Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [60]
During the morning “promenade,” the ten-minute exercise break when the men marched in double lines of twelve around the yard, ten paces between each group, as armed guards, some with coiled bullwhips, stood at the foot of the high thick walls, the clubfoot, who had slipped into line next to Yakov, said in a whisper, “Why isn’t your head shaved like the rest of us?”
“I don’t know,” Yakov whispered. “I told the barber to go ahead and do it.”
“Are you a stool pigeon or squealer? The men are suspicious of you.”
“No, no, tell them I’m not.”
“Then why do you sit apart from us? Who the hell do you think you are?”
“To tell the truth my feet hurt in these shoes. Also it’s my first time in prison. I’m trying to get used to it but it’s not so easy.”
“Are you expecting any food packages?” asked the clubfoot.
“Who would send me packages? I have nobody to send me a package. My wife left me. Everyone I know is poor.”
“Well, if you get one, share and share alike is my motto. That’s the rule here.”
“Yes, yes.”
The clubfoot limped along in silence.
They don’t know who I am, Yakov thought. From now on I’d better be sociable. Once they find out it will be blows, not questions.
But when the prisoners had marched back into the cell there were whispered arguments among them, and Yakov, remembering how he had been beaten in the District Courthouse cell, felt himself sweating hotly.
Afterwards, another prisoner, a tall man with humid eyes, detached himself from a group of others and approached Yakov. He was heavily built, with a pale hard intense face, an almost black neck, and thin bent legs. He walked forward slowly, oddly, as though afraid something might fall out of his clothes. The fixer, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, scrambled up quickly.
“Listen, little brother,” the other prisoner began, “I am Fetyukov. The prisoners have sent me to talk to you.”
“If you’re worried that I’m a stool pigeon,” Yakov said hastily, “you’ve got the wrong worry. I’m here like everybody else, waiting for my trial. I haven’t asked for any privileges, not that they would give me any. I’m not even getting a bread ration. As for my hair, I told the barber to go ahead and cut it off but the sergeant said not to, though don’t ask me why.”
“What are you accused of?”
The fixer touched his lips with a dry tongue. “Whatever they’ve accused me of I didn’t do. I give you my word. It’s too complicated to go into without turning it into a wearying tale, something I don’t understand myself.”
“I’m a murderer,” said Fetyukov. “I stabbed a stranger at the inn in my village. He provoked me so I stabbed him twice, once in the chest, and when he was falling, once in the back. That was the end of him. I had had more than a drop or two, but when they told me what I had done I was greatly surprised. I’m a peaceful man, I never make trouble if you don’t provoke me. Who would’ve thought I could murder anybody? If you had told me any such thing I would have laughed at you to your face.”
The fixer, staring at the murderer, edged sideways along the wall. At the same time he saw two other prisoners sneaking up on him, one from either side. As he cried out, Fetyukov reached behind him whipping a short heavy stick out of his trousers. He struck Yakov a hard blow on the head. The fixer went down on one knee, holding both hands over his pain-wracked, bloody head, then fell over.
He awoke, lying on the clammy wooden platform. His head ached sickeningly and a searing pain throbbed on the left side of his skull. His fingers sought out the wet swollen cut on his scalp. Blood dripped from it. He was anguished. Would he be beaten every time he was moved to another cell and met other prisoners? The fixer dizzily sat up, blood trickling down his face.
“Wipe it off,” advised an old man with cracked eyeglasses, peering down at him. It was the slop-pail man who took care of the excrement buckets,