The Slaughterman's Daughter

by Yaniv Iczkovits

  Fanny nodded in embarrassment and said that she had actually come to see the rabbi about another matter as well.

  “Certainly.” He rose from his seat and said he would like to walk her out. “As much as half the kingdom for Mrs Keismann.”

  They were already standing on the cabin doorstep and Fanny sensed that she should get to the point quickly. She told him about the knife she had been given as a child by her father and how she could not now part from the blade. The rabbi’s eyes lit up and he proceeded to calm her, saying that the matter was crystal clear: the knife had no significance as a knife, only as a memento of her father Meir-Anschil Schechter, righteous man of blessed memory. It could be that she was having a hard time parting with a memory from her childhood, and also, if he might venture, that she was craving a strip of the beef her righteous father used to serve her on a silver platter, which again evoked the knife. Perhaps it was time, the rabbi suggested, for her to embrace once more the customs of the congregation, for it is said in Genesis 1:28, “And have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth”, and the knife made a third appearance. And does she know what the difference was, between Cain’s offering and Abel’s offering? Does the dear lady know what it was? So, he will tell her: Cain brought an offering from the fruit of the earth, and Abel from the firstlings of his flock and their fat. Which offering did the Creator accept? There’s nothing to add, and the knife makes its fourth appearance. And it has already been said that, because Cain was so merciful with animals, he raged with cruel violence against humans, and ended up taking the life of his innocent brother, since, as it is said in Hosea 13:3, “They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.”

  “And much more can be added,” said the rabbi. “Reams of words can be said; the conclusion will remain the same: when it comes to the things that really matter, one should follow the community and its customs.”

  Fanny said nothing and waited patiently for him to finish his midrash and add congratulations and adulations to her and her household, to her sister and her household, and to all their relatives and their households. And when she left, she felt the knife and knew that it did not symbolise anything that called for a long and winding explanation. She missed her father, Meir-Anschil Schechter, righteous man of blessed memory, but the knife represented nothing more than the knife itself. More is known than unknown. It was an object that her father had given her as a child because he recognised that she had what it took to use it. And even though she had sworn an oath never to slaughter again, she could not let go of the confidence the knife exuded. Few people were as adept with the knife as she. Her father had known this when he sent her to Motal. Known, and said nothing.

  “The world is on the brink of complete annihilation,” he simply told her before they parted. “If my daughter wants to gird her thigh with a knife for slaughtering chickens, so be it.”

  * * *

  Now the path is empty and she is riding next to Zizek in a daze, and she does indeed believe that the end of the world is here, like the Flood. She, of all people – a child-shochet-cum-murderer – is being sent to Noah’s ark, to sail along with this shadow of a man, this lifeless dust.

  V

  * * *

  It is the second watch, and Colonel Piotr Novak is sitting in the town of Baranavichy, tucked away in a dark room he has rented from one of the locals, comparing surveillance reports sent in by the secret agents he is operating, Lucian Ostrovsky and Mikel Simansky:

  * * *

  Top Secret

  Lucian Ostrovsky

  Mikel Simansky

  0945 – Vladimir leaves his home carrying a leather satchel.

  0945 – Vladimir leaves his home and hides a suspicious bag beneath his shirt.

  1001 – Vladimir slips two envelopes into the post-office box.

  1001 – Vladimir enters the post office and looks around. He slips into the box two letters to be sent abroad, one of them is addressed to a Levine family in Paris.

  1013 – Vladimir buys cheese at the market.

  1013 – Vladimir holds conversations with market-goers while buying cheese. Alleged cheese is wrapped in brown paper.

  1026 – Vladimir goes to have a haircut.

  1026 – Vladimir enters the barbershop. Four men are waiting in the queue appearing to read the newspaper. Every now and again they exchange glances, but no “cheese” is exchanged.

  Any other officer in the Okhrana, Novak knows, would have immediately dismissed Lucian Ostrovsky for his dry and dreary report. Yet it is Simansky’s document that Novak crumples and throws into the bin. How can one tell if a bag is suspicious or not? And why would men sitting in a barbershop read anything other than the newspaper? And what makes cheese “alleged”?

  The next day, Piotr Novak meets his deputy, Albin Dodek, and the latter asks his commander if Simansky’s report was not even slightly useful, since it revealed that one letter had been sent to Paris, and to a Levine family, of all addressees. But Novak rebukes him: “Is it not obvious? Simansky discovered nothing of the kind. All he did was slide in a Jewish surname to spice up the story he was concocting.”

  “But how do you know that it wasn’t the address?” asks Albin Dodek.

  “The man they were tailing told me,” Novak mutters. “He is working for us.”

  “I see.” Albin Dodek lets the matter drop. Ever since Piotr Novak saw that his deputy had misspelled his own name on an envelope, he could not help but hear him uttering misspelled words whenever he spoke. Dodek is a bureaucrat who started out as a cook and switched jobs throughout the army until the rank of major suddenly landed on his shoulders. At the Okhrana, the Department for Public Security and Order, most deputies try to demonstrate their intellectual inferiority in order to avoid being suspected by their superiors of conspiring to stage a coup. In Dodek’s case, this behaviour is simply the result of his natural limitations. Many times, Dodek has suggested a new lead in an investigation only to discover that it had already been ruled out from the outset. Maybe Dodek is not solely to blame for these misjudgments, however; the unusual investigating protocol in the Grodno and Minsk districts under the command of Colonel Piotr Novak should also be taken into account.

  In all other regions of the Russian Empire, the Okhrana busies itself chasing after small fry. Thanks to its highly motivated secret agents, low-ranking undercover police and informants with vivid imaginations, it picks up a steady stream of second-rate revolutionaries. They arrest a moth circulating pamphlets, or shoot down a mosquito staging a protest, only to wake up the next morning and learn that the Czar has been assassinated by the giants of the Narodnaya Volya. You can be sure that nothing of this sort would have happened on Piotr Novak’s watch.

  In Novak’s secret police department, all is calm. He has no interest in proving to anyone that he is making new arrests every day. For the most part, he tries to become inconspicuously embedded in the social fabric of the large cities within his jurisdiction – Minsk, Grodno, Kaunas and Vitebsk – and can sometimes be found in the small villages whose residents would never guess that an Okhrana department could be bobbing about in their sewer. It was not a whimsical decision on the part of Field Marshal Osip Gurko to let his loyal reporting officer Piotr Novak take charge of these two districts. Gurko had summoned Novak to his chamber and said, “Piotr, I need you here, and you know why.” And indeed, Novak did know why. In these densely populated districts, everyone is everyone else’s acquaintance, including the men of the secret police, and the Okhrana’s outdated methods have proved ineffective.

  What, then, are Novak’s special methods? So-and-so wants to stage an uprising? Let him, says Novak, and what’s more
, undercover secret police agents will be more than happy to help him organise the revolt. The same rebel wants to spread socialist ideas? Let him! And if he needs money, the Department will gladly provide the necessary funds. What will the secret police ever find out, if it does not become part of those groups? How will the agents gain the rebels’ trust if they do not fan the flames of the revolution themselves? The best proof of efficiency for the secret police, Novak knows, is to quash the revolutions it foments itself.

  And so His Excellency Governor Osip Gurko regularly sends his secret police officers to be trained by Novak. “Whatever can we learn from him?” the St Petersburg and Moscow top brass ask each other, only to discover that there is quite a bit to learn from him. To begin with, there are several ground rules. First, Colonel Piotr Novak is rarely seen in the big cities. In the buzzing metropolises, he has come to learn, the swords that people sharpen are, by and large, metaphorical ones; and ideas, as far as he can tell, do not lead to revolutions. True, these cities boast quite a few universities, and there is no shortage of young and zealous students. But as each of them wants to be the indisputable leader of the revolution, they distinguish themselves from one another only by developing minuscule variations on the same theme. A socialist is more likely to loathe his revolutionary comrade than the most Czar-loyal aristocrat, even if said comrade has merely omitted a comma from the movement’s manifesto. Experience has taught Novak that the revolutions that matter are led by an angry mob. And an angry mob— well, an angry mob doesn’t care for nuance. This is why Novak prowls around villages and towns, places like Baranavichy, for example: places where peace abounds until all hell breaks loose.

  Second, as everyone knows everyone else in these smaller places, one might gauge the level of dissent by posing as a passer-by forced to spend the night at the local inn, with money that suffices for nothing more than a cave-like bedroom.

  The taverns and inns are the front line in this battle, and all one needs to do is sit there and listen, nothing more, and let the vodka do the rest. No need to introduce a wedge between the locals. The wedge has been there since the dawn of time. The only capacity that good secret agents should develop, Novak knows, is their capacity to drink: they should grow the liver of a pig, the ear of a dog and the hide of an elephant. Mingling with tramps and drunks is not for the self-indulgent. Those who want to enjoy the perks reserved for the powerful should not work for the secret police; that’s what the roles of governor and army general are for.

  Third, as already mentioned, the revolution must be created in order for it to be crushed; but this is easier said than done. If a man were to travel across the Russian Empire asking people what they wanted, he would find some very similar answers wherever he went: health, a roof over their head, a decent wage, peace and prayer. Gentile or Jew, Russian or Polish, merchant or craftsman, rich or poor – this is what they would say: things that speak for themselves. But if our traveller were to confront them with questions about Socialism, democracy, education and nationality, these mortals would look at him as though he had lost his mind and would offer him a drink to calm him down. Why should you inquire about such lofty matters? Are you an aristocrat, or a general? Sit with us and tell us about your travels: who did you meet in Minsk and what did you see in Vitebsk? Stop talking about imperial decadence and stop throwing around ideas that jeopardise the little we have. This is how it has always been: the rich have mansions, pedlars have carts, and beggars have hands. Sit down with us, and stop being provocative before blood starts washing the streets. Revolutions always end the same way: one corrupt ruler is replaced by another, and the pauper remains a pauper.

  It is therefore in the nature of things – and this is something Piotr Novak understood as soon as he stepped into office – that the sublime ideas of freedom and equality must take root in less lofty sentiments, such as bitterness and envy. If a provocateur finds it hard to persuade a peasant to join the “Just Revolution”, and if a townsman has never heard about “equality for all”, all the agitator has to do is turn their attention to their neighbour’s affluence or point out that so-and-so is a burden on the taxpayer.

  This insight has also led Piotr Novak to concede the importance of the Jews. It is said that they constitute no more than fifteen per cent of the population, and yet, if you go to relax in a tavern, it will be Jewish-owned; if you lease a plot of land to grow vegetables, the promissory note will bear the name of a Jew; if you need an interpreter, a Jew will show up; if you are looking for train tickets to Warsaw, the Jews will sell you the cheapest ones; if you want to buy an Arabian horse you go to the Jews at the market. Need a cart driver? They’ll give you a Jewish driver along with the horses. Czech crockery? At the Jews’ shop. For God’s sake: if you want to find solace with a tanned prostitute, she will be Jewish. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Jews seem to be the only ones who are doing anything in this country, and if you do not want to do business with them, you’d better go and live on the moon. In short, if, after saying all these things, your partners in conversation still have no interest in joining the revolution, the damned sloths, and they do not harbour any loathing for the Jews, and if you fail to incite them against the rich, and if even the gypsies, Armenians and Germans leave them unruffled, this is when the real suspicion arises. This is an indication that one is facing a particularly shrewd sort who does not disclose his true feelings to a passing traveller.

  Fourthly, and briefly, the agents, undercover police and informants do not care a jot about any of the above. It makes no difference to them whether the Czar or a rat is on the throne. This is why one has to say the magic words “expense account” (which for some reason appeals to them much more than the word “salary”) to prompt them to deliver consistent surveillance reports without any gaps or holes in them.

  The Okhrana chiefs are mightily impressed by Novak’s methods. Before they met him, they believed themselves to be standing firm against a tiny, divided minority that threatened the prevailing peace and order. Every now and then, socialists, liberals, intellectuals and democrats would form an alliance, and the secret police’s job, so they had believed, was to prevent these germ cultures from proliferating. Novak has led them to the realisation that their goal is to divide the people, to turn them against one another and to undermine the prevailing order, to separate chaff from grain. Only when everyone is a culprit, to some degree, and every household across the Russian Empire tarnished, only then will suspicions be aroused sufficiently to uncover the truly dangerous rebels – at which point the real dimensions of the revolution will become apparent, and the commanders’ courage will be properly tested.

  VI

  * * *

  After the conversation with his deputy Albin Dodek, Colonel Piotr Novak summons Mikel Simansky in order to dismiss him from service. But before Novak can utter a single word, Dodek charges back in with a shocked expression, dishevelled clothes, a sweaty brow, and alarming news: three bodies have been found on the road near Telekhany. Their informant is out of his wits with fright. He has told them that the victims were the Borokovskys, known bandits; the mother and two boys were found on the path with knife wounds, and the whereabouts of the father, Radek Borokovsky, are unknown. Their horses have been stolen, but the wagon and its contents are untouched. Dodek ends his report by proudly informing the colonel that he has already sent out agents to find the father, who was probably involved in the murder.

  Piotr Novak listens to all this attentively and then asks Mikel Simansky to summon Lucian Ostrovsky and wait outside. He decides to postpone the dismissal, assuming that he will need as many people as possible on this job. He feels the thigh of his crushed left leg, which has been paining him, and pours himself a cup of slivovitz, draining it with a single gulp. He belches, frowns and then sighs.

  “A straightforward investigation ahead of us, eh, Dodek?” he says, turning to his deputy.

  “Indeed,” Dodek says, puffing o
ut his chest and adding, “rather than an investigation, this will be a manhunt.”

  “A manhunt, Dodek? Which man are we hunting?”

  “Radek Borokovsky, of course,” says the deputy, who never learns from past mistakes.

  “I see, I see . . . and there I was thinking we should hunt for the killer,” Novak says, getting to his feet. At this point, Dodek realises that he may have performed what his commander calls an “incorrect deduction”. But as his superior seems to be enjoying their conversation, Dodek pretends that he cannot quite follow him.

  “Aren’t Radek Borokovsky and the killer one and the same?”

  “What do you think, Dodek?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, we’re already making progress with the investigation, aren’t we? A moment ago we knew who the killer was, and now we’re not so sure.”

  Dodek makes a careful note of this tip on his notepad. “The fact that one of the people present at the scene of a crime has not been murdered does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that he is the murderer.” In the evening, before going to bed, he will read through his notes and go over the day’s lessons.

  Now Novak is signalling to him to give twenty roubles to the informant, Mr Otto Kroll, who, surprisingly, does not close his hand over the notes, but keeps it outstretched. Novak limps over to Mr Kroll and gives him an additional ten roubles, on the condition that he leads them to the crime scene as quickly as he can. Dodek notes down: “Small change buys precious time.”