David Bezmozgis - The Betrayers

— Yes, everyone suffered, he said. But not only from the Germans.

— Oh, I see, the Russian announced grandly. I’m surrounded by persecuted minorities. That’s the way it is now in this country. The Russian nation built up this land — what didn’t we do? — but now we’re everyone’s bastard. We’re supposed to go around with our heads bowed and beg forgiveness from this one and the other.

The Russian had worked himself up now and gazed about defiantly, no longer expecting solidarity. He glared at Tankilevich.

— The hell I’ll beg forgiveness from the likes of you! While you get special money and I have a hole in my pocket. The Germans could have lined up a few more of you in ’41!

There it was, Tankilevich thought. The fuse had been lit and now the charge had detonated. His heart surged. He waved his Hesed banknotes in the Russian’s face.

— I should beat you, you filth! Tankilevich shouted.

— Well, well, I’d like to see you try.

But the young mother and her little girl were between them. And the laborer put a restraining hand on the Russian. And the cashier spoke up.

— Be civilized or I will call the police!

And that, more or less, was the end of the spectacle.

His heart still thudding, his groceries sagging in their net bag, Tankilevich left the market and followed the dolorous path to the trolleybus station.

Normally, Tankilevich called Svetlana from the highway to arrange for her to collect him at the depot. This time he did not call. And when she called, he did not answer. Still, when he descended from the trolleybus and did not immediately see her, he was incensed. With his net bag slapping against his thigh, its weight like razors in his forearm, he staggered from the depot to the road where the cars and taxis were parked. It was evening, but the sun had still to set and he could see clear down the line. He had taken only a few steps before he saw Svetlana striding over to intercept him. Her face, her posture, declared that she had already intuited all.

— She refused you?

— I don’t want to discuss it, Tankilevich snapped.

Svetlana reached for the shopping bag and Tankilevich made a play of refusing to yield it.

— Don’t be a hero, you look half dead, Svetlana said and took hold of the bag.

They walked in silence back to the car, Svetlana stealing glances at him as they went.

Had there been a single redeeming moment in the entire day? In this one day of a man’s life? From dawn to dusk? A single moment? Yes, there had been one. A short distance from the grocery store, when he had stopped to rest his burden, the young mother and her little girl had come alongside him. He expected nothing, averted eyes. But the woman said, My mother used to work with a Jewish woman, an ophthalmologist. Her husband was a chemist. They were honest, respectable people. Now they live in Israel. How many such valuable people did we lose? Intellectual people. Specialists. Thousands. I don’t blame them. Because this country is still primitive, full of primitive people. In front of my daughter, I’m embarrassed for this country.

There was silence between Svetlana and Tankilevich as she put the groceries in the trunk and he lowered his bulk into the passenger seat. Silence as she veered the car onto the road and began the drive home. Embedded in the silence was his silent command that they remain silent. But he could feel Svetlana straining against the silence and knew that no exercise of his will would keep her quiet long. Abruptly, he turned to face her.

— What do you want me to say? She spat in my face! Tankilevich shouted. That is all.

— I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself, Svetlana said, rehashing an old antagonistic line.

— Yes, you should have come with me. This way the trip would have cost double, and, with you along, Nina Semonovna would have simply turned us away at the door.

— Why turned us away? Because I am not Jewish?

— Of course because you are not Jewish! Tankilevich thundered. Don’t talk foolishness. It is a Jewish organization. One that believes it owes me nothing and you even less.

A large white tour bus had stopped ahead of them. Red letters stenciled on its hull identified it as Polish. Svetlana craned her neck to see what the matter was. Behind them, cars sounded their horns.

— Is he stalled?

Svetlana continued to look and didn’t reply.

— Well? Tankilevich persisted.

The bus moved.

— What was it? Tankilevich asked.

They crept along behind the bus but saw no sign of anything amiss. Nothing broken, no one injured on the road. Just indifferent trees and houses on the periphery and the slope of a hill to the east. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to cause a distraction. Nothing at all.

— A day of frustrations. Tankilevich sighed.

It was then that Svetlana told him about the new lodgers. More to crow than to console, Tankilevich felt. As though the lodgers were a flag she was waving in his face. Witness: While he was frittering away his chance in Simferopol, she was securing them lodgers for the week. Lodgers who had paid up front in full. Lodgers who also happened to be Jews. This last, Svetlana delivered with sly significance. Tankilevich didn’t miss her implication. That precisely at this moment, these people, being Jews, represented much more than a week’s rent. They represented a second chance! Salvation itself!

It was utter childish nonsense, its logic so comprehensively flawed that it pained Tankilevich to think that he was married to a person whose mind wallowed in such inanities.

— Who are these people? he asked bleakly.

— A man and a younger woman, Svetlana replied, bristling at his tone.

— What sort of couple is this?

— Is this our business? They’re a couple. They wouldn’t be the first such couple.

— Did they say where they were from?

— America.

— But they’re Russians?

— Yes. They spoke Russian like you or me.

— And where in Russia are they from?

— That, I didn’t ask. If I had to guess, I would say Moscow or St. Petersburg. They didn’t strike me as provincial people. Rather, sophisticated people. The man particularly. I would think he would need to be, to get himself such an attractive young companion. Because himself, he is not much to look at. A little nub of a man in a big hat and dark sunglasses. A little Jewish midget, like from a cartoon. Clever, wily. Still, no girl would give herself to such a physically unappealing type if he wasn’t wealthy or important.

Tankilevich felt his throat, his entire being, constrict. A tensing against an old pernicious ill. Svetlana, oblivious, looked ready to prattle on, but he cut her off.

— How old would you say is this man?

— How old? I don’t know. But I’d give him sixty. Not less.

Gloom, gloom descended on him. That Svetlana had no inkling of it — that she behaved as though enraptured by her own perspicacity and brilliance — astounded him. Tankilevich saw the approach to their house. Svetlana turned the car into the driveway. Night had begun to fall. The house was dark. Dark too were the windows of their Jewish lodgers.

Svetlana opened her door and put a leg out but Tankilevich didn’t stir.

— What is it with you? Svetlana asked.

— How is it you have no sense? he said.

— I have no sense? she retorted. What sense is it that I lack?

But when he told her, she waved her hand.

— This is only your paranoia, she said and went to fetch the groceries from the trunk of the car.

Tankilevich made a point of remaining in the car as Svetlana marched to the door with the groceries. She turned once to glance at him over her shoulder, but he stayed obdurately, broodingly in place. She entered the house, and the white rectangles of their rooms flicked consecutively on. In the quiet sanctum of the car, he listened for some soothing intimation.