Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [134]
Kogin stared at the fixer in frightened surprise.
“Hurry it up,” said the Cossack captain to the Deputy Warden.
“Please, friend, don’t tell me how to do my job and I won’t tell you how to do yours,” said the Deputy Warden, coldly. His boots smelled as though he had freshly stepped in excrement.
“Inside and undress,” he ordered Yakov.
The prisoner, the Deputy Warden, and the two guards entered the cell, leaving the captain and the escort guard waiting in the corridor. The Deputy Warden slammed the cell door shut.
Inside the cell Kogin crossed himself.
Yakov slowly undressed, shivering. He stood there naked, except for his undershirt. I must be careful, he thought, or it will go hard on me. Ostrovsky warned me. Yet as he told himself this he felt his rage growing. The blood roared in his ears. It was as though he had dug a hole, then put the shovel aside but the hole was still growing. It grew into a grave. He imagined himself tearing the Deputy Warden’s face apart and kicking him to death.
“Open your mouth,” Berezhinsky ran a dirty finger under his tongue.
“Now spread your ass apart.”
Kogin stared at the wall.
“Take off that stinking undershirt,” ordered the Deputy Warden.
I must calm my anger, thought the fixer, seeing the world black. Instead, his anger grew.
“Why should I?” he shouted. “I have never taken it off before. Why should I take it off now? Why do you insult me?”
“Take it off before I tear it off.”
Yakov felt the cell tremble and dip. I should have eaten, he thought. It was a mistake not to. He saw a bald-headed thin naked man in a freezing prison cell ripping off his undershirt and to his horror watched him fling it into the face of the Deputy Warden.
A solemn silence filled the cell.
Though his wet eyes were lit, murderous, the Deputy Warden spoke calmly. “I am within my rights to punish you for interfering with and insulting a prison official in the performance of his duty.”
He drew his revolver.
My dirty luck. Yakov thought of the way his life had gone. Now Shmuel is dead and Raisl has nothing to eat. I’ve never been of use to anybody and I’ll never be.
“Hold on a minute, your honor,” said Kogin to the Deputy Warden. His deep voice broke. “I’ve listened to this man night after night, I know his sorrows. Enough is enough, and anyway it’s time for his trial to begin.”
“Get out of my way or I’ll cite you for insubordination, you son-of-a-bitch.”
Kogin pressed the muzzle of his revolver against the Deputy Warden’s neck.
Berezhinsky reached for his gun but before he could draw, Kogin fired.
He fired at the ceiling and after a while dust drifted to the floor.
A whistle sounded shrilly in the corridor. The prison bell clanged. The iron cell door was slammed open and the white-faced captain and his Cossack guards rushed into the cell.
“I’ve given my personal receipt,” he roared.
“My head aches,” Kogin muttered. He sank to his knees with blood on his face. The Deputy Warden had shot him.
6
A church bell tolled.
A black bird flew out of the sky. Crow? Hawk? Or the black egg of a black eagle falling towards the carriage? If it isn’t that what is it? If it’s a bomb, thought Yakov, what can I do? I’ll duck, what else can I do? If it’s a bomb why was I ever born?
The prisoner, watched in silence by a crowd of officials, guests, and the mounted Cossacks in the yard, had limped amid the guard from the prison door to the massive black armored carriage drawn by four thick-necked, heavy-rumped horses at the gate. On the driver’s seat sat a hawk-eyed coachman in a long coat and visored cap, whip in his hand.
The fixer was boosted up the metal step by two Cossacks and locked in the large-wheeled coach by the Chief of Police and his assistant. Inside it was dark and musty. An unlit lamp hung in the corner; the windows were round and small. Yakov put his eye to one of them, saw nothing he wanted to see—Warden Grizitskoy in military cap and coat rubbing a bloodshot eye—and sat back in the gloom.
The coachman shouted to the horses; a whip snapped and the huge carriage with its escort of fur-capped,