The Fixer (19 page)

  He began to talk about himself. “Of course I’m better off than some I can think of,” Gronfein said, looking at Yakov to see if he agreed. “I have a first-class lawyer already working for me in what you could call unofficial ways, and I’m not afraid to part with a few hundred rubles if I have to, because there’s more where they come from. What I do is I’m a counterfeiter. It’s not honest but pays well, and so what if it takes away from Tsar Nicholas—he’s got plenty he takes from the Jews. Still, if a bribe doesn’t work this time I don’t know what will. I’ve got a wife and five children and I’m getting a little worried. This is the longest I’ve spent in a cell. How long have you been here yourself?”

  “Here about a month. Altogether three months since I was arrested.”

  “Whew.” The counterfeiter gave Yakov two cigarettes and a piece of apple strudel from his last package, and the fixer ate and smoked gratefully.

  Next time they talked, Gronfein asked Yakov questions about his parents, family, and village. He wanted to know what he had been doing in Kiev. Yakov told him this and that but not too much. He did, however, mention Raisl, and Gronfein squirmed.

  “Not so much of a Jewish daughter I’d say. My wife couldn’t have such thoughts, not with a goy anyway, let alone do such a thing.”

  The fixer shrugged. “Some do, some don’t. And some who do are Jewish.”

  Gronfein started to ask something, looked around cautiously, then whispered he would be interested in knowing what exactly had happened to the boy. “How did he die?”

  “How did who die?” the fixer said, astonished.

  “That Russian boy who was murdered.”

  “How would I know?” He drew away from the man. “What they say I did I didn’t do. If I weren’t a Jew there’d be no crime.”

  “Are you sure? Why don’t you confide in me? We’re both in the same pot.”

  “I have nothing to confide,” said Yakov coldly. “If there was no fowl there are no feathers.”

  “It’s tough luck,” said the counterfeiter amiably, “but I’ll do what I can to help you. Once they let me out of here I’ll speak to my lawyer.”

  “For that I’ll thank you.”

  But Gronfein had grown depressed, his eyes clouding, and said no more.

  The next day he sidled up to Yakov and whispered, worried, “They say on the outside that if the government brings you up on trial they might start a pogrom at the same time. The Black Hundreds are making terrible threats. Hundreds of Jews are leaving the city as if fleeing the plague. My father-in-law is talking of selling his business and running to Warsaw.”

  The fixer listened in silence.

  “Nobody’s blaming you, you understand,” Gronfein said.

  “If your father-in-law wants to run away at least he can run away.”

  As they talked, the counterfeiter, from time to time, nervously glanced in the direction of the cell door, as if he were watching for the guard.

  “Are you expecting a package?” Yakov asked.

  “No no. But if they don’t let me out of here I’ll soon go mad. It’s a stinking place and I’m worried about my family.”

  He drifted away, but was back in twenty minutes with the remnants of a package.

  “Guard what’s left here,” he said to Yakov, “maybe I’m getting some action after all.”

  A guard opened the door and Gronfein disappeared from the cell for half an hour. When he returned he told the fixer they were letting him out that evening. He seemed satisfied but his ears were flaming, and afterwards he muttered much to himself for more than an hour. Later he was calmer.

  That’s how it goes with money, Yakov thought. If you’ve got it you’ve got wings.

  “Something I can do for you before I go?” Gronfein whispered, slipping the fixer a ten-ruble note. “Don’t worry, it’s guaranteed good.”

  “Thanks. With this I can get myself a few things. They won’t give me my own money. Maybe I can buy a better pair of shoes from one of the prisoners. These hurt my feet. Also if your lawyer can help me I’ll be much obliged.”

  “I was thinking maybe you want to leave me a letter to send to somebody?” said Gronfein. “Just write it out with this pencil and I’ll mail it along. I have paper and an envelope or two in my pack. Stamps I’ll paste on on the outside.”

  “With the greatest of thanks,” Yakov said, “but who have I got to write to?”

  “If you have nobody to write to,” said Gronfein, “I can’t manufacture you a correspondent, but what about your father-in-law that you told me about?”

  “He’s a poor man all his life. What can he do for me?”

  “He’s got a mouth, hasn’t he? Let him start yelling.”

  “A mouth and a stomach but nothing goes in.”

  “They say when a Jewish rooster crows in Pinsk they hear him in Palestine.”

  “Maybe I’ll write,” said Yakov.

  The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to write. He had a desperate desire to make known his fate. On the outside, as Gronfein had said, they knew somebody was in prison but not who. He wanted everyone to know it was Yakov Bok. He wanted them to know his innocence. Somebody had to know or he would never get out. Maybe a committee of some sort could be formed to help him? Maybe, if you knew the law, it was possible for a lawyer to see him before the indictment; if not that, he could at least urge them to produce the document so they could begin his defense. In another week it would be thirty days in this smelly detention cell and he had heard from no one. He considered writing to the Investigating Magistrate but didn’t dare. If he should turn over the letter to the Prosecuting Attorney things might go worse. Or if he didn’t maybe his assistant, Ivan Semyonovitch, might. In any case, it was too great a chance to take.

  The fixer then slowly wrote two letters, one to Shmuel, and another to Aaron Latke, the printer who had rented him a room in his flat.

  “Dear Shmuel,” wrote Yakov. “As you predicted I got myself into serious trouble and am now in the Kiev Prison near Dorogozhitsky Street. I know it’s impossible but try to help me as soon as you can. Who else can I appeal to? Your son-in-law, Yakov Bok. P.S. If she’s back I’d rather not know.”

  To Aaron Latke he wrote, “Dear friend Aaron, your recent boarder Yakov Bok is now in the Kiev Prison, in the thirty-day cell. After thirty days God knows what will happen to me. What’s happened already is bad enough. I am accused of killing a Russian child by the name of Zhenia Golov, who I swear I didn’t touch. Do me a favor and take this letter to some Jewish journalist or maybe to a sincere philanthropist, if you happen to know of one. Tell them if they can get me out of here I’ll work hard my whole life to pay them back. Only hurry because it’s a desperate situation and getting worse. Yakov Bok.”

  “Good,” said Gronfein, accepting the sealed letters, “that should do it. Well, the best of luck to you, and don’t worry about the ten rubles. You can pay me when you get out. Where there’s that there’s more.”

  The guard opened the cell door and the counterfeiter hurriedly disappeared down the corridor, the prison guard trotting after him.

  Fifteen minutes later Yakov was called to the warden’s office. He handed the remnant of Gronfein’s package to Fetyukov to watch, promising to divide it with him.

  Yakov hurried through the hall with the guard’s gun at his back. Maybe it’s the indictment, he thought in excitement.

  Warden Grizitskoy was in his office with the Deputy Warden and a stern-faced inspector in a uniform like a general’s. In the corner sat Gronfein, his hat on and eyes shut.

  The warden waved the two letters, out of their envelopes, that the fixer had just written.

  “Are these yours? Answer truthfully, you son-of-a-bitch.”

  The fixer froze, his heart sinking. “Yes, your honor.”

  The warden pointed to the Yiddish script. “Translate these bird droppings,” he said to Gronfein.

  The counterfeiter opened his eyes long enough to read the letters aloud in Russian, in a quick monotone.

  “You Zhid bloodsucker,” said the warden, “how dare you break prison regulations? I personally warned you not to try to get in touch with anybody on the outside without my express permission.”

  Yakov said nothing, staring, sickened to the pit of his stomach, at Gronfein.

  “He turned them over to us,” the Deputy Warden said to the fixer. “A law-abiding citizen.”

  “Don’t expect a moral man,” Gronfein said to nobody in particular, his eyes still clamped shut. “I’m only a counterfeiter.”

  “You bastard stool pigeon,” Yakov shouted at him, “why did you trick an innocent man?”

  “Watch your language, you,” warned the warden. “A foul heart, a foul tongue.”

  “It’s every man for himself,” Gronfein muttered. “I have five small children and a nervous wife.”

  “What’s more,” said the Deputy Warden,” we have it in writing that you also tried to bribe him to poison the yardkeeper who saw you attempting to kidnap the boy in the brickyard, and also to pay Marfa Golov not to testify against you. Isn’t that the truth?” he asked Gronfein.

  The counterfeiter, sweat trickling from under his hat down his dark lids, nodded once.

  “Where would I get the money to pay for those bribes?” Yakov asked.

  “The Jewish Nation would supply it,” answered the inspector.

  “Get him out of here,” said the old warden. “The Prosecuting Attorney will call you when he needs you,” he said to Gronfein.

  “Stool pigeon!” Yakov shouted, “bastard traitor—it’s a filthy lie!”

  Gronfein, as though blind, was led out of the room by the Deputy Warden.

  “This is the sort of assistance you can expect from your compatriots,” the inspector said to Yakov. “It would be best for you to confess.”

  “We won’t have our rules flouted by such as you,” the warden said. “To strict confinement you go, and if you have any more letters to write you’ll write them in your own blood.”

  5

  He was being boiled alive in the smothering heat of the small solitary cell they had thrust him into, the sweat drenching his back and flowing from his armpits; but on the third night the bolt was shot back, a key grated in the lock, and the door opened.

  A guard ordered him downstairs to the warden’s office. “Get a move on, you fuck, you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

  The Investigating Magistrate was there, sitting in a chair, fanning himself with a wilted yellow straw hat. He wore a crumpled linen suit and a white silk tie, his pallid face contrasting with his dark short beard as he talked earnestly with the Deputy Warden, an uneasy-eyed man with smelly polished boots, flushed, and self-consciously irritated when Yakov entered. When the prisoner, ghastly gray and close to shock, limped into the room, the two officials momentarily stopped talking. The Deputy Warden, gnawing his lip, remarked, “It’s an irregular procedure if you ask my opinion”; but Bibikov patiently differed. “I’m here in the pursuit of my official duties as Investigating Magistrate, Mr. Deputy Warden, so there is nothing to fear.”

  “So you say, but why close to midnight when the warden’s away on vacation and the other officials are sleeping? It’s a strange time to come here on business, if you ask me.”

  “It’s a dreadful night after a dreadfully hot day,” the magistrate said huskily, coughing into his fist, “but much cooler at this hour. In fact there’s a veritable breeze off the Dnieper once you are in the street. To be frank, I was already in bed, but the heat in the house was unbearable and the bedsheets perspired more than I did. I tossed and turned, then I thought, it’s useless, I’ll get up. Once I had dressed it occurred to me it would be helpful if I got on with official matters rather than lay around drinking cold drinks that give me gas, and curse the heat. Fortunately, my wife and children are at our dacha on the Black Sea, where I will go to join them in August. Do you know the heat rose to 40.5 in the shade this afternoon, and must now be hovering around 33.8? I assure you it was all but impossible to work in my office today. My assistant complained of nausea and had to be sent home.”

  “Go on, then, if you want to,” said the Deputy Warden, “but I have to insist that I stay here as a witness to your questions. The prisoner’s under our jurisdiction, that’s clear enough.”

  “May I remind you that your function is custodial and mine investigatory? The suspect has not yet been tried or sentenced. In fact there is no indictment up to now. Nor has he officially been remanded to prison by administrative decree. He is simply here as a material witness. If you will allow me, I am within my rights to question him alone. The time may be inconvenient, but it is so in a formal sense only; therefore I beg you to absent yourself for a brief period, say not more than a half hour.”

  “At least I ought to know what you’re going to ask him about in case the warden wants to know when he gets back. If it’s about his treatment in this prison, I warn you flatly the warden will be annoyed if you ask about that. The Jew hasn’t been made any exception of. If he follows the rules and regulations he gets the same treatment as everybody else. If he doesn’t he’s in for trouble.”

  “My questions will not refer to his prison treatment, although I hope it is always humane. You may tell Warden Grizitskoy that I was checking some testimony of the accused made before me at a previous date. If he would like more precise information, let him telephone me.”

  The Deputy Warden withdrew, casting a sullen glance at the prisoner.

  Bibikov, after sitting a minute with two fingers pressed to his lips, moved quickly to the door, listened intently, then carried his chair and one for Yakov to the windowless far corner of the office, and motioned him to sit down.

  “My friend,” he said hurriedly in a low voice, “I can see from your appearance what you have been through, and I beg you not to think me remiss or without feeling if I do not comment on it. I have promised the Deputy Warden to confine myself to other matters, and besides our time is short and I have much to say.”

  “That’s fine with me, your honor,” muttered Yakov, struggling with his emotions, “but I would like to know if you could get me a different pair of shoes. The nails in these hurt my feet though nobody believes me. Either let them give me a different pair or lend me a hammer and pliers so I can fix them myself.”