Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [30]
“How long have you been married?”
“Five years going on six, though I’m not really married now because my wife left me.”
“Is that so? Why did she leave you?”
“To make it short and simple she was unfaithful. She ran off with an unknown party and that’s why I’m in jail now. If she hadn’t done that I would have stayed where I belonged, which means where I was born. This very minute I’d be sitting down to supper, such as it was, but it could have been worse. “When the sun went down, whether I had earned a kopek or not, I headed straight for my hut. It wasn’t such a bad place to be, now that I think of it.”
“You’re not from Kiev?”
“Not the city, the province. I left my village a few months after my wife left me and I’ve been here since November. I was ashamed to stay on there with things as they were. There were other reasons but that was what bothered me most.”
“What other reasons?”
“I was fed up with my work—no work at all. And I hoped, with a bit of luck, to get myself a little education. They say in America there are schools where a grown man can study at night.”
“You were thinking of emigrating to America?”
“It was one of my thoughts, your honor, though I’ve had many such and they’ve all come to nothing. Still in all, I’m a loyal subject of the Tsar.”
The Investigating Magistrate found the cigarette in his pocket and lit it. He smoked silently, standing on the other side of the table, still studying Yakov’s tormented face in the candlelight.
“I saw among your possessions when you were arrested a few books, among others a volume of selected chapters from the work of the philosopher Spinoza.”
“That’s right, your honor. Could I get them back? I’m also worried about my tools.”
“In due course, if you are not indicted. Are you familiar with his writings?”
“Only in a way of speaking,” said the fixer, worried by the question. “Although I’ve read the book I don’t understand it all.”
“What is its appeal to you? First let me ask you what brought you to Spinoza? Is it that he was a Jew?”
“No, your honor. I didn’t know who or what he was when I first came across the book—they don’t exactly love him in the synagogue, if you’ve read the story of his life. I found it in a junkyard in a nearby town, paid a kopek and left cursing myself for wasting money hard to come by. Later I read through a few pages and kept on going as though there were a whirlwind at my back. As I say, I didn’t understand every word but when you’re dealing with such ideas you feel as though you were taking a witch’s ride. After that I wasn’t the same man. That’s in a manner of speaking of course, because I’ve changed little since my youth.”
Though he had answered freely, talking about a book with a Russian official frightened the fixer. He’s testing me, he thought. Still when all’s said and done, better questions about a book than a murdered child. I’ll tell the truth but speak slowly.
“Would you mind explaining what you think Spinoza’s work means? In other words if it’s a philosophy what does it state?”
“That’s not so easy to say,” Yakov answered apologetically. “The truth is I’m a half-ignorant man. The other half is half-educated. There’s a lot I miss even when 1 pay the strictest attention.”
“I will tell you why I ask. I ask because Spinoza is among my favorite philosophers and I am interested in his effect on others.”
“In that case,” said the fixer, partly relieved, “I’ll tell you that the book means different things according to the subject of the chapters, though it’s all united underneath. But what I think it means is that he was out to make a free man out of himself—as much as one can according to his philosophy, if you understand my meaning—by thinking things through and connecting everything up, if you’ll go along with that, your honor.”
“That isn’t a bad approach,” said Bibikov, “through the man rather than the work. But you ought to explain the philosophy a little.”
“Who knows if I can,