The Queen and I (2 page)

Chapter Two: Creative Differences

“I don’t know how you talked me into this,” Jeffrey said in a hushed tone to Jacob as the two of them sat in the waiting area of Jacob’s clandestine benefactor who wished to fund their next endeavor, provided that Jeffrey was the one who wrote it, and it was the brain child of this mysterious man.

The waiting area was on the top floor of a forty-story high-rise in Manhattan and decorated in a sort-of nouveau art deco; it rang of the old and the new at the same time. The air was surprisingly musty for the surroundings, and it did not take long for Jeffrey to determine that the smell was emanating from the closed office door and that it was thick cigar smoke he smelled.

The secretary was a middle-aged woman who was handsomely dressed, but carried a scowl expression that spoke of a woman who was not particularly fond of her employer or the business that he was in. As of this very moment, Jeffrey had not much more information than first impressions, and this bothered him some.

He had asked Jacob repeatedly for any kind of history as to whom they were meeting with, but his assistant only shared the man’s name, Heinrich Schultz.

Jeffrey was not a bigoted man by any standard, but he was also a Jew who had lost family members during the Nazi reign, so he was always a bit apprehensive whenever he had to do business with a person of German descent. He regretted this prejudice, but it was not something that could go away easily because of personal discomfort.

Jacob stood up and walked to the office window, looking down on the city below, and he did a quick snap of his fingers while slapping the palm of his hand. He turned to Jeffrey and quietly said, “This is going to be great. You’ll see. Henry is a great man with a vision and the money to support that vision.”

“Where did you meet this guy? And when? I thought I kept you too busy for socializing while we were working.”

“You
did
take a nap every now and then, and I took a walk.”

“Well, what does he do?” Jeffrey asked impatiently.

Jacob nervously looked at the secretary and whispered, “It’s better that I let Henry explain that.”

Whatever this business was and whoever this Henry fellow turned out to be, Jeffrey was becoming quite certain that he was not going to like either one of them.

Jeffrey’s work had always been very important to him, sacred even, and now his closest professional friend was asking him to possibly prostitute that love for nothing more than money. Jeffrey had money, money was not his problem, and he was increasingly wondering why he had agreed to come along to begin with. Perhaps it was creative curiosity, intrigue, or maybe, and even more possible, that Jeffrey was out of ideas. It had been a minor miracle that he was able to pen the last play, and he knew that he had left everything on the table when he finished it. Try as he may, he could think of nothing when he sat alone in his office at night and stared at his spiral binders for hours. Not a single creative thought came to mind, at least, nothing worth writing. Perhaps this mysterious Henry would provide him with the original idea and the motivation to get back to work, to get his creative juices flowing again, and maybe even inspire him to write an even more impressive work than
A Dreidel Spins in Yonkers.

He watched as Jacob hardly contained his excitement and kept leaping from his seat as if it were spring loaded. If you didn’t know better, you would swear that it was Jacob who had been offered the job and Jeffrey was only there as moral support. He kept muttering to himself, almost indiscernible phrases like, “This is so great” and “We’re going to be rich.”

The last statement bothered Jeffrey a bit because he never did what he did for the fame or fortune, it was embedded in the fibers of his being, and it was who he was. This talk about money made him uncomfortable and a little confused, since Jeffrey was the playwright and Jacob was just the assistant and they were compensated accordingly.

“Listen, Jacob …” Jeffrey began, but was interrupted by the secretary.

“Mr. Stone, he’ll see you now.”

This troubled Jeffrey as well, since she had not even acknowledged once during their stay in the office that Jeffrey was even there. All of her attention seemed to be focused on Jacob, and it was as if Jeffrey was just an unfortunate add-on.

Jacob motioned for Jeffrey to get up and even attempted to straighten the collar of Jeffrey’s charcoal-grey sports jacket while standing so close that he was clearly trying to smell Jeffrey’s breath to assure that it was suitable to be in the presence of this mysterious and powerful man.

Jeffrey looked at the now opening office door and anticipated that this would most definitely be a momentous event.

The office was larger than Jeffrey thought it would be, and there was no thick smoke that he was certain permeated the air since he could smell it from outside. The windows were covered by long, dark drapes that allowed only a smallest amount of light to enter the room, and the furniture screamed of old-world Eastern Europe.

Classical music played on a real old-fashioned Victrola, and Jeffrey was almost certain that it was Wagner. A white cat sat on a plush antique chair in one corner of the room, and upon further inspection, Jeffrey noticed that the cat’s facial markings were of a black smudge under his nose and a swath of black that resembled a hair part, leaving the cat with an uncanny resemblance to Adolph Hitler.

Behind a large, antique oak desk stood an even larger man dressed in a pinstriped, three-piece green suit with a jovial, cherub-like face, burned red from too much alcohol consumption, and a slicked-back, receding hairline. He stood six and a half feet tall and must have weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds.

He came quickly from around the desk and embraced Jacob in a bear hug, lifting him from the ground. He let out a loud, guttural laugh and turned his attention to Jeffrey, who was now dreading the notion of being lifted by this giant of a man. Instead, he offered a huge hand that more closely resembled a bunch of bananas than it did a hand.

“This must be the genius!” he announced excitedly in a thick German accent.

“Yes, it is,” Jacob began. “This is Jeffrey David Rothstein. Jeffrey, this is Heinrich Schultz.”

“Ah, Heinrich!” the large man spat. “Call me Henry.” He bowed his head and quickly clicked his heels. “And over there is Herman. Say hello, Herman.” He was speaking to the cat who watched with mild interest.

“Herman?” Jeffrey asked.

“
Ja
, named after my uncle who did not quite make it out of Germany with the rest of the family.” Henry bowed his head again and made the sign of the cross.

Jeffrey looked around the office, examining its décor a bit closer now and noticed a bust of Hermann Göring with a plaque underneath that read,
“To my favorite nephew, Love Uncle Hermy.”

“Is this
the
Hermann Göring? The one from World War II?” Jeffrey asked.

“War? What war?” Henry asked incredulously. “A little skirmish, that’s all. Please sit.”

He motioned for Jeffrey and Jacob to sit and offered them both a small glass of peach schnapps. “I would offer the two of you a cigar, but this building is non-smoking.”

Jeffrey wondered how any of that could be true since there was such a strong stench of cigar smoke in the air, and then Jeffrey noticed what looked like a humidifier behind Schultz’s desk. A faint stream of mist was billowing out of the side of the machine that hummed softly, and Jeffrey assumed that this must be some kind of machine rigged to pump the smell of tobacco into the air. It probably contained nicotine in the vapor. Schultz was without a doubt an eccentric man and had the money to satisfy all of his worldly wants.

“How is that lovely girlfriend of yours?” Henry asked.

Jeffrey shot a look at Jacob, who returned an innocent stare, and he answered, “How do you know …”

“When I go into business with someone, I always find out everything about them.” He downed his schnapps in a single gulp and poured another. “She’s a very talented critic; I hope that she will write a good review of our play.”

This was a very presumptuous comment, and Jeffrey did not like what it implied. First of all, his relationship with Rachel was nobody’s business and certainly not this Heinrich Schultz character; second, there was no way he would ever attempt to persuade his girlfriend to write a favorable review of anything he did based on their relationship. Jeffrey was beginning to dislike Heinrich Schultz very much.

“Jacob tells me that you were thinking of taking some time off.” Another overstep. “I think maybe I can persuade you to think otherwise.”

Little Herman got up from his chair and sauntered across the room to jump onto Jeffrey’s lap, purring quietly.

“Ah! Herman likes you, always a good sign!” Schultz exclaimed with unfettered delight.

Jeffrey looked down at the cat’s cooing face and saw that this cat really did look like Adolph Hitler, undoubtedly, not a mistake, and not beyond the realization of his owner. As he looked around the office again while Henry was speaking to him about how wonderful this venture was going to be, Jeffrey noticed that there were some very odd pictures on the wall—a bombed-out storefront and lamp factory, a wheelbarrow filled with watches, and a picture of Schultz with Arnold Schwarzenegger when the former actor was governor of California.

Something was not quite right with what was happening; Jeffrey knew that he needed to start getting some answers, or he could find himself in a position that he perhaps could not write his way out of.

He looked over at Jacob, who sat in awe of their host, and the grin that he was sporting was an obvious showing of great affection and admiration. Jacob was obviously taken in by the charm of this big man, and the perspective money did nothing to tarnish the shine on that charm. Jacob was mesmerized.

Jeffrey’s head was beginning to spin slightly, and he heard Jacob’s voice ask a question, but did not recognize any of the words. Jacob spoke again.

“What do you think, Jeffrey?” Jacob asked.

Jeffrey turned to Jacob, a bit startled by the question and a little disoriented by his surroundings and asked, “About what?”

“The play, of course!” Henry bellowed. “
Kristallnacht and Noel.
”

Jeffrey turned to Heinrich and back to Jacob before turning back to his host, and he asked quietly, “I’m sorry, what?”

“His play, Jeffrey, his play,
Kristallnacht and Noel
. The tale of a Jewish shop owner in Nazi Germany who masquerades as a Christmas tree salesman to avoid having his store bombed out during the
Kristallnacht
and who falls in love with the wife of an SS officer charged with hunting him down.”

Kristallnacht, of course, was the infamous night in Nazioccupied Germany when thousands of Jewish owned shops and Jewish synagogues had been destroyed. Windows were shattered, temples burnt to the ground, some of them hundreds of years old. If Jeffrey was hearing correctly, this Henry person and Jacob wanted Jeffrey to write a play about that horrible night and put his name to it, giving the play instant credibility.

“What do you think?” Henry asked.

Jeffrey blinked his eyes a couple of times and rubbed his temples. Herman jumped from his lap due to the tension the cat was picking up on. “What do I think, you ask?”

He looked over at Jacob, his wide-eyed, hopeful expression betraying the absolute naiveté his young assistant had to the topic and to Jeffrey’s reaction. Jeffrey slowly stood up and calmly said in an even tone, “I think that you are both out of your fucking minds.”

Henry’s expression quickly went from that of joyful expectation to confusion to anger at the use of language. “I don’t like your choice of language in front of my cat,” he said in his increasingly thick German accent.

“I don’t care what you or your Nazi cat thinks of my language.” Herman hissed from across the room and hid under the desk. “This is beyond ludicrous to even think that I would put my name to a project like this! It’s disgusting!”

Jeffrey’s ire was up now, and his rage, which was a very rare sight indeed, was hitting a crescendo. He had heard some bad ideas before, manuscripts that were sent to him with the request that he rewrite them and put his name to them, all in the hopes of seeing the work on stage, but this was the most offensive to ever cross his path.

“Jeffrey, calm down,” Jacob pleaded, slightly afraid to stand up as his mentor was having a meltdown in front of him. “Maybe we could revise it a bit.”

Jeffrey stared at him with stunned silence and then broke it by saying, “Stuff it in a paper bag with that cat’s shit, light it on fire, and throw it at that giant anti-Semite over there! Discussion is over!” He caught his breath and sized up the two shocked expressions staring back at him and quietly continued, “I’ll show myself out.”

He straightened his coat, shot Schultz as angry a stare as he could muster, and told Jacob that he would talk to him later. He left Heinrich Schultz’s office for what he hoped would be the last time. He had no idea that this man would play such a critical role in his future endeavors or how he would change his life.

“That was unpleasant,” Henry said solemnly. “You told me he was a reasonable man with vision.”

Jacob squirmed in his seat. Indeed, he had told Henry that Jeffrey was a man who could be dealt with and being affable was the worst of his qualities. This explosion of rage was nothing Jacob had ever seen, and he had no idea how to react to or explain it. The only thing he had left for himself at this point was to get back on Heinrich’s good side.

“I can talk to him.”

Henry put up a big, dismissive hand and continued, “I have no patience for those who lose theirs. He obviously does not want to work with me, so I no longer have any use for him.” He reached under his desk and lifted Herman into his arms, stroking the cat behind the ears.

The cat really does look like Hitler,
Jacob thought to himself.
How come I’ve never noticed that? Ah, the brilliance of Jeffrey David Rothstein, only he would have noticed.