Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [107]
He grabbed Shmuel by the arm. “Hurry up, it’s getting towards morning.”
“Goodbye, Yakov, remember what I told you.”
“Raisl,” Yakov called after him. “I forgot to ask. Whatever happened to her?”
“I’m running,” said Shmuel, holding on to his hat.
VIII
Shmuel’s visit left the fixer with a heavy burden of excitement. Something must happen now, he thought. He will run to people on my behalf. He will say this is my son-in-law Yakov and look what happened to him. He will tell them I’m in prison in Kiev and what for. He will cry out my innocence and beg for help. Maybe a lawyer will then go to Grubeshov and ask for the indictment. He will say, “You must give it to us before this man dies in his cell.” Maybe he will even petition the Minister of Justice. If he’s a good lawyer he will think of other things to do. He won’t neglect me here.
Instead the warden appeared in the cell, tense and agi-tated. His good eye gleamed. His mouth was loose with anger. “We’ll give you escape, you bastard. We’ll give you conspiracy.”
A prisoner in strict confinement nearby had heard voices that night and had informed on Zhitnyak. The guard was arrested and after a while confessed that he had let an old Jew in to talk to the murderer.
“This time you overreached yourself, Bok. You’ll wish you had never laid eyes on this other conspirator. We’ll show you what good outside agitation will do. You’ll wish you had never been born.”
He demanded to know who the conspirator was, and the fixer excitedly answered, “Nobody. He was a stranger to me. He didn’t tell me his name. A poor man. He met Zhitnyak by accident.”
“What did he say to you? Come out with it.”
“He asked me if I was hungry.”
“What did you answer?”
“I said yes.”
“We’ll give you hunger,” shouted the warden.
Early the next day two workmen entered the cell with boxes of tools, and after laboring all morning with steel hammers and long metal spikes, drilled four deep holes in the inner wall, in which they cemented heavy bolts with attached rings. The workmen also constructed a bed-size platform with four short wooden legs. The foot of the “bed” was a stock for enclosing the prisoner’s legs, that would be padlocked at night. The window bars were strengthened and two more were added, reducing the meager light in the cell. But the cracked window was left cracked, and six additional bolts were fastened to the outside of the iron door, making twelve altogether, plus the lock that had to be opened by key. There was a rumor, the Deputy Warden said, that the Jews were planning a ruse to free him. He warned the fixer a lookout tower was being constructed on the high wall directly opposite his cell, and the number of guards patrolling the yard had been increased.
“If you try to escape out of this prison we’ll slaughter the whole goddamn gang of you. We’ll get every last one.”
In Zhitnyak’s place a new guard was stationed at the cell door during the day, Berezhinsky, an ex-soldier, a dark-faced man with pouched, expressionless eyes, swollen knuckles and a broken nose. There were patches of hair on his cheekbones and neck even after he had shaved. At times, out of boredom, he thrust a rifle barrel through the spy hole and sighted along it at the prisoner’s heart.
“Bang!”
The fixer was chained to the wall all day, and at night he lay on the bedplank, his legs locked in the stocks. The leg holes were tight and chafed his flesh if he tried to turn a little. The straw mattress had been removed from the cell. At least that smell was gone, and the bedbugs, though some still inhabited his clothes. Since the fixer slept on his side when he slept, it took a while before he could begin to fall asleep on his back. He lay awake until he could no longer stand it, then seemed to faint into sleep. He slept heavily for an hour or two and woke. If he slept again the slightest movement of his body awakened him.
Now in chains, he thought the searches of his body might end, but they were increased to six a day, three in the morning and three in the afternoon. If the Deputy Warden went off duty early, the