'No,' she says, 'you don't understand. Even if I elect surgery..' this is what they say, Lorenzo, as if I would be electing a president, elect surgery, can you imagine? Even if I were to choose surgery, agree to surgery, even then...'
She shakes her head.
'I've waited too long, Lorenzo. The tumor is very large, they may not be able to save my hearing. The larger the tumor, the smaller the chance, is what he told me. The doctor. And with . .' with anything larger than three centimeters in diameter . .' with any tumor larger than that...'
And here she begins weeping.
'They might not..' be... be able to save my facial nerves, either. Is what he told me. The doctor.' Lorenzo stands helplessly beside the bed.
'So what's the use? My hands are already dead, I can't play anymore. Should I now choose to live without being able to hear? Without being able to express feeling on my face? Whenever I played, my hands and my face said all there was to say. Do you know what they called me? A tornado. A tornado from the Steppes. A wild tornado. My face and my hands. A tornado.'
Sobbing bitterly, the words coming out brokenly... 'What's left for me, Lorenzo? What? Why should I choose to live? Please help me.'
Her hands covering her face, crying into them. 'Please,' she begs. 'Kill me. Please.' He tells her this is absurd.
He tells her that in' any case, however slender the chances of success, she must undertake surgery, of course she must. Besides, a person shouldn't make
decisions when she isn't feeling right, she's sick just now .. .
'See how pale you look!' she'll feel different about all this when her cold is gone. But she keeps shaking her head as he talks, no, no, no, insisting that she's given this a great deal of thought, truly, and he would really be doing her an enormous service if he would only get a gun and kill her. 'You're serious,' he says. 'I'm serious.' 'Svetlana,' he says, 'no.' 'Why not?'
'Because we're friends. You're my friend, Svetlana.'
'Then kill me,' she says.
'No.'
'Please, Lorenzo. Kill me. Take me out of my misery. Help me. Please!'
'NO'
'Please.'
'NO'
I'll pay you.'
'No.'
'I'll pay you ten thousand dollars.'
'NO.'
'Twenty thousand.'
'No.'
'Lorenzo, please. Please.'
'No Svetlana. I'm sorry no.'
'Twenty-five. To kill me and to take care of Irina afterward. Take her home with you, feed her, care for her.'
'I can't. I won't.'
'I would pay you more, but...'
'No, Svetlana. Please. Never. Not even for a million. Never. Please.'
But that is before he loses the money to Bernie the Banker.
What Bernie is telling him, if he correctly under stands his very rapid English, is that he is going to kill Lorenzo unless he comes up with the money he owes by Sunday morning. Bernie is a Jew, he supposes, but he is beginning to sound very Italian with all this talk about swimming with the little fishes, very Italian indeed. Lorenzo has dealt with enough bookmakers, both Italian and American, to know that very often they won't necessarily kill you because then they will never get the money you owe them. On the other hand, having your legs broken or an eye put out is not a very cheerful prospect, either. He listens quite solemnly to what the little bookie is telling him, never doubting for a moment that Bernie himself or someone Bernie knows will hurt him very badly if he doesn't come up with the twenty thousand dollars he bet on those fucking Steelers, what are Steelers anyway, people who steal? The English language is sometimes mystifying to him, but he sure as hell understands what Bernie is telling him now. Bernie is saying 'Pay me by Sunday morning, my friend, or you may have cause to be very sorry.'
Is what B.ernie is saying.
Which is when he calls Svetlana to say that if she still wants him to do what she proposed earlier this month... 'Yes,' she says at once.
'Then I'm ready to do it,' he whispers into the phone.
'When?' she whispers.
Both of them whispering in Italian like the conspirators they are.
'Now,' he says. 'Tonight.'
'No. I have some things to do first.' 'Then when?' 'Tomorrow night?'
'Yes, all right,' he says. 'Tomorrow night.' All of this in Italian. Domani sera?
Si, va bene. Domani sera.
'I'll call you tomorrow,' he says.
'Good. Call me. But not in the morning. I'll be out in the morning. I have some business to take care of.' 'Then when?' 'Early afternoon.' I'll call you.' 'Ciao,' she says. 'Ciao.'
Two old pals signing off. No mention at all of murder.
It is a little before eleven when he arrives at her apartment that Saturday night. She is wearing a flowered cotton housedress and scuffed French-heeled shoes. She tells him she went to the bank this morning to withdraw the money she promised him... 'I hate to take money for this,' he says. 'I would not expect...'
'I'm in serious debt,' he says. 'Otherwise I wouldn't accept this.'
'Take it,' she says, and hands him an envelope. 'Count it,' she says.
'I don't have to count it.'
'Count it. It's twenty-five thousand dollars.'
He shakes his head, puts the envelope into the pocket of his coat. It is eleven o'clock sharp now. 'I had my hair done this morning,' she says.
'It's very pretty,' he says, admiring the finger wave. 'You look beautiful.'
'I would have put on along black concert gown,' she tells him, 'but I want it to look as if an intruder surprised me. So there'll be no suspicion cast on you. We'll open the window. It will seem that someone came in.'
'Yes,' he says.
He is wondering what kind of man he is, to be willing to do this to a poor old deaf woman. What kind of man? But he keeps remembering Bernie's threat. And he rationalizes what he is about to do, telling himself that with the twenty-five thousand he can pay off the twenty he owes Bernie and with the remaining five can perhaps pick a good horse or two in next week's races, parlay the money into God knows how much, a fortune perhaps. Besides, he tells himself he is not really taking a life. He is only doing what Svetlana herself wishes him to do. He is helping her to die with dignity and honor. He is helping her to leave this world with her memories intact. For this, God will forgive him. This is what he tells himself.
They open the bedroom window.
Cold air rushes into the apartment.
She goes to the bedroom closet and takes from it an old mink coat.
'I want it to look as if I just got back from the store,' she says. 'So no one will suspect you.'
His hand is beginning to shake on the butt of the gun in the pocket of his coat. He is not sure he will be able to do this now that the time is so close. He is not sure at all.
'Would you help me, please?' she asks.
He holds the coat for her as she shrugs into it. He can smell fish on his hands. There is always the stench of
