Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [138]
“As for those,” said the Tsar, “don’t blame me. Water can’t be prevented from flowing. They are a genuine expression of the will of the people.”
“Then in that case there’s no more to say.” On the table at the fixer’s hand lay a revolver. Yakov pushed a bullet into the rusty cylinder chamber.
The Tsar sat down, watching without apparent emotion, though his face had grown white and his beard darker. “I am the victim, the sufferer for my poor people. What will be will be.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the candle saucer. The light flickered but burnt on.
“Don’t expect me to beg.”
“This is also for the prison, the poison, the six daily searches. It’s for Bibikov and Kogin and for a lot more that I won’t even mention.”
Pointing the gun at the Tsar’s heart (though Bibikov, flailing his white arms, cried no no no no), Yakov pressed the trigger. Nicholas, in the act of crossing himself, overturned his chair, and fell, to his surprise, to the floor, the stain spreading on his breast.
The horses clopped on over the cobblestones.
As for history, Yakov thought, there are ways to reverse it. What the Tsar deserves is a bullet in the gut. Better him than us.
The left rear wheel of the carriage seemed to be wobbling.
One thing I’ve learned, he thought, there’s no such thing as an unpolitical man, especially a Jew. You can’t be one without the other, that’s clear enough. You can’t sit still and see yourself destroyed.
Afterwards he thought, Where there’s no fight for it there’s no freedom. What is it Spinoza says? If the state acts in ways that are abhorrent to human nature it’s the lesser evil to destroy it. Death to the anti-Semites! Long live revolution! Long live liberty!
The crowds lining both sides of the streets were dense again, packed tight between curb and housefront. There were faces at every window and people standing on rooftops along the way. Among those in the street were Jews of the Plossky District. Some, as the carriage clattered by and they glimpsed the fixer, were openly weeping, wringing their hands. One thinly bearded man clawed his face. One or two waved at Yakov. Some shouted his name.