The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx Read online

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Akashic Books

  ©2008 Arthur Nersesian

  ePUB ISBN-13: 978-1-936-07051-0

  ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-60-6

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008925941

  Akashic Books

  PO Box 1456

  New York, NY 10009

  [email protected]

  www.akashicbooks.com

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The character of Paul Moses is a fiction, loosely built around a handful of facts as described in Robert A. Caro’s biography, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and Fall of New York (Vintage, 1974). The “Mkultra,” though fictionalized in this novel, was an actual series of science projects developed and financed by the CIA dealing largely with mind control; files related to it were destroyed by CIA Director Richard Helms in 1973.

  Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”

  He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”

  —Genesis, 4:9

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Chapter Forty Six

  Chapter Forty Seven

  Chapter Forty Eight

  Chapter Forty Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty One

  1

  Paul had a tall skinny younger brother and a short shy sister. His mother, Bella, was an overbearing bull of a woman who despite everything always meant well. His father, meek and weak, was an utterly henpecked man. Robert, his brother, jumped when Mama spoke; since Paul was the eldest, the mantle therefore fell upon him to stand up to the Czarina Bella Cohen.

  The first girl he ever loved was a stunning Jamaican named Maria who was about ten years older than him and always had a cigarette burning. Bella had seen how hardworking and honest Maria was at Madison House, the do-good organization, and hired her as a domestic. Young Paul couldn’t take his eyes off of Maria’s unbelievable curves. He was raised in turn-of-the-century affluence, with money from both sides of his family rushing in and swirling around him. His childhood was spent mostly up in New Haven, Connecticut, where the servants called him Mr. Paul and his younger brother Mr. Robert. He’d tell them to just call him Paul, but his brother was always Mr. Robert.

  When Paul hit his teens, the flood of cash rushed the entire family through some subterranean pipeline, flushing them out into a plush new brownstone on 46th Street just off of Fifth Avenue. As he and his younger brother reached college age, their mother wanted them to go to Yale, their hometown university. Mr. Robert was glad to comply, but Paul found the old school stodgy and was looking for a more liberal education. Woodrow Wilson, the progressive, opinionated president of Princeton, had just announced that he was running for governor of New Jersey. This excited Paul to such a degree that the young man selected Princeton as his first choice.

  When he got his letter of acceptance six weeks later, he tore open the envelope right at the dinner table and made the announcement. Though his father Emanuel seemed happy, Bella silently nodded her big head in dismay. By making a major decision for himself, Paul hoped to teach his younger brother that he didn’t have to be such a little mama’s boy. His father opened an expensive bottle of cabernet and made a toast. His mother just sat there. To further irritate her, Paul guzzled down several glasses of the wine as though it were water.

  While the others at the table talked, Paul’s head began spinning from the wine and he had a strange daydream that he lay suspended, just floating in darkness. When he closed his eyes he felt as though he were submerged, bouncing along the sides of some kind of giant underwater conduit.

  “Paul, what do you think?” asked his dad.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

  Paul’s father suggested that he consider a career in banking or finance. Lightheaded, Paul pretended to listen as the alcohol just floated him along.

  2

  While attending Princeton, Paul Moses had lofty ambitions of being either a scholar or statesman. During his freshman year, he hung out with young gentlemen who dressed in herringbone tweed and fussed over sybarite subtleties, such as unusual pipe tobacco and exotic teas. In his sophmore year, however, Paul decided that it was all just a competition of vanity that gave rise to legions of nancy boys and self-involved powder puffs. Soon, he dismissed the whole Ivy League as nothing more than an extension of European royalty, American aristocracy at its most pretentious.

  During school breaks, nonetheless, he displayed his newly acquired sensibilities to his brother and sister, reciting French Symbolist poetry and discussing the latest advances in European art. Although Paul’s father was proud to hear his son’s growing sophistication, Bella rolled her eyes. Paul further enjoyed irking his mother by taking an active interest in the Zionist movement. Gradually, as he read more and more about how fellow Jews were being mistreated around the world, he became firm in the opinion that only when their people had the security of their own homeland would the persecution end.

  “None of this would happen if they simply blended into the countries they’re living in,” Bella would say.

  “But we are Jews,” Paul would shoot back. “Do other groups have to deny who they are?”

  The Jewish settlements in Palestine occupying unpopulated lots in the desert gave hope toward a permanent homeland for all Jews. Paul’s other liberal sentiments were rooted more firmly in the plight of the working man, particularly as championed by Eugene Victor Debs and the Socialist Party of America. It was primarily for this reason that he joined the Democratic Reform Club, a leftist organization at the college. In a fit of zeal he soon accepted the nomination and ultimately the office of its presidency. Although the position didn’t offer many privileges, he did meet more girls.

  What captivated him most about Millicent Sanchez-Rothschild was her strong, defiant face and cascades of shiny thick, black hair. He was delightfully surprised when he heard her explaining to another student why Oliver Wendell Holmes
was the greatest juror who ever sat on the high court.

  Millicent had just arrived from the University of Pennsylvania to hear a lecture that his club had organized. Williams Jennings Bryant, the Democratic presidential candidate of 1900, was giving a talk on how the Supreme Court was stonewalling labor reform.

  After spending the majority of the evening talking with Millie, Paul asked her on a date.

  “If you want to make the trip down to Philly, I’m all yours,” she replied.

  He took the first train the following week. In Philadelphia, they spent the afternoon just chatting. Or rather, she talked and he listened. She was from a wealthy Sephardic Jewish family who had settled in Mexico City. Despite the fact that her parents were rich conservatives, she was very progressive in her views. Rights of the working man, socialism, the suffrage movement—they were in agreement about nearly everything.

  Though Millie had many suitors, Paul continued seeing her throughout the semester, taking the train down from Princeton on weekends and holidays.

  Over the next few months, she shared various aspects of Mexico—its history, its conquest by Cortéz, the destruction of the native culture by the Catholic Church. “The Mayans produced vast libraries that Bishop Diego de Landa ordered his priests to collect and burn in huge bonfires,” she explained, “though a few books survived as the Maya codices, preserving some record of their heritage.”

  Millie’s family, which made its fortune in mining, had benefited greatly under the repeated presidential terms of Porfirio Díaz. Yet she was part of a consortium of young Latin compatriots studying in the United States who despised “El Presidente.”

  Aside from her own desire for social justice, her beloved cousin, Pedro Martinez—her rebel mentor—was a prominent member of an anti-Díaz group. Following a national convention of various liberal clubs in 1901 and 1902, the Díaz regime arrested a group of their leaders—including her cousin—and suppressed their publications. When Pedro was finally released, he migrated to the United States along with other radicals and they unified as the Mexican Liberal Party. In 1906 they published a manifesto entitled El Programa del Partido Liberal calling for, among other things, guarantees of civil liberties, universal public education, land reform, and a one-term limit for all future Mexican presidents.

  “How many times has Porfirio been elected?” Paul asked on one of his visits.

  “Six, but last year he promised to retire at the end of this term, so we’re all waiting anxiously.”

  Suddenly, Paul felt a strange jolt through his body and his knees buckled.

  “You okay?” Millicent asked, taking his arm.

  “I just feel a little light-headed,” he said, and when he closed his eyes and let her lead him, he felt once again as if he was submerged in warm liquid.

  “Paul, what’s the matter?” Millie demanded, brushing his arm nervously.

  “I’m sorry. I think I have a touch of the flu.”

  3

  During spring break, Millicent joined Paul on a trip home to meet his family in New York. They arrived late in the afternoon and Millie found herself seated with Paul’s parents and siblings for a wonderful dinner. His sister Edna brought up a recent strike that had been in the news. Millie commented how the American government was behaving like a Pinkerton private security force for various robber barons. Paul’s mother Bella politely responded that things might be changing, as indicated by the fact that Teddy Roosevelt had been the first president to stand up to big business, ordering them to negotiate with labor unions during a major strike several years earlier.

  “But he didn’t go far enough.”

  “What was it like growing up in Mexico?” Edna asked, trying to steer her away from controversy.

  Very traditional,” Millie replied tiredly. “

  Bella stared out the window tolerating Paul’s precious coquette. As coffee and dessert were served, Edna asked a casual question about the suffrage movement and whether Millie thought a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote could actually get passed. It compelled Paul’s date to launch into one of her signature arguments for women’s rights.

  “Tell me, dear,” Bella finally said, “what exactly is it your parents do?”

  “My father is the head of a mining company down in Mexico.”

  “And do you think he exploits any workers there?”

  “My own guilt doesn’t excuse anyone else’s,” Millie replied.

  “Young lady, I don’t know who taught you the fine art of hypocrisy, but—”

  “It’s my life mission to give restitution. What’s your excuse?”

  “You can’t talk to my mother like that!” Mr. Robert interjected, rising to his feet.

  Paul had to bite his lip to keep himself from laughing. After an awkward silence, his father Emanuel made a comment about the weather.

  When Millie left early the next day for the train back to Philly, Paul’s mother called him into her study and explained that she didn’t want him seeing “Señorita Obnox-chez” ever again.

  “I love her,” he said simply.

  “How can any man love such a sanctimonious and vain person?”

  “I can ask the same of Dad,” he snorted back.

  “Paul, I made an effort to be nice to her and only got scorn in return.”

  As Paul stormed out of the room, he bumped right into the maid, Maria, nearly knocking her down.

  “Pardon me,” he said, but the words sounded strange, like they were muffled behind some invisible wall. Hard as he tried to reach out, he couldn’t.

  “Paul, are you okay?” Her face seemed to ripple as she spoke.

  “I’ll be fine,” he muttered, and left.

  4

  Though his younger sister Edna liked Millicent, neither his mother nor brother had anything nice to say about her. On a visit home toward the end of the year, Mr. Robert inquired whether Paul was still seeing “that opinionated young lady.”

  “Sure I am, and I plan to see her as much as I can.”

  “You’re certain you’re not just using her to anger Mom?”

  “Mom is such a stick in the mud. Everything angers her.”

  “I know she can be pretty bullheaded, but she is our mother.”

  “We’re her children, not her whipping boys.”

  Mr. Robert nodded silently.

  That fall, to his mother’s great joy, Mr. Robert began attending Yale. Soon the two brothers fell out of touch.

  One day the next spring, Paul, as president of the Democratic Reform Club, was invited to a tea hosted by the dean of Student Affairs. There he was introduced to the tall, dapper Woodrow Wilson, who was now serving as governor of New Jersey. He had come earlier that day to meet the constituents of Princeton, where he had formerly presided. Paul and a few lucky others had the opportunity to chat with the bespectacled politician for nearly twenty uninterrupted minutes.

  “Regarding workers,” Paul asked, “what exactly would you do to alleviate their hardships if you occupied the Oval Office?”

  “Well, I’m not running for president, but if I was, I’d probably draw up a bill of rights for the working man.”

  When Paul called to tell his sister that he had met his hero Wilson—who incidentally supported the idea of a Jewish nation—she interrupted to say that Robert, who had been captain of the Yale swimming team, was in the middle of a huge imbroglio with the head of the university’s sports funding.

  “What happened?”

  “He tried to get more money for the swimming team and ended up resigning.”

  “Good for him,” Paul said, happy to hear that his brother was finally standing up for himself. He wanted to congratulate Robert for confronting the administration, but still felt uncomfortable about how they had left things regarding Millie and Mom.

  On the morning of the summer solstice, Millie called him in tears. She’d just heard that President Díaz had formally declared that he was running for a seventh term—he had lied!

&n
bsp; “Well, I’m sure he’ll be defeated,” Paul said, not knowing how else to respond.

  “No, he won’t,” she retorted. “People are afraid to run against him.” Millie told him that a prominent member of a respected Mexican family, Francisco Madero, had announced that he was going to oppose Díaz in the election, but Díaz had Madero thrown in jail, effectively destroying the hopes for a democratic nation that so many had spent years patiently waiting for.

  Over the next month, her like-minded compatriots at different universities joined together and formed an emergency organization, Latin American Students and Teachers Still Concerned about Mexico—LAST SCaM.

  Now, every time Paul visited Millie in Philadelphia, she talked obsessively about how Díaz was taking some new and diabolical action to destroy Mexican civil liberties: abolishing freedom of the press, then undoing all the land reforms that had been put in place before him. American slaves and Russian serfs had been set free, yet Mexican peasants were still captive.

  Paul spent much of the summer helping Millie, who along with her committee launched a letter-writing campaign to raise money for the cause of those oppressed in Mexico. When she heard that Francisco Madero had escaped his captors, she called Paul and declared, “You know what this means? Porfirio’s days are numbered!”

  “Well, there’s still the small matter of getting him out of office.”

  “Díaz has everything but the people. And the people are everything!” she countered. Even Paul found this a little hokey, but he didn’t want to discourage her optimism.

  One morning in early September, a week after he had started a new semester at Princeton, Paul got called to the pay phone in the noisy hallway. Pressing the earpiece against his temple, he heard Millie shouting, “It’s about to commence! People are racing down to Mexico. The revolution’s starting!”

  “That’s great!”

  “I’m heading down there too. I’m going with four other women and six men from the committee.”

  “Sweetheart, you don’t want to get killed. Why don’t you think this over some more?”