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“Back then I should have seen you were worth watching,” he says, which is flattering but pretty obviously not true. “You know I’d like you to come work for me. I know you have some reservations. Let me answer them.”
The attendant returns with our first course. The tiny gray pearls of caviar pop on my tongue, leaving behind the briny taste of the sea.
Zacharov seems like a benevolent gentleman, loading his blini with chopped egg and crème fraîche. Just a distinguished guy in a perfectly tailored suit with a bulge under one arm where his gun rests. I’m thinking he’s not the best person in whom to confide my moral quandaries. Still, I’ve got to say something. “What was it like for my grandfather? Did you know him when he was younger?”
Zacharov smiles. “Your grandad’s from a different time. His parents’ generation still thought of themselves as good people, thought of their powers as gifts. He was part of that first generation to be born criminals. Desi Singer came into the world—what?—not ten years after the ban was passed. He never had a chance.”
“Dab hands,” I say, thinking of Mrs. Wasserman’s version of this story.
He nods. “Yes, that’s what we used to be called, before the ban. Did you know that your grandfather was conceived in a worker camp? He grew up tough, like my father did. They had to. Their whole country had turned on them. My grandfather, Viktor, was in charge of the kitchens; it was his job to make sure everybody got fed. He did whatever he had to do to make the meager rations go around—made deals with the guards, made his own still and distilled his own booze to trade for supplies. That’s how the families started. My grandfather used to say that it was our calling to protect one another. No matter how much money we had or how much power, we should never forget where we came from.”
He stops speaking as the attendant returns, setting the fish down before us. Zacharov calls for a glass of 2005 Pierre Morey Meursault, and it comes a moment later, lemon pale, the base of the glass cloudy with condensation.
“When I was a young man of twenty, I was in my second year at Columbia. It was the late seventies, and I thought the world had changed. The first Superman movie was on the big screen, Donna Summer was on the radio, and I was tired of my father being so old-fashioned. I met a girl in class. Her name was Jenny Talbot. She wasn’t a worker, and I didn’t care.”
The fish is cooling in front of us as Zacharov strips off one of his gloves. His bare hand is striped with scars. They’re a ruddy brown and pulled like taffy.
“Three boys cornered me at a party in the Village and pressed my hand against one of the burners on an electric coil stove. Seared through my glove, fused the cloth into my flesh. It felt like someone was flaying me to the bone. They said I should stay away from Jenny, that the thought of someone like me touching her made them sick.”
He takes a long swallow of wine and pokes his fork into the turbot, one hand still bare.
“Desi came to the hospital after my father and mother left. He wanted my sister Eva to wait in the hall. When he asked me what happened, I was ashamed, but I told him. I knew he was loyal to my father. After I’d finished the story, he asked me what I wanted done to those boys.”
“He killed them, didn’t he?” I ask.
“I wanted him to,” says Zacharov, taking a bite of the fish and pausing to swallow. “Every time the nurse changed the dressing on my hand, every time they dug tweezers into blistered skin to pull out cloth, I imagined those boys dead. I told him so. Then your grandfather asked me about the girl.”
“The girl?” I echo.
“That’s exactly what I said, in that exact incredulous tone. He laughed and said that someone put those boys up to what they did. Someone told them something to rile them up. Maybe she liked to have boys fighting over her. But he was willing to bet that that girl of mine wanted to end our relationship and had decided to throw me out like garbage. It was easier, after all, if she seemed like a victim rather than the kind of girl who liked messing around with workers.
“Your grandfather was right. She never came to the hospital to see me. When Desi finally paid a visit to the boys, he found Jenny in one of their beds.”
Zacharov pauses to eat a few bites. I eat too. The fish is amazing, flaky and redolent of lemon and dill. But I don’t know what to make of the story he’s telling.
“What happened to her?” I ask.
He pauses, fork in hand. “What do you think?”
“Ah,” I say. “Right.”
He smiles. “When my grandfather said we had to protect one another, I thought he was a sentimental old man. It wasn’t until your grandfather said it that I understood what it meant. They hate us. They might give us a smile. They might even let us into their beds, but they still hate us.”
The door opens. Two attendants have arrived with coffee and pastries.
“They’d hate you most of all,” says Zacharov.
The room’s warm, but I feel very cold.
* * *
It’s late when Stanley drops me back at the house. I’ve only got maybe twenty minutes to get my stuff and get back to Wallingford before room check.
“Stay out of trouble,” Stanley says as I hop out of the back of the Cadillac.
I unlock the door and head for the back room, gather up my books and backpack. Then I look for my keys, which I thought were right with my bag but aren’t. I stick my hands beneath the cushions of the couch. Then I kneel down to see if they fell underneath. I finally find them on the dining room table, hidden by some envelopes.
I start to head out when I remember that my car is still busted. I’m not even sure I brought the battery and fuses home from Sam’s house. In a panic, I run upstairs to my bedroom. No battery. No fuses. I retrace what my drunken steps must have been, all the way back to the kitchen. I discover that the coat closet is slightly ajar and, amazingly, the auto parts bag is inside of it, resting alongside an empty beer can. A coat is wadded up in the back, like maybe I knocked it off its hanger. I lift it, intending on putting it back where it goes, when I hear a metallic thunk.
