Empty Mansions

generous.
    Bock explained:
    Somebody would come in and say, “Oh, dear, my sister needs an operation and I can’t afford it.” She would say, “Well, I’ll pay for it.”
    I discussed it with her, and her question was, “Can I afford it?”
    And I would say yes. I would say, “But why don’t you put it into a will rather than giving it now?”
    And she said, “I want to see people enjoy the gifts that I give while I’m alive.” Mrs. Clark was a very smart and astute woman who made up her own mind, decided what she wanted to do, when she wanted to do it. She didn’t ask permission.
    Hadassah said she never asked for any of these gifts. She said she would mention that tuition would be expensive for her daughter at grad school, and then Huguette would insist on paying for it. “Sometimes she gives you checks, you will be amazed, it is not the amount you want, itis more than the amount you want. And it happens many, many times. That’s how Madame is.… Madame insist we have to get this.… I did not ask for it.”
    Hadassah disputed the idea that mentioning family issues was her way of asking Huguette for gifts. “For twenty years what do you do if you stay in the room? We always talk about our lives, we talk about anything, you know, and she always ask my family.… Daily talk, of course. It is like a family. I am the nurse of Madame, I am very their friend, I dedicate my life to Madame. For almost fourteen years I stayed more in Madame room than in my house. I work twelve hours.… My husband is a mother and father while I’m working with Madame. Family vacation, I miss, when the kids were growing up. Because she never wants me to take off. She is uncomfortable with other people. I gave my life for her.”
    Hadassah’s husband, Daniel, received $1,503,813. He ran errands for Huguette and stayed home with the kids while his wife worked seven days a week.With the money his wife was making, he said, they were in too high a tax bracket. “Figure it out. I have to stop working, because whatever I make is going to pay taxes and that’s it.”
    Kamsler and Bock cautioned Huguette repeatedly about making excessive gifts, citing the federal gift taxes that would be due. Bock warned Huguette in a letter: She had “failed to understand the consequences of your continued course of action.” But Bock hardly saw her. Communicating with his client was like the children’s game of fishing, where the player throws a line with a clothespin attached over a curtain. Usually when he pulled the line, she didn’t bite, or she would say she’d think about it.
    • • •
    Before he died in 1992, Dr. Jules Pierre wrote a private letter to his former patient Huguette. In French, he outlined his financial situation. With scant income from a dwindling trust and Social Security, he told Huguette that his wife, Suzanne, would soon be a widow and would probably be unable to keep their Park Avenue apartment. He asked Huguette to lend her money until she could sell the apartment.
    “Please believe me when I say that I know what I am talking aboutwhen I think about the serious problems that my wife will have to face,” Dr. Pierre wrote. “Please receive, dear Madame and great friend, my very affectionate thoughts. Your faithful friend—ever grateful for everything you do for us. Pierre.”
    His request was answered seven years later, in 1999, when Huguette arranged, through her attorney, to sell two paintings at Sotheby’s so she could offer more gifts to her friends. One was Monet’s
Three Poplars in Gray Weather
.It brought $10 million, which Huguette gave to Madame Pierre.
    Talking about Huguette in her apartment on a Saturday afternoon in 2010, Madame Pierre was easily distracted by the television, and the conversation lagged. As she was looking at photos of Huguette, her face brightened. In the kitchen, her caretaker explained that Madame Pierre had Alzheimer’s disease, as her son confirmed.
    Because of Huguette’s generosity, Suzanne Pierre could afford round-the-clock care until she died in February 2011 at age eighty-nine. Because of Huguette, Suzanne had been able to remain in her home until the end.
    • • •
    Huguette offered the second painting, Cézanne’s
Earthenware Jug
, to Hadassah. The nurse said she didn’t have any use for an old painting, so Huguette included it in the 1999 sale at Sotheby’s. It sold for $15 million, and Huguette said she wanted to give it all to Hadassah.
    Huguette’s