Metronome, The (28 page)

I want to say something about the Russian soul or about the ancient Greeks inventing tragedy, but it’s just false and cliché. Instead, I simply repeat, “I am sorry.”

Sunday, June 25

We make love in the morning, then Sarah leaves to change with, “You stay right where you are and wait for me.”

I am happy to obey; my inner clock is all confused with time changes. I give Sarah my second set of keys in direct violation of the rental agreement, then I fall asleep again.

She is back in an hour with two cups of coffee, pulling off my blanket and ordering me to the shower. “Come on, you promised this is my day.”

Sarah traded her little emerald dress and high heels for a T-shirt, jeans and comfortable walking shoes. I wonder if her underwear is red satin; I’ll have to wait to find out.

I like going to the East River, but Sarah leads me west. “I know it’s a cliché, but I love visiting Central Park. I’ve only lived in New York for two months now; perhaps after a few years I’ll get tired of it.”

We walk through Central Park Zoo with its polar bears, sea lions and leopards, eat late breakfast at Ballfields Café, then wander aimlessly through the little trails. It’s a warm day, and New Yorkers are sunbathing on the grass, happy to shed off their clothes after a chilly spring. Sarah sighs. “I wish I had my bathing suit on,” she says then finds an unoccupied patch of the Great Lawn and spreads out on the grass. I follow her lead. For what feels like an eternity, we are lying there, watching the clouds drift by. It’s simple and kitchy, but my head is clearing and stress is draining out of my body.

“When it comes like that ... at forty ... losing myself like a teenager…I did not want it ... I did not expect it.”

Sarah is looking at the clouds, not at me.

“And then I can’t sleep at night while you are half a world away without calling and I practically run to get to your building when you finally show up. I wish I could, but there is nothing I can do to stop it. I should be focusing on finding a job, some stability. I run into people I know, and they offer me sympathy. ‘Let me introduce you to a nice man,’ they say. But I don’t want sympathy, and you don’t offer it. Perhaps that’s why.”

I remain silent, watching the clouds, adding Sarah to the side of my life ledger that’s labeled “The Women I’ve Hurt.”

“What’s going to happen to you, Pavel?” says Sarah. It’s more of a musing than a real question, she knows I am not in any condition to be certain of anything.

“I am not sure, but I think I’ll know soon.”

“What did you find in Russia?”

How do I answer when I am not sure myself?

“I brought home my father’s diary, it’s an old notebook on my desk. I found out that he was not the man I thought.”

“Was he better or worse?”

“Better, much better. I think he kept so much inside, not wanting to be a burden, a liability, not wanting me to feel any guilt. I was angry at him all these years because I thought he did not care about my mother dying. I did not realize how much death he’d seen during the Leningrad’s blockade, when he was only a teenager. He was just letting my mother go, letting her leave the suffering and the pain behind.”

My voice breaks, and Sarah raises herself on her elbow, kisses me and caresses my face until I can continue.

“Turns out I have a brother, Andrei. Not a biological one. During the blockade, my parents adopted a neighbor’s boy who’d been orphaned. They were barely older than he was. They saved him.”

“Where is he now?”

“He lives in a city in the southeast of Russia. He spent many years in prison camps because of his opposition to the government. At one point, my father had to denounce him in a letter to the authorities so I could go to a special school for talented kids.”

“Oh, Pavel, I am so sorry. But it’s not your fault.”

“My father hated them…the hypocritical ruling party functionaries that lived at the expense of others. All these years he kept silent in order to protect his family, but he hated them with all his heart. He wrote that letter for me, and I left him all alone. I think he killed himself so the very people that he hated couldn’t get to me through him, so that there was nothing that they would have on me. I was so selfishly blind.”

“Are these people trying to threaten you?”

“Sarah, I don’t know yet. I came across some ugly stuff that’s best not to discuss.” I try to say it in a please-don’t-ask-any-more voice, and she gets it.

We get hungry, so we make our way to
Gabriela’s Restaurant & Tequila Bar
just west of the park. The place is loud and full of happy-looking people; I love it. Sarah’s been there before, and she does the ordering: two lime Margaritas and two Gabriela’s Brunches. We fill up on burritos, crispy tortillas, assorted tortas, and barely get up from our table. We walk it off by heading to AMC Loews on 84
th
Street. There, we are presented with the grand choices of
X-Men, The Fast and The Furious, Cars
. Sarah settles on
Peaceful Warrior
, which turns out to be a mix of
Rocky
and
The Karate Kid
. But Sarah looks happy, snuggles next to me munching popcorn and says, “I feel like I am on a real, old-fashioned date.”

We eat dinner in one of our neighborhood restaurants and end the day in my apartment. I impatiently watch Sarah undress, and she gives me a curious look. “What?” I explain that I’ve been wondering all day if she has red satin underwear on. She laughs and steps out of her jeans. It’s blue satin. Sarah says, “I made you promise this day for me and you did it. Now, what is your wildest desire?”

“Well, that would require at least two young, nubile girls dressed in a harem attire…”

She laughs and slaps me. “They are not here, but let me see what poor old me can do.”

She can do plenty.

Monday, June 26

Sarah has an afternoon interview with a private school on the Upper West Side.

“I have enough money to get through the summer, but come September I’ll need a job,” she says. “I look forward to teaching again. Hey, do you want me to ask if they need a physics teacher? We can have a simple life.”

She kisses me and leaves.

I check the bank account; the money is not there yet. It’s still early, but I am anxious.

My phone rings. Private number, unfamiliar voice speaking with Russian accent:

“Pavel Rostin?”

“Yes.”

“This is Greg Voron. Grigoriy Voronezhsky if you prefer.” I remain silent, so he continues after a pause, “Can we meet at the Carlyle tomorrow? Say, 11 am? You know where it is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Excellent. Go to the front desk, there will be a message for you there.”

Surprisingly, Jack asked to meet at one of the waterfront places on the East River. I walk there to kill time and calm my nerves after the call from Voron. Jack is already there, waiting for me, drinking. He is not wearing his tie, I am not sure I have ever seen him without one.

“What’s going on, Jack? Are you playing hooky?”

Jack laughs. “You can say that. I no longer work at the bank.”

“What?”

“Yes. The chief called me on Friday. He was honest about it. Said that while he understands my conservative approach to risk management, this is a different era, and we have to be more aggressive in order to keep up.”

“So they don’t need to manage risk?”

“The way he put it, ‘while the music is playing we’ve got to dance.’ They’ve been ignoring me anyway, but two weeks ago I wrote a memo directly to the CEO warning that our traders are taking very dangerous positions in sub-prime CDOs. I reminded him how our bank almost went bankrupt in 1998 following the Russian crisis, and we are more leveraged now. The CEO did not like it. He needs a big bonus this Christmas to pay for the new digs in Hampton. The trading group generates the majority of the company’s profits these days, and they all hate my guts. Nobody seems to give a damn what happens after they get their bonuses. Profiting at the expense of others while claiming to do ‘God’s work.’ And as I was being escorted out, the bank’s chief counsel showed up and warned me that I have a confidentiality agreement with the bank and to keep my mouth shut or they’ll sue me until I’ll be forced to beg on the street.”

“Jack, I am so sorry. They are idiots!”

“You know, Pavel, we did not use to be this way. When I started thirty years ago, we made good money but not these outrageous amounts for pushing paper. We cared beyond the next bonus. You see, that’s the problem – we knew we had to keep our reputation so we could come back next year. Now a trader makes millions in one year and an executive makes tens of millions, so they don’t care if they are buying crap because they get to keep their money and someone else will foot the bill!”

Jack’s voice is rising, heads turn, but he does not care.

“Who was it that said ‘After me, the flood’?”

“It was either Louis XV or Madame de Pompadour, I don’t remember.”

“Didn’t they lose their heads?”

“No, but their successors did twenty years later.”

“Well, I hope our children won’t have to pay for our sins, but one can’t defy the laws of mathematics, and I am afraid we are going to take away their future and leave them a giant Ponzi scheme. I dealt with money for most of my career, and ultimately it’s just a mechanism for making the commerce simpler. It’s much better to use money than to barter – ‘I’ll give you ten goats and a hundred chickens for this used car.’ But we now attached to money some mythical power, as if it’s a magical elixir that can control and fix the economy. That’s more convenient for Wall Street and the politicians because it’s easier to create money out of thin air than to make something real. But ultimately this only creates a rigged system that serves special interests. There can be no sound economy without sound finance. Our corruption is not ideological, it’s the corruption of money, of taxing everyone in favor of those that have influence.”

Jack finishes his drink and motions for another.

“How’s Suzy taking it?” I break the silent pause.

“She probably has had enough. She never seemed to buy into the notion that what’s good for Wall Street is good for the country.”

A waiter appears and takes our orders, including more drinks.

Jack waives his hand dismissively. “But enough about me. I am ready for retirement anyway. Did you see
The
New York Times
story last Friday?”

“No, what story?”

“I guess you were pre-occupied in your travels. The story was also in the
Wall Street Journal
and
Los Angeles Times
. The U.S. government is now analyzing the international banking data, the data that was supposed to be private.”

“Really? Why?”

“Going after terror suspects.”

“Well, that makes sense. Come on, Jack, we are the good guys.”

“Of course we are. You are a good person, and our waiter is a good guy, and I am mostly good, although my wife sometimes disagrees. Most of the Russians and Chinese and French are good people. Many of the Germans under the Nazis were good, too. Most people are too busy earning a living and taking care of their families to worry about their government’s activities – until it’s too late. Pavel, I think you are missing my point.”

“What is your point?”

Jack rattles ice cubes, sips his drink.

“How do I explain? Only a short time ago, our Secretary of State was telling the whole world that we know for sure that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. We are in the middle of a hugely expensive war, thousands of lives have been lost already, but we have never found the weapons. You can’t just say ‘we are good’ and stop questioning. You can’t continue giving the state ever increasing power without reservations. It is precisely when we believe ourselves to be incapable of evil that we become most vulnerable to its power. Covertly, we just took for ourselves a major new capability, and we ask the world to just trust us with it. You can’t debate the morality of something that’s shrouded in secrecy. If another country did this and told us to trust them, how would we feel about it? There is a price to everything.”

He stares at the river, then adds quietly, “The problem is not in getting the state more power, the problem is how to prevent the state from abusing the power it already has. Only too often secrecy becomes the enemy of freedom. The line between protecting people from real enemies and protecting the state from its people is too easy to cross. What will come next? Manipulating markets? Manipulating public opinion ‘for a good cause’? Asking us to give up a bit of our privacy so that they can better defend us? I am afraid that it’s the very idea of America that’s being endangered here – and by the same people that are trying to protect her.”

I am silent, thinking of Voronezhsky’s document. He proved to be correct on this prediction as well.

“So, are you going to tell me about your trip?” asks Jack.

I tell him about my father and about Andrei. He knows I am holding out on him but does not probe.

I call Jennifer as I walk back. She is worried about me, and I reassure her that everything is fine and I am safe and sound in New York.

“Have you talked to your grandfather about changing your major?” I ask.

“Yes, both mom and I did.”

“And?”

“He won’t go along with it.”

We are about to hang up when she says in a small voice, “Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think you and mom will ever get back together?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Perhaps. We need some time to figure things out.”

“OK.” I hear her cry.

How do you explain that even when you love each other, all the misunderstandings, hurts and lies of many years crust over you like an impenetrable armor? I did not understand it in my twenties and I can’t explain it in my forties.

I hear voices in the background, then Jennifer comes back. “Dad, mom heard us talking. She wants to talk to you.”

“Of course.”

Karen comes on the line. “Hi, Pavel.”

“Hi.”

“I wanted to talk to you and I overheard Jennifer…is now a good time?”

“Yes.” As much as I expected this, I feel that I have to sit down. There is a small park with a few benches across the street, so I head there.

“Why is it so noisy?”

“I am on the street in New York.”

Karen hesitates, then plunges in. “Pavel, I think we have to accept that this separation is permanent.”

“Is your father pressuring you?”

“Somewhat,” she admits. “He wants me in California, close to the kids. Simon really needs me; I worry about our son.”

I am silent.

Karen starts sobbing. “You know that I love you, Pavel. But I can’t start over. I need security.”

“I know, baby. I am sorry, I screwed up.”

“Pavel, do you have a poem for me? Like the first time we met? A brilliant physicist that reads poetry?”

I feel mostly sadness, not the overwhelming sense of loss that I had when she left. Now, I understand Karen’s language: this ‘love’ she speaks of is a lingering feeling about the past, heartbreak of what was and what could have been but no longer exists. Twenty years ago we started with Pushkin; it seems appropriate to end with another bad translation of mine:

I loved you.

The embers of that love are glowing still.

But don’t let it trouble you,

I don’t wish to bring you sadness.

I loved you quietly, hopelessly,

Consumed with jealousy and shyness.

My love was so true and tender,

I hope you’ll be loved this way again.

We are both crying, and passersbys give me funny looks. I don’t care.

I rush to the computer when I get home and log into my bank account. Zorkin has delivered, the money has arrived. Not available yet, but that’s OK.

Sarah is excited to describe her interview, whom she met, the location, the questions. Looks like they may offer her a job. I am happy for Sarah, but my anxiety must be showing. When she asks, I tell her about my friend Jack being fired. I don’t mention the meeting with Voron or the money.