Aliosha told Antonov about the technical failure of the Shocker. He and the electrician were called back to Gepau with the apparatus. It had to be repaired. “Gepau decided: We will find more important victims than the Rabbi - to be shocked,” so said Antonov.
About a week had passed since the Shocker’s failure. The asylum’s employee, who used to bring food to Rabbi Aaron, and steal the non-Kosher meat served to him - murmured as to himself, and Rabbi Aharon heard that: “I’ve finished my work here. I’m transferred… to an orphanage not far away. . .Your son maybe there, Rabbi. I will try to find him and bring him a message you are well.” Rabbi Aaron suspected him to be Gepau’s collaborator, so he did not even nod.
At noon arrived Doctor Pavlov to visit Rabbi Aaron. He was ‘telling the wall’ that they all were going to move to another place. In the present Plechanov asylum - the staff was called to a general meeting. The director told his employees that as the number of insanes has naturally grown up in Russia, the health authorities had built a bigger and modern asylum, in another place. So they will all move, with all patients, from Minsk area. By that they will save manpower and maintaining costs to the regime…
“Tall Aliosha will come to take you there,” said Pavlov; and thinking about himself as a successful mental curer, he added: “Of course I will continue to treat you, Rabbi. Don’t worry,”
‘Very well’, reflected Rabbi Aaron, ‘at least I won’t get rotten in this hole. Hopefully I’ll see another part of big Russia, that certainly I’ve never visited. To tell the truth- I like to travel…Now there are more insanes in Russia than in any other country. The communists would hide that fact, being afraid to admit that abroad. I am a courageous personality, so told me Pavlov today and laughed madly. Maybe Tall Aliosha also guesses something about my disguise, but he would hide it from the devil himself…I think they both adore me, knowing that one day I’ll win. Deep in their hearts - they feel their cowardice, not being able to follow my risky adventure… My only problem with the new asylum - is its far distance from Minsk. How would it effect my wife and my few friends, who would like to visit me? They will surely have to travel by train, in order to meet me. It will waste them a whole work-day. Why didn’t Pavlov mention to a dumb wall like me- our exact destination?. . . I don’t see any method and reason in this regime’s calculations. They had built a huge asylum, so said Pavlov, in order to fill it with lunatics from all over Russia?… The authorities’ behavior is whimsical, occasional, deceiving, deluding. That is the system, and no one can destroy it - except God. But what is the true reason that they won’t drive me out of this country? They can get rid of me so easily and quietly…See how many employees are taking care of me, and of my son, too. And it costs a lot to feed us. . .’
Rabbi Aaron asked himself all these reasonable and sane questions- while being already with Tall Aliosha, who had returned from Gepau’s Head office. This time he was holding a leather bag in his hand. ‘Maybe the guy will drive me to another place at all?’ continued Rabbi Aaron to meditate, ‘But no! On the train cabin’s external wall - I see a plateboard: ‘Minsk-Smolensk’. The night train has been waiting for us, some ten lunatics, with their escorts.
“This is the first transport,” said Aliosha.
‘Why had Gepau found it necessary to permanently stick Aliosha to me ?’ the Rabbi asked himself, ‘Am I such an important person to them? I wonder. All is whimsical and sporadic. Five years Plan they have. A plan for enslaving the people. Extending beaurocracy and causing everybody to be sickened, arrested or dead, in order to replace old victims by new ones.’
It was a cold night. The wind waved the Rabbi’s wild beard. He grabbed Aliosha’s elbow and moaned, so that the youth would understand that he needs to find out where to piss.
There was only one cabin in which he could do that, but his urine system could not wait. He was condoled by the fact, that he discerned two other mads in the same condition.
After a long stay the train whisteled and its smoke was seen over the locomotive and several cabins. Lights of an arriving train illuminated the area, and the train speeded its rush toward north east. Rabbi Aaron and Tall Aliosha were sitting among a variety of men and women. Most of them were holding baskets under their seats or on their knees, and a stink of rotten vegetables and dirty bodies filled the air. Rabbi Aaron told himself that till he sees the town, he would not be sure they have reached Smolensk- and not Siberia, for example. If it is Smolensk, then it’s good. Better to be closer to the capital Moscow. There will his fate be determined. Now he is afraid that they will try to implement again the Electric shocker or some ‘reflections reader’. Gepaus are experts in that. Had not Satan been given by you too much power, God? Satan’s Delegate is Stalin...You should know how to limit him... Aliosha’s presence here with me- is an evidence that Gepau still hopes to reveal something about me. They waste days and nights of that simple guard - to follow me and try to trace even my thoughts. It’s unbelievable. This land has become the kingdom of Biblical Akhish, king of Gath, who asked David: “Do I lack madmen?”…It’s a wonder, that millions in this Empire have not tried - like me- to manipulate the regime. Very few people had been brave enough, to take responsibility on their sould, and neglect their family, if they hadm, and tried my patent? This is a sophisticated type of rescue trial. But it seems to me that God wants me to succeed. Only me. I am hopeful again. . .I am quite a crank in my way of thinking.
When he arrived at Smolensk asylum’s building, he recognized it as Red Mogid’s place of death. He knew what it had meant, but was indifferent to that surrounding. ‘I don’t care,’ he thought, ‘I am in God’s good hands, Mogid did not believe in Him till his last day, I presume. That is trhe difference between us.’
CHAPTER 40
The Rabbi Who Tricked Stalin Page 39