The Betrayers Read Online Free PDF

street and he’d point to a tree or a lamppost fifty meters away and tell Kotler to run to it. They’d do the whole thing very formally. Kotler would get down into a crouch and his father would keep time on his wristwatch.
Borya: Ready, steady, go!
    Kotler saw a version of this scene before his eyes. The length of pavement near the building they had inhabited in Lvov. He remembered his father calling the commands, and he also remembered hearing neighbors taunt him with the mocking couplet
Zhid, zhid, na verevochki bezhid. Kike, kike, running on a string.
And here in Yalta, perhaps on this very stretch, in the late evening, they had repeated the exercise.
Solomon, stop torturing the boy!
his mother had admonished his father, who had dismissed her with a wave of his hand. Meanwhile, little Borinka knelt down and looked over his shoulder to see his father peering intently at his watch face, the device pinched between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Kotler knew he wasn’t fast, but he wanted to please his father. And, on some level, hischildish heart never quite relinquished the hope that, miraculously, the next time, his legs would unleash their latent power and whirl beneath him like a blur.
    Kotler released Leora’s arm and handed her his hat.
    —Time me, he said with an impish smile. From here to that post.
    Leora arched an eyebrow, but Kotler was already bending down to assume a semblance of the sprinter’s crouch, or as much of one as the constraints of age and inactivity allowed.
    —Whom should I call if you have a heart attack?
    —An ambulance, Kotler said.
    Kotler looked up at her. From here to the post, he said. Ready, steady, go.
    Leora shook her head with mild exasperation but turned her wrist and held her watch face between her thumb and index finger, just as his father had.
    A few people gazed with benign amusement at the spectacle of the little potbellied Jew chugging along the promenade, knees and elbows pumping. Kotler clapped his palm on the post when he reached it, making a satisfying, declarative noise. Then he trotted back to Leora like a spaniel, beaming with self-satisfaction.
    —So, how did I do? Kotler asked.
    —A new world record, Leora said. She reached over and gently wiped the perspiration from his brow. How do you feel? she asked.
    —Like a boy.
    —You are a boy, Baruch. People say you took up with a younger woman, but the truth is that I took up with a boy, Leora said affectionately.
    —That’s because with you I can be a boy.
    On Karl Marx Street they saw a collection of cars waiting, marked taxis on one side and unmarked sedans on the other. The drivers of the unmarked sedans—bored, surly-looking men—leaned against their vehicles. Across the way, the cabbies congregated in a group, smoking and bantering. One of them, a short stocky man with a baseball cap and a yellow reflective vest—the kind worn by crossing guards or construction workers—spoke occasionally into a walkie-talkie and barked orders at arriving drivers.
    Because they were already on that side of the street, Kotler and Leora approached the driver of one of the sedans, whose car was at the head of the line. Grim-featured, with a thick black mustache, he looked to be from the Caucasus. As they neared, he eyed them as if he suspected they were out to do him ill.
    —You’re for hire? Kotler asked genially.
    —I am. Where to?
    Kotler named the street.
    —One hundred hryvnia, the man replied bluntly.
    The sum amounted to a little over ten dollars, hardly a fortune, well within their means, but, Kotler felt, inflated nonetheless. He was long in the habit of not letting himself be arbitrarily bettered. In this regard, a man was well advised to be scrupulous. Slacken here or there, let this or that trifle pass, and it set a bad precedent, eroded the substrate of one’s character.
    —It’s a little high, Kotler said.
    —If you don’t like it, the driver replied, you can go across the street. Ride in