Free The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis Page A

detect it from where she sat.
    —If you regret, then you are sitting in the right place. The place of regret. This is where everyone comes with their regrets. Regrets, of course, that are really requests. Or am I mistaken?
    Tankilevich held a chastened silence.
    —So let’s get to it, then, Nina Semonovna said. What do you want?
    —It isn’t a matter of what I want, Tankilevich said. What I want and what, unfortunately, I am able to do are two different things.
    Nina Semonovna crossed her hands on the desktop and gazed bitterly at Tankilevich.
    —It is a Saturday, Mr. Tankilevich. I have just been yelled at by a hideous woman. My patience for games and intrigues is thin.
    —Ten years ago, I came to see you for the first time. I wonder if you remember.
    —I remember very well. Even with my long and varied experience, it is hard to forget a case like yours.
    —So you remember our agreement?
    —To the letter.
    —I have honored this agreement for ten years. I have not missed so much as a single Saturday.
    —Very good. Are you here for my congratulations?
    —Nina Semonovna, I think you will agree that ten years is a long time. I was sixty then; I am seventy now.
    —And I trust you will soon get to the point.
    —Ten years ago, when we made our agreement, there were still enough men for the minyan. But for a long time that hasn’t been so. With me or without me, the number will not reach ten.
    The ash had grown at the tip of Nina Semonovna’s cigarette. Without taking her eyes from Tankilevich, she tapped it into a crude ceramic ashtray, a children’s craft project with a purple Star of David painted at its center. Then, implacably and unhurriedly, she brought the remainder of the cigarette to her lips. She released the smoke and continued to regard Tankilevich as if from a predatory height.
    —Despite what you might think, Nina Semonovna, it was not easy for me to come here. I have endured for a long time the hardship that our agreement has imposed on me. I have endured it and accepted it as my obligation and my lot. But I am an old man now. My health is not what it once was. My vision is bad. My heart troubles me. I have sciatica that makes sitting for hours on the trolleybus a kind of torture. These trips to and from Yalta are taking their toll on me, Nina Semonovna. A toll both physical and psychological. A toll that, I believe, no longer has a justification.
    Nina Semonovna ground her cigarette into the ashtray.
    —So we have finally reached the point? You would like to bereleased from your obligations? On account of the terrible hardships imposed, yes?
    —I would.
    —And what about my part of our agreement? Am I then to be released from that?
    Tankilevich eyed Nina Semonovna cautiously.
    —You speak of the hardship our agreement imposed on you, but why not ask about the hardship it imposed on me? Do you think it was easy for me to engage in this subterfuge all these years? And to engage in it for the sake of a person like you?
    Nina Semonovna leaned forward, her eyes lit with malice. But also with something else. A kind of gladness. He had been mistaken. The appetizer hadn’t robbed her of a stomach for the main course. Quite the contrary. It had whetted her appetite. The appetizer had made her ravenous, eager to devour something. It was likely that, even without the episode with the horrible woman, Nina Semonovna would have denied his request. But after the horrible woman, his fate was sealed. Such was his misfortune.
    —You ask if I remember when you first came to this office. When I say I remember, not only do I mean that I remember it now because you have asked me to. When I say I remember, I mean that I have never forgotten. I mean that, from time to time, I still think about you, Mr. Tankilevich. I still think about you and whether I was right or wrong to enter into this arrangement with you. Because I did not like you from the first. I did not like you and I did not trust you. I thought you were