Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [85]
Who am I to compare myself?
He tried to recall the biology he had studied, and reflected on as much of history as he could bring to mind. They say God appeared in history and used it for his purposes, but if that was so he had no pity for men. God cried mercy and smote his chest, but there was no mercy because there was no pity. Pity in lightning? You could not pity anything if you weren’t a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention. And Yakov also recalled tales by Peretz, and some pieces he had read in the papers by Sholem Aleichem, and a few little stories he had read in Russian by Chekhov. He recalled things from the Scriptures, in particular, fragments of psalms he had read in Hebrew on old parchment. He could, in a sense, smell the Psalms as well as hear them. They were sung weekly in the synagogue to glorify God and protect the shtetl from harm, which they never did. Yakov had chanted them, or heard them chanted, many times, and now in a period of remembrance he uttered verses, stanzas that he did not think he knew. He could not recall a whole psalm, but from fragments he put together one that he recited aloud in the cell in order not to forget it, so that he could have it to say. In the morning he said it in Hebrew, and in the dark as he lay on his mattress, he tried to translate the verses into Russian. He knew Kogin listened when he said them aloud at night.
“Behold, he travaileth with iniquity;
Yea, he conceiveth mischief, and bringeth forth falsehood.
He hath digged a pit, and hollowed it,
And is fallen into the ditch which he made.”
“I am weary with my groaning;
Every night make I my bed to swim;
I melt away my couch with my tears.”
“For my days are consumed like smoke,
And my bones are burned as a hearth.
My heart is smitten like grass, and withered;
For I forget to eat my bread.”
“Unrighteous witnesses rise up;
They ask me things that I know not.”
“For I have heard the whispering of many,
Terror on every side;
While they took counsel together against me,
They devised to take away my life.”
“Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Thy hand;
Forget not the humble.”
“Break Thou the arm of the wicked.”
“Thou shalt make them as a fiery furnace
in the time of Thine anger.”
“He bowed the heavens also, and came down;
And thick darkness was under His feet.”
“And He sent out His arrows, and scattered them;
And He shot forth lightnings, and discomfited them.”
“I have pursued my enemies, and overtaken them;
Neither did I turn back till they were consumed.”
He thought of himself pursuing his enemies with God at his side, but when he looked at God all he saw or heard was a loud Ha Ha. It was his own imprisoned laughter.
6
I scratch at memory. I think of Raisl. I’m in prison so what difference does it make? The first time I saw her she was riding in her father’s rickety wagon, drawn by the bony nag of late memory. She sat with the sick mother amid their few shreds of household goods. Shmuel was on the seat talking to himself, or the horse’s tail, or God; he went where the nag pulled, but wherever he went he was going backward. They were coming from some place, where I don’t know. Where can you come from in the Pale that’s so different from where you’re going? Everywhere he tried to make a better living, and everywhere he couldn’t so he tried some place else. He came to our town, and the mother, fed up with adventure, died on the spot. After that her grave kept him in one place. Also from such a hard-luck father what kind of daughter could you expect, so I stayed away from her. Naturally I stayed