About Schmidt - Louis Begley [41]
That’s exactly what Jon has told Myron and me: you made it happen. He was very grateful about it, and so were we—his entire family. We knew that Jon was bright and worked hard, but we also knew, because he said it over and over, that at Wood & King deserving to be made a partner is only the beginning. He was especially grateful that you treated him just the same, and supported him, after he began to go out with Charlotte.
As a matter of fact, I introduced them!
But that was unintentional; anyway, he didn’t think you intended it to work out quite the way it did—Charlotte becoming his girlfriend. You see, all during those years when he worked for you he had the feeling that you relied on him and had confidence in his work but didn’t especially like him. I mean, as a person. He thought that would begin to get in the way once he began to see a lot of Charlotte, even if you hadn’t allowed it to matter before.
I see, said Schmidt. You mean that by going with Charlotte—if I may use their euphemism—he was doubling the stakes. The heart as well as chances of partnership put at risk! But why complain now? He’s got the girl and the job. Isn’t that enough? What else can he want?
To feel that you accept him, like him! You made no comment when I mentioned that, his feeling that you have no affection for him.
I liked him well enough to want him to be my partner, and I haven’t refused him my daughter’s hand—though I might add, entre nous, that he dispensed with the formality of asking for it. I repeat, isn’t that enough? How voracious—after all, he doesn’t want to marry me!
Was there something dreary about what he had just said? It had left him uncomfortable and dissatisfied.
You’re an odd stickler for the truth. You know you have no affection for Jon, and so you are unwilling to bend even a tiny bit, not enough to hint for instance at the possibility that at bottom you do. Even though you are sitting here talking to his mother, and that’s what she clearly wants to hear. And yet you seem to want Charlotte to act like a sweet, loving daughter! What was the second segment of the problem you were willing to examine?
Terror. Schmidtie as the totemic, terror-inspiring figure. That is also preposterous. Perhaps my classmates and I were scared of Dexter King when we were Jon’s age. In fact, I didn’t get around to calling him by his first name until I had been a partner for a year—maybe longer—even though he had told me, I don’t know how many times, that it was the right thing to do. And to the day he died I wouldn’t have sat down in his office without being asked. But today! The kids in the mail room occasionally called me Schmidtie to my face. And you should hear the accents! By the way, I have never pretended to enjoy it! And the way Jon and the other young partners talk back to Jack DeForrest and the couple of other relics of ancient times still left in the firm! I don’t mean that there is anything wrong with giving a senior partner a hard time about the law, you are supposed to do that as soon as you arrive, or with expressing your opinion about whether one should tell a client this or that. I am talking about challenging seniors on matters of judgment that have to do with fairness within the firm, and expecting to prevail—for no reason except that you are young and will inherit! Actually, that’s something I managed to get used to. Provided people are reasonably polite, having them challenge you all across the board is more stimulating than the old prep school cult of your elders.
I don’t think that’s it. Jon and the other young lawyers who worked with you weren’t afraid of you because you were so senior, but because they thought they weren’t as right as you, and you gave them the impression that you thought so too. The father figure who is right and has the last word—that’s very scary. Also, most of them, Jon included, didn’t think they were living up to your expectations. It’s as though you wanted them to succeed but then were quickly disappointed.
Well, I’m gone, and that