Authors: Louis Begley
I know, I know. It’s perfectly all right. We’ve had rain, so I’ve been hanging around the house, that’s all. How are you?
How do you suppose? Rotten. I go to the office this morning and he gets into the elevator with me. He had the nerve to kiss me. I almost hauled off and punched him.
I’m glad you didn’t. Will you be here on Friday? I’m all excited about it.
Dad, I don’t think so. Something’s come up. Renata wants to see me. She and Myron are on vacation in Claverack, so she’s coming into the city specially. I guess it’s important.
Oh.
Why it was important for Charlotte to see the mother of the husband she was in the process of divorcing, more important in any event than to see her own father, was not immediately clear to Schmidt, but he didn’t think he would gain much by asking. Realizing once more how little he knew, he ventured, Come to think of it, where are you staying? I suppose you’re no longer in Mr. Polk’s apartment?
Are you kidding? I got out of there the day he told me the great news.
To where, sweetie? I don’t believe you’ve told me.
I’m staying with a girl who works here. Marcia Schwartz. You don’t know her.
I see. Not in your own apartment.
Dad, are you kidding? Jon’s living in it.
Goodness, he said. I take it then you haven’t agreed on the financial settlement, and so forth. But the lawyers are working on it?
We haven’t gotten anywhere. I don’t want alimony from Jon or stuff like that, so that’s no problem, but he doesn’t want to sign over the place in the country and still doesn’t
want to leave the apartment. His parents are right next door to the place in Claverack. That’s why he says we should share it. I don’t get it. I’ve filed for divorce, whatever that means.
I don’t get it either. And these loans you signed together with Jon. Who’s paying them?
He says he can’t just now. So I guess I am. I was going to ask you to help.
I see. What does your lawyer think of all that?
Joe Black? He says we should go to court. That’s why he filed those papers. I think that’s what Renata wants to see me about.
Have you talked to Mr. Black about seeing her? Does he think it’s a good idea? Normally, one would leave negotiations of this sort to one’s lawyer.
Dad, it’s my life, remember? Renata’s always been a good friend to me. The best I’ve ever had. When I told her how Harry dumped me, the first thing she said was I should move back to the apartment.
To live there with Jon?
I guess so. She said it was his idea. He always said I should move in anytime I wanted. Anyway, I’ve got to go now. Have a good weekend.
It seemed to Schmidt that she was about to hang up before he had had a chance to reply. Perhaps that would be just as well. The words on the tip of his tongue—For God’s sake, haven’t you had enough of the Rikers?—were of no use. Even he knew that. But he wouldn’t let go.
Not so fast, Charlotte, he cut in. I am not being nosy, or trying to meddle, not really, but in fact it’s extraordinary, now that I think of it, that until a moment ago I didn’t know
where you are living. Or where you stand with your divorce. You can’t say the divorce is none of my business, and that’s not just because you are my only child. The divorce is tied to financial issues, to the money your mother left you and to the money you got from me.
You haven’t given me any money. Gee, I’m wrong. Excuse me, Dad, I beg your pardon, how could I forget the allowance you used to give me before my salary was raised and the Christmas and birthday checks! I’m really stupid.
Oh!
He should have let her slam down the receiver. Now it was too late. If he said, as he was tempted to, All right, all right, let’s not quarrel, and took it upon himself to end this odious conversation, there was no telling when they could talk again. He would be leaving her in the hands of the Rikers, mother and son.
Look, Charlotte, he continued, you’re getting this all wrong. Either cool down so we can talk now or find time to see me tomorrow. I’ll come to the city to see you.
Tomorrow is no good. I’m in client meetings.
Then shut the door to your office and listen to me now.
A grunt of assent, a pause, and another grunt that sounded like OK.
Thank you. I wanted to give you my share of this house, so it would be all yours, yours and Jon’s. Your mother would have wanted me to. You decided you wanted money instead. That is why I bought your share. If I had given you the money, I would have paid almost the same amount on top of the gift in taxes. At the time, you understood this. Certainly
Jon did. I was happy to give you that money, and I will be happy to leave to you whatever I can when I die, including this house. The house I live in, where you spent every weekend and holiday until you married Jon.
You mean you might if I play my cards right leave to me what you don’t give to Carrie or whoever else you pick up!
It’s quite possible that I will leave money to Carrie or to Harvard or to whomever else I choose, but it’s my intention to make sure that you are more than all right. Please listen to me carefully. Just a while ago, you asked me to give you a very large amount of money so that you and Mr. Polk could start a new business. You weren’t very nice about it, but never mind. I said all right. The reason I haven’t sent the money is that you and Mr. Polk didn’t set up the account to receive it. That’s just as well, because it would have been a mess. Yesterday, you called me all broken up about Harry Polk and what you told me broke my heart too. Not because of Mr. Polk, obviously, but because of you. Yesterday, you also said you needed—or wanted, I can’t remember which it was—to see me here, at home. Today, you’ve told me it’s more important for you to stay in town to see Renata Riker.
That really ticked you off, didn’t it?
It did. I wanted to see you.
So you could talk to me like this, only longer? Like two days in a row?
I’ve almost finished. Charlotte, you’ve also just told me that your lawyer has made no progress getting Jon to return what’s clearly your property. That is absolutely outrageous. He has no right to the house or to the apartment you have
paid for. At the most, at the very most, you might take over the loans if it’s really true the money you borrowed went to pay for them. I am sure that Mr. Black has thought of that.
Yeah, he’s talked about it.
To you or to Jon as well?
He’s talked to Cacciatore.
And?
And nothing. Jesus, Dad, I’ve told you they haven’t gotten anywhere.
All right, here is the conclusion of my boring speech. I think it’s foolish of you to talk to Renata Riker about the terms of your separation from Jon and about your property, if that’s what she wants to do. It’s a setup. They’re going behind your lawyer’s back and that’s outrageous as well.
Nobody’s going behind anybody’s back. I resent that.
I hope you’re right. I also hope that you are not going to move into the apartment with Jon or, what’s more important, take up with him again unless there is first a settlement of your property rights, and by that I mean that you get your property back. This is a question of basic honesty.
Thanks, Dad, and good-bye.
This time she really did hang up.
The rain had stopped altogether. In fact, the sun had come out. Schmidt opened the kitchen windows and the door outside the door of the mudroom, which lay beyond the pantry. Then, a fresh drink in hand, he went around the downstairs of the house throwing open the front and back doors. Not satisfied, he opened every window in the house, downstairs and upstairs, even in the never-used guest rooms and in Charlotte’s
room. The pool house deserved an airing too. He found the door locked, went back to the kitchen and got the key, opened the windows of that now useless structure, and, for good measure, opened the garage doors. His garden, he noted, looked positively jolly, every leaf, every blade of grass, glistening with raindrops. Laughing, winsome nature. It was great good fortune, he thought, to own such a fine place and to have maintained it in absolutely top condition. At the same time, he noted a weakness in his legs and arms, as though he had been running hard, in heavy clothes, on some hard surface. He also noted that his armpits felt moist. This was unusual for him, as he rarely sweated, but in fact his shirt was wet and clinging to him, under his arms and in the back. He went into the house, put on a fresh shirt and a sweater, because suddenly he felt a chill, and made coffee. Against his custom, he drank it with sugar. There was, he remembered, in the refrigerator, an open package of Hershey’s chocolate kisses that Carrie had used for making a mousse. He ate a handful of them, and wrote to Charlotte:
You may, perhaps, decide to call me in the near future, but I don’t know when that will be, and I wish to tell you, before you see Renata Riker, what I would have said had you given me the opportunity.
First, as I once tried to make clear, not very successfully, I would have said again that the break in your and Jon’s marriage gave me no satisfaction. I wished you well. I hoped you would be happy together. I have grieved over Jon’s failure at the firm—I don’t know how
else to describe what happened without being unfair. Therefore, I can assure you that I would rejoice if what was broken was somehow mended in conditions that I could consider honorable. Having heard you on the subject of the financial discussions between you and Jon, that means to me one thing only. Jon has to return the property that came from your family, so that, to put it very crudely, it’s crystal clear he wants to keep you, and not your money and you.
Second, so that you and the Rikers might know where you stand with respect to any inheritance from me, I would have informed you that I will take steps next week to make sure that any money or other property I may leave you will be in trust. Its conditions will entitle you only to that portion of the trust income that the trustee may in his absolute discretion decide to distribute to you, and, of course, to emergency help also at the trustee’s discretion. After your death, the property will continue in trust, on the same terms, for the benefit of your children until they reach the age of thirty, at which time the trust property will be divided among them. Should you have no children, Harvard University will inherit. I will, however, quite obviously retain the power to liberalize the conditions of the trust if, before I die, your family situation and your conduct lead me to believe that such a change is appropriate.
I would like to remind you that when I married your mother, she had almost no money. That was my situation as well, except that I expected to inherit from my
father. As it turned out, my father left me no money, just some odds and ends. He disinherited me. Money was never an issue between your mother and me—we took it for granted that one should be forthright and scrupulously fair, and acted accordingly. Such money as I have is money I have earned and saved, or in the end inherited indirectly from my father through my late stepmother’s generosity. You know all this, but it may be of some use to repeat it. In fact, quite unexpectedly, late in life, I am rich, to be sure in a minor sort of fashion. I do not wish that circumstance to twist and denature your relations with men. Men in general, not especially Jon Riker, although that is how you and he and Renata may interpret my intention. It goes without saying that I will not make additional significant gifts of money to you, while I am still alive, if there is any reason to think that you are not the true recipient of what I give you.
He signed, Your father. Years of revising draft after draft of legal documents, whether prepared by him or his younger colleagues, had made him quite unable to fold the two sheets of paper he had covered with what his old secretary would have called Mr. Schmidt’s neatest scrawl, stuff them into an envelope, and seal it. He took another turn in the garden, redolent of fresh grass now that the lawn had dried, and reread what he had written. The only changes he could think of were stylistic. They weren’t worth the trouble of making another fair copy. Charlotte wouldn’t care and neither would
any of the Rikers. Jon’s drafting had never been quite up to Schmidt’s standards, a failing he thought was not significant enough to mention when he pushed for that boy’s election to the partnership.
Nobody had used Mary’s Toyota for a month or so. He patted it, as he might have a dog or a horse, and tried the ignition. The engine hesitated and then started vigorously, as though awakened from a light sleep. Really, her car was in excellent shape. He slammed the door shut, drove to Bridgehampton, and put the letter in overnight mail. Mary might have told him to express his intentions differently, but, like it or not, he was set in this mold; he could not break it alone. As to the substance, he had no doubt she would have approved.
Carrie asked: You feeling sick or something?
They were at table, having dinner. I’m blue, he replied. That’s all.
Jeez, Schmidtie, I thought I got all that blue out of you. Your little guy was happy, that’s for sure. Isn’t that why I got a gold medal?
She pointed to the scarab pin. She was wearing it on his old shirt. Black tights under it. He knew how long her legs were under the table. Stocking feet touching his, toes wiggling. Her elbows on the table, she stared at him making round eyes because she knew that made him laugh. Pacts must be respected. He came through with a chortle and blew her a kiss. At once, she was in his lap.
Honey, tell me what’s wrong. You’re still mad at me.
I’m not, really. Promise. I have Charlotte troubles.
You said she was coming on Friday.
She isn’t anymore.
Then he told her about the telephone call, leaving out what related to her because of the small lingering hope that it would be good later if she and Charlotte were able to be friends. Besides, he didn’t want Carrie’s feelings to be hurt. It was useless, he thought, to mention the letter. It wasn’t likely that this adorable child would need to worry about trusts dreamed up by choleric fathers and their lawyers.
You’re going to be mad at me if I tell you what I think?
I wish you would.