Faithless: Tales of Transgression Read online

  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.”

  When we left the museum, the snowflakes had ceased to fall. In the busy Manhattan streets there was no memory of them now. A bright harsh sun shone down almost vertically between the tall buildings but everywhere else was shadow, without color, and cold.

  BY LATE AFTERNOON Daddy and I had shopped at Tiffany & Co., and Bergdorf Goodman, and Saks, and Bloomingdale’s; we had purchased beautiful expensive items to be delivered to us at an address in New Jersey—“On the far side of the River Styx.” One purchase, at Steuben on Fifth Avenue, was a foot-high glass sculpture that might have been a woman, or an angel, or a wide-winged bird; it shone with light, so that you could almost not see it; Daddy laughed, saying, “The Ice Queen!—exactly”; and so this present was sent to Momma at 31 Central Park South. As we walked through the great glittering stores Daddy held my hand so that I would not be lost from him; these great stores, Daddy said, were the cathedrals of America; they were the shrines and reliquaries and catacombs of America; if you could not be happy in such stores, you could not be happy anywhere; you could not be a true American. And Daddy recited stories to me, some of these were fairy tales he’d read to me when I’d been a little little girl, a baby; when Daddy had lived with Momma and me, the three of us in a brownstone house with our own front door, and no doorman and no elevators; on our ground-floor windows there were curving iron bars, so that no one could break in; there were electronic devices of all kinds, so that no one could break in; our house had two trees at the curb, and these, too, were protected by curving iron bars; we lived in a narrow, quiet street a half-block from a huge, important building—the Metropolitan Museum of Art; when Daddy had been on television sometimes, and his photograph in the papers; they would say I knew nothing about this, I was too young to know, but I did; I knew. Just as I knew it was strange for Daddy to be paying for our presents with cash from his wallet, and out of thick-stuffed envelopes in his inside coat pockets; it was strange, for no one else paid in such a way; and others stared at him; stared at him as if memorizing him—the vigor of his voice and his shining face and his knowledge that he, and I, who was his daughter, were set off from the dull, dreary ordinariness of the rest of the world; they stared, they were envious of us, though smiling, always smiling, if Daddy glanced at them, or spoke with them. For such was Daddy’s power.

  I was dazed with exhaustion; I was feverish; I could not have said how long Daddy and I had been shopping, on our Saturday adventure; yet I loved it, that strangers observed us, and remarked how pretty I was; and to Daddy sometimes they would say, Your face is familiar, are you on TV? But Daddy just laughed and kept moving, for there was no time to spare that day.

  OUT ON THE STREET, one of the wide, windy avenues, Daddy hailed a cab like any other pedestrian. When had he dismissed the limousine?—I couldn’t remember.

  It was a bumpy, jolting ride. The rear seat was torn. There was no heat. In the rearview mirror a pair of liquidy black eyes regarded Daddy with silent contempt. Daddy fumbled paying the fare, a $50 bill slipped from his fingers—“Keep the change, driver, and thanks!” Yet even then the eyes did not smile at us; these were not eyes to be purchased.

  We were in a dark, tiny wine cellar on 47th Street near Seventh Avenue where Daddy ordered a carafe of red wine for himself and a soft drink for me and where he could make telephone calls in a private room at the rear; I fell asleep, and when I woke up there was Daddy standing by our table, too restless to sit; his face was rubbery and looked stretched; his hair had fallen and lay in damp strands against his forehead; globules of sweat like oily pearls ran down his cheeks. He smiled with his mouth, saying, “There you are, Princess! Up and at ’em.” For already it was time to leave, and more than time. Daddy had learned from an aide the bad news, the news he’d been expecting. But shielding me from it of course. For only much later—years later—would I learn that, that afternoon, a warrant for Daddy’s arrest had been issued by the Manhattan district attorney’s office; by some of the very people for whom, until a few months ago, Daddy had worked. It would be charged against him that as a prosecuting attorney Daddy had misused the powers of his office, he had solicited and accepted bribes, he had committed perjury upon numerous occasions, he had falsely informed upon certain persons under investigation by the district attorney’s office, he had blackmailed others, he had embezzled funds … such charges were made against Daddy, such lies concocted by his enemies who had been jealous of him for many years and wanted him defeated, destroyed. One day I would learn that New York City police detectives had come to Daddy’s apartment (on East 92nd Street and First Avenue) to arrest him and of course hadn’t found him; they’d gone to 31 Central Park South and of course hadn’t found him; Momma told them Daddy had taken me to the Bronx Zoo, or in any case that had been his plan; Momma told them that Daddy would be bringing me back home at 5:30 P.M., or in any case he’d promised to do so; if they waited for him in the lobby downstairs would they please please not arrest him in front of his daughter, Momma begged. Yet policemen were sent to the Bronx Zoo to search for Daddy there; a manhunt for Daddy at the Bronx Zoo!—how Daddy would have laughed. And now an alert was out in Manhattan for Daddy, he was a “wanted” man, but already Daddy had shrewdly purchased a new coat in Saks, a London Fog trench coat the shade of damp stone, and made arrangements for the store to deliver his camel’s-hair coat to the New Jersey address; already Daddy had purchased a gray fedora hat, and he’d exchanged his amber-tinted sunglasses for darker glasses, with heavy black plastic frames; he’d purchased a knotty gnarled cane, imported from Australia, and walked now with a limp—I stared at him, almost I didn’t recognize him, and Daddy laughed at me. In the Shamrock Pub on Ninth Avenue and 39th Street he’d engaged a youngish blond woman with hair braided in cornrows to accompany us while he made several other stops; the blond woman had a glaring-bright face like a billboard; her eyes were ringed in black and lingered on me—“What a sweet, pretty little girl! And what a pretty coat and hat!”—but she knew not to ask questions. She walked with me gripping my hand in the angora glove pretending she was my momma and I was her little girl, and Daddy behind hobbling on his cane; shrewdly a few yards behind so it would not have seemed (if anyone was watching) that Daddy was with us; this was a game we were playing, Daddy said; it was a game that made me excited, and nervous; I was laughing and couldn’t stop; the blond woman scolded me—“Shhh! Your Daddy will be angry.” And a little later the blond woman was gone.

  Always in Manhattan, on the stre
et I wonder if I’ll see her again. Excuse me I will cry out do you remember? That day, that hour? But it’s been years.

  SO EXHAUSTED! Daddy scolded me carrying me out of the taxi, into the lobby of the Hotel Pierre; a beautiful old hotel on Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, across from Central Park; Daddy booked a suite for us on the sixteenth floor; you could look from a window to see the apartment building on Central Park South where Momma and I lived; but none of that was very real to me now; it wasn’t real to me that I had a Momma, but only real that I had a Daddy. And once we were inside the suite Daddy bolted the door and slid the chain lock in place. There were two TVs and Daddy turned them both on. He turned on the ventilator fans in all the rooms. He took the telephone receivers off their hooks. With a tiny key he unlocked the minibar and broke open a little bottle of whiskey and poured it into a glass and quickly drank. He was breathing hard, his eyes moving swiftly in their sockets yet without focus. “Princess! Get up please. Don’t disappoint your Daddy please.” I was lying on the floor, rolling my head from side to side. But I wasn’t crying. Daddy found a can of sweetened apple juice in the minibar and poured it into a glass and added something from another little bottle and gave it to me saying, “Princess, this is a magic potion. Drink!” I touched my lips to the glass but there was a bitter taste. Daddy said, “Princess, you must obey your Daddy.” And so I did. A hot hurting sensation spread in my mouth and throat and I started to choke and Daddy pressed the palm of his hand over my mouth to quiet me; it was then I remembered how long ago when I’d been a silly little baby Daddy had pressed the palm of his hand over my mouth to quiet me. I was sickish now, and I was frightened; but I was happy, too; I was drunk with happiness from all we’d done that day, Daddy and me; for I had never had so many presents before; I had never understood how special I was, before; and afterward when they asked if I’d been afraid of my Daddy I would say no! no I hadn’t been! not for a minute! I love my Daddy I would say, and my Daddy loves me. Daddy was sitting on the edge of the big bed, drinking; his head lowered almost to his knees. He was muttering to himself as if he were alone—“Fuckers! Wouldn’t let me be good. Now you want to eat my heart. But not me.” Later I was wakened to something loud on the TV. Except it was a pounding at the door. And men’s voices calling “Police! Open up, Mr.—”—saying Daddy’s name as I’d never heard it before. And Daddy was on his feet, Daddy had his arm around me. Daddy was excited and angry and he had a gun in his hand—I knew it was a gun, I’d seen pictures of guns—this was bluish-black and shiny, with a short barrel—and he was waving the gun as if the men on the other side of the door could see him; there was a film of sweat on his face catching the light, like facets of diamonds; I had never seen my Daddy so furious calling to the policemen—“I’ve got my little girl here, my daughter—and I’ve got a gun.” But they were pounding at the door; they were breaking down the door; Daddy fired the gun into the air and pulled me into another room where the TV was loud but there were no lights; Daddy pushed me down, panting; the two of us on the carpet, panting. I was too scared to cry, and I started to wet my pants; in the other room the policemen were calling to Daddy to surrender his weapon, not to hurt anyone but to surrender his weapon and come with them now; and Daddy was sobbing shouting—“I’ll use it, I’m not afraid—I’m not going to prison—I can’t!—I can’t do it!—I’ve got my little girl here, you understand?”—and the policemen were on the other side of the doorway but wouldn’t show themselves saying to Daddy he didn’t want to hurt his daughter, of course he didn’t want to hurt his daughter; he didn’t want to hurt himself, or anyone; he should surrender his weapon now, and come along quietly with the officers; he would speak with his lawyer; he would be all right; and Daddy was cursing, and Daddy was crying, and Daddy was crawling on his hands and knees on the carpet trying to hold me, and the gun; we were crouched in the farthest darkest corner of the room by the heating unit; the ventilator fan was throbbing; Daddy was hugging me and crying, his breath was hot on my face; I tried to push out of Daddy’s arms but Daddy was too strong calling me Princess! Little Princess! saying I knew he loved me didn’t I. The magic potion had made me sleepy and sickish, it was hard for me to stay awake. By now I had wet my panties, my legs were damp and chafed. A man was talking to Daddy in a loud clear voice like a TV voice and Daddy was listening or seemed to be listening and sometimes Daddy would reply and sometimes not; how much time passed like this, how many hours—I didn’t know; not until years later would I learn it had been an hour and twelve minutes but at the time I hadn’t any idea, I wasn’t always awake. The voices kept on and on; men’s voices; one of them saying repeatedly, “Mr.—, surrender your weapon, will you? Toss it where we can see it, will you?” and Daddy wiped his face on his shirt sleeve, Daddy’s face was streaked with tears like something melting set too near a fire, and still the voice said, calmly, so loud it seemed to come from everywhere at once, “Mr.—, you’re not a man to harm a little girl, we know you, you’re a good man, you’re not a man to harm anyone,” and suddenly Daddy said, “Yes! Yes that’s right.” And Daddy kissed me on the side of the face and said, “Good-bye, Princess!” in a high, happy voice; and pushed me away from him; and Daddy placed the barrel of the gun deep inside his mouth. And Daddy pulled the trigger.