Trust

Bevel invites Partenza to dinner at his house. As Partenza travels through the city in the silence of the limousine, she feels the allure of luxury for the first time, describing it as:

[The] strange paradox of being in private in public that felt so opulent—a feeling that was one with the illusion of suddenly having become untouchable and invulnerable, with the fantasy of being in total control of myself, of others and of the city as a whole (332).

At the mansion, Partenza accepts a glass of champagne. Bevel tells her that 50 billion dollars (the amount lost in the crash of 1929) lined up in dollar bills would stretch to the moon and back 10 times; he argues that given the scale of the crash, it would have been impossible for him to orchestrate. Partenza is surprised by the uncharacteristic silliness of this calculation and feels embarrassed for Bevel.

Bevel outlines the difference between cooperation and solidarity. Cooperation is multiple self-interested parties sharing the same interest; the cooperation only lasts as long as their interests align. Solidarity is loyalty to an ideal of helping others above, or even against, your own self-interest. Bevel gives Partenza’s father as an example of solidarity; Partenza is unsettled that Bevel knows about her father’s political activities. Bevel doesn’t appear to care her father is an anarchist.

Bevel tells Partenza that meeting in the afternoons is cutting into his work schedule. He informs her that she’ll move into an apartment he’s rented for her nearby so that they can work early mornings and late nights.

Partenza is excited by the freedom the new apartment promises but angry that Bevel didn’t ask whether she wanted to move. She also worries about how her father will fare without her.

Partenza returns to her apartment to find her father distressed—Jack is abruptly leaving for a job in Chicago. He remains ignorant to the true reason for Jack’s departure. To her relief, Partenza realizes that she has no choice over the move if she wants to keep her job. She concludes that her salary is enough to pay her father’s rent and to pay the landlady to clean up for him. The next day Partenza tells him about her move; he supports her decision.

While her father runs errands, Partenza packs. Wanting something of home for her new apartment, she searches her father’s files for the posters he made for her as a child. There she finds hidden the discarded drafts that she thought Jack stole.

In her new apartment, Partenza realizes how oppressive it was to live with her father. She doesn’t care to guess why he stole her papers; all she thinks about is how he both ran and defined her life: “[H]e had, perhaps against his doctrines and even his own will, encompassed my entire world and endowed it with meaning and something resembling lawfulness” (342). She wants him to be more of a father than he actually is.

Bevel and Partenza begin meeting regularly over dinner. Bevel is less guarded at night, making for more productive sessions. He approves of the powerful voice Partenza has invented for him. He wants the public to see the patriotism of his investments and understand that he alone is responsible for his success. Partenza reminds him of the self-admitted role Mildred and his forefathers played in his success.

On what turns out to be their final meeting before Bevel dies unexpectedly of a heart attack, Bevel reminisces about Mildred. To Partenza’s shock, Bevel recounts his delight in having Mildred retell him detective novels over dinner: This is Partenza’s memory from childhood that she repurposed as a fiction for his autobiography. Bevel appears unaware of his appropriation. Even more surprising is the addition he makes about pretending to let Mildred mislead him about the identity of the killer; Partenza’s father humored Partenza in this way as a child. This similarity between Bevel and her father unsettles Partenza.

Over the remains of dinner, Bevel describes the double-edged success of his coup in 1929: The move that cemented his reputation on Wall Street as an investment genius nonpareil damaged his public image. Bevel is certain history will vindicate him.

Five days after this dinner, Partenza sees headlines that Bevel has died of a heart attack. She tries to visit his house only to find it surrounded by a crowd of journalists, police, and onlookers. Partenza expects a call from Bevel’s office asking her to surrender her work on his autobiography that never comes. Instead, she gets a call from Mr. Shakespear offering her a job as his secretary—she accepts so that she doesn’t have to move back in with her father.

Partenza buys an Italian stiletto knife as a present for her father. Her father balks at the gift: Italian superstition says that to gift a knife is to sever ties with that person. Partenza challenges his superstition before seeing that her father is truly concerned. He solves the predicament by buying the knife from her for a penny, a penny that Partenza keeps for the rest of her life as the thing that saved their relationship. Her father praises the stiletto’s beauty and uses it to cut a snack for them. Without her, his apartment has become a pigsty, evoking in Partenza a mix of love and pity. Partenza hopes her father will mention Bevel’s death; because he would never normally mention news like that, doing so would be a tacit acknowledgment of his guilt in stealing her papers. He doesn’t mention Bevel then or anytime in the future.

As the museum library empties in 1985, Partenza reflects on the beginning of her writing career following Bevel’s death. Perusing Mildred’s papers reminds Partenza of the similarity between her father and Leopold Brevoort, Helen’s father in Bonds. In a removed way this similarity makes Partenza feel close to Mildred, even though Partenza is still unsure of who Mildred truly was.

In the final box of Mildred’s papers, Partenza finds a lone journal titled Futures that’s filled with particularly indecipherable writing. Partenza slips the journal into her bag and leaves the museum. She’s conflicted by her theft: It feels arrogant to think that she is the person best suited to understanding Mildred and her journal, but it’s also exciting to finally have found a document of Mildred’s true voice.