Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [27]
The Hasid slept in the chair, woke, stared at the lamp, then at the window and slept again. When the drivers opened the stable door he awoke and looked at Yakov, but the fixer made a sign for silence and left to go down to the shed. He had offered the Hasid his bed but when he returned the old man was sitting up awake. The drivers had loaded the wagons and were waiting in the shed for daylight. They had wrapped chains around the horses’ hooves but Serdiuk had said if the snow got deeper they would not leave the yard. Now Yakov was worried.
In his room, huddled in his sheepskin coat, he stood watching the snow, then rolled and smoked a cigarette and made himself a glass of tepid tea. He drank a little, fell asleep on his bed, and dreamed he had encountered the Hasid in the graveyard. The Hasid had asked, “Why are you hiding here?” and the fixer had struck him a blow on the head with a hammer. It was a terrible dream and gave him a headache.
He awoke to find the old man staring at him, and his nervousness returned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What’s wrong is wrong,” said the old man. “But now the snow has stopped.”
“Did I say anything in my sleep?”
“I wasn’t listening.”
The sky had lightened and it was time to go, but the Hasid dipped the tips of his fingers into water, then un-knotted the twine around his satchel, opened it, and removed a large striped prayer shawl. From the pocket of his caftan he took out a phylactery bag.
“Where is the east?” asked the old man.
Yakov impatiently indicated the wall with the window. Saying the blessing for phylacteries, the Hasid slowly wound one around his left arm, the other on his brow, binding the strap gently over the crusting wound.
He covered his head with the capacious prayer shawl, blessing it, then prayed at the wall, rocking back and forth. The fixer waited with his eyes shut. When the old man had said his morning prayers, he removed the shawl, folded it carefully and put it away. He unbound the phylacteries, kissed them, and packed them away.
“May God reward you,” he said to Yakov.
“I’m much obliged but let’s move on.” The fixer was sweating in his cold clothes.
Asking the old man to wait a minute, he went down the snow-laden stairs and walked around the stable. The yard was white and still, the roofs of the kilns covered with snow. But the wagons, though loaded with bricks, had not yet left and the drivers were still in the shed, Yakov hurried up the stairs and got the Hasid and his satchel. They hastened through the spring snow to the gate. He led the old Hasid down the hill to the streetcar stop, but while they were waiting a sledge with tinkling bells drove by. Yakov hailed it and the sleepy driver promised he would take the Jew to his street in the Podol. When Yakov got back to the brickyard he felt he had been through a long night. He felt out of sorts and unreasonably depressed. On the way to the stable he met Proshko in high spirits.
When he entered his room Yakov had the sudden feeling that someone had been in it while he was out with the Hasid. He had the impression things had been moved, then set back not exactly in place. He suspected the foreman. The smell of horse manure and rotting hay seeped up from the stable. He hastily searched among his few possessions but could find nothing missing, neither household articles, his few books, nor rubles in the tin can. He was glad he had sold some of the books and burned the pamphlets; they were about history but some history was dangerous. The next day he heard that a body had been found in a cave nearby, then he read with fascinated horror a newspaper account of the terrible murder of a twelve-year-old boy who had lived in one of the wooden houses near the cemetery. The body was found in a sitting position, the boy’s hands tied behind his back. He was clad in his underwear, without shoes, one black stocking hanging on his left foot; scattered nearby were a bloodstained blouse, a schoolboy’s cap, a belt, and several pencil-smeared copy books. Both the Kievlyanin