Mr. Snopes came to a stop. He brooded at Brother Oliver, thinking things over. With his personality turned off he looked like a desert bandit or a Mafia lawyer’s clerk. He also looked very difficult, much more difficult than Daniel Flattery. I glanced at Brother Oliver, and I saw that his brave front was held together with chewing gum and matchsticks, but that was holding.
Mr. Snopes, speaking softly, almost gently, said, “Brother Oliver, I don’t think you understand what’s going on here.”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“Let me recap you anyway, just in case. What’s happened here, Dwarfmann Investment Management Partners, Incorporated, has bought some land. There are structures on that land. The structures will be removed and a new building will be put in their place. You and your other monks are tenants in one of those structures and you will be relocated. That’s what’s going on, Brother Oliver, and it has gone on in this city for the last thirty years, and you just have to look out the window to see it. And when the process starts, it goes through to the finish. Now, most of the time everything is calm, everybody is happy, and there’s no problem, but sometimes you get a situation where a tenant refuses to vacate. Does that desist the process? No, it does not, Brother Oliver. What happens, Federal marshals and New York City policemen enter the premises and remove the tenant and remove the tenant’s possessions and then the structure is knocked down per schedule and the new building is erected per schedule and the tenant makes a fool of himself on the sidewalk with his possessions for maybe three hours. Now, that’s what happens, Brother Oliver.”
“Not this time,” Brother Oliver said.
“Every time,” Mr. Snopes said.
Brother Oliver shook his head. “No. I’m sure you would have called us after the first of the year to talk about relocation, because by then you’d own the land. But we found out ahead of time, before you own the land, and that means we have the chance to stop you.”
“We have an option, Brother Oliver, and that’s just as good as ownership.”
“No, it isn’t,” Brother Oliver insisted. “We have time now, and we’ll use that time, and we’ll stop this from happening.”
Scornfully, Mr. Snopes said, “By doing what? You’ll go talk to Dan Flattery?”
There was no way Brother Oliver could admit we’d already been turned down by Flattery, but on the other hand how could he tell a direct lie? I admired his way out. He said, “Why not?”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Mr. Snopes said. “He wants this sale just as much as we do. In fact, more.”
“There are other ways,” Brother Oliver said. “We can get ourselves designated a landmark.”
Mr. Snopes shook his head. “You’re wasting your time,” he said.
“We can mobilize public opinion. Don’t you think public opinion will rally behind sixteen monks driven from their two-hundred-year-old monastery?”
“I’m sure it will,” Mr. Snopes said. “And if Mr. Dwarfmann or I were running for public office we’d probably be pretty scared. But we’re not, Brother Oliver. The public has nothing to do with us. The law is all we’re concerned with.”
Brother Oliver took a deep breath. I figured he was counting to ten, so I counted also, and when I got to seven he said, “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Mr. Snopes, or to trade challenges with you. I came here to find out what solution we could come to together that would enable us to keep our monastery.”
Mr. Snopes had never become impassioned below the surface, and so had no need to count rapidly and angrily to ten. He clicked on his personality once more, now that the air raid was over, and flashed us some rueful comradeship. “I’m really sorry, Brother Oliver,” he said. “I wish there was a way, and I know Mr. Dwarfmann wishes the same thing, because your monastery could up the aesthetic values on the whole site. Better than a Picasso. Now, if you were on the corner we could probably work something out, but you’re right in the middle of the parcel, and there’s just no — Comere, take a look at this.”
He popped up from his chair, bounded around the desk, and gestured us to come to one of the building models at the side of the room. “Here, this’ll explain the whole thing.”
Brother Oliver got to his feet, so I did too, and we both walked over to look at this thing. On a more or less square surface stood two featureless white slabs. They looked like tombstones on a macrobiotic diet. Tiny trees and people and automobiles disported themselves around the base of the slabs. The slabs were united at the bottom, and then were united again briefly about halfway up, like Siamese twins joined at the hip.
Pointing, Mr. Snopes said, “Now, that’s where your monastery is right now. You see the situation. Site logistics give us no alternative placement.”
Brother Oliver waggled a finger at the slabs. “Is that what you intend to put up instead of our monastery?”
“I suppose you’re more comfortable with an older style of architecture.”
“I’m comfortable with style,” Brother Oliver told him, “and I’m comfortable with architecture. And now, more than ever, I am determined to save our monastery.”
“Don’t make grief for yourself, Brother Oliver,” Mr. Snopes said, demonstrating true concern and fellow feeling. “Remember, it’s an old saying but it’s true, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
Brother Oliver glanced again at the slabs. “I see the broken eggs, Mr. Snopes,” he said, “but I see no sign of the omelet.”
Mr. Snopes shrugged. His manner showed that he was giving up on us at the moment, but that he still was prepared to think of us as nice guys. He said, “I do sympathize, Brother Oliver, I said that before, and I meant it. But there’s nothing to be done.” He shifted to a brisker gear. “Now, what I suggest, you and Brother Benedict here, you go back to the monastery and talk it over, discuss it among yourselves, maybe consult an attorney, that’s always a good idea. Brother Benedict, I understand you’re friends with Miss Huxtable from the Times, you might want to sound her out, let her give you the real estate facts of life, and find out for yourselves what the situation is.”
I said, “She won’t be in favor of what you’re doing. She already said so in the paper.”
“Brother Benedict,” Mr. Snopes said, “so far as I know Ada Louise Huxtable has never liked anything that Dimp has done. All I’m saying is, she knows her way around in the real world, she’ll tell you what your chances are.”
“She’ll be on our side.”
Mr. Snopes shrugged. “Fine.” Turning back to Brother Oliver, he said, “When you’ve had a chance to think it over, give me a call. This New Paltz site isn’t the only potentiality, and like I said before we’ve got almost a year. Plenty of time.”
Brother Oliver said, “I want to speak to Mr. Dwarfmann.”
“He won’t tell you anything different from me, Brother Oliver.”
“I want to speak to him.”
“I’m sorry, that’s impossible.”
“If he’s alive and conscious, it isn’t impossible.”
“He’s in Rome,” Mr. Snopes said. “All week.”
“Then I wish to make an appointment for Monday.”
“It won’t do you any good, Brother Oliver, I wish you’d take my word on that.”
“I want a meeting with him.”
Mr. Snopes shrugged again, giving up on us once more and this time indicating less assurance in our nice-guyness. “I’ll speak to Mr. Dwarfmann when he returns to the office,” he said, “and then I’ll phone you.”
“I don’t want to talk to you any more, I want to talk to Dwarfmann.”