The Fixer (26 page)
Authors: Bernard Malamud
Shmuel's visit left the fixer with a heavy burden of excitement. Something must happen now, he thought. He will run to people on my behalf. He will say this is my son-in-law Yakov and look what happened to him. He will tell them I'm in prison in Kiev and what for. He will cry out my innocence and beg for help. Maybe a lawyer will then go to Grubeshov and ask for the indictment. He will say, “You must give it to us before this man dies in his cell.” Maybe he will even petition the Minister of Justice. If he's a good lawyer he will think of other things to do. He won't neglect me here.
Instead the warden appeared in the cell, tense and agitated. His good eye gleamed. His mouth was loose with
anger. “We'll give you escape, you bastard. We'll give you conspiracy.”
anger. “We'll give you escape, you bastard. We'll give you conspiracy.”
A prisoner in strict confinement nearby had heard voices that night and had informed on Zhitnyak. The guard was arrested and after a while confessed that he had let an old Jew in to talk to the murderer.
“This time you overreached yourself, Bok. You'll wish you had never laid eyes on this other conspirator. We'll show you what good outside agitation will do. You'll wish you had never been born.”
He demanded to know who the conspirator was, and the fixer excitedly answered, “Nobody. He was a stranger to me. He didn't tell me his name. A poor man. He met Zhitnyak by accident.”
“What did he say to you? Come out with it.”
“He asked me if I was hungry.”
“What did you answer?”
“I said yes.”
“We'll give you hunger,” shouted the warden.
Early the next day two workmen entered the cell with boxes of tools, and after laboring all morning with steel hammers and long metal spikes, drilled four deep holes in the inner wall, in which they cemented heavy bolts with attached rings. The workmen also constructed a bed-size platform with four short wooden legs. The foot of the “bed” was a stock for enclosing the prisoner's legs, that would be padlocked at night. The window bars were strengthened and two more were added, reducing the meager light in the cell. But the cracked window was left cracked, and six additional bolts were fastened to the outside of the iron door, making twelve altogether, plus the lock that had to be opened by key. There was a rumor, the Deputy Warden said, that the Jews were planning a ruse to free him. He warned the fixer a lookout tower was being constructed on the high wall directly
opposite his cell, and the number of guards patrolling the yard had been increased.
opposite his cell, and the number of guards patrolling the yard had been increased.
“If you try to escape out of this prison we'll slaughter the whole goddamn gang of you. We'll get every last one.”
In Zhitnyak's place a new guard was stationed at the cell door during the day, Berezhinsky, an ex-soldier, a dark-faced man with pouched, expressionless eyes, swollen knuckles and a broken nose. There were patches of hair on his cheekbones and neck even after he had shaved. At times, out of boredom, he thrust a rifle barrel through the spy hole and sighted along it at the prisoner's heart.
“Bang!”
The fixer was chained to the wall all day, and at night he lay on the bedplank, his legs locked in the stocks. The leg holes were tight and chafed his flesh if he tried to turn a little. The straw mattress had been removed from the cell. At least that smell was gone, and the bedbugs, though some still inhabited his clothes. Since the fixer slept on his side when he slept, it took a while before he could begin to fall asleep on his back. He lay awake until he could no longer stand it, then seemed to faint into sleep. He slept heavily for an hour or two and woke. If he slept again the slightest movement of his body awakened him.
Now in chains, he thought the searches of his body might end, but they were increased to six a day, three in the morning and three in the afternoon. If the Deputy Warden went off duty early, the six searches were carried out in the morning. Berezhinsky went in with him in place of Zhitnyak. Six times a day his key grated in the lock, and one by one the twelve bolts were snapped back, each with a noise like a pistol shot. Yakov put his hands to his head, obsessed by the thought that someone was
hitting him repeatedly. When the searchers appeared he was unchained and ordered to strip quickly. Though he tried to hurry, his fingers were like lead; he could not open his few buttons, and the guard booted him for not moving fast enough. He begged them to examine half his body at a time, with his jacket and shirt on and pants off; then with his pants on and the other clothes off, but they wouldn't. All he was allowed to keep on was his undershirt. It was as though, if that were not removed, the search could not be such a bad thing whatever else they did to him. During the search Berezhinsky grabbed the fixer's beard in his fist and tugged. When Yakov complained, he yanked his penis.
hitting him repeatedly. When the searchers appeared he was unchained and ordered to strip quickly. Though he tried to hurry, his fingers were like lead; he could not open his few buttons, and the guard booted him for not moving fast enough. He begged them to examine half his body at a time, with his jacket and shirt on and pants off; then with his pants on and the other clothes off, but they wouldn't. All he was allowed to keep on was his undershirt. It was as though, if that were not removed, the search could not be such a bad thing whatever else they did to him. During the search Berezhinsky grabbed the fixer's beard in his fist and tugged. When Yakov complained, he yanked his penis.
“Ding-dong, giddyap. A Jew's cock's in the devil's hock.”
The Deputy Warden's color heightened. He laughed with a gasp and during the search his mouth wore a smile.
After each search, Yakov, exhausted, bleak, fell into depression. At first he had waited with hope that anyway something might come of Shmuel's visit. Then he began to fear that the peddler had been arrested. At times he wondered whether Shmuel had really come to see him, and if he had, he now wished he hadn't. If he had not come, there would now be no chains. For the chains he cursed him.
The second winter in prison was worse than the first. The outside weather was worse, less snow and sleet but more clear freezing days, especially cold when a wind was blowing. The wind bayed at the window like starving wolves. And the inside weather was worse. The cold glowed in the cell. It sometimes struck him with pain, pressing his chest so hard it hurt to breathe. He wore his cap with earflaps, the ragged prayer shawl looped around it, twice around the head, and knotted on top. He wore it until it fell apart and then kept a piece of it for a
handkerchief. He tried to get his coat sleeves under the manacles but couldn't. The icy shackles encircled his bare legs. They threw him a horse blanket which he wore over his head and shoulders in the worst of winter, for though there were now a few bundles of wood in the cell, Berezhinsky was never in a hurry to light the stove, and most of the day the fixer's bones were like ice-covered branches of a tree in the winter woods. The searches in the freezing cold were terrible; the cold plunged knives into his chest, armpits, anus. His body shriveled and teeth chattered. But when Kogin came in, in the late afternoon, he built a fire. Sometimes he lit one late at night. Since the arrest of his son, the guard's eyes were almost glazed. He usually said nothing, puffed on a dead butt. After Yakov had cleaned out his supper bowl and lain down, Kogin locked his feet in the bed stocks and left.
handkerchief. He tried to get his coat sleeves under the manacles but couldn't. The icy shackles encircled his bare legs. They threw him a horse blanket which he wore over his head and shoulders in the worst of winter, for though there were now a few bundles of wood in the cell, Berezhinsky was never in a hurry to light the stove, and most of the day the fixer's bones were like ice-covered branches of a tree in the winter woods. The searches in the freezing cold were terrible; the cold plunged knives into his chest, armpits, anus. His body shriveled and teeth chattered. But when Kogin came in, in the late afternoon, he built a fire. Sometimes he lit one late at night. Since the arrest of his son, the guard's eyes were almost glazed. He usually said nothing, puffed on a dead butt. After Yakov had cleaned out his supper bowl and lain down, Kogin locked his feet in the bed stocks and left.
During the day the fixer sat in chains on a low stool they had given him. The Old Testament pages had been taken from the cell the day he was chained to the wall, and the Deputy Warden said they had been burned. “They went up like a fart in the breeze.” Yakov had nothing to do but sit and not think. To keep his blood from freezing he would often get up, move one step to the right, then two to the left; or one to the left and two to the right. He could also move a step back to the frozen wall, then one step forward. This was as far as he could go, and whichever way he moved he dragged the clanking chains with him. He did this for hours during the day. Sometimes he sobbed as he strained to pull the chains out of their sockets.
He was allowed to do nothing for himself. To urinate he had to call the guard and ask for the can. If Berezhinsky was not at the door, or was too lazy to hear, or Yakov could not stand the sound of the bolts hitting his head, he held his water till it cut like a knife. When he could
no longer hold it he pissed on the floor. Once he held it so long the stream burst forth, wetting his pants and shoes. When Berezhinsky came in and saw what had happened he slapped the fixer's face with one hand, then with the other until the day blotted out.
no longer hold it he pissed on the floor. Once he held it so long the stream burst forth, wetting his pants and shoes. When Berezhinsky came in and saw what had happened he slapped the fixer's face with one hand, then with the other until the day blotted out.
“You cocksucker Zhid, I ought to make you lick it up off the floor.”
When Berezhinsky delivered the gruel, Yakov often begged him to remove the manacles for a few minutes while he ate, but the guard refused. Once after eating, while the guard was gone, Yakov turned sideways, used the spoon handle to dig a little at the cement around one of the bolts. But the guard saw this through the spy hole, entered the cell, and bloodied the prisoner's mouth. After that Berezhinsky had the cell searched by a detail of five guards. Nothing was turned up at first, but they came again later in the week and found the blackened needle Yakov had long ago borrowed from Zhitnyak and carefully hidden in a crevice in the stove. To punish the fixer, his stool was .removed for a week. He stood in chains all day and at night slept the sleep of the dead.
Thus the days went by. Each day went by alone. It crawled along like a dying thing. Sometimes, if he thought about it, three days went by, but the third was the same as the first. It was the first day because he could not say that three single days, counted, came to something they did not come to if they were not counted. One day crawled by. Then one day. Then one day. Never three. Nor five or seven. There was no such thing as a week if there was no end to his time in prison. If he were in Siberia serving twenty years at hard labor, a week might mean something. It would be twenty years less a week. But for a man who might be in prison for countless days, there were only first days following one another. The third was the first, the fourth was the first,
the seventy-first was the first. The first day was the three thousandth.
the seventy-first was the first. The first day was the three thousandth.
Yakov thought how it used to be before he was chained to the wall. He remembered sweeping the floor with the birch broom. He remembered reading Zhitnyak's gospels, and the Old Testament pages. He had saved and counted the wood splinters and kept track of the days and months when it seemed a sort of reward to add up time. He thought of the minutes of light on the scabby wall. He thought of the table he had once had to sit at reading before he smashed it in a fit of madness. He thought of being free to walk back and forth in the cell, or in circles, until he was too tired to think. He thought of being able to urinate without having to call the guard; and of only two searches a day instead of a terrifying six. He thought of lying down on the straw mattress any time he wanted to; but now he could not even lie down on the wooden bed except when they released him to. And he also thought of the time he was allowed to go to the kitchen to fill his bowl; and also of tending the stove in winter, and Zhitnyak, who was not too bad, coming in twice a day to light it. The guard had permitted him a good fire. He allowed Yakov to put in plenty of wood; then before leaving the cell he lit it with a match and watched until it really blazed. Yakov thought he would be glad if things went back to how they had once been. He wished he had enjoyed the bit of comfort, in a way of freedom, he had had then. In chains all that was left of freedom was life, just existence; but to exist without choice was the same as death.
He had secret, almost pleasurable thoughts of death, had had from the time he had stolen Zhitnyak's needle. He had thought, if I want to die sometime I can use the needle to cut my veins. He could do it after Kogin left, and bleed all night. In the morning they would find a
corpse. He had these thoughts more intensely now. After a while all he thought of was death. He was terribly weary, hungry to rid himself of the hard chains and the devilishly freezing cell. He hoped to die quickly, to end his suffering for once and all, to get rid of all he was and had been. His death would mean there was one last choice, there always is, and he had taken it. He had taken his fate in his hands. How will I do it? He thought of a hunger strike but that would take too long, slowly starving. He had no belt but could tear up his clothes and the blanket, braid the strips together, and if he did not first freeze to death, hang himself from the window bars. But he couldn't reach the window bars, and even if he found some way to get the rope behind them and down to him, hanging himself was not what he wanted. It would leave them out of it. He wanted them involved. He thought of Fetyukov shot by the guard. That's how I have to do it. They want me to die but not directly by their hand. They'll keep me in chains, making searches until my heart gives out. Then they can say I died of natural causes “while awaiting trial.” I'll make it unnatural causes. I'll make it by their hand. I'll provoke them to kill me. He had made up his mind. He planned to do it during the sixth search of the next day, when they were at their most irritable, so they would react without thought, mechanically, instantly. He would refuse to undress, and when they ordered him to, he would spit into the Deputy Warden's eye. If he were not at once shot he would try to wrestle a gun out of one of his holsters. By then Berezhinsky would have shot him through the head. It would be over in minutes, and the guard would later receive five or ten rubles for meritorious service. The Tsar would read about it in the St. Petersburg newspapers and at once sit down at his desk to write out a telegram to Grubeshov. “I heartily congratulate you for paying back in his own coin the Jewish murderer
of Zhenia Golov. You will hear from me soon regarding advancement. Nicholas.” But then the officials would have to explain his death, and whatever they said, they could never say they had proved his guilt. Who would believe them? It might even create a tumult on the outside.
corpse. He had these thoughts more intensely now. After a while all he thought of was death. He was terribly weary, hungry to rid himself of the hard chains and the devilishly freezing cell. He hoped to die quickly, to end his suffering for once and all, to get rid of all he was and had been. His death would mean there was one last choice, there always is, and he had taken it. He had taken his fate in his hands. How will I do it? He thought of a hunger strike but that would take too long, slowly starving. He had no belt but could tear up his clothes and the blanket, braid the strips together, and if he did not first freeze to death, hang himself from the window bars. But he couldn't reach the window bars, and even if he found some way to get the rope behind them and down to him, hanging himself was not what he wanted. It would leave them out of it. He wanted them involved. He thought of Fetyukov shot by the guard. That's how I have to do it. They want me to die but not directly by their hand. They'll keep me in chains, making searches until my heart gives out. Then they can say I died of natural causes “while awaiting trial.” I'll make it unnatural causes. I'll make it by their hand. I'll provoke them to kill me. He had made up his mind. He planned to do it during the sixth search of the next day, when they were at their most irritable, so they would react without thought, mechanically, instantly. He would refuse to undress, and when they ordered him to, he would spit into the Deputy Warden's eye. If he were not at once shot he would try to wrestle a gun out of one of his holsters. By then Berezhinsky would have shot him through the head. It would be over in minutes, and the guard would later receive five or ten rubles for meritorious service. The Tsar would read about it in the St. Petersburg newspapers and at once sit down at his desk to write out a telegram to Grubeshov. “I heartily congratulate you for paying back in his own coin the Jewish murderer
of Zhenia Golov. You will hear from me soon regarding advancement. Nicholas.” But then the officials would have to explain his death, and whatever they said, they could never say they had proved his guilt. Who would believe them? It might even create a tumult on the outside.
Let the Tsar jig on his polished floor. I shit my death on him.
It is late afternoon. The sun is sinking behind the cold treetops. A black carriage appears in the distance (coming from what city?) drawn by four black horses. He loses it amid traffic on the Kreshchatik, among other carriages, droshkies, trolleys, wagon-trucks, a few motorcars. The trees are now black. It is night again. Kogin is restlessly pacing back and forth in the corridor. He has often stood by Yakov's cell door, the spy hole open, listening to his noisy wheezing, the guard's breathing audible as he wets his pencil and writes in the notebook what Yakov cries out in his sleep. But tonight, a blizzarding night, the snow swirling thickly around the prison, after hours of walking back and forth past Yakov's cell door, knowing the prisoner is awake, the guard stops and sighs through the spy hole, “Ah, Yakov Bok, don't think you're the only one with troubles. They're piled on my head like snows on a mountain top.”
He walks away and then returns to say that his son Trofim has murdered an old man while robbing a house in the Podol. “That's what it comes to, you see.”
After a long silence he says, “I had trouble enough with my daughter, who got herself pregnant by a man of my age, a goddamn drunk, but no sooner do I get her married off to someone,” Kogin says through the spy hole, “than the boy takes to robbing a house, a thing
that never entered his mind before. He stole from me but never from anybody else until this night he went into a house by the Dnieper, and while he was in there, killed the old man who lived in it. He was a harmless old man, and anyone in his right mind could see from the outside of the house that there wasn't likely to be anything of any value in it, not a thing. He knew it, but in that case why did he do it, Yakov Bok? Was there anything on his mind but to pay me back with worries for the years of love I gave him? When the old man caught him in his house he grabbed Trofim's coat and hung onto it, and he, in fright, he says, beat the old man on the head with his fists until he let go, but by that time it was too lateâthe old man had had some kind of stroke and died. That was the end of him. Trofim came in, as you might say, to partake of his hospitality, and he stayed on there to light the funeral candles and maybe say a prayer over the remains. He returned to the house that morning as I was taking my boots off after a night's work and told me what he had done. So I put my boots on again, and we went together to the District Police and there inscribed him for murder. A few months ago he was tried in court and sentenced to the highest penalty, twenty years at forced labor in Siberia. He's on his way there now. They started out across the Nicholas Bridge on a freezing day in December, and God only knows where they are now in all this snow and wind. Just imagine, twenty yearsâit's a lifetime.”
that never entered his mind before. He stole from me but never from anybody else until this night he went into a house by the Dnieper, and while he was in there, killed the old man who lived in it. He was a harmless old man, and anyone in his right mind could see from the outside of the house that there wasn't likely to be anything of any value in it, not a thing. He knew it, but in that case why did he do it, Yakov Bok? Was there anything on his mind but to pay me back with worries for the years of love I gave him? When the old man caught him in his house he grabbed Trofim's coat and hung onto it, and he, in fright, he says, beat the old man on the head with his fists until he let go, but by that time it was too lateâthe old man had had some kind of stroke and died. That was the end of him. Trofim came in, as you might say, to partake of his hospitality, and he stayed on there to light the funeral candles and maybe say a prayer over the remains. He returned to the house that morning as I was taking my boots off after a night's work and told me what he had done. So I put my boots on again, and we went together to the District Police and there inscribed him for murder. A few months ago he was tried in court and sentenced to the highest penalty, twenty years at forced labor in Siberia. He's on his way there now. They started out across the Nicholas Bridge on a freezing day in December, and God only knows where they are now in all this snow and wind. Just imagine, twenty yearsâit's a lifetime.”
“It's only twenty years,” says Yakov.
“I won't see him, if we both live that long, till he's fifty-two, which is the age I am now.”
The guard's low voice rumbles in the cell so he goes on in a thick whisper.
“I asked him why he had done that thing, and he said he had no particular reason. Can you imagine a more
ridiculous statement, Bok? He came to the end I had predicted for him, all of a father's love gone for nothing. That's how it goes. You plan one thing and get another. Life plays no favorites and what's the use of hoping for it? The children were ruined by their mother, a woman of unsettled character and lax ways. My son was always hard to control because of her ways with him, and I thought for a time he would murder one of us in spite of all the love I had for him, but it turned out that he murdered somebody else.”
ridiculous statement, Bok? He came to the end I had predicted for him, all of a father's love gone for nothing. That's how it goes. You plan one thing and get another. Life plays no favorites and what's the use of hoping for it? The children were ruined by their mother, a woman of unsettled character and lax ways. My son was always hard to control because of her ways with him, and I thought for a time he would murder one of us in spite of all the love I had for him, but it turned out that he murdered somebody else.”
Kogin sighs, pauses a minute, and asks Yakov if he wants a cigarette.
Yakov says no. He breathes deeply so the guard can hear the whine in his chest. A cigarette would make him sick.
“But if you open the stocks for a minute,” he says, “it would ease my stiff legs.”
Kogin says he can't do that. He stands silently at the spy hole for a few minutes, then whispers heavily, “Don't think I am not aware of your misfortunes, Bok, because I am. It's a terrible thing to see a man in chains, whoever he is, and have to lock his feet in stocks every night, but to be frank with you I don't allow myself to dwell on it much. I try not to think of you there in chains all day long. The nerves can take just so much, and I already have all the worry I can stand. I think you know what I mean by that.”
Yakov says he does.
“You're sure about a cigarette? It's a small infraction of the rules. Some of the guards sell them to prisoners here, and if you ask me the warden knows it. But if I opened your stocks I could get myself shot.”
After a while Yakov thinks the guard has gone away but he hasn't.
“Do you still have the gospels in there?” Kogin asks.
“No, they're gone.”
“What about the sayings you used to say by memory? Why don't you say any of them any more?”
“I've forgotten them.”
“This is one I remember,” says the guard. “âBut he who endures to the end will be saved.' It's either from Matthew or Luke, one or the other.”
Yakov is moved so deeply he laughs.
The guard walks away. Tonight he is restless and in a half hour returns to the cell door, holding a lamp to the hole, peering above it to see what he can see. The light falls on the fixer's imprisoned feet, waking him again. Kogin is about to say something but doesn't. The light goes out. Yakov moves restlessly, lying awake listening to the guard walking back and forth in the corridor as though he were walking to Siberia along with his son. The prisoner listens until exhaustion overtakes him, then goes on with the dream he was having.
He locates the black carriage once again, only it is a rickety wagon coming from the provinces, carrying a coffin made of weatherbeaten pine boards. For me or who else? he thinks. Afraid to name names he struggles to wake up and instead finds himself in an empty room standing by a small black coffin, like a trunk locked with chains.
It's Zhenia's coffin, he thinks. Marfa Golov has sent it to me as a present. But when he unlocks the rusty chains and raises the coffin lid, there lies Shmuel, his father-in-law, with a prayer shawl covering his head, a purple hole in his forehead and one eye still wet with blood.
“Shmuel, are you dead?” the fixer cries, and the old man, if not in peace, at least in repose, for once has nothing to say.
The fixer awakens, grieving, his beard damp with salt tears.
“Live, Shmuel,” he sighs, “live. Let me die for you.”
Then he thinks in the dark, how can I die for him if I take my life? If I die I die to fuck them and end my suffering. As for Shmuel, he's already out in the cold. He may even die for my death if they work up a pogrom in celebration of it. If so what do I get by dying, outside of release from pain? What have I earned if a single Jew dies because I did? Suffering I can gladly live without, I hate the taste of it, but if I must suffer let it be for something. Let it be for Shmuel.
The next day he is searched six times in the bitterly cold cell, standing barefoot on the floor, each stone like a block of ice, as they poke their filthy fingers into his private parts. The sixth search, when he has planned to die, is the most dreadful of all. He struggles with himself to keep from leaping on the Deputy Warden, to murder him a little with his bare hands before he is shot to death.
He tells himself he mustn't die. Why should I take from myself what they are destroying me to take? Why should I help them kill me?
Who, for instance, would know if he dies now? They'll sweep his remains off the bloody floor and throw them into a wet hole. A year or two later they'd say he died attempting to escape. Who would question it after a year or two? It was a natural thing for prisoners to die in prison. They died like flies all over Russia. It was a vast country and there were many prisons. There were more prisoners than there were Jews. And what difference if the Jews said they didn't believe he had died naturally? They would have other headaches then.
Not that he is afraid to die because he is afraid of suicide, but because there is no way of keeping the consequences of his death to himself. To the goyim what one Jew is is what they all are. If the fixer stands accused of murdering one of their children, so does the rest of the tribe. Since the crucifixion the crime of the Christ-killer
is the crime of all Jews. “His blood be on us and our children.”
is the crime of all Jews. “His blood be on us and our children.”
He pities their fate in history. After a short time of sunlight you awake in a black and bloody world. Overnight a madman is born who thinks Jewish blood is water. Overnight life becomes worthless. The innocent are born without innocence. The human body is worth less than its substance. A person is shit. Those Jews who escape with their lives live in memory's eternal pain. So what can Yakov Bok do about it? All he can do is not make things worse. He's half a Jew himself, yet enough of one to protect them. After all, he knows the people; and he believes in their right to be Jews and live in the world like men. He is against those who are against them. He will protect them to the extent that he can. This is his covenant with himself. If God's not a man he has to be. Therefore he must endure to the trial and let them confirm his innocence by their lies. He has no future but to hold on, wait it out.
He is enraged by what has happenedâis happening to himâa whole society has set itself against Yakov Bok, a poor man with a few grains of education, but in any case innocent of the crime they accuse him of. What a strange and extraordinary thing for someone like himself, a fixer by trade, who had never in his life done a thing to them but live for a few months in a forbidden district, to have as his sworn and bitter enemies the Russian State, through its officials and Tsar, for no better reason than that he was born a Jew, therefore their appointed enemy, though the truth of it is he is in his heart no one's enemy but his own.
Where's reason? Where's justice? What does Spinoza sayâthat it's the purpose of the state to preserve a man's peace and security so he can do his day's work. To help him live out his few poor years, against circumstance, sickness, the frights of the universe. So at least don't
make it any worse than it is. But the Russian State denies Yakov Bok the most elemental justice, and to show its fear and contempt of humankind, has chained him to the wall like an animal.
make it any worse than it is. But the Russian State denies Yakov Bok the most elemental justice, and to show its fear and contempt of humankind, has chained him to the wall like an animal.
“Dogs,” he cries out.
He beats his chains against the wall, his neck cords thick. He is in a rage to be free, has at times glimmerings of hope, as though imagining creates it, thinks of it as close by, about to happen if he breathes right, or thinks the one right thought. Maybe a wall will collapse, or sunrise burn through it and make an opening as large as a man's body. Or he will remember where he has hidden a book that will tell him how to walk with ease through a locked-and-twelve-times-bolted door.
“I'll live,” he shouts in his cell, “I'll wait, I'll come to my trial.”
Berezhinsky opens the spy hole, inserts his rifle, and sights along the barrel at the fixer's genitals.
Yakov sits in the pit. An angelic voice, or so he thinks, calls his name, but he isn't sure he has heard right; his hearing is dulled in the right ear since Berezhinsky hit him there. The sky rains and snows on him. Or it may be bits of wood or frozen time. He doesn't reply. His hair is matted and long. His nails grow until they break. He has dysentery, dirties himself, stinks.
Berezhinsky douses him with a bucket of cold water. “It's no secret why Jews won't eat pig. You're blood brothers and both live on shit.”
He sits on the grass under a leafy tree. The fields are full of flowers. He talks to himself not to forget. Some things he remembers astonish him. Are they memories or thoughts of things he had hoped to do? He is shrouded in thick clouds of yellow fog. Sometimes in painful stretches of light. Memories thin out and fall away. Events of the past he has difficulty recalling. He remembers having gone mad once. Where do you look if
you lose your mind? That's the end of it. He would, in his mind, be forever locked in prison, no longer knowing why or what he is locked in. Locked in his final fate, the last unknowing.
you lose your mind? That's the end of it. He would, in his mind, be forever locked in prison, no longer knowing why or what he is locked in. Locked in his final fate, the last unknowing.
“Die,” says Berezhinsky. “For Christ's sake, die.”
He dies. He dies.
Kogin says he has received a letter that his son is dead. He has drowned himself in a river in Irkutsk on the way to Novorosiisk.
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