David Bezmozgis - The Free World

Matilda Levy stepped to the elevator and pressed the call button. An instant later, a light blinked, and Matilda pulled open the iron accordion door. She waited imperiously for Alec to join her. Once he was inside, she dropped a coin into the mechanism and pressed a button for the fourth floor. The door glided back into place, clicked shut, and the elevator crept dramatically up. As it made its slow ascent, the compartment grew dense with Matilda Levy’s cosmetics and perfume. The air became constricting, intimate, and glandular. The elevator felt less like an elevator than like Matilda Levy’s laundry basket. Just standing there, Alec felt compromised. In his mind, in spite of himself, he began to envision it happening. He unclasped her necklace, unbuttoned her blouse, asked her to stand at a short remove, and watched her unzip her skirt and step clear in garters, nylons, and heels.

At the fourth floor, the elevator lurched to a halt and Matilda Levy reached out and retracted the door.

— Your hand, please, Matilda said at the threshold of the open door.

The elevator had stopped some thirty centimeters short of the landing, creating a visible, though far from insurmountable, obstacle. It was, in actuality, no higher than a normal step, but Matilda Levy stood arrested before it, with one hand outstretched, awaiting assistance.

Alec wondered if they had now reached the decisive point at which, in no uncertain terms, the sexual proposal was slapped down on the table like a fish. It was when one person asked the other to do something unnecessary. For instance, to leave a party, to climb a tree, to gratuitously lend a hand out of an elevator.

But what to do? Alec thought. He couldn’t tell Matilda Levy that he believed she could get out of the elevator by herself.

Alec gave her his hand.

— The machine is not perfect, Matilda said, but what it lacks in function it makes up in character.

Using Alec’s hand for support, Matilda Levy climbed out onto the landing and took several steps down the corridor and again waited for Alec.

With every apartment they passed, Alec resigned himself more and more to the inevitability. It would be a charitable act, no crime against Polina. Behind the door of the first apartment, Alec heard the voice of an Italian broadcaster either on the radio or on television. The next apartment they passed was silent. Behind the door of the third, he heard the clink of plates. Matilda Levy stopped at the fourth door and withdrew her keys. From the beginning, Alec had considered it oddly coincidental that she would have her apartment so close to the HIAS offices. On the other hand, it was quite possible that this was not her primary apartment. Unlike Riga, Rome had no municipal commissions dictating how many residences a person could have. It was a free country. A person could have as many residences as he could afford. It was completely within the realm of possibility that Matilda Levy might keep an apartment across the road from HIAS for the sole purpose of conducting trysts with Russian émigrés.

Matilda Levy turned the key and opened the door. Alec looked inside, expecting to see one thing, but saw, instead, several young Italian women reading documents, organizing files, and using a large photocopier. Among them were two middle-aged Russian men, one of whom wore impressively thick eyeglasses.

— This is the briefing department, Matilda Levy said, responsible for intake and processing. The work done here is very important. Most people consider it a desirable position. But the last man we hired was very rude to the girls. He had some kind of complex. A very difficult character. I don’t tolerate rudeness to the girls. They are sweet girls and work very hard. But I don’t expect such a problem with you. I can see that already. A woman knows. Now, as for what you need to learn, ask Oleg in the glasses or Lucia in the white skirt.

The office looked fine, and the prospect of working with ten Italian girls was pleasing, but mainly Alec felt like a man reprieved. The day’s report would remain unblemished. What happened today? Nothing bad. Which was the way of the world, between misunderstandings, bankruptcies, and stomach cancers.

— Matilda is right, Oleg said later, peering through the ophthalmological achievement of his glasses, the job is desirable. It also presents certain opportunities. But I do not advise pursuing them. At least not without great circumspection.

It was these very opportunities that precipitated Iza Judo’s appearance outside the briefing department building two days later. When Alec bounded out the door, Iza reacted as if he were the unsuspecting beneficiary of a happy accident. The look on his face was intended to convey simple, good-natured incredulity: there he’d been, Iza Judo, innocently taking a break from the heat in front of some random building, when who should emerge but his old pal Alec Krasnansky!

— You wouldn’t believe it, Iza said.

— Is that right? Alec said.

— Not five minutes ago, I was telling Minka here about you, Iza said, motioning to a young man leaning against the wall. The man was very fair, practically, if not clinically, an albino. His gray T-shirt exposed arms that were liberally adorned with prison tattoos.

— I believe it, Alec said smiling.

— He believes it. What a guy! Iza crowed. Minka, didn’t I tell you he was sharp?

— That’s what you said, Minka affirmed, looking up and shielding his eyes from the sun.

— The sun’s murder, Iza said, how about we find a shady place for a drink?

— I’m expected across the street, Alec said.

— Your job, right? Iza said. I understand. But what’s fifteen minutes here or there? Carter won’t change the immigration policy because you stopped for a coffee with a friend.

— And for a beer? Alec said.

— He won’t change it for a beer either, Iza said, putting his arm around Alec’s shoulders and propelling him down the street toward a place with an awning.

Minka edged himself away from the wall and fell into step just behind them.

— Crazy heat, Minka muttered.

— It’s hot like this in Israel, Iza said.

— All the more reason to stay out of Israel, Minka said.

— Minka’s having a hard time getting into America.

— I’m a qualified mechanic, Minka said. Specialize in diesel engines. You tell me America can’t use another mechanic. All those highways. All those trucks.

They walked into the café, where Iza ordered three beers at the bar.

— You don’t want to sit? Alec asked.

— It costs extra to sit, Iza said.

— Is that so? Alec asked.

— It’s their system. The entire country. Go figure why.

— The best is in the mornings, Minka said, when they’re all crowded like cattle around the bar, drinking their coffees, empty tables everywhere, not one single ass in a chair.

— So who are the tables for? Alec asked.

— Tourists, Iza said.

He raised his beer and toasted l’chaim.

— Next year in Los Angeles, Minka drawled, lifting his beer in his tattooed hand.

As a boy, Alec had had a friend whose older brother, Vanya, had spent time in jail and returned home proudly displaying his prison tattoos. He seemed at the time like a heroic and exotic character, even though he was really just a petty crook who enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Later, he got into more trouble and was shipped to a prison where he was cruelly disfigured. The rumor went that his attackers held him down and nailed his tongue to the floor. But while his tongue was still intact, he’d taught Alec and the other neighborhood boys how to decipher the arcane symbols of criminal tattoos. The initiation cost a pack of cigarettes, which each boy was supposed to acquire by dishonest means. For his part, Alec stole the money from his grandmother’s purse while she napped. Scrupulous about such things, his grandmother noticed, and fretted terribly about her absentmindedness. She never thought to accuse Alec, but Samuil wasn’t so easily deceived.