My Heart Laid Bare (28 page)

Negro?

As the flamboyant young man evidently spoke no English, his address to the gathering was unintelligible though rapid, charming, and assured. “Messyers ay madamez ici
I am!
Mon freres ay mon sewers voulezvou
thankyou
pour invitee me ici!” He interrupted his cascade of words with childlike giggles; his wide white teeth glared in the stage lights; his hand gestures were flamboyant. Clearly this Moroccan-born black possessed none of the wary, craven air of an American black, for he was of princely blood and not descended from slaves, and so possibly, just possibly, he might be excused for thinking so highly of himself. Yet his audience remained mute, mortified. Here and there one might have seen a face crinkled with repugnance or even revulsion; some were perplexed; others looked from young Jean to the prominently placed posters of their noble ancestor, and back again, taking note too of the dark-complected François-Leon Claudel, whose olive-dark complexion contrasted with his filmy pale hair and his unmistakably “white” manner.
What did such things mean?

With monkeyish high spirits young Jean began to jabber yet more excitedly in his native tongue, taking up an exotic musical instrument seemingly a cross between a tambourine and a drum and singing, as a beaming Claudel looked on, a ditty even those in the audience who might have known some French could not have grasped:

        
“Merdeyvous! Je hais
you
!

        
Tu hais
me
! Merdeyvee!

        
Ooolala! Ooolalee!

        
Merdeyblanc! Merdeynoir!

        
Thankyee vous! Thankyee
me
!

        
Blezzeygod
you
! Blezzeygod
me
!”

Following the young prince's performance, Lemuel Bunting, one of the Society's officers, rose to summarize the “salient points” of the session: the temporary suspension of the lawsuit in the Court of Paris; the temporary suspension of all investments until further notice—“That is to say, no more investing, and, of course, no withdrawals”; above all the need to maintain faith in the Society's aims—and to keep the sacred vow of secrecy.

By this time, however, virtually no one was listening. Many persons were streaming toward the doors, eager to escape; abashed, confused, somber, stricken; not wishing to look too closely at their neighbors, or to be seen by them. In this way, at about 9:20
P.M.
, what would be the final mass meeting of the Society for the Reclamation & Restoration of E. Auguste Napoléon Bonaparte came to an end.

“DELIGHTFUL, 'LISHA! YOU
outdid yourself tonight. And, if I dare to say so,
so did I.
”

In triumph, in the privacy of their suite in Philadelphia's most prestigious hotel, Abraham Licht proposed a champagne toast to his son; for Elisha had never performed before any audience so irresistibly, including, to Abraham's surprise and delight, the delicious opéra bouffe aria of his own improvisation. He'd deserved more applause than the fools had given him, Abraham said with a chuckle. “For, like any consummate player of The Game, you knew your audience; you plumbed the depths of their shallow racist souls.”

Elisha swallowed down his champagne thirstily, yet seemed to take little pleasure in it. He was missing Millie, perhaps: for her praise in his ears meant as much, if not more, than Abraham's. Yet there was something melancholy in his victory, and he found it hard to fall in with his father's celebratory mood. “Yes, Father,” he said, sighing, “I knew, I mean I know, the racist hearts of my countrymen well.”

CAUSING ABRAHAM TO
worry, in his bed that night, whether his most prodigiously gifted son wasn't becoming sensitive about exploiting his skin; as if, in his heart, 'Lisha had somehow believed himself
white
after all. “God help me if I meet resistance from 'Lisha, too,” Abraham tormented himself, “—for I am rapidly running out of sons.”

A
chronicle, pitiless and humbling, to be set down in further damning detail in Abraham Licht's memoir
My Heart Laid Bare
; but, here, in brief:

5 SEPTEMBER 1913
.
Abraham Licht discovers to his chagrin that approximately $3,500 in door receipts is missing, after the armory meeting, and that one of his accountants is missing as well.

6 September 1913.
Abraham Licht discovers in going over the books in his Broome Street headquarters (in truth, a single near-barren room over an Italian grocer's) that said “accountant” had very likely been embezzling funds since midsummer; and that even an approximation of the loss is impossible. Thousands of dollars, tens of thousands?

11 September 1913.
Sometime in the late afternoon a newly hired bookkeeper operating out of the Society's East Fourteenth Street office (a small utilitarian room above a dry goods store) makes the irrevocable error of sending a letter to a member of the Society in Corvsgate, Pennsylvania, not
by American Express messenger service, as Abraham Licht has decreed, but by way of the Post Office Department. (The slip for which postal inspectors have been waiting for months!—the business of this crucial letter being most damning when opened: for “Albert Armstrong” was behind by $200 in his dues and was being threatened with being dropped from the Society unless he paid within ten days.)

12 September 1913.
Warrants issued for the arrests of “François-Leon Claudel,” “Marcel Bramier,” “Lemuel Bunting” and other officers of the Society for the Reclamation & Restoration of E. Auguste Napoléon Bonaparte on several charges of mail fraud.

12 September 1913.
Six o'clock at the Broome Street headquarters where Abraham Licht, gloved, sits counting the receipts of the last several days and Elisha, with a mild headache, stands at a window gazing down into the street and sees, by chance, several grim gentlemen in ill-fitting jackets and neckties approaching, with an indefinable yet unmistakable look of being law enforcement officers.
Plainclothes federal agents bearing warrants to serve!
Never has Elisha been present at any “raid” and never has Elisha been interrogated by law enforcement officers, yet, by instinct, he knows; retreats from the window with the monkey-like alacrity of Jean Joliet Mazare Napoléon Bonaparte himself, and says calmly, “Father, excuse me. They are coming for us, I think.” With scarcely a moment's hesitation, Abraham Licht rises from his desk, sweeps the remainder of the money into the half-filled canvas sack, tells Elisha to lock the door and barricade it with the filing cabinet—“And make haste, son.” Within twenty seconds, before the federal agents are rapping at the door, Abraham and Elisha have stealthily escaped by way of a rear window; to avoid the likelihood of agents stationed below in the alley, they are making their swift but unhesitating way across adjacent roofs; at the end of the block, they descend a fire escape to the street. Panting as much with elation as exertion, Abraham Licht murmurs to Elisha, “Poor ‘François-Leon'! Not a very gracious exit.”

The canvas sack contains only $12,403 but of course there remain
millions of dollars secreted away elsewhere in several impregnable vaults on Wall Street.

1 OCTOBER 1913.
A gentleman by the name of Horace Brisbane, Esq., presents himself at Knickerbocker Trust, 99 Wall Street, with the intention of withdrawing $160,000 from his $780,000 account but is informed after an uneasy wait of twenty minutes that no one by the name of “Horace Brisbane” has an account at Knickerbocker Trust; nor do records show that Horace Brisbane has ever had an account there. Mr. Brisbane is dumbfounded. Mr. Brisbane is incredulous. Mr. Brisbane reels as if struck a blow to the head. Why, does no one recognize him? The senior officer with whom he has been doing business since last April, with such understanding? “It may be, sir,” Mr. Brisbane is coolly informed by a Knickerbocker vice president, “that your account is with one of our neighbors. You entered, you see, the wrong building.” Following this episode by less than a half hour, a gentleman by the name of Michael O'Toole presents himself at 106 Wall Street at American Savings & Trust, where, according to records, deposit slips, receipts and so forth he has an account of $829,033; yet is astonished to learn that he has no account at American Savings & Trust; nor do records show that “Michael O'Toole” has ever had an account there. “But this is—preposterous,” Mr. O'Toole says in a faint Irish brogue, bringing his fist down hard on a marble-topped desk, “—this is
criminal
!” A pause of several seconds; bemused glances between the bank officers; and the manager says, with a smile, that Mr. O'Toole might, then, if he wished, file a complaint with the proper authorities. “Our local Manhattan police might not be up to the effort, so you will want to involve the federal government, yes?”

So too at Lynch & Burr just across the street, a gentleman in a black homburg, one Horace Rodweller, is informed by the unctuous Lynch in person that no one at that establishment recognizes him—no one
has done business with him—he has no account—“Not for one million dollars, sir—not for one dollar”; and had better take himself up the block to Throckmorton & Co., for perhaps it was with these rivals he'd plied his vaporous trade. Mr. Rodweller stammers, “Why, I can't believe this! This is unheard of! Why, you are all—
criminals
!” Lynch says with a prim smile, “Why, then, you're well rid of us, Mr. Rodweller, yes?” Though guessing by now that the situation is hopeless, Mr. St. Goar, also in a black homburg, dares present himself at 3:20
P.M.
that day in the alabaster interior of Throckmorton & Co., the oldest and wealthiest of the Wall Street firms; only to be informed politely that his entire account of $1,374,662 is lost to him forever—$1,374,662 of his hard-earned fortune! Does the pale, perspiring, shaken St. Goar imagine it, or are numerous eyes fixed upon him?—young men lingering in doorways, craning their necks in his direction?—do even the file clerks and young women secretaries regard him with pitying smiles? None of the senior officers is present, for the hour is late, but the office manager meets with Mr. St. Goar to tell him in a tone of unfailing courtesy that not only does his account not exist as of 1 October 1913
but that he himself does not exist.
“For we have looked into it, Mr. St. Goar, and there is no such individual as you purport to be. How, then, can such an amount of money as you claim be in your ‘account'?”

1 October 1913. 5:25
P.M.
In their sumptuous ninth-floor suite at the Park Stuyvesant, speaking as calmly as possible, Abraham Licht informs Millicent and Elisha that the situation “has become somewhat precarious” and that it might be prudent for them to pack their bags as swiftly as possible, taking nothing but essentials and giving no hint to the hotel's sharp-eyed employees that they don't plan to return. (For the family in whose name the spacious suite is registered, the Fairbairns of Boston, haven't settled their bill for the past two weeks.) Though Millie may be frightened, it's in a teasing voice she says, “I hope, Father, we're not going to be arrested!” and Abraham Licht, a fine Cuban cigar clamped between his teeth, says, “Not at all, Millie—if we don't linger.”

I
s it true, Father, Little Moses asks, that the white folks is devils, and all of them enemies, or is some of them different, Father, like you? and Father sucks his mighty cigar (so strong the tears spring to Little Moses's eyes) and says, Why now look here boy:
I'm not white.

Not white? says Little Moses, blinking hard.

I may look white, and I may talk white, but I stand outside the white race just like you; and all of the Lichts stand outside the white race; because the white folks is devils, and all of them are our enemies, yes boy each and every one!—and if you don't know it at your age 'Lisha you'll surely know it soon.

But I'm not white? says Little Moses, blinking hard.

No boy you are not.

And you're not . . . white.

No boy I am not.

But you're not black.

Not to look at, am I boy! says Father, laughing and expelling a big mouthful of smoke; and glancing about as if there is (but there is not) a third party observing.

But am I black? says Little Moses, frightened.

Now 'Lisha it's true you
look
black, says Father, but you know that's a necessary part of The Game.

. . . a necessary part of . . . ?

. . . a necessary part of The Game.

Little Moses blinks hard to keep the tears from stinging but the tears sting just the same and run down his cheeks, and he hears himself say, But what is The Game, Father, and Father says expelling another mouthful of smoke, 'Lisha, The Game is what I say it is, and Little Moses says, crying, But how do I know, Father? and Father says, losing patience, You know what I
tell
you, boy, and beyond that you don't need to know: now go to sleep!—as Father has an engagement elsewhere.

. . . with loathing, such loathing.

. . . with revulsion: I could see it in their faces.

. . . (
their
faces! so ugly! so ignoble!)

. . . But is Jean not handsome? is Jean not of noble blood? . . . a brave fine figure, a gentleman of style, humor, wit, sardonic charm, French to the very tips of his fingers, opéra bouffe as Father has said: and what genius!

. . . (
their
faces!
white
faces! how dare they!)

. . . yet, with loathing. Sickened loathing. Not even hatred but loathing. For one of what they call
black blood.

. . . Yet Elisha is not black, and there's his genius! So Father has decreed. Which is to say: he tricks the eye like a magician: his
inner being
gloats at the confusion generated by his
outer being.

. . . And Millie who adores him and will soon be his wife, Millie laughs and laughs at such trickery, for in Love there is neither black nor white, in such secret love, such tenderness, there is only Love, and nothing to arouse loathing and revulsion and sickness, Why there is only Love! and Millie and Elisha will soon be wed.

. . . (yet, such loathing. I could see it in their faces.)

. . . (
their
faces!
white
faces! I could kill them all.)

Elisha will tell Abraham Licht their secret, at last.

Because it is time.

Because it is well past the time.

Because they are now lovers: husband and wife in the flesh, at last.

BECAUSE, SINCE EARLY
September, since the night of the armory, 'Lisha has needed comforting. 'Lisha has needed love, and 'Lisha has demanded love, and 'Lisha has frightened Millicent with his anger and his wild laughter and his lust.

For lust too is Love: and no longer to be denied.

“AND NOW DO
you love
me
?” Millicent whispered, her lovely eyes bright with tears; and Elisha's heart swelled with pride as he answered, “Yes.”

THE LICHTS—FATHER, ELISHA,
Millicent—have retreated again to Muirkirk because they are poor; but from Muirkirk Millicent will be going to Rhinebeck, on the Hudson, to stay at the country home of the wealthy Fitzmaurices, as, at Miss Thayer's Academy for Young Christian Ladies, she became acquainted with sweet little Daisy Fitzmaurice, sweet little plain little not-entirely-bright Daisy Fitzmaurice, the wealthiest girl in their class. And Daisy adores her beautiful Millicent, as everyone does. And Daisy is eager to invite Millicent to the Fitzmaurices' country place, where it is “pretty,” where they can go for boat rides on the river. And Daisy is eager to introduce Millicent to her family. Including of course (of
course
, says Elisha through his teeth), her handsome older brother who's a West Point cadet, her handsome cousins, all the family—for Mrs. Fitzmaurice
has met Millicent and been charmed by that gracious young lady, as everyone is.

And Father urges, “Yes. Indeed.”

And Father urges, “Indeed, Millie. Stay as long as the Fitzmaurices will have you.”

And Father promises to come visit the Rhinebeck estate—“To see, you know, what's there to be seen. And to be done.”

For it's no secret that the Lichts are, this autumn, down on their luck—though Abraham Licht scorns to believe in luck. And since the debacle of the Emanuel Auguste project,
hors de combat
as well—though Abraham Licht has never been out of combat for long, even when wanted by federal agents. But there's no denying that they are poor again, their fortune vanished into the vaults of Wall Street
as if it had never been.
(“Perhaps that is the essence of money,” Abraham has mused, “—that it isn't ‘real'; no more ‘real' in possession than in dispossession. Like the vaporous human soul.”) And now the fortune must be replenished; and Mina Raumlicht or Lizzie St. Goar or one of their pretty sisters hopes she will be allowed to help replenish it.

“Only instruct me, Father,” Millie pleads, lifting her lovely heart-shaped face to his, “—and I will do it.”

ELISHA HAS BECOME
unreasonable: he doesn't want Millie to go to Rhinebeck because Millie is
his.

(And because, though he doesn't tell Millie this, he's smarting still from the waves of . . . physical revulsion? . . . moral repugnance? . . . that washed over him from that crowd of . . . white faces in the Philadelphia armory.)

“But, 'Lisha, why do you care so much?” Millicent asks, startled by her lover's mood, “—what have such people to do with
us
?” She's genuinely
baffled; Elisha knows she's correct; yearns to believe she's correct; yet finds himself reacting emotionally, turning roughly away despite Millie's stealthy little kiss on the side of his neck. Now that they're lovers, now since returning to Muirkirk and the enforced intimacy of family life in this remote rural place, at the edge of a marsh, in a region of steep hills, dreamy mountains and stark rushing wailing winds—now, it seems, their feeling for each other is mercurial and unpredictable as flame. Now edging in one direction, now in another. Dangerous. Treacherous.

“'Lisha, darling—don't you love me?”

“Millie, the question is, don't you love
me
?”

“But why is it more urgent that I love you, than that you love
me
?”

“Because I can trust myself, Millie, but not
you.
”

“Yet can I trust
you
?”

“If you loved me, Millie, yes.”

“But if you loved
me
—?”

Elisha begins to shout suddenly, “What value am I, loving
you
, if I'm not made worthy by your loving
me
; if I'm deceived, like every other ‘admirer' of yours, by
you
!” And moves to exit, with the indignant aplomb of, say, the long-lost heir of E. Auguste Napoléon Bonaparte.

Millie cries after him, “As if everyone isn't deceived by
you
, including, I see now,
me. I never did love you!
”

Elisha leans back into the room, uttering a percussive exit-line,
“Then you were never deceived, girl! Were you!”

“YET ARE WE
really poor?”—Elisha ponders.

Even as Father's bookkeeper, Elisha isn't entirely informed of Abraham Licht's various bank accounts. And the contents of his safe here in Muirkirk. And the $12,403 in the burlap sack turned out to be almost $20,000 when carefully counted.

And the elegant Willys-Overland automobile with the green plush
cushions and spoked wheels and brass fixtures and white kidskin convertible top: does that appear to be the purchase (made in haste in the Lichts' flight from Manhattan) of a desperately impoverished man?

And there are, Elisha stubbornly believes, “treasures” in the old church. Antiques that might be sold, heirloom jewelry and objets d'art that could fetch high prices in a Manhattan auction house, surely. And Elisha has reason to believe that Father is in communication with Harwood at long last, and that there may be a gold-mining project about which he and Millie know nothing.

So Elisha confides in Millie, once they've made up their quarrel. (How many times since returning to Muirkirk have they quarreled, and made up; made up, and quarreled!—sometimes having forgotten, in the midst of a quick, stolen kiss, whether they're officially angry at each other.) So Elisha casts doubt upon Abraham Licht's proposal for Millie to go to Rhinebeck; if they aren't truly poor, if Father is exaggerating their plight as he often does. “But, 'Lisha, if Father wants me to go,” Millie says, sighing, “I don't see that I have much choice.” And Elisha says, kissing her forehead, “We must stand up to him. For I don't wish you to go, because I love you and because
you are mine.
”

The implication being clearly
Mine, and not his.

At once Millie says, “Then—you must tell Father about us.”

“Yes,” says Elisha at once. “Yes. I will.”

“Tonight.”

“Yes. Tonight.”

“ . . . No later than tomorrow,” says Millie. “Because he is going away tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is too late,” says Elisha.

“But tonight is too soon.”

“Tonight
is
too soon,” says Elisha, his voice rising in despair, “—but tomorrow is too late.”

So they quarrel, they are quarreling again, Esther will hear them, Katrina
has already heard them, what if Father hears them?—they must run away into the woods to hide, to kiss, to embrace, to weep together, because they are wretched with love, and ecstatic with love, and Millie accuses Elisha of not truly loving her because he is afraid of Father; and Elisha accuses Millie of not truly loving him because she is afraid of Father. And it is a certainty that by now Katrina knows.

“But will Katrina tell?” Elisha asks in a frightened whisper.

“Katrina will never tell—never!” Millie says. “She would not dare.”

Are they quarreling, or are they kissing, hand in hand they're laughing breathlessly when Esther steals up behind them, sweet lonely Esther who adores them, Esther who exasperates them, Esther who's so easily wounded—for why do Millie and 'Lisha draw stiffly apart when she joins them, with the childlike need to press into their embrace, and be kissed, too! And afterward Millie pleads with Elisha to tell Father soon. “If not tonight, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, the day after tomorrow.”

Says Elisha in a brave, defiant voice, “Yes! I will.”

MILLIE IS SO
lovely, and Millie is
his
, yet there's terror in his happiness, for he cannot trust her, he cannot trust himself with her, this beautiful sister of his, a sister of the soul if not of blood, Millie with her fair, smooth skin, camellia-skin, so pale, so unlike his own, and her hair so fair and wavy worn in a soft roll, elegantly parted in the center of her head; her small ears covered with a look of girlish modesty; one might say chastity; and a cluster of “kiss-curls” at the nape of her neck. No longer enrolled in Miss Thayer's, Millie need not endure the spinster-teachers' sharp eyes, need not truss herself up in a corset for it is 1913 and not, as she says, 1813, and she will dress, she says, as
she
pleases. Her pretty skirts fall barely to the ankle in the latest style, her shoes are saucily open, often she neglects to tie on a hat, or to adjust her diaphanous veil, except when the sun is very hot and very direct. (For Millie isn't so foolish as to risk her precious complexion
for the sake of a rebellious whim.) Millie is so lovely that, thrown together here in Muirkirk in a way they weren't thrown together in Manhattan, Elisha finds himself thinking of her constantly; his head rings with thoughts of her, of her and of
him
; and are they sinful (but Father has taught there is no sin) and are they wrong (but Father has taught it's only mere human prejudice that yields wrong and right) and have they made a terrible mistake, surrendering their virginity to each other like man and wife (but what an unspeakably sweet mistake!); and will Father be angry?

And will Father punish?

It was after returning to Muirkirk that they became lovers—by accident, thinks Millie tenderly; by design, Elisha knows. (For only Millie's love can combat that armory of faces, staring white faces, loathsome white faces, nothing but Millie's kisses, and Millie's slender warm body, and Millie's short fierce sobbing cries, in which, even now, Elisha does not dare believe.) “But I
want
you to be my husband!” Millie said, reckless, laughing, when he hesitated, “—I
want
to be your wife!—then there will be no going back.” He understood that she was in terror of her life as he was in terror of his, yet now there
was
no going back, they were wed to each other forever, no matter how the armory of strangers gaped and stared in revulsion.

Afterward Millie wiped her eyes on the rumpled sleeve of her yellow-checked frock; secured the swelling roll of her hair with a tortoiseshell comb; and said, in a small sober voice, not quite meeting her lover's eye, “Now you must tell him, Elisha, and he will be happy for us.” And Elisha, staring at her, said slowly, “I don't think that is possible . . . but I will tell him.”