Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [83]
The broom was a stick with a bunch of thin birch twigs tied to it with cord. Yakov used it to sweep the cell every morning, working not too hard at first because he still felt weak from his sickness; yet he needed exercise to keep his strength up. He had again asked to be let out in the yard once in a while but, as he expected, the request was denied. Every day he thoroughly swept the stone floor, the wet parts and the dry. He swept in the corners of the cell, lifted his mattress and swept under that. He swept in the crevices between stones and once uncovered a centipede. He saw it escape under the door and the thought of that gave him a headache. He also used the broom handle to beat the mattress, its covering threadbare and split on both sides, the discolored straw visible so that he stopped beating it lest it fall apart. And when he beat it the mattress gave off a stench. Yakov patted it with his hands each morning as though to freshen it.
As much as he could he tried to arrange things so as to break the monotony of long stretches of time. When the bell rang in the corridor at 5 A.M. he arose in the cold dark, quickly cleaned the ashes out of the stove with his hand, raising dust he could smell, sweeping the small pile of ashes into a box they had given him for the purpose. Then he filled the stove with kindling, dry twigs, and some larger pieces of wood and waited for Zhitnyak, sometimes Kogin, to come in and light it. Formerly, the guard lit the stove when he brought in the prisoner’s breakfast, and now that Yakov went to the kitchen for it, he lit the fire after the fixer returned with his food. Twice a day Yakov was permitted to go to the kitchen, not willing, when the warden suggested it, to give up the privilege of leaving the cell for a few minutes, although the warden gave his personal assurance that the food would be “perfectly healthful” if it were once again brought from the kitchen by the prisoners who delivered it to the guards.
“You have nothing to fear from us, Bok,” he said. “I can assure you that the Prosecuting Attorney is most eager, as are all the other officials, to bring you to trial. No one would want to kill you off. We have other plans.”
“When will my trial be?”
“I can’t say,” said Warden Grizitskoy. “They’re still collecting evidence. It takes time.”
“Then if you don’t mind I’d rather keep on going to the kitchen.”
As long as I can, he thought. I’ve paid for the privilege. He thought they were letting him continue to go only because they knew he knew they had tried to poison him.
After that the number of searches of Yakov’s person was increased to three a day. His heart raced after these experiences, hatred thickened in it, and it took him a while to calm down. Sometimes after a search, to get the vile taste of it out of him, he swept the cell a second and third time. Or he collected the ashes out of the pit and had the wood ready for lighting long before Zhitnyak came in to take him to the kitchen to draw his supper rations. Though the stove was smoky the fixer ate near it, and after he had drunk the last of his tea, he threw in another stick or two of wood and lay down on the mattress with a sigh, hoping he could fall asleep before the stove went out and the cell became freezing. Sometimes the drinking water was ice in the morning and he had to melt it.
Passing water was another way to pass time. He urinated often, listening to the noise as the water rose in the tin can. Sometimes he held his water until it came forth with such heat and force his teeth hurt. When the can was collected was another momentary diversion. And