Free The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis

on what
grounds
and by what
authority
am I denying her claim? On what grounds and by what authority? On the grounds of conscience and by the authority of common decency. And you saw the result.
    Nina Semonovna felt around the tabletop for her pack of cigarettes. Nimbly, she pulled one from the pack and lit it. She held the cigarette in her hand and allowed a tendril of smoke to curl past her eyes.
    —Now I can look forward to a complaint from this person to the Odessa Hesed. And, I assure you, I
do
look forward to it. The shame of it is that for a person like her, there are no consequences. She will make her outrageous demands, and I—and other people who have far more important things to do—will have no choice but to suffer them. And in the end she will get what she wants. Because even though everyone knows she’s a liar, on paper she has covered her fat arse. It’s because of behavior like this that people detest Jews. Because of this miserable shrewdness and greed. I won’t say it doesn’t exist. In my position, I see my share. But for every one like her, there are twenty others who honestly don’t have two kopeks to rub together. And when this woman takes money to which she has absolutely no right, when she cheats and steals, it’s not from me that she steals, but from them. So even if there’s nothing I can do to stop her, I can at least take some pleasure in blackening her days. I don’t fool myself into thinking that this will cause her to reconsider or repent—with such people, one learns not to expect moral transformations—but it will send the message that when you come into this office with the intention to deceive, you will not be able to simply waltz in and out, but you will take it on the head!
    Nina Semonovna put her cigarette to her lips and inhaled. If the point of her monologue had been to discourage him, Tankilevich thought, she had succeeded. Nevertheless, he didn’t have a choice. He’d come with a realistic appraisal of his prospects. Nina Semonovna had done nothing but confirm what he had already suspected. But so? His part was to ask. And her part, then, was to deny. If nothing else, at least he, unlike the woman, was not engaged in fraud. He wasn’t concealing anything. Between him and Nina Semonovna, everything was out in the open. At once out in the open and closely guarded. That was what he believed—though this display of hers, the zeal with which she revealed to him the details of another client’s case, raised apprehensions. Here he was, proposing to go back on his word, but could it be that she had long since gone back on hers? Then again, in all these years he had seen nothing to suggest that she had misled him. He would have sensed it if people knew the truth about his past. It was not the kind of information someone could possess and dismiss. Certainly not Jews. Certainly not Jews like her brother and the others at the synagogue. Which led him to believe that Nina Semonovna had, at least in his case, remained discreet.
    As Tankilevich girded himself to speak, Nina Semonovna took another pull on her cigarette and said, But you didn’t come to hear me complain.
    —I appreciate your difficulties, Tankilevich said, and do not wish to add to them. But I have come to talk about the synagogue.
    —Yes, the synagogue, Nina Semonovna said grimly.
    —You probably know that Isidor Feldman died.
    —A good person, Nina Semonovna said. One of the last withroots in the farming colonies. I meant to go to the funeral, but it was one thing after another.
    —Yes, a good person, Tankilevich said. A loss to the community, and also to the synagogue. He came regularly. Without him there are only five men left.
    —This is our predicament. Our people go and we can’t replace them. But I don’t suppose you have come here with a solution?
    —I regret—I regret sincerely—that I have not, Tankilevich said and felt the heat of desperation rise on his skin. He imagined Nina Semonovna could