The Dream Merchants (56 page)

“It’ll go nice with yo’ red and blue tie an’ brown shoes, Mistuh Johnny,” he assured me earnestly.

I took a deep breath. “Sure, Christopher,” I said. “Anything you say.”

I went into the bathroom and shaved while the hot water ran into the tub. Then I got into the tub and leaned back in the water. It was hot and I could feel its warmth seeping through my body, soothing my jumping nerves. Soon I was relaxed, almost drowsy.

Christopher came into the room and looked down at me. “Ready to get out now, Mistuh John?”

I nodded my head.

He reached out a hand and helped me up. I placed both hands on the parallel bars next to the tub and swung myself out. He covered me with a bath towel and rubbed me dry. My skin was pink and tingling when he got through. I grinned at him. My headache was all gone.

I got to Peter’s house a little after three. It was one of those unusually warm days that spring often brings to California and I wiped my face with a handkerchief as I walked up the front steps. Doris’s voice called to me from the pool. I turned around.

She was just coming out of the water, little drops were clinging iridescently to her black bathing suit, shooting sparkles of sunlight into the air around her like tiny diamonds. She took off her bathing cap and shook her hair free. “It looked so inviting,” she said as I approached her, “I just couldn’t resist taking a dip.”

She held up her face as I kissed her. We began to walk back toward the house and she slipped a terry-cloth robe around her shoulders as we walked.

“How’s Peter?” I asked.

She turned a smiling face to me. “He seems much better today,” she answered happily. “He’s sitting up in bed and is acting more like himself. He asked if you were coming over. He wants to see you.”

“I’m glad,” I said simply.

We entered the house through the finished basement and walked on up the stairs. We stopped in front of his door.

“You go on in and talk to him,” she told me. “I’ll slip on some clothes and join you in a little while.”

“Okay,” I said. I looked at her. “Is Mother around?”

“She’s taking a nap,” she answered over her shoulder as she walked away.

I opened the door and walked into his room. He looked up and smiled at me as I came in. The trade papers were spread all over the bed in front of him and I knew that he was aware of everything that had been going on the last few days. The nurse was sitting in a chair near the window reading. She got to her feet.

“Don’t tire him too much, Mr. Edge,” she admonished me and then she turned and left the room.

Peter smiled again and reached out a hand as I reached the bed. I took it. There was a warmth and strength in his grip that had been lacking the day before. “How’re yuh doin’?” I asked looking down at him.

“All right,” he said ruefully. “I want to get out of bed, but they won’t let me.”

I smiled as I sat down in a chair next to the bed. “Don’t be a
shtarker
,” I said. “Just do what they tell yuh and you’ll be okay.”

He laughed at my pronunciation of the Yiddish word meaning strong man. “They think I’m a baby,” he protested.

“You were a pretty sick man,” I told him, “so don’t try to rush things.”

He looked down at the bed for a moment, then back up at me. A serious look had come on his face. For the first time he spoke about Mark. “I was paying for my mistakes,” he said. “I should never have treated the boy like that.”

“Don’t reproach yourself,” I said slowly. “It wasn’t a question of making a mistake. No one could tell you whether you did right or wrong. It wasn’t even that. You did what you felt you had to.”

He shook his head. “I should have known better.”

“Forget it,” I said sternly. “It’s over and done with and you can’t turn back the clock.”

“No.” He echoed my words hollowly: “You can’t turn back the clock.” His hand played with the sheet for a few seconds. I could see the blue veins on the back of them. He looked over at me. His eyes were moisture-bright. “I know he was a spoiled and selfish kid,” he said. “But it was my fault he was that way. I gave in to him too much. I always let him have his own way, thinking he was young yet, there was time enough tomorrow for him to change. But tomorrow never came.”

He looked down at the sheets clutched in his hand. I could see the tears rolling silently down his cheeks. I didn’t speak; there was nothing I could say.

He lifted his head and wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. “I’m not crying so much for him,” he said brokenly, trying to explain away his tears. “It’s for myself. I was such a fool, I never gave him time to prove himself. He was my son, my own flesh and blood, and I cast him out in my wicked rage and anger. It was I who was really selfish; if I hadn’t been so crazy I would have stopped to think.” He took a deep breath. “He was my only son, and I loved him.”

We were silent a moment, then I reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder. “I know, Peter,” I said quietly. “I know.”

I could hear the clock on the night table ticking away as we sat there without talking. At last Peter stirred and turned to me again. I could see the tears were gone.

“They’re after you now,” he said tonelessly, his hands waving at the copy of today’s
Reporter
lying in front of him.

I nodded silently.

He looked at me closely. “How do you think you’ll make out?”

I shrugged my shoulders casually. I didn’t want him to see how concerned I really was. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “I honestly don’t know. They got all the money.”

He nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, that’s it,” he said slowly. “They got all the money.” He looked at me frankly. “I was wrong, you know. That’s what it really was all the time. You were right when you said it wasn’t anti-Semitism and this only goes to prove it.”

I was curious. “What do you mean?”

A peculiar look came over his face, a strange mixture of sympathy and sorrow. “If it were anti-Semitism they wouldn’t be trying to bring Farber and Roth in, over your head. They’re Jewish and you’re not.”

I hadn’t thought about that. He was right. I didn’t answer, but inside me there was a strange sort of gladness that at last he could see the way things really were.

“What are you going to do?” he asked after a little pause.

I rubbed my hands wearily across my forehead. I was beginning to get tired. The restless night I had spent was beginning to catch up with me. “I haven’t made up my mind yet,” I answered. “I don’t know whether to stay until I’m forced out or quit now.”

“You don’t want to quit, do you?” he asked.

I looked at him and shook my head.

“No, you wouldn’t,” he continued thoughtfully. “I didn’t think you would. We’ve spent too much time there, you and I. Put too much into it to ever want to leave it. It has become a secret part of us, part of our souls perhaps. You feel now as I did when I had to sell out. I’ve felt sort of empty ever since.”

We were silent, again, each with his own thoughts, until Doris came into the room. Her face was bright and scrubbed and smiling, her dress crinkled as she walked toward us. The clean refreshing scent of pine came to my nostrils as she stood by my side and looked down at the bed. “Your bed’s a mess, Papa,” she exclaimed.

He smiled up at her as she picked up the papers and put them in a neat little stack on the night table. She turned back to the bed and straightened up the sheets and fluffed up the pillows behind him. Her face was flushed as she straightened up and looked at him. “There,” she said. “Isn’t that better?”

He nodded his head, then looked at her questioningly. “Mamma is still sleeping?” he asked.

“Yes,” Doris answered, coming around the bed and sitting down next to me. “She’s so tired. She hasn’t had a good night’s rest since you were sick.”

Peter looked at her. There was a warm light in his eyes; his voice was very soft and gentle. “A wonderful woman, your mother,” he said quietly. “You can’t know how wonderful. I couldn’t get along without her.”

Doris didn’t answer, but I could tell from the look on her face that she was very proud. She turned to me. “Have you had lunch yet?”

“I ate before I got here,” I replied.

“You didn’t hear me, maybe,” Peter persisted. “I said your mother is a wonderful person.”

She smiled at him. “I’m not arguing with you.” She laughed, “I think you’re both wonderful people.”

Peter turned to me. “I been thinking,” he said. “If it’s a question of money, maybe Santos could help you.”

For a moment I was puzzled. “But Al has retired,” I protested. “Besides, what could he do anyway? They get all their money from the Boston banks.”

“The loan must be due now,” he said. “It’s almost two years old. What if they can’t get an extension? They got enough money to retire it?”

I looked at him respectfully. There was always some way in which he would surprise me. Generally when I thought him far away from something and out of touch with it, he would pop up with some remark or question that made me realize he had been watching the situation very closely. This was one of those times. “No, we haven’t the money to repay it,” I answered slowly. “But it doesn’t make much difference. We started negotiations for an extension last month and Konstantinov assured us we would get it without trouble.” Konstantinov was president of the Greater Boston Investment Corporation, from whom Ronsen had borrowed the money to buy Peter out. The loan was subsequently transferred to the picture company.

“It wouldn’t hurt to talk to Al anyway,” Peter insisted peculiarly. “Four million dollars is a lot of money and anything can happen when there’s that much involved. Why don’t you run over and see him just in case?”

“Do you know something?” I asked him. It seemed to me that he had a reason for his peculiar insistence.

He shook his head. “No, I just think you should not overlook anything. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

I looked at my watch. It was past four o’clock. I don’t know why, but suddenly I could feel a surge of hope and confidence sweep through me. Al had retired to a ranch out in the valley about three hundred and fifty miles from Los Angeles. It would take about six hours to get out there and that would be too late. Al went to bed at eight o’clock. I looked up at Peter. “Maybe you’re right,” I said suddenly, “but it’s too late for today.”

“Why don’t you spend the night here?” Doris volunteered, “and I’ll drive you out tomorrow. That way we can get off to an early start.”

I looked at her and smiled. Peter answered for me. “A good idea,” he said quickly.

I laughed aloud for the first time since last night. “Well, it seems to be settled,” I said.

Peter looked at me. “Of course it’s settled.” He turned back to Doris with a funny smile on his face. “
Liebe kind,
” he said, “would you do your old papa a favor and bring up the chessboard from the game room?”

He was feeling better all right. I lost two games before the nurse came back and chased Doris and me out of the room and we went down to supper.

THIRTY YEARS

1936

1

Johnny picked up the letter from his desk and looked at it. There was a grimace of distaste on his face as he read it. This part of his job he didn’t like, writing letters like this one.

Another pay cut. Ten percent this time for the whole company. The third since ’32. Angrily he pressed the buzzer for Jane to come into his office.

She stood in front of him silently, her face grave.

“Send it out on Friday,” he said, giving it to her.

She took it from him without a word and left the office. He turned his chair to the window and stared out of it unseeingly. The futility of the letter ran through him.

Pay cuts weren’t the answer, they never were. Friday, when a copy of the letter would be placed on each employee’s desk, faces would grow longer, more worried. They would talk quietly to one another or not speak at all. Each would be trying to figure out how he could exist with this new burden. But few would dare to complain, jobs were too scarce. They would pass him silently in the hall and their eyes would stare at him resentfully and accusingly. They would blame him and Peter for it. Maybe they were right.

They couldn’t know that Peter and he had not taken any salary from the company for almost three and a half years now. They couldn’t know that Peter had put back almost three million dollars into the company to keep it going. That it was all the money that Peter had.

Yet, in spite of it, maybe they were right. Certainly Peter and he had not acted from altruistic motives entirely. They were trying to save their own necks. Several of the other picture companies had already filed petitions in bankruptcy, and Peter had sworn that he would never do that.

Whom were they to blame if not Peter and himself? he asked himself accusingly. Certainly the average employee had not made the mistakes that were responsible for the company’s predicament. The mistakes were their own, he told himself, going over them in his mind, Peter’s and his. He had made his share of them too.

So what if Peter had guessed wrong about sound pictures? He himself had guessed wrong about what type of sound-recording methods they should use. He remembered his insistence on using sound on disks instead of on the film itself. Look at the phonograph, he had said, it was the only proved method of reproducing sound, you couldn’t go wrong with it. But they had.

The disks were cumbersome to transport; they broke easily, were too difficult to synchronize with the film. It cost almost a million dollars to replace the equipment they had bought when they had to switch to sound on film.

Since that time he had kept his hands off production. Peter had been angry, but he had to admit that Peter had enough reason. A million dollars’ worth of reason. He would have felt the same way if he had been in Peter’s place. Peter had been in charge of production, not he, and Peter had paid for the mistake.

There were other mistakes too, but what was the use of rehashing them? They proved nothing except that Peter and he were human and couldn’t bat a thousand. But most of all it was the pictures.

If the pictures had been good, they would have been all right no matter what had happened. The pictures were bad. It was almost as simple as that. Peter never caught on to the technique and use of sound in pictures.