Trust

by Hernan Diaz

She touched his shoulder, smiled, and told him, with serene warmth, that neither of them really cared about such things. He did not know how to receive the unexpected gift of her affection. She nodded toward the ticker and, before leaving him in the room, said she would see him for dinner.

Who is telling this story, this third person?

Conversation had never been one of Helen’s pleasures. Yet now, in the presence of the right interlocutors, she relished the verbal dexterity, quick erudition, and improvisational talent on display in their exchanges—although she preferred listening to joining in the discussion (to later record the liveliest, most thought-provoking moments in her journal, which by then comprised several thick volumes).

Where are these writings?

What had started as a compromise—music performances, they learned, were the perfect way for them to be seen “out” without having to engage in inane conversations to fill uncomfortable gaps—grew into a passion. As both developed a taste for chamber music, they translated this principle to their own relationship. They organized private recitals at their home, and on these occasions, they could be together, in silence, sharing emotions for which they were not responsible and which did not refer directly to the two of them. Precisely because they were so controlled and mediated, these were Benjamin and Helen’s most intimate moments.

Yes, I totally get this.

As a premium for his fame as a financial genius, Rask valued his portfolio well above the market price of the stocks it contained. Not only that, but in his double capacity as investment banker and sponsor of several trusts, he was able to produce some of the very securities he sold—and he repeatedly issued common stock that he would buy in its entirety (or distribute among favored investors) and then trade to the public for up to eighty percent above his original purchase price.

Is this the first instance of the title, “trust?” Ironically, in a passage devoted to showing how Rask screws people over financially.

All of these countless and sometimes trifling debts (from his lending services, smaller banks, and different credit ventures) were bundled together and traded in bulk as securities. He saw, in short, that the relationship with the consumer did not end with the purchase of a good; there was more profit to be extracted from that exchange.

The birth of the art of sucking consumers dry.

He also created a trust meant exclusively for the working man. A small amount, the few hundred dollars in a modest savings account, was enough to get started. The trust would match this sum (and sometimes double or even treble it) to then invest it in its portfolio and use that stock as security.

The second occurrence of the title, “trust.” In an even more direct manipulation of “the common man.”

Sometimes he listened at her door. The active silence within was terrifying. It was interrupted only by the sporadic rustle of papers, which confirmed that Helen was not asleep but writing in her journal, filling page after page in one thick notebook after the other. Benjamin respected her privacy too much to pry, but on one occasion, when he knew she was at the other end of the house, he inspected her diaries. German, French, Italian, and, perhaps, other languages (he wondered if they were, indeed, proper languages) were intertwined in each sentence, forming braids that Benjamin, confined to English, could not untangle.

Once again, where are these writings?

She laughed quietly at the doctor’s question. Only a fool would distinguish past from present in such a way. The future irrupts at all times, wanting to actualize itself in every decision we make; it tries, as hard as it can, to become the past. This is what distinguishes the future from mere fancy. The future happens. The Lord casts no one into hell; the spirits cast themselves down, according to Swedenborg. The spirits cast themselves into hell by their own free choice. And what is choice but a branch of the future grafting itself onto the stem of the present? Past father? Future father? Helen laughed again and moved on to consider the subject of gardening in relation to alchemy.

Helen is truly following in her father’s footsteps. Another question/observation about the book: has there even been one segment of quoted text? Of actual dialog? I don’t think so. This third-person accounting gives the story a mythical feel, like Homer the blind bard recounting the stories he always tells.

She could not stop talking because she could not stop trying to explain her illness—and her desire to understand her illness was, to a large extent, the illness itself. If he listened and taught her to listen, they would find that her never-ending rant was full of ciphered instructions. Symptom, disease, and cure were three in one. Each time he came across one of those revealing moments in Mrs. Rask’s speech, where her illness threw light on itself, an abrupt interruption underscored the epiphany and forced her to listen to herself. This is why so many sessions were so short. And they took place anywhere (at any time) to impress the idea on the patient that her self-examination was not restricted to an office but a continuous process. With these “raid” sessions, he wanted to teach her to ambush herself.

Clever treatment!

Benjamin walked into the building and down the hall to Helen’s room, surprised to see his feet move and his hand turn the doorknob. The nurses froze. He approached the bed. They stepped away. As if it were the skin of a delicate fruit, he lifted the sheet. There was nothing restful about Helen’s face. All the pain had remained sealed within. Her body was somehow distorted. Benjamin took a step back, trying to rearrange it in his mind. Someone mentioned her clavicle. He turned around. It was the American nurse who had rushed out of the building in tears a few days before. She said Mrs. Rask’s convulsions had been so violent she had broken her collarbone.

Jesus fucking Christ. Benjamin royally fucked up and Helen spent her last days in fucking hell.

The public at large—or at least the average reader of the financial pages in the paper—was indignant to see Mr. Rask gambling against the nation’s recovery. During this time, Mrs. Brevoort was exuberant in her grief, exploring all the social possibilities of mourning. She found unsuspected radiance in the deepest shades of black and made sure to surround herself with particularly plaintive and misty-eyed friends so that she could highlight her arrogant form of sorrow, which she called “dignified.”

The narrator, while not exactly Benjamin — not first person, is telling this story as a close compatriot of Benjamin’s.

Aside from a slower body and some minor ailments, there might have been just one substantial difference between his former self and who he had become: while that young person had believed he would renounce everything in favor of his calling, this aging man was sure he had given life a fair try.

Definitely a sympathetic narrator.

A vicious circle has taken hold of our able-bodied men: they increasingly rely on the government to alleviate the misery created by that same government, not realizing that this dependency only perpetuates their sorry state of affairs.

Fucking privileged, rich, sexist, white republican asshole.

New York, July of 1938

Andrew’s preface here was written around the time Benjamin’s story ended.

More examples of his business acumen. Show his pioneering spirit.

Ah, i see what this is: Andrew’s notes to himself; writing still to-do. This manuscript is incomplete.

It is hard work to give money away. It requires a great deal of planning and strategizing. If not managed properly, philanthropy can both harm the giver and spoil the receiver. Expand. Generosity is the mother of ingratitude.

lol right. ;-)

Over the following years I conducted many operations of this kind that allowed a multitude of American businesses, manufacturers and corporations to increase their stock issues and capitalize themselves. This is my record. And this is the background against which the reader needs to look at 1929. Financial robustness: more hard facts and figures. Make accessible for average reader.

Sounds like Andrew is trying to convince himself. He sure isn’t convincing me!

This amicable relationship with the government started in 1922, when President Warren G. Harding summoned me and other businessmen to the White House to help him fulfill his campaign promise to bring prosperity to our people by putting “America First.”

Fuck.

During this time I saw not only the destiny of our great nation fulfilled but also my own. Mildred and I had moved into our new home on East 87th Street just a few years earlier. For a brief time, before she was stricken by the fatigue that would become the first symptom of her illness, life was Brief paragraph Mildred, domestic delights. Home a solace during these happily frantic times.

Both these rich fucks’ success killed their wives.

Everyone was playing finance with toy money. Even women got in on the market!

Even women?! For shame!

Women represented only 1.5 per cent of the dilettantish speculators at the beginning of the decade. At the end they neared 40 per cent. Could there have been a clearer indicator of the disaster to come?

Fucking sexist.

Each time we find a way to minimize our effort and increase our gain we are making a business deal, even if it is with ourselves. These negotiations are so ingrained in our routine that they are barely noticeable. But the truth is our existence revolves around profit.

Wow. Poor guy. Everything is a transaction.

Because nothing in nature is stable, one cannot merely keep what one has. Just like all other living creatures, we either thrive or fade. This is the fundamental law governing the entire realm of life. And it is out of an instinct of survival that all men desire Smith, Spencer, etc. Gospel of Wealth, American Individualism, The Way to Wealth, The Individual and His Will, etc. Philosophical Testament. Etc.

Wow. Fucking loser of a legacy, eh?

Some two years later, in the spring of 1981,

Ok! Jump ahead 50 years!

My father disapproved. Secretary was a demeaning occupation, he said. It promised independence but was another knot in the millenary subjection of women to the rule of men.

Good father.

Visions of gold-paved streets never lit up his dreams, and he was deaf to the gospel of thrift and industry; he preached, rather, that all property is theft.

Right on!

closed with a reflection on time and how it was up to each one of us to carve our present out of the shapeless block of the future—or something to that effect.

Haha! Andrew will definitely love that shit!

Over dinner I would narrate entire novels to my father, footnoted with conjectures and predictions. Spellbound, he followed every little detail of the plot, and I learned how to lead him down false trails and make him chase red herrings to heighten his surprise at the final revelation. He would be so captivated that he forgot to eat. “Look! My food! Cold again! All your fault,” he often said at the end, mock-scolding me as we laughed.

Wait, wait, wait… what’s going on here? This is exactly what Andrew said his wife did with him!

I had become the woman in the house. My father, the anarchist, found the fact that child labor was required to keep the gender status quo intact equally natural.

I love that she sees exactly what’s going on; the irony of her dad’s hypocrisy.

“Have you read this?” He slid the book over the desk. I picked it up. The dust jacket was sage green and the font was black and gray—a palette reminiscent of a dollar bill. There were no illustrations or adornments of any kind. It simply read: Bonds A Novel harold vanner

The first book! The one by the sympathetic third-person narrator (who must be Harold Vanner) about Benjamin Trask!

But I can tell you why this book is a sensation: because it’s patently about my wife and me. And because it makes us look bad.”

WTF? So the whole first book is … fiction? There were indeed many parallels between the plots of Andrew’s book and Vanner’s.

“But, sir, I’m not a writer.” “Goodness knows the last thing I want is a writer. Damn them all. A secretary is what I need. I know you are an extraordinary stenographer and typist. I shall speak; you will take dictation. And from your essay here I can see you have a way with words.” He looked at the page again. “ ‘Carve our present out of the shapeless block of the future.’ You also have a penchant for storytelling that may come in handy.”

lol. Arrogant asshole.

“Talk to the girls outside. They’ll give you all the details. Thank you.” He attempted a smile. “And take the book.” As I was walking back to the door, I heard Bevel pick up a receiver. “Let the other girl go.”

“Girls.” He wants a nobody so he can lie to them about his life. We cannot *trust* Andrew.

Do you truly understand what my job is about?” “No.” “Thank you for not attempting a response. My job is about being right. Always. If I’m ever wrong, I must make use of all my means and resources to bend and align reality according to my mistake so that it ceases to be a mistake.”

Rich fucks all feel this way.

It had become clear by then that he would not tell me the story of his life in chronological order or exhaust each topic before moving on to the next. Yet, having the organized and methodical mind of an accountant, Bevel needed to know where each event would go. We therefore designed a general scaffolding, not unlike the bare structure of his new skyscraper.

Is Ida the author of Andrew’s book, the unfinished one?

After a short preface the book would begin with a chapter on his ancestors, followed by others about his education, his business and so on.

Yes, this is the structure of Andrew’s book. Ida is the one who actually wrote that second book.

During my research into my father’s past I found that between 1870 and 1940 about five hundred anarchist periodicals were published in the United States. That virtually no trace remains of that vast number of publications and the even vaster number of people behind them shows how utterly anarchists have been erased from American history.

Is this true?

“Are you saying, perhaps, that I am moved by spite, revenge or, even worse, that I am seeking some sort of perverse thrill in cruelty? It seems to me that you don’t understand what our work here is about. It seems to me that you don’t understand what any of this is all about.” “I do.” “Is that so?” “Bending and aligning reality.” At the time, I was not entirely sure if the phrase applied to this situation. But I did know that most men enjoy hearing themselves quoted. “Exactly. And reality needs to be consistent. How incongruous would it be to find traces of Vanner in a world where Vanner never existed?” For the first time since meeting Andrew Bevel, it occurred to me that I should be afraid.

This is how the rich control the masses: buy the publishing conglomerates and the mass media, which controls the news, the current events, which becomes solidified into the historical narrative. Fucking Rupert Murdoch. Fucking Elon musk. And, for the purposes of this novel, this is why we’ve never heard of Benjamin Trask: Bevel has “pulped” all account of him.

I always gave him a hand during these frantic weeks, but that year I was sequestered in my room, trying to turn Mildred Bevel’s tenuous ghost into a tangible human being.

The fourth book in this novel is Mildred’s story. Ida doesn’t know Mildred because, I’m sure, Bevel didn’t know her. I mean, we already know that Mildred *did* journal: the Ida of the 1980s is about to dig into those journals.

In Bevel’s autobiography sweet, sickly, sensitive Mildred just loved pretty melodies. Like a child with a music box. From his descriptions one could almost see her nodding along with a half smile and closed eyes, keeping time, slightly offbeat, with her hands on her blanketed lap. In her husband’s condescending characterization Mildred was an endearing dilettante who enjoyed music as other women enjoy crocheting or collecting brooches. I feel renewed shame for having helped him create this image of her.

Indeed, Bevel was an arrogant prick.

Even if Andrew cared nothing for music, even if he actively disliked it, would this not be worthy of mention? Who would omit the fact that his wife was in the habit of hosting musicians ranging from Pau Casals to Edgard Varèse? Why present her as a dabbling little girl?

My questions exactly!

Writing about Mildred (in any of these versions) was, by far, the most challenging aspect of my work. There was nothing I could rely on.

Nothing she could TRUST.

The discarded passage I wanted to bring back should have been in one of the balls of crumpled paper closest to the surface in my trash can. I took one ball and straightened it out. Blank. Another. Blank. Another. Blank. Most of my discarded pages were gone, replaced with blank paper. Terrified and heartbroken, I pretended to enjoy dinner. It took everything I had to keep my eyes from constantly drifting toward Jack’s satchel.

Fuck. Jack is working for the tieless man, spying on Ida.

The pain of having been betrayed by someone so close to me seemed irrelevant compared with the consequences of a breach of confidentiality. And what made it all doubly dispiriting is that it was true: suffering the loss of a friend was nothing next to facing Bevel’s wrath. Such was the extent of his power. His fortune bent reality around it. This reality included people—and their perception of the world, like mine, was also caught in the gravitational pull of Bevel’s wealth and warped by it.

Money=power to even distort reality.

“These were Mildred’s rooms,” he said solemnly. We stared at the threshold as if we were standing at her grave. After a suitable pause it seemed the right time to be bold and carefully impertinent again. “It would be of great help to see how she lived. I would find so much inspiration among her things. Pick up little details, small everyday things that would make the story livelier. More believable.” “You may look at the entire house, but this one door shall remain closed.” “I’m so sorry. I just . . .” “No need to apologize. I understand how you would be curious. But there are things I would like to keep to myself.”

WTF is in Mildred’s rooms? What is Andrew hiding?

“Do you treat all this gossip and hearsay with the same force with which you’re handling Vanner and his novel?” “Dear, no. I wouldn’t be able to tend to my business if I had to respond to every idiocy published in every afternoon rag. It takes too much time to keep track of all the rumors and deny them. But Vanner is different. What he wrote about my wife and me is different. And his reach is different.

Hmm. How is Vanner different than Andrew’s so-called friends and their gossip? Seems like it’s personal between Bevel and Vanner.

“Well, you see, we were all hired after Mrs. Bevel’s passing. Shortly after the memorial service, Mr. Bevel decided to sell this house. Too many memories. I believe he moved to a hotel for a while. Dismissed the entire staff and shut down the house. For months, maybe even a year. He rejected bid after bid. And in the end, when a suitable offer was made, well . . . Too many memories.”

Bullshit. He’s hiding something inside Mildred’s room. The suspense is building. And I know we still have Mildred’s story coming.

Once, when I was working at the bakery, I overheard a humorously resigned conversation between two customers. “There is a better world,” a man said. “But it’s more expensive.”

A distinctly American manifesto.

The quip stayed with me not only because it was a drastically different take on my father’s utopian visions but also because it pointed to the otherworldly nature of wealth, which I confirmed during my time with Bevel. I had never coveted any of his luxuries. They had intimidated and angered me, yes, but above all they had always made me feel unwelcome and alien. As if I were a displaced earthling, alone in a different world—a more expensive one that also thought itself better. That evening, however, in Bevel’s car I experienced, for the first time, the cool rush of luxury. I did not just witness it; I felt it. And loved it.

“The cool rush of luxury.”

I was out in the street while being, at the same time, in a secluded space. More than the mahogany panels, the cut-glass decanters, the embroidered upholstery and the capped, white-gloved driver on the other side of the partition, it was this strange paradox of being in private in public that felt so opulent—a feeling that was one with the illusion of suddenly having become untouchable and invulnerable, with the fantasy of being in total control of myself, of others and of the city as a whole.

“In total control of myself, of other and the city as a whole.” This is what Bevel feels, all the fucking time. How he can truly believe he is a “man of destiny.” The fucking privilege of rich white-ass motherfuckers.