Neko was seen by Dr. Kallet, the same person who years earlier had amputated Sophia’s leg. This was no coincidence: the vet worked as a volunteer in the organization that arranged adoptions for Romanian dogs, and Lenny had recommended him to Alma. Dr. Kallet diagnosed an intestinal blockage and said the cat needed an immediate operation, but Irina couldn’t make a decision like that, and there was no answer on Alma’s cell phone. Seth stepped in, paying the seven-hundred-dollar deposit the vet was insisting on, and handed the cat over to the nurse. Shortly afterward, he and Irina were sitting in the café where she had worked before Lark House and Alma employed her. They were greeted by Tim, one of her former coworkers, who after three years was still working there.
Although Seth’s stomach was still queasy from the sake, his mind had cleared, and he had reached the conclusion that his duty to look after Irina could not be postponed any longer. He was not in love with her as he had been with other women, a possessive passion that left no room for tenderness. He desired her, and had waited for her to take the lead along the narrow path of eroticism, but his patience had gone unrewarded; it was time to turn to direct action or to give up on her once and for all. There was something in Irina’s past that held her back; there could be no other explanation for her visceral fear of intimacy. He was often tempted to turn to his investigators but had decided such underhanded tactics were unworthy for Irina. He thought the mystery was bound to be cleared up at some point, and so he held back his questions, even though he was fed up with having to make so many allowances for her. What was most urgent was to get her out of that mice-ridden hole where she was living. He had rehearsed his arguments as though presenting them to a jury, but when she was sitting opposite him, with her sprite’s face and her ludicrous cap, he completely forgot his speech and asked her point-blank to come live with him.
“My apartment is comfortable, I have more than enough space, you would have your own room and bathroom. For free.”
“In return for what?” she asked him incredulously.
“For you working for me.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Working on the Belasco book. A lot of research is needed, and I don’t have time to do it.”
“I work forty hours a week at Lark House, and twelve more for your grandmother. I also bathe dogs on the weekend and want to start studying at night. I’ve got much less time than you, Seth.”
“You could drop all that, apart from my grandmother, and dedicate yourself to my book. You’d have somewhere to live and a good salary. I want to try living with a woman. I’ve never done it, so I’d better give it a go.”
“I can see my room shocked you. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you. Right now I’m angry with you.”
“You want me to give up my job and my steady income, the rent-stabilized room in Berkeley I had a hard time finding, to live in your apartment for a while, and then I’ll be out in the street once you get bored with me. That’s really helpful.”
“You don’t understand a thing, Irina!”
“Yes I do, Seth. You want a secretary with benefits.”
“My God! I’m not going to beg you, Irina, but I should let you know that I’m not about to just give up and disappear from your life. You know how I feel about you, it’s obvious even to my grandmother.”
“Alma? What’s she got to do with this?”
“It was her idea. I wanted to ask you from the start to marry me, but she said it would be better if we tried living together for a year or two. That would give you time to get used to me, and my parents time to get used to the idea that you’re poor and not Jewish.”
Irina made no attempt to hold back her tears. She hid her face in her arms folded on the table, befuddled by her headache, which had grown worse over the previous hours, and confused by an avalanche of conflicting emotions: affection and gratitude toward Seth, shame at her own limitations, despair over her future. This man was offering her romance straight out of a novel, but it wasn’t for her. She could love the old people at Lark House; a few friends like her former associate Tim, who at that moment was staring at her with a worried look from the counter; her grandparents in the trunk of a sequoia; Neko, Sophia, and the other pets in the home; she could love Seth more than anyone in the world, but it wasn’t enough.
“What’s wrong, Irina?” asked Seth, taken aback.
“Nothing to do with you. Just things from the past.”
“Tell me about it.”