Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [115]
The fixer sighed and went on reading.
“In addition to the above-listed evidence, Marfa Golov has testified that Zhenia complained Yakov Bok had interfered with him sexually and had feared the boy would expose him to the authorities.” ‘“Zhenia, a bright and perceptive lad,” had “on certain occasions” followed Bok and discovered that he sometimes met “with a group of other Hebrews, suspected smugglers, housebreakers, and other criminal elements, in the cellar of the synagogue.” Her son, according to the mother, threatened to report these illegal activities to the police. Furthermore, Vasya Shiskovsky and Zhenia Golov had once or twice “in the manner of boys,” angered Bok by flinging rocks at him and taunting him about his race, and he was determined to take revenge on them. “Zhenia Golov, to his great misfortune, was the one who had fallen into Bok’s evil hands, but by great good luck Vasya Shiskovsky had escaped his poor friend’s fate.”
He read quickly through the section where he had killed the boy. (“Skobeliev testified that he had seen Bok carrying something heavy in his arms, a large squirming package of some sort that resembled a human body, up the stairs to his quarters. There, the evidence is clear, the boy was tortured and then murdered by Yakov Bok, probably with the assistance of one or two of his coreligionists.”) “While in prison,” the indictment went on, “the said Yakov Bok had attempted to influence the counterfeiter Gronfein, a friend and fellow religionist, to bribe Marfa Golov not to testify against him. The sum of money for that purpose was to be raised by subscription in the Hebrew communities of the Jewish Pale of Settlement. Another bribe was offered to Marfa Golov herself at a later date, the large sum of 40,000 rubles if she would flee across the Austrian border, but she indignantly refused.”
The last paragraph read: “It is therefore the fully considered opinion of the Investigating Magistrate, the Prosecuting Attorney, and the President of the Superior Court of the Kiev Province, where the Court Indictment is this day filed, that Yakov Bok, an admitted Hebrew, had with premeditation, and for purposes of torture and murder, stabbed to death Yevgeny Golov, age 12, the beloved son of Marfa Vladimirovna Golov, for the reasons stated above; in sum, an overweening and abnormal desire for revenge against an innocent child who had discovered his participation in criminal activities. However, the crime was so wicked and debased that an additional element may be said to have been present. Only a criminal of the worst sadistic instincts could have engaged in such an unnatural act of unprovoked hostility and degraded bestiality.”
The indictment was signed by Yefim Balik, Investigating Magistrate; V. G. Grubeshov, Prosecuting Attorney; and P. F. Furmanov, President of the Superior Court.
Yakov squeezed his throbbing head after reading the papers. Though his eyes ached—he felt as though he had read the words through sand and glue—he at once reread them, and again, in increasing astonishment and disbelief. What had happened to the charge of ritual murder? Holding each sheet up for better light he searched it