Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [76]
“This is good for you, Bok,” said the surgeon. “Now you know how poor Zhenia felt when you were stabbing him and draining his blood, all for the sake of your Jewish religion.”
That night as he lay in bed in the infirmary Yakov had trouble breathing. Though he took in great gulping hot breaths through his mouth, the air seemed thin and insufficient. He did not at first fear asthma because he had often had trouble breathing under stress yet had not been seriously sick for years. But then the air turned heavy and stale. It was like trying to breathe metal. His chest heaved. His lungs weighed like rock, his breathing turned heavily raspy and he felt sick. The fixer clawed the mattress. “Please, who needs more? I have enough.” He sat up, gasping for help but none came. Yakov got out of bed, his bandaged feet oozing blood, and tottered to the barred window. He lay under it, wheezing as he fought to draw into his lungs a few drops of air. In the midst of his exertions he fell into an exhausted and perilous half-sleep, dreaming he was expiring in a window-less cell, seeing in his drowning dreams the miserable orphans’ home, a crumbling tilted shack he had spent his childhood in; Raisl running from him in terror as though he had threatened her with a meat cleaver; and his imprisonment for a lifetime in Siberia for the murder of a boy whose suffering dead face haunted him still. He dreamed he had come upon him in the woods, a child carrying his schoolbooks, and had grabbed and choked him unconscious on impulse; then with Proshko’s help, as the boy lay on the ground still twitching, he stabbed him thirteen times in the chest and drained five litres of his bright blood, a magnificent liquid. All night Grubeshov, standing with both yellow gaitered feet on Yakov’s chest, harangued the victim in a thick-voiced tirade, and though the fixer frantically implored Bibikov’s help, the Investigating Magistrate, at his desk in another room, would or could not be disturbed.
2
The warden assigned him to a new cell, a large dampish one on the ground floor of the solitary block of the south building of the prison, to the right of the administrative section and infirmary.
“It’s just to keep you closer to my eye,” he said. “There’s talk you might try to escape with the assistance of your Jewish cohorts, which I strongly warn you against, because if you attempt it you’re sure to get shot.”
He pointed to the notice on the wall:
Obey all rules and regulations without question. If the prisoner is insubordinate or insulting to a guard or prison official, or he attempts in any way to breach the security of this prison, he will be executed on the spot.
“Furthermore,” said the old warden, “the guard receives a monetary commendation for defending the regulations, so watch yourself. A smart dog recognizes the whip and avoids the lash.”
He helped himself to a pinch of snuff and sneezed twice.
Yakov asked if he could have another prisoner, some decent person, for company. “It’s hard to live without another soul to talk to, your honor. How is one to ease his heart a little?”
“That’s the least of my worries,” said the warden.
“Then could I have some kind of an animal to keep, either a cat or maybe a bird?”
“A cat out of your rations?—you’d both starve. Either he’d eat you or you’d eat him. Anyway, this is a prison for criminals, and not a tea parlor or clubhouse. You’re not here for comforts or coddling but for strict punishment for the mean murder you committed against a harmless child. Only you Jew prisoners