The Frozen Rabbi (27 page)

LESS
THAN
THREE
weeks later, they were standing in the presence of the financier August Belmont II, who had risen from behind his desk as if to shoo away a pair of stray alley cats. “Get out of here!” He was wearing on his anointed head a plum fez with a tassle that looked to Shmerl like the roots of an upturned flower pot, though he was in every other respect a striking gentleman. The tall window at his back, which gave on to the verdant park across Fifth Avenue, outlined his trim figure in a coronalike glow as he pulled tight the cords at the waist of his dressing gown.

“A moment of your time, Your Excellent,” pleaded Max Feinshmeker, potato-shaped in the overalls and machinist’s apron he’d adopted for their artifice. Next to him, similarly clad, stood Shmerl, holding the handle of a device on wheels that resembled a dwarf pachyderm with a dangling snout. Unable to transport the ungainly thing by omnibus, they had hauled it all the way uptown in a rattling dogcart, marveling at how the city altered its character from block to block. The old-law tenements, waist factories, and warehouses gave way to the cast-iron fronts of offices and department stores, which were deposed further on by brownstone terrace houses. The brownstones ebbed at the hotel towers with their striped awnings and liveried doormen, the hotels shading into a rialto of Moorish theaters ringed by touring cars and flocked about by billboards proclaiming the virtues of Doan’s Pills and Russian Caravan Tea. Then, at Fifty-ninth Street, the commercial farrago halted in deference to the grandeur along the eastern border of Central Park. For adjacent the budding foliage of a spring afternoon in full spate stood a row of châteaux, palazzi, and fortresslike mansions, the architecture ranging the spectrum from ancient Egypt to Versailles. Amid this grand parade was the showy arabesque of Temple Emanuel, where, it being Shabbos, well-to-do yekkes removed their straw boaters before passing under its Olympian arches.

Confronted by such a density of splendor, both young men had experienced a momentary failure of nerve, though neither was willing to admit to the other how entirely out of his element he felt. Nevertheless, throughout the weeks they had already wasted in attempting to gain an interview with the man of commerce, they had become resolute, Max for the sake of a mission whose upshot would secure them a foothold in the New World, Shmerl for the sake of Max.

The choice of the philanthropist and financier Belmont as their quarry was not random; he was in fact the only millionaire (other than Rothschild) whose name Max was familiar with. (“I am with him very famillionaire,” he’d quipped, buoyed by his plan and an increasing aptitude in the language he and Shmerl now spoke almost exclusively.) For Belmont Jr. was that scion of an auspicious family whose name Zalman Pisgat the ice mensch had let slip in connection with the purchase of the bulk sturgeon roe, which commodity Max had spirited across an ocean. Didn’t such an undertaking constitute a bond between himself and the banking magnate? Moreover, despite having been christened after his father, a practice unheard of in halakhic convention, Belmont was rumored to have been born a Jew. Thus, in an act of unexampled optimism, Max had indited a letter to the g’vir, introducing himself and alluding to the service he’d once performed for him. In this way he hoped to gain an audience for himself and his associate with the celebrated gentleman.

Made privy over time to his friend’s shady past, with which he had no particular qualms (hadn’t he smuggled himself out of Russia?), Shmerl helped compose the letter, taking dictation from Max, who in that way concealed his functional illiteracy, though Shmerl’s own self-schooling in English left much to be desired. Together they labored for days over the epistle, which began “Esteemed & Darling [‘How do you say ongeshtopt?’] Man Made from Money, In the name of the great tradition that like the beluga fish eggs which from the sea of Riga to America I am bringing you has spawned us, I most humbly request by you an audition…” and continued in that vein. Satisfied that they’d struck a fine balance between dignity and groveling, Max posted the letter, but after a week had received no answer. Undaunted, however, he tried again with another even more fulsome communication. In it he and Shmerl assured the mogul that their meeting would serve the best interests of all concerned, but again they received no reply. Still Max was convinced that Belmont was their man, for the banker was known to enjoy taking risks. Besides trafficking in contraband (which a man of his means clearly did for the thrill of it), he had pioneered the first subway and kept his own lavish saloon car, and had invested a fortune in constructing a canal. Moreover, he had a reputation for being a wagering man, a tout with such a passion for the ponies that he was building a national race track in his own honor. But when the appeals had failed to get a response, the companions decided that a more straightforward approach was called for.

It was Shmerl, not ordinarily known for his diplomacy, who pointed out that reminding the rich man of his connection with illicit activities might not be the best way to gain his confidence; better they should simply make their case in person. So they spruced themselves up as well as they were able and presented themselves at the banker’s princely Wall Street offices, where, having no appointment, they were promptly shown the door. Rejection, though, seemed only to fuel their shared sense of purpose. Thus, on the following Saturday, when they supposed the odds were likeliest of finding their man at home, the immigrants, posing as workmen hired to vacuum-clean the carpets, arrived at the merchants’ entrance of the banker’s Fifth Avenue mansion. There they were met by a broad-bottomed manservant who, complaining that he should have been informed prior to their calling, nevertheless let them in.

“You can start with the vestibule,” he told them shortly, and waved them in that direction, saying he had business elsewhere and would check on them by and by.

If they’d had second thoughts on beholding the uptown houses from without, the interior of the Belmont residence—said to be the least of the family’s holdings—staggered them to near paralysis. “I think,” whispered Max, attempting to articulate what had occurred to them both simultaneously, “we are from the East Side as far as is the East Side from the Russian Pale.” The entrance hall was a circular chamber with a stained-glass dome that loomed (said Shmerl) like God’s own skullcap above a black marble fountain with a single dancing jet. A naked nymph was balanced on one arched foot atop the fountain, from which Shmerl, as if in the presence of some celestial mikveh, was unable to budge until Max shoved him forward. From the hub of the fountain the hallways appeared virtually endless, their walls hung with mirrors facing mirrors, creating transepts that stretched to infinity. Between reflections there were fantasias of antique tiles and hardwood cabinets inlaid with mother of pearl, coves thick with palm fronds, giant bell jars in which swarms of butterflies were suspended in flight. Doors opened onto the Middle Ages, the Late Empire, Byzantium. Trundling over the parqueted floors, the creaking wheels of Shmerl’s wooden cart threatened to alert the domestics to their nosing about, though the sound of the cart was soon upstaged by an ear-splitting vibrato that caused the screens to tremble like typanums and bade fair to shatter the vases on their pedestals. The companions froze in their tracks, until Max, who’d done his research, remembered that the rich man had married an opera diva. The explanation did little to dispel Shmerl’s impression, which he related under his breath, that they had stumbled into the hekhalot, the very corridors of heaven as described in the
Seder Gan Eyden
, though the book had failed to do the place justice.

Having inspected one whole wing of the mansion without encountering either master or servants, they were less disappointed than relieved. Still, duty-bound to press on, they reversed direction and, after another quarter-hour’s exploration, found themselves in front of a door at the end of a passage framed by columns with gilded capitals. The door was slightly ajar and, peeking in, they saw bookshelves climbing the walls to a cambered ceiling, a fireplace above which hung the portrait of a mutton-chopped ancestor, and a desk as broad as a catafalque. Behind the desk, unsealing letters with an ormolu file, sat a well-kempt gentleman Max was able to identify from newspaper photos as the lord of the manor himself. Bestowing an incautious wink on his friend, Max nudged the door wide open, and the two companions stepped over the threshold dragging their camouflaged apparatus behind them. The banker rose from his chair in a show of vexed agitation, demanding “What are you?” while enfolding himself in the skirts of his moiré dressing gown. Then even as he shouted for them to be gone, Max gave Shmerl a nod, upon which the inventor removed the accordion nozzle from his contraption and, like a waiter unveiling an entrée, snatched off the paper canopy to reveal his perpetual winter machine.

“Your Eminent,” said Max, assuming the role of impresario, “if you please.”

The financier fixed them with a baleful stare. “Wexelman!” he called, and the servant arrived, huffing. “Did you let these persons in?” Dabbing at the folds of his brow with a hankie, Wexelman tried to mutter an excuse—the housekeeper
had
mentioned having the carpets cleaned—but his master cut him off, directing him to notify the authorities at once.

As Wexelman withdrew, Shmerl turned a crank that sparked a flame, the flame igniting a pilot the feathery length of a dragon’s tongue. Almost instantly wheels began revolving, a cylinder to rise and fall, the inventor explaining that his was an ethyl ammonia compression system: “The piston compresses in the vessel to a pintele from its normal volume the ordinary air,” then releases the pressure which allows the air to expand. The chilling effect of the expansion pulls the heat from the brine surrounding the vessel, which in turn draws the warmth from the water inside the receptacle. This method was opposed to the absorption system favored by his predecessors. Of course, you could also use sulfur dioxide or methyl chloride, though these were toxic compounds and might result in the ultimate death of the operator.…

“What’s he talking about?” the irate financier demanded to know.

Over Shmerl’s giddy discourse Max submitted matter-of-factly, “Making ice, Your Honor; he’s talking how by this machine we can manufacture industrial ice. My colleague Mr. Karp—”

“This is not a patent office,” protested Belmont, aghast at the sight of this troll-like individual fiddling with an infernal mechanism that might for all he knew explode. It might in fact be an elaborate anarchist’s bomb. These ostjuden were mostly anarchists, weren’t they? who targeted the wealthy with their insane ideological program. It was at this point that Wexelman returned, preceded by the medicine ball of his paunch and a pair of liverish-looking policemen whom he was shepherding with imperious gestures into the study.

“Gentlemen,” said Belmont, “these men are trespassing. Apprehend them.”

The cops, in mackintosh capes and cupola helmets, chin straps hooked beneath pursed lower lips, exchanged an arch glance between them. Then they at once commenced to lay hands on Max (still petitioning the millionaire’s patience) and Shmerl (still explaining the dynamics of mechanical refrigeration). Seeing, however, that his friend was in the grip of an arm of the law whose opposite arm brandished a nightstick—and despite being in identical straits himself—Shmerl managed to wriggle free of his captor and fling himself upon the other officer, grabbing his upraised club. Taking advantage of that cop’s distraction, Max broke free of the head-hold to make a dash as if for protection behind the financier’s desk, where he was presently joined by Shmerl who now wielded the billy club. Spitting curses despite Wexelman’s admonishments that they should watch their language in the presence of Mr. Belmont, the cops approached them from either side of the desk, while the banker stood as a hostage between the pair of imposters who flanked him. Meanwhile a steady chugging issued from Shmerl’s device, its hoarse combustion counterpointed by a silvery aria (from
Tosca
?) that rang throughout the mansion. It was here that August Belmont II, clapping hands to elegant temples streaked with gray like the wings on Mercury’s helmet, cried out, “This is most irregular!” Then, because he knew a good thing when he saw it, he called an immediate halt to the pandemonium—because Shmerl’s machine, coughing and sputtering, had begun to regurgitate transparent ingots, one of which cracked apart from an impossibly high note struck from somewhere beyond the study walls.

THE
GRUMBLING
OF Officers Golightly and McCool was soon assuaged by the banker’s generosity in compensating them for their troubles. Then, after Shmerl had returned the billy club with all the pomp of a surrendered saber, the bank was contacted and an attorney brought in to draw up the terms of the loan. Five thousand was the figure that was proposed, but as Shmerl looked to his partner to join him in nodding agreement, he was astounded to hear Max counterrecommend a cool ten. Without missing a beat the banker altered the sum to seventy-five hundred as sufficient to cover the cost of venue, equipment, and preliminary labor; it would also provide the proprietors (insolvent at present) with an adequate salary they might draw from the surplus capital. The language of the promissory note was intimidating (“For value received, the undersigned jointly and severally promise to pay to the order of the lender the sum of———, together with interest of twenty-five percent per annum on the unpaid balance, etc.”), but the new corporation of Feinshmeker & Karp was assured that the contract was pro forma; and at least one of the partners understood that the sum was a drop in the bucket for the banker, who stood to benefit disproportionately from the transaction. While business was negotiated, the two friends, their work clothes in disarray from their recent dustup, were served brandy and offered Cuban cigars by the same retainer who had set the authorities upon them earlier. Moted sunlight poured in through the high windows, making the room and its contents—the brass cartouches and crystal decanter, the nickeled pince-nez perched on the financier’s regal nose—appear as if viewed through a jar of golden honey; and it seemed to the immigrants that they had passed, in a single day, from civilization’s wild outer reaches to its very core.