Free Belle Cora: A Novel by Phillip Margulies Page B

to my grandfather’s heart was unpopular in New York City, where many people depended for their livelihood on trade with the South. New York insurance companies had refused to take his money, and he had used a Boston firm instead; this worked to his advantage after the fire, because the New York insurers went bankrupt, and my grandfather had more capital than his competitors did during the period of rebuilding. By the following year, fifteen months after the fire, a new store and warehouse had arisen, seven stories high, the tallest edifice in the city of New York.
    I have alluded to this building earlier. I heard that phrase, “the tallest building in the city,” on the lips of every member of my family very often from the time we knew that that’s what it would be. We bragged tothe other schoolchildren about it. I walked down the street with Lewis’s hand in mine and told him that he was a lucky boy since his grandfather owned the tallest building in New York.
    One day soon after it had risen to its full height, the family, all excepting my mother, made a visit to stand on the roof of the warehouse and enjoy its immensity. All around us, the grays and browns of the waterfront were replaced by the tawny hues of raw wood, and the air smelled of paint, bricks, and sawdust.
    We were all panting by the time we reached the top, and as we stepped out onto the flat roof, I gripped Lewis’s sweaty, slippery hand tightly. He had recently voiced the alarming opinion that a person who wished hard enough, with perfect faith, might learn to fly.
    We had lived all our lives on flat land in the city, with occasional excursions to the farms of Brooklyn and New Jersey, so we were very impressed by the view from seven flights up. We could see the ships on the river, and more buildings, streets, wagons, carriages, horsecars, omnibuses, and people than our eyes had ever beheld at once. We noticed the fire’s legacy in the broad swath of the city—like the track of God’s paint-brush—where everything was new. Humpbacked clouds cast shadows on neighborhoods in sun and neighborhoods in rain. We found our house.
    “Let go of me,” Lewis demanded. “My hand hurts. I can’t see.”
    I let go as Robert grabbed him under the armpits and jerked him up roughly onto his shoulders. “Now you’re the highest one of all,” said Robert.
    “Jump,” said Lewis.
    “What?” Robert asked in bewilderment.
    “Jump up.”
    “What?”
    “To be higher. Then we’ll both be higher.”
    “Oh,” said Robert, and he jumped up and down.
    I wanted my father to stop them. “Father,” I said, trying to catch his eye, and I was struck by the darkness of his expression. We had all experienced sudden ambushes of dejection since Frank’s death, when we were stopped in the middle of whatever we were doing by the reminder that he was not here to enjoy this moment, but waiting for us in a land beyond the sky. I assumed that my father was thinking this now, but if you hadasked me even at that age I could have supplied other explanations for his gloom. His wife was dying. Earlier that year, he had been on a business trip to Cincinnati; there had not been much talk about it afterward, and there would have been if it had gone well. Though I would not have been able to put it into words back then, I knew that my father did not fit into the good, pious, humorless family into which he had been born. He was a likable man with a witty mind, but in his circle charm counted far less than business sense and high moral purpose, qualities he tried to acquire, earnestly and in vain. Many people having woes greater than his are cheerful anyway, from sheer animal spirits. That is their nature. His nature was to be melancholy.
    After a while, the clouds were above us, bringing a premonition of rain. My father said it was time to go home. As soon as Lewis was on his feet he ran to the edge and dropped a large, heavy rock over the side of the warehouse. He’d hidden the