Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud [96]
“Did he say that?”
“Yes.”
“Go on to another one.”
“ ‘But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one dot of the law to become void.’ “
“When you say the words they sound different than I remember them.”
“They’re the same words.”
“Go on to another one.”
“ ‘Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged and the measure you give will be the measure you get.’ “
“That’s enough,” said Kogin. “I’ve had enough.”
But the next night he brought a candle stub and match.
“Look, Yakov Bok, I know you’re hiding a book of the gospels in your cell. How did you get it?”
Yakov said someone had slipped it into his pocket when he went to get his rations in the kitchen.
“Well, maybe, and maybe not,” said Kogin, “but since you have the book in there you might as well read me something. I’m bored to my ass out here all alone night after night. What I really am is a family man.”
Yakov lit the candle and read to Kogin through the hole in the door. He read him of the trial and suffering of Christ, as the yellow candle flame dipped and sputtered in the damp cell. When he came to where the soldiers pressed a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head, the guard sighed.
Then the fixer spoke in an anxious whisper. “Listen, Kogin, could I ask you for a small favor? It isn’t much of one. I would like a piece of paper and a pencil stub to write a few words to an acquaintance of mine. Could you lend them to me?”
“You better go fuck yourself, Bok,” said Kogin. “I’m onto your Jew tricks.”
He took the candle, blew it out, and did not again come to hear the verses of the gospels.
2
Sometimes he caught the scent of spring through the broken window when a breeze that had passed through the flowering bushes and trees left him with a remembrance of green things growing on earth, and his heart ached beyond belief.
One late afternoon in May, or possibly June, after the fixer had been imprisoned more than a year, a priest in gray vestments and a black hat appeared in the dark cell, a pale-faced young man with stringy hair, wet lips, and haunted, dark eyes.
Yakov, thinking himself hallucinated, retreated to the wall.
“Who are you? Where do you come from?”
“Your guard opened the door for me,” said the priest, nodding, blinking. He coughed, a complex fit it took him a while to get through. “I’ve been ill,” he said, “and once as I lay in bed in a fever I had an extraordinary vision of a man suffering in this prison. Who can it be? I thought, and at once it came to me, it must be the Jew who was arrested for killing the Christian child. I was covered with perspiration and cried out, ‘Heavenly Father, I thank you for this sign, for I understand you wish me to be of service to the imprisoned Jew.’ When I had recovered from my illness, I wrote at once to your warden asking him to permit me to see you. At first it seemed impossible, but after I had prayed and fasted, it was finally arranged with the Metropolitan’s assistance.”
Seeing the ragged, bearded fixer in the gloom, standing with his back to the sweating wall, the priest fell to his knees.
“Dear Lord,” he prayed, “forgive this poor Hebrew for his sins, and let him forgive us for sinning against him. ‘For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.’ “
“I forgive no one.”
Approaching the prisoner on his knees, the priest tried to kiss his hand but the fixer snatched it away and retreated into the shadows of the cell.
Groaning, the priest rose, breathing heavily.
“I beg you to listen to me, Yakov Shepsovitch Bok,” he wheezed. “I am told by the guard Zhitnyak that you religiously read the gospels. And the guard Kogin says that you have memorized many passages of the words of the true Christ. This is an excellent sign, for if you embrace Christ, you will have truly repented. He will save you from damnation. And if you are converted to the Orthodox faith, your captors will be compelled to reconsider their accusations