The Fixer (14 page)
Authors: Bernard Malamud
“Let her go on with the story,” Grubeshov said to Bibikov. “If necessary you can ask questions later.”
The Investigating Magistrate nodded to his colleague. “I assure you it's necessary enough, Vladislav Grigorievitch, but as you please, I'll ask later. As for what else may be necessary, or even not so necessary, for instance this entire procedure during a time of investigation, I think we ought to discuss that too, at least in principle if for no other reason.”
“Tomorrow,” said Grubeshov. “We'll talk over everything tomorrow.”
“Come now to the point of the matter, Marfa Vladimirovna,” he said. “Tell us what Zhenia and Vasya Shiskovsky told you about the Jew before the fatal incident.”
Marfa had listened intently to the exchange between the men, alternating uneasiness with apparent boredom. When Bibikov was speaking she cast nervous glances around her but lowered her eyes if anyone looked at her.
“Vasya also told me what I heard Zhenia say more than onceâthat they were afraid of the Jew in the brickyard.”
“Go on, we're listening.”
“Zhenia told me that one day when he and Vasya were playing in the factory yard they saw two Jewsâit was toward nightfallâsneak through the gate and go up the stairs where this one lived.”
She glanced at the fixer, then averted her eyes. He was standing with his head bowed.
“Excuse me for interrupting,” Bibikov said to the Prosecuting Attorney, “but I would like to understand how the boys identified the two men as Jews?”
Colonel Bodyansky guffawed and Grubeshov smiled. “Easily, your honor,” Marfa said in excitement, “they were wearing Jewish clothes and had long rough beards, not nicely trimmed ones like some of the gentlemen here. Also the boys used to peek in the window and saw them praying. They wore black hats and robes. The boys were frightened and ran home here. I asked Vasya to stay for a cup of cocoa and slice of white bread with Zhenia, but he was scared sick and said he wanted to go home to his own house.”
Grubeshov listened, standing with his thumbs locked behind him. “Please go on.”
“I heard from the boys that this one here brought other Jews up in his stable. One was an old man with a black satchel that the Lord knows what they did with. Zhenia once told this one to his face that he would tell the foreman if he chased him again. âAnd if you do that I'll kill you once and for all,' said the Jew. One day Zhenia saw him running after another boy in the brickyard, a lad not eight years old from the neighborhood around here, Andriushka Khototov, whose father is a street sweeper. The boy luckily got out through the open gate, thank the Lord. Then the Jew saw my Zhenia and chased him, but my Zhenia climbed the fence and escaped that time, though he told me his heart hurt because he did not think he would get over the fence before the Jew grabbed him. One day, hiding by the kiln,
Zhenia saw two of the Jews try to catch a Russian child and drag him into the stable. But the boy was a smart one and bit, clawed, and screamed so loud they got frightened and let him go. I warned Zhenia more than once not to go back there or he might get kidnapped and killed, and he promised me he wouldn't. I think he didn't for a time, then one night he came home frightened and feverish, and when I cried out, âZhenia, what ails you, tell me quickly what happened?' he said that the Jew had chased him with a long knife in the dark among the gravestones in the cemetery. I got down on my knees to him. âZhenia Golov, in the name of the Holy Mother, promise me not to go near that evil Jew again. Don't go in that brickyard.' âYes, dear Mamenka,' he said, âI will promise.' That's what he said, but he went back in there again, anyway. Boys are boys, your honor, as you already know. God knows what draws them to danger, but if I had kept him under lock and key in this house as I sometimes did when he was a little boy he'd be alive today and not a corpse in his coffin.”
Zhenia saw two of the Jews try to catch a Russian child and drag him into the stable. But the boy was a smart one and bit, clawed, and screamed so loud they got frightened and let him go. I warned Zhenia more than once not to go back there or he might get kidnapped and killed, and he promised me he wouldn't. I think he didn't for a time, then one night he came home frightened and feverish, and when I cried out, âZhenia, what ails you, tell me quickly what happened?' he said that the Jew had chased him with a long knife in the dark among the gravestones in the cemetery. I got down on my knees to him. âZhenia Golov, in the name of the Holy Mother, promise me not to go near that evil Jew again. Don't go in that brickyard.' âYes, dear Mamenka,' he said, âI will promise.' That's what he said, but he went back in there again, anyway. Boys are boys, your honor, as you already know. God knows what draws them to danger, but if I had kept him under lock and key in this house as I sometimes did when he was a little boy he'd be alive today and not a corpse in his coffin.”
She fervently crossed herself.
“Marfa Vladimirovna, please tell us what else you were told by the two boys,” Grubeshov said to her.
“I was told they had seen a bottle of blood on the Jew's table.”
The army general gasped and the officials looked at each other in horror. Yakov stared whitely at Marfa, his lips working in agitation. “There was no bottle of blood on my table,” he cried out. “If there was anything it was a jar of strawberry jam. Jam is not blood. Blood is not jam.”
“Be quiet!” Grubeshov ordered. “We will inform you when it is your time to speak.”
One of the gendarmes pointed his revolver at Yakov.
“Put that foolish gun away,” Bibikov said. “The man is chained and manacled.”
“Did you personally see âthe bottle of blood'?” he asked Marfa.
“No, but both of the boys did, and they told me about it. They could hardly talk. Their faces were green.”
“Then why didn't you report that to the police? It was your duty to, as well as the other incidents you just enumerated, as for instance the suspect chasing your son with a knife. That is a criminal act. This is a civilized society. Such things must be reported to the police.”
She answered at once: “Because I've had my fill of the police, if you won't mind me saying so, your honor, and with apologies to those of them present that never bothered me. I once complained to them that Yuri Shiskovsky, for reasons that will be kept to myself, struck me on the head with a block of wood, and all morning they kept me in the police station answering personal questions while they filled out long forms, as if I myself were the criminal and not that madman who they let go, although I had a bloody gash in my scalp, and even an idiot would know who had hit who. I can't afford to lose my time like that. I have to earn a living and that's why I didn't report what the boys told me.”
“Which is understandable enough,” said Grubeshov âturning to the general, who noddedâ“although I agree with the Investigating Magistrate that such things should be reported at once. Now finish your story, Marfa Vladimirovna.”
“I have finished, there's no more to tell.”
“In that case,” said the Prosecuting Attorney, addressing the officials, “it's best to move on.”
He pulled a thin gold watch from his yellow waistcoat pocket and consulted it closely.
“Vladislav Grigorievitch,” Bibikov said, “I must insist on my prerogative to question the witness.”
Marfa's intent gaze at him changed from fear to anger.
“What have I done to you?” she cried out.
“Neither of us has done anything to the other, that's not the point. Marfa Golov, I would like to ask you a question or two. Please, Vladislav Grigorievitch, I insist. Unfortunately, I can't go into certain things just now, but one or two questions I insist on asking and I would like them answered honestly and directly. Is it true, for instance, Marfa Golov, that you receive stolen goods from a gang of thieves, one of whom is or was your lover who often visits this house?”
“You needn't bother to answer that,” Grubeshov said, flushing. “It's irrelevant to the matter at issue.”
“I insist it is not so irrelevant, Vladislav Grigorievitch.”
“No, I don't receive such goods,” said Marfa, white-lipped, her eyes darkening. “That's a filthy rumor spread by my enemies.”
“Is that your response?”
“Of course it is.”
“Very well, then. Is it true that a year ago last January you threw the contents of a phial of carbolic acid into the eyes of your lover and blinded him for life, a man whom you have since become reconciled with?”
“Is he the one who reported me?” she asked, enraged.
“Reported you?”
“Told you these filthy lies?”
“Boris Alexandrovitch, as your superior in rank, I forbid these questions,” Grubeshov said, irritated. “If you have anything of that nature to ask, please do so in my office tomorrow morning, though I personally don't see how such irrelevancies can matter. They do not change the weight of the significant evidence. We must absolutely get on now. It's Sunday and we all have obligations to our families.”
“What is the âsignificant evidence' you refer to?”
“The evidence we have been engaged in collecting, including the evidence of history.”
“History is not law.”
“We will see about that.”
“I must insist on a reply from Marfa Golov.”
“I have no more to say than I've already said,” Marfa answered haughtily. “He used to beat me up and I defended myself. My legs and back were black and blue for months where he beat me, and once he smashed me in the eye so hard it ran pus for three weeks.”
“Is it true that he also beat your son, once so severely that the boy lost consciousness?”
“I forbid you to answer,” Grubeshov shouted.
“Don't be a fool,” Colonel Bodyansky said to Bibikov.
“The Jew killed my child,” Marfa cried out. “Somebody ought to scratch his eyes.” She ran to the window and called out of the open vent to the gravestones in the cemetery, “Zhenia, my baby, come home! Come home to your mother!”
She wept heartbrokenly.
She's insane, thought Yakov. So is her hat with the cherries.
“See how he glares at me like a starving wolf from the forest,” Marfa, turning to the fixer, shouted. “Make him stop!”
There was a stir among the officials. Two of the gendarmes pinned the prisoner by his arms.
Marfa, glaring at him, attempted then to remove her hat. Her eyelids fluttered, and moaning she sank to the floor. The hat rolled off her head, but before fainting she gazed loosely around to see where it was. Father Anastasy and Colonel Bodyansky bent to assist her.
When Marfa recovered only the police and gendarmes were in the room with her and the prisoner. Bibikov, to
Yakov's misery, had left first, and he saw him, through the window, walk down the muddy road and get into a carriage alone. The dead boy's mother asked for her hat, blew on it, and put it carefully away in a sideboard drawer.
Yakov's misery, had left first, and he saw him, through the window, walk down the muddy road and get into a carriage alone. The dead boy's mother asked for her hat, blew on it, and put it carefully away in a sideboard drawer.
She covered her head with a coarse black shawl.
Grubeshov, in his bowler and wet rain cape, hovered over Father Anastasy with a large black umbrella as the wet-lipped priest, standing on a low flat rock, his voice rising and falling sometimes out of context with what he was saying, nasally recited the blood guilt of the Jewish Nation.
The group of officials and police had abandoned the carriages and motorcar at the bottom of an inclined street paved with rocks, lined on one side by a row of blackened shanties from which people stared at them out of windows and doorways, but no one came out to watch. A flock of pigeons rose in the street and two small white dogs, barking shrilly, darted into the houses as the crowd of officials approached. On foot they climbed first up the steps of a terraced hill from which the winding Dnieper was visible in the distance, then descended into a muddy ravine, and along it to the bottom of an almost perpendicular rocky hill with some caves in its face, in one of which the body of Zhenia Golov had been found. This cave, minutely described in the newspapers Yakov had read on the day of the discovery of the boy's body, one of those cut into the hill by religious hermits centuries ago, was about fifteen feet up its face. To get up into it one climbed the rough steps that had been hewn into the rocky hill. On top of it was a sparse birchwood grove with thin-trunked white trees full of chirping swallows,
and beyond that lay a flat section of the outskirts of the city consisting of scattered houses and empty lots, about two versts from Nikolai Maximovitch's brick factory.
and beyond that lay a flat section of the outskirts of the city consisting of scattered houses and empty lots, about two versts from Nikolai Maximovitch's brick factory.
“There is from here an almost straight road from the brick factory where Zhenia was presumed to be killed,” Grubeshov said.
“But, permit me, Vladislav Grigorievitch, to draw your attention to the fact that the road from Marfa Golov's house is just as straight and a little shorter,” said Bibikov.
“In any case,” the Prosecuting Attorney answered, “the most important evidence will be the testimony of the experts.”
The priest, a long-haired, large-nosed man whose breath smelled of garlic, was standing under Grubeshov's umbrella before a loose semicircle of listeners but the Prosecuting Attorney had Yakov brought up close, the officials giving way as he was pushed forward, his chains rattling, by his guards. Bibikov, standing in the rear, looked on, impassively smoking. It was still drizzling and the fixer had lost his cap, unsettling him further, more than he thought possible in his present condition. It's only a cap, not my life; but the thought was a terrible one, because it was the first time he had admitted to himself he was afraid for his life. Fearing he was about to hear some secret fact that would absolutely condemn him once it was known, he stood inch-deep in the mud, breathing thickly, listening transfixed.
“My dear children,” said the priest to the Russians, wringing his dry hands, “if the bowels of the earth were to open to reveal the population of human dead since the beginning of the world, you would be astonished to see how many innocent Christian children among them have been tortured to death by Christ-hating Jews. Throughout the ages, as described in their holy books and various commentaries, the voice of Semitic blood directs them
to desecrations, unspeakable horrorsâfor example, the Talmud, which likens blood to water and milk, and preaches hatred of gentiles, who are characterized as being not human, no more than animals. âThou shalt not kill' does not apply to us, for do not they also write in their books: âMurder the good among gentiles'? This, perfidy, too, is prescribed in their Kabbala, the book of Jewish magic and alchemy, wherein the name of Satan is invoked; hence there have been multitudes of slaughtered innocent children whose tears have not moved their murderers to mercy.”
to desecrations, unspeakable horrorsâfor example, the Talmud, which likens blood to water and milk, and preaches hatred of gentiles, who are characterized as being not human, no more than animals. âThou shalt not kill' does not apply to us, for do not they also write in their books: âMurder the good among gentiles'? This, perfidy, too, is prescribed in their Kabbala, the book of Jewish magic and alchemy, wherein the name of Satan is invoked; hence there have been multitudes of slaughtered innocent children whose tears have not moved their murderers to mercy.”
His eyes darted over the faces of the officials but no one moved.
“The ritual murder is meant to re-enact the crucifixion of our dear Lord. The murder of Christian children and the distribution of their blood among Jews are a token of their eternal enmity against Christendom, for in murdering the innocent Christian child, they repeat the martyrdom of Christ. Zhenia Golov, in the loss of his own warm blood, symbolizes to us our Lord's loss of his precious lifeblood, drop by cruel drop, as he hung in pain on the wooden cross to which the anti-Christ had nailed him. It is said that the murder of the gentileâany gentileâhastens the coming of their long-awaited Messiah, Elijah, for whom they eternally leave the door open but who has never, during all the ages since his first coming, bothered to accept the invitation to enter and sit in the empty chair. Since the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem by the Legions of Titus there has been no sacrificial altar for animals in their synagogues, and it has come about, therefore, that the killing of gentiles, in particular innocent children, is accepted as a fitting substitute. Even their philosopher Maimonides, whose writings were suppressed in our country in 1844, orders Jews to murder Christian children. Did I not tell you they think of us as animals?
“In the recorded past,” said Father Anastasy in his nasally musical voice, “the Jew has had many uses for Christian blood. He has used it for purposes of sorcery and witches' rituals, and for love potions and well poisoning, fabricating a deadly venom that spread the plague from one country to another, a mixture of Christian blood from a murdered victim, their own Jewish urine, the heads of poisonous snakes, and even the stolen mutilated hostâthe bleeding body of Christ himself. It is written that all Jews require some Christian blood for the prolongation of their lives else they die young. And in those days they considered our blood to beâthis too is recordedâthe most effective therapeutic for the cure of their diseases. They used it, according to their old medical books, to heal their women in childbirth, stop hemorrhages, cure the blindness of infants, and to alleviate the wounds of circumcision.”
One of the Kiev police officials, Captain Korimzin, a man in a damp coat and muddy boots, secretly made the sign of the cross. Yakov felt faint. The priest, staring at him intently for a minute, went on, and although he spoke calmly his gestures were agitated. The Russians continued to listen with grave interest.
“There are those among us, my children, who will argue that these are superstitious tales of a past age, yet the truth of much I have revealed to youâI do not say it is all trueâmust be inferred from the very frequency of the accusations against the Jews. None can forever conceal the truth. If the bellman is dead the wind will toll the bell. Perhaps in this age of science we can no longer accept every statement of accusation made against this unfortunate people; however we must ask ourselves how much truth remains despite our reluctance to believe. I do not say that all Jews are guilty of these crimes and that pogroms should therefore be instituted against
them, but that there are certain sects among them, in particular the Hasidim and their leaders, the tzadikim, who commit in secret crimes such as I have described to you, which the gentile world, despite its frequent experience with them, seems to forget until, lo! another poor child disappears and is found dead in this fashion: his hands tied behind his back, and his body punctured by a sharp weapon in several places, the number of wounds according to magic numbers: 3, 7, 9, 13, in the manner of such crimes of former times. We know that their Passover, though they ascribe to it other uses, is also a celebration of the crucifixion. We know that is the time they kidnap gentiles for their religious ceremonials. Here in our Holy City, during the Polovostian raids in the year 1100, the monk Eustratios was abducted from the Pe-chera Monastery and sold to the Jews of Kherson, who crucified him during Passover. Since they no longer dare such open crimes they celebrate the occasion by eating matzos and unleavened cakes at the Seder service. But even this act conceals a crime because the matzos and cakes contain the blood of our martyrs, though of course the tzadikim deny this. Thus through our blood in their Passover food they again consume the agonized body of the living Christ. I give you my word, my dear children, that this is the reason why Zhenia Golov, this innocent child who wished to enter the priesthood, was destroyed!”
them, but that there are certain sects among them, in particular the Hasidim and their leaders, the tzadikim, who commit in secret crimes such as I have described to you, which the gentile world, despite its frequent experience with them, seems to forget until, lo! another poor child disappears and is found dead in this fashion: his hands tied behind his back, and his body punctured by a sharp weapon in several places, the number of wounds according to magic numbers: 3, 7, 9, 13, in the manner of such crimes of former times. We know that their Passover, though they ascribe to it other uses, is also a celebration of the crucifixion. We know that is the time they kidnap gentiles for their religious ceremonials. Here in our Holy City, during the Polovostian raids in the year 1100, the monk Eustratios was abducted from the Pe-chera Monastery and sold to the Jews of Kherson, who crucified him during Passover. Since they no longer dare such open crimes they celebrate the occasion by eating matzos and unleavened cakes at the Seder service. But even this act conceals a crime because the matzos and cakes contain the blood of our martyrs, though of course the tzadikim deny this. Thus through our blood in their Passover food they again consume the agonized body of the living Christ. I give you my word, my dear children, that this is the reason why Zhenia Golov, this innocent child who wished to enter the priesthood, was destroyed!”
The priest wiped one eye, then the other, with a white handkerchief. Two of the guards standing nearest the fixer edged away from him.
But then Yakov cried out, “It's all a fairy tale, every bit of it. Who could ever believe such a thing? Not me!” His voice quavered and his face was bloodless.
“Those who can understand will believe,” said the priest.
“Be respectful if you know what's good for you,” Grubeshov said heatedly in an undertone. “Listen and learn!”
“How can it be so if the opposite is true,” the fixer shouted, his throat thick. “It's all right to theorize with a fact or two but I don't recognize the truth in what's been said. If you please, your reverence, everybody knows the Bible forbids us to eat blood. That's all over the book, in the laws and everything. I've forgotten most of what I knew about the sacred books, but I've lived among the people and know their customs. Many an egg my own wife would throw out to the goat if it had the smallest spot of blood on the yolk. âRaisl,' I said, âtake it easy. We can't afford to live like kings,' but there was no getting the egg back on the table, either by hook or by crook, once she took it off, even admitting anyone wanted to, which I never didâyou get used to the customs. What she did was final, your reverence. I never said, âBring back the bloody egg,' and she would have thrown it at me if I had. She also soaked for hours the little meat or chicken we ate, to wash out every fleck of blood, and then sprinkled it with salt so as to be sure she had drained out every last drop. The rinsings with water were endless. That's the truth of it, I swear. I swear I'm innocent of this crime you say I did, not you personally, your reverence, but some of the officials here. I'm not a Hasid and I'm not a tzadik. I'm a fixer by trade, it's a poorer trade than most, and formerly for a short time I was a soldier in the Imperial Army. In fact, to tell the whole truth, I'm not a religious man, I'm a freethinker. At first my wife and I quarreled about this but I said a man's religion is his own business, and that's all there is to it, if you'll pardon me for saying so, your reverence. Anyway, I never touched that boy or any boy in my life. I was a boy myself once and it's a time I find hard to forget. I'm affectionate to children
and I would have been a happy man if my wife had given birth to a child. It's not in my nature to do anything such as has been described, and if anyone thinks so it's mistaken identity for sure.”
and I would have been a happy man if my wife had given birth to a child. It's not in my nature to do anything such as has been described, and if anyone thinks so it's mistaken identity for sure.”
He had turned to the officials. They had listened courteously, even the two Black Hundreds representatives, though the shorter of them could not hide the distaste he felt for the fixer. The other now walked away. One man in a round cloth cap smiled sweetly at Yakov, then gazed impassively into the far distance where the golden cupolas of a cathedral rose above the trees.
“You'd be better off confessing,” Grubeshov said, “instead of raising this useless stink.” He asked the priest's pardon for his language.
“Confessing what, your honor, if as I told you I didn't do it? I can confess to you some things but I can't confess this crime. You'll have to excuse me thereâI didn't do it. Why would I do such a thing anyway? You're mistaken, your honor. Somebody has made a serious mistake.”
But no one would admit it and a heavy sadness settled on him.
“Confessing how it was done,” Grubeshov replied. “How you enticed the boy into the stable with sweets, and then two or three of you pounced on him, gagged his mouth, tied him hand and foot, and dragged him up the stairs to your habitat. There you prayed over him with those black hats and robes on, undressed the frightened child, and began to stab him in certain places, twelve stabs first, then another making thirteen woundsâthirteen each in the region of the heart, on the neck, from which most of the blood is drawn, and on the faceâaccording to your cabalistic books. You tormented and terrified him, enjoying the full shuddering terror of the child victim and his piteous pleas for mercy, in the meanwhile collecting his dripping lifeblood into bottles
until you had bled him white. The five or six litres of warm blood you put into a black satchel, and this, if I understand the custom, was delivered by a hunchback Jew to the synagogue in time for making the matzos and afikomen. And when poor Zhenia Golov's heart was drained of blood and he lay on the floor lifeless, you and the tzadik Jew with the white stockings picked him up and carried him here in the dead of night and left his corpse in the cave. Then you both ate bread and salt so that his ghost would not haunt you and hurried away before the sun rose. Fearing the discovery of the bloodstains on your floor, you later sent one of your Jews to burn down Nikolai Maximovitch's stable. That is what you ought to confess.”
until you had bled him white. The five or six litres of warm blood you put into a black satchel, and this, if I understand the custom, was delivered by a hunchback Jew to the synagogue in time for making the matzos and afikomen. And when poor Zhenia Golov's heart was drained of blood and he lay on the floor lifeless, you and the tzadik Jew with the white stockings picked him up and carried him here in the dead of night and left his corpse in the cave. Then you both ate bread and salt so that his ghost would not haunt you and hurried away before the sun rose. Fearing the discovery of the bloodstains on your floor, you later sent one of your Jews to burn down Nikolai Maximovitch's stable. That is what you ought to confess.”
The fixer, moaning, wrung his hands and beat them against his chest. He looked for Bibikov but the Investigating Magistrate and his assistant had disappeared.
“Take him up to the cave,” Grubeshov ordered the guards.
Shutting his umbrella, he quickly preceded them, scampering up the steps, and entered the cave.
The leg chains were too short for Yakov to climb the steep steps, so he was seized under the arms by two of the gendarmes and dragged and pushed up, the other guards following directly behind. Then one guard went into the cave and the others shoved the fixer in through the narrow stone opening.
Inside the dank cave, smelling of death, in the dim light of a semicircle of dripping candles fastened on the wall, Grubeshov produced Yakov's tool sack.
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