The Price I Was Not Supposed to Learn

Selma trusted me because I knew several antique dealers. She owned a large porcelain vase passed down through her family, but her small apartment had no space for objects that had to be carefully walked around. She did not know its value or claim she was selling treasure. She asked me to contact someone who might buy it. I said I would gladly help.

The dealer to whom I sent a photograph immediately requested to see the vase. After examining it, he offered far more than I expected. The amount was large enough to cover my credit-card debt. I passed a lower offer to Selma. I justified the difference through supposed brokerage, transport, and cleaning costs, although nobody had requested such charges.

She accepted without bargaining. She hugged me and brought cakes to thank me for my effort. My husband Adis looked at the money on the table and asked why she was giving me so much for a favor. I said it was an agreed commission. I had not only lied to my friend. I also wanted the man living with me to believe I had earned that sum honestly.

A month later Selma entered the shop to buy a small present for her aunt. The vase stood in the window. She was not surprised that it was being resold, but by the dealer's passing remark about the amount he had paid. She called me from outside the shop. I could hear traffic and something in her silence that frightened me more than shouting. She asked only whether I had conveyed the whole offer.

First I said it was not that simple. Then I heard my own voice, the same voice I normally used to criticize people who took what belonged to others and gave it a respectable name. I admitted it. Selma did not ask for the vase back. She requested the difference and told me not to arrive with cakes or a long explanation. I wrote down the sum I had known by heart since first concealing it.

I repaid the money from my own savings. Adis learned everything and did not offer to soften the debt through our shared account. Selma confirmed the final payment in one short message. Afterwards she stopped responding to ordinary things I sent as though friendship might begin working again before noticing the damage. Later I saw the vase in the window once more. I no longer wondered what it was worth. I wondered how cheaply I had valued something that had never been for sale.