Winter of the World

Standing in front of her was Dave Rouzrokh, with twin scratches down his aristocratic cheek, presumably caused by Jacky’s pink-varnished nails. There was blood on the broad lapel of Dave’s double-breasted white jacket.

Jacky screamed: ‘Get him away from me!’

Greg swung a fist. Dave was an inch taller, but he was an old man, and Greg was an athletic teenager. The blow connected with Dave’s chin – more by luck than by judgement – and Dave staggered back then fell to the floor.

The room door opened.

The broad-shouldered hotel employee Greg had seen earlier came in. He must have a master key, Greg thought. ‘I’m Tom Cranmer, house detective,’ the man said. ‘What’s going on here?’

Greg said: ‘I heard her scream and came in to find him here.’

Jacky said: ‘He tried to rape me!’

Dave struggled to his feet. ‘That’s not true,’ he said. ‘I was asked to come to this room for a meeting with Sol Starr.’

Jacky began to sob. ‘Oh, now he’s going to lie about it!’

Cranmer said: ‘Put something on, please, miss.’

Jacky put on her pink bathrobe.

The detective picked up the room phone, dialled a number, and said: ‘There’s usually a cop on the corner. Get him into the lobby, right now.’

Dave was staring at Greg. ‘You’re Peshkov’s bastard, aren’t you?’

Greg was about to hit him again.

Dave said: ‘Oh, my God, this is a set-up.’

Greg was thrown by this remark. He felt intuitively that Dave was telling the truth. He dropped his fist. This whole scene must have been scripted by Lev, he realized. Dave Rouzrokh was no rapist. Jacky was faking. And Greg himself was just an actor in the movie. He felt dazed.

‘Please come with me, sir,’ said Cranmer, taking Dave firmly by the arm. ‘You two as well.’

‘You can’t arrest me,’ said Dave.

‘Yes, sir, I can,’ said Cranmer. ‘And I’m going to hand you over to a police officer.’

Greg said to Jacky: ‘Do you want to get dressed?’

She shook her head quickly and decisively. Greg realized it was part of the plan that she would appear in her robe.

He took Jacky’s arm and they followed Cranmer and Dave along the corridor and into the elevator. A cop was waiting in the lobby. Both he and the hotel detective must be in on the plot, Greg surmised.

Cranmer said: ‘I heard a scream from her room, found the old guy in there. She says he tried to rape her. The kid is a witness.’

Dave looked bewildered, as if he thought this might be a bad dream. Greg found himself feeling sorry for Dave. He had been cruelly trapped. Lev was more pitiless than Greg had imagined. Half of him admired his father; the other half wondered if such ruthlessness was really necessary.

The cop snapped handcuffs on Dave and said: ‘All right, let’s go.’

‘Go where?’ Dave said.

‘Downtown,’ said the cop.

Greg said: ‘Do we all have to go?’

‘Yeah.’

Cranmer spoke to Greg in a low voice. ‘Don’t worry, son,’ he said. ‘You did a great job. We’ll go to the precinct house and make our statements, and after that you can fuck her from here to Christmastime.’

The cop led Dave to the door, and the others followed.

As they stepped outside, a photographer popped a flashgun.

(vii)

Woody Dewar got a copy of Freud’s Studies in Hysteria mailed to him by a bookseller in New York. On the night of the Yacht Club Ball – the climactic social event of the summer season in Buffalo – he wrapped it neatly in brown paper and tied a red ribbon around it. ‘Chocolates for a lucky girl?’ said his mother, passing him in the hall. She had only one eye but she saw everything.

‘A book,’ he said. ‘For Joanne Rouzrokh.’

‘She won’t be at the ball.’

‘I know.’

Mama stopped and gave him a searching look. After a moment she said: ‘You’re serious about her.’

‘I guess. But she thinks I’m too young.’

‘Her pride is probably involved. Her friends would ask why she can’t find a guy her own age to go out with. Girls are cruel like that.’

‘I’m planning to persist until she grows more mature.’

Mama smiled. ‘I bet you make her laugh.’

‘I do. It’s the best card I hold.’

‘Well, heck, I waited long enough for your father.’

‘Did you?’

‘I loved him from the first time I met him. I pined for years. I had to watch him fall for that shallow cow Olga Vyalov, who wasn’t worthy of him but had two working eyes. Thank God she got knocked up by her chauffeur.’ Mama’s language could be a little coarse, especially when Grandmama was not around. She had picked up bad habits during the years she spent working on newspapers. ‘Then he went off to war. I had to follow him to France before I could nail his foot to the goddamn floor.’

Nostalgia was mixed with pain in her reminiscence, Woody could tell. ‘But he realized you were the right girl for him.’

‘In the end, yes.’

‘Maybe that’ll happen to me.’

Mama kissed him. ‘Good luck, my son,’ she said.