The Fixer (12 page)

  The magistrate’s assistant had hesitantly reached over to read the note that Bibikov had crumpled up and left on the table. After glancing at it he smiled vaguely; but when the fixer attempted a smile in return, the assistant vigorously blew his nose.

  Then the Investigating Magistrate returned, breathing through his mouth, his face drawn and grim, followed into the room by Grubeshov and Colonel Bodyansky. Once more they seated themselves at the table, the Prosecuting Attorney again unstrapping his portfolio. Ivan Semyonovitch gazed at them with concern, but neither of the officials spoke. The assistant tested his pen, and held it ready to write. Grubeshov’s smile was gone, his lips set. The colonel’s expression was deadly serious. One look at them and a vast fear again surged through Yakov. Cold sweat prickled his back. Once more he expected the worst. At least almost the worst.

  “The Prosecuting Attorney will now ask you a few questions,” Bibikov said quietly though hoarsely. He sat back and fiddled with his pince-nez string.

  “If you please, first my question,” said the colonel, nodding to Grubeshov, who was peering into the compartments of his portfolio. The Prosecuting Attorney, looking up, assented.

  “Will the prisoner state,” Colonel Bodyansky’s voice boomed out in the room, “whether he is a member of certain political organizations I shall now name: Social Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionists, or any other groups including the Jewish Bund, Zionists of whatever ilk or stripe, Seymists, or Volkspartei?”

  “I’ve already gone into that,” Bibikov said with a touch of impatience.

  The colonel turned on him. “Mr. Investigating Magistrate, the task of protecting the Crown from its enemies is under the jurisdiction of the Secret Political Police. Already there has been too much interference in our affairs.”

  “Not at all, colonel, we are investigating a civil offense—”

  “Even a civil offense may be lèse majesté. I ask you not to intrude on my questions and I won’t interfere with yours. Tell me,” he said, turning to Yakov, “are you a member of any of those so-called political parties I have just named, or of any secret terroristic or nihilistic organizations? Answer truthfully or I will send you to the Petropavelsky Fortress.”

  “No, sir, none, not one,” Yakov replied hastily. “I’ve never belonged to a political party or any secret organizations such as you just mentioned. To tell the truth I don’t know one from the other. If I were a better educated man I might, but as it is now whatever you ask me about them I can tell you very little.”

  “You will be severely punished if you are lying.”

  “Who’s lying, your honor? As a former soldier, I swear I am not lying.”

  “Save your breath,” said the colonel in disgust, “I’ve never met a Jew I could call a soldier.”

  Yakov’s face turned a fiery red.

  The colonel wrote furiously on a slip of paper, thrust it into his tunic pocket and nodded to the Prosecuting Attorney.

  Grubeshov had drawn a black oilskin-covered notebook out of his portfolio and was, with arched brows, studying one of its closely handwritten pages. Then he put the notebook down, and though he stared at the fixer, seemed to be in a pleasant state of mind as he remarked in a dry but slightly thick voice, “Well, we have been amusing ourselves, Mr. Yakov Shepsovitch Bok, alias Dologushev, alias I know not what else, but I now have some serious questions to put to you and I request that you give them your most serious attention. By your own admission you are guilty of certain flagrant violations of Russian law. You have confessed to certain crimes and there is good reason—excellent reason—to suspect others, one of so serious a nature that I shall not name it until we have further sifted the evidence, which I propose to continue to do now, with the permission of my colleagues.”

  He bowed to Bibikov, who, smoking, gravely nodded in return.

  “Oh, my God,” groaned Yakov, “I swear to you I am innocent of any serious crime. No, sir, the worst I am guilty of is stupidity—of living in the Lukianovsky without permission, that the Investigating Magistrate says I can get a month in prison for—but certainly not of any serious crimes.”

  God forgive
me, he
thought in terror. I’m in a bad spot now, worse than quicksand. That’s what one gets for not knowing which way he’s running, to begin with.

  “Answer this question precisely,” said Grubeshov, referring to his notebook. “Are you a ‘Hasid’ or ‘Mis-nogid? Please take down his answers with extreme accuracy, Ivan Semyonovitch.”

  “Neither. I’m neither one nor the other,” said Yakov. “As I told his other honor—if I’m anything at all it’s a freethinker. I say this to let you know I’m not a religious man.”

  “That won’t do you any good,” said the prosecutor, suddenly irritable. “I was expecting just such a response, and of course it’s nothing more than an attempt to divert the questioning. Now answer me directly, you are a circumcised Jew, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a Jew, your honor, I’ll admit to that and the rest is personal.”

  “I’ve already gone through all this, Vladislav Grigorievitch,” said Bibikov. “It’s all in the notes of the testimony. Read it to him, Ivan Semyonovitch, it will save time.”

  “I must ask the Investigating Magistrate not to interrupt,” Grubeshov said testily. “I have no interest in saving time. Time is immaterial to me. Please let me go on without useless interruption.”

  Bibikov lifted the pitcher to pour himself a glass of water but it was empty.

  “Shall I refill it, your honor?” whispered Ivan Semyonovitch.

  “No,” said Bibikov, “I’m not thirsty.”

  “What’s this freethinker business about?” said the colonel.

  “Not now, Colonel Bodyansky, I beg you,” said Grubeshov. “It is not a political party.”

  Colonel Bodyansky lit a cigarette.

  Grubeshov addressed Yakov, reading aloud certain words from his notebook and pronouncing them slowly.

  “There are those among you—are there not?—Jews who are called ‘tzadikim’? When a Jew wishes to harm a Christian, or as you call him, ‘goyim,’ he goes to the ‘tza-dik’ and gives him a ‘pidion,’ which is a fee of some sort, and the ‘tzadik’ uses the power of the word, in magical incantations, to bring misfortune on the Christian. Isn’t that a true fact? Answer me.”

  “Please,” said Yakov, “I don’t understand what you want of me. What have I to do with such things?”

  “You’ll find out, if you don’t already know, only too soon,” said Grubeshov, flushing. “In the meantime answer me truthfully and directly without vomiting a mouthful of irrelevant questions in return. Tell me now, what do you Jews mean by ‘afikomen’? I want the truth without varnish.”

  “But what has this got to do with me?” Yakov said. “What do I know about these things you’re asking me? If they’re strange to you they’re strange to me.”

  “Once more I will direct you to limit yourself to my questions. I will tell you patiently for the last time that I am not interested in your personal comments. Keep in mind that you are already in very serious trouble and curb your tongue.”

  “I am not positive,” said the fixer, disheartened, “but it’s a matzo of some kind that’s used in the Passover ceremony for protection against evil spirits and evil men.”

  “Write that all down, Ivan Semyonovitch. Is it magic?”

  “To my way of thinking it’s superstition, your honor.”

  “But you say it’s the same as matzos?”

  “Practically the same, I think. I’m not an expert in these things. If you want to know the truth I haven’t much use for such matters. I have nothing against those who want to follow the customary ways, but for myself I’m interested in what’s new in the world.”

  He glanced at the Investigating Magistrate, but Bibi-kov was looking out the window.

  Grubeshov slid his fingers into the portfolio and withdrew something covered with a handkerchief. He slowly peeled the four corners of the handkerchief and triumphantly held up a triangle of broken matzo.

  “This was found in your habitat in the stable at the brick factory. What have you to say now?”

  “What can I say, your honor? Nothing. It’s matzo. It’s not mine.”

  “Is it ‘matzo shmuro’?”

  “I wouldn’t know if it was or wasn’t.”

  “I understand that ‘matzo shmuro’ is eaten by very religious Jews.”

  “I think so.”

  “How does it differ from ordinary matzo?”

  “Don’t ask me, your honor. I don’t really know.”

  “I’ll ask what I please. I’ll ask until your eyes pop out. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you bake this matzo?”

  “No.”

  “Then how did it get into your habitat? That’s where the police found it.”

  “It was brought in by an old man, a stranger to me. I give you my earnest word. He was lost one night near the cemetery and I took him in till it stopped snowing. Some boys had hit him with rocks. He was frightened.”

  “Near the cemetery in the Lukianovsky this occurred?”

  “Where the brickworks is.”

  “Was he a ‘tzadik’?”

  “Even suppose he was, what has that got to do with me?”

  “Answer with respect!” The Prosecuting Attorney struck the table with his palm. The piece of matzo fell to the floor. Ivan Semyonovitch hastily retrieved it. He held it up for all to see, it had not broken. Bibikov wet his dry lips. “Answer courteously,” he said.

  Yakov, in a dull state, nodded.

  Grubeshov again bowed to the magistrate. “My deepest thanks.” He paused as though to say more, then changed his mind. “Did your friend the ‘tzadik’ come often to the stable?” he asked Yakov.

  “He came that once. He was a stranger to me. I never saw him again.”

  “That was because you were arrested not long after his departure.”

  Yakov could not argue the point.

  “Is it true that you hid other Jews in the stable and trafficked with them in stolen goods?”

  “No.”

  “Did you steal systematically from your employer, Nikolai Maximovitch Lebedev?”

  “As God is my judge, never a single kopek.”

  “Are you certain you did not yourself bake this matzo? A half bag of flour was found in your habitat.”

  “With respect, your honor, it’s the wrong flour. Also I’m not a baker. I once tried to bake bread to save a kopek or two but it didn’t rise and came out like a rock. The flour was wasted. Baking isn’t one of my skills. I work as carpenter or painter most of the time—I hope nothing has happened to my tools, they’re all I’ve got in the world—but generally I’m a fixer, never a matzo baker. What there is to fix I fix though it pays little and generally my luck in jobs has been bad. But I’m not a criminal, your honor.”

  Grubeshov listened impatiently. “Answer strictly to the point. Did the ‘tzadik’ bake the matzos?”

  “If so not in my house. Who knows if elsewhere, he didn’t tell me but I don’t think so.”

  “Then some other Jew did?”

  “It’s probably true.”

  “It’s more than probable,” said the Prosecuting Attorney, glaring at him. “It’s the truth of God.”

  When Yakov saw him peering again into his evil portfolio, he wrung his manacled hands under the table.

  Grubeshov now slowly drew forth a long, stained rag.

  “Have you seen this before?” He danced the stained rag over the table with his ringers.

  Bibikov watched the dancing rag, absently polishing his glasses; Ivan Semyonovitch stared at it in fascination.

  “I will describe it to you,” said the Prosecuting Attorney. “It is part of a peasant’s blouse similar to the one you are presently affecting. Was this rag, by some chance, formerly a possession of yours?”

  “I don’t know,” said Yakov wearily.

  “I advise you to think more carefully, Yakov Bok. If you’ve eaten no garlic your breath won’t stink.”

  “Yes, your honor,” Yakov said desperately, “it’s mine more or less, although that’s nothing to worry about. The old man I mentioned to you was hit on the head by a rock, and I used part of an old shirt I was no longer wearing—it fell apart on my back—to wipe the blood away. That’s God’s own truth and all there is to it, I swear.”

  “So you admit it’s bloodstained,” shouted the Prosecuting Attorney.

  Yakov felt his tongue turn to dust.

  “Did you ever chase any children in the brickworks yard in the vicinity of the kilns, in particular a twelve-year lad by the name of Zhenia Golov?”

  The fixer was unable to reply.

  Grubeshov, after glancing at Bibikov, smiled broadly as he mincingly asked the fixer, “Tell me Yankel Jew, why are you trembling?”

  3

  Why does a man tremble?

  When he was locked in the cell again there were three filthy straw pallets on the floor. One was his—what a misery that he could think of it as his; and two new prisoners were lying on the others. One was a hairy man in rags, the other a living skeleton. Both stank across the room, of dirt and poverty. Though neither paid any attention to him, the ragged one blinking at the wall, the other snoring, the fixer kept to the far corner of the cell. He felt abandoned, lost to the world.

  “What will happen to me now?” he asked himself. And if it happens bad who will ever know? I might as well be dead. Recalling his father-in-law and wife, he could conjure neither of them close. Especially the wife. He thought of his father and mother, young people in their weedy graves, and their fate gave him no comfort. His frustrated innocence outraged him. He was unjustly accused, helpless, unable to offer proof or be believed. What horror would they accuse him of next? “If they knew me could they say such things?” He tried to comprehend what was happening and explain it to himself. After all, he was a rational being, and a man must try to reason. Yet the more he reasoned the less he understood. The familiar had become evil. What happened next was weighted with peril. That he was a Jew, willing or unwilling, was not enough to explain his fate. Remembering his life filled him with hatred for the way things went and were going. I’m a fixer but all my life I’ve broken more than I fix. What would they accuse him of next? How could a man defend himself against such terrible hints, insinuations,
accusations
, if no one was willing to believe him? Panic gnawed him. He was full of desperate thoughts of what to do next—somehow to sneak out of the cell and seek in the ghetto for the old man to tell the Russians that he had been hit on the head by a rock and Yakov had wiped away the blood?