Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [18]
He finished papering the fourth room that night and except for the woodwork the job was done. Two days later when it was all but finished, Nikolai Maximovitch unsteadily ascended the stairs to inspect the flat. He went from room to room, running his fingers over the wallpaper, looking up at the ceilings.
“Outstanding,” he said. “Quite outstanding. An honest and attractive piece of work, Yakov Ivanovitch. I congratulate you.”
Later he said as though in afterthought, “You must excuse me for asking, but what are your political predilections? Surely you’re not a Socialist? I ask in the strictest confidence without attempting to pry, and not in the least accusatorily. I ask, in a word, because I am interested in your future.”
“I am not a political person,” Yakov answered. “The world’s full of it but it’s not for me. Politics is not in my nature.”
“Very good, indeed. Neither am I, and much better off in the bargain if anyone should ask. Yakov Ivanovitch, don’t think I will soon forget the quality of your craftsmanship. If you should care to go on working for me, though in another, and may I say, advanced capacity, I would be more than happy to employ you. The truth of the matter is that I am the owner of a small brickworks nearby, although in a contiguous district. I inherited it from my elder brother, a lifelong bachelor who went to his final reward half a year ago after suffering from an incurable disease. I tried to sell the factory but the offers were so disgraceful that, although I have little heart or, at this time of my life, head for business, I have kept it going, although, I confess, barely profitably. My foreman Proshko is in charge, an excellent technical person who is otherwise an ignorant man, and confidentially, the drivers who work under him have not been accounting for every brick that leaves the yard. I would like you to go in as a sort of overseer to handle accounts and, on the whole, look after my interests. My brother was involved in every phase of the operations, but I have little patience with bricks.”
Yakov, though he had listened with excitement to the proposition, confessed he was without experience in business. “I know nothing about bookkeeping.”
“Common sense is what’s needed in business once honesty is assured,” said Nikolai Maximovitch. “What there is to learn you will learn as you go along. I usually visit for an hour one or two mornings a week, and what you don’t know I’ll try to help you with, though I frankly confess my knowledge is limited. There’s no need to protest, Yakov Ivanovitch. My daughter, whose judgment in these matters I respect, has the highest opinion of your merit, and you may believe me, I thoroughly share it. She considers you a man of sobriety and sound sense, and I am confident that after you have mastered the fundamentals you will do a responsible and effective job. During the period of your—ah—apprenticeship I will pay you forty-five rubles monthly. I hope that’s satisfactory. But there is another advantage for you that I should mention, frankly one that will work to our mutual benefit. My brother converted part of a loft over the brickyard stable into a warm and comfortable room, and you may live there without payment of rent if you accept my offer.”
The forty-five rubles astounded and tempted the fixer.
“What is it an overseer does? Excuse the question, but I’m not a man of the world.”
“Worldliness is vanity, it doesn’t appeal to me. The overseer manages the business end of the enterprise. We manufacture about two thousand bricks daily—many fewer than we used to—a thousand or so more during the building season, not quite so many this time of the year; and it has been fewer lately although we have a contract with the Kiev Municipal Council for several thousands of bricks. The Tsar himself has given orders for civic improvements to be made before the Romanov Jubilee, and the Municipality is tearing up wooden walks and laying down entire streets