Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [3]
Dvoira, the dark-uddered cow, was out in the field behind the hut, browsing under a leafless poplar tree, and Yakov went out to her. The white cow raised her head and watched him approach. The fixer patted her lean flank. “Goodbye, Dvoira,” he said, “and lots of luck. Give what you got left to Shmuel, also a poor man.” He wanted to say more but couldn’t. Tearing up some limp yellowing grass, he fed it to the cow, then returned to the horse and wagon, Shmuel had reappeared.
Why does he act as though he were the one who had deserted me?
“I didn’t come back to fight with anybody,” Shmuel said. “What she did I won’t defend—she hurt me as much as she did you. Even more, though when the rabbi says she’s now dead my voice agrees but not my heart. First of all she’s my only child, and since when do we need more dead? I’ve cursed her more than once but I ask God not to listen.”
“Well, I’m leaving,” Yakov said, “take care of the cow.”
“Don’t leave yet,” Shmuel said, his eyes miserable. “If you stay Raisl might come back.”
“If she does who’s interested?”
“If you had been more patient she wouldn’t have left you.”
“Five years going on six is enough of patience. I’ve had enough. I might have waited the legal ten, but she danced off with some dirty stranger, so I’ve had my fill, thanks.”
“Who can blame you?” Shmuel sighed sadly. He asked after a while, “Have you got tobacco for a little cigarette, Yakov?”
“My bag is empty.”
The peddler briskly rubbed his dry palms.
“So you haven’t, you haven’t, but what I don’t understand is why you want to bother with Kiev. It’s a dangerous city full of churches and anti-Semites.”
“I’ve been cheated from the start,” Yakov said bitterly. “What I’ve been through personally you know already, not to mention living here all my life except for a few months in the army. The shtetl is a prison, no change from the days of Khmelnitsky. It moulders and the Jews moulder in it. Here we’re all prisoners, I don’t have to tell you, so it’s time to try elsewhere I’ve finally decided. I want to make a living, I want to get acquainted with a bit of the world. I’ve read a few books in recent years and it’s surprising what goes on that none of us knows about. I’m not asking for Tibet but what I saw in St. Petersburg interested me. Whoever thought of white nights before, but it’s a scientific fact; they have them there. When I left the army I thought I would get out of here as soon as possible, but things caught up with me, including your daughter.”
“My daughter wanted to run away from here the minute you got married but you wouldn’t go.”
“It’s true,” said Yakov, “it was my fault. I thought it couldn’t get worse so it must get better. I was wrong both ways so now enough is enough. I’m on my way at last.”
“Outside the Pale only wealthy Jews and the professional classes can get residence certificates. The Tsar doesn’t want poor Jews all over his land, and Stolypin, may his lungs collapse, urges him on. Ptu!” Shmuel spat through two fingers.
“Since I can’t be a professional on account of lack of education I wouldn’t mind being wealthy. As the saying goes, I’d sell my last shirt to be a millionaire. Maybe, by luck, I’ll make my fortune in the outside world.”
“What’s in the world,” Shmuel said, “is in the shtetl— people, their trials, worries, circumstances. But here at least God is with us.”
“He’s with us till the Cossacks come galloping, then he’s elsewhere. He’s in the outhouse, that’s where he is.”
The peddler grimaced but let the remark