Free All the Time in the World by E. L. Doctorow Page B

understanding necessary.
    In the kitchen, Jelena was nervous. Before the guests had arrived she’d gone to the alley with her cell phone and a man standing there had told her to go back inside.
    Ramon, you know what they are? she whispered. Do you realize?
    She held out her hands and they were shaking. Ramon fingered her wedding ring. When had she got it? He couldn’t keep from smiling.
    You’ve been cleared for the evening, Jelena. You are family. Just don’t look at them. Keep your eyes down and be your efficient self and everything will be all right.
    How do you know to be so calm? Jelena said.
    I am familiar with the species.
    WHEN THE DINNER of the fourteen was over and the limos had driven off and the doors were closed for the night, Borislav and his wife poured themselves glasses of blackberry brandy and sat down in the back. A while later, the old lawyer was admitted and the three of them chatted softly, as if Ramon might overhear them. Jelena had gone home and Ramon was about to leave when Borislav called him to the table.
    You did well, Ramon.
    Thank you.
    Sit, sit. The counsellor wants to speak with you.
    The lawyer said, April fifteenth, as you know, is for paying taxes. As I suspect, your income is the poverty level?
    Even counting tips, Ramon said.
    You see how ungrateful? Mrs. Borislav said.
    The lawyer continued, We assume the Immigration does not want Jelena, your wife, to be a ward of the state—this is their main concern for the green card, and so we are signing on Borislav, who is a man of substance, to be a co-sponsor of her.
    Borislav nodded in solemn acknowledgment of his substance.
    In that way, the Immigration is assured that Jelena does not apply for Welfare, though her husband is in the poverty class. And the arrangement is affirmed by Jelena living in the Borislav residence.
    Okay with me, Ramon said, rising.
    One moment. Since as marriage partners you are to file a joint tax return, you and Jelena together, for this is what married people do, we find it necessary that you live with Borislav as well, in his house, and therefore with the same address on the tax return.
    Is it not my house also? Anya Borislav said to the lawyer.
    Of course, the lawyer said. My apologies.
    So let him be grateful to me as well. That we are giving the mestizo everything, including a roof over his head. But I tell you, she said to Ramon, this is not a hotel and I am not a maid. You understand? Your bed you will make yourself, your room you will clean, and your wash you will take to the Laundromat, and your food you will eat elsewhere.
    Ramon ignored her. I have conditions, he said to the lawyer.
    What conditions?
    That the money I am owed is paid to me now.
    Jelena has not been paying you? Borislav said.
    No, nor have I asked her. She is my wife. Since we are married and filing a joint tax return it is not income if it is passed from one of us to the other. So I will need from you the money I’m owed before I consent to live in your house and suffer the insults of Mrs. Borislav.
    At this the woman rose from the table and began to scream and curse in her native tongue. Spittle flew from her lips.
    Borislav stood and tried to calm her but she pushed his arm away and screamed at him. Anya, he said, please, please. We know what we are doing!
    It was that remark that Ramon remembered later. Borislav and the lawyer had agreed to pay him the money. But what was it, exactly, that they knew they were doing?
    BORISLAV’S HOUSE WAS of red brick with a roof of green tile. It stood out in this neighborhood of small two-family homes on small lots. The inside reflected the same taste—probably Mrs. Borislav’s—as the restaurant: heavy, dark furniture, thick rugs, lamps with tasselled shades, and toylike things on every surface—things of glass, things of silver, things of ceramic, dancing ladies in swirling skirts, horses pulling sleighs. Only when Ramon had climbed the stairs to the third floor did he find a window that was