Meanwhile, a frustrated Bernard was on the boil, convinced that his courtship of Libby Mintzberg was foundering. Libby’s father, Heinrich Benjamin Mintzberg, BA, principal of the Winnipeg Hebrew Academy, president of the B’nai Jacob synagogue, treasurer of the Mount Sinai Beneficial Loan Society, invited Bernard into his study. A pouting Mrs. Mintzberg served tea with sponge cake and sat down to join them.
“When you first solicited my beloved daughter’s hand in matrimony,” Mr. Mintzberg began, “a matter of some consequence to my spouse and I—”
“If there’s a bigger catch in respectable Winnipeg society I’d like to know about it,” Mrs. Mintzberg said.
“—it grieved me, a professional man, that a potential future son-in-law of the Mintzbergs hadn’t even graduated high school.”
“And our precious one with her head always buried in a book,” Mrs. Mintzberg said.
“But then you assured me that you were the owner of The Royal Pure Drug Company, an impressive achievement considering your father’s origins in the shtetl—”
“And your own lack of a formal education.”
“—but now I hear that it’s really Solomon who is the boss.”
Putz. Mamzer. Yekke.
“Even though you’re the eldest,” Mrs. Mintzberg said.
Yachne. Choleria. “Well you heard wrong. I’m the real boss, but we’ve always had a partnership that also includes my brother Morrie.”
“So the materialistic proceeds of your various endeavours are shared in three equal parts?”
“Something like that.”
“Correct me if I err because I’m not well-versed in commercial arrangements, but I always surmised that the boss was somebody who owns more than fifty percent of the shares, the company properly registered.”
“Which will certainly be the case, sir, once the legal partnership papers are drawn up.”
“And when can we anticipate that auspicious day?”
“As soon as Solomon returns from Detroit, where I sent him to iron out certain bottlenecks in distribution.”
“Then I suggest we resume our deliberations once this matter has been resolved with your siblings. Meanwhile, Libby will continue to see you.”
“But no more than once a week.”
“And not exclusive of other beaux of good family.”
“Listen here, for shit’s sake, I earn more in a week than that fucken Saltzman does in a good year. Excuse me. I’m sorry.”
“Dr. Saltzman’s dental practice will undoubtedly grow.”
“And don’t take this personal, but he’s not shorter than Libby on the dance floor.”
“Neither am I if she isn’t wearing those goddamn high heels.”
“You see, Bernard, I’m taking the long view. I am thinking of the Mintzberg grandchildren.”
“God bless them,” Mrs. Mintzberg said.
“In a partnership shared equally among three brothers who are merely mortal the progeny are bound to squabble over their inheritance unless the line of succession is as clear as it is in the House of Windsor.”
MORRIE WAS no problem.
“Bernie, if you say I’m entitled to no more than twenty percent it’s hunky-dory with me, honest to God.”
“I love you, Morrie, and I’ll always take good care of you and yours.”
Bernard waited until Solomon had been back from Detroit for a couple of days before he went to see him in his suite in The Victory Hotel. Noon, and he was still lying in bed that one, reading newspapers. “Marcel Proust died yesterday. He was only fifty-one. What do you think of that?”
Empty champagne bottles drifted upside down in a silver bucket and there came a splashing from the bathroom, a girl in the tub, singing “April Showers”.
“We’ve got to talk.”
“No, we don’t. Shut the door after you and have them send up scrambled eggs for two and another bottle of Pol Roger.”
“Put down that newspaper and listen to me for a change. I pay all your gambling debts.”
“Do you think Boston did the right thing, trading Muddy Ruel like that?”
“You trust me. I trust you. Everybody trusts Morrie. But if any one of us was knocked down by a car, God forbid, nothing is clear, we have no legal partnership papers.”
“So you’ve got some right there in your briefcase,” Solomon said, reaching for it.
Even as Solomon scanned the documents, Bernard reminded him once more of how he had parlayed one hotel into nine, working eighteen hours a day while Solomon was gallivanting around Europe in an officer’s uniform. Furthermore, he pointed out, he was the eldest son with certain traditional rights going back to biblical times.
“Fifty-one percent for you, thirty for me, and nineteen for Morrie.”
“I could get him to settle for fifteen and I’d be satisfied with fifty point five-o, which would boost you to thirty-four and a half points.”
Solomon began to laugh.
“You whoremaster, you gambler, what if I lost my Libby because of you?”
“Then you’d have something else to thank me for.”
“I hate you,” Bernard hollered, scooping up an ashtray and throwing it at him, kicking open the bathroom door, “Give him the syph, he deserves it,” and taking a peek at the alarmed girl in the tub, slapping his cheek, amazed. “Oh, my God,” he said, fleeing the room.
Clara Teitelbaum snatched at the robe that hung from a hook on the door and spun out of the bathroom, wailing. “My father will throw me out in the street now and I don’t blame him one bit I’m dying of shame.”
“Don’t worry,” Solomon said, his mind elsewhere.
“I’m a respectable girl. I never even let another boy kiss me, but you, you animal, even a nun wouldn’t be safe with you.”
“I promise you Bernie won’t say a word to anybody.”
“And didn’t you promise me if I came here you’d know when to stop this time, you think I don’t know what they say about you?”
Solomon waited until her tears had subsided. “You’re not only ravishing, Clara, but you are so bright. Now tell me why I’m always so nasty to my brother.”
“He’ll blab to Libby and she’ll get on the phone to Faigy Rubin and my father, oh my God, you might as well hire me for the bar that’s all I’m good for now,” she said, thrusting her head deep into the pillows and beginning to quake with sobs again.
“Clara, please, you’re beginning to get on my nerves.”
“At least if I could say, Paw, I know I shouldn’t have let him, but we’re engaged.”
“If you don’t hurry, Clara, you’ll be late for your skating lessons. I’ll pick you up at eight and we’ll go to see Dream Street at the Regal.”
“I saw it,” she said, sniffling.
“The new Fairbanks then.”
“Better seven-thirty. But I’ll meet you there, I’ll say I’m going with a girlfriend, my father could be waiting at the door with a horsewhip. I wish I’d never met you and that’s the truth.”
Four o’clock in the afternoon Solomon was wakened by a soft scratching on the door. “Come on in, Morrie, the door’s unlocked.”
Morrie was followed by a waiter wheeling a table heaped with bagels and lox and cream cheese and a jug of coffee.