The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis Read Free Book Online Page A

the defining drama of Kotler’s life.
    —He’s my red-haired Motele, Kotler said with a weary smile.
    —I don’t know what that means, Baruch.
    —It’s a line from Eugenia Ginzburg. Her first offhand impression of the man who will eventually destroy her life. “Who’s the red-haired Motele?” she asks her husband at a picnic. The analogy isn’t perfect. Ginzburg was a Jewish Communist and her red-haired Motele was a Jewish Chekist, but the line nevertheless stuck in my head.
    —Perhaps I’m dense, Baruch, or on edge, or just tired, but I’m not in the mood for puzzles.
    —Tankilevich was the man who denounced me. My old roommate in Moscow who also happened to be a KGB informant. He published the open letter in
Izvestia
that said I was working for the CIA.
    —All right. What of him?
    —I saw him.
    —When did you see him? I’ve been with you all day.
    —I saw him when I was standing in the yard making the phone call to Dafna. I saw him through the window of the house. Shall I go on?
    There was no need for him to go on. Leora rose from the bed and looked at him soberly.
    —You saw him, but did he see you?
    —No.
    —Fine, Leora said.
    She turned from Kotler and pulled open a dresser drawer. She scooped up an armful of their clothes and dropped it in a pile atthe foot of the bed. Kotler understood that she meant to rouse him to action, to counter what had already taken root in him—what she sensed had taken root in him—but it did no good. He sat serene and motionless on the bed. Leora looked at him with ebbing defiance. He could see it ebbing, flagging. Beginning at her eyes, her shoulders, her spine, and so on. Against such motionless serenity, nothing could be done. They both knew this. As for the source of the serenity that had possessed him so swiftly, Kotler was almost embarrassed to say. It was unlike the serenity with which he had confronted Amnon and the prime minister and the various foes of his past. That serenity had been the product of reason and principle, easy to articulate and, at least in his own mind, defend. This serenity descended upon him from another dimension. For want of a better word, a mystical one. Though, no doubt, this was how all irrational people justified their intransigences.
    —We should never have come here, Leora said. We should never have gone with that woman. I said so.
    —But we did. And, as strange as this will sound coming from my mouth, I can’t help but feel that it was for a reason.
    —Yes? And what reason?
    —That’s what I’d like to find out.
    —I still don’t understand. What’s there to find out? You’ve stumbled upon the man who betrayed you forty years ago. The odds of this, of ending up a boarder in his house, are almost nil. But so? Now what? Is it that you want to exact vengeance? What is it? Do you want to hit him?
    —No, those fantasies ended long ago.
    —So what, then? Do you want to prove something to him? Confront him with your achievements?
    —No. And it hardly feels like the moment for it.
    —Doesn’t it? You’re on the front pages of newspapers. Yes, there’s a scandal, but that’s incidental. The real point is about the fate of our country, a fate that means a great deal to a great many people. And you are at the center of it. Who is he, this Tankilevich, compared to that?
    —I also have a beautiful young mistress. You forgot to mention that.
    —And he is married to a sly embittered hag. And he lives in this decrepit little house. And he’s barely scraping by. And he’s probably nursing some chronic ailment of the liver or the prostate. And, and, and … In the end, there has been some kind of justice. What more do you want?
    —I’m curious, Leora. That’s my only explanation. Curiosity. A curiosity deep in my bones. I’m as curious as I have ever been in my life.
    —That’s your entire reason?
    —I want to know, Leora. First and foremost. It is a need like hunger. You satisfy the need, and the rationale, the why,