The Greed

by Scott Bergstrom

  Harvard, he’d said to me in New York as we sat on that bench in Tompkins Square. Double legacy. A shoo-in. But that was right before the sky opened up and it started to rain and the world—mine, then his—fell apart. It feels wrong, looking at the world through his eyes, seeing the things he thinks are beautiful, with his not knowing that he’s sharing them with me.

  Carga completa.

  Five

  A black Lab naps in the sun, tail beating a slow, lazy rhythm on the sidewalk. A street kid of about nine wearing a Red Sox tank top says, “Hey, baby,” and asks me for a cigarette. I keep to the shady side of the street and pass a dilapidated old building marked with a sign saying HEILMANN TRADING CO. Through the open windows I hear the sound of typewriters clacking away—actual typewriters. What, exactly, does Heilmann Trading Company trade?

  The ship that was in port yesterday is gone, leaving the Old Town mostly quiet. I could find a corner somewhere and get a few hours of rest before Mariela’s, but it would just find me there, too, the anxiety. It always comes afterward, when the business of uploading another video is finished and it’s just me and the video’s meaning. It is a train that hits me in the chest, dull mass, a hundred tons strong. It is a blade that slides upward, past my stomach, the point probing around for my heart, pushed forward by an expert hand.

  There is only one way to escape it, so I keep walking, west through the Old Town and through the residential neighborhoods until my little refuge comes into view.

  I hear it from the street, rap music and men grunting, and I smell it meters from the door. The cure for anxiety lies within: peace through pain, happiness through suffering.

  * * *

  A fist strikes me on the side of the head—a stupid mistake on my part, letting it happen—but I recover instantly and strike back with an elbow to the neck, followed by a tug of the hair as I pull his head back and drop him with an uppercut to the stomach. This guy’s good, though, and bounces back, not flailing and desperate like most of them, but sharp and accurate, swinging a leg around and aiming for my bad left knee. I scoop him up by the ankle and drive a foot into his groin. His eyes pinch shut and he rolls away from me onto the mat. Sorry, I almost say.

  I reach down to help him to his feet, but the instructor, Zvi, is right there. “No!” he shouts, as he would to a bad dog. Not done yet, he means. I know what Zvi expects of me, so I drop myself on top of my enemy, burying my right knee in the center of his back, and circle my right arm around his neck. The man’s stubble is wet and scratchy on my skin. I brace my other arm on the back of his neck, then look up at the instructor. Good, Zvi nods. That’s far enough.

  From this position—an arm braced on either side of the neck—you jerk your right arm back and to the side, and if the movement is explosive enough, you break your enemy’s neck. But I let the guy go and pull him to his feet. He fistbumps me with shredded knuckles and says nicely done. And that’s the point here, the thing, the way you’re supposed to do it down at the little Krav Maga studio off Avenida San Martín. It’s okay to get beat. Just don’t be a child about it.

  I make my way to the water fountain, spit out my mouth guard, and drink. The first few swallows have the iron tang of my own blood, but the first few swallows are always like that. I keep drinking until the adrenaline and endorphins beating at the walls of my head recede; then I fall to a wooden bench and stare at the ceiling. It’s boiling in here. And what’s the point of the feeble little ceiling fan, stirring it all up as if it’s making a difference? Christ, that shot to the head hurt.

  “He’s a cop, you know,” the voice next to me says.

  “What?”

  “The guy whose neck you almost broke. He’s a cop. A detective.”

  “Is he.”

  It’s Marco Levinbach, the owner of the gym. He’s twenty-five, with fine black hair cut close to his scalp, the way soldiers wear it. It suits his tight, athlete’s face. Even his jaw is muscular. “Rafael has a dentist appointment tomorrow morning,” he says. “Can you teach his ten a.m.?”

  I shrug. “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

  “How about you tell me tonight,” he says. “I miss you.”

  “I’m working tonight,” I say.

  “After,” he says.

  “I’m tired after.”

  I get up to go and feel Marco watching me. There’s not even a locker room for women here, so I change in the women’s bathroom. I’m the only one who ever uses it. Testosterone hangs in the air thick as smoke, and the men treat me as something between a novelty and a freak. In Uruguay, nice women aren’t supposed to practice a brutal Israeli martial art that’s all about fighting dirty and hard. I unwrap the tape from my hands. It’s doubled around my knuckles using the webbing technique Marco taught me. “So your hands stay pretty,” he said. I don’t care, but the customers at the restaurant might if I were serving their food with my knuckles still bleeding.

  I move on to the bandage wrapped around my left knee and peel it off. The swelling has gone down, but it’s still painful from last week when Zvi nearly broke it to prove a point. About staying aware of your vulnerabilities head to toe, is what he told me. To teach me some humility is what it was really about.

  I stuff the bandage and the mouth guard in my backpack, then wash the sweat off my body in the sink, mine and the detective’s. I scrub hard—it’s important to keep up appearances at Mariela’s—and the smell of sweat and the tang of blood would be frowned upon there. I tie my hair into a ponytail and change into work clothes: cheap jeans and a tank top—anonymous Judita. On my way out, Marco tries one more time. His mom’s making a roast for Shabbat dinner. He’d love for me to meet his family. Maybe, I tell him, in a way we both understand means no.

  But just as I’m about to disappear into the street, I stop. I’ve got an hour or two now, I say.

  * * *

  Afterward, I close my eyes, content to stay this way for a few minutes or, honestly, forever. The room smells of wet towels and the grimy orange cat that watches Marco and me with detachment as we lie naked on the mattress on the floor of his one-room apartment. Marco drapes an arm around me—a muscular arm, gentle—and pulls me close against his body. He’s warm, strong, and, most of all, here. He kisses my neck and it tickles and I smile, even though I’m pretending to be asleep, so he just stays there, holding me, and no one has to talk.

  “You can’t fool me,” he says.

  “I’m sleeping,” I say.

  He pinches my side. “Lazy girl,” he says. “It’s the middle of the day.”

  I squirm and push his face away. “Lazy girl has to be at work in an hour.”

  He drops his head back to the pillow and lets out a mock sigh. “Just use me, then. See if I care.”

  He’s a good guy, Marco. Strong and confident. He was born here in Montevideo, emigrated to Israel to join the army, then came back to open his Krav Maga studio. His family is Orthodox, but he doesn’t really keep kosher except for not eating pork and shellfish. I started sleeping with him last July.

  He’s smart enough for what’s asked of him, and he’s a decent human being, and a good fighter, and exactly who he appears to be: a business owner who pays his taxes and dreams of a nice house, a nice wife. His world, everyone’s world, isn’t complicated, doesn’t take figuring out. And that’s what he sees in me, or rather, in Judita. She’s just like he is: a decent human being and a good fighter and exactly who she appears to be.

  I comply and play the part. Because for the first time since being on the run, I feel safe. Because for the first time, in Marco’s little apartment off a side street off a side street in downtown Montevideo, I feel unfindable. Not a soul besides his knows where I am.

  I doze off for a while to the sound of the ticking fan and traffic outside.

  “What are you thinking?” he whispers, mouth millimeters from my ear.

  One night a few weeks ago, tucked there beneath his arm, his breath warm on my neck, I nearly did it, nearly broke down and told h
im the truth about everything. My mouth was actually open, about to say the words. And I think he would have accepted it, told me he doesn’t care. But there are some secrets no one should be asked to keep. “Nothing,” I say.

  “Know what I’m thinking?” he says.

  “No.”

  “That I’ll make you dinner and you’ll skip work tonight.”

  My eyes snap open. “What time is it?”

  “Fourish,” he says.

  I scramble in a panic from the mattress, pull on my bra and tank top. He watches me, a half-grin on his face. “Come on. Just stay.”

  “I can’t. Pass me my—thing.”

  “Not unless you say it. Don’t be shy around me.”

  “My—underwear.”

  “Panties.”

  “Panties.”

  He tosses them to me and I slide them on, followed by my jeans.

  I hear his words, the words I hate, just as the door to the apartment closes behind me. All of it—the sex, company, warmth, peace—I enjoy. I really do. But every time I leave, I tell myself not to go back to him. I tell myself it’s too dangerous. Too easy to slip and tell him everything, especially afterward, as the sweat on our bodies cools and he presses his chest to my back and tells me he loves me.

  * * *

  Mariela’s is ablaze tonight. A new ship just arrived in port and there’s an hour wait for a table. I rush in through the back. “You’re late,” Mariela says, “and do something with your hair.” But this is said with a wink, a literal wink, and that smile of hers. I look away, embarrassed, and pull my hair back into a ponytail. Then I grab an apron and head out onto the floor.

  A mixed group today, tourists from Russia and Asia mostly, chaotic and drunk and loving the slabs of bloody meat. Mariela calls my name and points to table 14, a guy on his own, and American by the looks of him. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, with ramrod-straight posture and short graying hair that makes him look like a military officer in civilian dress—a suit, in this case, with no tie. It’s still a pretty formal outfit for this place, but somehow I get the feeling this is the most informal he ever gets.

  “I’m slammed,” I say.

  “Who isn’t?” she says, and thrusts a menu into my hand.

  I approach the table cautiously. The customer is observing the room, sweeping his eyes slowly from one side to the other, and he sits so that he faces the door, just the way my dad used to. I place the menu on the table and greet him in English. He answers back in perfect Spanish. Not school Spanish, or Spanish Spanish, but Rioplatense Spanish. It’s the dialect spoken here and in Buenos Aires, and with its flowing, exaggerated rhythm, it sounds to outsiders like Italian. He orders red wine, whatever I recommend, the beef, and a bean dish on the side that only locals ever ask for.

  There’s a flirty smile on his face as he speaks. I’m used to getting hit on by the customers, but this isn’t that kind of flirting.

  “Always this busy here?” he says.

  “When a ship’s in port,” I say.

  “Ah,” he says. “People from all over the world, I imagine.”

  I shrug. “Yesterday Brits. Today someone else.”

  He shakes his head as if marveling at the idea of it. “Seems everyone ends up in Uruguay, eventually.”

  I walk away in too much of a hurry and feel his eyes on me as I pour wine and serve food at my other tables. When I bring out his order, he simply thanks me and sets to work.

  He folds his napkin and sets it on the plate when he’s finished, and I bring him the check. “Thank you for a delightful meal,” he says as he stands. He counts out the pesos, throwing in a very healthy tip. Then he leans in close and says in perfect American English: “Pleasure to finally meet you, Gwendolyn. Yael says hi.”

  Six

  Yael. The name slides like a needle into my ear and paralyzes me, freezing me exactly as I am. The Mossad operative who trained me in Paris, rescued me in Prague. A friend for life is what I call her, for everything she did for me. But she thinks of the relationship differently. I know this because she told me: Our interests are aligned at the moment, she’d said once. Tomorrow, who knows?

  The man buttons his suit jacket and walks out the door without another word. Only when he’s gone can I move, looking down at the money clutched in my hand. Stuck in the middle of it is a business card, one side Spanish, the other Hebrew.

  BRENT SIMANSKI

  CULTURAL ATTACHÉ—ISRAELI EMBASSY

  BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

  Scrawled in pen along the margin of the Spanish side is: Piedras / Bartolomé Mitre—1:30. It’s an intersection not far from the restaurant. I tuck the card into my pocket and go back to work, or try to.

  So why does this Brent Simanski want to meet me? And why now? Are we in alignment or have our interests diverged? It’s been eight months since anyone from the Israeli government made contact. They’d struck a deal with my dad to get us out of Europe in exchange for his telling everything he knows. How the CIA works. How the decisions are made. How the currents of power flow. Helping an ally is how they put it, but that’s because it sounds more appealing than calling it treason.

  After they got everything they needed, the Israelis stopped coming around. My dad wasn’t sad to see them go. I was there for many of the meetings in our apartment, hovering in the background, serving coffee and sandwiches as they talked. They sent in experts from Tel Aviv for the debriefings, people who made their living getting information out of people. But getting information out of people is what my dad did, too, so a lot of times things devolved into staring contests and uncomfortable silences until I would appear, cheerily asking if anyone wanted a refill.

  Of course, all this assumes the man whose business card says Brent Simanski, Cultural Attaché–Israeli Embassy, is really that. Business cards are cheap, and neither his name nor his appearance was anything like those who drank coffee after coffee in the living room of our apartment. Brent. What the hell kind of Israeli name is that? My dad’s words from the night before play back in my head: You never see it coming, Gwen.

  Somehow I finish the shift. Somehow I manage to keep my wits about me. For only a brief moment, I consider abandoning the restaurant and rushing home. But I know that if it’s all an American trap, then they’re already there, waiting for me to do just that.

  At one a.m., I make an excuse to Mariela and follow the last customers out the door. The heat of the day has given way to a warm, humid night, but I find myself shivering nonetheless. I walk along Piedras, each block edging a little farther away from the tourist-friendly barrio near the port. Loud music from the bars here, stray dogs and drunken men and hookers on the street. I reach the corner of Piedras and Bartolomé Mitre early and look around for the man from the restaurant whose card says his name is Brent.

  There’s a travel agency on the corner, with metal shutters over the doors and windows rolled down for the night, and it’s here I decide to wait for him. The nightclub across the street is thrumming with house music, and the windows pulse with pink and yellow light. A dark-haired guy of about forty, in jeans and untucked white shirt, lurches out of a bar. He spots me instantly and staggers across the street. A delivery truck slams on its brakes and honks furiously.

  “Chica,” he leers, adopting a cocky swagger. “You looking for a date?” His Spanish is lispy, European.

  I look at him with narrowed eyes. Depends on what’s in your pockets. “Already got one tonight,” I say.

  Brent appears from around the corner, spots the man, and smiles at me. “Darling! There you are.”

  The man in the white shirt looks Brent over, chest out, another peacock entering his territory.

  “Picking up my daughter,” Brent says to him. “Thanks for keeping her safe.”

  Eventually, a slow nod from the man, accepting Brent’s line, even if he doesn’t believe it. We both watch as he stumbles away, and only when he’s gone does Brent speak. “Do you know if there’s a good beach nearby?” he says.

 
; I look at him blankly.

  Brent sighs. “To which you say, ‘There’s a good beach down the coast, but you have to take the train.’”

  It’s called a parol, an agreed-upon way of establishing a stranger’s identity. “No one told me,” I say. “Sorry.”

  “You’re supposed to check the e-mail account every day,” he says. “That’s why it’s there.”

  “It’s—you’re right. Sorry.”

  He gestures down the street and the two of us walk side by side. His eyes are always moving, every pedestrian checked out, every shop window glanced at, looking for tails.

  “The Americans would have sent a helicopter full of SEALs,” he says. “But still. You can’t let down your guard. You have no idea who I am.”

  “I’ll check my e-mail. Promise.”

  We stop next to a little Ford sedan parked at the curb. The alarm chirps as he unlocks it with a remote. “You ride up front,” he says. “Where I can see you.”

  * * *

  The fear comes and goes in less than a second, the usual warnings about strange cars, strange guys, and dark streets. But this is normal in the world I’ve lived in for the last few years, so I climb into the passenger seat as Brent settles behind the wheel.

  “If that guy in the white shirt got grabby, what was your plan?” he says as he starts the engine.

  “Knee strike. I usually start with that,” I say.

  “Knee strike. Always a good call,” he says, putting the car in gear and pulling out into the traffic. “I guess step one is complete. Establish rapport over our shared love of knee strikes.”

  “Step two,” I say. “Telling me what this is about.”

  “It’s just a meeting,” he says. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. Someone just wants to have a chat.”

  “So they send a cultural attaché?”

  He looks at me like I should know better. And I do. The title is practically a cliché in the diplomatic world for an intelligence officer working under official cover.