Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [57]
“Then maybe the evidence is wrong, your honor?”
“Evidence is evidence, it can’t be wrong.”
Grubeshov’s voice became persuasive. “Tell me the honest truth, Yakov Bok, didn’t the Jewish Nation put you up to this crime? You seem like a serious person— perhaps you were unwilling to do it but they urged it on you, made threats or promises of certain sorts, and you reluctantly carried out the murder for them? To put it in other words, wasn’t it their idea rather than yours? If you’ll admit that, I’ll tell you frankly—I’ll put it this way —your life would be easier. We will not prosecute to the full extent of our powers. Perhaps after a short while you will be paroled and your sentence suspended. In other words, there are ‘possibilities.’ All we ask is your signature—that’s not so much.”
Grubeshov’s face glistened, as though he were making a greater effort than was apparent.
“How could I do such a thing, your honor? I couldn’t do such a thing. Why should I blame it on innocent people?”
“History has proved they are not so innocent. Besides I don’t understand your false scruples. After all, you’re an admitted freethinker, this admission occurred in my presence. The Jews mean very little to you. I size you up as a man who is out for himself, though I can’t blame you. Come, here is an opportunity to free yourself from the confines of the net you have fallen into.”
“If the Jews don’t mean anything to me, then why am I here?”
“You are foolish to lend yourself to their evil aims. What have they done for you?”
“At the very least, your honor, they’ve let me alone. No, I couldn’t sign such a thing.”
“Then keep in mind that the consequences for you can be very grave. The sentence of the court will be the least of your worries.”
“Please,” said the fixer, breathing heavily, “do you really believe those stories about magicians stealing the blood out of a murdered Christian child to mix in with matzos? You are an educated man and would surely not believe such superstitions.”
Grubeshov sat back, smiling slightly. “I believe you killed the boy Zhenia Golov for ritual purposes. When they know the true facts, all Russia will believe it. Do you believe it?” he asked the guards.
The guards swore they did.
“Of course we believe it,” Grubeshov said. “A Jew is a Jew, and that’s all there is to it. Their history and character are unchangeable. Their nature is constant. This has been proved in scientific studies by Gobineau, Chamberlain and others. We here in Russia are presently preparing one on Jewish facial characteristics. Our peasants have a saying that a man who steals wears a hat that burns. With a Jew it is the nose that burns and reveals the criminal he is.”
He flipped open a notebook to a page of pen-and-ink sketches, turning the book so that Yakov could read the printing at the top of the page: “Jewish noses.”
“Here, for instance, is yours.” Grubeshov pointed to a thin high-bridged nose with slender nostrils.
“And this is yours,” Yakov said hoarsely, pointing to a short, fleshy, broad-winged nose.
The Prosecuting Attorney, though his color had deepened, laughed thinly. “You are a witty man,” he said, “but it won’t do you any good. Your fate is foreseen. Ours is a humane society but there are ways of punishing hardened criminals. Perhaps I ought to remind you—to show you how well off you are—how your fellow Jews were executed in the not too distant past. They were hanged wearing caps full of hot pitch and with a dog hanging beside them to show the world how despised they were.”
“A dog hangs a dog, your honor.”
“If you can’t bite don’t show your teeth.” Grubeshov, his neck inflamed, slashed the fixer across the jaw with a ruler. Yakov cried out as the wood snapped, one piece hitting the wall. The guards began to beat his head with their fists but the Prosecuting Attorney waved them away.
“You can cry to Bibikov from now to doomsday,” he shouted at the fixer, “but I’ll keep you in prison till the flesh rots off your bones piece by piece. You will beg me to let you confess who compelled