The Fixer (6 page)
Authors: Bernard Malamud
The forty-five rubles astounded and tempted the fixer.
“What is it an overseer does? Excuse the question, but I'm not a man of the world.”
“Worldliness is vanity, it doesn't appeal to me. The overseer manages the business end of the enterprise. We manufacture about two thousand bricks dailyâmany fewer than we used toâa thousand or so more during the building season, not quite so many this time of the year; and it has been fewer lately although we have a contract with the Kiev Municipal Council for several thousands of bricks. The Tsar himself has given orders for civic improvements to be made before the Romanov Jubilee, and the Municipality is tearing up wooden walks and laying down entire streets of brick sidewalk, though this is done of course when the weather permits, not in the winter snow. And we also hold a small contract for bricks for the restoration of certain fortifications above the Dnieper. Yes, I would expect you to keep track of orders received and, to be sure, of the exact number of bricks manufactured as well as those carted out. These figures you will get from Proshko, but there are ways of checking. You will also send out statements requesting payment and enter payments received in the ledger. Once or twice weekly you will turn over bank drafts and other monies to me, and in the meantime keep them safe in the strongbox. Proshko will of course retain the responsibilities of the technical foreman, and I will tell him I expect him to place all orders for supplies through
you. You will also make out the wages inventory and pay the workers at the end of the month.”
you. You will also make out the wages inventory and pay the workers at the end of the month.”
Though beset by self-doubt and every kind of fear, Yakov was thinking this might be his important chance. A few months' experience at this kind of work and other opportunities might open up for him. “I'll think it over carefully,” he said, but before Nikolai Maximovitch had descended the stairs, he had accepted.
The landlord returned with a vodka bottle to wet the bargain. Yakov had two drinks and his uneasiness wore off. He was preparing himself for a better future, he told himself. He slept for a while on the floor and later finished the last of the woodwork, once more uneasy.
It was nightfall. After he had swept and cleaned up, soaked the paintbrushes in turpentine, and washed, he heard Zina limping up the stairs. She was wearing a dress of blue silk, her hair up and encircled with a white ribbon, her cheeks and lips delicately rouged. She invited Yakov to eat with her again. “In celebration of the completion of your fine work, and most of all, to your future relationship with Papa, though he has already retired and we shall be alone.”
He had the old excuses, was even a little irritated by the invitation and wanted to escape, but she would not hear of it. “Come, Yakov Ivanovitch, there's more to life than work.”
It was news to him. Still, he thought, the job's done here and this is the last I'll see of her. So what's wrong with farewell?
On the kitchen table Zina had laid out a feast, even some food he had never seen before. There were stuffed cucumbers, raw Danube herring, fat sausages, pickled sturgeon with mushrooms, assorted meats, wine, cakes and cherry brandy. The fixer, overwhelmed by the spread, felt at first self-conscious. If you've had nothing you're afraid of too much. But he swept that aside and
ate hungrily those things he had eaten before. He sucked the red wine through delicious chunks of white bread.
ate hungrily those things he had eaten before. He sucked the red wine through delicious chunks of white bread.
Zina, open and happy, and looking more attractive than he had ever seen, picked here and there at sweet and spicy things and filled her wineglass often. Her sharp face was flushed, she talked about herself and laughed at nothing at all. Although he tried to think of her as possibly a friend she remained strange to him. He was strange to himself. Once, staring at the white tablecloth, he thought of Raisl but put her out of his mind. He finished the mealâhe had never in his life eaten so much âwith two glasses of brandy, and only then began to enjoy the “party.”
When she cleared the table Zina's breath was heavy. She brought out a guitar, plucked it, and in a high thin voice sang, “Ech, my pack is heavy.” It was a sad song and filled him with mild melancholy. He had thought of getting up to leave, but the kitchen was warm and it was pleasant to sit there listening to the guitar. Then she sang, “Come on, come on, my darling angel, come and dance with me.” When she put down her guitar, Zina looked at him in a way she never had before. Yakov understood at once where they were. Excitement and foreboding flowed into one feeling. No, he thought, it's a Russian woman. If she slept with me and found out who I was she'd cut her throat. Then he thought, it's not always so, there are some who wouldn't mind. For himself he was willing to experience what there was to experience. But let her lead.
“Yakov Ivanovitch,” Zina said, pouring herself another glassful of wine which she at once drank down, “do you believe in romantic love? I ask because I think you guard yourself against it.”
“Whether I do or don't it doesn't come easily to me.”
“I heartily agree that it oughtn't to come too easily,” Zina said, “but it seems to me that those who are serious
about lifeâperhaps too seriousâare slow to respond to certain changes in the climate of feeling. What I mean to say, Yakov Ivanovitch, is that it's possible to let love fly by like a cloud in a windy sky if one is too timid, or perhaps unable to believe he is entitled to good fortune.”
about lifeâperhaps too seriousâare slow to respond to certain changes in the climate of feeling. What I mean to say, Yakov Ivanovitch, is that it's possible to let love fly by like a cloud in a windy sky if one is too timid, or perhaps unable to believe he is entitled to good fortune.”
“It's possible,” he said.
“Do you love meâjust a little, Yakov Ivanovitch?” she asked quickly. “I've sometimes noticed you looking at me as though you might. For instance, you smiled at me quite delightfully a few minutes ago, and it warmed my heart. I dare ask because you yourself are very modest and tend to be consciousâoverconscious, I would sayâthat we are from different classes, though I believe much alike as people.”
“No,” he said. “I can't say I love you.”
Zina flushed. Her eyelids fluttered. After a long minute she sighed and said in a smaller voice, “Very well, then, do you like me at all?”
“Yes, you have been kind to me.”
“And I like you too, indeed I do. I think you are serious and a well-informed person.”
“No, I am half an ignoramus.”
She poured herself some cherry brandy, sipped from the glass and put it down.
“Oh, Yakov Ivanovitch, please for a moment let up on your seriousness and kiss me. I dare you to kiss me.”
They got up and kissed. She groped for him, her body clinging tightly to his. He felt for an instant an anguished pity for her.
“Shall we stay here longer?” she whispered, breathing heavily, “or would you care to visit my room? You've seen Papa's but not mine.”
She looked him full in the face, her green eyes lit dark, her body hot, still clinging. She seemed to him an
older woman, possibly twenty-eight or nine, someone used to looking out for herself.
older woman, possibly twenty-eight or nine, someone used to looking out for herself.
“Whatever you say.”
“What do
you
say, Yakov Ivanovitch?”
you
say, Yakov Ivanovitch?”
“Zinaida Nikolaevna,” he said, “excuse me for asking you this question but I don't want to make a serious mistake. I've made my share of themâevery kind you can think ofâbut there are some I don't want to make again. If you are innocent,” he said awkwardly, “it would be better not to go any further. I say this out of respect for you.”
Zina reddened, then shrugged and said frankly, “I'm as innocent as most, no more nor less. There's nothing to worry about in that regard.” Then she laughed self-consciously and said, “I see you're an old-fashioned person and I like that, although your question to me was hardly discreet.”
“If one why not another? What about your father? What I mean to ask is, is it likely he might find out if we go to your room?”
“He never has,” she said. He was momentarily surprised at her answer and then accepted it without another question. Why wrestle with a fact?
They went silently along the corridor, Zina hobbling, Yakov tiptoeing behind her, to her perfumed bedroom. The Pekinese, lying on the bed, looked at the fixer and yawned. Zina picked it up and went again down the hall to lock it in the kitchen.
Her room was full of knickknacks on numerous small tables, and pictures of kerchiefed girls on the wall. Peacock feathers stuck out from behind the frame of a mirror. In the corner of the room hung an ikon of the Holy Mother with a small red oil lamp lighted before it.
Should I stay or should I go? Yakov thought. On the one hand it's been a long season without rain. A man is
not a man for nothing. What do the Hasidim say? “Hide not from thine own flesh.” On the other hand what does this mean to me? At my age it's nothing new. It means nothing.
not a man for nothing. What do the Hasidim say? “Hide not from thine own flesh.” On the other hand what does this mean to me? At my age it's nothing new. It means nothing.
When she returned he was sitting on the bed. He had taken off his shirt and undershirt.
Yakov watched uneasily as Zina, after removing her shoes, knelt at the ikon, crossed herself, and for a moment prayed.
“Are you a believer?” she asked.
“No.”
“I wish you were, Yakov Ivanovitch,” she sighed.
Then she rose and asked him to undress in the lavatory while she got ready in the bedroom.
It's her leg, he thought. She'll be under covers when I come in. Better that way.
He removed his clothes in the lavatory. His hands still stank of paint and turpentine, and he soaped them twice with her pink bar of perfumed soap. He smelled them again but now they stank of the perfume. If there's a mistake to make I'll make it, he thought.
Seeing himself naked in the mirror he was at first unâ, easy, then sickened by what he was about to do.
Things are bad enough, so why make them worse? This isn't for me, I'm not the type, and the sooner I tell her the better. He went into the bedroom, carrying his clothes.
Zina had braided her hair. She stood naked, her bosom full, sponging herself from a white bowl, in the gaslight. He saw a dribble of bright blood run down her crippled leg and said, stupefied. “But you are unclean!”
“Yakov!âYou startled me.” She covered herself with the wet cloth. “I thought you would wait till I called you.”
“I didn't know your condition. Excuse me, I had no
idea. You didn't mention it, though I realize it's personal.”
idea. You didn't mention it, though I realize it's personal.”
“But surely you know this is the safest time?” Zina said. “And there's no inconvenience to speak of, the flow stops the minute we begin.”
“Excuse me, some can but I can't.”
He was thinking of his wife's modesty during her period and until she had been to the baths, but could not say that to Zina.
“Excuse me, I'd better be going.”
“I'm a lonely woman, Yakov Ivanovitch,” she cried, “have mercy a little!” but he was already dressing and soon left.
One night in the dead of winter, in the cold thick dark at 4 A.M., after the drivers Serdiuk and Richter had come for two teams of horsesâleaving six horses in the stallsâand he had heard them clomp out of the stable and clack dully across the snow-covered cobblestones, Yakov, who had been two days in the brickyard, got quickly out of bed, lit a short candle and hurriedly dressed. He sneaked down the outer stairs from his room above the stable and went along the fence of palings, past the squat brickkilns to the cooling shed. Motionless in the wet cold, he watched the drivers and their helpers, in steaming sheepskins, the horses' flanks steaming, loading the straw-covered long wagon-trucks with large heavy yellow bricks. The work progressed slowly, helper tossing a brick to helper, who tossed it to the driver on the wagon, who laid it in place. After what seemed to him an endless time standing in the dark, blowing on his hands and trying soundlessly to stamp the cold out of his boots, Yakov had counted three hundred and forty bricks loaded into
one wagon, and four hundred and three into another. Three other wagons at the shed went unused. But in the morning when Proshko, the foreman, presented him with the voucher in the stuffy low-ceilinged shack where Yakov sat at a table stacked with ledgers and bundles of useless papers from the past, the badly written numbers scrawled on a torn piece of wrapping paper came to a total of six hundred ten bricks, instead of seven hundred forty-three, and the fixer ground his teeth in anger at the cold-blooded nerve of the thievery.
one wagon, and four hundred and three into another. Three other wagons at the shed went unused. But in the morning when Proshko, the foreman, presented him with the voucher in the stuffy low-ceilinged shack where Yakov sat at a table stacked with ledgers and bundles of useless papers from the past, the badly written numbers scrawled on a torn piece of wrapping paper came to a total of six hundred ten bricks, instead of seven hundred forty-three, and the fixer ground his teeth in anger at the cold-blooded nerve of the thievery.
Though Yakov was desperately eager for work, he had reluctantly accepted Nikolai Maximovitch's offer, at the last minute almost in panic trying to back out when he learned that the Lukianovsky, where the brickyard was locatedânear a cemetery, with a few houses and trees scattered around and beyond it, more heavily on the far-off side about half a tombstoned verst awayâand where he was expected to live, was a district forbidden to Jews to reside in. He had then told the owner of the brickworks that he would not take the job because he had many doubts he could do the work as it should be done. But Nikolai Maximovitch, advising him not to be hasty, had pooh-poohed his doubts.
“Nonsense, you will do better than you suppose. You must learn to have confidence in your natural abilities, Yakov Ivanovitch. Just follow my late brother's method with the ledgerâoldâfashioned but accurateâand you will master the system as you go along.” Yet puzzled somewhat, he raised his offer by three rubles a month, and Yakov trying every way to convince himself to take the job, then suggested it would be more convenient for him if he could go on living in the Podolâhe never said where in the districtâand come to work very early each morning. It wasn't too far a walk from where he lived. The electric trolley, which stopped close by the brickyard, did not run after dark.
“Unfortunately you won't be of much use to me living in the Podol,” said Nikolai Maximovitch. They were talking in the brickyard on a cloudy end-of-January day âa pall of black smoke hung over the kilnsâand Nikolai Maximovitch still wore his Black Hundreds button on his coat, which Yakov, when speaking to himâhe saw himself unable to detach his eye if once he stared at itâhad to ignore or look around, for the button loomed large and unsettling.
“It is not what goes on here during the workday that worries me so much,” the anti-Semite said, “although I assure you that worries me too; but I am deeply concerned with what happens in the early morning hours when the wagons are being loaded for the first deliveries. Daylight is too strong for a thief. It's in the dark when the ghosts are flying and good people are lying abed that he does his dirty work. My late-lamented brother, who had little respect for sleepâone must respect it or it will not respect himâwas here at 3 A.M. in every weather to oversee each and every wagonload. I am not asking you to do the same, Yakov Ivanovitch. That sort of dedication to a business enterprise is fanatic and in his case led, I am convinced, to my brother's early death.” Nikolai Maximovitch crossed himself with eyes shut. “But if you were to look in on them in the early morning hours, and also unexpectedly during other loadings, counting off aloud a close estimate of the number of bricks in the trucks, it might tempt them not to overdo it. I expect some thieveryâhumans are humansâbut of necessity there has to be a limit. It would be impossible for me to get a reasonably just price for this factory if it should go bankrupt.”
“How do they steal?” the fixer had asked.
“I suspect the drivers under Proshko's supervision or connivance. They take out more than they account for.”
“Then why don't you give him the boot?”
“More easily said than done, my dear boy. If I did I would have to shut down the plant. He is an excellent technical manâone of the best, my brother used to say. I confess it is not my purpose to catch him thieving. As a religious person I want to keep him from it. And wouldn't you say it was the more sensible as well as charitable thing? No, let's arrange it as I say. Take the room above the stable, Yakov Ivanovitch. It's yours without a single kopek of rent.”
Since he had not mentioned the fixer's papersâneither the passport necessary for new employment, nor the residence certificate he would need, Yakov uneasily took the chance and accepted the job. He had for a fleeting minute again considered saying he was a Jewâjust quietly informing Nikolai Maximovitch: “Well, you ought to know what the situation is. You say you like me; you know I'm an honest worker and don't waste the boss's time, then maybe it won't surprise you to hear I was born Jewish and for that reason can't live in this district.” But that was of course impossible. Even supposing âa fantastic supposeâthat Nikolai Maximovitch, two-headed eagle button and all, overlooked the confession in his own interests, still the Lukianovsky was not for Jews, with certain unusual exceptions, and if a poor fixer were exposed as one living there he would be in serious trouble. It was all too complicated. For the first week Yakov was daily on the verge of leaving, escaping from the place, but he stayed on because he had heard from Aaron Latke that counterfeit papers of various kinds were available to prospective buyers at a certain printing establishment in the Podol, for not too large a sum, and though the thought of acquiring such papers gave him severe sweats, he decided he ought to keep it in mind.
When Proshko brought in the voucher the morning after Yakov had spied on the drivers loading the wagons, though the fixer's heart beat loudly when he saw the
false figure on the paper, he informed the foreman that Nikolai Maximovitch had told him to be present at night when the wagons were loaded, and since it was his responsibility, he would be there from now on. Proshko, a burly, thick-eared man with a rough beard, who wore high rubber boots muddy with yellow clay and a long dirty leather apron, gazed at the fixer with intense small eyes.
false figure on the paper, he informed the foreman that Nikolai Maximovitch had told him to be present at night when the wagons were loaded, and since it was his responsibility, he would be there from now on. Proshko, a burly, thick-eared man with a rough beard, who wore high rubber boots muddy with yellow clay and a long dirty leather apron, gazed at the fixer with intense small eyes.
“What do you think goes on in the wagons at night? Are the drivers on their knees fucking their mothers?”
“What goes on goes on,” said Yakov nervously, “but the number of bricks that you loaded last night and this figure on your paper don't agree, if you'll excuse me for saying so.”
He then wished he had said it differently, though how was it possible to say it differently to a thief?
“How would you know how many bricks were loaded?”
“I stood near the shed last night, counting them, according to Nikolai Maximovitch's direction. In other words, I did as he told me.” His voice was thick with emotion, as though the bricks belonged to him, although the strange thing was they belonged to an anti-Semitic Russian.
“Then you counted wrong,” Proshko said, “this is the number we loaded.” He tapped a thick finger on the paper on the table. “Listen, my friend, when a dog puts his nose into shit, he gets it dirty. You have a long nose, Dologushev. If you don't believe me look in a mirror. A man with a nose like that ought to be careful where he puts it.”
He left the shack but returned in the afternoon. “What about your papers,” he said, “have you registered them yet? If not, hand them over here and I'll have them stamped by the District Police.”
“I'm obliged to you,” Yakov said, “but that's already
been seen to and done. Nikolai Maximovitch took care of it. You don't have to trouble yourself.”
been seen to and done. Nikolai Maximovitch took care of it. You don't have to trouble yourself.”
“Tell me, Dologushev,” said Proshko, “why is it you talk Russian like a Turk?”
“And what if I am a Turk?” The fixer smiled crookedly.
“He who runs too fast raises the wind against him.” Lifting his leg Proshko farted.
Afterwards Yakov felt too uneasy to eat supper. I'm the wrong man to be a policeman, he thought. It's a job for a goy.
Yet he did what he was asked to. He appeared in the shed every morning in the 4 A.M. cold and counted the bricks in the wagons. And when he looked out the shack window and saw them loading up during the daylight hours, he went outside to watch. He did it openly, preventing the thieves from their thievery. When Yakov appeared at the shed, no one spoke but the drivers sometimes stopped their work to stare at him.
Proshko no longer turned in vouchers each morning, so Yakov wrote his own. The bookkeeping was not so difficult as he had thoughtâhe had caught on to the system, and besides there wasn't that much business. Once a week Nikolai Maximovitch, more drearily melancholic, arrived by sledge for receipts to be deposited in his bank, and after a month Yakov received a long congratulatory letter from him. “Your work is diligent and effective, as I foresaw, and I shall continue to vest in you my utmost confidence. Zinaida Nikolaevna sends her regards. She too applauds your efforts.” But no one else did. Neither the drivers nor their helpers paid any attention to him, even when he tried to make conversation. Richter, the heavy-faced German, spat in the snow at his approach, and Serdiuk, a tall Ukrainian who smelled of horse sweat and hay, watched him, breathing heavily. Proshko, passing the fixer in the yard, muttered, “Bastard
stool pigeon!” Yakov pretended not to hear. If he heard “Jew” he would dive into the sky.
stool pigeon!” Yakov pretended not to hear. If he heard “Jew” he would dive into the sky.
Except for these he was on more or less decent terms with the other workers in the yardâhe paid them on time, about fifty left from almost two hundred employed when the yard had turned out six or seven thousand bricks a dayâand this was so despite the fact that Proshko was spreading nasty stories about him; one that Skobeliev, the yardkeeper, had told him was that the fixer had once done time as a convicted thief. But no one sought him out as friend or kept him company when the brickyard was closed, so he was mostly alone. After work Yakov stayed in his room. He read by lamplightâthough Nikolai Maximovitch had promised to install an electric bulbâfor hours each night. His reading in the past was what he had accidentally come across; he now read what he wanted to know. He continued to study Russian, wrote out long grammatical exercises and read them aloud. And he devoured two newspapers every day, though they often gave him the shivers, both things reported as fact, and things hinted at; for instance, Rasputin and the Empress, new plots of terrorists, threats of pogroms, and the possibility of a Balkan war. So much was new to him, how is one to know all he ought to know? He began then to haunt the bookshops in the Podol in his free time, searching for inexpensive books. He bought a
Life of Spinoza
to read during the lonely nights in his stable room. Was it possible to learn from another's life? And Russian history fascinated him. He went through stacks of pamphlets on the shelves in the rear of the shops. He read some on serfdom, the Siberian penal systemâa terrifying account he had found in a bushel the bookseller had winked at. He read about the revolt and destruction of the Decembrists, and a fascinating account of the Narodniki, idealists of the 1870's who had devoted themselves to the peasants in an impulsive
attempt to stir them to social revolution, were rebuffed by them, and turned from peasant-mysticism to terrorism. Yakov also read a short biography of Peter the Great, and after that a horrifying account of the bloody destruction of Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible. It had entered the madman's head that the city intended treason to him, so he had ordered a wooden wall built around it to prevent escape. Then he marched in with his army, and after putting his subjects through the cruelest tortures, daily slaughtered thousands of them. This went on in increasing savagery, the sound of horror rising to the sky as the wailing mothers watched their children being roasted alive and thrown to wild dogs. At the end of five weeks, sixty thousand people, maimed, torn, broken apart, lay dead in the foul-smelling streets as disease spread. Yakov was sickened. Like a pogromâthe very worst. The Russians make pogroms against the Russiansâit went on throughout their history. What a sad country, he thought, amazed by what he had read, every possible combination of experiences, where black was white and black was black; and if the Russians, too, were massacred by their own rulers and died like flies, who were then the Chosen People? Fatigued by history, he went back to Spinoza, rereading chapters on biblical criticism, superstition, and miracles which he knew almost by heart. If there was a God, after reading Spinoza he had closed up his shop and become an idea.
Life of Spinoza
to read during the lonely nights in his stable room. Was it possible to learn from another's life? And Russian history fascinated him. He went through stacks of pamphlets on the shelves in the rear of the shops. He read some on serfdom, the Siberian penal systemâa terrifying account he had found in a bushel the bookseller had winked at. He read about the revolt and destruction of the Decembrists, and a fascinating account of the Narodniki, idealists of the 1870's who had devoted themselves to the peasants in an impulsive
attempt to stir them to social revolution, were rebuffed by them, and turned from peasant-mysticism to terrorism. Yakov also read a short biography of Peter the Great, and after that a horrifying account of the bloody destruction of Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible. It had entered the madman's head that the city intended treason to him, so he had ordered a wooden wall built around it to prevent escape. Then he marched in with his army, and after putting his subjects through the cruelest tortures, daily slaughtered thousands of them. This went on in increasing savagery, the sound of horror rising to the sky as the wailing mothers watched their children being roasted alive and thrown to wild dogs. At the end of five weeks, sixty thousand people, maimed, torn, broken apart, lay dead in the foul-smelling streets as disease spread. Yakov was sickened. Like a pogromâthe very worst. The Russians make pogroms against the Russiansâit went on throughout their history. What a sad country, he thought, amazed by what he had read, every possible combination of experiences, where black was white and black was black; and if the Russians, too, were massacred by their own rulers and died like flies, who were then the Chosen People? Fatigued by history, he went back to Spinoza, rereading chapters on biblical criticism, superstition, and miracles which he knew almost by heart. If there was a God, after reading Spinoza he had closed up his shop and become an idea.
When he wasn't reading, Yakov was composing little essays on a variety of subjectsâ“I am in history,” he wrote, “yet not in it. In a way of speaking I'm far out, it passes me by. Is this good, or is something lacking in my character? What a question! Of course lacking but what can I do about it? And besides is this really such a great worry? Best to stay where one is, unless he has something to give to history, like for instance Spinoza, as I read in his life. He understood history, and also because he had
ideas to give it. Nobody can burn an idea even if they burn the man. On the other hand there was the activist Jan De Witt, Spinoza's friend and benefactor, a good and great man who was torn to pieces by a Dutch mob when they got suspicious of him although he was innocent. Who needs such a fate?” Some of the little essays were criticisms of “Certain Conditions” as he had read about them in the newspapers. He read these over and burned them in the stove. He also burned the pamphlets he could not resell.
ideas to give it. Nobody can burn an idea even if they burn the man. On the other hand there was the activist Jan De Witt, Spinoza's friend and benefactor, a good and great man who was torn to pieces by a Dutch mob when they got suspicious of him although he was innocent. Who needs such a fate?” Some of the little essays were criticisms of “Certain Conditions” as he had read about them in the newspapers. He read these over and burned them in the stove. He also burned the pamphlets he could not resell.
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