David Bezmozgis - The Betrayers

— The subject of much debate.

— And what about you? the man asked Leora. Maybe you have Yiddish? Young people are learning it now. Last year American students came with their professor to make a video interview with us.

— My Yiddish is worse than his, Leora said.

— And your chess?

— My chess is better.

— So join us. For old kockers like us, it will be nice to have such a lovely girl for company.

— I’m sorry, but not today, Leora said.

— If not today, then not tomorrow either, the man said without animus. But maybe with the coming of the moshiach!

— Then we will all play chess and talk Yiddish! Kotler said.

— May He come speedily and soon! the old man said.

He ducked back into the room to rejoin his circle, and Kotler and Leora were presented with one last door. Kotler knocked and a woman said, Come in.

The door opened onto an outer office containing two vacant desks with telephones and computers on them. A radio played at low volume, tuned to a Russian call-in program. The topic seemed to be the possibility of life on other planets. A scientific expert was speaking in favor.

Centered between the two desks was the door to the inner office. It was open. A woman sat behind a large desk and looked at Kotler. A cigarette smoked in an ashtray at her elbow. She picked up the cigarette and motioned for Kotler and Leora to enter.

— Have a seat, she said. And you may want to shut that door.

Kotler and Leora assumed two chairs in front of the desk.

— Do you object if I smoke? Nina Semonovna asked, holding her cigarette away from her face.

— No, Kotler said.

She rose and went to the window and pulled it partway open.

— It’s hot outside and we have the air-conditioning, so I keep it closed. But this will release a little of the smoke.

She resumed her seat, deftly tapped the ash from her cigarette, and gave the indication that she was now ready to proceed. She was like other women Kotler had met who held similar offices. Disciplined, beleaguered, economical women with too many claims on their attentions. Unemotional but not unkind. Mothers of poor households, making due with not enough.

— So, Mr. Kotler, to what do I owe this honor? Nina Semonovna said with only the slightest trace of disingenuousness. You said very little on the telephone.

— Thank you for agreeing to see us on such short notice.

— It’s not every day I get a call from Baruch Kotler. As I said, I consider it an honor. I hope I don’t embarrass you by saying you were a hero to me.

— You embarrass me just enough. It’s always nice to be remembered. Especially as one slips into obscurity.

— I doubt you are slipping into obscurity.

— It’s not so terrible. The times change. Before, I could not have walked anonymously through a Hesed.

— You walked anonymously?

— Your guard didn’t recognize me and a man in the corridor wanted to know if I was Jewish. It grounds the ego. Not a bad thing.

— The people are caught up in their problems.

— They have every right, Kotler said.

Nina Semonovna paused to bring the cigarette to her lips and looked from Kotler to Leora.

— My apologies, Kotler said. I failed to introduce you. This is Leora Rosenberg.

— I know, Nina Semonovna said. I read the papers.

— I see, Kotler said.

— So to the big mystery Where did they go? the answer is To Crimea.

— Yes, Yalta. For reasons of childhood nostalgia. Ill placed.

— Why ill placed? Yalta, Crimea, are still beautiful. I see nothing wrong with this sort of nostalgia. I wish more Jews had it. We’re not Odessa. We could do with the visitors.

— I agree. Crimea is beautiful. But it was not the right time for us to come. And things did not go as planned. A very strange coincidence befell us.

That was all he needed to say, Kotler saw, all the fragments he needed to provide for Nina Semonovna to assemble the picture. The mention of Yalta. Of a very strange coincidence. And now their appearance in her office. He watched her face go stony. Now he also understood: the queerness of her welcome had to do only with the scandal, what she had read in the papers. The connection to Tankilevich hadn’t occurred to her yet.

Tankilevich stood over the zinc tub in the yard. He had placed inside it the carbons of his letter to Chava Margolis. In his hand he held a box of matches. He would burn this letter. He had kept it this long because of a stupid self-deception. He’d imagined it would be discovered by his daughters after he died and that it would provide them with the truth about their enigmatic father. This had given him comfort. That which he could not bring himself to reveal to them in life, they could read in his own words after his death. But after his return from the pointless trip to the hospital, Tankilevich had been seized by the need to reread this letter, and he’d gone to the cabinet to get it. He hadn’t looked at it in many years. He’d sent it ten years earlier, and it had been nearly that long since he had read it, though he believed he remembered with considerable accuracy what it contained.

After he reread it he went to find a matchbox.

Svetlana, meanwhile, had collapsed on the sofa. She lay there with a hand over her eyes. From this position she called after him — first imploring him not to go rummaging in the other room and then, when she saw him going back out to the yard, imploring him to stay in the house.

Reading the letter had brought back something that Tankilevich had managed to suppress. He had been right in that he remembered with a high degree of fidelity what he had written, but he had somehow forgotten why he had written it. And the reason for the letter, the purpose behind its composition, was shamefully manifest in its every line. He had written it soon after his brother’s death. How could he have forgotten that? He had written it in a fit of financial desperation. This accounted for its pathetic, clamoring tone. Now he remembered. First he had begged Chava Margolis —Forgive me, spare me, release me —and, when she did not reply, he’d gone to beg Nina Semonovna. The letter was in the voice of a weakling, a man he despised. Not the man he wanted his daughters to discover. Instead, a man whose traces needed to be obliterated.

As he struck the match, he heard the telephone ring inside the house. For some reason, some intuition, he stood with the lit match in his fingers. The phone rang a second time before Svetlana answered it. Tankilevich continued to wait. He dropped the match onto the parched earth and stamped it out. Moments later, Svetlana came rushing out, holding the cordless telephone.

— For you, she said breathlessly.

Tankilevich took the phone and heard Nina Semonovna’s voice. He heard her speak his name.

— Mr. Tankilevich, I have thought about our conversation.

— Yes, Tankilevich said.

— I have had a change of heart, Nina Semonovna said, though her voice gave no sign of it.

— Why? Tankilevich asked.

— Instead of asking questions, Mr. Tankilevich, I’d encourage you to say Thank you.

— I would like to know why, Tankilevich repeated.

— Why? Because the sun is in the sky, Nina Semonovna said. Tell me, would you prefer I reconsider?

Svetlana stood very close to Tankilevich and looked at him with horror.

Do as you please, Tankilevich thought. Reconsider! Go to hell!

— No, he said.

— I’ll not wait for Thank you, Nina Semonovna said, adding, Your stipend will be mailed to you.

Tankilevich handed the receiver back to Svetlana.

— Well? she asked.