David Bezmozgis - The Betrayers

Leora sat on her side of the backseat as she had from the start, looking silently out her window. Kotler had spoken in an attempt to break the silence, make a conciliatory gesture, though he still didn’t know exactly what he’d said or done to alienate her.

— If you have something to say, Leora, you should say it. Mindful of the driver, Kotler spoke the words in Hebrew. We have two hours in this car.

Peevishly, Leora turned from her window.

— What are you doing with me, Baruch?

— I don’t understand.

— Why did you get involved with me?

— I thought that much was clear. I fell in love with you.

— So you said. But how could someone like you fall in love with someone like me?

— Someone like me? Someone like you?

— An exceptionally moral person like you and an ordinary person like me. I don’t understand how that is possible.

— It is possible. It happens all the time. The trouble with us exceptionally moral people is that there are exceedingly few of us. We must partner up somehow, Kotler said, trying to lighten the mood.

— I don’t believe it. If I were like you, I don’t see how I could be with someone like me.

— But you aren’t me. And I clearly haven’t minded.

— I have always had my doubts about that. I have always wondered how you could be sincere. That compared to you, compared to Miriam, I was insufficient. And this has nothing to do with what they wrote about me in the newspapers. Believe me, they didn’t write a single word that I couldn’t have written myself.

— I think you have too dim a view of your own character.

— Do I? Not according to what I heard between you and Tankilevich. I heard what you said and I heard what he said. I’m not sure I would have behaved any differently in his place. So maybe I’m not who you thought I was.

— I see, Kotler said.

— He is a sick foolish old wreck of a man.

— And so should be absolved.

— Oh, I don’t know, Baruch. Does it matter what I think, anyway? I’m in no position to say.

They looked at each other in silence and before Leora could turn away or Kotler offer something in reply, there came a cascade of notes that Kotler recognized as Leora’s phone’s ringtone. The notes, sampled from a vibraphone, bounced around the chamber of the cab. Leora let the phone ring a second time before she reached into her handbag. She let it ring a third and a fourth as she held it in her hand and read the display. And she gave Kotler a dubious glance before she touched the screen to accept the call.

— Hello, she said crisply.

Kotler tried to infer who might be on the other end. At present, a great many people could conceivably elicit from Leora such a response.

Yes, Kotler heard her say. Then, in the same tone, Yes, I know. And after a pause, looking directly at him, she said once more, Yes. She then took the phone from her ear and mutely extended it to him.

Kotler accepted it.

— Hello, he said and heard his daughter’s voice in reply.

— I called first on your phone, Dafna said tightly. It didn’t work.

Kotler felt for his own phone in his trouser pocket and tilted it away from the sun’s glare. The screen was black. He pressed the button for the power but saw no change.

— The battery died, Kotler said.

— I was forced to call her.

— Then it must be important.

Through the handset Kotler heard a woman’s voice over an intercom, resonating through the corridors of a public space. He couldn’t decipher the words but he immediately assumed the worst. His heart and mind hurtled to the graveside, with the raw heaped earth, the shrieks and lamentations.

— You need to come home, Dafna said.

— I am coming home. I have a flight tonight. What happened?

— You talked to Benzion?

— Dafna, what is this? Are we playing some sort of game? Have you taken it into your head to discipline me? Tell me what happened.

— Benzion shot himself, she replied.

Kotler felt the impact as though the gun had just been fired and the bullet had struck him as well, its force concussing his chest.

— Did you hear me, Papa?

— Is he alive?

Leora had been following his conversation, and at this Kotler saw her body tense and her eyes grow wide and sharp with concern.

— Yes, Dafna said. He shot himself, but it was in the hand.

Kotler felt immediate, slavish relief, but also a rising sadness.

— He and two other soldiers. They all put their hands in front of Benzion’s rifle and he fired. They called themselves the Brotherhood of the Right Hand. Benzion posted their declaration on his Facebook. A few lines from the Psalms. Now none of them will say a word.

— Where are you, Dafna?

— Hadassah Ein Kerem.

It was where Miriam had given birth to Benzion. The doctor had announced, Mazal tov, Mr. Kotler, you have a son. Kotler was invited to look at the child, the embodiment of so many of his dreams. He saw, almost to the exclusion of everything else, the infant’s long, slender, finely wrought hands. On the little body, the hands seemed almost freakishly long, as if to mock Kotler’s unspoken desire. For he’d secretly hoped that a child of his not be encumbered as he’d been. That the randomness of genes would, against probability, be kind to it. The sight of his son’s beautiful hands filled him with pleasure and relief. He never ceased to admire them. He admired them too much, too effusively — his admiration, to his shame, carrying with it a taint of envy. How different his own life would have been if only he’d been granted such hands! In Benzion’s act, Kotler discerned the deeper message intended for him: it was not by coincidence that his son had ruined the part of himself that his father loved best.

Now, in a hospital room, under military guard, his son was lying, while outside, before they were dispersed, the demonstrators would have assembled. Bearded and bedraggled supporters with their songs and banners. Through his window Benzion would hear their voices. David, King of Israel, lives, lives and endures!

— What did he say to you, Papa? Dafna asked.

— What did he say? He wanted my blessing, Dafna. To refuse orders.

— And what did you tell him?

— I told him I couldn’t do that.

— Why?

— Because I disapproved, Dafna. I told him to find another way.

— Ha! Dafna derided him. Well, he found another way!

And what other way had Kotler imagined Benzion would find? Once the words were out of his mouth, did he follow the line of thought to the very end? He had. And had he been willing to accept that end? The graveside with the heaped earth? The sackcloth and ashes? No. But then why hadn’t he said so unequivocally to Benzion? My son, my dear one, anything but that!

— You, Mama, Benzion: all of you with your sacred principles, Dafna said. And look at us. Look at all the good they have done us. Benzion wanted one word from you, Papa. Would it have killed you to give it to him? He is your son, not some enemy. Not the KGB or the prime minister. Well, now he gets to follow in your footsteps and go to jail, which should make you both happy.

A voice reverberated over the hospital intercom again and there was the sound of some commotion.

— This is pointless, she said. I have to go.

— How is your mother? Kotler interjected before she could hang up.

— In her element, Dafna said and ended the call.

At the next roadside stand, Kotler asked the driver to pull over.

Several folding tables were arrayed on the gravel turnout. On the tables dozens of clear glass jars glowed with different shades of honey, from palest yellow to deepest amber. On the ground, in wicker baskets, sprawled mounds of apricots and melons. And from metal racks flanking the tables, long strings of purple Yalta onions hung like curtains. Shaded under a large blue beach umbrella, a Russian woman and a Tatar boy in his teens sat on folding chairs. The boy was hunched over, doing something on his mobile phone, his thumbs moving in rapid patterns, while the woman gazed languidly at the highway and her approaching customers.