The Wrong Kind of Money Read Free

have something to do with it,” Cyril says, slumping deeper in his seat. “He was always making remarks about her big boobs. And he bought her that dressing gown—or pelisse, as you call it. With those big, dangerous sleeves.”
    â€œBut I thought you said she had a perfect marriage, Nana,” Anne says. “I thought you said he was a perfect husband.”
    â€œWell, he was the right kind of husband, was what I meant. After all, he was a Kahn. Otto Kahn was a cousin. But he wasn’t very nice to poor Settie.”
    â€œScrewed every showgirl in New York,” Cyril says matter-of-factly. “Other than that, I found him quite a jolly old chap.”
    â€œNow, Cyril, we don’t have any proof of that,” his mother says. “And don’t use vulgar language in front of the child.”
    â€œOtto did the same. All the Kahn men did. It was a Kahn family trait.”
    â€œAnd I’m not a child, Nana,” Anne says.
    â€œMy point is, it’s important to choose a husband from one’s own world,” Hannah says. “Settie did that. In fact, Settie married up. Of course, I had to be the rebel. I married down.”
    â€œBut I thought Grandpa had pots and pots of money, Nana.”
    â€œOh, it has nothing to do with money,” Hannah says. “It has to do with one’s being of the right sort. I was a Sachs, you see. We were of the right sort. Sachs, Saks, Seixas, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha—we’re all connected. You have royal relatives, Little Bird, on my side of the family. They say the best Jews come from Frankfurt, where the Sachses came from—not from Odessa, or wherever my husband’s people came from.”
    â€œDaddy says we’re only secular Jews, so it doesn’t matter,” Anne says.
    â€œWell, my husband used to say that once a man has ten million dollars he’s no longer thought of as being Jewish. He’s merely thought of as being rich.”
    â€œOf course, they were both wrong,” Cyril says. “Both my brother and my father. If it’s the wrong kind of money, and you’re the wrong kind of Jew, it makes all the difference in the world.”
    Hannah says nothing, merely stares straight ahead. She knows the sort of thing to which Cyril is alluding. There have been episodes, episodes from the past, that would be better off forgotten. There was the time, for instance, when Jules and Hannah Liebling were buying the apartment at 1000 Park Avenue, on the northwest corner of Eighty-fourth Street. One thousand Park is a massive brown brick box, one of the great Park Avenue buildings put up before the First World War. Flanking the entrance are two Gothic figures, one a medieval warrior and the other a builder, replete with Masonic symbolism. More terra cotta figures, executed in a baroque manner, depict the builders of medieval cathedrals and Greek temples. The apartment itself was large—fourteen rooms and seven baths. The front rooms had views of the East River and, in the back, even the servants’ rooms had views of Central Park and the reservoir. The apartment was being sold by Richard McCurdy, the pharmaceuticals tycoon. The price was $200,000, which was a lot of money in the 1940s. Today, apartments like Hannah’s are priced in the millions.
    In those days there were certain New York buildings that were known not to want Jewish tenants. But, it was thought, north of Seventy-sixth Street, attitudes were more forbearing.
    Mr. Truxton Van Degan III, of the building’s board, contacted Jules Liebling. “I’m sorry, Mr. Liebling,” he said, “but your application has been rejected by the board.”
    â€œMay I ask why?” Jules Liebling asked him.
    â€œThe board of a cooperative may reject any applicant without stating any reason,” Mr. Van Degan said.
    â€œSurely it’s not financial,” Jules said. He had submitted documents to the board indicating a net