Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [34]
Yakov rose in excitement. “Please, your honor, I don’t know much about the law, and it isn’t always simple to say yes and no in the right place. Would you let me speak to a lawyer for advice? I might even have a few rubles to pay if the police will return my money to me.”
“Yes and no take care of themselves if a man tells the truth. As for consulting a lawyer, that is not possible at this stage. In our legal system the indictment comes first. After the preliminary examination the Investigating Magistrate and Prosecuting Attorney consult, and if both believe the suspect to be guilty, an Act of Indictment is drawn up and sent to the District Court, where it is either confirmed or disapproved by the judges. The defense may begin after the accused is informed that the indictment has been voted, and he is then given a copy of it. Within a week or so, possibly a bit more, the accused may select his counsel and inform the court.”
“Your honor,” Yakov said in alarm, “suppose a man is innocent of what they say he did? What’s it all about is a confusion in my mind. One minute I think it’s as clear as daylight and the crime we’re talking about is a small one, no more than a mistake you might say, and the next minute you say things that make me shiver. For my little sin why should anybody accuse me of a big one? If I gave a false name to someone does that mean there’s bound to be an indictment?”
“We will know in due course what is bound to be.”
The fixer, sighing heavily, sat down, his manacled hands twitching in his lap.
“I have asked you to comment on the witness Lebe-dev’s remarks,” Bibikov said.
“Your honor, I give you my word I meant no harm. What I did wrong—even Nikolai Maximovitch admits it—I did with reluctance, against my will. The truth is I found him drunk in the snow. As a reward he offered me a job I didn’t ask for. I could’ve refused it and I did once or twice, but my money was going fast, I had rent to pay and et cetera. I was getting desperate for work—my hands complain when they have nothing to do—so I finally took what he offered me. He was satisfied with the paint and papering job I first did, and he also told me I was a good overseer in the brickworks. I used to get up half past three every night to inspect the loading of the wagons. If he said it once he said it more than once. Ask him yourself, your honor.”
“True, but didn’t you give him a false name as your own? In effect, a gentile name? That was no accident I take it? That was your intent, wasn’t it?”
The magistrate had forcefully thrust his face forward. Was this the man who said he admired Spinoza?
“It’s my mistake, I admit it,” said Yakov. “I gave him the first name that popped into my head. I wasn’t thinking, your honor, and that’s how a man comes to grief. When you’re faced with a worrisome situation it’s not so easy to keep your mind on what comes next. Dologushev is a one-eyed peasant near my village who slaughters pigs. But the truth of it is I really didn’t want to live on the factory grounds. It got so I couldn’t sleep from worrying so much. Nikolai Maximovitch mentions that I was afraid to take his offer to live in the stable. He says so himself in this paper you just read to me. I asked him if I could live in the Podol instead and walk to the job, but he said no, I had to live there. In other words it wasn’t my idea in the first place. And he’s mistaken if he thinks he asked for my passport. Maybe he thought he did but he didn’t. He’s a melancholy man and sometimes vague in his thoughts. I swear he never asked me. If he had, that would have ended it then and there. I would have thought the jig’s up and gone home. It would have saved me a lot of misery.”
“Still, you did live in the Lukianovsky, though fully aware it was illegal for you to do so?”
“That’s as you say, your honor, but I didn’t want to lose the job.