The Auerbach Will Read Online Free Page A

other, cannot be the same Josh. But of course it is.
    Essie finds an empty spot on a sofa next to Karen, and sits down beside her. “I very much enjoyed talking to your young man,” she whispers.
    Karen smiles into her glass, which Essie notices is not champagne, and is probably vodka. “Yes, he is nice, isn’t he?”
    â€œIs it serious, dear?”
    â€œOh, Grandma, I don’t know. He’s not all that smart, and he has no money. I almost didn’t bring him, thinking he wouldn’t be good enough for this family.”
    â€œI thought he held up very well,” Essie says.
    Now, from the top of the ladder, Josh has affixed his star and, with his free hand grasping the ladder, he turns, faces the room, and lifts his glass with the other. “Family, friends,” he begins, “as most of us know, our mother celebrated her eighty-ninth birthday just two weeks ago. We all know that this time next year, when we all gather again, Mother will have marked an even more momentous birthday—her ninetieth. I know that all of us know, that as Mother enters her ninetieth year as head of this house, we all wish her another decade of health, happiness, and usefulness. Let’s drink, then, with a special l’chayim greeting to Esther Auerbach.”
    There is a round of clapping, and cries of “Hear, hear!”
    â€œWhy, Josh, dear, how very nice,” Essie says.
    Now it is Mogie’s turn. If Josh has turned out to be the business head of the family, Mogie is the sensitive, artistic one. It is Mogie who plays both the cello and the violin so beautifully, and has collected four extraordinarily matched Amatis. Mogie also collects old silver, antique toys, and precious stones. He was not cut out for business, not from the very start, but that is all right. Or at least at this point there is no point in dwelling on Mogie’s shortcomings as a businessman. Mogie is nine years younger than Joan, eight years younger than Babette, and ten years older than Josh, and it is sometimes difficult for Essie to realize that none of her remaining four children is in any way still a child. Far, far from it. Mogie is sometimes considered the best-looking of her children, though Essie would not agree. Her vote, if solicited, would go to Josh. But Mogie himself thinks highly of his looks, and cannot pass a mirror—or indeed a shop window—without an admiring glance, a necktie-adjusting pause, to appraise his reflected image. He is always immaculately tailored in bespoke suits from Helman, always shod in hand-made, hand-benched shoes from Lobb on St. James’s Street. At home, Mogie is usually to be found in one of his large collection of silk pajamas and robes from Sulka, and Joan has wickedly suggested that even her younger brother’s underwear has a designer label. The small gymnasium off his bedroom in his house in Beekman Place contains the latest in exercise equipment. His pink nails with their carefully shaped half-moons are always perfectly manicured and polished, and his crowning glory—a full head of wavy, silver hair—is dressed twice a week by Mr. Elio at Bergdorf’s. There have been more women in Mogie’s life than Essie could possibly count, and so she was happy to see him end his long bachelorhood, even though his pretty little blonde Christina still reminds Essie of a dance-hall hostess, despite the furs and jewels Mogie has bought her.
    Mogie steps toward the tree, leaving behind him a faint waft of Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale as he moves. He has chosen an antique glass bell to hang on the tree, and now he turns to propose his toast. “I’d like to ask that we drink to someone who is no longer among us,” he says, “a man whom we have to thank for all the blessings and good fortune and comforts which life has bestowed upon us—a pioneer in business and finance, a pioneer in philanthropy, both Christian and Jewish