The Book of Air and Shadows

certainly hurts when someone you have loved looks at you with pity, as Amalie did then. Now that I think about it, I should have known then that the love was still alive in my heart, or it would not have hurt so much, I could have remained the cool “separated” man about town like all the others one sees in the parks and tony restaurants on Sundays in Manhattan: uncomfortable, phony-jolly, overindulging the unhappy tykes. She lowered her eyes, as if embarrassed by what she saw, and retrieved a Kleenex from the wad that always lurked in the pocket of her cardigan, wiped her eyes, blew her nose. In my wickedness I thought, Ah, she weeps, that’s a good sign! I found myself begging her not to go, that I would be different, etc. She said she loved me and always would, and wished very much that she could be complaisant, but could not, and if I ever decided to return on terms of perfect honor to my marriage, she would see, and I said, Now, now, I
have
decided, and she gave me a searching look as only she can and said Oh, no, Jake, I am afraid you have not.
    Which was true because just
before
that moment, when I thought she might roll, I was still thinking that somehow I could retrieve Miranda and clear up our little misunderstanding and have both the old and the new Amalie at my disposal. I can’t stand to type any more of this hideous account of what was taking place in my weasel mind. It doesn’t matter.
    What did I do after she had, quite properly, shown me the door? I went to the gym, where Arkady welcomed me with a warm handshake, an embrace, and a false look. God knows what Shvanov had arranged to get me back in there, but it was clear that the easy gym comradeship was over. The word had apparently also spread to the other Russian lifters in the place because I was treated like a radioactive prince, no waits for the benches or machines for me! I pumped iron until I was ready to throw up, then took a painfully hot shower; Arkady’s is known for the dangerous heat of his hot water (there are even cautionary signs), and I wondered if you could accidentally on purpose kill yourself in this way. When I was meat-loaf red I turned the hot faucet off entirely and suffered under the icy drench until my teeth chattered.
    I was getting dressed when my cell went off and it was my sister. Without preamble I asked her if she knew that Osip Shvanov knew our father. Sure, she said. They knew each other from Israel. What about it?
    What about it indeed? The fact filled me with a particularly infantile kind of fear, where you know you have to keep something hidden from the parent without quite knowing why, only that if they found out they would act out of malice, or worse, some unconscious impulse to claim a chunk of your soul, to innocently
eat you up
.
    “Jake, is there something wrong?”
    Honestly, I can’t remember what I was saying that made her say that; I must have been babbling in an uncharacteristic fashion. And it brought me up short, because Miri is rarely interested in what is wrong with her loved ones, there is so much wrong with
her
that she prefers to talk about.
    “Nothing,” I lied. “Look, Miri, have you, like,
discussed
this whole manuscript thing I’m involved in with anyone? Shvanov? Or Dad?”
    “What manuscript thing?”
    “You know, I told you about it that night at Amalie’s…Shakespeare, death by torture?”
    “Oh, that. I don’t think so, but you know, I don’t keep a meticulous, like,
transcript
of everything I talk about. Why? Is it supposed to be some big secret? No, don’t leave it there! Move it over by the piano!”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Oh, they’re delivering something. Look I have to go, darling, these people are going to totally destroy my living room. Bye-bye.”
    With that she was gone, leaving me to deal with the probability that my sister had spread the amusing story of how her brother had found the key to a fabulous treasure throughout her wide circle of friends, including quite a few in the demimonde between business and crime. Miri had never much worried about the distinction, which meant that Shvanov might possibly be telling the truth-the city was full of Russian thugs for hire, and those who had attacked me might not have had anything to do with Shvanov’s outsourced violence. But perhaps they did. Perhaps it was a vast conspiracy, watching, waiting to strike, and why had I been so stupid as to come to a gym full of tough Russians? Panic does not really stick in