Master of the Game (25 page)

“He didn’t steal them, Tony,” Kate corrected him. “He merely took what was his.”

“Sure,” Tony scoffed. “Anyway, I was th-there. There was no sea
mis
, but they s-still have the guards and dogs and everything.” He grinned. “They wouldn’t give me any s-samples.”

Kate laughed happily. “They don’t have to give you any samples, darling. One day they will all be yours.”

“You
t-tell them. They wouldn’t l-listen to me.”

She hugged him. “You
did
enjoy it, didn’t you?” She was enormously pleased that at last Tony was excited about his heritage.

“You know what I loved m-most?”

Kate smiled lovingly. “What?”

“The colors. I p-painted a lot of landscapes th-there. I hated to leave. I want to go back there and p-paint.”

“Paint?” Kate tried to sound enthusiastic. “That sounds like a wonderful hobby, Tony.”

“No. I don’t m-mean as a hobby, Mother. I want to be a
p-painter. I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I’m going to P-paris to study. I really think I might have some talent.”

Kate felt herself tensing. “You don’t want to spend the rest of your life painting.”

“Yes, I do, M-mother. It’s the only thing I really c-care about.”

And Kate knew she had lost.

He has a right to live his own life
, Kate thought.
But how can I let him make such a terrible mistake?

In September, the decision was taken out of both their hands. Europe went to war.

“I want you to enroll in the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce,” Kate informed Tony. “In two years if you still want to be an artist, you’ll have my blessing.” Kate was certain that by then Tony would change his mind. It was inconceivable that her son would choose to spend his life slapping daubs of color on bits of canvas when he could head the most exciting conglomerate in the world. He was, after all, her son.

To Kate Blackwell, World War II was another great opportunity. There were worldwide shortages of military supplies and materials, and Kruger-Brent was able to furnish them. One division of the company provided equipment for the armed forces, while another division took care of civilian needs. The company factories were working twenty-four hours a day.

Kate was certain the United States was not going to be able to remain neutral. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called upon the country to be the great arsenal of democracy, and on March 11, 1941, the Lend-Lease Bill was pushed through Congress. Allied shipping across the Atlantic was menaced by the German blockade. U-boats, the German submarines, attacked and sank scores of Allied ships, fighting in wolf packs of eight.

Germany was a juggernaut that seemingly could not be stopped. In defiance of the Versailles Treaty, Adolf Hitler had built up one of the greatest war machines in history. In a new
blitzkrieg
technique, Germany attacked Poland, Belgium and
the Netherlands, and in rapid succession, the German machine crushed Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg and France.

Kate went into action when she received word that Jews working in the Nazi-confiscated Kruger-Brent, Ltd., factories were being arrested and deported to concentration camps. She made two telephone calls, and the following week she was on her way to Switzerland. When she arrived at the Baur au Lac Hotel in Zurich, there was a message that Colonel Brinkmann wished to see her. Brinkmann had been a manager of the Berlin branch of Kruger-Brent, Ltd. When the factory had been taken over by the Nazi government, Brinkmann was given the rank of colonel and kept in charge.

He came to see Kate at the hotel. He was a thin, precise man with blond hair combed carefully over his balding skull. “I am delighted to see you, Frau Blackwell. I have a message for you from my government. I am authorized to assure you that as soon as we have won the war, your factories will be returned to you. Germany is going to be the greatest industrial power the world has ever known, and we welcome the collaboration of people such as yourself.”

“What if Germany loses?”

Colonel Brinkmann allowed a small smile to play on his lips. “We both know that cannot happen, Frau Blackwell. The United States is wise to stay out of Europe’s business. I hope it continues to do so.”

“I’m sure you do, Colonel.” She leaned forward. “I’ve heard rumors about Jews being sent to concentration camps and being exterminated. Is that true?”

“British propaganda, I assure you. It is true that
die Juden
are sent to work camps, but I give you my word as an officer that they are being treated as they should be.”

Kate wondered exactly what those words meant. She intended to find out.

The following day Kate made an appointment with a prominent German merchant named Otto Bueller. Bueller was in his
fifties, a distinguished-looking man with a compassionate face and eyes that had known deep suffering. They met at a small café near the
bahnhof
. Herr Bueller selected a table in a deserted corner.

“I’ve been told,” Kate said softly, “that you’ve started an underground to help smuggle Jews into neutral countries. Is that true?”

“It’s not true, Mrs. Blackwell. Such an act would be treason against the Third Reich.”

“I have also heard that you’re in need of funds to run it.”

Herr Bueller shrugged. “Since there is no underground, I have no need of funds to run it, is that not so?”

His eyes kept nervously darting around the café. This was a man who breathed and slept with danger each day of his life.

“I was hoping I might be of some help,” Kate said carefully. “Kruger-Brent, Limited, has factories in many neutral and Allied countries. If someone could get the refugees there, I would arrange for them to have employment.”

Herr Bueller sat there sipping a bitter coffee. Finally, he said, “I know nothing about these things. Politics are dangerous these days. But if you are interested in helping someone in distress, I have an uncle in England who suffers from a terrible, debilitating disease. His doctor bills are very high.”

“How high?”

“Fifty thousand dollars a month. Arrangements would have to be made to deposit the money for his medical expenses in London and transfer the deposits to a Swiss bank.”

“That can be arranged.”

“My uncle would be very pleased.”

Some eight weeks later, a small but steady stream of Jewish refugees began to arrive in Allied countries to go to work in Kruger-Brent factories.

Tony quit school at the end of two years. He went up to Kate’s office to tell her the news. “I t-tried, M-mother. I really d-did. But I’ve m-made up m-my mind. I want to s-study p-painting. When the w-war is over, I’m g-going to P-paris.”

Each word was like a hammerblow.

“I kn-know you’re d-disappointed, but I have to l-live my own life. I think I can be good—
really
good.” He saw the look on Kate’s face. “I’ve done what you’ve asked me to do. Now you’ve got to g-give me my chance. They’ve accepted me at the Art I-institute in Chicago.”

Kate’s mind was in a turmoil. What Tony wanted to do was such a bloody
waste
. All she could say was, “When do you plan to leave?”

“Enrollment starts on the fifteenth.”

“What’s the date today?”

“D-december sixth.”

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, squadrons of Nakajima bombers and Zero fighter planes from the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day, the United States was at war. That afternoon Tony enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was sent to Quantico, Virginia, where he was graduated from Officers’ Training School and from there to the South Pacific.

Kate felt as though she were living on the edge of an abyss. Her working day was filled with the pressures of running the company, but every moment at the back of her mind was the fear that she would receive some dreaded news about Tony—that he had been wounded or killed.

The war with Japan was going badly. Japanese bombers struck at American bases on Guam, Midway and Wake islands. They took Singapore in February 1942, and quickly overran New Britain, New Ireland and the Admiralty and Solomon islands. General Douglas MacArthur was forced to withdraw from the Philippines. The powerful forces of the Axis were slowly conquering the world, and the shadows were darkening everywhere. Kate was afraid that Tony might be taken prisoner of war and tortured. With all her power and influence, there was nothing she could do except pray. Every letter from Tony was a beacon of hope, a sign that, a few short weeks before, he had been alive. “They keep us in the dark here,” Tony wrote. “Are
the Russians still holding on? The Japanese soldier is brutal, but you have to respect him. He’s not afraid to die…”

“What’s happening in the States? Are factory workers really striking for more money?…”

“The PT boats are doing a wonderful job here. Those boys are all heroes…”

“You have great connections, Mother. Send us a few hundred F4U’s, the new Navy fighters. Miss you…”

On August 7, 1942, the Allies began their first offensive action in the Pacific. United States Marines landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, and from then on they kept moving to take back the islands the Japanese had conquered.

In Europe, the Allies were enjoying an almost unbroken string of victories. On June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion of Western Europe was launched with landings by American, British and Canadian troops on the Normandy beaches, and a year later, on May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally.

In Japan, on August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb with a destructive force of more than twenty thousand tons of TNT was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, another atomic bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki. On August 14, the Japanese surrendered. The long and bloody war was finally over.

Three months later, Tony returned home. He and Kate were at Dark Harbor, sitting on the terrace looking over the bay dotted with graceful white sails.

The war has changed him
, Kate thought. There was a new maturity about Tony. He had grown a small mustache, and looked tanned and fit and handsome. There were lines about his eyes that had not been there before. Kate was sure the years overseas had given him time to reconsider his decision about not going into the company.

“What are your plans now, Son?” Kate asked.

Tony smiled. “As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted, Mother—I’m going to P-paris.”

Tony had been to Paris before, but this time the circumstances were different. The City of Light had been dimmed by the German occupation, but had been saved from destruction when it was declared an open city. The people had suffered a great deal, and though the Nazis had looted the Louvre, Tony found Paris relatively untouched. Besides, this time he was going to live there, to be a part of the city, rather than be a tourist. He could have stayed at Kate’s penthouse on Avenue du Maréchal Foch, which had not been damaged during the occupation. Instead, he rented an unfurnished flat in an old converted house behind Grand Montparnasse. The apartment consisted of a living room with a fireplace, a small bedroom and a tiny kitchen that had no refrigerator. Between the bedroom and the kitchen crouched a bathroom with a claw-footed tub and small stained bidet and a temperamental toilet with a broken seat.

When the landlady started to make apologies, Tony stopped her. “It’s perfect.”

He spent all day Saturday at the flea market. Monday and Tuesday he toured the secondhand shops along the Left Bank,
and by Wednesday he had the basic furniture he needed. A sofa bed, a scarred table, two overstuffed chairs, an old, ornately carved wardrobe, lamps and a rickety kitchen table and two straight chairs.
Mother would be horrified
, Tony thought. He could have had his apartment crammed with priceless antiques, but that would have been
playing
the part of a young American artist in Paris. He intended to
live
it.

The next step was getting into a good art school. The most prestigious art school in all of France was the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris. Its standards were high, and few Americans were admitted. Tony applied for a place there.
They’ll never accept me
, he thought.
But if they do!
Somehow, he had to show his mother he had made the right decision. He submitted three of his paintings and waited four weeks to hear whether he had been accepted. At the end of the fourth week, his concierge handed him a letter from the school. He was to report the following Monday.

The École des Beaux-Arts was a large stone building, two stories high, with a dozen classrooms filled with students. Tony reported to the head of the school, Maître Gessand, a towering, bitter-looking man with no neck and the thinnest lips Tony had ever seen.

“Your paintings are amateurish,” he told Tony. “But they show promise. Our committee selected you more for what was
not
in the paintings than for what
was
in them. Do you understand?”

“Not exactly, maître.”

“You will, in time. I am assigning you to Maître Cantal. He will be your teacher for the next five years—if you last that long.”

I’ll last that long
, Tony promised himself.

Maître Cantal was a very short man, with a totally bald head which he covered with a purple beret. He had dark-brown eyes, a large, bulbous nose and lips like sausages. He greeted Tony with, “Americans are dilettantes, barbarians. Why are you here?”

“To learn, maître.”

Maître Cantal grunted.

There were twenty-five pupils in the class, most of them French. Easels had been set up around the room, and Tony selected one near the window that overlooked a workingman’s bistro. Scattered around the room were plaster casts of various parts of the human anatomy taken from Greek statues. Tony looked around for the model. He could see no one.

“You will begin,” Maître Cantal told the class.

“Excuse me,” Tony said. “I—I didn’t bring my paints with me.”

“You will not need paints. You will spend the first year learning to draw properly.”

The maître pointed to the Greek statuary. “You will draw those. If it seems too simple for you, let me warn you: Before the year is over, more than half of you will be eliminated.” He warmed to his speech. “You will spend the first year learning anatomy. The second year—for those of you who pass the course—you will draw from live models, working with oils. The third year—and I assure you there will be fewer of you—you will paint with me, in my style, greatly improving on it, naturally. In the fourth and fifth years, you will find your own style, your own voice. Now let us get to work.”

The class went to work.

The maître went around the room, stopping at each easel to make criticisms or comments. When he came to the drawing Tony was working on, he said curtly, “No! That will not do. What I see is the
outside
of an arm. I want to see the
inside
. Muscles, bones, ligaments. I want to know there is
blood
flowing underneath. Do you know how to do that?”

“Yes, maître. You think it, see it, feel it, and then you draw it.”

When Tony was not in class, he was usually in his apartment sketching. He could have painted from dawn to dawn. Painting gave him a sense of freedom he had never known before. The simple act of sitting in front of an easel with a paintbrush in his hand made him feel godlike. He could create whole worlds with
one hand. He could make a tree, a flower, a human, a universe. It was a heady experience. He had been born for this. When he was not painting, he was out on the streets of Paris exploring the fabulous city. Now it was
his
city, the place where his art was being born. There were two Parises, divided by the Seine into the Left Bank and the Right Bank, and they were worlds apart. The Right Bank was for the wealthy, the established. The Left Bank belonged to the students, the artists, the struggling. It was Montparnasse and the Boulevard Raspail and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It was the Café Flore and Henry Miller and Elliot Paul. For Tony, it was home. He would sit for hours at the Boule Blanche or La Coupole with fellow students, discussing their arcane world.

“I understand the art director of the Guggenheim Museum is in Paris, buying up everything in sight.”

“Tell him to wait for me!”

They all read the same magazines and shared them because they were expensive:
Studio
and
Cahiers d’Art, Formes et Cou-leurs
and
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
.

Tony had learned French at Le Rosey, and he found it easy to make friends with the other students in his class, for they all shared a common passion. They had no idea who Tony’s family was, and they accepted him as one of them. Poor and struggling artists gathered at Café Flore and Les Deux Magots on Boulevard Saint-Germain, and ate at Le Pot d’Etian on the Rue des Canettes or at the Rue de l’Université. None of the others had ever seen the inside of Lasserre or Maxim’s.

In 1946, giants were practicing their art in Paris. From time to time, Tony caught glimpses of Pablo Picasso, and one day Tony and a friend saw Marc Chagall, a large, flamboyant man in his fifties, with a wild mop of hair just beginning to turn gray. Chagall was seated at a table across the café, in earnest conversation with a group of people.

“We’re lucky to see him,” Tony’s friend whispered. “He comes to Paris very seldom. His home is at Vence, near the Mediterranean coast.”

There was Max Ernst sipping an aperitif at a sidewalk café,
and the great Alberto Giacometti walking down the Rue de Ri-voli, looking like one of his own sculptures, tall and thin and gnarled. Tony was surprised to note he was clubfooted. Tony met Hans Belmer, who was making a name for himself with erotic paintings of young girls turning into dismembered dolls. But perhaps Tony’s most exciting moment came when he was introduced to Braque. The artist was cordial, but Tony was tongue-tied.

The future geniuses haunted the new art galleries, studying their competition. The Drouant-David Gallery was exhibiting an unknown young artist named Bernard Buffet, who had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and Soutine, Utrillo and Dufy. The students congregated at the Salon d’Automne and the Charpentier Gallery and Mlle. Roussa’s Gallery on the Rue de Seine, and spent their spare time gossiping about their successful rivals.

The first time Kate saw Tony’s apartment, she was stunned. She wisely made no comment, but she thought,
Bloody hell! How can a son of mine live in this dreary closet?
Aloud she said, “It has great charm, Tony. I don’t see a refrigerator. Where do you keep your food?”

“Out on the w-windowsill.”

Kate walked over to the window, opened it and selected an apple from the sill outside. “I’m not eating one of your subjects, am I?”

Tony laughed. “N-no, Mother.”

Kate took a bite. “Now,” she demanded, “tell me about your painting.”

“There’s n-not much to t-tell yet,” Tony confessed. “We’re just doing d-drawings this year.”

“Do you like this Maître Cantal?”

“He’s m-marvelous. The important question is whether he l-likes
me
. Only about one-third of the class is going to m-make it to next year.”

Not once did Kate mention Tony’s joining the company.

Maître Cantal was not a man to lavish praise. The biggest compliment Tony would get would be a grudging, “I suppose I’ve seen worse,” or, “I’m almost beginning to see
underneath.”

At the end of the school term, Tony was among the eight advanced to the second-year class. To celebrate, Tony and the other relieved students went to a nightclub in Montmartre, got drunk and spent the night with some young English women who were on a tour of France.

When school started again, Tony began to work with oils and live models. It was like being released from kindergarten. After one year of sketching parts of anatomy, Tony felt he knew every muscle, nerve and gland in the human body. That wasn’t drawing—it was
copying
. Now, with a paintbrush in his hand and a live model in front of him, Tony began to create. Even Maître Cantal was impressed.

“You have the
feel,”
he said grudgingly. “Now we must work on the technique.”

There were about a dozen models who sat for classes at the school. The ones Maître Cantal used most frequently were Carlos, a young man working his way through medical school; Annette, a short, buxom brunette with a clump of red pubic hair and an acne-scarred back; and Dominique Masson, a beautiful, young, willowy blonde with delicate cheekbones and deep-green eyes. Dominique also posed for several well-known painters. She was everyone’s favorite. Every day after class the male students would gather around her, trying to make a date.

“I never mix pleasure with business,” she told them. “Anyway,” she teased, “it would not be fair. You have all seen what I have to offer. How do I know what you have to offer?”

And the ribald conversation would go on. But Dominique never went out with anyone at the school.

Late one afternoon when all the other students had left and Tony was finishing a painting of Dominique, she came up behind him unexpectedly. “My nose is too long.”

Tony was flustered. “Oh. I’m sorry, I’ll change it.”

“No, no. The nose in the painting is fine. It is
my
nose that is too long.”

Tony smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t do much about that.”

“A Frenchman would have said, ‘Your nose is perfect,
chérie
.’”

“I like your nose, and I’m not French.”

“Obviously. You have never asked me out. I wonder why.”

Tony was taken aback. “I—I don’t know. I guess it’s because everyone else has, and you never go out with anybody.”

Dominique smiled.
“Everybody
goes out with somebody. Good night.”

And she was gone.

Tony noticed that whenever he stayed late, Dominique dressed and then returned to stand behind him and watched him paint.

“You are very good,” she announced one afternoon. “You are going to be an important painter.”

“Thank you, Dominique. I hope you’re right.”

“Painting is very serious to you,
oui?”

“Oui.”

“Would a man who is going to be an important painter like to buy me dinner?” She saw the look of surprise on his face. “I do not eat much. I must keep my figure.”

Tony laughed. “Certainly. It would be a pleasure.”

They ate at a bistro near Sacré-Cœur, and they discussed painters and painting. Tony was fascinated with her stories of the well-known artists for whom she posed. As they were having
café au lait
, Dominique said, “I must tell you, you are as good as any of them.”

Tony was inordinately pleased, but all he said was, “I have a long way to go.”

Outside the café, Dominique asked, “Are you going to invite me to see your apartment?”

“If you’d like to. I’m afraid it isn’t much.”

When they arrived, Dominique looked around the tiny, messy apartment and shook her head. “You were right. It is not much. Who takes care of you?”

“A cleaning lady comes in once a week.”

“Fire her. This place is filthy. Don’t you have a girl friend?”

“No.”

She studied him a moment. “You’re not queer?”

“No.”

“Good. It would be a terrible waste. Find me a pail of water and some soap.”

Dominique went to work on the apartment, cleaning and scrubbing and finally tidying up. When she had finished, she said, “That will have to do for now. My God, I need a bath.”

She went into the tiny bathroom and ran water in the tub. “How do you fit yourself in this?” she called out.

“I pull up my legs.”

She laughed. “I would like to see that.”

Fifteen minutes later, she came out of the bathroom with only a towel around her waist, her blond hair damp and curling. She had a beautiful figure, full breasts, a narrow waist and long, tapering legs. Tony had been unaware of her as a woman before. She had been merely a nude figure to be portrayed on canvas. Oddly enough, the towel changed everything. He felt a sudden rush of blood to his loins.

Dominique was watching him. “Would you like to make love to me?”

“Very much.”

She slowly removed the towel. “Show me.”

Tony had never known a woman like Dominique. She gave him everything and asked for nothing. She came over almost every evening to cook for Tony. When they went out to dinner, Dominique insisted on going to inexpensive bistros or sandwich bars. “You must save your money,” she scolded him. “It is very difficult even for a good artist to get started. And you are good,
chéri.”