“There was no reason why she should have. I didn’t like your daughter either. But I’m not here to talk about personal affinities.”
“Are you going to lend him money? I don’t think he’ll be able to pay it back, he even owes money to his partners at the law firm.”
“If what you say is true, I obviously won’t put my money at stake. Can you assure me you won’t save him, even for the sake of your grandsons?”
“I will always look after my grandsons, but I don’t give a damn what happens to James Spencer. Is that clear?”
One hour later I went to the office of the investment bank that handled my brother’s assets. It was the company that had managed the Spencers’ affairs for almost a century. Even when I cut off my family, they continued to manage my assets.
I was greeted by a vice president. Without beating around the bush, I told him what he needed to know. I made him believe that I was willing to help my brother.
“Your brother allowed himself to get carried away in an environment in which people thought that money was always within reach. We advised him against certain investments. As you know, our investment proposals are always very conservative, that’s why they are safe. But he wouldn’t listen. In confidence, I will say that in my opinion he was trying to impress his beautiful wife. He invested everything he had in junk bonds and, sadly, our forecasts were accurate. He lost everything.”
“How much does he owe?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you. You are his brother, but that is confidential information.”
“I need to know if I can help him, that’s why it’s necessary for me to know the extent of the debt.”
“You have trusted us…Through all these years we’ve invested your money, satisfactorily, I believe, because you’ve even made profits when others had losses. Your capital is important but…Anyway, however painful you find it, my obligation as your financial adviser is to recommend you don’t waste your money to save anyone from something that cannot be remedied.
“Your brother had a significant portfolio of properties, as you know: the residence he inherited from his parents here in New York, in addition to the two owned by his grandparents, one in Manhattan and one in Florida, plus your aunt Emma’s property in Newport. And the office, yes, the office on Madison Avenue…He thought that if he mortgaged all these assets and invested the money he could triple the capital. As you know, there was a time when the banks were overpricing real estate properties, so he was given more money than the properties were really worth. He refused to listen to us. Within a month the bank will repossess the office, as it has done with the residences, except for the one he still owns on Seventy-Second Street, his parents’ home, where you lived as a child. He won’t be able to keep it for very long. In two months it will belong to the bank. Your brother is bankrupt, he can’t even pay our fees.”
“How much does he need?” I insisted.
“Your brother’s problems amount to a sum in excess of twenty million dollars.”
“Thank you for your trust. I’ll see what I can do.”
“You shouldn’t do anything, unless you want to give away twenty million dollars.”
I could have told him I didn’t plan to leave my brother in the hands of his creditors. I should have ordered him to make available that quantity to cover Jaime’s debt. Or asked him to restructure the debt so that Jaime could repay it little by little. Yes, I could have helped Jaime. Or at least mitigated his situation. That is what I had promised Esther.
“I will act as a guarantor for his debt. Do everything you can so that my brother can at least keep his office and home; the rest can go up for auction. But I won’t allow him and his children to be put out on the street, much less let the office that belonged to my grandparents and then my father pass into the hands of anyone who is not a Spencer.”
“A noble gesture, but are you sure? It’s a lot of money and I don’t think your brother is in a position to pay it back. He is a good lawyer but he is a terrible businessman. And all this…Anyway, it has damaged his reputation. You must know that many clients have abandoned him.”
“I won’t allow the Spencers’ name to be tarnished. Prepare all the papers, I will sign as soon as they’re ready.”
“Your wife will need to sign too.”
“She will. Don’t worry about her.”
—
But I didn’t say any of these words. I was overjoyed to hear of Jaime’s disrepute. My brother was about to have to depend on welfare and his father-in-law’s charity.
When I stepped out into the street I felt the fresh air flood my lungs. At last I could feel superior to Jaime. The blond boy once adored by everyone, the upstanding student preferred by our teachers, the loving and loyal son who was always willing to offer a smile, the generous friend…Yes, he had suddenly become a failure, somebody who no longer mattered, who could no longer saunter into the tennis club in Newport looking self-satisfied, or attract the secret admiration of all the women who watched him as he hoisted the halyard on Aunt Emma’s boat.
What would my mother think if she saw him like this? Would John be surprised to see his son’s downfall while his stepson triumphed in the Big Apple?
I didn’t see Esther the rest of the day. I called Olivia but she didn’t pick up, so I tried Doris and invited her to lunch; I didn’t care if somebody saw us. The girl looked at me gratefully; we had never met outside the four walls of some hotel or the apartment in Tribeca I’d just begun renting for her.
When I arrived home at around seven Esther was waiting for me impatiently.
“Well, tell me. I’ve been waiting for a call from you all day. You must have six or seven missed calls from me on your cell.”
“I’m sorry, it hasn’t been an easy day.”
“What did Mr. Hudson say? Will he help Jaime?”
I spared none of Mr. Hudson’s scornful comments about my brother. Esther seemed disheartened. She didn’t like it when anyone doubted Jaime. I even exaggerated. I took pleasure in her indignation, her suffering.
“So he’s not going to do anything.”
“Not exactly. He told me he was willing to give his grandsons the life they deserve. He wants Jaime to allow them to go and live with him.”
“But that would be terrible! The kids need to be with their father, they’ve suffered enough by losing their mother. It will break Jaime’s heart if he has to be separated from his sons.”
“This isn’t about Jaime’s heart but the future of those boys,” I said, cruelly.
“No parent could bear to be asked to give up his children,” she contended.
“Some parents are irresponsible, and that’s what Jaime has been. If he’s in this situation, it’s his own fault.”
“How could you say that? Your brother has been unlucky, like so many others who went bankrupt during the crisis. It’s not his fault but the fault of those vultures on Wall Street, those crooks who’ve destroyed countless people.” Esther started to get upset and looked at me, furious.
“He did the wrong things to try to impress Eleanor. He wanted to prove that he was smarter than Mr. Hudson, that he could earn a fortune. And he lost. That’s what happened.”
“But…it’s not like that…it’s not like that…Jaime wanted the best for his family. He did what so many others did—invest.”
“And he made a mistake. In fact, Jaime had a complex about the Hudsons. I guess it wasn’t easy to live with a woman whose father has one of the great fortunes of the East Coast. He wanted to prove to Eleanor what he was worth…and…he did.”
“You’re saying that Jaime isn’t worth anything? I can’t believe you think of him that way! You had your differences in the past, but you have to admit that your brother has integrity. He’s a great man.”
Her words were defiant. I realized how little she trusted me. And more importantly, that she wouldn’t give up on Jaime. If I helped him, she would sacrifice herself, but if I didn’t, she would leave me, willing to
share my brother’s fate. In that instant I hated her. I hated her with all my being. I hated her because I needed her, I hated her because I had been so afraid to lose her for so many years, which had forced me to conceal my deepest self so as not to scare her.
Esther looked at me fearfully, as if she had seen a monster. I wanted to laugh, to tell her I was sick of pretending, of walking the tightrope, trying not to do anything that might push her away from me.
“If you don’t do something, I will. I’ll sell my share of the company, I’ll sell everything I have. That’s what I’ll do. But I won’t allow those vultures from the banks to win this battle.”
“They already have, Esther. As for selling…May I remind you that you can’t sell anything without my consent? The company, the earnings, the bonds, our home, absolutely everything belongs to both of us and you can’t dispose of anything without my signature. That’s what you wanted, remember? I wanted to give you everything I had, but you said we’d share it all. That’s what we did. You can’t sell your share of the company to anyone without my authorization and I won’t give it to you because I’m not willing to let Jaime drag us down with him.”
Her face had contracted into a grimace of disbelief. If in that moment I hated her, she hated me even more.
“I’ve worked hard all these years, Thomas. I’m not asking you for a penny I haven’t earned. Everything you had before we became partners is yours, I don’t want it, but I demand you give me the fruit of my labor.”
“No.”
“You can’t refuse.”
“Yes, I can. I’m not going to allow Jaime to take advantage of your weakness, or allow you to give away the earnings you’ve worked so hard for, destroying our business to help him. I’m sorry, Esther, but I’m going to protect you from yourself. I’m going to protect us both.”
“I’ll divorce you,” she said defiantly, knowing it was the only thing that could hurt me.
“I can’t stop you. You’ll hurt me, you know that, but I won’t do anything to prevent that. Not this time. And even so, you wouldn’t be able to use the money as you please. You signed the papers, Esther, and we both agreed that, whatever happened between us, we wouldn’t divide the company or anything we own. The money is well invested.”
The end result of the argument was that I smoked three packs of cigarettes and drank a bottle of whiskey.
That day she moved into the guest room. I didn’t knock on her door, nor did I utter a word of reproach. I wanted her to suffer. But still I trembled at the thought that she might leave me.
She didn’t speak to me for several days. Not even when we were both at the agency. The employees seemed concerned, perhaps wondering whether what was happening between us might jeopardize their jobs.
I got used to the new situation. We became two strangers sharing a living space, a place we no longer considered a home. The only thing that didn’t change was that every morning I found the pills I had to take for my heart on a saucer next to my breakfast. At night, if she was getting home late, she called Mrs. Morrison in advance so she would give me the pills I needed to take.
Days went by. We weren’t capable of finding the right moment or way to forgive each other.
Olivia called me one morning, inviting me to lunch at her apartment. I imagined she wanted to talk in private, because she preferred going out to restaurants.
When I got to her apartment she was setting the table. She was nervous, I could tell, because she wouldn’t stop talking.
“What kind of surprise are you going to give me?” I asked, as I lit a cigarette.
She thought I was talking about the food and she said with a smile that she’d made a lobster bisque and roast, accompanied by a salad, which she usually adorned with aromatic herbs and flowers.
The bisque was on the boil, so I poured myself a glass of wine and I asked her what she had to tell me that was so urgent.
“As you know, Esther hired me for the diamond commercial. I’m very excited about it. We start shooting tomorrow. This is good news for me—I’m grateful to you both.”
“That’s why you invited me?”
“I actually wanted to tell you that I’m marrying Jerry. I’m not going to postpone the wedding any longer. Jerry bought a house. He says he wants us to start a new life together, so he sold the house that he lived in with his wife. He’s very considerate. He asked me to decorate the new place any way I want. We’re doing a small renovation because I want to have my own space. You know, I’ve been living alone for so many years, and I wouldn’t want to share the bathroom or the closet. I think the house will be ready in three months at most, and then we’ll get married. You have to come to terms with it, Thomas. It’s over. I don’t care if I have to leave this apartment, I’ll find a place to stay until the wedding. But it’s over.”
She gave me a self-satisfied glance. She was proud of her own decisiveness.
She wasn’t expecting it; not even I knew I was about to do what I did. I picked up the pot and threw its contents over her hands. Olivia shrieked. The bisque covered her beautiful hands and I couldn’t help chuckling when I saw the stupor on her face; it gave me satisfaction to watch her suffer.
She wouldn’t stop wailing in pain, she didn’t seem to know what to do. She got up and ran to the bathroom, putting her hands under the cold tap. Tears were streaming down her face. I drew near, and stood behind her.
“Never, do you hear me? Never tell me you’re going to do something I don’t want you to do. I warned you that if you dare take one step without my approval I’ll tell Jerry what you are. Don’t you dare, Olivia, don’t you dare tell me that you’re going to leave me again. Be careful.”
On my way home I felt dizzy. I had burned her hands. The beautiful hands that were going to star in the ad Esther had hired her for. She would no longer be able to do the ad. Or go onstage.
The next morning I found out that she’d had to go to the hospital. She had been injected with painkillers. Both hands were in bandages. She couldn’t do anything. The doctors explained that the burns were severe and would leave scarring.
It was Esther who told me. My wife broke the silence between us, announcing that Olivia had suffered an accident, which meant that the shoot had to be canceled and Esther had to find another model.
“That’s so unfortunate,” I remarked.
“Yes, so unfortunate…” She was silent for a moment. “She told me it was a deliberate attack—a man had wanted to hurt her. I told her to report him to the police.”
“She should,” I replied, unperturbed.
“I’d like to know what kind of wicked man would do such a thing. There are men who just mean trouble for women,” she said, looking me steadily in the eye.
I didn’t respond. I assumed she suspected it was me who had caused Olivia’s burns.
After that exchange we were on speaking terms again, at least when it came to the essentials. We even had the odd dinner together when we got home from work. What didn’t change was that Esther continued to sleep in the guest room.
One morning I found our aide, Mrs. Morrison, moving some of Esther’s things to her new room. I felt a jabbing pain in my stomach. I couldn’t deceive myself about our relationship, there was no going back now. We continued to live together, but every day I found Esther to be more of a stranger to me, as I was to her.
I visited Olivia two weeks later. One night, at dinnertime, I turned up at her apartment without notice. I turned the key and went in. She was lying on the sofa watching TV. Her hands and part of her arms were bandaged. She got up when she saw me and stood in front of me, looking at me hatefully.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“I’ve come to see you” was my reply, as I sat in an armchair in front of the sofa.
She sat in front of me. She had dark circles under her green eyes, from suffering, from pain, from sleepless nights.
“We have nothing to say to each other, Thomas. The only thing that’s left for you to do is
kill me. Are you going to do it?” Her voice was defiant.
“I don’t plan to. What about Jerry?” I wanted to know.
“He thinks I tripped and spilled the pot myself.”
“Fantastic.”
“Fantastic? What’s fantastic about Jerry thinking I’m useless and I burned my hands myself?” Olivia nearly screamed.
“If you don’t break the rules, there’s no reason why anything should go wrong. It all depends on you. I told you already, it will be me who will say when I want to break up with you. Until then, smile. You cost me a lot of money and it’s the least you can do.”
She sat on the sofa and closed her eyes. I contemplated her for a few seconds and what I saw was not a woman who had given up but a woman who was willing to fight for her freedom.
I forced her to sleep with me. She couldn’t prevent it because her hands were bandaged and she couldn’t even try to defend herself. She let me. It was like I had a corpse in my arms. But I didn’t care. I wanted to humiliate her.
When we were done I poured myself a whiskey and turned on the television. I didn’t even offer her a glass of water.
“How do you manage if you can’t use your hands?” I was curious.
“The aide comes in the morning and helps me bathe and makes me food. My neighbor comes by three or four times a day, to give me my medication. She feeds me dinner. Jerry also comes. He insists on helping me, although I’ve told him I’d rather he didn’t come until I’ve recovered. But he’s not the kind to sit around twiddling his thumbs. He wants to help me.”
“I told you I don’t want him to set foot in here,” I warned.
“Don’t worry. I’d never sleep with him in the bed where I’ve had to put up with you. They’re only courtesy visits.”
I said nothing and fixed my attention on the TV. What channel was it? Discovery? I can’t quite remember. But something caught our attention because we were both silent as we contemplated the screen. A documentary about poisons was on. It went back even before antiquity, saying that ever since prehistoric times humankind has known about the deadly power of plants. A botanist listed an endless number of plants that look innocuous but can cause death. A professor at New York University explained that a mixture of certain components can be lethal, and that even the medications we take every day, depending on the dosage, can cause death. An anthropologist described how in the Amazon rain forest it was easy to find roots and plants that could strike down humans and animals. A criminologist was interviewed and recounted the details of many cases of homicide in which poisons may have been used: some had been confirmed, others hadn’t, because, as he explained, there are poisons that kill slowly and others that have an immediate effect. An ex–police officer said that during the Cold War, Bulgarian spies killed their opponents by poking them with an umbrella whose tip had been laced with poison.