The Little Russian (19 page)

Morris said, “Come, sit down. I’ll get us some tea. And I brought a little schnapps.”

Zolman said, “Who can say no to that? And get some cakes too. You’re the rich man.”

Morris came back with tea and cakes and passed around the flask. Soon everyone was eating and getting drunk. At first the talk was innocent enough and centered on their childhood exploits. Loud arguments broke out over details that were of great importance to them but meant nothing to Pavel. Their talk reminded him of his brothers. Pavel was the baby of the family, years younger than the others, and was never included in their adventures or their late-night talks. Here too he seemed to be an outsider and once again he envied Morris.

“So, tell me what you’ve been up to?’ Morris asked.

The young men exchanged glances and at first no one spoke up. “What do you mean?” asked Zolman. He glanced at Pavel.

Morris screwed up his face in annoyance. “I told you he’s all right. I’ve known him almost as long as I’ve known you. He’s the hero of Lublin.”

Yankele took a pull on the flask and handed it to Yosele. Yosele passed it on to Zolman without taking a drink. Zolman didn’t take one either and let it sit there.

“We’re moving out in a circle,” he said, keeping his voice low. It was an unnecessary precaution since they were speaking Yiddish in a Russian tearoom. “We’re moving out from Cherkast. Training them in the
shtetlekh
and the towns. Sometimes we can arm them, but it’s getting harder to buy guns.”

Yankele leaned in and fingered a lump of sugar from a bowl that sat in the center of the table. “Have you heard of Medvin?”

Morris shook his head.

“A real success story, that one. You know the shtetl? It ’s not far from here. We gave them a few pistols once and a little training. Not much. Then not long ago the peasants started bragging about a pogrom. This was”—he thought for a moment—“last spring, I think.” They showed up at market saying they were coming back to wipe out the town.”

“The whole town?”

“That ’s what they said. The next day they came down the main road in their carts. The Jews hid in the bushes on either side of the road and waited for them. They had maybe three pistols between them and not
much ammunition. They started firing when the carts came into range. And as soon as they’d fire off a round, they’d toss it to the next man. He fired off a round and tossed it on. Soon it sounded like an army out there in the bushes. The muzhiki got so scared they ran off without a second thought. Some didn’t even bother to turn their carts around. They just left them and ran off into the woods.”

They drank some more while Yosele told them the story about hiding under the floorboards in Odessa during the pogrom. Morris told them about their group in Switzerland. When Pavel told his story everyone was impressed. He only exaggerated a little to give the story color. As the evening turned into night, they talked about their plans for the future: schools and a hospital, the establishment of
kehiles
and other self-governing bodies, Yiddish as the primary language, and an agenda of national-cultural autonomy. Pavel looked into their sweaty faces around the table and saw the same kind of fervor that he had seen on the faces in shul that morning. In shul the ardor had been for the love of God and His laws. Here, it was for social justice, empowerment, and dignity, but the feeling was the same, the intensity of purpose borne out of thousands of years wandering in the Diaspora.

And he felt it too. It may have been the whiskey, the talk, or the late hour, but whatever the reason, by the end of the evening he felt like a brother to these men. He had never felt this way before, not even to his own brothers. They were all comrades in the struggle. He would’ve done anything for them. So, when Zolman told them about their plan to break into a police warehouse to steal guns and asked for their help, Morris agreed without a moment ’s hesitation. Pavel agreed too. Afterward he joined in when the flask was passed around even though he didn’t particularly like whiskey.

 

PAVEL FELT nothing but disgust for Morris when he came into his room on the morning of the break-in and found him lying in sweat-soaked sheets, his face flushed with a high fever, his hair plastered to his forehead, and a deep rumbling in his chest whenever he took a breath. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance for the malingerer.

Morris opened his eyes and with some effort managed to focus them on his friend. “Pneumonia,” he whispered. He was propped up on pillows to make it easier to breathe. His room was a study in gloom. The heavy curtains were shut and the only light came from a small lamp on a table beside the bed. There was a white enamel inhaler beside the lamp emitting a lazy trail of steam out of its funnel that smelled of eucalyptus oil.

Pavel pursed his lips and shook his head. “For God’s sakes, Morris. I know what this is about. You don’t want to go tonight. All right, so we won’t go. You don’t have to put on this show.”

“I’m sick, Pavel. Ask my doctor. I’m running a high fever.”

He snorted. “Right.”

A coughing spasm caught him by surprise and when it was over he lay back on the pillows, panting for breath, wiping his hands on the sheets.

Pavel’s lip curled up in disgust. “Can’t you use a handkerchief ?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, it isn’t pleasant having pneumonia. I may have to go to hospital.”

Pavel looked pained. “Well, what about tonight then?”

“You’re going to have to go it alone.”

“I don’t want to go it alone. It’s goddamn freezing out there.”

“What choice do you have? They need a lookout.”

“They’ll just have to postpone it.”

“They can’t. The guns might be moved any day. You’ll only be a lookout.”

“
Only
. . .”

“Not much can happen to you. You’ll be standing out on a corner. The others will do the rest. You can’t back out now. I think even you can see that.”

“
Even me
?”

“You know what I mean.” Morris closed his eyes and lay back.

“Oh fine. You’re really a load of horseshit, Eiger, and I’m never forgiving you for this.”

“I know,” he said with a faint smile.

That night Pavel waited out on Potemkinskaya, down in the factory
section, hoping that Zolman and the others wouldn’t show up. It was so cold that the snot froze in his nose and it hurt to breathe. He was standing in front of an old factory building across the street from the police warehouse. The factory was deserted, with missing windows like broken teeth and a front door secured with a flimsy padlock. It used to be a textile mill. He could see that by the likeness of a loom carved into the lintel over the doorway.

Although it was a snowy night with an icy wind blowing in off the river, there was some light coming from the Nicholas Sugar Refinery located at the eastern end of the street. It had one enormous smokestack that belched flames and burning cinders into the black sky, and the yard was lit because the refinery doors were open. As he stood on the corner trying to see the hands on his pocket watch, knowing that it was late and hoping that it was called off, an electric tram rumbled by, pulling cartloads of beetroots on the icy tracks in the middle of the road. He watched the tram pull into the refinery yard, where he could see men silhouetted against the light of the open doorway. When the tram had come to a stop, the men tilted the carts to spill the tubers out in the snow and started loading them onto a conveyor belt.

Looking down the other way, he saw Zolman and the others walking toward him out of the flurries. There were two other men with them that he didn’t recognize. One was expensively dressed and seemed out of place like Pavel. The other one was a laborer like the rest. With a pang of regret he walked down to meet them. There was a nod between them, no introductions or explanations, none of the joviality from that night in the tearoom. The new men were older and seemed to be in charge. The shorter of the two, the laborer, the one they called Scharfstein, took Pavel aside and told him where to stand so that he could have a good view of the street and the surrounding buildings. It was on the corner directly across from the police warehouse in front of the deserted factory. Pavel took his sentry post and watched the others cross the street and disappear around the back of the warehouse.

For a while Pavel saw nothing except the whirlwinds of snow and the men working the carts at the refinery. Then, after a short while, he saw the play of electric torch beams through the dark windows of
the police warehouse and knew they were inside. He tried to keep his attention on the street. He knew that any trouble would come from down the street, not from the refinery or from the steep ravine behind it, but from the west, from the town, so he kept his eyes mostly in that direction. It was so icy out he began to shiver and curse Morris, blaming him for the cold and the fear that felt like something died in his stomach. After a strong gust of wind drove him back into the doorway of the deserted textile mill, he thought that if Morris survived the pneumonia he would kill him.

He began to take shelter in the doorway. He told himself he would only stay there for a little while. He reassured himself that it would be all right; besides, no one would be out on a night like this. He tried to limit the time he spent in there, but it was such a relief to be out of the wind. He could have stepped inside the building. It would have been easy to pry the padlock off the door. He probably would have done it if he hadn’t heard voices behind him.

At first he thought his comrades were coming back and very nearly hurried out to the street so they wouldn’t know he had abandoned his post. But then he realized the voices weren’t coming from across the street, but from down the block, from the direction of the town. He froze. He peered out from his hiding place and saw two gendarmes coming his way. He jumped back and flattened his body against the wall. His heart was racing. He couldn’t think. His mind was a jumble. He wanted to run to the warehouse, but it was too late for that. Instead he tore off his glove with his teeth thinking that he would whistle. But he was never very good at it and now his lips were numb. In any case, the wind was too loud.

As the two policemen approached, he fell to his knees and held his breath. He could hear the crunch of their feet on the snow and even made out most of their conversation above the wail of the wind. One of them thought he had heard a noise in the warehouse and wanted to investigate. The other wasn’t for it. He argued that they ought to go to the sugar refinery to get warm and have a cup of tea. More was said that Pavel couldn’t hear, but the first one must have prevailed for they never passed him by. When he got up his courage to look out again
he could see them crossing the tracks and trudging through the snow up to the warehouse windows. They brushed off the snow and shined their lights inside. Then they went on to the next set of windows and then around to the back.

Pavel waited in the doorway trying to get up the courage to run over to the warehouse and warn the others. At first nothing happened; he thought maybe they had heard the gendarmes and were hiding somewhere inside. Then he heard shouts and a couple of shots and before he knew it he was running blindly up the street toward the refinery, slipping on the ice, catching himself on a rusted beet cart and racing on past the boarded-up shacks and broken-down outbuildings that lined the street. He didn’t stop until he came to the edge of the ravine. Looking over the ledge he saw only a sheer snowy rock face and a black void beneath it. He turned back and this time ran to the refinery yard, where the men were still loading the beetroots onto the conveyor belt. Without a word he stooped to join them, piling the roots onto the belt, keeping his head down and ruining his fine calfskin gloves on the dirt that encrusted the tubers.

When the police ran by he looked up with studied unconcern and in doing so caught the eye of the other workers, who were watching him. There were three of them, dirty, careworn faces, wearing patched coats and felt boots. They stopped their work and studied him. Then the one with the raggedy beard took Pavel’s gloves right off his hands. The other one took his fur hat and the last one took his coat. In exchange the flat-faced little man gave Pavel his coat, a filthy assortment of mismatched patches. Pavel took it without a word, and put it on. It was too small. After that the men returned to their work, and Pavel did the same.

He was just beginning to wonder how long he would have to stay there, in the cold, with his back beginning to ache, when a new contingent of police arrived and approached the workers.

“See any suspicious men around here?” asked the captain.

Pavel’s heart began to thump in his chest. The workers shook their heads.

“Some men run past here? Maybe they headed off into the gulley or down over there,” he said, pointing to the edge of the ravine.

A sullen silence.

The captain looked at them and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Then Pavel saw his eyes flick to the new gloves, to the fur hat and the coat.

“There is a reward, you know.” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the wind.

They looked up.

Pavel’s heart stopped.

“A reward?” asked the one wearing Pavel’s gloves.

“How much?” asked the one wearing his hat.

“Twenty rubles.”

Pavel looked at them, silently pleading with them. But they knew he was a Jew. A Jew owned the corner store. Jews did business with the devil and some even had horns and a tail. The shame of it was that Pavel could’ve easily outbid the police for his life. He could’ve offered them any amount they wanted. But it was too late. His options had just run out and all he could do now was slump down on a pile of roots and watch his end unfold.

January 1914