Twisted silver spoons, p.1
Twisted Silver Spoons, page 1
TWISTED
SILVER
SPOONS
TWISTED
SILVER
SPOONS
KAREN M. WICKS
atmosphere press
© 2021 Karen M. Wicks
Published by Atmosphere Press
Cover design by Ronaldo Alves
No part of this book may be reproduced without permission from the author except in brief quotations and in reviews. This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to real places, persons, or events is entirely coincidental.
atmospherepress.com
I would like to thank my husband Les, my sister Joyce Dalton, and my friend Debby Chambers for their thoughtful comments on early versions of Twisted Silver Spoons. Above all, Les’ encouragement over the years has encouraged me to find my voice and pursue my dreams.
Part 1
But Love has pitched her mansion in
The place of excrement,
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.
—W.B. Yeats
Prologue
1985
“Y-Yes. I’m just feeling a little hemmed in, I guess. A passing fantasy.”
The silver spoon lodged in George’s throat was choking the life out of him.
She beckoned across the dunes toward the spangled house, still filled with Fritz and Belinda’s guests.
“Yes, I see what you mean.”
Her eyes peeled back his ambivalence.
Chapter 1
1986
Daggers of Caribbean sunlight pried open George’s eyes, as a continent of stifling duty constricted his view. He arose, unsteady, his patrician mouth curled around the scum of filial duty. An approaching shadow rescued him.
“Mr. Leibnitz, may I offer you some refreshment?”
“No, thank you. I am meeting Father for lunch shortly.”
“Very good, sir.”
George watched the steward retreat down the teak stairs. His eyes moistened with inevitability. Ten days in the Grenadines on his father Fritz’s one-hundred-ninety-foot Feadship yacht, Aleksandra, had held such promise. No loathsome stepmother and stepsiblings. But Fritz’s frequent disparaging remarks threaded rancor through George’s shock of black hair. How ironic that the motor yacht had been named for his Gran’maman when it was one of Fritz’s seats of power.
He lumbered down two steps to the lavatory. Fritz wouldn’t fail to notice a hair out of place. The placid demeanor and bold, aquamarine eyes staring out from the antique beveled mirror masked his angst. He fingered the well-worn Cartier tank watch Gran’maman had given him for his fourteenth birthday, each compulsive stroke attacking his dread. Jerking his head toward the open door, he tightened the knots in his stomach and launched toward the dining room.
12:33.
Striding through the salon, he straightened to his full six-foot-four height, poised to tower over his father. But with each step he shrank a few inches under the uniform of obsequiousness. Even seated, Fritz’s tall, muscular frame, the jut of his square chin, and his penetrating, electric-blue eyes commanded obedience. If only they had sailed on the Morgan, where his youth would have given him the advantage.
Each step prickled sweat on his neck. Fritz would needle him about graduating from New York University School of Law a year late. Preparation for the New York bar would be a perfunctory requirement, and recriminations that he had not gone to Yale Law School along with new expectations would be served for lunch. The intrusion of the fond memory of his childhood father withered in the tight bud of his heart.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Leibnitz."
George’s skin quivered. His head turned. "Bruce."
"Are you alright, sir?"
"Tell Father I will be along directly," he snapped.
"Very good, sir."
As the steward moved off, George bit the inside of his cheek and the metallic taste of blood propelled him back to his grandfather Rainer’s death and Fritz’s quick rise to power over his brother Guenther. George had been sent off to Phillips Exeter Academy, and in time his mother—an exquisite doll who had lost her sheen—had been replaced.
He scurried into the nearby lavatory to collect himself. The face of a child lost in memories accosted him in the gilded mirror.
Clenching his jaw, he embraced his twenty-four years and wheeled toward the dining room. As he shortened the remaining expanse, a scowling Fritz tapped his Rolex. His steeled gaze refused the expected apology, and Fritz’s face morphed into a smile.
“Have a nice nap, did we? The stone crabs and the salade frisée look delectable. I have ordered you a glass of Chardonnay and an iced coffee for our meeting afterwards.”
George sat down, pique tightening his shoulders.
“Papa,” he began in French as the wait staff began serving them, “J’ai des questions. Je voudrais savoir si Ol’papa...”
Fritz raised his eyebrows. “Your grandfather?”
“I-I have questions about his death.”
Fritz’s eyes sharpened as he dangled a crab in mid-air.
“Marcus said something sinister hap…”
“Your cousin?”
A smirk crossed Fritz’s face.
Tearing into the crustacean, he deposited the shell onto an empty plate and patted his mouth with a linen napkin.
“Ol’Papa’s death was his own doing. I was preoccupied with securing the foreign divisions. The strain of our conversation must have affected him. But you must understand, he used every weapon at his disposal to wound me.”
George sipped his wine.
“He seduced the first girl I loved when I was seventeen to prove he was the better man.”
The golden liquid scalded his throat.
Bitterness flickered across Fritz’s face, darkening his jowls.
“It gives one a sense of the lengths to which your grandfather would go to keep his family in line, n’est-ce pas?”
George’s tongue congealed.
“Arrogant fool. Not a scintilla of humility. If it had not been for Aleksandra, Rainer would have been some mid-level functionary in the bowels of Austrian bureaucracy.”
“Gran’maman? Wh-What do you m-mean? I know Gran’maman and Great-Uncle Sergey fled Russia, but…”
“You remember so little while your cousin makes a point to know everyone’s affairs.”
George lined up his knife and spoon.
“Aleksandra’s fortune started Leibnitz Enterprises. Rainer was a mere engineer with a modest inheritance. She had the means and the intellect to…”
“I thought…”
“She was the visionary. And as LE became successful, Rainer grew to resent her.”
Contempt etched his face. “He tried to limit her influence. By the time I was fifteen, he particularly detested me, her favorite son.”
His lips pursed as he looked out across the expanse of ocean. “Fortunately, your grandmother was shrewd enough to insist on maintaining majority ownership. She shipped me off to Paris to Uncle Sergey...”
“You are saying Gran’maman favored you?”
He stared at his son.
“Your supercilious grandfather believed she favored me to justify his jealousy. I was capable of succeeding him, not dear brother Guenther, and he pitted us against each other. Such hubris!”
He waved his hand in disgust.
George’s lip quivered. “H-He actually…”
“Absolument.”
A steward approached.
“He would have succeeded if Aleksandra had not steered Guenther and me into the roles for which we were born.”
George’s eyes brightened. “Is that why Uncle Guenther leads the engineering and manufacturing divisions, and you are the CEO?”
“Bien sûr, Georges. You can thank your grandmother and Uncle Sergey for the cordial relationship between Guenther and me, and for LE’s success.”
Fritz sipped his wine and picked up his fork.
“I-I thought you took the chairmanship away from Uncle Guenther.”
Fritz exhaled a sinister laugh. “Marcus feeding you misinformation?”
George blinked and arranged his food by color.
“Do not be so gullible. Papa hated me because Mummy was preparing me to succeed him. She was guiding Guenther, of course. A rather blunt instrument, but he came along.”
George raised his eyebrows. Fritz scattered the leaves of the lettuces to the edges of the plate.
“Papa marginalized my role in the company. He may have succeeded if he had not died.”
A wistful look crossed his eyes. “I loved him, you know.”
His face hardened. “And I despised him. Nothing can erase what he did. Especially to Mummy.”
George’s back straightened. “What do you mean?”
“Uncle Sergey discovered another well-cared for family in London—a wife and daughter.”
George’s fork thudded against his plate.
Fritz’s voice bristled. “And a long string of mistresses. In his will, Rainer provided generously for all of them. I had every reason to wish Papa dead. However, a brain hemorrhage killed him.”
George leaned forward.
“I was leaving the room when I heard a noise at the door, and, of course, you know the rest.”
George nodded. “How could I forget? You tumbled into me as you left.” His eyes sharpened. “Was he breathing when you returned to the study?”
George contemplated the irony of the father Fritz described with such bitterness to the father he had become. As he sipped his Chardonnay, the wine swirled with the past.
Chapter 2
1968
The Saturday afternoon before his grandfather’s birthday party, George was looking for his Labradors at the stables, where they often played, when he heard the caustic voices of his father and grandfather as he approached the stable door.
“Fritz, you lack what it takes,” Rainer hissed as he mounted his Arabian. “You barely showed yourself adequate as the Paris Chef de Bureau, and your negotiations on the Russian and Greek pulp deals have amounted to little.”
Fritz cinched the saddle. “Clearly, withholding key information and upstaging me at every turn has not helped.”
George peeked around the corner, his heart pounding. The chiseled physique and steel bearing of the two men tightened his chest. He detected a hint of vulnerability mixed with guarded respect behind his father’s fiery blue eyes. But in Ol’Papa’s icy glower lay raw contempt, the eagle advancing on his prey.
Rainer picked up the reins. “Always ready with the excuse. By your age, Guenther was managing a fleet of engineers.”
As shame flooded George’s face, he slinked away.
The weekend of Ol’Papa’s party, George’s family had been staying in the guest house that overlooked the pool at the Wilton, Connecticut estate, with Uncle Guenther’s family in the cottage abutting the clay tennis courts. George kept alert on nearby paths so cousins Marcus and Wilhelm would not capture him for their spy games. Marcus, two years older than George and the leader of the three, modeled himself after their Great-Uncle Sergey, a former French Resistance spy. Wilhelm, a year younger than George, played the double-agent, and George the Soviet operative whom his cousins hunted. He would seek escape in the dense stands of pine, oak, birch, and elm trees against the thick stone walls that secluded the 300-acre property. When he tired of the games, he sought refuge with his cousin Georgina, who shared his interests and precocious talents. On the rare occasions when his family visited Wilton without his cousins, he rode with his father or meandered alone down the wooded trails with his chocolate Labs.
Setting off for his pets now, he walked to the paddock and riding ring, where they often frisked with the horses. Not finding them, he circled back to the octagonal hay barn on the north side of the eight-stall oak stable to see if the veterinarian or stable hands had seen them. Not finding them, he exited the rear door toward the riding master’s cottage to be greeted by slobbers of affection from Sabrina and Basil just outside. His heart melted. He threw a twig into the wind, jettisoning his fear of Ol’papa. The thought of his family being exiled again to Paris without his cousins and Gran’maman frayed his nerves.
To quiet his heart, he focused the memory of racing Marcus on the circular track of the fitness center the previous day.
“Hey, cuz, you’ll never keep up with me today,” Marcus taunted.
“Ha, if you’re so fast, I’ll give you a head start.”
George’s heart lurched.
“Go on, George. Show’im,” pudgy Willie urged from the sidelines.
He sighed, then set off against Marcus, who won by a nose-length on the seventh lap.
“Told you,” Marcus crowed, sweat rolling down his beet-red face. “Maybe next time, Georgie?”
He thumped George’s back.
“You-can-count-on-it,” George wheezed.
After a few stretches, they padded off to the pool-house.
“I think Willie and I’ll head for the whirlpool. If you’re taking a swim, see you in what, twenty minutes?”
George stepped up his pace. “No, I am tagging along.”
The boys were rough-housing in the entertainment area when their nannies arrived an hour later.
“Vous voilà!” Martine panted as she spotted her charges, Marcus and Willie.
“You laddies’re wanted in the third floor sittin’ room in thirty minutes. No more time for games,” Florida, George’s nanny, scolded. “Lisbeth and Fiona’re waitin’ for you lot to start your lessons. You’ll need proper attire, o’course, so be quick about it. No dawdling.”
She glowered at George’s cousins, then turned to him. “I’ll be fetchin’ you from your lessons at 5:30 sharp for a change of clothes. You’re to meet Father Thomas in the libr’y at 6:30, ’n dinner’ll be served promptly at 7:30. Understood?”
“Yes, Miss Florida,” he simpered, shifting from one foot to the other.
While he enjoyed discussing religion and philosophy with the family priest, he preferred games with his cousins.
Marcus stuck out his tongue as the nannies turned to leave. The boys shuffled their feet, then padded toward the main house. Yews and hedges hid access from the manor to the fitness center. Marcus dashed behind a bush as soon as the nannies were out of sight, and Wilhelm grabbed George’s arm, pulling him behind his older brother.
George took in the bucolic scene and smirked at his cousin’s pedestrian tastes. He savored the rolling acres of sprawling lawns and ponds, colorfully splashed with patterned plantings and bedding gardens that attracted all manner of butterflies and birds. Spring through fall, the stone garden paths and parterre blazed with a rainbow of redolent blooms. He often tagged along with his mother and grandmother as they picked flowers and chatted about matters few eight-year-olds would have understood.
Earlier that morning, he and Gran’maman had strolled through the gardens. When they reached a carved wooden bench in the parterre, they sat down under the shade of a tulip tree.
“Liebchin, Aberforth tells me your oils are coming along nicely. Du arbeitest schwer, ja?”
She pursed her lips.
His eyes brightened. “Yes, Gran’maman, I work hard. I enjoy the oils, but Meister says I am ready for watercolors.”
Her eyes twinkled. “You will enjoy the challenge, ja?”
His face broke into a broad smile. “Look, Gran’maman, butterflies!”
A rainbow of colors alighted on the butterfly bushes.
“Are they Heliconiuses?”
“Sehr güt. Look closely. You may see some Metalmarks and Jezebels.”
“Beautiful, like you.”
She breathed in the redolent air. “Ah, Leibchen, you warm a grandmother’s heart.”
She patted his knee, her gray-blue eyes moist.
His heart blossomed.
As she arranged the flowers in her basket, his thoughts meandered through the main house, where the cousins often played hide-and-seek. Three floors of fifteen-thousand square feet of inlaid oak-parquet were offset by Sardinian basket-woven textured loop carpet and colorful Persians on a variety of Italian and Portuguese tiles. Rooms with ten-foot ceilings were warmed with textured wall coverings and hand-woven French and Italian fabrics on oversized Chenille and silk velvet sofas and chairs.
His mind wandered down the long, expansive gallery where, if he were clever, he could find an alcove or a large piece of furniture or urn behind which he could elude his cousins. Alone, he would sit for hours, sketchbook in hand, to study the extensive collection of Pieter Breughel the Elder, Caravaggio, and Albert Dürer that graced the hallways or the Rembrandts in the main dining room. A massive hand-carved oak table and sideboard reflected the formality of this ornate room. On the south side lay a modest conservatory beyond French glass doors.
He basked in the memory of Gran’maman making sure the chef prepared his favorite foods in the rustic French country kitchen of oak timber frame construction and built-in furniture of hand-rubbed white pine with antique finish. On the east side of the kitchen, a door led to a large rectangular mud room. A covered breezeway extended to the six-car garage, where he often hid from his cousins on the floorboard of one of the antique cars. He had memorized every inch of Gran’maman’s domain. He often read in the floor-to-ceiling library with faux-bois walls and Beauvais wall-to-wall carpeting. And when his cousins especially tormented him, he retreated to the mezzanine level, accessed at the far right of the stone fireplace, to hide and explore the stories of strangers, whose lives were so different from his secluded world of protective servants and bodyguards who cloistered him. How many times he had longed to join a game with his peers in Central Park or les Jardins de Luxembourg in Paris. Denied, he imagined a life filled with siblings. He was Peter in The Chronicles of Narnia or Charles Wallace in A Wrinkle in Time, surrounded by brothers and sisters who shared his triumphs and disappointments. He was brave Nikolas in Die Geschichte von den Shwarzen Buben.
