The Lehman Trilogy, page 25
Philip Lehman
had to recognize
that he had called
the right card.
“It’s not luck, my darling:
it’s only technique, you know.
Only control.”
15
Der stille Pakt
Each morning
Sigmund Lehman
walks smiling
into the gray and white building
from which Lehman controls America.
Each morning
he cordially greets the clerks at their desks
gives a three-dollar tip to the shoe shiner
and
having climbed the staircase to his office
hands his coat
to Miss Vivian Blumenthal
his secretary.
Miss Blumenthal’s tasks
include
making sure
there’s a cup of coffee
waiting on his desk:
she doesn’t always remember
and Sigmund reminds her with a smile.
Dreidel Lehman also
walks into the office
at 119 Liberty Street
each morning
silently.
He sits in his office
behind a solid mahogany desk
and lights the first cigar of the day.
Before evening
he will smoke four.
The first covers the morning hours
namely the accounts check.
The second cigar
coincides with lunch
namely external relations
during which Dreidel remains silent
not wasting a word
swathed in his cloud of smoke.
The third cigar is for the afternoon
and is savored slowly
while he reads the newspapers
circling with a red pencil
possible areas for future expansion.
Finally, Dreidel smokes his fourth cigar
in complete solitude
when the last employee leaves,
usually holding
a paperweight
in the shape of a globe
used by his father, Henry,
half a century ago
to hold down his cotton accounts.
Now that his uncles Mayer and Emanuel
have passed the bank
to their sons’ control,
Dreidel Lehman
is the oldest partner.
A funny thing to say
since he still has black hair.
And it’s also funny
to hear him called
president
in those long meetings
during which the three cousins
sit
side by side
at the head of the table
though in the end
only Philip speaks to their advisers.
Sigmund says nothing because it’s better he doesn’t.
Dreidel says nothing because he won’t or can’t.
According to those in the know
however
Henry’s silent son
makes his voice heard, for sure.
It’s just that he uses a language of his own,
an alternative to using his lips,
and in doing so
he saves on breath.
An entirely new form of economy.
It is thanks to Dreidel
for example
that Lehman Brothers
has invested in mail-order catalogs.
A classic Dreidel idea.
For it’s obvious
that on entering an emporium
you have to speak at least
five or six words
the first of which will be HELLO
the last GOOD-BYE
and in between I NEED THIS
yet it requires
not the slightest oral activity
to leaf through a Sears catalog
and send a mail order
for the saucepans here:
a silent transaction
ideal for hermits
and keenly supported
by the mute Dreidel:
presented to his cousins
in a folder three inches thick
of newspaper cuttings:
the voice of America
(since luckily it speaks)
is demanding at last to move
toward shopping on a larger scale
simplified as much as possible
maybe taking into account
that there are thousands of families
in remote ranches and huts
in deserts and on mountains
a thousand miles
from the top traditional store:
do we want them never to buy?
Do we want to exclude them
from the great whirligig of commerce?
Besides
now that factories
have given everyone a job
a salary to spend,
what could be better
than buying all and everything
from the pages of a mail-order catalog?
Well done Dreidel.
Lehman Brothers
will invest its capital
in an army
not of soldiers
but of mailmen and warehousemen.
The two old Lehmans
are not displeased by this new venture.
Not only because
it has brought them forward
from the fifth to the fourth row of the Temple
where they enjoy an excellent view
over the custodians of gold
the Hirschbaums in the third row, fat as ingots,
the Goldmans right in front, jangling about like coins,
and lastly the Lewisohns, glistening in the first row.
None of these three
will certainly ever
buy saucepans
from the mail-order catalog.
But Mayer, yes:
he’ll insist on doing so.
For this at least
is a true STOCK EXCHANGE
where goods are actually traded!
And investment in this sector
is a pleasure to be seen.
Not like those bonds
that Philip is so fond of:
risky bits of paper
with so many numbers on them
bits of paper that Lehman staff
hand out in large quantities
to
finance the trains of tomorrow
the buildings of tomorrow
the industries of tomorrow
and a load of other things
all
always
of tomorrow
of tomorrow
of tomorrow
as the posters say
those that Philip has had printed
and stuck on the walls
of New York and beyond:
throughout America, if need be.
Bonds?
Modern inventions.
Money, of course, comes into the bank.
It floods in, according to Philip.
More than those three old COs:
COtton—COffee—COke
which are now the stuff of prehistory.
Mayer smiles. He nods.
Emanuel does the same.
But in fact
neither of them
knows what
exactly
is going on
inside that room
which once belonged to Mayer.
On the door there’s a nameplate: PHILIP LEHMAN
while the two old men
have two desks on the floor above
in the same office.
Only one thing
was clear to both
when Charles Dow
the young journalist
who has started up a newspaper
in Wall Street
came
to the office at 119 Liberty Street.
Charles Dow
turned up
to interview
the presidents emeritus.
Philip sat
at the far end of the room
and listened not batting an eye.
But when the question was:
“If the bank were a bakery
what would be the flour?”
Emanuel said:
“Trains!”
Mayer:
“Tobacco!”
Then Emanuel again:
“Coal!”
And Mayer:
“At one time, cotton!”
Philip
then
raised his voice
and commented on the Scripture
like a young boy at his Bar Mitzvah
about to be received among the adults of the Temple:
“Dear Mr. Dow
the flour that you ask about
would be
neither commerce
nor coffee
nor coal
nor the iron of railroad tracks:
neither my father nor my uncle here present
have any fear of telling you that we are traders
in money.
Normal people, you see,
use money just for buying.
But those—like us—who have a bank
use money
to buy money
to sell money
to loan money
to exchange money
and—believe me—it is this
we use to make our bread.”
Mayer smiles.
Emanuel does the same.
Like two bakers
who have lost their way
to the oven.
Enveloped in the haze of his afternoon cigar
Dreidel Lehman
has watched the whole scene,
but his expression
reveals nothing:
his cousin speaks for him,
he is glad to let him talk.
Besides
the transfer of loans
is a sector in which Lehman Brothers excels:
Philip deals with it
in person
with his own signature and guarantee
before the other parties.
The mechanism is simple:
a bank that has a debtor
sells that loan to another party
who buys it at a lower price.
“In other words”
Philip explained to his father
“if you owe me ten dollars
and I’m worried you won’t pay up
I can pass the whole transaction on to someone else
who obviously won’t pay me ten dollars but eight:
for me it’s a good deal because out of ten I’ll get eight,
for him it’s a doubly good deal
because it’s true he has spent eight straightaway,
but when you pay up you’ll give him ten
therefore he’ll earn two by doing nothing.
Multiply this, Father sir, by a hundred debtors:
that’s 200 dollars which the bank pockets.
We would even venture to suggest
that the system of high finance
has only to hope that people don’t pay their debts:
a loan that goes smoothly is certainly a good deal,
but a debt passed on to a third party
is an exceptional opportunity.
Do you like my invention?”
How complicated
it has become
to bake bread.
This is Mayer’s only thought.
Emanuel agrees.
But he adds that touch
of paternal pride
since Philip is after all his son.
What Philip
in fact
has failed to mention
is that the idea isn’t really his.
Indeed: if the truth be told, he has copied it.
And not from who-knows-which economist.
But from his young cousin
argumentative Arthur,
now aged twenty
who still, continually,
owes money to his brother Herbert.
One day Arthur turned up at the bank
and on asking to see Philip
made him a proposal:
“You pay my brother,
then you can take the money from my salary
when—sooner or later—I come
to work in this joint.”
Philip tried to get rid of him
for at least three reasons:
first because brothers shouldn’t steal from each other
then because a cousin ought not to take the risk
and third because a bank isn’t—no sir—a joint.
But with Arthur Lehman
discussion is not so easy:
“For pity’s sake, Philip, you’re a filthy miser.
And if that weren’t enough, let me just say:
you don’t understand a thing about business
the bank wins out, damn it, don’t you realize that?”
“Calm down, Arthur.”
“No one tells me to calm down,
least of all a stuck-up cousin.”
“Just think, Arthur.”
“You say that to me? I’m the one who has to think? Me?
With my brother who’s been threatening
to confiscate my bed for the past fifteen years?”
“Keep your voice down, Arthur.”
“No I won’t, I’ll shout as much as I want!”
“Not in my bank!”
“It has my name on it too.”
“Quite right: so ask your brother Sigmund.”
“I can’t: I owe him more money than anyone
though I’ve managed to hold him off with donuts.
Heck, Philip: I’m giving you a real opportunity.
Herbert would accept even a quarter less
just to get the money
and I’ll be paying you 100 percent.
But why am I telling you? You don’t get the idea.
Next time I’ll go to Merrill Lynch:
they might be our competitors
but at least they’ll know about business!”
Cousins can come in useful sometimes.
And not just that: the social impetus of twenty-year-olds.
Philip Lehman
suddenly grasped the implications:
he leapt up from his armchair
pushed the door shut and
as well as accepting the proposal
agreed with Arthur
a generous lump-sum payment
to acquire from him
—with no whys and wherefores—
ownership of the idea
of debt transfer
or whatever you want to call it.
They put it down in writing
and signed the agreement.
And from that moment Philip Lehman
has convinced even himself
that he has created a wondrous mechanism.
Arthur, for his part,
has gained a triple benefit.
Not only has he resolved an embarrassing situation with his brother.
Not only has he secured ownership of his bed.
But above all
thanks to Philip
he has realized from a momentary glimpse
that he has a special gift
for financial algebra:
boundless prairies of pure equations
have suddenly opened up before him
ready only to be applied.
Life sometimes offers
these sudden moments of inspiration.
So it was for Arthur.
Dreidel Lehman
however
is content to look on in silence:
if his cousin excels in handing over loans
he is expert in handing over all the rest
including half his bed.
For Dreidel
has managed
—to everyone’s great surprise—
to get married
to a certain Helda Fisher
a young woman from a very good family
whom he met at Elberon
on the Atlantic coast
where the first ten rows of the Temple go
on annual vacation.
There are stories
—unsubstantiated—
about how there might have been
some minimum of courtship:
simply by exchange of glances?
Simply in writing?
Through intermediaries?
Was it perhaps a physical affair?
Or all a vaporous coalescence?
Uncle Mayer
produced a generally agreed-on version
advancing the metaphor of gas
which Lehman Brothers also dealt in:
it’s not seen, it’s not heard,
and yet, for sure, it catches fire.
Why then could his nephew
—despite being a fairly cold gas—
not burn with love?
He certainly could.
In fact.
Dreidel like helium.
Dreidel like methane.
An evocative idea.
But most astonishing of all
if anything
was how could a hornet
—with its poisonous sting
always about to strike—
ever manage to marry.
Everyone thought this.
Yet no one put it into words.
It might have been a question for Aunt Rosa
except that now it was too late.
Therefore mazel tov!
Hearty congratulations!
At least this time
unlike David
there was no one else with a claim!
There again—it has to be said—
Helda is such a quiet girl!
She has suffered from bad headaches
since childhood
so keeps well away from noise:
with Dreidel
in this respect
she has made an excellent choice.
Added to which
süsser Helda
dresses so chastely in those lace-trimmed clothes,
is amazed by everything
gives a look of surprise
and is always saying
“I’m lost for words.”
And if she is lost for words
then why go looking for them?
Her husband doesn’t try,
so the circle is complete
their understanding perfect
with outright war against empty gossip.
Dreidel and Helda.
Who knows if they communicate by name
or with a few gestures agreed on from the start:
more inquisitive folk
declare
that their apartment
has the atmosphere of a sanatorium
like a home for mystical rabbis.
Even at the kiddushin,
while the whole family
in the fifth row
strained
to hear the young man’s voice,
