The Slaughterman's Daughter

by Yaniv Iczkovits

  The third suspect calls himself Captain Adamsky and won’t stop babbling about the Third Regiment, Fifth Division, Eleventh Army, in which he supposedly served. What Pazhari sees, however, is a midget wearing a private’s uniform, a gnome boasting a pimp’s sideburns, a character one often sees coming out of taverns at sunrise to stagger about the streets like a headless chicken, making one ask oneself: “Am I really sacrificing my life for this?” If he was indeed a captain, there’s no way of proving it. He doesn’t have any documents to show, and right now his word is not worth a fart.

  “Why aren’t they shackled?” Pazhari asks the garrison commander.

  “Sir . . .” the soldier hesitates. “We cannot shackle the Father. He is our guest.”

  “The father?” Pazhari asks. “Whose father?”

  The head of the guard says nothing, embarrassed.

  “He really is the Father,” Zarobin says.

  Pazhari is irritated by Zarobin’s reverence for this man, but then, all of a sudden, he understands what they are trying to say.

  “Which one?” he demands, astounded, guessing before Glazkov points him out.

  “And this is his niece,” Demidov adds.

  “But as for him,” Zarobin says, pointing at Adamsky, “no-one knows what he’s doing here.”

  “I am Captain Adamsky, Third Regiment, Fifth Division, Eleventh Army.”

  “You are under arrest,” Pazhari says, coldly.

  Even though the unexpected arrest has undoubtedly disrupted Adamsky’s ability to think clearly, he is still able to estimate the distance between his fist and the colonel’s face and lands a lightning-fast punch on Pazhari’s chin.

  Adamsky has come to learn that punching faces can have varying degrees of effectiveness. You can crush a cheekbone, break a nose, smash eye sockets, break a man’s teeth one by one . . . But a single strike to the chin will go much further. And indeed, Colonel Pazhari collapses on the spot, and Adamsky flees the tent like a demon.

  If one were to assess his odds of escaping the camp, well, one would focus on these facts: a veteran long past his prime, who has celebrated fifty-six springs, breaks out of the camp commander’s heavily guarded pavilion. Beyond a circle of officers’ tents, tens of thousands of troops are performing their morning drills with their weapons at the ready. In the outer circle, thousands of fearless horsemen are waiting with their fit and well-fed mounts. And yet our man still thought it would be a sound idea to try and break through this line of defence.

  There’s one advantage Adamsky has always had, though. Most of the soldiers surrounding him do not know what combat is really about. Sure, they wrestle one another during training, shoot at fixed targets and jump over obstacles on horseback like English gentlemen. But all one has to do is chew off one of their ears, and you’ll have them crawling on the ground licking the dirt in search of it.

  Adamsky exceeds his own expectations. He pushes past the sentries, runs through the circle of officers’ tents, pierces fifteen eyes (two of which belong to the same officer), crushes seven noses (leaving one man completely snoutless), tears off twenty-one earlobes (three of which are quickly found, though their rightful owners cannot identify which one is theirs), and one hundred and twelve bullets, two bullets for every year of Adamsky’s life (the captain counted them all), miss the man Pazhari thought a gnome and a pimp.

  Why does the getaway fail? As always with Adamsky, his hot temper is to blame. Had he used the turmoil he unleashed to get past the furthest guard and flee on the back of a young colt, he might have reached Ada, the young woman with whom he wants to build a future. But Adamsky can’t help but attack every ear that comes his way, and finally a furious mass of men-at-arms are pinning him down.

  Now he is surrounded by dozens of sentries, all of whom know exactly what his mouth is capable of, and the mere sight of him compels them to touch their noses and ears to make sure they are still there. Exhilarated, Adamsky gets down on his knees, crosses himself four times and stretches out his arms for the chains.

  Bound and bruised, the captain is dragged back to the camp’s deputy commander. After all, there’s no better proof of courage and cunning in combat than attacking a chained soldier. Pazhari has since recovered from the blow to his chin, despite his rattled head and aching tongue, while Adamsky lies on his side, groaning and spitting blood. Zizek and Fanny are paralysed at the sight of his mangled body. Pazhari bends down to take a look at his face.

  “Why?” the colonel asks Adamsky.

  “Why not?” the captain says.

  Pazhari respects the honest answer, but he cannot let it pass. “Take him away,” he orders the sentries. “I want three guards on him even when he pisses. And you!” Pazhari turns to Fanny and Zizek. “You are coming with me.”

  V

  * * *

  Inside Mishenkov’s tent there is a sequestered section that the general calls “the office”, and his subordinates prefer to call “the bordello”. Mishenkov has planned his office in a way that allows him to repay his high-ranking friends by entertaining them with the finest delights modern life has to offer. Despite the military backdrop, he has managed to put many a lavish salon to shame.

  Behind the entrance flap a new world awaits the guests, a space painted in bright colours, scented with rare perfumes and adorned with silky fabrics. A green velvet sofa faces an oak rocking chair with satin cushions, an Asian coffee table in the middle offers a chessboard with pieces carved from seal teeth, an ice bucket nestles a fine bottle of Wyborowa vodka, complemented by the barrel of English rum next to a box of French cigars. There’s a shelf stacked with the plays of Racine and Molière, and a pantry stocked with caviar, fish, ostrich eggs, beef and tropical fruit – how does Mishenkov manage to find tropical fruit? – compels one to sink into the cushions on the sofa and stuff oneself senseless.

  * * *

  Normally, Pazhari would never dare to set foot in Mishenkov’s office in his commander’s absence, but now he ushers in the distinguished guests and invites them to sit on the sofa. If the governor, or even the Czar, had been there, Pazhari would not have dreamed of receiving them in a dusty tent, and would never have served them tepid tea with stale biscuits. In the same way, he wants to entertain the Father to the best of his abilities. So now, the deputy camp commander turns and offers Zizek and Fanny a glass of the Wyborowa, even though he has never tasted it himself. They both refuse, but Zizek is ogling the rum and the colonel takes the hint. Zizek drains his cup and hands it back for a refill. Pazhari smiles to himself and gladly serves him a second.

  Like everyone else, Pazhari also knows one version or other of the Father’s legend, although he is certainly not as immersed in the details as Ignat Shepkin. Pazhari’s generosity towards Fanny and Zizek does not surprise his troops nor his guests. Fanny wonders if perhaps Pazhari’s own life hadn’t been saved thanks to one of Yelena Venediktova’s letters, and if not his, then perhaps the life of his father, or a brother or uncle. Only the Devil knows which of them was suspended between life and death until Adjutant Zizek Breshov intervened. But the truth is that Pazhari served in a unit deployed much further north, never met Radzetsky, and none of his family members, as far as he knows, ever served in the army – for the simple reason that he has no family. So it can be said with confidence that his emotional attachment to the Father is not based on gratitude for his life.

  Be that as it may, all the soldiers in the camp, from private to captain, are pleased with the way their commander is treating the Father, glad that Zizek Breshov has been given a gracious reception by a scion of Petersburgian nobility. If truth be told, they are wrong about that too. That is, they are wrong not about the gracious reception, but they are wrong about the noble origins of their deputy commander. In order to explain their mistake, we have no choice but to inquire into the past of Col-onel David Pazhari, who might appear to be a marginal figure in Fanny’s and Zizek’s journey
yet, by virtue of being deputy camp commander and the officer in charge, will play a decisive role in shaping their destiny.

  VI

  * * *

  The colonel’s first mistake was to be born in a tavern, for reasons that remain unclear to this day. The publican – that is, the whoremaster – may have been the real father, and his mother probably tried too late to correct her mistake. One thing is beyond question: a tavern is no place to raise a child.

  Although the records indicate that Pazhari was sent to an orphanage at five months old, he could swear he has a memory of his mother: a fleshy, vivacious woman of curly hair and low brow, who he remembers singing a lullaby in a French accent: “Mon chéri, my sweet, my jewel, mon petit.”

  This lullaby, or, rather, the memory thereof, may provide all the information necessary for telling David Pazhari’s story. He never resented his mother and never dreamed of the day when he would take her to task for the wrongs he suffered. Not even when he was flogged by the orphanage headmaster, a pious priest, when he tried to escape at every opportunity. He accepted the floggings, knowing that they were a necessary deterrent for other children who might follow his example, and with every lash he calculated his next escape.

  On his ninth attempt, on Christmas Eve, the holy matrimony between the birth of Christ and the resulting general inebriation permitted the boy to successfully flee the city and take refuge in the forest. The only drawbacks to his plan were the snow that slowed his escape and the cold, which took his breath away and forced him to find warmth in stables along the way. Huddled under old harnesses and sheltering in haystacks, he somehow managed to survive for three weeks, suffering only three chilblains: two on his legs and one between his mouth and nose, which left a scar that is still visible today, disrupting the otherwise irritating symmetry of his features.

  As far as food went, he didn’t have much. He occasionally sneaked into empty houses and ransacked pantries. In the village of Tabulki, not far from Motal, he finally found work as a servant in the Komarov household, a peasant family who let him sleep in a small shed in their courtyard. As far as David was concerned, they had granted him a palace. It was bedecked with tools and nails, shelves and tins of paint, buckets of various sizes and even a barrel long enough to lay on its side and use as a bed, if he padded it with hay.

  The Komarovs were a devout Christian family, and the boy learned to love Jesus as he never had done before. His favourite story was the family’s own version of the Holy Trinity – Jesus, his mother Mary, and Mary Magdalene – which the head of the family, Lev Komarov, who was evidently endowed with a fervent imagination, described to his children with grandiloquence. Nothing moved the young David more than the love of Jesus for Mary Magdalene. In his dreams she was fleshy, of curly hair and low brow, singing to Christ in a French accent: “Mon chéri, my sweet, my jewel, mon petit.” Lev Komarov noticed that the servant boy was listening in on his stories and allowed him to stop dusting the mantelpiece and learn about the crucifixion. The boy was charmed by this act of generosity.

  One day, his idyllic new life was disrupted. A group of peasants from neighbouring farms arrived at the Komarovs’, demanding to know if they had noticed any suspicious activity on their land. They said that thieves had plundered Teplov’s cabin in what was Tabulki’s second break-in that week.

  “No,” Komarov shrugged. “What were they looking for in the cabin? Children, did you see anything?”

  Komarov’s children were silent, as was David.

  “We haven’t seen anything,” said Komarov.

  “The bastard threatened Teplov with an axe. Teplov swears it was a żyd, he saw him with his own eyes.”

  “A żyd?” spat Komarov, as though the word was a curse. “Wait a minute, I’ll come with you. We’ll take a few horses from the stable. David, go and saddle them.”

  What was it about that word, żyd, that had infuriated his master so much? David was curious and begged with Komarov to be allowed to join them. Komarov was in a good mood. He clapped the boy on the shoulder and let David sit behind him on his horse. The boy couldn’t have been happier as he set off into the birch forest with the search party, hunting for the fugitive, and on their way they set fire to a żyd's wheat field and burned down a log store belonging to another. Exciting stuff. “Death to the żyds!” Teplov’s brother shrieked and David followed suit, “Let them die!” The search party was jubilant. David was consumed with a desire to catch the thief, all his senses sharpened. The bastard! Breaks into a cabin, threatens people with axes, who does he think he is, the filthy żyd? Death to them all.

  They returned home a few hours later without the culprit but quite pleased with themselves nonetheless, feeling they had restored their defences by brandishing their might and courage for all to see and hear. The pack sat down together at Komarov’s table. The men drank themselves into a stupor and the boy served them the leftovers from dinner: borscht, pork and potato cakes with soured cream. When David had finished cleaning the kitchen, Komarov sent him back to the shed, where a surprise awaited him.

  Inside his barrel, in the darkness, there crouched a snarling figure. David didn’t think for one second of running away. That shed was his home, and he was prepared to die protecting it. He reached for the saw, but the beast jumped on him and hit him over the head with a bucket. David raised the saw, but then he heard the terrified whispers, “No! No!” This was the only word the beast knew in Polish, and David dropped the saw and stared at the boy before him. He had found the cause of the peasants’ riot.

  All they could see of each other was their murky silhouettes, and they were unable to communicate. The fugitive spoke Yiddish and a bit of Hebrew, and David Pazhari spoke Polish and a little Russian. But they heard each other’s breathing, and suddenly David realised that even if it cost him everything he had, he would help this boy as best he could.

  The fugitive was wet to the bone. David immediately produced his Sunday shirt, an old scarf, a lynx fur hat he had found near the river, which protected his ears from freezing at night – who would have believed that a boy like him would ever feel the softness of lynx fur? – and a pair of old boots with rather loose soles. He even considered handing over the trousers he was wearing, the only pair he had. He lifted a floor plank and showed the fugitive his secret food stash: fresh bread (just one week old), half a cabbage, cow’s milk cheese and blueberry jam. The terrified boy tore at the bread and stuffed his mouth with a chunk so big that it looked like a hand reaching out of his throat, stretching his teeth with its fingers.

  David was pleased. He was overcome by satisfaction as he watched the żyd voraciously eating the bread he had saved for himself. Loyalty is a strange thing. One man can betray his most generous benefactor while another can blindly follow his adversary. David did not stop to weigh up the pros and cons of the matter, but turned to stack the pails, seal the holes in the shed walls, move his barrel-bed and create a hiding place for the boy. Had he found him in the woods an hour earlier, he would have beheaded him. Yet now, even though he knew that turning the fugitive in would make him a hero, David was prepared to give up his life to save his guest.

  The rooster started scolding the sun as dawn sneaked in through the cracks that David had tried to seal. Judging by his deep and even breathing, the fugitive was still asleep. David sat in a corner like a sentry, unable to sleep a wink. For how many nights did the runaway stay? David could not remember. How many words did they exchange? If one said none, this would be correct, and yet if another said an infinite number, this would be equally true.

  David still remembers his guest’s last night. After midnight, the boy dared to leave his hiding place and sit next to David. He stank of urine but David didn’t care. He had never imagined that a human body could emit heat like a hearth. The two ended up embracing one another tightly, and the guest raised his glistening eyes to the heavens, reassuring David that he had done the right thing.

&nb
sp; David woke up the next morning to find that his friend had gone. Without the fugitive, the shed had become a strange, empty place that no longer felt like home. David packed the clothes he had lent to his guest, who had left them in a neatly folded pile, and started planning his escape from the Komarovs. His destination was St Petersburg. Why the capital? Because St Petersburg was the place that had been most maligned in David’s ears. In the Komarov household, it was said that the metropolis was one big tavern, a sewer teeming with pompous cliques who aimlessly roam around Nevsky Prospect. They wear the latest fashions and talk favourably about social reform in the Stroganov Palace grounds. Who will benefit from this reform? Not them, of course. Not the rabble: villagers, muzhiks, serfs and all other slaves making a living by doing actual work and by growing things that can be actually tasted or smelled, all of whom have nothing to do with the aristocracy. In between their debates about reform, Petersburgians frequent the theatre, mainly in order to gossip, and even as the opera they have come to see reaches its climax, they simply gawk at so-and-so’s latest beau. Officials and officials’ sons, none of whom know anything about real work, that’s who inhabits the capital, that’s who devises the reforms. David gathered little from these critiques, but his heart was drawn to the place that the Komarovs despised.

  How did Pazhari turn from a vagabond to a scion of Petersburgian nobility? Well, he didn’t. As he disembarked at Moscow railway station at half past eight in the morning, the boy stood at the terminal, dazzled by the onrush of grim faces. What was he thinking? They were dressed differently, smelled different, spoke a Russian dialect he had never heard before. He wanted to ask how to get to . . . but did not even know where he was going. Worse still, he felt embarrassed when he finally did speak. He walked to Vosstaniya Square and kept on going until he reached the Nevsky Monastery and the banks of the Neva, sensing policemen eyeing him suspiciously as if he were about to snatch a purse. Seeing some soldiers who had gathered in a side street, he approached them and for some reason felt more at ease.