“Not the Bronx, after all. Not today, I don’t think.”
Our driver that day was an Asian man in a smart visored cap, a neat dark uniform, and gloves. The limousine was shiny black and larger than last week’s and the windows were dark-tinted so you could see out (but it was strange, a scary twilight even in the sun) but no one could see in. “No plebeians knowing our business!” Daddy said, winking at me. “No spies.” When we passed traffic policemen Daddy made faces at them, waggled his fingers at his ears and stuck out his tongue though they were only a few yards away; I giggled frightened Daddy would be seen and arrested, but he couldn’t be seen, of course — “We’re invisible, Princess! Don’t worry.”
Daddy liked me to smile and laugh, not to worry; not ever, ever to cry. He’d had enough of crying, he said. He’d had it up to here (drawing a forefinger across his throat, like a knife blade) with crying, he said. He had older children, grown-up children I’d never met; I was his Little Princess, his Baby-Love, the only one of his children he did love, he said. Snatching my hand and kissing it, kiss-tickling so I’d squeal with laughter.
Now Daddy no longer drove his own car, it was a time of rented cars. His enemies had taken his driver’s license from him to humiliate him, he said. For they could not defeat him in any way that mattered. For he was too strong for them, and too smart.
It was a time of sudden reversals, changes of mind. I had been looking forward to the zoo; now we weren’t going to the zoo but doing something else — “You’ll like it just as much.” Other Saturdays, we’d driven through the park; the park had many surprises; the park went on forever; we would stop, and walk, run, play in the park; we’d fed the ducks and geese swimming on the ponds; we’d had lunch outdoors at Tavern on the Green; we’d had lunch outdoors at the boat-house; on a windy March day, Daddy had helped me fly a kite (which we’d lost — it broke, and blew away in shreds); there was the promise of skating at Wollman Rink sometime soon. Other Saturdays we’d driven north on Riverside Drive to the George Washington Bridge, and across the bridge, and back; we’d driven north to the Cloisters; we’d driven south to the very end of the island as Daddy called it — “The great doomed island, Manhattan.” We’d crossed Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, we’d crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. We’d gazed up at the Statue of Liberty. We’d gone on a ferry ride in bouncy, choppy water. We’d had lunch at the top of the World Trade Center, which was Daddy’s favorite restaurant — “Dining in the clouds! In heaven.” We’d gone to Radio City Music Hall, we’d seen Beauty and the Beast on Broadway; we’d seen the Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center; we’d seen, the year before, the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. Our Saturday adventures left me dazed, giddy; one day I would realize that’s what intoxicated, high, drunk means — I’d been drunk with happiness, with Daddy.
But no other drunk, ever afterward, could come near.
“Today, Princess, we’ll buy presents. That’s what we’ll do — ‘store up riches.’ ”
Christmas presents? I asked.
“Sure. Christmas presents, any kind of presents. For you, and for me. Because we’re special, you know.” Daddy smiled at me, and I waited for him to wink because sometimes (when he was on the car phone, for instance) he’d wink at me to indicate he was joking; for Daddy often joked; Daddy was a man who loved to laugh, as he described himself, and there wasn’t enough to laugh at, unless he invented it. “You know we are special, Princess, don’t you? And all your life you’ll remember your Daddy loves you? — that’s the one true thing.”
Yes, Daddy, I said. For of course it was so.
I should record how Daddy spoke on the phone, in the backseats of our hired cars.
How precise his words, how he enunciated his words, polite and cold and harsh; how, though he spoke calmly, his handsome face creased like a vase that has been cracked; his eyes squinted almost shut, and had no focus; a raw flush like sunburn rose from his throat. Then he would remember where he was, and remember me. And smile at me, winking and nodding, whispering to me; even as he continued his conversation with whoever was at the other end of the line. And after a time Daddy would say abruptly, “That’s enough!” or simply, “Goodbye!” and break the connection; Daddy would replace the phone receiver, and the conversation would have ended, with no warning. So that I basked in the knowledge that any one of Daddy’s conversations, entered into with such urgency, would nonetheless come to an abrupt ending with the magic words “That’s enough!” or “Goodbye!” and these words I awaited in the knowledge that, then, Daddy would turn smiling to me.
That wild day! Breakfast at the Plaza, and shopping at the Trump Tower, and a visit to the Museum of Modern Art where Daddy took me to see a painting precious to him, he said…We had been in the café at the Plaza before but this time Daddy couldn’t get the table he requested, and something else was wrong — it wasn’t clear to me what; I was nervous, and giggly; Daddy gave our orders to the waiter, but disappeared (to make another phone call? to use the men’s room? — if you asked Daddy where he went he’d say with a wink, That’s for me to know, darlin’, and you to find out); a big plate of scrambled eggs and bacon was brought for me; eggs Benedict was brought for Daddy; a stack of blueberry pancakes with warm syrup was brought for us to share; the silver pastry cart was pushed to our table; there were tiny jars of jams, jellies, marmalade for us to open; there were people at nearby tables observing us; I was accustomed, in Daddy’s company, to being observed by strangers; I took such attention as my due, as Daddy’s daughter; Daddy whispered, “Let them get an eyeful, Princess.” Daddy ate quickly, hungrily; Daddy ate with a napkin tucked beneath his chin; Daddy saw that I wasn’t eating much and asked was there something wrong with my breakfast; I told Daddy I wasn’t hungry; Daddy asked if “she” had made me eat, before he’d arrived; I told him no; I said I felt a little sickish; Daddy said, “That’s one of the Ice Queen’s tactics — ‘sickish.’ ” So I tried to eat, tiny pieces of pancakes that weren’t soaked in syrup, and Daddy leaned his elbows on the table and watched me, saying, “And what if this is the last breakfast you’ll ever have with your father, what then? Shame on you!” Waiters hovered near in their dazzling white uniforms. The maitre d’ was attentive, smiling. A call came for Daddy and he was gone for some time and when he returned flush-faced and distracted, his necktie loosened at his throat, it seemed that breakfast was over; hurriedly Daddy scattered $20 bills across the table, and hurriedly we left the café as everyone smiled and stared after us; we left the Plaza by the side entrance, on 58th Street, where the limousine awaited us; the silent Asian driver standing at the curb with the rear door open for Daddy to bundle me inside, and climb inside himself. We had hardly a block to go, to the elegant Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue; there we took escalators to the highest floor, where Daddy’s eyes glistened with tears, everywhere he looked was so beautiful. Have I said my Daddy was smooth-shaven this morning, and smelled of a wintergreen cologne; he was wearing amber-tinted sunglasses, new to me; he was wearing a dark pinstriped double-breasted Armani suit and over it an Armani camel’s-hair coat with shoulders that made him appear more muscular than he was; he was wearing shiny black Italian shoes with a heel that made him appear taller than he was; Daddy’s hair had been styled and blown dry so that it lifted from his head like something whipped, not lying flat, and not a dull flattish white as it had been but tinted now a pale russet color; how handsome Daddy was! In the boutiques of Trump Tower Daddy bought me a dark blue velvet coat, and a pale blue angora cloche hat; Daddy bought me pale blue angora gloves; my old coat, my old gloves were discarded — “Toss ’em, please!” Daddy commanded the saleswomen. Daddy bought me a beautiful silk Hermès scarf to wrap around my neck, and Daddy bought me a beautiful white-gold wristwatch studded with tiny emeralds, that had to be made smaller, much smaller, to fit my wrist; Daddy bought me a “keepsake” gold heart on a thin gold chain, a necklace; Daddy bought for himself a half-dozen beautiful silk neckties imported from Italy, and a kidskin wallet; Daddy bought a cashmere vest sweater for himself, imported from Scotland; Daddy bought an umbrella, an attaché case, a handsome suitcase, imported from England, all of which he ordered to be delivered to an address in New Jersey; and other items Daddy bought for himself, and for me. For all these wonderful presents Daddy paid in cash; in bills of large denominations; Daddy no longer used credit cards, he said; he refused to be a cog in the network of government surveillance, he said; they would not catch him in their net; he would not play their ridiculous games. In the Trump Tower there was a café beside a waterfall and Daddy had a glass of wine there, though he chose not to sit down at a table; he was too restless, he said, to sit down at a table; he was in too much of a hurry. Descending then the escalators to the ground floor, where a cool breeze lifted to touch our heated faces; I was terribly excited in my lovely new clothes, and wearing my lovely jewelry; except for Daddy gripping my hand — “Care-ful, Princess!” — I would have stumbled at the foot of the escalator. And outside on Fifth Avenue there were so many people, tall rushing rude people who took no notice of me even in my new velvet coat and angora hat, I would have been knocked down on the sidewalk except for Daddy gripping my hand, protecting me. Next we went — we walked, and the limousine followed — to the Museum of Modern Art, where again there was a crowd, again I was breathless riding escalators, I was trapped behind tall people seeing legs, the backs of coats, swinging arms; Daddy lifted me to his shoulder and carried me, and brought me into a large, airy room; a room of unusual proportions; a room not so crowded as the others; there were tears in Daddy’s eyes as he held me in his arms — his arms that trembled just slightly — to gaze at an enormous painting — several paintings — broad beautiful dreamy-blue paintings of a pond, and water lilies; Daddy told me that these paintings were by a very great French artist named “Mon-ay” and that there was magic in them; he told me that these paintings made him comprehend his own soul, or what his soul had been meant to be; for as soon as you left the presence of such beauty, you were lost in the crowd; you were devoured by the crowd; it would be charged against you that it was your own fault but in fact — “They don’t let you be good, Princess. The more you have, the more they want from you. They eat you alive. Cannibals.”