Revenge Read Free Page A

time.”
    She was wearing a blouse with a floral pattern and a skirt of some soft material. The collar and cuffs of the blouse were neatly ironed. She looked older in these clothes than she did in her school uniform.
    She was an inconspicuous girl, perhaps the quietest in our grade. She almost never spoke in class, and when asked to stand up and translate a passage from English, or to solve a math problem on the board, she did it as discreetly as possible, without fuss. She had no friends to speak of, belonged to no clubs, and she ate her lunch in a corner by herself.
    Still, no one bullied her or treated her like an outcast. She wasn’t disagreeable, just easy to ignore. You could even say her silence suited her. The pale skin, the long, straight hair, the shadows under her eyes when she bowed her head—it all lent her a kind of tranquillity that I think we didn’t want to disturb.
    But when someone did take notice of her, it seemed she was always apologizing for it—I suppose “apologetic” might be the best word to describe her. “I’m sorry, please ignore me…” You could almost hear her murmur the words, like an incantation, a way of conjuring a still place for herself.
    “Are you meeting him for the first time today?” I asked, glancing down at the business card in her hand.
    “Yes.”
    “He never came to see you, even when you were little?”
    “Never,” she said, shaking her head.
    She was so close to me I wondered if she could feel my breath. The card trembled in her hand.
    *   *   *
    A waiter led us into a private room at the back of the restaurant, where the man was already seated at a table too large for three, sipping a garish red cocktail. For some reason I had assumed he would be accompanied by a secretary or a bodyguard, but he was alone.
    A chandelier hung from the ceiling and flowers had been arranged around the room. The silverware gleamed, the tablecloth was blindingly white.
    They barely greeted each other, exchanging little more than vague, meaningless grunts. She sat down without introducing me, and I realized the moment for such formalities had already passed.
    Sitting with her back straight, she studied the menu from top to bottom, though she seemed to have little interest in selecting something to eat. This went on for a while. “Order whatever you like,” the man repeated several times, just to break the unbearable tension, but she was intent to make him stew in silence. I ran my finger along the edge of the elaborately folded napkin.
    “Is there anything you don’t like to eat?” he asked.
    “No,” we said at nearly the same time.
    He ordered a great deal of food, speaking so quickly that the waiter could barely keep up. Clearly he was accustomed to giving orders. The dishes arrived one after another and we made short work of them, our chewing and swallowing the only sound in the room. The man downed another drink.
    He was short and solidly built, but he looked older than he did on television. His hair was thinning and the skin on his neck sagged. There were liver spots on his face and hands.
    I would have expected a man of his power and position to be more arrogant or condescending, but his daughter had fully succeeded in making him uncomfortable. He groped for topics of conversation and was disconcerted when nothing succeeded in coaxing a response.
    “What’s your favorite subject in school?” he said. It was the kind of question you asked a child, and it occurred to me that there were more important topics he might have broached—her mother’s condition, their economic difficulties, perhaps the apology he owed them. I began to worry that my presence was inhibiting him, making things complicated.
    “Classics,” she said, setting down her knife and fork and wiping her mouth with her napkin. “And English … and music. I guess music is my favorite.”
    “Music, is it? That’s fine. How about you?” he asked me.
    I blurted out “Biology” for lack of