Memoir From Antproof Case (35 page)

We decided that the Suez Canal Company, all Anglo-Egyptian and Egyptian-American joint ventures, and certain categories of investment in the Middle East as a whole, especially in the less stable countries, would go negative. We slowly began to slough off everything we held in the Middle East, and to short the stocks and bonds of companies that depended upon the region's stability. At the same time, we moved funds into other areas that we thought would strengthen as a result: for example, to the conservative Gulf sheikdoms to which, I guessed, much flight capital would find its way. As a result of the new policy we began to receive massive influxes of gold as loan collateral and to facilitate cross-investment among the Gulf kingdoms' swelling treasuries.

Admittedly, the results would not be known for several years. Still, it seemed a good bet, and it did eventually turn out exactly as I surmised. My discovery and analysis looked good even before the fact, and was at that moment the principal force driving the firm.

The summer banquet was at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club. It is hard to understand the glory of the world until you have stood upon the great lawns of this establishment and looked out at a view that comforts the heart as no other that I have seen in all my life. What I would give to be back on those hills prior to 1916, when, as a boy, I trespassed upon a grand estate, and my every step was the forging of my character, such as it is. My school was at the bottom of the hill, my house almost visible in the distance, in the hook of Croton Bay.

At sunset, we finished our scotches on the terrace and went in to dinner. I was particularly vulnerable that evening, for the events of long ago echoed from the past, and the lights in the
near distance pulled me into the pleasant darkness of memory.

Inside, chandeliers sparkled and the table was set as if for a gathering of kings. I had kept to myself, coming up alone on the train and walking through the Italian gardens, the Vanderlip estate, and the school itself, where I saw a sandy-haired boy of about seven in the yard of what we used to call the Little School. He looked like me as a child, and, for reasons that I will never know, he seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. I winked at him, and smiled. He looked back. In his eyes I thought I saw the reflection of my own story. And then he went on his way.

At the head of the table, framed by the mantel behind him, was Mr. Edgar. Whatever painting had hung above the fireplace had been replaced by the full-sized Edgar portrait from the boardroom, the one with Mr. Edgar in the uniform—and hat—of a commodore. What a hat. Just looking at it always cheered me up.

Everyone else had come in limousines, and everyone else was drunk: I had the scent of the woods I had crossed still on me. I was content even if the others would not speak to or, in some cases, even look at me, for I knew that, in substance, I had triumphed. This would be my reward, my shield, and my staff. My inability to get along with the coffee-drinking majorities would be of no consequence. Inside, I felt equanimity. No matter how much they disliked me, they would have to acknowledge that I had hit the bull's-eye.

Dinner was served. I didn't participate in the banter, but, as no coffee was to be seen, I was willing to stay in the room, the black sheep. Every time I felt a stab of pain I remembered that at that very moment my strategy was driving the firm.

First we were served Beluga caviar in iced glass-and-silver bowls. Though it appeared to me that my portion was noticeably smaller than what had gone to the people around me, I did not object. And it hardly mattered that, while theirs was black, mine was red, because I think that in general caviar is vastly overrated. Then came the giant shrimp—eight inches long, a pound apiece, the prize of the Gulf fisheries, caught especially for the Stillman and Chase banquet and flown in by chartered plane. Mine, for some reason, were diminutive. They were also a different color, a dull pink instead of a briny paprika shade. I comforted myself with the thought that mine, being smaller, were likely to be more flavorful, but I began to feel rather uneasy. In fact, I felt incipient panic.

"I am happy to say," Mr. Edgar announced, with surprising alacrity for someone who hardly ever spoke, "that we are going to have steaks cooked exactly as they were recently cooked for me at the White House by my good friend, Dwight David Eisenhower."

Oohs
and
aahs
filled the room. How delightful! Though we understand now that fat is naughty, one of the wonders of the Pax Americana was meat, the prize for conquering the world. It was well known, at least among the business elite, that the president, who was, after all, a Kansan, had a favorite way of cooking steak. He would take a huge slab of the very finest aged beef, a cut that Stillman and Chase chefs had come to call the Eisenhower round, and toss it directly on a bed of clean hot coals. All the stuff that we currently feel should be purged was sealed in, and the meat was cooked as much by internal boiling as by direct heat. Even though I was getting a little tubby, I anticipated this course with great pleasure.

One after another, dangerously hot gold-rimmed plates were carried out by waiters wearing asbestos gloves (uh oh) and set before the appreciative diners. On each plate was a great slab of aromatic beef that sounded as it sizzled like the static on a
cheap shortwave set. I began to salivate as my turn came. The waiter, a Gypsy who could have been Gilbert Roland, set a rather plain piece of china, or maybe it was plastic, in front of me.

I blinked. I thought that perhaps I had drunk too much scotch. "Waiter," I asked, "what is this?"

"I believe it's a kosher turkey anus, sir," he said, almost fearfully, but at least he was telling the truth.

"It's not even cooked," I said.

"It's marinated, sir, in barbecue sauce."

"Wait a minute. I'm not kosher. I can eat the steak. Take it back and bring me the steak."

"I'm afraid all the steak is served, sir. Would you like me to bring you some American cheese? I can bring you the whole block."

"No! I want steak, just like everyone else has!"

I am afraid that, beneath my anger, my voice had a desperate, almost tearful quality. I looked over at Mr. Edgar, whose mouth was rolling around a giant hunk of meat. Once he had started, everyone else had begun to eat, and they all were humming with pleasure.

As I looked around, I saw that Dickey Piehand had his hand up the Bryn Mawr girl's dress, which was cut very low, and which made me reel with rejection and desire.

"Mr. Edgar," I said, laughing like an idiot. "Mr. Edgar. Look. They served me turkey anus in barbecue sauce!"

Mr. Edgar shrugged, as if to say,
So what?
Ever since my return from Rome, I had hated him more than anyone at the table could possibly have imagined, and I knew that, someday, I would kill him.

And then, as is often the case with those who suffer defeat, I participated in my own humiliation. In a wan, limp voice, I asked, "Would anyone like to trade some steak for a piece of kosher turkey anus?"

Of course, they all laughed. And that was just the beginning.

 

My demise was orchestrated with a brilliance that I recall with some fondness despite my distress at the time. I never discovered who was behind it, or if indeed it was a product of my own mental state and a series of harmless coincidences. But it couldn't have been. My devolution was too complex to have been coincidental.

I had had a Rembrandt in my office, on loan from the Edgar Wing of the Met. It was replaced, overnight, with a Dürer. That was all right: I think Dürer had, in many ways, a superior vision, though his craftsmanship, as great as it was, did not match that of the master. Within a week, however, it too was gone, replaced by a Monet. As far as I was concerned, if someone were trying to send a message to me, they were being incredibly subtle. In fact, they were. The next day, the Monet was gone and a Vuillard was in its place. Vuillard was not as well appreciated then as he has come to be, but I liked him very much. It was clear, however, that all was not well.

Soon the Vuillard was gone and in its place was a Bonnard. Then a Duffy (not a Dufy, a Duffy), then a Chamade, and, finally, after a few others that I could not recognize, a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge on a black velvet background. I demanded that this be removed from my office, and when I arrived the next day I found a cheap glass-and-fiberboard frame holding a black-and-white photograph of a dome-view railroad car clipped from an advertisement in
The Saturday Evening Post.
The edges were ragged.

Plants, too, headed down. I started with a fresh arrangement of my favorite flowers every day—at Stillman and Chase, each
senior partner had to fill out a questionnaire regarding his taste in flowers, wine, hors d'oeuvres, and desserts—and was then shifted to a very lovely geranium plant with twenty blooms.

This was removed before it wilted, and in its place appeared a foil-wrapped pot of daisies. I don't like daisies, I never did, but I longed for them after I received my container of moss. Even moss, however, is nicely scented and wonderfully green. After the moss came liverwort, which you can hardly tell is a plant, because it looks like rotting crepe paper.

Still, it was a plant, and, because I had decided not to show my wounded thumb, I kept my lips sealed, put my toe in the water, and bit my tongue. But one morning soon after, I walked into my office and saw the Bryn Mawr girl—a nice surprise—bent over a brass-plated tub. "Aren't these lovely?" she asked as she stepped aside so I could see.

I recoiled in horror. Indian pipes.

"What are they?" she asked. "I've never seen anything quite like them. How can plants be white?"

"Get a digging implement," I commanded.

"What's a digging implement?"

"A shovel."

"I don't have a shovel."

"Find
something,
" I told her.

She came back in a few minutes.

"What's that?"

"My coffee spoon."

"Boil it, please."

"Boil it?"

"Yes."

"It's clean."

"Please."

When she returned after boiling her spoon, I began to dig in the earth that filled the tub. "Indian pipes have no chlorophyll," I said numbly. "They draw their sustenance not from light but from death."

She made no reply except to scream and clutch her breast as I unearthed the head of a cat.

"What's that?!"

"It's a cat," I said, "after having been buried in moist earth for a month or two. Here's your spoon."

"I don't want it!"

"Why not?"

"How could I put that spoon in my coffee after it's touched the decomposing skull of a ... ooh!"

"I should think," I said, "that your coffee would be flattered."

She did not understand what I meant, and, believing that I had insulted her, ran from the room.

It was only then, perhaps because of the stress, that I first noticed that my desk and chair were shrinking. Every other day they grew smaller, until after a few months I sat with my knees pushed up against an elementary school desk with a heart carved around the inscription "Jimmy & Buffy."

No one would sit with me at lunch, perhaps because they did not like the smell of the cheap mackerel I was served day after day directly from the same fifteen-pound can, and I was never able to find a squash partner. Squash, mercifully, can be played alone. After the game, however, as I showered in a room with ten stations, the water at my position would suddenly be choked off. I would move from one faucet to another, but it never mattered how much I moved or how quickly, which is why I got used to putting on my clothes while I was still covered with soap. It's not so bad at first, but after a few hours the cloth gets glued to your skin, and you squeak when you walk.

All of this I found rather depressing. Still, I hung on in a fog of misery and self-doubt, even when they told me my office was going to be redone, and I was moved to a tiny cubicle without a window. The janitor, who was a nice fellow, asked if he could leave his mops and pail-on-wheels there. When I asked him why, he said that he had always done so.

At least I was able to look out on the open floor where I could see flowers and beautifully lit portraits. But then the fire marshall came by and requested that I keep my door closed. "All right," I said in a barely audible voice, and closed it.

Hard. Very hard. Alone in a broom closet, with a bare bulb hanging over my head and a tiny school desk jammed around my knees. The bulb must have been on a hidden rheostat. Day by day, it grew dimmer and dimmer, and I spent hours in the twilight of the gods before it went out completely.

The work that I strained to see had become a set of dullard exercises. In normal circumstances I might have been desperately reading everything I could get about, for example, Bolivia, monitoring radio broadcasts, talking to experts in and out of government and the universities, and, then, when I had been saturated with all I could find out, hiking around Lake Titicaca with a pack mule.

It had been nothing for me to fly to Tokyo, walk the mountains of Argentina, or sit for a week in a cheap hotel in Algiers, soaking up the minor evidences that are just as valuable as the grosser measures for deciding the balance of power in a country about to explode. Sometimes it was very exciting, sometimes even dangerous. In hostile states I was often mistaken for an American intelligence agent (I was, after all, doing exactly the same thing), and in friendly countries it was sometimes thought that I was planning a crime.

Now, in my dim and finally dark closet, my job was to assemble a dictionary of Tagalog financial terms. Where they did not exist, I was to make them up. For this I thought it was incumbent upon me to know at least a little of the language, and so, for several months before it went dark I squinted at a book of exercises, repeating them in my airless cubicle until I did not know if I were sane or insane, if it were night or if it were day. Many times I pushed open the door only to discover that it was midnight, or two or three in the morning, and that everyone had left long before. I had simply been unable to keep track of the hours, lost as I was in learning phrases such as,
Nagkakaubo ako
(I am having a cough),
Ang aso at pusa ay mga hayop
(The dog and the cat are animals),
Magtakip ka ng panyo sa mukha
(Cover your face with a handkerchief), and politically useful tools of analysis such as the Tagalog version of "Happy Birthday to You":