The Accidental Anarchist (37 page)

I gave two of their clerks a detailed description of Pyavka, and asked for paper to write a note assuring him that it was safe to go with these men. It read, “A miracle has happened! We are saved!”

While waiting for Pyavka, I listened open-mouthed as Vasya and his wife discussed, with some heat, which of their twenty-odd guest-rooms was to be mine. Vasya tended to favor the large one at the rear overlooking the gardens, while Zofia demanded that I have a room closer to theirs. I tried to pay attention, all the while fighting the urge to fall onto the carpet and go to sleep.

But Vasya was not done with me yet. While Madame left to supervise my accommodations, my old friend unlocked a drafty passage to the adjoining building where he wastefully turned on the electric lights for all five floors. Our steps echoed across a vast, empty department store. “Are we allowed to be here?” I blurted out.

Vasya smiled and patted my arm. The manager came running. His nose couldn’t help showing some reservations at the way I smelled. Especially when Vasya, without bothering to introduce me, instructed him to act as my personal fitter. My old friend and I strolled up and down the aisles, arms linked, followed by the flustered manager with a tape measure snaked over his shoulders.

At every other counter, Vasya stopped and ordered me to “buy” this or that item of clothing. I was too tired and too drunk to make choices. Impatient with my “indecisiveness,” not to mention my provincial ignorance of the latest styles, Vasya unlocked a cash drawer and, to his manager’s mute horror, snatched out a fistful of paper rubles that, uncounted, he stuffed into one of my ragged pockets.

I did my best to resist. For him to repay my loan there was plenty of time. Or so I hoped. And if I let him give me what may be far more than 50 rubles, would I not be guilty of accepting interest, which was against the
Talmud
’s law pertaining to loaning money?

Before I could explain this to my generous but unlearned friend, he hauled me upstairs to a department that sold custom-fitted suits while his poor manager groped for some clue as to who I was or what sort of demonic power I held over his master. Made to kneel down and take my measurements, he started to fit me for a fine suit of heavy tweed woven in Łódź.

By now my head had turned to stone; I wanted only to put it down somewhere before it fell off. Next Vasya loaded my arms with silk shirts, a stack of warm underwear, a sable hat with earflaps, and an assortment of shoes ranging from heavy boots to delicate pumps, all without bothering to see if they fit. And since I could not go around in rags until my tailored suits were ready, he made me take one off the rack, which cost far less than the others and which, though I was too intimidated to admit it, I liked best of all.

In all this irresistible generosity, I saw one of Vasya’s less attractive qualities – the impatience of a rich boy accustomed to having his way. Which might have been why some resentful clerk in the Army had shoved him into the “Convicts’ Company” in the first place.

A barber came to unearth my true face. When I saw myself, I was not surprised to find that, over the past six months, I had grown to look less like the son of Shloime Zalman Marateck and more like a common hooligan or gangster. But at least now I looked like a respectable gangster. Once I needed no longer to fear the police, maybe my face would lose its hunted look and I would again resemble the ignorant boy who, once upon a time, had set out for Warsaw to take on the world.

It was near two o’clock in the morning when lights began to be switched off. While my limbs had turned to lead, my heart rattled with the fear that, on account of my earlier laziness, Pyavka may have been arrested and sent Heaven-only-knows where.

Just before three o’clock in the morning, a coach clattered over the cobbled driveway under our window. I was about to run downstairs, but Vasya held me back. “Wait. . .See if he will recognize you.” It was not the kindest thing one could do to a terrified friend at three in the morning, but Vasya was giving the orders and, to be frank, I was also curious to see my partner’s reaction.

Moments later, Pyavka, flanked by the two servants, was marched into the office. His face was ashen with terror. He clearly believed himself to be in some sort of government building. After all, who else but the police would be working this late at night?

Vasya came around the desk and offered his hand. Pyavka remained frightened and mistrustful. He glanced for a moment in my direction but didn’t really see me. He finally blustered, “Where is the man who wrote this note? What have you done to my friend?”

I felt touched and remorseful. Here he was in a state of mortal fear, and yet his first thought was for me!

“Fool, don’t you recognize me?” I said in Yiddish. At the sound of my familiar voice, he lurched toward me, clutching my arm as though to make sure I was real.

Still out of breath, the messengers told Vasya what a time they had had locating my friend. And even more, persuading him that my extravagant message was neither a police trap, nor something I had written in a fit of madness.

Drawing me aside, Pyavka nodded toward my old comrade and asked, “Who is this
Vanya
?”

Before I could explain, the ‘
Vanya
’ tugged me in the opposite direction and wanted know to how I came to be friends with this peculiar creature. I suppose he had forgotten, or not taken seriously, my disclosure of my partner’s criminal past. So, without lowering my voice, I told our host that Pyavka stemmed from a distinguished family, and that in certain quarters of Warsaw he was looked upon as a virtual “King.” Until, owing to the malice of Czarist officialdom, he had ended up a prisoner like me. All this I said while looking sternly at my comrade in silent warning not to make me regret my words.

Chapter 31: Lingering in the Lap of Luxury

From the awestruck manner in which Pyavka looked around Vasya’s home, I saw that, for all his fancy airs, he, too, had never set foot in a place of such grandeur – except maybe in total darkness, when it was probably hard to appreciate the full splendor of his surroundings.

Madame Divanovsky made her entrance in what could have been a gown made for an empress. Majestic purple velvet draped her delicate body as if the fabric had been created for her, alone, with a neckline of lace that revealed the swell of her fair-skinned bosom, upon which rested a necklace with shiny stones that could only have been diamonds. Her waist was so narrow that it seemed to invite my hands to encircle it; I quickly clasped them behind my back. If Czarina Alexandra had walked in at that moment, wearing all of her jewels, I would not have noticed her.

Madame Divanovsky extended her fingertips to Pyavka, choosing to take no note of his disgraceful appearance or intolerable odor, to both of which I had suddenly become most sensitive.

She was the soul of grace. Which made me want to gag at the practiced ease with which my thievish comrade instantly turned on the full blaze of his charm. Especially when I noted the professional way he had already begun to appraise the rings on her feather-light, white fingers and the silver carelessly on display in cabinets a child could have motivated open.

After the meal, to which we did full justice, Madame escorted us to our room. Among the wonders it contained, she pointed with special pride to a white porcelain knob in the wall, as though no one living in Warsaw had ever seen such a miraculous thing as electricity. She also referred to a braided silk rope by which we may ring for a servant at any time of the day or night, although at that moment I could not see any circumstance under which I might dare to make use of such an insolent device.

A small quarrel broke out between Madame and Divanovsky, who had pushed in behind us. Our room, he reminded her, had only recently been furnished with electric power and some of the wiring may not yet be properly “shielded.” In fact, he claimed to have heard of people who touched a naked wire and went up in smoke in an instant.

Madame scoffed at his backwardness. I could see that she was determined, after all the money it cost to install these devices, that their guests enjoy every modern convenience.

When they finally departed, Pyavka scouted the room, awestruck as a small boy in a candy store. I made a point of showing him how completely at home I felt under my old comrade’s roof. Not only did I calmly turn off the electric light but, laughing at his plea to stop playing with fire, I switched it on and off again.

Then I emptied my bulging pockets. Pyavka gaped at the mass of rubles I scattered onto the dresser. “Where did you get all this money?” he whispered as one professional to another.

“Divanovsky,” I said in my most casual tone.

Pyavka was both awed and fearful. “What if you’d been caught?”

“He gave it to me.”

My partner complimented me with a grin of disbelief. “It seems I’ve been a better teacher than I realized.”

“You think I stole it?”

“It’s not for me to judge.”

“He stuffed it into my pockets. To him, this is small change. Besides,” I added with a nonchalant shrug, “he owed me some money.”

“I’m not saying a word. But I warn you – I don’t intend to go back to prison just because an amateur like you couldn’t control himself.”

This gave me the opportunity to remind him, again, not to dare abuse my friend’s hospitality.

Pyavka sunk into his feather bed like an angel floating on cotton-wool clouds, and smiled at my stern warning. “After all we’ve been through,” he said with a pained shake of his head, “how little you know me.”

I chose, for the moment, to take this as reassurance. But then I caught a glimpse of his face and, even in the darkness, I could swear he was winking.

In the bright glare of morning, agitated hands interrupted my sleep. Pyavka’s face hovered over me, white with indignation. “They’ve stolen our clothes!”

I sat up, startled, and looked around. There was no sign of them, nor of the rags that we had left on the floor.

Still rubbing my lids, I climbed out of bed. The giant wardrobe was locked. Before Pyavka could find a bent nail with which to exercise his skills, I spotted the key on the dresser.

Not only were all my new acquisitions neatly arranged on hangers and shelves, but the very shreds and tatters in which my partner and I had arrived had been lovingly washed and folded. Even my dismembered shoes had been shined to a military gloss.

Pyavka tugged at my arm. He was so agitated that the only words he could spit out were, “The money!”

I opened a drawer. As far as I could tell, everything was there.

A servant knocked, and entered with our breakfast tray, leaving Pyavka barely time enough to slam the drawer with our money and disguise the shocked look on his face.

About to butter a chunk of, bread, I noticed an envelope addressed to me wedged between two crystal jars of marmalade. In careless penmanship on crisp white paper, my old comrade apologized for not being present to greet us when we awoke, but he had had an urgent call from the office. Madame, also, would not be home before evening. Until then, his servants were at our disposal. But he ordered us not to leave the house for reasons he did not need to explain.

To my great shame, it was not until my third or fourth day of wallowing in the Divanovksys’ hospitality that I thought to ask how to send a telegram to my parents to let them know I was alive.

Vasya’s cheeks flushed dangerously. “That is quite impossible. And I warn you not to try it behind my back.”

It took some minutes before my anger at being forbidden from doing something subsided, and I recognized that he was right. What better place than the telegraph office for the authorities to post a list of wanted men?

But the very next day, Vasya apologized for his outburst and assured me that my friend and I would shortly be furnished with forged documents. Then I would be allowed to send a cryptic wire to my married sister, Malkah, who was certain to recognize the childish nicknames I used for us both.

This brought up another matter weighing on Pyavka’s mind: Divanovsky’s “unaccountable” kindness and generosity. What normal human being, and a rich man in particular, behaved the way he did? Unless. . .” His eyes narrowed with foreboding.

“Unless what?”

“There is something he wants.”

I could barely keep from laughing in his face. “What could he possibly ask for that I wouldn’t gladly give him a hundred times over?”

A gloomy expression overcame Pyavka’s face, and he shook his large head. “I look at your trusting face, my friend, and I fear for you.”

His earnestness was so preposterous that I could only shrug. Yet, when I next looked at my hosts, so open-handed and yet so self-important, I could not help wondering, for an unkind fraction of a second, what they could possibly want.

Other than making stealthy forays to the toilet, our only dealings with the servants was receiving, as humbly as prisoners, the crowded silver tray that carried our lunch. It held more food than either of us had eaten in four weeks, and Pyavka consumed his share with such speed that he was shortly writhing with cramps. Which did not stop him from examining the tray and pronouncing to be it pure silver.

More days passed in idleness like this before I got a moment alone with Vasya and had a chance to ask about our promised passports and travel permits.