The Lair (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (9 page)

But destiny wasn’t to allow a long life to these meetings, unfortunately. Two months after the birth of Mr. Artwein, Beatrice appeared—elegant and distinguished, as ever—to inform her former colleague that her husband had suffered a stroke and was now semi-paralyzed.

“Semi? What does semi mean?”

The young Mrs. Artwein didn’t appear shocked by Ga
par’s quick blunder and apparent lack of compassion for his patron’s state; she stared the lank Peter Ga
par directly in the eyes, as she’d done many times.

“It would do him good, I think, if someone continued to read to him from the newspaper, in the morning, at lunchtime, and in the evenings. However, in his case, semi-paralysis means absence. His body isn’t entirely paralyzed, but his mind is blocked, at least, for now. He may return, with time. In fact, now that I’m really thinking about it, I don’t see any problem with continuing to pay, a few months, a year, whatever, for the service from which you were so unexpectedly suspended. Seriously, not a problem at all. You could come every day. Read the paper, just as you’ve been doing until now, even without anyone to read it to. At whatever time suits you.”

Again she stared the hussar directly in the eye.

Peter declined the offer again and again.

After that, he found small paying gigs here and there. He even worked with a group that translated menus for transatlantic airline companies, domestic and international; and so, he was among Russians,
Arabs, Chinese, Spanish, all sorts of Africans, Indonesians, Greeks, Turks, French, Japanese, the whole Babel brigade. The universal ingredients of feud and fraternization bored him; the pay was small and temporary.

By the time Gora heard her voice again after a long pause, he was on the threshold of a more extravagant endeavor.

Lu and Peter Ga
par used to amuse themselves in the evening in the tiny, miserable hotel room where they lived by reading the phone book.

Find the rabbit hole—
that was their game. They would try to guess from where the next rabbit would jump, so to speak.

And out of the forest of unknown names, a true surprise leaped out at them when they least expected it. Not from the phonebook, but from the illustrated magazine that Peter had bought on his way home, a long article about the Eastern European Mafia in New York. The central figure was someone named Mike Mark, described in biographic details that were none too banal: his studies in chemistry in Bucharest, his complicated emigration to America, with just one suitcase, his infiltration into the oil business. “No business like the oil business,” the sharp reporter had specified. Then there was the perfecting of the taxicab meter, selling the invention to the city clerk’s office, sensational alliances with the Russian and Albanian mobs, the growth of their wealth. Seen from the street in Queens, the two-story Mark house didn’t seem at all imposing, but it had three subterranean levels, a swimming pool, security cameras galore, six luxurious bedrooms, walls and ceilings made of glass. On the doors of the numerous rooms, in gold, were engraved the words:
I love America.
An FBI informant and counterinformant, the master embezzler had been captured countless times, and released just as many, due to lack of evidence. Mike Mark was the proprietor of two hundred gas stations and some large apartment buildings.

He’d refused the FBI’s protection against the threats of his former accomplices. “I don’t need the FBI, I’m better than they are. I’m not moving my family from my home, as I’ve been advised to do by the idiots who claim they want to protect me. My family is sacred and
my house is sacred,” the reporter quoted. An exemplary father and husband, and the fanatically devoted son of Holocaust survivors, who had arrived in the Dreamland not too long ago. The magnate upheld the honor of the family above anything else.

Among those mentioned in the fabulous history of the immigrant Mike Mark there was a friend of this man, a neighbor from the street in the modest suburb of Bucharest where he’d grown up. Lu recognized the name of a former university classmate. Peter smiled. In the jungle of the unknown, here at last was the name of a real person. Professor Gora, the name they avoided mentioning, he was also real; you could call him on the phone; but he remained a ghost hidden among the literary ghosts.

“There’s no end to trying,” cried Lu. She was feverishly looking in the phonebook. There could be no other; it had to be Mi
u Stolz, or rather, the one and only Michael Stolz.

Peter was smiling; Lu was picking up the phone and, hop, there he was Mi
u-Michael, out of the woodwork, reporting for duty. It seemed as if it were only yesterday that he was tailing the beautiful brunette like a rabid dog. He didn’t explode with surprise. Phlegmatic but polite, Michael Stolz invited the couple to visit him in Forest Hills. A long way on the subway, then by foot, up to the doorbell to the right of the massive oak door.

The Chinese doorman welcomed them in with a bow.

Misu Stolz was waiting for them in the vast and elegant foyer. He himself was vast and elegant. Tall, massive, black suit, white shirt, it seemed as if he were just coming out of a business meeting, and he’d hardly had time to loosen his tie. He introduced himself to Peter, bowing ceremoniously, without directing any of his erstwhile charm toward the beauty.

The former colleagues looked at each other sympathetically. Mi
,u, happy to find himself in a superior social position, and Lu, amused by the American incarnation of her admirer.

“I live alone. I’m celibate.”

He stared intensely and defiantly at the couple of cousins, if they were actually cousins, which he evidently did not believe they were.

“The Chinaman is my cook, butler, housekeeper, errand boy, everything. I’m not a wealthy man. I never accepted Mike’s offers; I smelled trouble and didn’t want to be mixed up in it. He helped me enormously at the start. Even with money. He’s merciless with his competitors, but generous with friends. A heart of gold. Gold wrapped in shit.”

While Mi
u interviewed the adventurers, the Chinese man arranged the sandwiches and bottles with a mastered condescendence.

At the end of the visit, with a glass of French cognac, he admitted that he also owned three gas stations, a few limo-taxis and an income a little larger than was entirely honorable. Of course, there was a lot of work, he’d never worked so hard in his life, with so much stress,
of course,
but money doesn’t come from hard work. He smiled, proud of the horse sense of his remark; the pronunciation of the remark, however, completed his smile with a short laugh completely devoid of cordiality, “In fact, money is never made through work. It’s not the workers or the drivers who make money, but the owners. I make it.”

At the end, the host gave the guests his card, saying to Lu, “If you need me, call. The third number on the card is less busy.”

The visit didn’t indicate there might be a sequel. But there was one. After a few months of unemployment and short, transitory gigs, Peter called Stolz, without warning Lu, and obtained an interview and a job. A dangerous move, as Professor Gora was about to find out.

He didn’t need a name to recognize her voice, which was inside of him, beyond good and evil, beyond space and time. He grew silent. Embarrassment on both sides. Lu had certainly arrived with great difficulty at this decision, he knew too well. Despair had provoked the call.