The Fixer (10 page)

  “In the dark, in desperation.”

  Bibikov reached into his pocket and offered the fixer his cigarette box. “Have one, they’re Turkish.”

  Yakov smoked in order not to affront the man, though he could not taste the cigarette.

  Taking a folded paper and pencil stub out of his suit coat pocket the magistrate placed them on the table, saying, “I leave this questionnaire with you. We will have to know more biographical details since you have no police record. When you have answered each question and signed your name, call the guard and give him the paper. Be accurate in everything you say. I’ll leave the candle with you.”

  Yakov stared at the paper.

  “I have to hurry now. My boy has a fever. My wife gets frantic.” The Investigating Magistrate buttoned his fur coat and put on a wide-brimmed black fedora that looked large for his head.

  Nodding to the prisoner, he said quietly, “Whatever happens you must have fortitude.”

  “My God, what can happen? I’m an innocent man.”

  Bibikov shrugged. “It’s a touchy thing.”

  “Have mercy, your honor; I’ve had little in my life.”

  “Mercy is for God, I depend on the law. The law will protect you.”

  He called the guard and left the cell. As the door was being locked he hurried away in the dimly lit corridor.

  The fixer felt at once a sense of intense loss.

  “When will you come back?” he shouted after him.

  “Tomorrow.” A distant door shut. The footsteps were gone.

  “It’s a long tomorrow,” said the guard.

  2

  The next morning a new guard unlocked the cell, searched Yakov thoroughly for the third time since he had awakened, manacled him tightly with heavy handcuffs attached by a short thick chain, and in the presence of two other armed guards, one of whom cursed the prisoner and prodded him with his pistol, escorted Yakov, about as dead as he was alive, up two flights of narrow booming wooden stairs into the Investigating Magistrate’s office. In the large anteroom some clerks in uniform sat at long tables scratching on paper with wet pens. They gazed at him with intense interest, then looked at each other. Yakov was led into a brown-walled smaller office. Bibikov was standing at an open window, waving his hand back and forth to thin out the cigarette smoke. As Yakov entered he quickly shut the window and seated himself in a chair at the head of a long table. The room contained a bulky desk, several shelves of thick books, two large green shaded lamps, and a small ikon in the corner; on the wall hung a large sepia portrait of Tsar Nicholas II, bemedaled and immaculately barbered, staring critically at the fixer. The picture added to his discomfort.

  The only other person in the room was Bibikov’s assistant, a pimply-faced man in his thirties, with a thin beard through which his small chin was visible. He was sitting next to the magistrate at the short end of the table, and Yakov was told to take his seat at the other end. The three escorting guards at the magistrate’s request waited in the antechamber. He, after barely glancing at the prisoner—almost distastefully the fixer thought—fished among some official documents in a pile before him and drew forth a thick one whose pages he thumbed through. He whispered something to the assistant, who filled a heavy fountain pen from a large bottle of black ink, wiped the nib with an ink-stained rag, and began to write quickly in a notebook.

  Bibikov, looking ill-at-ease and tired, seemed changed from last night, and for a moment Yakov nervously wondered if it was the same man. His head was large, with a broad forehead and a pelt of dark graying hair. As he read he nibbled on his thin underlip; then he put down the paper, blew at his pince-nez, adjusted them with care and sipped from a glass of water. He spoke in a voice without warmth, addressing the fixer across the table: “I will now read you a portion of the deposition of Nikolai Maximovitch Lebedev, factory owner of the Lukianovsky District; that is, his factory is in the Lukianovsky—” Then his official voice changed and he said quietly, “Yakov Shepsovitch Bok, you are in a difficult situation and we must straighten things out. Listen first to a statement of the witness Lebedev. He says it was your intent from the outset to deceive him.”

  “It isn’t true, your honor!”

  “Just one minute. Please contain yourself.”

  Bibikov took up the document, turned to an inside page and read aloud:

  “‘N. Lebedev: He whom I knew as Yakov Ivanovitch Dologushev, although he did me, by chance, a personal favor of some magnitude, for which I generously rewarded him, and my daughter treated him most considerately, was a less than honest man—more accurately, a deceitful one. He concealed from me, for reasons that are obvious—and well he might for I would never have employed him had I known what I do now—that he was in truth, although he attempted to hide it, a member of the Jewish Nation. I confess I felt a tremor of suspicion when I observed his discomfiture at a query I addressed him concerning the Holy Scriptures. In response to my question whether he had made it a habit to read the Holy Bible, he replied he was familiar only with the Old Testament, and blanched greatly when I proceeded to read him some telling verses from the New Testament, in particular from the Sermon on the Mount.’

  “‘Investigating Magistrate: Anything else?’

  “‘N. Lebedev: I also noticed an odd hesitancy, a sort of bumbling when he spoke his name for the first time, that is to say the assumed name, which he was as yet unfamiliar with. It did not, need I say, your honor, fit his Jewish tongue. Furthermore, for an ostensibly poor man he showed extreme reluctance—perhaps this is to his credit—to accept my generous offer of a position in my brickworks, and my suspicions were further aroused because he seemed uneasy when I had broached the matter of his living in the room above the stable on the factory grounds. He wanted to work for me and yet he was afraid to, naturally enough. He was troubled and nervous, constantly wetting his lips and averting his eyes. Since I am somewhat incapacitated in health—my liver gives me trouble and I suffer a marked shortness of breath—I had need of an overseer who would live on the premises and see that my affairs were kept in order. However, since the Jew had helped me when I became suddenly ill and collapsed in the snow, my suspicions were not long lasting, and I offered him the position. I believe he knew full well, when he accepted my unwitting offer, that the Lukianovsky District is sacred territory and forbidden to Jews for residence, except, as I understand it, for exceptional services to the Crown; and I take that to be the reason he made no attempt to turn over to me his papers so that I might deliver them to the District Police.’

  “‘Investigating Magistrate: Did you ask for them?”

  “‘N. Lebedev: Not directly. Yes, perhaps I did once and he made me some sort of fishy Jewish excuse or other, and then as I was having trouble with my health I neglected to remind him again. Had I done that and he refused my request, I would at once have ordered him off my property. I am a generous and lenient man, your honor, but I would never have tolerated a Jew in my employ. Please note, if you will, the sigillum on my coat lapel. I consider it a mark of this man’s insolence that he was not quailed by it in my presence. For your information I am a former recording secretary of the Society of the Double-headed Eagle.’ “

  The magistrate laid down the paper, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “You have heard the deposition,” he said to Yakov. “I have also read your questionnaire and am familiar with the responses, but I must now ask you to comment on the remarks of the witness Lebedev. Is the substance of them correct? Be careful in your reply. This, though not a trial, is a police investigation to see if an Act of Indictment is warranted.”

  Yakov rose in excitement. “Please, your honor, I don’t know much about the law, and it isn’t always simple to say yes and no in the right place. Would you let me speak to a lawyer for advice? I might even have a few rubles to pay if the police will return my money to me.”

  “Yes and no take care of themselves if a man tells the truth. As for consulting a lawyer, that is not possible at this stage. In our legal system the indictment comes first. After the preliminary examination the Investigating Magistrate and Prosecuting Attorney consult, and if both believe the suspect to be guilty, an Act of Indictment is drawn up and sent to the District Court, where it is either confirmed or disapproved by the judges. The defense may begin after the accused is informed that the indictment has been voted, and he is then given a copy of it. Within a week or so, possibly a bit more, the accused may select his counsel and inform the court.”

  “Your honor,” Yakov said in alarm, “suppose a man is innocent of what they say he did? What’s it all about is a confusion in my mind. One minute I think it’s as clear as daylight and the crime we’re talking about is a small one, no more than a mistake you might say, and the next minute you say things that make me shiver. For my little sin why should anybody accuse me of a big one? If I gave a false name to someone does that mean there’s bound to be an indictment?”

  “We will know in due course what is bound to be.”

  The fixer, sighing heavily, sat down, his manacled hands twitching in his lap.

  “I have asked you to comment on the witness Lebe-dev’s remarks,” Bibikov said.

  “Your honor, I give you my word I meant no harm. What I did wrong—even Nikolai Maximovitch admits it—I did with reluctance, against my will. The truth is I found him drunk in the snow. As a reward he offered me a job I didn’t ask for. I could’ve refused it and I did once or twice, but my money was going fast, I had rent to pay and et cetera. I was getting desperate for work—my hands complain when they have nothing to do—so I finally took what he offered me. He was satisfied with the paint and papering job I first did, and he also told me I was a good overseer in the brickworks. I used to get up half past three every night to inspect the loading of the wagons. If he said it once he said it more than once. Ask him yourself, your honor.”

  “True, but didn’t you give him a false name as your own? In effect, a gentile name? That was no accident I take it? That was your intent, wasn’t it?”

  The magistrate had forcefully thrust his face forward. Was this the man who said he admired Spinoza?

  “It’s my mistake, I admit it,” said Yakov. “I gave him the first name that popped into my head. I wasn’t thinking, your honor, and that’s how a man comes to grief. When you’re faced with a worrisome situation it’s not so easy to keep your mind on what comes next. Dologushev is a one-eyed peasant near my village who slaughters pigs. But the truth of it is I really didn’t want to live on the factory grounds. It got so I couldn’t sleep from worrying so much. Nikolai Maximovitch mentions that I was afraid to take his offer to live in the stable. He says so himself in this paper you just read to me. I asked him if I could live in the Podol instead and walk to the job, but he said no, I had to live there. In other words it wasn’t my idea in the first place. And he’s mistaken if he thinks he asked for my passport. Maybe he thought he did but he didn’t. He’s a melancholy man and sometimes vague in his thoughts. I swear he never asked me. If he had, that would have ended it then and there. I would have thought the jig’s up and gone home. It would have saved me a lot of misery.”

  “Still, you did live in the Lukianovsky, though fully aware it was illegal for you to do so?”

  “That’s as you say, your honor, but I didn’t want to lose the job. I was hoping for a better life than I had.” His voice had begun to plead, but noticing the magistrate’s compressed lips and stern gaze, Yakov stopped speaking and inspected his hands.

  “In the questionnaire,” said Bibikov, snapping on his glasses and consulting another paper, “you state you are a Jew ‘by birth and nationality.’ Do I sense a reservation, and if so what is it?”

  The fixer sat silent a minute, then looked up uncomfortably. “What I meant by that is I’m not a religious man. I was when I was young but lost my belief. I thought I mentioned that when we talked last night, but maybe I didn’t. That’s all I meant by that.”

  “How did it happen? I refer to your loss of religion.”

  “I guess there’s more than one reason even though I don’t recall them all. In my life, the way that it’s turned out, I’ve had a lot to think about. One thought breeds another. Give me an idea and in two minutes there’s a second pushing out the first. Also I’ve been reading a little here and there, as I mentioned to you, your honor, and have picked up a few things I never knew before. It all adds up.”

  The magistrate leaned back in his chair. “You haven’t by some chance been baptized along the way? It might be convenient if you had.”

  “Oh, no, your honor, nothing at all like that. What I mean to say is I’m a freethinker.”

  “I understand that, though to be a freethinker assumes one would know how to think.”

  “I try my best,” said Yakov.

  “What do you think freethinker means?”

  “A man who decides for himself if he wants to believe in religion. Maybe an agnostic also. Some do and some don’t.”

  “Do you think it adds to your stature to be irreligious?”

  My God, what have I said? the fixer thought. I’d better keep this simple and small or I’ll dig my grave and they’ll lay me in it.

  He said hastily, “It’s as you say, your honor, yes and no fall into place if you tell the truth. I’m telling the truth.”

  “Let’s not complicate matters unnecessarily.” Bibikov sipped from his water glass. “Legally you are a Jew. The Imperial Government considers you one even though you twist and squirm. You are so recorded on your passport. Our laws concerning Jews apply to you. However, if you are ashamed of your people, why don’t you leave the faith officially?”

  “I’m not ashamed, your honor. Maybe I don’t always like what I see—there are Jews of all sorts, as the saying goes, but if I’m going to be ashamed of anyone, it might as well be myself.” As he said this his color heightened.

  Bibikov listened with interest. He glanced down at his notes, then looked up with eyes narrowed. Ivan Semyon-ovitch, the assistant, who reacted quickly to his remarks, often taking on the same facial expression as the magistrate, glancing at the notes from where he sat, leaned forward intently.