In His Father's Footsteps Read online

  “Well, are you ready to have a college boy?” Jakob asked Emmanuelle the night Max accepted the offer from Harvard. Max had gone down to the street immediately with his acceptance letter and mailed it himself. It was an emotional moment for them, but they were very proud of him, and Izzie would have been too.

  “How did he grow up so fast?” Emmanuelle said sadly. It seemed like only yesterday when he was a little boy. It had happened in the blink of an eye, and suddenly he looked like a man, and thought he was, although to them for many years to come, he would still be a boy.

  “He can hardly wait to get out of here,” Jakob said with a bittersweet smile. They had been in the States for almost twenty years by then, and married for the same amount of time. And Jakob was doubly sorry now that they hadn’t had a second child. It would have taken the edge off Max’s leaving, but a second child would have left soon too. Eventually, they all did. And Jakob thought but didn’t say that he had only been two years older than Max was now when he and his family were deported and sent to the camp. At Max’s age now, he had enjoyed the same freedom, and had been thrilled to go to university and get away from his parents.

  “He’s ready to fly,” Jakob said with a sigh. “That should be a lesson to us. Maybe we should take a vacation this summer while he’s traveling out West.” Emmanuelle nodded but didn’t seem convinced. She liked staying close to home. Her family had been that way too. She had gone to Normandy in the summer with her mother and sister, but never for very long. They didn’t have the means to travel, and her mother had to work all the time. Jakob’s family had been all over the world. He had often gone with them, and had been to vacation spots all over Europe. Those places were only names to him now.

  “We could go to New Hampshire or Vermont if you like,” he suggested. The few vacations they’d taken so far, to Florida or New England, had always included Max, but no more. He would want to be at home in New York over school holidays to see his friends.

  His graduation from high school was emotional for both of them. He looked so tall and handsome in his cap and gown, and so much like his paternal grandfather. He was very distinguished-looking for a young man, and he was thrilled to be out of high school at last. They took him to dinner at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn with half a dozen of his friends. And two weeks later, the four boys set off for California with their sleeping bags and camping equipment, backpacks, and a cooler, with the radio blaring as they waved to their parents standing on the sidewalk. Jakob had given Max travelers’ checks and cash, and a credit card, which Emmanuelle disapproved of, but Jakob wanted him to have enough to fly home if he needed to, in case something went wrong.

  Then they went upstairs and the apartment was deadly quiet and they both looked mournful and felt like marbles in a shoe box, as they rattled around in the silent apartment. Their life was empty without him, and as Jakob had feared from the beginning, all their hopes rested on him. Their joy in life was their only child, and now they had to figure out how to live without him. They had been lucky to have him for so long, but all of that was going to change now. It already had.

  Jakob came home with a surprise for Emmanuelle the next day. He told her that he had made reservations at a small inn in New Hampshire owned by an Austrian couple. They had only half a dozen rooms. He had heard about it from one of the jewelers he dealt with who said it was a charming place and they went every year. The proprietors had left Salzburg in time before the war, served traditional Austrian food, the waitresses wore dirndls, and the countryside around it was spectacular. He had reserved a room there for a week, and had managed to keep it a secret from her. After he told her, he took a small box out of his pocket. He had selected the stone carefully, and had it mounted in a ring for her in a rectangular emerald cut. It was a D flawless stone in a simple platinum setting, and she gasped when she saw it. He put it on her finger and it looked huge on her delicate hand.

  “Are you crazy? How can I wear something like this? Why did you do it?” There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him. She was a woman who never asked anything of him, cared nothing about material things, and never wanted to show off. She loved her husband and son and wanted nothing more.

  “That’s for putting up with me for twenty years. The stone is twenty carats and you deserve it. You should have an even bigger one. I’ll get you a thirty carat for our thirtieth anniversary. And I expect to see this on your hand every day,” he said, smiling at her.

  “In the subway?” She looked horrified and he laughed.

  “You can turn it around, or wear gloves. You’ve earned it, my love. Happy anniversary!” It took the sting out of Max’s leaving, which had been his intention. Emmanuelle stared at the beautiful ring on her hand all that evening. She couldn’t imagine wearing such a large stone every day, and its quality made it sparkle even more. To please him she wore it to work the next day, and smiled every time she saw it. It made him happy to see her wear it. It was hard to believe they’d been married for twenty years.

  They left on their vacation that weekend, and put their runner in charge of the office. He was competent enough to answer the phone and inform clients that they were on vacation for a week. The inn in New Hampshire was everything Jakob had hoped for. The Austrian owners were charming, and their daughter helped them run it, the food was excellent and plentiful, the other guests kept to themselves. They spent the days climbing over rocks and discovering waterfalls, they went on long walks and mountain hikes. There was skiing in the area in the winter, and in summer the countryside was lush and the mountains beautiful. It felt like a honeymoon to both of them, and made them feel young again. Jakob was forty-five years old and Emmanuelle was forty-three, and it made them feel even closer to spend time together, make love in the morning and before they fell asleep. They found a peaceful lake with no one around, and swam naked, feeling like two kids. At the end of the following weekend, they hated to leave.

  Max called them the night they got home, he was in Yellowstone National Park with his friends and said he was having fun. He could hear that his parents sounded happy and his father told him they had just had a wonderful vacation in New Hampshire and Max was happy for them. All three of them had to try their wings now. It was a brave new world. Spending a week alone together had recaptured the romance in their relationship. As soon as they got home, Emmanuelle put her spectacular new ring back on. She had left it in the safe in the office during their trip. She wasn’t embarrassed now when she wore it, and appreciated the love that had inspired Jakob to give it to her.

  “Nice ring, Mrs. Stein,” he commented when he saw it on her hand while she made dinner the day after they got back. She smiled and flashed it at him. She looked sexy and happy and relaxed after the week they’d just spent together, and they both laughed and he kissed her and pulled her into his arms with a mischievous look. “Maybe Max going away to school won’t be so bad. We can make love whenever we want.” Emmanuelle looked up at him and smiled and Jakob saw the girl he had fallen in love with all those years before, and in his eyes she hadn’t changed. She was as beautiful as ever, and he loved her even more.

  Chapter 7

  When Max got to Harvard at the end of August, it was infinitely better than he had even dreamed. The campus was beautiful, the classes he had signed up for were interesting, he liked his roommate. He was planning to be an economics major eventually, and selected his classes accordingly. His parents had come with him to settle him in and see the campus after everything they’d heard about it. It was a big moment for them too. But they had barely set down his bags when he was ready for them to leave. He wanted to explore the campus on his own and meet the other young men in his dorm, without his parents tagging along. Emmanuelle and Jakob both looked emotional when they left. As they got back in the car they’d rented for the drive from New York with all Max’s bags and boxes, Emmanuelle glanced at Jakob with concern.

  “Did you see hi
s roommate’s name?” she asked him. Their names had both been posted on the door to their room, along with everyone else in the dorms.

  “Steve MacMillan, I think. Why? Does it sound familiar?”

  “That’s not a Jewish name. He’s a Christian. Do you think he’ll be nasty to Max because he’s Jewish?” Jakob smiled and shook his head as he started the car and pulled away. They had a long drive home to New York.

  “I hope not. I don’t see why he would be. College is a melting pot for all kinds of races and religions. These kids don’t care about that. They’re just excited to be at Harvard,” and Max was no exception. He was thrilled.

  “I hope you’re right.” She wasn’t sure, but trusted what Jakob said, and they talked about what they’d seen and how happy Max was to be at Harvard. He and his roommate had seemed to hit it off immediately, and Steve had a friend from school down the hall. They had both gone to Exeter, which was a first-rate boarding school, and his friend had come in to visit too, with his roommate. The four boys had been planning to walk around the campus together when their parents left, which couldn’t be soon enough for them.

  Jakob and Emmanuelle were planning to come up to Cambridge for parents’ weekend in October, and knew it would be a long two months without Max until then.

  “They looked like nice boys,” Emmanuelle said softly, already missing her son.

  “I’m sure they are,” Jakob said, thinking how proud Izzie would be of him. Max’s Harvard education was going to be entirely thanks to their old friend, although thanks to Izzie, Jakob could afford it now too. And by then, the four boys were already bicycling around the campus, looking for people they knew, and eager to meet new ones. Their adult lives had just begun.

  * * *

  —

  Steve MacMillan was from San Francisco, and his parents were divorced. His mother was remarried and had two more children, and his father was single, a real estate developer who now lived in New York. Steve told the others that they could all go down to the city for a weekend and stay at his father’s place anytime they wanted. He said his father had a cool bachelor pad and traveled a lot, which sounded enticing to his friends.

  Steve’s classmate from Exeter, Jared Barclay, was from Boston, but his parents lived in London and Switzerland for part of the year. His father was an investment banker for private clients, and his mother was an anti-trust attorney. She had taken a two-year sabbatical to write a book, and he was an only child like Max.

  And Andy Peterson was from Texas. His family was Peterson Oil and he was the oldest of four kids.

  They were a bright, affluent group, all of whom had had top grades in school or they wouldn’t be there.

  “I’m from New York, no brothers or sisters. My father is a diamond wholesaler, which is not what I want to do when I graduate,” Max said, and the other three laughed. “My father is Austrian, from Vienna, and my mother is from Paris. They came to the States after the war.” There was silence for a moment as the implication sank in. With a name like Stein, he was obviously Jewish, and if his parents had come to America after the war, some seriously bad things could have happened to them, but no one dared ask. Max decided to fill in the blanks for them. “They met in Buchenwald concentration camp.”

  “Wow, that had to be rough,” Steve said, looking impressed. “Do they talk about what it was like?” He was curious now.

  “Never. I learned more about it in school than from them. They both lost their whole families and are the only survivors. They met and fell in love in the camp. And then they came to the States after the war.” He made it sound a lot simpler than it was. He had seen the tattoos on his parents’ arms many times and was used to them. “My father’s family were bankers in Austria. He got into the diamond business here.”

  “Interesting,” Steve said, “my father buys crap land all over the country and sells it for shopping malls. It’s the new big thing. The land is all over the place, Oklahoma, Arkansas, in the South, Texas, wherever there’s a lot of land he can buy cheap and sell for malls. He says it’s the wave of the future. It’s not what I want to do when I graduate either. Wall Street sounds a lot better to me.”

  “I can’t decide between business school or law school after this, but I guess we’ve got time to figure it out,” Jared added. “And before graduate school, where are the females around here?” He grinned and the others laughed.

  “Radcliffe!” they all said in unison and they all cheered.

  “Yeah, screw graduate school,” Andy said. “Where do we go to meet girls?”

  The four boys felt at ease with each other, and none of them cared that Max was Jewish. It was irrelevant, and they thought what he’d said about his parents was interesting. He didn’t look Jewish, not that they cared. They were all handsome boys, and couldn’t wait to experience college life, and all the social activities that went with it.

  Steve and Max were in two of the same classes, they discovered when they compared schedules. Andy said he was going to be a science major when it came time to decide. He was thinking about medical school but wasn’t sure. He wasn’t interested in the family oil business. None of them wanted to follow in their fathers’ footsteps. They wanted victories and paths of their own.

  Their first few weeks at Harvard were demanding and intense. None of them were used to working so hard, having so many assignments, and juggling so many classes. The two boys who’d been in boarding school were better prepared, but even they had to struggle to keep up. They had dinner together at night, and went to the library to work on their assignments. There were women in their classes but they didn’t have time to date in the early weeks of school.

  Andy was the first one to ask a girl out. He met her at the library, and the other three teased him mercilessly when he went to pick her up for their first date. But he declared her a dud when he got home. At least he’d tried. And Steve met a girl he liked in one of his classes, but she said she had a boyfriend at home and wanted to be faithful to him. College life was not proving to be as fruitful romantically as they had hoped. It was serious business, particularly at a school like Harvard.

  By the time his parents came up in October for the parents’ weekend, Max had had C’s on three papers and a quiz, and realized he had to work even harder. Their professors were tough and set a high standard. But this was what Max had wanted, and Jakob and Emmanuelle agreed that he looked happy, and they liked his friends.

  The week after the parents’ weekend, which only Max’s parents and Andy’s father had come to, they all went to Steve’s father’s apartment in New York. He was out of town, and Max didn’t tell his parents he would be in the city or they’d be upset if he didn’t come to visit, and stay with them.

  They had a fun weekend. Steve looked up a friend from Exeter who was at Columbia, and they visited him on campus, and went to a party with him. Steve’s father showed up late Saturday night, and was there when they got home. He handed them each a beer, and talked about the land he’d just bought in Arkansas for a shopping mall. Max was intrigued by everything he said. He wanted to tell his father about it.

  On Sunday afternoon, they took the train back to Boston, and finished their weekend assignments late Sunday night. They all looked tired the next morning when they left for class.

  By Thanksgiving, they were fast friends, and went everywhere together. Max had pulled up his grades and was getting B’s. For the moment, A’s appeared to be out of reach, although Steve had managed to get one. Jared had the best grades, but he studied on most weekends, instead of cruising for girls, which seemed a high price to pay for grades. Max wanted to have more fun than spending the whole weekend in the library.

  He was happy to see his parents when he got home for Thanksgiving, and they were thrilled to have him back, even for four days. He headed straight out to see his friends who were home for the weekend too. Some were going to City College,
others to state schools. A few were going to good colleges out of state, and two were at Jewish universities. He was the only one at an Ivy League school and they teased him about it, but it was great to see them. The next day, he had traditional Thanksgiving dinner with his parents. His mother had cooked. She had become an expert at Thanksgiving dinner over the years, and afterward Max told his father about meeting Steve’s father, and the land he was buying to turn into shopping malls in the Midwest and Southwest.

  “Apparently, he buys the land dirt cheap and builds a shopping mall on it, then sells it. He says it’s not complicated and the profit margin is fantastic. Maybe that could be something for you,” Max said, looking excited, and Jakob smiled at him. Max was running with a high-flying crowd with a lot of money at their disposal and fancy ideas. Jakob knew nothing about land prices in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and didn’t want to lose his money on a bad deal. “You should look into it, Dad. It might be a lot more lucrative than buying buildings here, and you’re not selling them anyway. This is higher volume, faster turnover, and big money from the sound of it.” Max was enthusiastic and Jakob was amused. He had been in college for three months and was already coming up with investment ideas for him. He was clearly on the right track, and had a passion for business. He wanted to do big things when he grew up.

  “I’ll check it out,” Jakob promised, and Emmanuelle scolded him when they went to bed.

  “Don’t start taking investment advice from our eighteen-year-old son,” she chided him, “or we’ll be broke in a year.” It was exactly the kind of project she hated, far from her home turf, in a field they knew nothing about, and highly speculative. Buying apartment buildings in their own neighborhood on the Lower East Side was much safer, even if the profit margin wasn’t great. The greater the risk, the higher the profit, and all the downsides that went with it. He’d expected her to disapprove and wasn’t surprised.