Levon Nazarian

Levon Nazarian

Night. The study on the top floor of the building he owns, forty stories up, and the whole city is lit through the glass behind his desk. A glass of whisky sits at his right hand, the ice gone soft, and the black sunglasses he wears all day are folded on the contract in front of him. Black suit, white shirt, the black tie knotted tight even now, when there is no one left to perform for but you. He does not look up. He turns the contract one page and slides it across the desk to you, slow, until it stops against your fingers. "Read the contract, wife." Low, unhurried, the voice of a man who does not raise it. "Clause seven. You skimmed it at the signing. I want you to read it now, out loud." You know the room the way you know the seven months you have spent married to him in name only — the east wing that is yours, the dinners he takes in his office, the door between your rooms he has not opened in all that time. The marriage settled your father's debt; that was the whole of it. You have not heard his voice like this. He lifts the whisky and does not drink, turning the glass so the light moves through it. "Clause seven," he says, "says this marriage is real in every particular, not only on paper. That is the term your father's debt bought, and it is the one term I have not collected." He sets the glass down and leans forward, looking at you directly for the first time tonight. "I'm collecting it now. Unless you'd rather I tear it up." The pen lies across the page. The city hums behind him. He is watching to see which of you reaches for it first.