The Goldfinch(325)
Money in stacks. Outside the event. Crisp in the hand. There was some kind of obvious content or emotion to the whole thing I wasn’t getting.
“As I say—fraction of. Two million euro. In dollars much much more. So—merry Christmas! My gift to you! I can open you an account in Switzerland for the rest of it and give you a bank book and that way—what?” he said, recoiling almost, when I put the stack of bills in the bag, snapped it shut, and shoved it back at him. “No! It’s yours!”
“I don’t want it.”
“I don’t think you understand! Let me explain, please.”
“I said I don’t want it.”
“Potter—” folding his arms and looking at me coldly, the same look he’d given me in the Polack bar—“a different man would walk out laughing now and never come back.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“I—” looking around the room, as if at a loss for a reason why—“I will tell you why not! For old times’ sake. Even though you treat me like a criminal. And because I want to make things up to you—”
“Make what up?”
“Sorry?”
“What, exactly? Will you explain it to me? Where the hell did this money come from? How does this fix a fucking thing?”
“Well, actually, you should not be so quick to jump to—”
“I don’t care about the money!” I was half-screaming. “I care about the painting! Where’s the painting?”
“If you would just wait a second and not fly off the—”
“What’s this money for? Where’s it from? From what source, exactly? Bill Gates? Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy?”
“Please. You are like your dad with the drama.”
“Where is it? What’d you do with it? It’s gone, isn’t it? Traded? Sold?”
“No, of course I—hey—” scraping his chair back hastily—“Jesus, Potter, calm down. Of course I didn’t sell it. Why would I do any such?”
“I don’t know! How should I know? What was all this for? What was the point of any of this? Why did I even come here with you? Why’d you have to drag me into it? You thought you’d bring me over here to help you kill people? Is that it?”
“I’ve never killed anybody in my life,” said Boris haughtily.
“Oh, God. Did you just say that? Am I supposed to laugh? Did I really just hear you say you never—”
“That was self defense. You know it. I do not go around hurting people for the fun of it but I will protect myself if I have to. And you,” he said, talking imperiously over me, “with Martin, apart from the fact I would not be here now and most likely you neither—”
“Will you do me a favor? If you won’t shut up? Will you maybe go over there and stand for a minute? Because I really don’t want to see you or look at you now.”
“—with Martin the police, if they knew, they would give you a medal and so would many others, innocent, not now living, thanks to him. Martin was—”
“Or, actually, you could leave. That’s probably better.”
“Martin was a devil. Not all human. Not all his fault. He was born that way. No feelings, you know? I have known Martin to do much worse things to people than shooting them. Not to us,” he said, hastily, waving his hand, as if this were the point of all misunderstanding. “Us, he would have shot out of courtesy, and none of his other badness and evil. But—was Martin a good man? A proper human being? No. He was not. Frits was no flower, either. So—this remorse and pain of yours—you must view it in a different light. You must view it as heroism in service of higher good. You cannot always take such a dark perspective of life all the time, you know, it is very bad for you.”
“Can I ask you just one thing?”
“Anything.”
“Where’s the painting?”
“Look—” Boris sighed, and looked away. “This was the best I could do. I know how much you wanted it. I did not think you would be quite so upset not to have it.”
“Can you just tell me where it is?”
“Potter—” hand on heart—“I’m sorry you are so angry. I was not expecting this. But you said you weren’t going to keep it anyway. You were going to give it back. Isn’t that what you said?” he added when I kept on staring at him.
“How the hell is this the right thing?”
“Well, I’ll tell you! If you would shut up and let me talk! Instead of ranting back and forth and frothing at mouth and spoiling our Christmas!”