Boris Fishman - A Replacement Life

“Volvos are from Sweden,” she said, and asked him to join her on the couch.

He continued to look out the window. “They know about the letters,” he said at last. “Where the applications go.”

“What does that mean?” she said, her voice stern. “Look at me, please.”

“Someone ratted,” Slava said, turning around.

She was squinting against the light, trying to get this new lay of the land. Her shoulders fell. “One of ours did it?” she said. Her worry was convincing. Was it expert? Was she acting, covering up for her mother? He hated himself for the thought, but was it unreasonable? He had seen her in action.

Slava sat down next to her. He smelled the vodka on her tongue, mixed with strawberries. Every part of her had a different scent, like departments in a department store.

“I don’t know,” Slava said.

“Anybody else knows?” she said.

Slava shook his head.

“So…” Her head hung forward as she tried to understand.

“If I tell them which ones I faked, they will quietly take those out. As if they never came in. That they can do.”

“And if you don’t tell them?”

“They have no choice but to make a public statement. Make it an official investigation.”

Vera exhaled slowly and fell back.

“If I deny everything,” Slava said, “that’s kaput for Settledecker’s plan, too. If they have to go public, there’s no way anyone’s approving an expansion of eligibility requirements.”

She sat up. “Slava.” Her hand clasped his arm. She was sober, conspiratorial, in control. Lazar Timofeyevich was right about his granddaughter. “You need to say you have no idea what they are talking about. I know how this works. They’re not going to do press conference. No way. They will just make private investigation inside by themselves. They’re saying it to do the guilt to you. It’s— What do you call it? With cards.”

“Bluffing.”

“Exactly. If they can’t make you confess, they will not risk press conference. Think about it. If no Claims Conference, no job for them, no salary. They’re never gonna go for that. They will bury it. You start saying yes to anything, and you’re guilty of— It’s not going to end. Don’t be a pioner . Boy Scout.”

She studied Slava’s face to see what he thought, her attention resting on him like a mother’s. A vein came through her temple, steady and unruffled, a blue valley. Slava knew every bend here.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “I promise you. I will make.” Her hand rose to his cheek and playfully scratched the stubble. His hands answered her — her face, her neck, her shoulders. She wore a V-neck silk blouse, dark blue except for black bands at the hems of the sleeves. The knobs of Vera’s shoulders were as round as her face, thick and solid. As she shimmied out of her skirt, a Soviet woman’s coarse panty hose remained, and then nothing. In three years at Century, Slava marveled viciously, he had made no advance, but this bounty was his just weeks after meeting Vera again. She was like the language they shared: He had done nothing to earn it, but it was his. He resented her for accepting him so easily. But these were the perks he could expect. If Slava gave up his mysterious objections, this was what awaited, the dark collapse between Vera’s legs said.

His hands stopped.

“What is it?” she said.

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He made himself look at her.

Her eyes became frightened and uncomprehending. Then came a look of loathing and disgust, as if he had failed a manly duty. He gave her an ugly, meaningless smile.

“You are a sad example, Slava,” she said finally. “A puddle. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Vera”—he tried to hold her arms, but she recoiled—“you don’t want this.”

“So you are doing me a favor,” she expelled.

He started to speak, but she raised her hand. Go now, please.

He tried to gather his things, though nothing would move quickly, their clotheslessness grotesque. He felt her eyes on him. Eventually, she busied herself with her phone, the awkwardness like a third person.

Outside was warm and stuffy after the chillbox of Vera’s air-conditioning. Slava considered dialing Vova the cruiserweight, the admiring nod Vova would give upon pulling up at the address he knew so well, but Vera would correct the record the next time she saw Vova anyway. No, Slava wanted away from all that.

He flagged down an ordinary livery cab. Ninetieth and West End in Manhattan? The driver was incredulous at this kind of fare at this time of the night. As they bumped through the taciturn streets, Slava thought about Israel — the scratchy voice, the desert throat sending up coughs, the eyebrows leaping and waving. About his own grandfather. Where were you, old men, when your instructions were needed? But it was three a.m., the streets were empty, and there was no answer.

By now, Arianna’s night doorman knew Slava’s face, and even though he hadn’t seen Slava in several days, his hailing from Bratislava inclined him to give Slava the benefit of the doubt, the inauspicious fate of the Czechoslovaks under the Soviet yoke notwithstanding. Which left him with a predicament now because it was three o’clock in the fucking morning, and Slavic brotherhood encountered its limits at the shoals of Western decorum.

“Ring her, ring her,” Slava said, reading his face.

The Bratislavan pressed pause on a personal video with great fanfare. “It’s late time,” he observed.

“She’s expecting me,” Slava lied.

The Slovak eyed Slava distastefully. Slava lied again, despising it: a late flight, delayed arrival, an exchange of phone calls with Arianna around midnight, she’d go to bed but leave dinner under saran wrap. It was the saran wrap, the specific detail, that got him. Otto was right about you have to mention the shoes had been yellow. If you say there are elephants flying outside your window, no one will believe you. But if you say there are six elephants flying outside your window, it’s a different story.

Bratislava made his calculations. Of course, he would rather have let Slava go up than be responsible for having woken the tenant. Slava needed to push a little bit more, he saw. “What’s your name?” he said.

“Bujnak,” the Slovak said. “Vladimir Bujnak. Vlado, you can call.”

Slava extended his hand and said his name. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at the stairs he was about to mount. “Sorry.”

Slava stood before Arianna’s door a long time. Then he stood another long stretch after he had rung the bell. He had to ring it several times.

Finally, she called out in a worried voice. Slava told her who it was, putting a note of apology into it. He knew the Bratislavan was listening up the staircase. She opened the door wearing a T-shirt that Slava had left.

“Where have you been?” she said, her voice full of sleep. Slava only smiled dumbly. Suspicion and fear streaked her face. He tried to meet her eyes and not give way to tears. The cat, stirred from its slumber, minced curiously at her feet, skeptical and alert.

“Come to bed,” she said. She left the door open and retreated down the hallway, holding her head. Slava heard the opening of cabinets, the clinking of glasses, the glugging of alcohol into a tumbler.

Slava walked in after her, the cat watching the arc of his legs. Before Slava could close the door, it hurtled out into the hallway, and Slava had to turn around and retrieve it, the animal’s hind paws dangling helplessly in the air, disdain on its snout.

“Vodka?” she said.

“Everybody’s drinking vodka tonight,” he said.

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “Who’s everybody.” The cat rubbed its scalp against Slava’s ankle.