The Betrayers

ONE

A thousand kilometers away, while the next great drama of his life was unfolding and God was banging His gavel to shake the Judaean hills, Baruch Kotler sat in the lobby of a Yalta hotel and watched his young mistress berate the hotel clerk — a pretty blond girl, who endured the assault with a stiff, mulish expression. A particularly Russian sort of expression, Kotler thought. The morose, disdainful expression with which the Russians had greeted their various invaders. An expression that denoted an irrational, mortal refusal to capitulate — the pride and bane of the Russian people. That Leora persisted in arguing with the girl proved that she was the product of another culture. In Israel, notoriously obstinate country, argument could be sport, sometimes engaged in for its own sake, sometimes to accomplish something. But this Levantine penchant for argument was of no use in a Crimean hotel at high season. Much had changed, Kotler observed — the very existence of this modern hotel and a few others like it; the vacationers in their Western fashions and their brash, contemptuous, cheerful, money-induced postures; all the visible appurtenances of progress and prosperity — but at the root, where it mattered, there was no change. One had only to look at the Russian girl’s face. A people’s mentality, this hard nut, mysterious and primitive, resisted change. Yet to espouse such a view was now considered provocative, and it was precisely this sort of provocative thinking that had landed him in his predicament, Kotler thought gravely — but not without a twist of ironic satisfaction.

Leora spun away from the registration desk and strode over to Kotler. He regarded her as she approached, a strong-minded Jewish girl, dark curls flying, black eyes fierce with indignation, her solid, compact figure radiating rebuke. Perhaps someone could think, considering them, that here was a dutiful daughter vacationing with her father. But wasn’t that yet another of the changes, the increased number of daughters and fathers who seemed to be vacationing together?

— The cow says they have no record of our reservation, Leora announced. An outright lie. I was tempted to tell her whom she was dealing with.

— I’m sure it would have made a profound impression.

— I wouldn’t be so dismissive of your importance.

— Well, there’s something I’ve seldom been accused of, Kotler said.

— I don’t find this nearly as amusing as you do.

— All right, Leora, what do you propose we do? Write an open letter, stage a hunger strike?

Each trailing a suitcase, they stepped from the coolness of the marble lobby into the bright glare of the esplanade. In his disguise of white Borsalino hat and dark sunglasses, Kotler blinked out at the tourists who flowed past, the waiters who raced among tables at a café nearby, and the customers who beset the souvenir booths along the stone wall. Beyond which: the sea and the sunbathers on the gray pebble beach. So how much had really changed? Kotler thought. Fifty-three years ago, had the picture been so very different? There’d been no modern hotels, and the offerings at the cafés and souvenir booths hadn’t been quite so eclectic, but there had still been plenty to enchant a ten-year-old boy. Kotler recalled the open-air concerts, the hikes with his father in the surrounding hills, the excursions to the Greek ruins and the Italian fortress, and the long, aimless, scorching days at the beach. They had spent an entire month this way, he and his parents, their only such time together. In the scheme of his family’s story, this one month assumed a legendary, halcyon quality. They never succeeded in repeating it. The following summer, his mother had a terrible appendicitis scare. The summer after that, his father switched jobs. And after that, Kotler’s vaunted musical aspirations interceded. His parents agreed that he shouldn’t spend so much time away from his piano lessons. The great Myron Leventhal consented to take him on, and Kotler traveled for the first time to Moscow. And after that, it was too late. There was always something else he preferred to do. When he wasn’t preoccupied with his studies, he was preoccupied with friends, with girls, and eventually with politics. In retrospect, given the way their lives unfolded, what a shame it was that they never managed to return to Crimea.

Kotler and Leora paused outside the hotel to adjust to their surroundings and circumstances. Leora gazed at the neighboring hotels.

— There’s no point, Kotler said, following her gaze. When I called yesterday, they told me I was getting their last room. It’s August. The town is booked up. Everywhere here we’ll get the same answer.

He read in Leora’s eyes a tempered defiance and disappointment. Tempered, he understood, out of respect and — it couldn’t be denied — concern for him.

— Maybe. But it would take ten minutes to find out.

— I’d sooner not waste the time.

— So what, then? Is that it? Do we just fly back?

— No, we’ve come this far. It would be senseless to leave.

— Wonderful, Baruch. But where will we stay? In a tent on the beach? Like the nudists in Koktebel?

— There’s an idea. I can see the headline and the photo: Baruch Kotler Exposed!

— Yes, and where am I in this photo?

— Beside me. Where else? If this is the way it’s going to be, let them gape.

— I feel I’ve seen enough of those photos.

— Never mind that, Kotler said. Anyhow, we haven’t moved in with the nudists just yet.

Off the esplanade, he flagged down a taxi, and the driver helped them stuff their suitcases into the trunk. He took them back to the town’s bus station, where, not quite three hours earlier, they had arrived on the bus from Simferopol. The atmosphere then had been hectic: vacationers vying for taxis, and a clutch of locals — mainly apartment brokers with brochures and business cards — clamoring for lodgers. At the time, Kotler had paid them little mind. He’d noticed them only insofar as they reminded him that it was with such people that he and his parents had lodged. They had taken a room with a middle-aged Russian couple who lived also with their married son and his family. They had coexisted peaceably, without conflicts, for the entire month, sharing among them not only the kitchen but also the toilet. Simpler times. And now, since it was nostalgia that had, however convolutedly, brought him back to this place, he had no cause to regret what had happened at the hotel. On the contrary, if what he wanted was to revisit the past, to draw as closely to it as he could, then the Russian girl had done him a favor.

The scene at the bus station was no longer what it had been in the morning. Now there were far fewer people about, only a small number of locals grouped together at the end of the plaza, waiting listlessly, some holding their hand-lettered signs across their knees or down at their sides. They roused slightly at the sight of him, Leora, and their suitcases, but none bothered to approach. He and Leora were, after all, unlikely clients, heading, it would seem, in the wrong direction. A thought struck Kotler, and he told Leora to wait with the bags as he went into the bus station to consult the schedule. A stain of pessimism and defeat adhered to the people waiting outside, implicating them in their own bad fortune. Kotler could not repress the suspicion that if they were lingering, if they had failed to attract lodgers, it was for good reason.

— The next bus from Simferopol isn’t due for another three hours, he told Leora when he rejoined her.

— And so …?

— When it comes, I expect more locals will return offering rooms. But that still leaves three hours.

— And those people there?

— Those forlorn-looking people? Somebody should teach them the importance of projecting an image of strength.

— We have three hours. You could give them a seminar.

— Yes, well, perhaps now is not the best time.

— Perhaps not.

— Three hours is long enough to investigate one or two places. If we don’t find anything we like, we can return in time for the Simferopol bus and see what else materializes.

While they were speaking, Kotler noticed that some of the people had taken a keener interest in them, as if having picked up the scent. When Kotler and Leora started toward the group, two people separated themselves from the others and stepped forward to meet them. They did not appear to be in league; rather at odds. Both were middle-aged women, and each held a hand-lettered sign advertising accommodations. The one who took the lead was stouter and darker complexioned. Her hair had been cut short and dyed an unnatural shade of burgundy. Her features were regular, the eyes, Kotler noticed, a striking dark blue, and though her skin had thickened with age, he imagined that she had been alluring in her day. The second woman was short, shorter than the first, and appreciably shorter even than the diminutive Kotler. She was sinewy, the twin points of her collarbones jutting from the top of her summer frock. She was younger than the first woman by as much as a decade, her hair longer, wheat-colored, and undyed. Each woman wore a small gold Orthodox cross around her neck. Whereas, ethnically, the first woman was harder to place, the second had the snub features of a Russian peasant. Yes, the old game of deducing ethnicity; in this they were all participants, experts.

— Are you looking for a room? the first woman inquired.

— We are, Kotler replied.

— For how long?

— The week.

— I have it. If you’ll come with me, I can show you.

— Why should he go with you? the second woman protested. I also have a room. And more convenient. Closer to the beach. Let’s ask the client what he wants.

— Here is the difference between my room and hers, the first woman said. Hers may be closer to the beach by five minutes, but it is smaller and lacks a private bath. So it depends what you want. In my experience, people today prefer to have a private bath.

— And the price? Kotler asked.

— Whatever she offers you, the first woman said, I will match it.

— And the others? Kotler said, regarding those who had remained in place and who, in the shade of the glass-and-concrete hulk of the terminal, followed their conversation with a flat, disconsolate interest.

— You’re welcome to talk to them. But none of them will offer you anything better. And besides, do you have the time to see every place? Why not come with me? I believe you will be satisfied. But if not, you can come back and try with someone else.

— As usual, Svetlana, you’re very aggressive, the other woman said.

— Pardon, madame? Svetlana replied, the French words heavily accented with Russian. Exactly who is being aggressive? You have some nerve to insult me in front of clients.

— It’s correct that my room doesn’t have a private bath, the second woman said to Kotler and Leora, making a point of ignoring Svetlana. But I wouldn’t call it smaller. It is also clean and newly renovated. My husband, a qualified carpenter, did the work himself. And it is much closer both to the beach and the bus station. In the interest of saving time, why not come see it first? To go with her will take you twice as long.

Kotler exchanged a quick look with Leora to ascertain her opinion. What he saw from her was mostly demurral, abstention from the vote.

— Where are you from? Svetlana asked, thrusting herself more completely in front of the other woman.

— America, Kotler said and flashed another glance at Leora.

— Are you Jews? Svetlana asked ingratiatingly, in a tone Kotler had never much liked.

— Do you ask this question of all your clients?

— My husband is Jewish, Svetlana stated, as though it were an article of pride.

— Oh, and what of it? the second woman declared, stepping around Svetlana. Maybe my grandfather was a Jew?

— If you’re Jews, Svetlana continued, you will understand what life is like for us here.

— Now you’re Jewish too? the second woman scoffed. It’s news to me. Well, if you’re so Jewish, what are you still doing here? The other Jews, those with any sense, skipped off to Israel at the first opportunity.

— You see what we have to put up with, Svetlana said contemptuously.

— Is your husband from here? Kotler asked casually.

— No, from Kazakhstan, Svetlana said, and added defensively, There are many Jews from Kazakhstan.

— Well, I suppose it’s better here than in Kazakhstan, Kotler said.

— If you have to struggle for your daily bread, it makes little difference, Kazakhstan or Crimea.

Kotler turned once more to Leora. He now had no trouble discerning her mind. He could tell that she disapproved of his inclination. She was savvy, disdainful of risk, and far less sentimental than he. Without a doubt, hers was the more prudent course, but he had never been good at stifling the contrarian part of his nature. And he was much too old to undertake a transformation.

— Doesn’t it say in the Torah that you should first help your own kind? Svetlana pronounced.

— Does it? Kotler replied, but he had already made his decision. And even this comment didn’t cause him to revise it.

He gripped the handle of his suitcase and tipped the bag so that it rested on its little wheels. Reluctantly, Leora did the same.

— Very well, Kotler said to Svetlana, after you.

TWO

To get to the house, they rode in Svetlana’s boxy little Lada, not so old and yet seemingly unchanged from Soviet times, its interior smelling cloyingly of rose water. The drive, snaking up into the hills away from the coast, took only a few minutes, long enough for them to formally introduce themselves. Svetlana gave her full name, complete with patronymic, and Kotler and Leora provided their former Russian names, omitting their last names; thus, for the first time since his release from prison, Kotler presented himself as Boris Solomonovich, and for the first time since she was a Moscow kindergarten student, Leora introduced herself as Lena Isaacovna. If only for the purposes of reaching back in time, the use of his old name seemed appropriate. Not until he said it did he realize the extent to which simply identifying himself as Boris evoked a former self. A self very distinct from the man he had resolutely chosen to become. Boris. He might as well have said Borinka, the pet name his parents had used for him. His heart swelled at the ghostly sound of it in his head. And though he recognized that he was in a delicate frame of mind, still he was surprised by how vulnerable, how sentimental he had become. How easily and intensely he could be moved by his own thoughts and recollections.

The house Svetlana brought them to was a single story and, like the neighboring houses, showed signs of deterioration and slapdash repairs. She veered her car sharply onto a pitted driveway and came to a stop in front of flaking, pale green stucco walls. Kotler noted that the roof was of terra-cotta tiles, but a newer addition, affixed to the main body of the house like a crude prosthesis, was covered with slanted corrugated metal. Beside this addition was a small patch of dry grass, the domain of some idle brown hens and a white goose. A stunted peach tree clung to life at the edge of the patch. It was an ordinary village house. A plot of land and its modest yield. A life of shtetl dimensions.

Kotler and Leora followed Svetlana to the house but left their bags in the trunk of the car so as not to give the impression of a fait accompli. At the entrance, they conspired to notice the white plastic mezuzah that had been fastened to the doorjamb. Svetlana, not oblivious, and with a glint of self-satisfaction, brushed the object with her fingertips and then pressed her fingers to her lips.

— Normally, my husband would be here, but Saturdays he takes the trolleybus early to Simferopol to go to synagogue. They don’t always have ten men for services, the minyan. Svetlana said, savoring the last word.

Inside the house, she whisked them through the rooms that she occupied with her husband. The front door opened out to a sitting room with a sofa, coffee table, and television. Beyond this stretched a corridor. On the right side of the corridor lay the kitchen, with a wooden table and four matching chairs, a modern refrigerator and stove, and a deep, old-fashioned enamel sink. On the left side of the corridor were three doors, all shut, behind which, Svetlana explained, were the bedroom she shared with her husband, the bedroom their two daughters had shared, and a bathroom. With the exception of the kitchen, which boarders were permitted to use, the rest of the rooms were exclusive to her and her husband. The walls of the corridor were adorned by a number of decorative plates, some of a folkart variety — presumably local — and others porcelain, featuring historical renderings of foreign cities: Krakow, Prague, Zurich. There was a small wooden plaque with a bronze relief of the Wailing Wall — the kind sold on every street corner in Jerusalem. At the end of the corridor hung a framed portrait of a bride and groom.

— My oldest, Svetlana said, indicating the photo. Now in Simferopol. Her husband prefers to be unemployed there.

— He also attends the synagogue? Kotler asked playfully.

— It’s not for him, Svetlana curtly replied.

— And your other daughter?

— She is at the university in Kharkov. She studies economics. A brilliant girl, but this summer she is working in a hairdresser’s, Svetlana said and shrugged ruefully.

The corridor came to an end and they faced a door. A small window along the right side of the corridor admitted light. The left side of the corridor opened out to a vestibule. Three steps down was another door, which led to the scraggly yard.

— A private entrance, Svetlana said. You would have a key.

She then unlocked the door to the guest quarters and ushered them into a room of some twenty square meters, hardly extravagant, but tidy and bright. It had everything one expected from such a room: a desk, two chairs, a dresser with a small television upon it, and a double bed with the pillows and blue coverlet precisely arranged. The floor was composed of square white tiles; the walls were also painted white. Above the desk hung a rectangular gilt-framed mirror, and above the bed an amateur watercolor of a seascape, with wheeling gulls and little sailboat. Between the desk and the dresser was the door to the celebrated toilet. Svetlana stood behind them as Kotler and Leora peered inside. They saw a light blue commode with its water tank, a sink of the same color, and the raised platform of the shower protected by a translucent plastic curtain. Like the rest of the quarters, the space was cramped but everything looked clean and in good repair.

— Towels are here, Svetlana said.

Folded over a rod that was screwed to the back of the door were two thin, stiff cotton waffle-print towels, not large enough to wrap around a grown person’s waist — masterworks of Soviet fabrication.

With the tour concluded, they returned to the bedroom and inhabited a brief silence. Svetlana looked from Kotler to Leora and then said, So.

— We’ll need a few minutes to discuss, Kotler said.

— Very well, Svetlana said.

Her eyes then ranged about the room and momentarily came to rest on the bed. She turned and regarded them both as though trying to communicate something wordlessly. A thing too embarrassing to say out loud.

— And if there are other things you need for the room …

Kotler took this as an allusion to the ambiguity of his and Leora’s relations. In other words, the discreet offer of a foiding cot.

— Thank you, he said.

Svetlana withdrew to the main house, doing a poor job of concealing her resentments: a resentment that they had not immediately agreed to take the room and a resentment that anticipated their inevitable refusal.

Once she had gone, Kotler sat on the bed, bouncing gently to test the firmness of the mattress.

— This is not a good idea, Baruch. It’s not worth it.

— What about your sympathies?

— I don’t need to prove my sympathies, and neither do you.

— But that’s the problem with sympathies, Kotler said with a smile. One keeps needing to prove them.

— Baruch, to stay here is to ask for trouble. And the whole point of coming here was to evade trouble.

— The point. But not the whole point.

— You know what I mean.

— From that woman, we have nothing to fear.

— And from her husband?

— A Kazakh Jew in a Crimean town?

— A Russian Jew. If there is a Russian Jew in the world who doesn’t know who you are, I haven’t met him.

— Come, sit by me, Leora.

Kotler patted the spot beside him on the bed. Reluctantly, she did as he asked. Kotler reached for her hands and laid them on his thigh. The gesture was paternal and reassuring, but also undeniably more. Through the fabric of his trousers, Kotler felt the warm, birdlike weight of her hands. They sat quietly together and allowed the moment to take its effect. Slowly, as if submitting to fatigue, Leora rested her head on Kotler’s shoulder.

— There, my bunny, Kotler said.

What a picture they made, he thought. This voluptuous, serious, dark-haired girl with her head on the shoulder of a potbellied little man still wearing his sunglasses and Borsalino hat. Fodder for comedy. And yet, the girl’s fingers slipping between the man’s thighs dispelled comedy. In its place, the leap of animal desire.

— Leora, I agree this isn’t the rational thing. The rational thing would be to stay with the other woman.

— The peasant.

— The hardy, noble peasant. Who doesn’t care for Jews and doesn’t read the international press.

— It isn’t too late.

— Call it curiosity. Call it instinct. And I am a man who has followed his instincts.

— I thought it was principles.

— In my experience, they’re one and the same.

Leora straightened up and looked at him.

— You know my position. What more can I say?

— If you trust me in large matters, trust me in small.

— Baruch, it isn’t trust, it’s agreement. Usually, I agree with you. I agree with you like with no one else.

— Well, then this time will be an exception. Or more precisely, an evolution. Between two people, trust is more important than agreement. I am asking for your trust. Do you trust me on this?

— I disagree with you, Baruch, but I will not fight with you about it.

— Good. That is the definition of trust.

They found Svetlana in the kitchen, rinsing beet greens in the sink.

— So you have decided? Svetlana asked, not bothering to extract her hands from the sink.

— We will take the room, Kotler said.

— Is that so? Svetlana said, warming not at all.

— We will pay in cash for the week in advance. If that suits you.

— Yes, Svetlana said evenly, that suits me.

THREE

As the sun started its slow midsummer descent, they settled into their room. Svetlana had provided them with keys to the front and back doors and then done them the favor of graciously disappearing. For a moment — after they had finished arranging their belongings in the drawers and cabinets, and after they had stowed their empty suitcases in a corner — Kotler and Leora regarded each other with a mixture of wryness, giddiness, and apprehension. They had stolen away to hotel rooms before, but, except for one instance, never for more than an afternoon or an evening. Six months earlier, on a diplomatic visit to Helsinki, Leora had prevailed upon Kotler to let her stay the night in his bed. But there, she had had her own room a few doors away. Here, for the first time, they had created the semblance of a shared home. Their clothes resided in the same dresser, the same drawers. In the bathroom, huddled together in the shallow cabinet, were their vitamins, pills, creams, and toothbrushes. They were now publicly what they had been privately — which meant they were now altogether something else. Leora still had her apartment in Jerusalem, but as for himself, Kotler thought, this room arguably represented his only home. As matters stood, he had no other.

Liberated from past constraints, free to indulge themselves as they wished — as they had declared they would if only given the chance — neither of them could quell the feelings of restlessness and anxiety. Kotler had been on the run for nearly two days. He’d packed his little suitcase and slipped out of his house before dawn on Friday, hiding out first in his office and later in Leora’s apartment. And for much of the day now he and Leora had been traveling, beginning with the surreptitious early-morning flight from Tel Aviv to Kiev, another from Kiev to Simferopol, the bus from there to Yalta, and then the imbroglio with the hotel. All this time they’d barely had a chance to catch their breath and apprise themselves of what was happening in the world. In Kiev, during their layover, they had briefly been able to access the Internet, but it had still been too soon for there to have been any reaction or commentary. Leora had also phoned her father and had the pained, unpleasant conversation. Kotler stood beside her, close enough to overhear part of what her father said and to feel the blot of disapproval. She was her parents’ only child, very much her father’s daughter, and had lived her life to merit his good opinion. A decade younger than Kotler, Leora’s parents had also been Zionists and refuseniks. When their application to emigrate was denied, they’d been trapped in Russia for the final eight years of Soviet rule, though, unlike Kotler, they had been spared the adventure of the Gulag. Yitzhak and Adina Rosenberg — good, intellectual, fair-minded people. Kotler came to know them in Israel at the periodic gatherings of former refuseniks. It was at one of these gatherings that Yitzhak introduced Kotler to his young daughter, a top student at Hebrew University with an interest in politics. When Kotler later hired Leora for his staff, her parents were exceedingly grateful. That was four years ago. Each of those years, they sent a fruit basket to Kotler’s house for Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah was again approaching, but Kotler supposed there would be no fruit basket this year.

To get to the heart of Yalta, he and Leora didn’t bother to ask Svetlana for directions but left through the back door, scattering fowl. Kotler led them toward the coast. He flattered himself by thinking that he was navigating from childhood memory, that his sense of the place inhered in him from all those years ago. Closer to the truth was that the town was not very large and sloped downward toward the sea. A few stops on a minibus soon returned them to the tourist center, depositing them near Lenin Square, where, framed heroically by the Crimean Mountains, the bronze Bolshevik still stood on his pedestal looking intently out to sea — and peripherally at a McDonald’s. In time, Kotler thought, the good citizens of Yalta might resolve, if not to add a pile of bones at his feet, then at least to replace him.

Without too much trouble, Kotler and Leora located an Internet café, dark as a grotto and occupied mostly by teenage boys wearing headphones and hollering to one another as they shot at Chechens or the Taliban on their computer screens. Kotler had once caught Benzion playing a similar game. A sensitive, studious boy, he was then a student at the yeshiva. Seeing his father’s reaction, he’d said shamefacedly, The guys were playing it. Now, stationed near Hebron, he was no longer playing.

They found two available terminals next to each other at the back of the café and began with the Israeli press. It didn’t take them long to find what they were looking for. The lead stories in both Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post featured the same photograph of the two of them in the Tel Aviv airport. The photograph captured them as they presented their documents at the ticket counter. It had been taken from a distance, furtively, by another traveler, Kotler presumed, as the professionals never suffered from such scruples. Still, there could be no mistaking their identities, particularly his — though he supposed Leora had now attained a level of notoriety to match his own. Haaretz also provided a companion photo of his wife shopping for Shabbat at a market near their Jerusalem home. In the photo, Miriam looked every bit the aggrieved, steadfast spouse, the victim of her husband’s treachery. For the article, she said only that she refused to discuss “a private family matter.” Kotler could imagine the scene at the market, the pestering, beseeching journalists. But with Miriam they stood no chance. At this thought Kotler permitted himself a fond smile. Miriam was a rock. In her time she had undergone a harsh apprenticeship and was as canny about the press as any image consultant. The reporters could flatter themselves that they had caught her in an unguarded moment, but Kotler would have been surprised — and, frankly, disappointed — if Miriam hadn’t orchestrated the whole thing, down to the potato in her hand when they took her picture.

In both newspapers, “the scandale Kotler” shared the front page with news of the Knesset’s vote in favor of the withdrawal from the settlement bloc. It had gone as predicted, with the prime minister’s coalition eking out a narrow majority. Kotler, not wanting to be on record as merely abstaining, had cast his vote the previous day, shortly before his ignominious escape. The Haaretz article listed his name among the notable opponents, prominent among the defectors from the prime minister’s cabinet. Then there were the obligatory quotes from the various factions. The same choir singing the same song. The prime minister cited defensible borders and the welfare of the Israeli state. The chief of staff spoke of the army’s inviolable discipline. The Left rejoiced. The Right seethed. The Americans applauded. The settlers pledged bloody insurrection. And the Palestinians complained.

The din would continue until the operation was executed. What happened then, nobody knew. Nothing good, was Kotler’s opinion. The only question was just how bad.

He felt Leora’s hand on his arm. On her computer screen was displayed a column from an Israeli Russian newspaper. There again was the same grainy photograph from the airport.

— At least here someone bothered to add one plus one, Leora said.

That someone was Chava Margolis, his old friend turned foe, once the mother superior of the Moscow Zionists, the strict, ascetic Krupskaya of their movement. As one of the witnesses against him in his Jerusalem trial, she had later wished to undo him, but here she was saying what any reasonable person should have said: That it was cynical and vindictive of the prime minister to destroy a man’s family simply because that man wouldn’t bend to his political will. That such an act tarnished the prime minister far more than it did Kotler, particularly as, in the end, it achieved no political goal. And that even people like herself, who had long since grown disenchanted with Kotler, should, instead of gloating over his humiliation, take a moment to reflect upon the reptilian soul of the man who was leading their country. She then added, as professional journalistic practice demanded, that her accusations against the prime minister were speculative, given that no evidence had yet been found to connect him to the incriminating photographs that had been leaked, anonymously, to the press. But she felt that only a child of extraordinary naïveté would believe that the prime minister wasn’t involved. And she hadn’t met any such children in the entire state of Israel.

Kotler knew that no evidence would ever be found. The prime minister was many things, but he was no amateur. Kotler doubted the press would ever even trace the man who had contacted him. Kotler had known more than his share of security agents and spies, and, as in any walk of life, there were the addle and the adept. But the man he had met, who had introduced himself as Amnon, was a seasoned operator.

Two days earlier, this Amnon had called Kotler on his private cell phone, thus bypassing his staff. How he got the number, Amnon didn’t bother to explain. He asked that Kotler meet him that evening in the park behind the Israel Museum to discuss a matter of great consequence not only to the state but also to Kotler’s personal life. He instructed Kotler to come alone.

— You should not fear, the man said. There is no threat to your physical safety.

The threat, Kotler was made to understand, was of a different nature.

He rather suspected what the matter was about. For weeks he had criticized the prime minister’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the settlement bloc. At first Kotler had done so strictly in camera. They were mostly allies of political expediency, he and the prime minister. Kotler had pledged the eight mandates his Russian immigrant party had won in the previous election to allow the prime minister to patch together his ruling coalition. For this, he had received his ministerial portfolio and, presumably, the stature and influence that went with it. He also had the residual respect afforded to an old Zionist hero, although politics, that indiscriminate blade, eventually cut everyone down to size. So when the prime minister ignored his objections, Kotler voiced his opposition first in the Knesset and then on the op-ed page of the New York Times, where he vowed to resign from the cabinet if the prime minister pursued his plan. After that, the usual pressures were brought to bear. His office was inundated with angry phone calls and letters. The prime minister sent his lackeys, first with carrots, then with sticks. All of this was in keeping with what passed for normal political discourse in Israel — at the best of times, no place for gentle souls. But involving a man like Amnon exceeded all bounds.

Still, Kotler agreed, unflinchingly, to the meeting. Not out of curiosity or apprehension, but because he had learned that there was only one way to deal with people like Amnon. You had to stand before them and look them in the eye. Otherwise they started thinking that they could exert power over you.

Kotler went to meet Amnon at eight in the evening, at the very onset of dusk. The trees cast long crisp shadows. A smattering of people filtered through the park — ordinary Jerusalemites glad for a respite from the summer heat, as well as the day’s last visitors to the museum. Kotler walked along the footpath, drawing only the occasional glance. His manner betrayed no distress. He, in fact, felt none. He felt, if anything, a familiar sense of contentment. A purposefulness. Fifteen minutes earlier, he had gotten up from his dinner table, kissed his wife and daughter, and calmly walked out the door.

At the appointed place, Kotler saw a burly man in his late forties. His hair was shaved down to dark stubble, sunglasses perched atop his head. He wore a yellow short-sleeved polo shirt whose fabric was stretched by his broad shoulders and thick arms. To complete the image, with his blue jeans he sported a pair of modern athletic sandals, a kind meant for hiking. He looked like certain other sabras of his generation who cultivated the air of retired colonels and regarded the world with the relaxed leer of the habituated military man. In his left hand, held leisurely against his thigh, he had a letter-size manila envelope. As Kotler approached, the man smiled exuberantly and extended his right hand like an old schoolmate or favored cousin. Kotler played along and allowed the man to shepherd him to a vacant bench under a gnarled carob tree.

There they sat in relative privacy, engaging in a conversation that, to a casual observer, would have seemed perfectly congenial. There were no raised voices, no scowls. Not the least sign of agitation. Thus was such business conducted.

Amnon said, I’m here on behalf of an interested party.

— What party might that be? Kotler asked.

— It’s of no consequence.

— Is that so?

— Mr. Kotler, you’re a politician. You’ve taken an unpopular position. You must know that many people are unhappy with you. Some of them contacted me. Who specifically? Avi, Yossi, Moshe, Dudi. What does it matter? If I told you who, it would only be a distraction. Who isn’t important.

— So then.

— So then these people wanted to give you one last chance to change your mind.

— You see? You say who isn’t important, but it is important. Clearly, if these people knew me at all, they would know that this here is a waste of time. With me, this road leads nowhere. I am a famously stubborn person, Mr. Amnon. Famous for being stubborn. I assume you’re aware of this.

— I am, Mr. Kotler. I am a great admirer of your stubbornness. But I assume you are aware that, even without your cooperation, the vote will still go in favor of the withdrawal. In this instance, your stubbornness won’t change the outcome.

— So then why bother with me?

— Because the people I represent would like to see everything go as smoothly as possible. They are concerned about the safety of the soldiers and the settlers both. It is an emotional issue. And you are an influential person. People respect you. They listen to what you have to say. If you continue to speak out against the operation, you could incite a bad reaction. You yourself may not be aware of the consequences.

— If the people you represent fear the consequences, they should be the ones to reconsider. We live in a democracy, Mr. Amnon. This is Israel, not Iran. In a democracy a man can speak his mind. When I speak out against this plan, it is not to incite a bad reaction, it is to prevent my country from making a bad mistake.

— That is all very well, Mr. Kotler. But you have had your say. You have had it in the Knesset and in the pages of the New York Times. Now you are being asked to be quiet for a little while. You are being asked not to make a big production by resigning from the cabinet. Nobody is even asking you to say you support the operation. You are just being asked to step into the shadows for a moment.

— Mr. Amnon, I will be as clear as I can. I spent thirteen years in Soviet jails and camps fighting for my right to come to Israel. If you or the people you represent think that I can be intimidated by this sort of KGB thuggery, you are mistaken.

— Mr. Kotler, I didn’t expect you to say otherwise. In fact, I confess that I would have been disappointed if you had. But since your opposition will not materially change the outcome, I ask why you should martyr yourself in vain?

— Now we’re speaking of martyring?

— Believe me, this gives me no pleasure.

— Mr. Amnon, the KGB read from the same script.

— The truth is, I am trying to protect you.

— Line for line.

At this, Amnon let his hand fall upon the envelope that he’d rested in his lap.

— No pleasure at all, he said.

— Let’s try without the theatrics, Kotler said.

Amnon smiled ruefully and tapped the envelope with an index finger. He proceeded to slide it from his own lap over to Kotler’s. He did so as if with profound regret, as if under duress. Kotler let it lie there without touching it.

— You can feel free to open it, Amnon said.

— I haven’t the least interest, Kotler replied.

— Now who is being theatrical?

Kotler picked up the envelope, felt the slickness and pliancy of its contents, and returned it to Amnon.

— They are photographs, Mr. Kotler.

— So they are.

— I encourage you to take a look before you dismiss my proposal.

— Mr. Amnon, I hope I haven’t given you the impression that we are engaged in a negotiation. There is nothing in those photographs that would lead me to change my mind. Rest assured, I have a healthy appreciation of my own vulnerabilities. However, if, God forbid, those photos depict some indiscretion committed by my children or my wife, I am sure your people would have, if not the moral, then the political sense not to publicize them. In either case, I have absolutely no desire to look at your garbage.

That was the end of their conversation. Amnon walked off with his garbage and the next morning it was plastered on the front page of every newspaper in Israel.

FOUR

Small round halogen lights had been set into the flagstones of the promenade, evidently part of some recent beautification project. From Lenin Square, the lights formed an illuminated path that extended about a kilometer, as far as the Hotel Oreanda. After a dinner at a restaurant that overlooked the square and the harbor, Kotler and Leora followed the path, leisurely now, feeling, for the first time since the news had broken, not like two culprits harried and pursued. The day’s heat had subsided, and the nighttime air felt gentle, consoling, as if bestowed upon them by a sympathetic spirit. The day’s throngs had also thinned, and most of the people on the promenade proceeded as they did, without urgency, seemingly without destination. At a certain point, a column of shops and nightclubs split the promenade into two branches. The lower branch bordered the sea; the upper branch ran between two rows of storefronts. For no particular reason, Kotler and Leora followed the upper branch and saw themselves reflected in the darkened storefronts on either side. Out in the open, with their images duplicated again and again, it was as though they had unwittingly made a bold statement of exhibitionism. Not only could they now be seen but, in this hall of mirrors, they could not be missed.

They walked for some time without speaking. With their arms linked, they gave the impression of a couple complete unto themselves, unburdened by the sorts of complications that could lead a person with a constitution weaker than Kotler’s — weaker than Leora’s, he believed — to commit some desperate, rash, irredeemable act. In the matter of taking one’s self in hand, Kotler had world-class credentials. He had mastered his emotions in circumstances far more dire than these. To prove the point to himself, he summoned up an anodyne image from childhood, from this very place, fifty-three summers ago.

— Did I tell you my father was something of a sportsman? Kotler said to Leora.

She shook her head.

— In Lvov, as a boy, before the Soviets took over, he played soccer and ran track and field for the Maccabi sports club. He claimed to have been their best sprinter.

— That’s something else you never told me. Your father was Zionist?

— He didn’t tell me himself until I informed him that I wanted to immigrate to Israel. I knew growing up that he took a dim view of the Soviet Union, but only in the way most children knew such things about their parents. He’d make a veiled remark. He’d listen covertly to the BBC. But not until I announced myself did he reveal that he had once been the fleetest little Zionist in Lvov!

— No, you never told me, Leora said.

By the time Kotler was a boy, his father was no longer in shape to run. At the front he’d been wounded in the knee, and the wound had never properly healed. Nevertheless, he retained his love for sport and tried to cultivate this interest in Kotler. Physically, they looked very much alike — there were a few childhood photos of his father preserved from before the war, and Kotler could see that the resemblance between him and his father was striking. Even now, when Kotler looked in the mirror, he saw his father’s face. Increasingly, he sought his father’s face — but that was another story. Yet somehow, in spite of this resemblance, Kotler had failed to inherit his father’s knack for running. His father did not easily accept this. When Kotler was little, his father tried to train him. They’d be walking on the street and he’d point to a tree or a lamppost fifty meters away and tell Kotler to run to it. They’d do the whole thing very formally. Kotler would get down into a crouch and his father would keep time on his wristwatch. Borya: Ready, steady, go!

Kotler saw a version of this scene before his eyes. The length of pavement near the building they had inhabited in Lvov. He remembered his father calling the commands, and he also remembered hearing neighbors taunt him with the mocking couplet Zhid, zhid, na verevochki bezhid. Kike, kike, running on a string. And here in Yalta, perhaps on this very stretch, in the late evening, they had repeated the exercise. Solomon, stop torturing the boy! his mother had admonished his father, who had dismissed her with a wave of his hand. Meanwhile, little Borinka knelt down and looked over his shoulder to see his father peering intently at his watch face, the device pinched between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Kotler knew he wasn’t fast, but he wanted to please his father. And, on some level, his childish heart never quite relinquished the hope that, miraculously, the next time, his legs would unleash their latent power and whirl beneath him like a blur.

Kotler released Leora’s arm and handed her his hat.

— Time me, he said with an impish smile. From here to that post.

Leora arched an eyebrow, but Kotler was already bending down to assume a semblance of the sprinter’s crouch, or as much of one as the constraints of age and inactivity allowed.

— Whom should I call if you have a heart attack?

— An ambulance, Kotler said.

Kotler looked up at her. From here to the post, he said. Ready, steady, go.

Leora shook her head with mild exasperation but turned her wrist and held her watch face between her thumb and index finger, just as his father had.

A few people gazed with benign amusement at the spectacle of the little potbellied Jew chugging along the promenade, knees and elbows pumping. Kotler clapped his palm on the post when he reached it, making a satisfying, declarative noise. Then he trotted back to Leora like a spaniel, beaming with self-satisfaction.

— So, how did I do? Kotler asked.

— A new world record, Leora said. She reached over and gently wiped the perspiration from his brow. How do you feel? she asked.

— Like a boy.

— You are a boy, Baruch. People say you took up with a younger woman, but the truth is that I took up with a boy, Leora said affectionately.

— That’s because with you I can be a boy.

On Karl Marx Street they saw a collection of cars waiting, marked taxis on one side and unmarked sedans on the other. The drivers of the unmarked sedans — bored, surly-looking men — leaned against their vehicles. Across the way, the cabbies congregated in a group, smoking and bantering. One of them, a short stocky man with a baseball cap and a yellow reflective vest — the kind worn by crossing guards or construction workers — spoke occasionally into a walkie-talkie and barked orders at arriving drivers.

Because they were already on that side of the street, Kotler and Leora approached the driver of one of the sedans, whose car was at the head of the line. Grim-featured, with a thick black mustache, he looked to be from the Caucasus. As they neared, he eyed them as if he suspected they were out to do him ill.

— You’re for hire? Kotler asked genially.

— I am. Where to?

Kotler named the street.

— One hundred hryvnia, the man replied bluntly.

The sum amounted to a little over ten dollars, hardly a fortune, well within their means, but, Kotler felt, inflated nonetheless. He was long in the habit of not letting himself be arbitrarily bettered. In this regard, a man was well advised to be scrupulous. Slacken here or there, let this or that trifle pass, and it set a bad precedent, eroded the substrate of one’s character.

— It’s a little high, Kotler said.

— If you don’t like it, the driver replied, you can go across the street. Ride in one of theirs. But I bought this car. It belongs to me. A Nissan Maxima. I paid for it with my own money. I take care of it. I answer for it. What do you expect me to accept in return, crumbs?

— I understand, Kotler said and took Leora by the arm.

If righteous anger was the man’s negotiating tactic, Kotler didn’t care for it. He’d encountered it in more consequential settings and hadn’t indulged it there either.

— If you understand, then pay! the driver shouted after them.

Kotler and Leora crossed the street to the taxi stand.

— And they ask why we didn’t make peace with Arafat, Kotler said.

Since the man with the vest and the cap was the authority, Kotler addressed him.

— Fifty hryvnia, the man said, precluding any need to negotiate.

— Very well, Kotler replied.

He was surprised to see the man walk to the lead cab, shrug out of his vest, and toss it and the walkie-talkie through the driver’s-side window and onto the passenger seat. The man then opened the driver’s door and climbed inside. How the other cabbies were supposed to manage without his generalship, Kotler didn’t quite understand. But wasn’t that the beauty of life — when it departed from sense? The little car, another Lada, sputtered to life and Kotler and Leora took their places in the back.

The driver stepped on the accelerator and the car bolted forward. Traffic was sparse but the driver pressed ahead as if he were in a terrific hurry. He weaved around slower vehicles and aggressively took the turns. Kotler and Leora were thrown against each other like riders at a Luna Park.

— We’re on vacation, Kotler called to the driver.

— What’s that?

— We’re on vacation, my friend. We’re in no hurry.

— Ah, forgive me. Habit, the driver said and slowed down.

He glanced at them in the rearview mirror as though really seeing them for the first time.

— Where are you from? he asked.

— Moscow, Kotler said, after sifting through his mind for the appropriate choice.

— Moscow? Intellectual people like you? What are you doing here?

— Meaning?

— One doesn’t encounter many people from Moscow. Not intellectual people. I thought the fashion was to go west. To Turkey or Cyprus.

— We’ve been west. We got nostalgic for Crimea.

— I suppose, the driver said. If one hasn’t been for a long time. I don’t have the right perspective. I’m here every summer now for twelve years. To me, Cyprus sounds good. But for that you need money. Have you been there?

— I have, Kotler said. But only for work.

— You’re a businessman? A banker?

— No, nothing like that. International development.

— Oh yeah? the driver said, with due indifference.

Kotler had in fact been part of a UN-sponsored mission to see how deeply the Cypriot Turks and Greeks had buried their hatreds. Deep enough for radishes, Kotler had felt. In a generation or two, maybe deep enough for olives.

— Even after their crisis, I hear Russian people still keep accounts in Cyprus, the driver said.

— Apparently, Kotler said. I personally don’t. But Lena here does.

— Is that so? Is it hard to get one?

— The more money the easier, Leora said.

— Isn’t that the truth! the driver said mirthfully.

They had turned off the main road and started up into the darker foothills. The driver maneuvered the car along streets that were badly lit and seemingly unmarked. He accomplished this while swiveling his head back to better engage Leora on the subject of her fictitious numbered bank account. After all his illustrious battles, Kotler thought, wouldn’t this be a fitting end.

— If I had the money, I’d stash it there. Then I’d go on vacation and pay it a visit. The driver laughed. Now, that’s relaxation! A few hours on the beach and then pop into the cool vault to see my money, give it a little cuddle, make sure it’s safe and sound. Isn’t that how the rich live?

— Once a week, without fail, we go to the bank and cuddle our money, Leora said. Or our health suffers.

— Ha! the driver laughed again and sought Kotler’s eyes in the rearview mirror. What a girl! You’re a lucky man.

— Evidently, Kotler said.

— Does your missus know? the driver asked.

— Pardon?

— Your missus, the driver repeated affably. Mine is in Donetsk, where I’m from. I’m here only in the summers. To earn money. I have a girl here too. It’s natural. My missus knows but she has a modern attitude.

— Well, Kotler said, mine has an ancient one.

At the house, the lights were on in the front rooms. Through the closed windows, the unintelligible sound of a television program surged and plummeted. Holding hands, Kotler and Leora fumbled in the darkness along the side of the still-unfamiliar house. Kotler kept expecting to rouse a goose or a hen but the birds had apparently retired to their roosts. Sensible, reliable, domestic chicken life. Short on excitements but also on dismays.

Kotler found the lock with his key and opened the door. Leora crossed the threshold but Kotler tarried, still holding her hand.

— I should call home, he said. Call Dafna.

A look of apprehension played fleetingly across Leora’s face, quickly replaced by her native composure.

— I have to let them know I’m all right.

— Of course.

Leora stepped inside, leaving Kotler to close the door behind her.

He walked away from the house and stood in the middle of the patch of grass. It was the best he could manage under the circumstances. A father calls his young daughter to confess a sin of the flesh: such a call should be placed from the highest mountaintop or bobbing in the middle of the ocean, as a speck on a dark stage, reduced by biblical vastness. A conversation that, God forbid, none but God should overhear.

Three practiced swipes of his finger across the screen — a sequence of tiny movements so routine as to be almost unconscious — and Kotler was looking at Dafna’s name and phone number. He tapped the screen, and the little glass rectangle beamed its signal. Thus were such daunting actions undertaken now, with a few twitches of a fingertip. Nothing like the old mindful ceremony of writing a letter, bent at the kitchen table or in the solitude of a prison cell. Not even like the experience of the telephone booth, with the solid, goading, reproachful machine. Still, ceremony or no, the consequences remained the same. You made decisions and, sooner or later, you were called to account.

Kotler listened to the beseeching sound of the ringtone. He knew how the technology worked. At the other end, his name would appear, and Dafna would know who was calling. It was past eleven thirty at night in Yalta, the same time as Jerusalem. Dafna often spoke on the phone with her friends at this hour or later. He and Miriam had occasionally scolded her for it, though not with any conviction. She was a good girl, a conscientious student. By the standards of a modern eighteen-year-old, she could not even be called rebellious. Miriam would have liked her to be more devout, but given that Kotler’s own level of religious devotion left a lot to be desired, there was only so much Miriam could legitimately expect. Within a family there were any number of possible configurations, alliances, and affinities — none set in stone, all open for renegotiation unto the grave — but for them, things had assumed a fairly standard alignment: the son took after the mother, the daughter after the father. What enabled Miriam to wholeheartedly embrace God and His strictures, she had passed on to Benzion. And whatever independence, whatever unruliness of spirit Kotler possessed, had been imbibed or inherited by his daughter. Even if angry with him, her way, like his, would be to confront, not to evade.

— Where are you? he heard his daughter say in a parental tone.

— A quiet place, Kotler replied.

— Another secret? Dafna said acerbically. I’ve been calling you.

— I know, Dafnaleh, Kotler said. I would have liked to call you sooner, but it wasn’t possible.

He heard the rustling that implied his daughter was in motion.

— Where are you? he asked.

— Home.

More rustling. Then it stopped.

— Is your mother there?

— You didn’t call to speak to her, did you?

— No, I called to speak to you.

— Rabbi Gedalia is here. He’s with her in the other room. They know I’m talking to you.

— How is she?

— How do you think? You hurt her, Papa. She didn’t deserve it.

— You’re right. She didn’t.

— But you did it anyway.

— Dafna, those are two separate things. The first is not something for a father and daughter to discuss. As for the second, you will have to believe me that I had no choice.

— I don’t want to talk with you about sex either, but I’m not a child and I’m not naïve. And don’t forget, we live in Jerusalem, the most sex-crazed place in the world, where half the people wear wool sacks to keep from having sex with everyone else. So you didn’t wear a wool sack and you surrendered to your desires.

Your desires. The words spoken boldly and neutrally, as if to rise above her disgust at the squalidness of her father’s passions.

— I won’t even say her name. It makes me sick to think of all the times she was in our house pretending to be loyal and respectful. Pretending to be my friend. She should have had some shame. But it doesn’t matter now, does it?

— What do you want me to say, Dafna?

— Are you planning to marry her?

— I don’t know my plans. Not about that, not about other things.

— I don’t understand. If you don’t even know your plans, why did you allow this entire mess to happen?

— As I said, Dafnaleh, I had no choice.

On the other end of the line, his daughter fell silent. A simmering, frustrated silence. Kotler imagined her in her room sitting cross-legged on her bed, glaring at the wall with her dark, intelligent eyes. What could be said about a father’s love for his children? You loved them entire. You loved even their anger at you. For what was this anger if not a frustration maddeningly entangled with love?

Kotler waited for Dafna to speak again. She was in her room, in the familiar space. He could imagine her, but she couldn’t have imagined him. At that moment he could hardly have imagined himself. In the distance was the bold black silhouette of the Crimean Mountains set against the moonlit sky. There was the quiet road, raked occasionally by the headlights of a passing car. There were the low-slung houses, even in the darkness, haphazard and needy, making their emotional appeal. And in front of him was the bright windowpane, offering a view of the conventional tedium of his landlords’ lives. He saw Svetlana rise from her seat and cross the room, carrying a folded newspaper in her hand. She stopped and said something over her shoulder to someone who wasn’t visible to Kotler. The Jewish husband, Kotler assumed, returned from his communal duties.

— When you say you had no choice, Dafna finally said, what are you talking about? I don’t understand. What exactly didn’t you have a choice about?

— Blackmail, Dafnaleh, Kotler said.

— Blackmail?

— I still believe in the policy that one doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.

— What did these terrorists want?

— It shouldn’t matter what they want. Whatever they want is what you cannot allow them to have.

— But what did they want?

— My silence.

— And what did they promise you for your silence?

— Their silence.

— Their silence? About you and her.

— I didn’t bother to ask.

— But that’s what it was.

— That’s what it turned out to be.

— And you didn’t understand that’s what they were threatening you with?

— I understood well enough.

— You understood and still you let them do it? Dafna nearly shouted. Didn’t you know what it would do to us?

— Yes, Dafna, I knew, but one thing has nothing to do with the other. There are matters of principle where you cannot compromise. Under any circumstances. If I’d compromised, it would have been worse. Far worse for all of us. For our country and for our family, which is part of our country.

— But who cares about the country if it destroys our family? The country doesn’t care. All you need to do is read the newspapers to see how the people in this country care about us. To hear the disgusting things they’re saying on television. Have you seen the television where you are?

— No.

— Have you called Benzion?

— Not yet.

— He won’t say a word about it, but imagine what it’s like for him now. Did you think about that? He has to face it all. The army offered him a leave. He should have taken it. I told him to take it. But he wouldn’t.

— Dafnaleh, this will pass. You have to believe me. I speak, unfortunately, from great experience.

— I know about your experience, Papa. Everybody knows. You’ve sacrificed and sacrificed for this country, but they still ridicule you. They ridicule you because of your sacrifices. So what good is it? Let somebody else sacrifice for a change. And if nobody else wants to, then who are you sacrificing for?

One sacrificed for one’s people as one sacrificed for one’s children. One did it because one felt that one knew better than they did. That one saw in them what they failed to see in themselves. One kept faith as God kept faith with the Israelites, the stubborn stiff-necked people, complaining even at the moment of their redemption, turning their backs, endlessly squabbling, quick to forget signs and wonders. One identified with them, even at their lowest, because otherwise one would be lost. He would be lost, desolate. A man needed to belong to something greater than himself.

But the call ended with Kotler having conveyed none of this.

It was late now, approaching midnight, too late, Kotler thought, to call Benzion. Besides, he still wasn’t fully accustomed to the idea that a soldier on active duty could be telephoned. On this subject, despite his having lived more than two decades in Israel, his frame of reference was seventy years out of date, rooted in childhood and his father’s stories of the eastern front. These stories, supported by a few photographs and a packet of yellowed field post — folded into triangles and bearing the censor’s seals — were deeply encoded in Kotler’s psyche.

A movement in the window drew his eye and Kotler turned from the black absorption of the mountains. Faster than a thought, his knees buckled, responding to an overwhelming impulse to drop to the ground, to get out of sight. Kotler caught himself, and stood rigidly, his knees still slightly and comically bent. Blood battered his heart as if to dislodge it. The fear was one he’d not known in untold years. Framed in the window was a man, Svetlana’s husband, arrested by some worry or introspection, his profile presented to Kotler. Kotler’s thoughts swirled, sense convoluted with nonsense. He knew that the man could not see him, but he feared the man could see him. He knew the year was 2013 and that the Soviet Union no longer existed, but he felt the cold menace of the KGB, sensed the nearness of his old tormentors. He knew he was an Israeli citizen, a husband and father, a dissident champion, but he felt isolated and vulnerable, helpless to stave off the horror. In the window the man blinked his eyes and wearily ran his hand through his white hair. He cleared his throat, opened his mouth to call out to his wife, squinted as he listened for her reply, and then shuffled from the room.

FIVE

Leora was watching the television when Kotler entered the room. He caught a glimpse of the screen and recognized the movie, White Sun of the Desert, a Soviet film, once a personal favorite. It had come out in 1970, when he was twenty years old and taking his first tentative steps down the dissident path. He’d read a samizdat translation of Leon Uris’s Exodus. He’d given vent in mixed company to some mildly provocative ideas. Little things. The movie’s tone — dry, laconic, gently mocking of the Soviet revolutionary myths — had struck him as simpatico. And the music as well, with the famous ballad by Okudzhava, back when Kotler still considered himself a student and follower of music. Now, before Leora turned the television off, he saw the burka-clad women scurrying down the lane of the dusty Oriental town. The women in their burkas, the somnolent bearded elders, the crusading Western liberators, the primitive Muslim insurgents, the flaming oil wells; who could have predicted the immutability of this unhappy subject?

Kotler joined Leora on the bed atop the blue coverlet. The atmosphere between them at that moment was unerringly chaste. Leora held herself slightly aloof, as if in anticipation of a blow. This trip they had embarked on, already fraught with many complications, seemed to accrue new ones by the minute. Mostly, Kotler thought, because he was inept at selfishness. After a life of self-denial, he had finally pursued a selfish want, but he kept undermining himself. How long had he dreamed of sleeping with Leora in a large white room overlooking the sea? If not from the first moment he saw her, then soon after he brought her onto his staff and, increasingly, into his home. A smart and efficient girl who quickly proved her worth. She was frequently at their table for Friday-night dinners. She became like an older sister to Dafna and went shopping with her for clothes that Miriam, in her piousness, abjured. All the while, a current passed between him and Leora, like the invisible data that streamed between all the new machines. It went like this for years. Then one night a year ago, the two of them working late in his office, she had glanced up from her note-taking and caught him looking at her in an explicit way, and, for the first time, he did not draw the cloak of self-restraint. How I have denied myself, he said to her. Should I continue to deny myself? She had considered him steadily and said, I can’t answer that for you. To which he’d replied, Yes, you can. And they had done in his office what so many other political men had done in theirs. For shame, Kotler thought, and yet they continued to follow in this disreputable tradition.

— What did Dafna say? Leora asked. Other than that she hates me?

— In so many words, she called her father a fool. A popular position at the moment, and difficult to dispute. Though I disputed it.

— That’s all?

— She’s a grown girl. A young woman. No longer a child, as she is quick to remind me. A father doesn’t fully realize this until it stares him in the face. It isn’t all bad. Sooner or later, the realization arrives: the child discovers the immaturity of the parent, and the parent the maturity of his child.

— It’s all wonderfully philosophical, Baruch.

— Yes, well, at times like these, we turn to our vices. The bottle for some, philosophy for others. Most of us are not blessed with your unwavering levelheadedness.

— My unwavering levelheadedness. Do you know what it’s like to be a levelheaded girl? It’s like having a disfigurement. I’m still embarrassed by the stupid things I did to try to overcome it.

— To me it isn’t a disfigurement. Quite the contrary, I like it very much.

— That puts you in the minority. A small minority.

— Not for the first time, Kotler said and took Leora’s hand.

— So that’s it, then? Leora asked. Nothing has changed? We go on as before?

— Nothing has changed between us, Kotler said.

— And not between us? If there is something you want to say, Baruch, you should say it.

Kotler tried to draw Leora closer to him, but she held her ground, such as it was, refusing to be mollified.

— What does the name Vladimir Tankilevich mean to you? Kotler asked.

From her expression, he saw that it meant nothing. It was no surprise. The name had long ago ceased to mean anything to all but a handful of people. A dwindling handful. A few of the central players from 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 at the 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, comes after, once you are sated.

— And to satisfy this need you’re willing to risk revealing yourself to these people? Not only that, but also us, the time we have together here. The only time like this we’ve ever had or may ever have. Because what do you think will happen when you confront this man and his wife? That we’ll continue on as if nothing happened? That we’ll go to the beach and take excursions to the Livadia Palace and the Chekhov Museum? If you confront this man, you don’t know what will happen, except that we will lose our chance to be alone together as we dreamed. If that isn’t important to you, if that is a subordinate need, then you will have answered a question for me.

The outburst brought a flush to Leora’s throat and cheeks, a sensuality, as if ardor of any kind were related to sexual ardor. Kotler looked at her breathing above him and was filled with the animal instinct to pounce on her so they could claw and tear at each other. The lushness of her body still inflamed him, the fullness and smoothness of her breasts, her buttocks, her thighs. Her flesh that he stuffed his mouth with, that he clutched by the handful like a bandit. Her body, where she invited, encouraged, him to enact his every wildness, his every brackish want. Between them there was no hesitation, no apology. With Leora he had been able to be himself, the paragon of virtue, but also a man who felt the weight of his testicles under the point of his prick. A man he had only half been for forty years of prison and vindication and glory and indebtedness and fidelity and timidity. He had been locked up at twenty-five and released at thirty-eight. He had gone into prison a young man, newly wed, and he had come out a gaunt, desiccated saint. What a groom he was for the bride who had waited for him all those years. And what a bride awaited him, after her own years of dogged, confounding struggle. Two people who had long occupied cold solitary beds were brought together. Two old acquaintances, nearly strangers, were expected — by the world, by themselves — to leap into passionate embrace or slip into delicate intimacy. They had done their best. They were persistent, devoted people, and they persisted also in the matter of their hearts. In many ways, they did what everyone did to stoke the embers of the original fire. But their fire hadn’t simply abated; it was practically extinguished for want of fuel, the ordinary fuel of shared days and casual contact. Apart, they had pretended that the embers still glowed, that the fire still burned, but reunited, they knew the truth. Still, they had rekindled a fire. It was no small thing. It was a real fire. But the fire you rekindle is not the same fire, doesn’t burn as hot. With Leora, he burned as before, with consuming heat.

— Are you not also curious, Leora? Kotler asked. Don’t you want to see what will happen? This coincidence is not mine alone. It is ours together. If we stay, what happens will include you. You will be part of it. As I believe you are meant to be. As I would like you to be. Because if greater forces have conspired, they have seen fit to include you. After all, what brought you to me started forty years ago between me and this man.