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By Root 3217 0

disappeared from the world and nobody he could call friend knew it. Nobody. The fixer berated himself for not having listened to Shmuel’s advice and staying where he belonged. He had got himself in a terrible mess, for what? Opportunity? An opportunity to destroy himself. He had fished for a herring and had been snatched by a shark. It wasn’t hard to guess which of them would eat meat. And though he had now, at last, a little understanding of what was going on, or thought he had, he could of course still not resign himself to what had happened. In a philosophical moment he cursed history, anti-Semitism, fate, and even, occasionally, the Jews. “Who will help me?” he cried out in his sleep, but the other prisoners had their own anguish, their own bad dreams.

One night a new guest was let into the cell, a fattish heavy-faced young man with a blondish beard and small hands and feet, who wore his own clothes. At first his manner was morose and he returned furtive glances to anyone who looked in his direction. Yakov observed him from the distance. The young man was the only fat one in a cellful of skinny prisoners. He had money, bribed the guards for favors, lived well on packages from the outside—two large ones in a week—and wasn’t stingy with food or cigarettes. “Here, boys, eat hearty,” and he would hand out whatever there was to spare, yet keep himself well supplied. He even passed around green bottles of mineral water. He seemed to know how to get along, and some of the prisoners played cards with him. The clubfoot offered to be his personal servant but he waved him away. At the same time he was a worried man, muttered to himself, shook his head in disagreement, and sometimes tore at his round wrists with dirty fingernails. One by one he pulled off the buttons of his shirt. Yakov, though wanting to talk to the man, skirted him in the beginning, possibly because he didn’t know what to say to people with money, partly because the man obviously didn’t want to be bothered, and partly for reasons he could not explain to himself. The new prisoner dispensed his favors with pretended cordiality, his eyes unable to conceal the fact that he was not a cordial man, and then withdrew. He sat alone often, muttering. Yakov sensed this one was aware of him. They both minded their business and looked each other over. One morning, after the promenade in the prison yard, they began to talk in a corner of the cell.

“You’re a Jew?” said the fat young man, in Yiddish.

Yakov admitted it.

“I, too.”

“I thought so,” said the fixer.

“If you thought so why didn’t you come over?”

“I thought I’d wait a little.”

“What’s your name?”

“Yakov Bok the fixer.”

“Gronfein, Gregor. Shalom. What are you in here for?”

“They say I killed a Christian child.” He still couldn’t say it keeping his voice steady.

Gronfein looked at him in astonishment.

“So you’re the one? My God, why didn’t you tell me right away? I’m happy to be in the same cell with you.”

“Why should you be happy?”

“I heard they had accused somebody of killing the Russian boy they found in the cave. Of course the whole thing is a manufactured fake, but there’s a rumor running around in the Podol that a Jew was arrested, though nobody has seen you or knows who. Whoever he is he’s a martyr for us all. Is it really you?”

“It’s me, I wish it wasn’t.”

“I had my doubts that such a person exists.”

“Only that and no more,” the fixer sighed. “My worst enemies should exist like this.”

“Don’t grieve,” said Gronfein. “God will help.”

“He will or he won’t as it suits him, but if he doesn’t I hope somebody else will soon, or they might as well put me in the ground and cover me up with earth and grass.”

“Patience,” Gronfein said absently. “Patience. If there’s not one way, there’s another.”

“Another what?”

“As long as a man stays alive he can’t tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.”

He began to talk about himself. “Of course I’m better off than some I can think of,” Gronfein said, looking at Yakov to see if he agreed. “I have a first-class lawyer already working