The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt Page 0,328

Shirley and Gyuri that they are buying the dinner tonight. With—” Gyuri triumphantly hoisting the bag.

Then—a pause. Gyuri looked troubled. He said something to Shirley Temple, and Shirley—laughing at him, deep peachy dimples—waved him off, waved off the bag that Gyuri tried to offer, and rolled his eyes when Gyuri offered it again.

“Ne syeiychas,” said Victor Cherry irritably. “Not now. Divide it later.”

“Please,” said Gyuri, offering the bag one more time.

“Oh, come on. Divide it later or we’ll be here all night.”

Ya khochu chto-by Shirli prinyala eto, said Gyuri, a sentence so plain and so earnestly enunciated that even I, with my lousy Russki, understood it. I want that Shirley takes it.

“No way!” said Shirley, in English, and—unable to resist—darted a glance at me to make sure I’d heard him say it, like a kid proud of knowing the answer in school.

“Come on.” Boris—hands on hips—looked aside in exasperation. “Does it matter who carries in their car? One of you is going to make off with it? No. We are all friends here. What will you do?” he said, when neither of them made a move. “Leave it on the floor for Dima to find? One of you decide please.”

There was a long silence. Shirley, standing with arms folded, shook his head firmly at Gyuri’s repeated insistence and then, with a worried look, asked Boris a question.

“Yes, yes, fine with me,” said Boris impatiently. “Go ahead,” he said to Gyuri. “You three go together.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am positive. You have worked enough for tonight.”

“You’ll manage?”

“No,” said Boris, “we will two of us walk! of course, of course,” he said, shushing Gyuri’s objection, “we can manage, go on,” and we were all laughing as Vitya and Shirley and Gyuri too waved us goodbye (Davaye!) and hopped in the Range Rover and drove away, up the ramp and out to the Overtoom again.

xii.

“AH, WHAT A NIGHT,” said Boris, scratching his stomach. “Starving! Let’s get out of here. Although—” he glanced back, knotted brow, at the Range Rover driving off—“well, no matter. We will be fine. Short hop. Blake’s is easy walk from your hotel. And you,” he said to me, nodding—“careless! You should tie that thing up again! Don’t just carry it wrapped with no string.”

“Right,” I said, “right,” and I circled to the front of the car so I could rest it on the hood while I fumbled for the baker’s twine in my pocket.

“May I see?” said Boris, coming up behind me.

I drew back the felt, and the two of us stood awkwardly for a moment like a pair of minor Flemish noblemen hovering at the margin of a nativity painting.

“Lot of trouble—” Boris lit a cigarette, blew the smoke in a sidestream away from the picture—“but worth it, yes?”

“Yes,” I said. Our voices were joking but subdued, like boys uneasy in church.

“I had it longer than anyone,” said Boris. “If you count the days.” And then, in a different tone: “Remember—if you feel like, I can always arrange something for money. Only one deal, and you could retire.”

But I only shook my head. I couldn’t have put into words what I felt, though it was something deep and primary that Welty had shared with me, and I with him, in the museum all those years ago.

“Was just kidding. Well—sort of. But no, seriously,” he said, rubbing his knuckles on my sleeve, “is yours. Free and clear. Why don’t you keep for a while and enjoy, before you return to museum people?”

I was silent. I was already wondering how exactly I was going to get it out of the country.

“Go on, wrap it up. We need to get out of here. Look at it later all you want. Oh, give it here,” he said, snatching the string from my clumsy hands; I was still fumbling, trying to find the ends—“come on, let me do it, we’ll be here all night.”

xiii.

THE PAINTING WAS WRAPPED and tied, and Boris had tucked it under his arm and—taking a last draw on his cigarette—had stepped around to the driver’s side and was about to get in the car when, behind us, a casual and friendly-sounding American voice said, “Merry Christmas.”

I turned. There were three of them, two lazy-walking middle-aged men drifting along a bit bemusedly with the air of having come to do us a favor—it was Boris they were addressing, not me, they seemed glad to see him—and, skittering slightly in front of them, the Asian boy. His white coat was not a