The Fixer Read Free Page B

place.”
      He had said goodbye to his two cronies, Leibish Polikov and Haskel Dembo. The first had shrugged, the other wordlessly embraced him, and that was that. A butcher holding up by its thick yellow feet a squawking hen beating its wings saw the wagon go by and said something witty to his customers. One of these, a young woman who turned to look, called to Yakov, but by then the wagon was out of the marketplace, scattering some chickens nesting in the ruts of the road and a flock of jabbering ducks, as it clattered on.
      They approached the domed synagogue with its iron weathercock, a pock-marked yellow-walled building with an oak door, for the time being resting in peace. It had been sacked more than once. The courtyard was empty except for a black-hatted Jew sitting on a bench reading a folded newspaper in the sunlight. Yakov had rarely been inside the synagogue in recent years yet he easily remembered the long high-ceilinged room with its brass chandeliers, oval stained windows, and the prayer stands with stools and wooden candleholders, where he had spent, for the most part wasted, so many hours.
      “Gidap,” he said.
      At the other side of the town—a shtetl was an island surrounded by Russia—as they came abreast a windmill, its patched fans turning in slow massive motion, the fixer jerked on the reins and the horse clopped to a stop.
      “Here’s where we part,” he said to the peddler.
      Shmuel drew out of his pocket an embroidered cloth bag.
      “Don’t forget these,” he said embarrassed. “I found them in your drawer before we left.”
      In the bag was another containing phylacteries. There was also a prayer shawl and a prayer book. Raisl, before they were married, had made the bag out of a piece of her dress and embroidered it with the tablets of the Ten Commandments.
      “Thanks.” Yakov tossed the bag among his other things in the wagon.
      “Yakov,” said Shmuel passionately, “don’t forget your God!”
      “Who forgets who?” the fixer said angrily. “What do I get from him but a bang on the head and a stream of piss in my face. So what’s there to be worshipful about?”
      “Don’t talk like a meshummed. Stay a Jew, Yakov, don’t give up our God.”
      “A meshummed gives up one God for another. I don’t want either. We live in a world where the clock ticks fast while he’s on his timeless mountain staring in space. He doesn’t see us and he doesn’t care. Today I want my piece of bread, not in Paradise.”
      “Listen to me, Yakov, take my advice. I’ve lived longer than you. There’s a shul in the Podol in Kiev. Go on Shabbos, you’ll feel better. ‘Blessed are they who put their trust in God.’ “
      “Where I ought to go is to the Socialist Bund meetings, that’s where I should go, not in shul. But the truth of it is I dislike politics, though don’t ask me why. What good is it if you’re not an activist? I guess it’s my nature. I incline toward the philosophical although I don’t know much about anything.”
      “Be careful,” Shmuel said, agitated, “we live in the middle of our enemies. The best way to take care is to stay under God’s protection. Remember, if He’s not perfect, neither are we.”
      They embraced quickly and Shmuel got down from the wagon.
      “Goodbye, sweetheart,” he called to the horse. “Goodbye, Yakov, I’ll think of you when I say the Eighteen Blessings. If you ever see Raisl, tell her her father is waiting.”
      Shmuel trudged back towards the synagogue. When he was quite far away Yakov felt a pang for having forgotten to slip him a ruble or two.
      “Get on now.” The nag flicked an ear, roused itself for a short trot, then slowed to a tired walk.
      “It’ll be some trip,” the fixer thought.
      The horse stopped abruptly as a field mouse skittered across the road.
      “Gidap, goddamit”—but the nag wouldn’t move.
      A peasant passed by with a