The Gift of Asher Lev

  “Who knows? Maybe there’s a plan.”

  “When I found out what happened to my father, I didn’t think I wanted to live. When Max’s mother told me my mother was also gone, I knew I didn’t want to live. Living with Max’s parents, going to the high school and then the Sorbonne, and then writing for the magazine—all that time, I didn’t really want to live. When I met you I began to think there might be a plan. A person has to have a reason for living, and the best reason is another person. Together they can make a plan for their lives. What if we’re carrying out a plan God has made? Do you understand me, my husband?”

  I held her and felt her trembling and after a while she fell into an uneasy sleep. Lying awake and listening to her breathing, I tried to imagine her two years in that apartment and could not. From beyond the terrace door I thought I heard the sounds of mocking laughter and feet shuffling toward the tangled darkness of the sycamore.

  In the synagogue two mornings later, Cousin Yonkel looked more dour than usual. From time to time I caught him glancing at me and thought I saw on his sallow features a burning rage odd even for him. I went over to him after the service and asked how things were, and he muttered something about “trouble with those disgusting idolatrous abominations” and stalked off. Cousin Nahum, looking embarrassed, murmured, “Good morning, Asher,” and hurried away.

  The parkway had little traffic. There were tiny leaves on the trees, fragile against the blue sky. On the way back to the house with my father, we stopped to pick up the Sunday Times. The front page was full of the raucous maneuverings of the American presidential campaign. France would soon be going through a national election. The powerful French right-wing nationalist party frightened Max with its racist rhetoric. Everywhere, disturbances in the ground of being. And here, among the Ladover of Brooklyn, in the heart of the Ladover world, the Rebbe was eighty-nine years old—and no one talked openly of succession, not a mention of it, not a word. Without a doubt the redemption would come first. But what if … ? Not a word.

  Walking back to the house, my father told me he needed to be in Paris at the end of June on a mission for the Rebbe, and how nice it would be if we could go over together. I said the end of June was weeks away and we would probably be returning to Saint-Paul around the beginning of next week. He said, without looking at me, “All of you?”

  “Of course.”

  “As you wish, Asher.”

  Later that morning, on her way out of the house to the university, my mother knocked on the door to the guest room, where I was sitting at the desk, staring blankly at my drawing pad. She stood in the doorway, looking lovely in a dark-blue suit and a creamy white blouse, an attaché case in her hand. My father had gone to his office, and Devorah was out somewhere, shopping.

  “Can I interrupt you for a moment, my son?”

  I told her she wasn’t interrupting; I wasn’t really doing anything.

  “Your father tells me you are thinking of leaving soon.”

  “Devorah said she would talk to you about it.”

  “Doesn’t it make sense for the children to finish the school term here? It is only a few more weeks.”

  “Devorah and I have to get back. We’ve got our work.”

  “I don’t understand, Asher. You cannot do your work here? Devorah says she writes very well here. Do you need a studio? Can’t you talk with Douglas Schaeffer about studio space in Manhattan? Or, if you wish, we can easily rent something for you in the neighborhood that you can use as a studio.” She came into the room. Her face was flushed, and her brown eyes shone strangely; there were touches of high color on the planes of her cheekbones. “Perhaps the children can go to our summer camp,” she said.

  I stared at her.

  “Do you have a summer camp for the children in Saint-Paul?”

  “No.”

  “What do the children do all summer?”

  “There are things to do. They swim in Max’s pool.”

  “The children would love our summer camp. Think about it, Asher. Talk to Devorah.”

  She went up the hallway. I heard the front door close. I sat at the desk, staring at the empty page of the pad.

  Devorah came home a while later, laden with packages. I followed her into the kitchen. She said my mother’s suggestion was something to consider seriously. First we would talk to the children, she said. If they liked the idea, then we would decide one way or the other.

  “Can Rocheleh go to summer camp?”

  “I don’t know.” She was emptying the bags and putting food into cabinets and the refrigerator. “I will call your parents’ doctor and ask him.”

  “Is there summer camp for five-year-olds?”

  There was a Ladover day camp, she said. She had seen it advertised in the school.

  “I’ve got to get back home, Dev. I’ve got work to do.”

  “This can be a very good experience for the children, Asher. There are not many children their age they can play with during the summer. And August is impossible with all the tourists in Nice and Saint-Paul. You don’t really see it; you’re in your studio all the time. This might be a blessing for the children.”

  “I promised Max I would work with him in Paris.”

  “You can go to Paris. What is preventing you from going to Paris?”

  “Where will you be?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t we talk to the children first? We can’t know anything until we talk to the children.”

  We ate lunch and afterward I went over to my uncle’s house. Aunt Leah opened the front door. She wore an uncharacteristically disheveled look: the light-blue housedress she had on seemed lumpy, and her wig was awry. A strange coldness invaded her eyes when she saw me.

  “What is it you want, Asher?”

  I asked her if I could spend time with the art collection.

  “Not today,” she said.

  “I won’t be in anyone’s way.”

  “Now is a bad time, Asher.”

  “I’ll come a little later, then.”

  “All today will be a bad day.”

  “Are you feeling all right, Aunt Leah?”

  “How can you ask if I’m feeling all right? My husband is dead, and he left me heartache. How can I be feeling all right? Please excuse me, Asher. I must go upstairs and lie down.”

  I returned to my parents’ house and spent the afternoon in the living room, alternating between staring out at the lawn and reading Rilke’s Letters on Cézanne. A passage reached toward me from the pages:

  With regard to his work habits, he claimed to have lived as a Bohemian until his fortieth year. Only then, through his acquaintance with Pissarro, did he develop a taste for work. But then to such an extent that for the next forty years he did nothing but work. Actually without joy, it seems, in a constant rage, in conflict with every single one of his paintings …

  I thought I heard a soft, distant whistling and looked up and saw no one. I went on reading:

  … old, sick, exhausted every evening to the edge of collapse by the regular course of the day’s work (often he would go to bed at six, before dark, after a senselessly ingested meal), angry, mistrustful, ridiculed and mocked and mistreated each time he went to his studio—but celebrating Sunday, attending Mass and Vespers as he had in his childhood …

  I closed my eyes. A bird trilled softly from deep within the sycamore, then was silent. The book felt strangely insubstantial, as if it would float away. I held it tightly and opened my eyes.

  … there was a conflict, a mutual struggle between the two procedures of, first, looking and confidently receiving, and then of appropriating and making personal use of what has been received; that the two, perhaps as a result of becoming conscious, would immediately start opposing each other, talking out loud, as it were, and go on perpetually interrupting and contradicting each other. And the old man endured their discord, ran back and forth in his studio … with green apples scattered about, or went into his garden in despair and sat. And before him lay the s
mall town, unsuspecting, with its cathedral; a town for decent and modest burghers….

  Looking and receiving … appropriating and making personal use of … and before him lay the small town, unsuspecting …

  Around the supper table Devorah talked to the children about the summer. Avrumel didn’t know what day camp was and, when told, informed Shimshon that he wanted to go home for the summer and be with Uncle Max and swim in his pool. Rocheleh seemed frightened at the prospect of spending the summer away from us: what would happen if she had an attack? Both children said they wouldn’t mind staying here at Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s house and finishing the school term in the yeshiva in Brooklyn.

  “We have not decided anything yet,” Devorah said to them.

  “We will think about it.”

  “At least stay until the summer,” my mother said.

  “If we stay, I can be in the school play,” Rocheleh said. “My teacher asked me to take a big part. It’s about Devorah the prophetess.

  “Your father and I will discuss it,” Devorah said.

  In the synagogue that evening, Cousin Yonkel kept throwing me raging glances.

  “What’s wrong with your brother?” I asked Cousin Nahum. “He’s looking at me as if I’ve done him harm.”

  “Ask my brother,” Cousin Nahum said with a strange edge to his voice, and walked away.

  “What’s happening with my cousins?” I asked my father on the way home. “Suddenly they seem to have become my enemies.”

  He shrugged and did not respond.

  I was alone in the house the next morning when the phone rang. The sound resonated shrilly throughout the empty rooms. The phone was on a stand in the hallway between the kitchen and the living room. I let it ring for a moment, then put down my drawing pad and went to it. The receiver felt oddly cold in my hand.

  I heard a woman’s voice. The voice said this was Alice Tomley of the law firm of Saperstein, Schneerson, O’Connor, and Diamond. She was calling for Mr. Diamond and wished to speak to Mr. Asher Lev.

  “I’m Asher Lev.”

  Would I wait just one moment while she put Mr. Diamond on the line?

  I waited. That voice on the phone. Eighteen years ago. Some things are never forgotten. Like Rocheleh’s face on the night of her first attack: rigid with terror, white as death. Like the Sunday the Spaniard died. The king is dead, long live the king. The Rebbe, too, is a king. That voice. The Angel of Death. Muffled. Sibilant. The sounds drawn out. A little like the sounds one of my teachers used to make scraping chalk along a blackboard. Who erased the drawings from the blackboard in Miss Sullivan’s room? I should not have drawn the face of the Rebbe. Why did I do that? And Avrumel’s face as the face of Isaac. Why?

  “Mr. Lev?” The man’s voice was clear, deep.

  “Yes.”

  “Asher Lev?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Moshe Diamond. Are you the nephew of the late Mr. Isaac Lev?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Lev, our law firm drew up your late uncle’s last will and testament. I am calling to inform you that according to the terms of the will, you have been named the trustee of your late uncle’s art collection.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Your uncle has made you the trustee of his art collection. There are some stipulations that will have to be met. But you have been given very broad discretionary powers over the entire collection.”

  “What stipulations?”

  “Mr. Lev, the details of this matter are best not discussed over the phone. A letter outlining the terms of the will insofar as the art collection is concerned will go out to you tomorrow. If you have any questions, please feel free to call me. It would be best for all concerned if you could come to our offices in a week or so to sign documents, though we could mail them to you if you are out of the country. I understand you live in France.”

  “Yes.”

  “When are you returning?”

  “We’re not sure yet.”

  “Well, as I said, it would be helpful if you could come over to the office in a week or so. I’ll have my secretary get in touch with you as soon as we have all the necessary papers drawn up.”

  “Thank you.”

  “By the way, Mr. Lev, I am a great admirer of your work and own two of your paintings, the Israeli soldier standing guard on the Temple Mount and the one that shows an old man putting up a mezuzah. It’s good to talk to you. Goodbye.”

  He hung up.

  I put the receiver down and stood there, staring at the phone and feeling the trembling of my hands. After some moments, I lifted the receiver and tapped in a number. A woman’s voice answered.

  “Schaeffer Galleries.”

  “This is Asher Lev for Mr. Schaeffer.”

  “One moment, please, Mr. Lev.”

  There was a very brief pause.

  “Hello, dear boy. How is the weather?”

  “The weather in Brooklyn isn’t bad, all things considered.”

  “My dear fellow, are you still in Brooklyn? Have they made you a prisoner?”

  “Doug, I need some advice.”

  I told him about the call from the lawyer. He let me go on without interruption. When I was done, there was a long silence. “Doug?”

  “I am here, dear boy.”

  “What exactly does it mean?”

  “I think, Ash, it means that you can do nearly any damn thing you wish with your late uncle’s art collection.”

  “He said there were stipulations.”

  “Did he tell you what they were?”

  “No. He said there was a letter coming and he would like to see me in his office to sign some papers.”

  “Ash, take my advice and do nothing, say nothing, sign nothing. I will immediately call my lawyer and ask him how you ought to proceed. Trustee over that entire art collection, you say? Astonishing. Give me the name and phone number of the lawyer who called you.”

  “His name is Moshe Diamond. I don’t have his number.”

  “Give me the name of the law firm. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes.” I told him.

  “We will let the lawyers talk to each other. They are splendid at that. He gave you no indication at all concerning the stipulations?”

  “No.”

  “I will call you first chance I have. Goodbye, dear boy. Astonishing news.”

  He did not call back that day.

  In the synagogue that night, both my cousins turned their backs to me. My father saw, and shook his head. On the way home in the dark, I told him about the call from the lawyer and said, “You and Mama knew all the time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “My brother, of blessed memory, gave me and your mother the information in strictest confidence. How could we possibly tell you before the lawyer did?”

  In the kitchen later that night, with the children asleep, I recounted to my parents and Devorah the details of the phone call from the lawyer, and asked my parents if they knew anything about the terms and stipulations of the will.

  “Yes,” my father said. “But I am not permitted to tell you.”

  The lawyers talked to each other for days. I roamed the neighborhood, read the Rilke book on Cézanne, did some drawing, visited the art museum on the parkway and saw the Jacob Kahn paintings that hung on its walls: swirls of densely textured abstractions: a painter in a struggle with his canvas. One afternoon I stood before one of his huge canvases and imagined him in paint-splashed trousers, stripped to the waist, paint on his white-haired chest, paint on his grizzled features, sweat on his face, sweat in his armpits, working. He looked at me briefly, and vanished.

  Then a phone call from my uncle’s lawyer brought me by subway to a skyscraper in Manhattan and paneled law offices and a carpeted conference room with a long glass-topped mahogany table and leather chairs and much solemn talk with sober-faced lawyers and many pieces of paper to sign. Douglas Schaeffer’s lawyer, a trim
, middle-aged man with a soft voice and a courtly manner, was there, together with Uncle Yitzchok’s lawyer, Moshe Diamond, a tall, dapper man in his early forties who wore a charcoal-gray business suit, a pink shirt with a white collar, a dark-gray silk tie, and a dark-gray knitted skullcap. On one of the walls of his office hung his undergraduate degree from Columbia and his law degree from the Harvard School of Law. We sat at the long table in the conference room and he explained the stipulations. I had been given total control of the art collection. I could do with it as I saw fit. I could sell paintings and buy new paintings with the funds acquired from the sales; I could lose money or make money; I could keep it intact or dissolve it. But at the end of each year, any profits generated by the collection were to go to the Ladover organization.

  The lawyers spoke in subdued voices. Sunlight shone through tall sealed windows. Across an expanse of rooftops I saw the maze of urban roads and bridges and the distant sheen of the East River and jetliners on the final approach to La Guardia Airport. Miles beyond lay Kennedy Airport and the plane home. I longed to be home, locked in my studio, if not to paint then at least to stare fearfully at the vast stretch of challenging canvas mounted against one of the walls, muted light falling upon it through the translucent overhead panes. Home! I had come for a funeral and a week of mourning—and now this!

  “What happens if I refuse my uncle’s request?” I asked Moshe Diamond.

  He adjusted his tie, looked at his fingernails, and gazed out the window. “In such an event, the entire collection will go to your uncle’s children,” he said.

  On the paneled wall opposite the wall of windows hung prints by Chagall, Miró, and Agam, along with the first print I made in Paris, with the help of Jacob Kahn, using carborundum. There was another copy of that print in Uncle Yitzchok’s collection, and I wondered if he had acquired both and given one to his lawyer as a gift. I remembered Lucien Lacamp helping me carry the heavy load of artist’s proofs of that print up the five flights of stairs in the apartment house on the Rue des Rosiers. We had sweated up that narrow wooden staircase beneath that load of heavy paper. I had made him a promise then and had forgotten it. One of the truly righteous Gentiles of the world. A forgotten promise. What had he thought of me? Truly a desecration of the name of God. Like the burial of Chagall in the cemetery in Saint-Paul. Desecrations un-balancing the world. So many things to correct. So many things to do to give a balance to the world.