The Slaughterman's Daughter

by Yaniv Iczkovits

  Shepkin sank to the ground as soon as the first shot was fired. Zizek tried to pull him away, but my father sat down on a rock, took out pencil and paper from his backpack and started to sketch a portrait of Nikolai the First, the Iron Czar, as the cannons thundered from all directions. He was still breathing when the Turks found him. They laid down their swords for a moment and peered at the drawing. It was my father’s best work, without a shadow of a doubt. He departed from this world, dear madam, leaving a thread of light in the heart of darkness. Women and children across Russia silently wept. They were not necessarily lamenting the loss of a husband or father, since they weren’t used to having him around. But when I heard about his death I felt that I’d lost something I never knew I had, and my grief was unbearable.

  We should not be talking about the sorrows of an obscure painter, though, dear madam. We should be talking about the Father and how the saints protected him in Radzetsky’s death-trap. No-one knows how he survived, and I was hoping that you, his so-called niece, would know something about his mysterious disappearance from the battlefield. Did he lie on the ground and pretend to be dead? If so, how did he keep his ears intact? Did he dive into the river? If so, how did he not drown? Did he manage to hide in a nearby village? If so, someone must have known about it. He disappeared into the bloody soil without a trace. Such circumstances, dear madam, are the stuff of legends. Soldiers who survived this massacre couldn’t agree about whether he ascended to the high heavens on a storm cloud, was swallowed whole by the earth, or was snatched by a seraph mounted on a grey dragon. A carabineer swore he saw this miracle happen with his very eyes: “The Father charged together with the rest of us, but suddenly an angel of God landed on the battlefield riding a fearsome dragon, put Zizek on its back and flew up to the heavens.”

  If the extravagance of the legends about the Father tells us anything about the admiration soldiers have for him, then this tale is a fine example. There may not have been a grey dragon, and it is doubtful whether anything descended from the heavens. But many imagined that Zizek the Divine was extracted from that valley of death by the Holy Spirit Himself.

  One might expect this escape to have enraged his comrades, as he ultimately failed to rescue their unit from destruction. But from the moment Radzetsky appointed Zizek as his adjutant, generations of soldiers had been rescued, and those soldiers had children, wives, parents and friends. It can be said without fear of exaggeration that countless Russians are indebted to the Father, and if he had not been born a Jew, he would surely have been declared a saint.

  We are almost finished, dear madam. I believe that your curiosity has had its fill, while my own curiosity is still ravenous. Before I present you with the outcome of our session I have one request for you: I want to hear that the Father has a child of his own. Even if you have to lie, and I can already see your eyes twitching, tell me that he managed to live a full life, where words became words again instead of tools. Tell me he found consolation in the arms of Mina Gorfinkel, and that the baby she gave birth to healed his soul, and that he found repose in a modest Motal house. Describe to me how Zizek Breshov went back to being Yoshke Berkovits and I will ask for nothing more, not caring whether you are a niece or a foe. No-one believed we would have the honour of meeting the Father before we die, which is why we find his solitude intolerable. We want to know that he lacks nothing. Our only dream is to know that when Yoshke Berkovits goes to bed he can tell himself that his home is his castle, and that those distant days of Yoshke and Pesach at the latrines are gone for ever. Did Mina Gorfinkel wait for him? Was he happily received in his hometown upon his return? Did he have any children? Did any of this come to be, dear madam, or are these all empty, wishful thoughts?

  I can assure you that the reason why you are here is none of our concern, though it certainly piques our curiosity. What is more, as long as blood is running through the veins of the soldiers and hussars serving here, you will come to no harm. Even if the Czar himself ordered your arrest, we would escort you to safety and foil any plot against you. There is one thing we would like to know, though: is the Father happy? Yes, as simple as that. Is there any joy in his heart? Has his odyssey come to an end? Did he manage to retrieve the words that had been expropriated for the common good, and make them his own again? Did he manage to put longings into words, not for others’ sweethearts, but for his own beloved? Was he able to use words as they were uttered by the First Man?

  Your face is not reassuring, dear madam. Your wordlessness speaks volumes. I do not want to hear you mumbling half-truths. Let us part ways, then. Please forget the fable that I have just told you, for it is nothing more than a fable. Any soldier here in the camp will tell you a completely different version of this story, depending on his imagination and how much time he has. Nevertheless, I delivered my part of the deal, and cannot complain about yours. You sat here for a long time listening to an emotional, grieving artist, who now has a memory of someone who purports to be the Father’s niece. Your portrait is the only memento I have of my family. For I was born Ignat Shepkin, with the name of a man who surely was not my father but treated me with nothing but kindness. Would you like to take a look now?

  II

  * * *

  Ignat Shepkin bows to Fanny and turns the painting around for her to look at. She is not accustomed to seeing herself in the mirror, and certainly not on a canvas, not to mention in the presence of someone else. Indeed, she recognises her moon-shaped face, light-coloured hair, and bright eyes that the artist has left blurred. She thinks her nose is out of proportion, however, and the wrinkle between the eyebrows is only hinted at. Fanny cannot say that this is a faithful portrait, she rather thinks that Ignat Shepkin has failed to follow his father’s advice to limit himself to drawing a single theme. The face on the canvas is sad, the puffy bags under the eyes suppress any sign of vitality they might have had. Wait a minute . . .

  Fanny touches her cheeks, feeling the skin and fat they have acquired of late. Impossible! She notices that her eyes in the painting have dark circles around them, and her chin even has a small, sharp dimple.

  “What is this?” Fanny says. “Who did you paint?”

  Shepkin smiles and folds his canvas.

  “Give it to me!” She tries to snatch the painting from him.

  “Absolutely not.” He pushes her arm away.

  Her thoughts turn fleetingly to her knife.

  “A deal is a deal,” the painter says, now upset, and jumps off the wagon. “What is wrong with you? Clearly, you’re not his niece,” he says as he disappears into the dark.

  What is happening to her? She cannot stop thinking about the portrait. The painting showed submissive eyes, which are everything her eyes are not. They were the eyes of Malka Schechter. How could Shepkin have known about her mother who died more than ten years ago, in Grodno? Could he have discerned in Fanny the resignation that consumed her mother? Impossible. Unlike her mother, even as a child Fanny forbade herself to play if-then games and took her fate into her own hands. She decided to hunt down Zvi-Meir herself, instead of praying like the rabbis for the release of husbandless wives from wedlock. How can a stupid artist confuse frivolity with vigour, or weakness with resolve?

  Pent-up rage ignites Fanny’s face, and her fingers slide towards the knife on her thigh. Touching the blade calms her, but this quickly turns to fear and in her distress she struggles to breath. She claws at her own neck as if trying to free it from someone else’s grip. Fanny is impelled to draw her knife: who’s there? Who dares try to strangle her?

  Placid and indifferent, the night gives nothing away. The moon is shrivelled like a dried pear, the landscape dissolves, and Fanny listens to the snores teeming in the tents. Now that she is finally her own master, the prospect of losing control of her life terrifies her. Her mother’s old if-then thoughts creep back in. If she falls asleep here in the field, she’ll be captured by dawn. If she stares into the eyes of Zizek�
��s old horse she’ll be sent to Siberia. But if she gets off the wagon with her right foot first, the four of them will certainly be saved. And if she lets go of the knife, this whole mess will be forgotten. What is she to do?

  She descends from the wagon and hurries back to the tent. In the lantern’s dim light, she can tell that Adamsky and the Cantor are not there. Only Zizek is in the tent, lying across the bed with his back to her. She steps over some boxes to see if he is awake. His eyes, the eyes of a dead carp, are heedless of her presence. She gently taps his shoulder.

  “Zizek,” she whispers, “I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t mean to . . . But what made you help me in the first place?”

  Zizek does not turn but his eyelids flutter. His refusal to look at her, like a stubborn child, stabs her directly in the heart. His spurned body, which has never been touched, is rigid to the point of prickliness. His anguished look projects a lucidity she recognises from her children: the look of a scolded boy pleading for forgiveness. If a woman touched him he would beg for a mother; if a mother touched him he would withdraw into himself. His body has never been necessary; the only affirmations of its existence have been the imaginings he dictated to his comrades. The act of love with Mina Gorfinkel is as implausible now as it was when he was a young boy.

  And yet Fanny touches him: first she touches his scarred mouth, then she runs her fingers across his lips, strokes his cheek and brushes aside the hair on his forehead. This touch, even if forbidden, does not feel like an act of infidelity, because it is not in the least arousing.

  A sigh of pain escapes from Zizek’s lips. How far did her touch reach? She cannot tell, but as she strokes his forehead, she notices that his shoulders grow stiff and he arches his back as if shrinking away from her. She lies down next to him, presses her body against his, and wraps her arm around his belly. Zizek lies without uttering a syllable, but his breathing grows softer. Now she cannot move away from him, and she cannot say whether it’s for his sake or her own.

  Tabulki

  I

  * * *

  No man in the camp has a bad word to say about the deputy commander, Colonel David Pazhari. As Lieutenant General Mishenkov’s absences grow longer and more frequent, Pazhari is seen as the regiment’s acting commander. While Mishenkov is away, Pazhari could choose to do whatever he liked. He could drink fine wines from dawn to dusk, smoke excellent cigars, or fornicate with the local women. But sometimes, when one meets a St Petersburg aristocrat, one realises that certain things tolerated in the capital are not tolerated elsewhere.

  The deputy commander is tall, broad-shouldered and has a chiselled face. His yellow hair, which flops across his forehead like an egg yolk, is carefully trimmed at the back in a straight line that would make a draughtsman proud. He shaves daily, even in wintertime, and you will never see him wearing ragged boots held together with cheap glue, as his peers do. Even when he gets up at night to piss, the colonel puts on his belt before leaving his tent. Pazhari, people say, will never be caught with his trousers down.

  In addition to his impressive stature, distinctive features and a small scar above his top lip, Pazhari is distinguished by a rare quality of holding sway over both men and women. A trivial comment of his at a staff meeting can make officers unsure whether it has annoyed them or filled them with love, if not to say passion, for him. And since passion between men is tenfold more inspiring than its trivial alternative, men can interact with Pazhari only if they love him unconditionally or are made nauseous by his presence.

  The nauseated among them face a dilemma. If only they could point their finger at a fault in Pazhari’s conduct they would at least feel that their attitude was justified. But the colonel’s behaviour is impeccable. He could easily follow Mishenkov’s example, leave his own deputy in charge and go off to dine with government officials in the city. Such a handover of authority could go on for ever, ending with a humble private as commander-in-chief. But Pazhari prefers the routine of life at the barracks to sensual delights and political intrigues. He likes chatting with new recruits, crawling onto an empty cot in a tent for a quick nap, running a kitchen inspection once a week and smoking with his officers. If something escapes Pazhari’s attention it means that Pazhari let it escape on purpose, because it gives him peace of mind to know that there are some things he does not need to know. The colonel has come to learn that every soldier breaks at least one rule a day. To his mind, it is prefer-able that such transgressions should pertain to opium, morphine and mead rather than weapon smuggling or – God forbid – espionage.

  * * *

  One morning, a few days after the quartet’s arrival in camp, Col-onel Pazhari receives an urgent telegram from “the Department for Public Security and Order”. A nice name for the Okhrana’s rats, Pazhari thinks to himself. The letter is addressed to Lieutenant General Mishenkov, and the colonel wonders what it could be about. Looking for the signatory’s name at the bottom of the page, he is surprised to find it was sent on behalf of none other than the commander of the Okhrana’s north-western districts, Colonel Piotr Novak.

  Although Pazhari served under Novak for no more than a fortnight, he knows his former commander better than the officers who served under the colonel for twenty years, by virtue of a random accident: Pazhari, a cavalry captain at the time, was there when a shell hit Novak’s horse during the battle on the Shipka Pass. Determined hussar that he was, Pazhari found himself among the first line of attack and witnessed the senior officer writhing in agony on the ground, dragging his leg along like a snake with a severed tail, with no sense of where he was going. Leaving a trail of blood in his wake, Novak leaned on a rifle in a desperate attempt to stand up and, contravening all orders, Pazhari jumped off his horse with the idea of dragging his commanding officer away from the line of fire, but took a punch to the face as soon as he tried it. “What do you think you’re doing, you fool?” Novak yelled. “Mount your horse and get back to the attack!” Pazhari obeyed the order, but he could not help staring at the gory, sooty, horrific pulp that had once been a leg. Blood was gushing from the shrapnel-torn knee, drenching the scorched flesh. As he grimaced, Pazhari realised that Novak had seen the terror in his face. Raising his eyes, the colonel seemed to plead with him: is it that bad? Is there really no hope? Pazhari did not have the gumption to lie to his commanding officer. He ignored Novak’s plea and returned to the mayhem.

  Contrary to what people tend to think, our moral compass does not necessarily give us the ability to do the right thing in critical moments. If anything, the opposite is true. The inherently just are not virtuous, since they have never had a weakness or flaw they had to overcome. Alas, most people become a pale version of themselves and lose their wits altogether when evil makes an appearance. It is therefore a mistake to judge one’s morality in times of crisis. Most people, and Pazhari is no exception, become aware of their morals only in hindsight, once they have recognised their blunders and the irrevocable injustice they have unleashed. In the same way that a novice tailor makes inferior clothes before learning to produce flawless garments, people develop a moral sense through failure, flaw and sin.

  For many years, Pazhari had replayed that scene at the battle on the Shipka Pass in his mind, and had come to realise that his role as a commander in the Czar’s army was to teach his men to accept reality as it was. Nothing more. If he could go back to that moment – and how often he imagined that he could, not a day passed without him wishing that he could – he would have turned to Novak’s pleading face and said sternly: “The leg is gone, deal with it.” And even if Novak would have expected him to offer consolation, Pazhari would have fulfilled a basic moral obligation: to see people as they are – in this case, with a mangled leg – and not as they ought to be.

  Either way, even if Pazhari had had no idea who Piotr Novak was, a request from a district commander at the Department for Public Security and Order is no trivial matter. What is more, the telegram unequivocal
ly demands to know whether four fugitive outlaws have been sighted in the camp, three men and a woman, members of an underground organisation of some sort, probably Jewish, who have murdered an innocent family and two agents in a cruel attack, and managed to escape on an old freight wagon headed for Minsk. Further below, a line written by a different hand reads: “Anywon hiding informashen abowt there identity or wherabowts wil be considerd ful akomplices and wil be I for conspirasy and eiding and abeting merder.”

  Whoever wrote this line had to be a complete idiot. It couldn’t possibly be Novak’s doing, thinks Colonel Pazhari. But the smile that these spelling mistakes bring to the lips must not mask the seriousness of the words they express. Scaffolds can still be set up by fools who cannot spell their own name. Pazhari knows that it is customarily believed that the secret police follows laws of its own, but anyone who can think for himself knows that the secret police do not follow any laws whatsoever. If they decide tomorrow that David Pazhari has to go, then David Pazhari will be gone; and if they decide the next day that David Pazhari never existed, then he never existed.

  Therefore, after reading the telegram, the colonel immediately orders his officers to find out if anyone knows anything about four fugitives in their midst. He tells the unit commanders to check their furthest outposts, and instructs the cavalry to send out horsemen to the nearby villages. Not even thirty minutes elapse before his question is answered in the negative, which makes him suspicious. First, such rumours usually stimulate the imaginations of bored people and prompt them to invent things they know nothing about. Give a muzhik a reason to report and he will come up with impossible tales that implicate four innocent people without an alibi, but in this case no-one saw anything. And second, how could they have already reached the furthest outposts and come back, if these outposts are half an hour’s ride in each direction?