William Gaddis - J R

— Yes I, I see yes incidentally does, is your father aware of this arrangement you have with Mis, with Francis’ father?

— Daddy? I don’t know, I haven’t the faintest idea what he’s aware of, it might embarrass him is that what you mean? if something unpleasant got in the papers? The way he’s aware of Freddie when Freddie gets out and the rest of the time he’s…

— No please Mrs Joubert I didn’t mean he, that was he on the phone just now I meant to tell you yes…

— Oh?

— He asked me to give you his best wishes yes, he…

— He knew I was here?

— Yes I told him you’d come in to, excuse me. Hello…? It’s Mrs Selk I’d better, yes hello? Good morn… pardon? Yes sir, ma’am yes ma’am… I see yes ma’am have you talked with Boody hersel… no ma’am I… Yes ma’am have you talked with Mis… yes ma’am possibly if Mister Moncrieff himself called the Greek Emba… the Greek Embassy yes ma’am he might be in a better position to… Yes ma’am I… yes ma, hello? hello…?

— Boody?

— Yes she ah, apparently she’s been arrested again… he replaced the phone, — she was stopped at the Greek frontier and charged with carrying I’m sorry, hello? Bea oh yes ma’am I… no ma’am no I… No I didn’t no ma’am no sometimes the switchboard just cuts in and discon… no ma’am no I don’t know anyone on the switch… but yes but all of them ma’am? It’s quite difficult to find experienced op… yes ma’am… yes ma’am immed… Yes ma’am but of course the police themselves should… yes ma’am but of course the insurance company has its own investiga… Yes ma’am but I might suggest if Deleserea has been missing only since last evening there may be a possib… yes ma’am… yes ma’am immed… hello? hello…? he held it away, brought it back to his ear — hello…? and hung it up slowly — she, now she thinks Deleserea has disappeared with a diamond brooch…

— I wouldn’t blame her at all, I can’t even blame Boody for carting drugs into Greece she’s…

— Not this time no they’ve charged her with carrying incendiaries, incendiary bombs, we just got her out of Nepal and I think your father is beginning to…

— Be aware of Boody?

— Mrs Joubert please I, I think your father has been quite patient, he…

— Patient…! she turned pages, — now where am I to sign.

— On the last page where it says, yes down there…

— He’s been patient with Freddie for what, ten years? as long as Freddie’s where he can’t bother him.

— But under the circumstances Mrs Joubert, I think your brother is prob…

— Does Daddy ever visit him? she pulled off her glasses looking up, — ever?

— Well I… he cleared his throat, reached for the papers — are you able to visit him often?

She got her handkerchief again, but simply held it tight in her hand. — Once I, I went once and they had a concert he was learning to play the, played the cymbals I just couldn’t ever go again…

— But, but perhaps your father finds it just as pain…

— Freddie’s his son! she used the handkerchief and then, stilled, her eyes over its lavender edge looked even larger — sends his, he sends his best wishes he knows I’m sitting a foot away but he couldn’t…

— Mrs Joubert he had an important meeting and just took a moment to call with something quite urgent regarding the situation in Gan…

— A moment yes he couldn’t take a moment to speak to me to, even to ask how I am there’s always a meeting an important meeting he hides in meetings even that day, the day I brought the children in I was in his office to, waiting to sign something like I always am he was standing beside me there molding his nose like he always does looking down at me and he said, he said you look tired Amy he looked so concerned so, so concerned I thought he wanted to talk to me to tell me something to say something he, and then he turned with all that concern he turned to you and asked about his last option…

— I, I understand yes but I think you should consid…

— I’m sorry, is this all you want me to sign?

— Yes and, oh the changes yes if you’ll just initial the changes, they’re marked in the margins Mrs Joubert it’s not my, I just mean to say your father has been under a good deal of pressure recently I don’t think you should take that to mean he’s not extremely concerned about you, when you mentioned earlier the trusts your mother had set up for yourself and your brother, your income…

— Oh honestly… she initialed, initialed, — how can you call it my income it’s…

— No but you see I understand your impatience but I think in expressing his concern under the provision that the income may be reinvested by the guardian until…

— By Daddy yes till he thinks I’ve stopped drifting? till I stop wasting my, stop teaching school out in the woods somewhere just to have something to do, something alive to do even if it’s, even if I hardly know what I’m teaching them just following the lesson guide but it’s something it’s, something…

— I didn’t mean…

— And don’t say the trusts Mama had set up for me and Freddie no, no Daddy and your father and Uncle John set them up and old Judge Ude in the Surrogate Court where Uncle John put him they set them up, it was Mama’s money and they set them up with all these provisions and she signed the papers just like I’m signing these without even knowing what she, why they…

— Please no wait a moment, no I should make it clear of course I have no way of knowing the conditions surrounding these trusts of your mother’s Mrs Joubert but, but in signing these papers in your capacity with these foundations the implication that you’re being taken advantage of beyond…

— A convenience…

— Well in a, perhaps in a manner of spea…

— A convenience yes, it saves Uncle John the trouble of finding trustees on the subway.

— Yes well, perhaps yes but certainly you do understand his wish to secure his financial position? You see in eight of ten previous years, his taxes plus charitable contributions had taken ninety percent of his net income enabling him to make a charity gift of some nineteen million dollars to…

— Oh honestly, charity just the word…

— Yes well I use it in its tax law connotation and of course since his bank holds the pension fund of the hospital where he’s a trustee, and his position as a director of this leading nonprofit health insurance program assures the hospital against nonpayment of…

— The idea of him ever giving away nineteen cents nineteen, nineteen peanuts nineteen anything if he had them he’d…

— No you see Mrs Joubert the point is that this particular nineteen million represented the market value of the securities constituting his gift he’d originally paid something like, something under half a million as an original investor and this approach merely enables him to avoid the substantial capital gains tax he would have been liable for if he’d sold them, and made his income for the following very prosperous year entirely tax free, you see the high personal tax rate, in setting up these foundations in view of the high personal tax rate he was subject to on the dividends from these securities it was decided that since a dividend in the form of stock was not considered income, he might authorize and receive a new issue of preferred at one hundred dollars par redeemable by the company at one hundred two which of course would not affect his control of, Mrs Joubert? you, you did want to know…

— Preferred stock doesn’t vote, yes. We had it in class, preferred stock doesn’t…

— Yes in this case however it appeared advisable for tax purp…