The Betrayers (6 page)

—The Israeli government is nothing but a Judenrat! Podolsky declaimed. If anyone doubted it before, it should be clear now. The Americans and the Arabs issue the order, and their Jewish servants carry it out. They deceive themselves with the same rotten Judenrat logic. “If only we do this, our masters will be satisfied. If only we sacrifice these few, they will spare the rest.” Have not enough books been written on this subject? Is
this some obscure wrinkle of history? What is the point of this Yad Vashem? So the Polish pope and the Nazi pope can have a nice place to go make a speech? And when the Arabs take over? When the Judenrat gives them Jerusalem? Then what will happen to this Yad Vashem?

—It will become the Zionist Occupation Museum, Tankilevich said, braced with tribal feeling.

—If not a mosque, said Nahum Ziskin.

This was what it was like to be on firm spiritual footing. To enjoy the prerogative of every human being: the society of like-minded fellows. In whose midst a man understood things preternaturally, in his bones. Yes, as if, after a fashion, the neural threads led to a common brain, the vessels to a common heart. Where even disagreement was disagreement within yourself. Once connected, always connected. Nothing and no one, exerting even the greatest power, could refute this.

For another fifteen minutes they remonstrated about this newest Israeli crisis, as though it were part of the liturgy they had come to recite. Then again, what were their prayers for? What was the point of Jewish prayer? What was the point of it from the very beginning? One point: Zion. A return to Zion. The ingathering of the scattered people at Zion. The arrival of the messianic age and the rebuilding of the temple in Zion. When there were millions under the tsar, it was for Zion. Now that there was but this puny remnant, it could only be for Zion. Even in London, New York, and Dnepropetrovsk, where they were not living under the shadow of extinction, it was still for Zion. Only in Zion was it not for Zion.

A
fter services, Tankilevich didn’t linger as he often did but hurried out on the pretext of seeing his daughter. Often on these Saturdays, he visited her and her husband in the apartment they rented in a different, marginally less squalid, part of the city. For these visits Svetlana outfitted him with a parcel of food—even if only a jar of preserves and a few eggs from their chicken coop. Depending on how things sat, Tankilevich might also slip in fifty hryvnia. In return, his daughter did him the service of going once a month to pick up his Hesed subsidy. But today, because of his fearsome meeting with Nina Semonovna, he had avoided making other plans. He reasoned that if the meeting went well, he could still call his daughter and arrange to see her. But if the meeting went badly, he was certain that he would be in no condition to see her or anyone else. He dreaded to think about the condition he would be in if the meeting went badly.

Nina Semonovna had set their meeting at her office at the Hesed. She did not normally come in on Saturdays, the Hesed
being closed on Shabbat, but she was making this accommodation for him. Tankilevich knew he was inconveniencing her and that this would not incline her favorably toward him, but what other choice did he have? Ten years earlier, when he had first contacted her, he had insisted on meeting after business hours, when he could be assured that nobody would overhear them. He supposed he could have done the same again, but it seemed to him that making his petition at the end of a long workday was no better than making it in the middle of a quiet Saturday. Besides, on another day he would have had to make an additional trip to Simferopol, six more hours on the hard plastic seats of the trolleybus; the prospect was too dispiriting, too daunting.

It was nearly forty-five minutes from the synagogue to the Hesed. There was the walk to the bus stop, a series of two minibuses to wait for, and another ten-minute walk to the apartment building where, on the ground floor, the Hesed had its offices. A wealthy American Jew with roots in Simferopol had bought the building and lent them the space. They were lucky to have it. Other communities—the Tatars, the Ukrainians—had nothing at all, even though there were plenty of rich Arabs in the Gulf and rich Ukrainians in Canada. Still, the location was problematic. Aside from the synagogue that Tankilevich attended, there were two others in the city, a Reformist and a Chabad—both struggling, both far from the Hesed. Nina Semonovna’s big ambition, known to all, was to reclaim the old Talmud Torah building, erected in 1913 to educate Jewish boys. It was large and well situated, perfect for a center. With such a building, the community might stand a chance. But for many years, it had served as the Institute of Sport. In the 1990s, the
government had returned some buildings to local communities, but there was little chance it would return this one. The state was poor and the Jews were poor. What did moral and historical claims matter in such an equation? So the Gestapo had used it as their headquarters. So they had collected Jews there before sending them to their macabre deaths. But the innocent students of the Institute of Sport hadn’t done this. Why should they be dispossessed?

A crime demanded rectification! That was why. But it would never happen.

The situation was not bound to improve. They had just said the kaddish for Isidor Feldman. A sad business in and of itself, made sadder by the fact that without Feldman they were further depleted. Their trajectory was ineluctable. During the prayer, the perverse thought had occurred to Tankilevich that they could have used Feldman’s voice to help say the kaddish for Feldman.

Tankilevich rang the bell to be admitted into the Hesed and waited for some time for a response. He rang again and then felt, through the door, the reverberations of someone’s steps striding toward him. A turn of the bolt and Nina Semonovna was there. A handsome Jewish woman in her fifties, of the Portuguese type, olive-skinned, full-featured, and without a shred of credulity, habituated to a deceitful, grasping world where everyone is suspect. Tankilevich was no exception.

Dispensing with
Hello
she said, Come in.

He followed her through the empty reception area where the guard usually sat. Then through the narrow corridor, dim because she had not bothered to turn on the lights. Along the walls were posted the displays. There was always something. Tankilevich
remembered one that featured Jewish Nobel laureates—Einstein, Bohr, Pasternak, and so on—complete with their likenesses and short biographies. Now it was local Jewish war heroes: soldiers, sailors, and partisans. Affixed to the walls were dozens of photographs; some depicted the fighters in their youth, some in their later years. They passed the doors to the lecture room, the doors to the library, the doors to the game room. At the end of the corridor, Nina Semonovna indicated a padded vinyl chair situated in front of the door to the administrative offices.

—Wait here, please, she said morosely, I have another client.

Tankilevich did as he was told. He sat in the dim corridor and, almost in spite of himself, caught strains of the dispute that resounded behind the closed door: Nina Semonovna’s firm, even tone and another, shriller female voice. Nina Semonovna’s words were difficult to distinguish but, Tankilevich could make out some of the other woman’s phrases at the highest pitch:
On whose authority? … How dare you? … Who said so? … I am entitled!

After this appetizer, Tankilevich thought, what stomach for the main course?

There followed a considerable period of silence broken by one final proclamation and the harsh scraping of chair legs. Then the door flew open and a woman barged furiously out. She was about the same age as Nina Semonovna, stout and heavy-bosomed. She passed him with hardly a glance, only a flash of gold earrings and a swirl of her long skirt. She stamped her heels on the linoleum and Tankilevich felt shudders through the base of his chair. There was also the echo, like cannonade. Meanwhile, Nina Semonovna filled the doorway and observed laconically the woman’s departure.

—If you would be so kind as to close the door behind you, she called after her.

She waited calmly for the sound of the slamming door and then turned her attention to Tankilevich.

—Now, Nina Semonovna said, what can I do for you?

Tankilevich followed her into the office and took the seat she indicated. He watched her round her desk.

—If once, only once, someone would ask for a meeting to express their gratitude, Nina Semonovna said as she sat down across from Tankilevich. Yes? If someone was so overcome with gratitude for what we do here that he simply had to come in and say so. That would be something.

Tankilevich could think of no satisfactory response. Nor did he believe that one was expected of him.

Nina Semonovna gazed at him with bemusement.

—Of course, if one wishes to hear
Thank you,
one should seek another line of work.

Once more, Tankilevich could think of no response short of nodding his head.

—You don’t happen to know that woman? Nina Semonovna asked.

—I don’t, Tankilevich replied honestly. He was certain he’d never seen her before.

—She owns two shops, she and her husband. Also a small apartment building. Everyone knows this. But she comes here outraged that I have denied her claim for support. What is my explanation? My explanation, naturally, is that I am not going to be taken for a fool. She insists she is destitute. She owns nothing. Preposterous to accuse her of owning shops and a building. Her daughter owns these. All the documents are in the daughter’s
name. In case I doubt it, she waves the documents. So 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 with
roots 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 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 be
released from your obligations? On account of the terrible hardships imposed, yes?