Vohannes watches a candle flame slowly waltz on its taper.
“I’ve seen it before,” says Shara. “I’ve lost sources before this way before. I use people, Vo. That’s what I do now. It is not pretty. It has many consequences. And … And if you offer me this material again, I will take it, because I’d have to. But I want you to really think about what could happen to you if you hand over that suitcase.”
Vohannes fixes his bright blue eyes on her. They must still be, she imagines, the same blue as when he was an infant.
“Come work for me,” he says suddenly.
“What?”
“You seem unhappy where you are.” He stabs a snail and blows on it. Droplets of butter rain on the tablecloth. “Come work for me. It’d be a change of pace. We’re not the old guard. None of my companies are. We’re doing big new things. And also I can pay you perfectly despicable amounts of money.”
Shara stares at him, disbelieving, and laughs. “You’re not serious.”
“I am gravely serious. Serious as death itself.”
“I am … I am not going to work for you, Vo.”
“Then hells, take over.” He glugs wine, eats another snail. “It’s all just a headache for me. Run my businesses. Direct my money. I’ll just sit around, getting elected and, I don’t know, sitting on parade floats or some such.”
Shara puts her face in her hands, laughing.
“What are you laughing about?” He gallantly tries to keep sounding serious, but his smile betrays him. “What. I’m serious here. Come be with me.” The smile fades. “Come live with me.”
Shara stops laughing. She winces, groans. “Oh, Vo. Why.”
“Why what?”
“Why did you have to say that?”
“I meant … Oh, come now, I meant live in Bulikov.”
“It didn’t sound like it. And … And that’s exactly what you asked me when you graduated.”
Vohannes, sheepish, looks at the Saypuri guards. “Could you, ah, gentlemen please excuse us for a moment?”
The guards shrug and take up stations outside the backroom door.
“That … Shara, that obviously is not what I meant,” says Vohannes. He laughs desperately.
“Is this why you invited me here? For fine dining and propositions?”
“This is not fine dining. I can only taste tobacco, for the gods’ sakes. …”
Silence. A throaty laugh from the next room contorts into emphysematous coughing.
“Bringing me back won’t make us happy,” says Shara.
Vohannes, stung, sits back in his chair and stares into his glass.
“I’m not who I was,” she says, “and you aren’t who you were.”
“Why must everything be so awkward,” he says, sulky.
“You’re engaged.”
“Oh, yes, engaged.” He raises his hands, drops them: And what does that mean? “We’re a very merry couple. We carouse a lot. Make the papers.”
“But you don’t love her?”
“Some people need love in their lives. Others, not so much. It’s like buying a house: ‘Do you want a central fireplace? Do you want windows in your bedroom? Do you want love?’ It’s not part of my necessary package.”
“I don’t think that’s true of you.”
“Well, it’s not like I have a choice,” he snarls. “Have … Have you seen those men in the booths when you walked in? Can you imagine what they would … ?” Again, he fights for composure. “I’m dirtier than you know, Shara.”
“You don’t know dirty.”
“You don’t know me.” He stares at her. His cheeks tremble. One tear quivers at the inner corner of his right eye. “I can give you Wiclov. He deserves it. Take him. Take him and burn him.”
“I’m sad to see you so happy to persecute Kolkashtanis.”
He laughs blackly. “Don’t they deserve it? I mean, my own damn family … You want to talk about persecution, why don’t you talk to the people who did so with zeal for hundreds of years, even without their damn”—he glances around, lowers his voice—“god?”
“Aren’t they still your people, the very ones you want to help? Do you really want to reform Bulikov, Vo, or burn it to the ground?”
Vohannes is so struck by this he cannot speak for a moment.
“Your family was Kolkashtani?” asks Shara quietly.
He nods.