trembling all of David's suspicions were confirmed. He knew for certain now that Amit Nissim's identification had been correct, and that Max Rosenfeld, on his deathbed, had told Jacob Gutman the truth.
The Mendelssohn sonata: now Anna worked on it every day. Whenever David came up the stairs to the apartment he could hear her practicing portions through the door.
'It sounds better,' he told her. She shook her head. 'Well, not hopeless.'
'No, not quite hopeless,' she agreed.
She had a special way of smiling even when she was sad. That smile touched him. It made him want to take her in his arms.
She was worried about Targov. 'He's here for a purpose. He won't tell me what it is, but I think the unveiling is a pretext for something else.'
'Sokolov?'
'Yes. But not just to see him-it's not just that. He has a plan. Something complicated. Deep and strange, I think.'
'He wouldn't try to hurt Sokolov, would he? To cover up what he did?'
'No, no-he's too torn up with guilt. I'm more worried he'll hurt himself. He liked you, David. Very much. He told me that several times. But he's cryptic. He talks about redemption, making things right, settlements, settling scores. He has something in mind. Perhaps something dangerous. I wonder if Jerusalem is really good for him. He's become obsessed with martyrdom. That's all he sees here, all he thinks about…'
David nodded. The city was filled with repentant madmen-saints and saviors of every stripe. 'Messiahs' walked the streets, along with criminals and psychopaths, each harboring his agenda, his plan for redemption, his way of righting ancient wrongs and putting an end to tortured sleepless nights.
THE WIRE IN THE BOTTLE
'You hate me. That's only natural,' Targov said.
The old man shook his head.
'But that's impossible, Sergei. You have to hate me. You have to. You simply must.'
Something shriveled about him, Targov thought, as they examined one another now in silence. The room was small and simply furnished-new immigrant's furnishings in a room without character, in a basic housing block without style, in a barren neighborhood southwest of the city. All the flats here were identical; aside from the numbers on the doors the only way to tell them apart was by the laundry hanging from the balconies. Now night was closing in. The room was dark except for the single unshielded low-wattage bulb that burned from a fixture in the wall. Targov pulled his chair forward. He knew he must engage this man. But Sergei sat staring at him refusing to be engaged, huddled in his chair, shriveled, wrinkled, withered, and, Targov hated to admit this, looking almost, yes… almost repulsive.
The glossy black hair that had waved up straight up from his forehead was all gone now. His teeth were rotten and his mouth, that mouth Targov had seen one cold afternoon pressed so ardently against Irina's throat, reminded him of a misshapen piece of clay.
But it was Sergei's eyes that frightened Targov most, for they lacked all trace of glimmer. Sergei stared at him with eyes so dead they showed nothing, no pain, not even contempt.
'Listen to me, old friend. We both know what happened. Each of us knows what he did to the other and can see the disproportion. Now I've come to you with a way to even up the score and at the same time stick it to our common enemy. But you say nothing. Don't even bother to refuse. Surely you must feel something about my coming here. Or at least about my plan…'
Silence again, and that implacable deadening stare, the stare that said it didn't matter, nothing did, that life was the same as death.
'I'm recalling now…' At last he was speaking! '… how you always liked it when the irregularities were balanced. In painting, sculpture, architecture most of all. Many times, when we'd walk in Moscow, you'd see it in a building and point it out. 'Look, Sergei Sergeievich! The beauty of it! The subtle symmetry!' I remember…so many years ago. And now, well…' he smiled, 'your taste is still the same.'
'You haven't answered me.'
'What exactly is your question?'
'Will you do it?'
'I don't despise it,' Sergei said. 'But it wouldn't mean anything.'
' It would!'
'To you, perhaps. But not to me.' He shrugged. 'Now, Sasha, tell me about your work…'
It was only toward the end that Targov saw how cleverly he'd been baited. Those occasional little nods, tight little smiles-small encouragements, perhaps, but large enough to make him boast. Too late he realized he'd sounded like a pompous ass. But why, anyway, was Sergei so interested in his success? He didn't seem like a man who reveled in envy. Why then? What was he after? What did he really want?
Targov found himself beginning to dislike him. He asked himself: Do I really want to put myself into the hands of this withered old man with dead eyes and foul-smelling teeth and a horrible uncentered mouth?
'You needed me as nourishment, to feed yourself…' What was he talking about? 'If I'd been killed you'd have forgotten me quick enough. But alive, locked up, degraded, my condition incited you to greater triumphs. You had to make up for what you'd done so you became a better artist than you had any right to be. Without me, Sasha, you would have been mediocre. Did you ever think of that?'
No, he hadn't thought of it, but now he saw how the camps had turned Sergei mean. 'Is that why you sent the postcard-to tell me this? You've been expecting me, haven't you? You knew one day I'd come.'
Sergei shrugged. 'I thought you might. But it wouldn't have mattered if you hadn't.'
His eyes were very bad, he said; he'd lost seventy percent of his sight. But still he could work, he said, though in a different style and on a much grander scale.
'Do you have a studio?' Targov looked around. He could see no workspace in the little room.
'Don't need one. I lost my touch. I don't work with my hands anymore. I do conceptual pieces now, design them. The bulldozers do all the work.'
Conceptual pieces? Bulldozers? Now what the hell was he talking about?
'Only a year here but already I've received a major commission. They've carved it out in the Negev.' He stood. 'Come, I'll show you.' He motioned Targov toward the second room, where, in the gloom, Targov made out a narrow bed and several open suitcases containing neat piles of clothes.
A bare bulb hung from the ceiling. Sergei grabbed hold of it, switched it on, then flung it out by its cord. It swung crazily back and forth casting rapidly moving shadows on drawings and photographs tacked up to the walls.
'What is this?' Targov caught glimpses of an enormous four-sided trench.
'An environmental sculpture. An earthwork.'
'Really? Remarkable. But, tell me, what does it mean?'
Sergei turned to him. 'Nothing. It means nothing at all.'
'So you've become an abstractionist?'
A small smile. 'You could put it that way. No more daintily crafted ballerinas or tourist gift shop junk. My sight's too dim for that.' He glanced mischievously at Targov. 'It does surprise you, doesn't it? And the scale too. Well, it is very big.' For a moment, Targov thought, Sergei actually seemed to gloat.
'How did you conceive of such a thing?'
'No studios in the Gulag, though some men do nice work with pipe cleaners, discarded chess pieces, assorted odds and ends. I worked differently. I designed sculptures in my mind. And now this one,' he said proudly, 'has actually been dug. Dug out in the Holy Land.'
Targov examined the photographs. He could see trucks, bulldozers, men laboring beside an enormous trench. The shape itself was very simple: a modified rectangle, something like a trapezoid, containing a circle near its center. Simple, geometric, highly abstract, and, according to Sergei, meaningless. It was difficult to believe that this shriveled broken man beside him had been responsible for such an outpouring of human labor.
