeing. They were holding hands, which in itself surprised me, because it wasn’t Tim’s style. I had never seen him hold hands with a man. But then Tim put his arms around Bruno and kissed him on the mouth. I mean really kissed him. They were near enough for it to be impossible to doubt that Tim’s tongue was deep in Bruno’s mouth. After a moment came a gesture: Bruno thrust his hand into the front of Tim’s trousers and caressed him until Tim drew away and, still holding hands, they ran into the house. I thought I was going to howl, but I didn’t make a sound. I wondered whether I’d ever recover the power of speech. Gasping for breath I turned in little circles in the room, fighting against the need to fall on the floor and writhe. Suddenly, I understood what I must do. I went out into the corridor. It was covered by a heavy, dark red carpet that smothered the sound of steps. But I was taking no chances and tiptoed to the big guest room where we had put Bruno. The door was closed. I still burn with shame when I remember what I did next: I put my ear to the keyhole and heard them. Fucking and moaning. Schmidtie, I knew one of them was buggering the other. What else could it be? I wanted desperately to know who was being buggered—as though that mattered—but I didn’t put my eye to the keyhole. I didn’t dare, I just couldn’t.