Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [26]
He went through a more confident period, when for the first time in his life he spent money as though it was nothing more than money. He bought more books, paper to write on, tobacco, a pair of shoes to relieve him from boots, a luxurious jar of strawberry jam, and a kilo of flour to bake bread with. The bread did not rise but he baked it and ate it as biscuit. He also bought a pair of socks, a set of drawers and undershirt, and an inexpensive blouse, only what was necessary. One night, feeling an overwhelming hunger for sweets, he entered a candy store to sip cocoa and eat cakes. And he bought himself a thick bar of chocolate. When he counted his rubles later, he had spent more than he had bargained for and it worried him. So he returned to frugality. He lived on black bread, sour cream and boiled potatoes, an occasional egg, and when he was tempted, a small piece of halvah. He repaired his socks and patched his old shirts until there was nowhere he hadn’t made a stitch. He saved every kopek. “Let the groats accumulate,” he muttered. He had serious plans.
One night in April when the thick ice of the Dnieper was cracking, and Yakov—after selling the books he had recently bought and afterwards wandering in the Flossky District—was returning late to the brickyard, it began to snow unexpectedly. Coming up the hill approaching the cemetery, he saw some boys attacking an old man and scattered them with a shout. They ran like frightened rabbits through the graveyard. The old man was a Jew, a Hasid wearing a caftan to his ankles, a round rabbinic hat with a fur brim, and long white stockings. He slowly bent and retrieved from the snow a small black satchel tied with brown twine. He had been hurt on the temple and the blood dripped down his hairy cheek into his tousled two-forked gray beard. His eyes were dazed. “What happened to you, grandfather?” the fixer said in Russian. The Hasid, frightened, backed off, but Yakov waited and the old man replied in halting Russian that he had come from Minsk to see a sick brother in the Jewish quarter and had got lost. Then some boys had attacked him with snowballs embedded with sharp stones.
The streetcars were no longer running, and the snow was falling in thick wet flakes. Yakov was uneasily worried but thought he could take the old man into the brickyard, let him rest while he applied some cold water to his wound, then get him out before the drivers and their helpers came in.
“Come with me, grandfather.”
“Where are you taking me?” said the Hasid.
“We’ll wipe the blood off you, and when the snow stops I’ll show you which way to the Jewish quarter in the Podol.”
He led the Hasid into the brickyard and up the stairs to his room above the stable. After lighting the lamp, Yakov tore up his most tattered shirt, wet it, and wiped the blood off the old man’s beard. The wound was still bleeding but it didn’t bother the Hasid. He sat in Yakov’s chair with his eyes shut, breathing as though he were whispering. Yakov offered him bread and a glass of sweetened tea but the Hasid would not accept food. He was a dignified man with long earlocks and asked the fixer for some water. Pouring a little over his fingers over a bowl, he then withdrew a small packet from his caftan pocket, some matzo pieces wrapped in a handkerchief. He said the blessing for matzos, and sighing, munched a piece. It came as a surprise to the fixer that it was Passover. He was moved by a strong emotion and had to turn away till it had gone.
When he looked out the window the snow was still falling but there were signs of a moon, a circle of dim light within the falling snow. It’ll soon stop, he thought, but it didn’t. The glow disappeared and once more it was dark and snowy. Yakov thought he would wait till the drivers arrived, quickly count the bricks, and when the snow stopped, sneak the old man out after the wagons had left and before Proshko came. If the snow