For my conduct in this lunatic affair, or maybe just to keep my mouth shut about it, the new commander personally assured me of a medal and a promotion. But I was finished with responsibility. Let them take my stripe. The pay, which we rarely received and had no place to spend, could never make up for all the terror, privation and exhaustion. I was ready to lie down and not get up for a month.
But before I had a chance to get myself demoted, one of the lieutenants tracked me down. I was told to take ten soldiers and mount guard. I told him I hadn’t slept in a week, and to please let me rest for at least one night. He was not unsympathetic, but explained that there was a shortage of non-coms; I must do my duty and fill the gap.
It was a beautiful clear night with no more than a mild breeze. Having deployed my ten men and sternly warned them not to close an eye, I was tempted to sit down for a moment. But that was strictly forbidden. Besides, I knew I would not remember to get up again. Nevertheless, my lids kept drooping. To hold them open, I pinched myself, kicked one foot against the other, and generally struggled like a man about to drown.
Near midnight, a strange officer and two armed men shook me roughly, waking me. The officer demanded to know where my gun was. My heart stopped. I was without a rifle, and there was no sign of it anywhere. As we were miles from any Japanese, one of our own men must have stolen it. Fifteen minutes later, the new commander who, only two days earlier, had lauded my coolness under fire, told me what I didn’t need to be told. The penalty for sleeping on guard duty was the same as that for losing one’s rifle: death. About my only comfort was that they couldn’t kill me twice.
The captain lectured me on what he thought of such undisciplined, irresponsible soldiers as me. But he allowed that, from a Jew, what else could you expect? I noticed that I was not a ‘Jew’ two days ago when he promised to recommend me for a medal.
I was put into an improvised jail cell under heavy guard. The survivors of my company were furious. From behind bars, I could hear snatches of their reassuring arguments, not only about the injustice being done, but also their sporting curiosity about whether I’d be shot or get away with twenty-five years at hard labor.
Despite such stimulating thoughts, I slept like a corpse until noon the following day. It was only once I was somewhat rested that I began to realize the depth of the trouble I was in. Three days ago, I hadn’t much cared if I lived or died, but having regained some of my strength, I also had gotten back my appetite to go on living. When they brought my ration of bread and water for lunch, I left it untouched. My heart was so bitter, I felt I would choke on a drop of water.
In the evening, Glasnik stopped at my window and consoled me with the news that I was the principal topic of conversation all over the camp. While most of the Russian boys were fairly nonchalant about my fate, the Jewish soldiers insisted, as a matter of principle, that I must not be executed. They’d circulated petitions asking men to sign a statement that they would refuse to shoot me. Those who wouldn’t sign their names were warned that whoever took part in my firing squad would live to regret it – but not for very long. Since we Jews were somewhat in the minority, I was not only impressed with their boldness, but also concerned that some of them might yet end up joining me against the wall.
But strangely enough, the officers began to get a little nervous. Accustomed for years to shooting deserters and other delinquents without hearing a word of complaint, they realized that mine was not going to be a routine case.
Their uneasiness was not the result of my popularity, or fear of the Jewish soldiers. Their confidence in themselves as a class had been shaken by the recent succession of military disasters. They also couldn’t help but be mindful of the current revolutionary ferment back home. (This had already led to hundreds of government-sanctioned pogroms, but at long last, it showed that Jews were capable of organized and effective self-defense.) The order was passed down that none of my guards were to be Jews.
There was one adjutant of whom, back in Petersburg, I had been clumsy enough to make an enemy while we were both somewhat drunk. (It was a little incident for which he couldn’t have had me court-martialed, because that would have required him to explain what he was doing with another officer’s wife.) Now it turned out that he had neither forgotten nor forgiven me for my unintentional rudeness. And with an efficiency that, if applied to his own duties, would quickly have made him a general, he rushed through the paperwork required to send me into the next world.
Glasnik, beside himself, raised his right hand and swore by Heaven and earth that if the adjutant signed the order for my execution, he, Glasnik, would personally kill him and then put a bullet through his own head. I begged him not to do anything that could not do me any good and might cause difficulties for other Jewish soldiers.
Meanwhile, five guards approached, leading a chained prisoner who was to share my hut. He was tall, taciturn, and eagle-nosed, but with some strange, livid marks on the tip of his nose.
“Where are you from, brother?” I asked him.
“Gruziya.”
“And what is it they want from you?”
He spit and shrugged. “Let them shoot me. I’ve done what I had to do.”
He was a mountain dweller, and his people were not noted for their patience. What was his crime? It seemed that one of his officers, when drunk, would amuse himself by stubbing out his lighted cigarette on this soldier’s nose, the size of which appeared to offend him. One day, after the officer had repeated this game two or three times, my fellow prisoner lunged for the man’s sword and lopped off his head.
I congratulated him on his quick reaction, but suspected that his chances of getting shot were even better than mine.
Like me, he had little appetite for his bread and water. But he slept soundly enough while I didn’t manage to doze off until long past midnight.
When I awoke the next morning, I found him wrapped in a tallis, saying his morning prayers. I jumped up, rinsed my hands, got my own tallis and tefillin, and tried to keep up with him. But his melodies and his pronunciation were so exotic that in the end I simply stood and listened to him until he was finished.
Now, for the first time, we shook hands. I addressed him in Yiddish. He looked at me blankly and replied in Hebrew. So we ended up speaking Russian to each other once more.
I spent the day “doctoring” him, that is, carefully enlarging the scorch marks on his nose until his whole face looked swollen and grotesque. That way, when he went to trial, perhaps the judge would recognize that, after such hideous abuse, even the mildest of men might reach for a sword. The Georgian doubted it would do the slightest bit of good. But he saw I was dying of boredom and anxiety, and so he good-naturedly allowed me to distract myself by disfiguring him further.
Early the next morning, both of us were taken in chains to a nearby town where a military court was to sit in judgment of us. Both of us were given defense attorneys. My friend’s lawyer seemed quite capable, and I was proud to see he made the most of his client’s now really dreadful-looking nose.
About my own attorney, I was less enthusiastic. The one thing he wouldn’t consider was letting me tell the truth – that a human being could go only so long without sleep. He probably knew his customers and what they would or wouldn’t believe. He seemed to feel my only possible defense was to claim that, owing to food poisoning or drinking polluted water, I suffered from a strange sickness that, without warning, could cause me to lose consciousness.
I was desperate enough to try anything. But where on this green earth would I find a Russian army doctor who would favor me with such an improbable diagnosis?
My counsel agreed it wouldn’t be easy. Especially since none of the doctors at this post were known to be Jews. But he was still making inquiries. So that was what my life depended on – a non-existent Jewish doctor.
After hearing my attorney’s preposterous defense, the court surprised me. They agreed to postpone my case until I’d had a thorough medical examination. I felt more hopeful whe
n I saw that the Georgian got off with only five years of hard labor. He was ecstatic, and threw me a kiss as they led him out.
I had one more night in my cell, guarded like the crown jewels. Tomorrow an army doctor would determine whether I really suffered from such a mysterious illness. Even my attorney admitted that if the doctor found me healthy, it was the firing squad.
Alone once more, I was seized by depression. I cursed my attorney for not having let me tell the truth. There were plenty of fresh troops to mount guard. Why pick on a man who’d barely slept a minute during the week-long retreat?
Late in the evening, a middle-aged lieutenant suddenly arrived to take me away. I was surprised to recognize him as a man for whom my brother Mordechai, back in Petersburg, had bought many a glass of vodka. Could he be here now to return the favor? If not, would it be tactful to remind him who I was? But his manner was so cold and forbidding that I kept silent.
He marched me with chained hands in the direction of the officers’ quarters. Halfway there, he slowed his pace, moved up beside me and, without any change of expression, told me not to be frightened. “I’m only taking you to the doctor.”
“At this time of night?"
“One of your doctors,” he said in a whisper. “He’s expecting you.”
I didn’t trust him. My attorney might dream of miracles, but Glasnik had checked that very afternoon and confirmed that there were no Jewish doctors at this post or anywhere nearby.
The lieutenant explained to me that this doctor was a converted Jew, which to him was plainly one and the same thing. I, on the other hand, knew that men who have turned themselves from bad Jews into bad Christians were apt to bend over backwards to show that they were untainted by old loyalties. But go explain that to a Russian officer. In any event, I had little choice in the matter.
Presently, I saw I was not being taken to the hospital but directly to the doctor’s house, which I considered a mistake. It was late, and the doctor would either be angry at being disturbed, or the whole thing would look so conspiratorial that he’d feel himself compromised.
When we reached his house, there was some kind of party going on. Through the window, we could see our doctor with half a dozen fellow officers. They were eating, drinking and playing cards. It was quite obvious he was not expecting me.
I hid in the shadows while the officer rapped on the door. As I expected, the doctor was in a rage at having his party interrupted. His irritation was even greater when he found out it was not an emergency at the hospital, but merely a matter of life and death for a Jewish soldier. Still hidden, I prayed silently for the merits of my holy and beloved ancestors to intercede for me.
The convert finally deigned to let me into his house. He looked me up and down and pronounced, “There isn’t a thing in the world wrong with this man.” He was clearly ready to usher us right back out.
I stood my ground and replied, rather insolently, “Maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t.”
Now, a man with any spark of Jewish feeling would, at once, have responded to an observation like that. But the doctor only got more annoyed. “What are your medical qualifications?”
“Who knows how I feel better than I do?”
“And that gives you the right to come to me practically in the middle of the night?”
“I thought you understood,” I said, more subdued. “I’m under a sentence of death.”
“What’s that to me?”
I turned helplessly to my escort. He shrugged. He’d done his part. Now he was ready to take me back.
But it seemed that the doctor knew, all along, why I was there. Perhaps he wanted to demonstrate that he was now a good Orthodox Russian, no longer a member of what our sages called rakhmonim bnei rakhmonim, “the merciful children of the merciful.”
“Why did you fall asleep on guard?” he demanded.
I started to tell him how I hadn’t slept for several nights, but I caught a warning look from my escorting officer. So I quickly launched into a recital of how I’d eaten some spoiled meat and drank polluted water, and while on guard duty that night had had convulsions and suddenly lost consciousness.
The doctor looked at me with what I couldn’t help but regard as Jewish skepticism. “You look healthy enough to me now.”
“Thank God, I’m feeling a little better,” I hastened to assure him.
“Perhaps imprisonment agrees with you.”
My hopes evaporated. He was playing with me. Of course. How could a creature like a convert leave himself open to the suspicion of helping a Jew? I bit my lip and stared at him with open contempt. Even though my life was at stake, I had no intention of lowering myself to beg such a swine as he for my life.
Folding his hands behind him, the doctor marched up and down in front of me like an actor on a stage, and studied me with an expression of great shrewdness. I could feel my life hanging on his mood, his whim, perhaps his own fears. After a long silence, he said, “Get back to your unit.”
I didn’t understand what this meant, but outside my lieutenant hugged me with relief. Then he took me back to my cell.
I was awakened at daybreak. Two men with bared swords were standing over me. My heart almost jolted to a stop, which would have spared the firing squad of wasting precious bullets. The guards told me to put on my boots; they’d come to escort me back to the tribunal.
I stood once more before my judges, and couldn’t keep my eyes off the adjutant who had worked so diligently to have me shot. He smirked like a man who knew more than I did.
I had told my attorney what the convert-doctor said, and he repeated his defense argument about my strange illness, offering to support this with expert testimony.
The adjutant laughed in his face. I couldn’t understand why, until I saw how well he had prepared himself. No less than four army doctors were ready to examine me. I looked frantically around for my convert. Sympathetic or not, at least he understood the situation. But now there was not a hair of him to be seen.
In less time than it took to undo a button, the four doctors pronounced me in perfect health. No need to even open my tunic. Bewildered, I began to wonder if I’d dreamt the events of the previous night.
But my attorney proved not to be a complete fool, after all. He ran quickly over to the clinic, burst in on my doctor, and dragged him away from a roomful of patients. When they returned, I was relieved to see that my convert outranked the other four doctors.
Fingers reeking of tobacco, he examined me right then and there, roughly separating my eyelids and shining a match in front of my eyes. I felt my lashes being singed. The Devil-only-knows what he expected to find. I heard the adjutant snicker.
The convert suddenly turned to his colleagues and shouted, “How can you say this man is well? Have you examined his brain?”
Flustered, the other doctors shook their heads. I could see they were skeptical but, thank Heaven, in Vanya’s army, you didn’t argue with a superior officer.
“You never noticed there is a spot on his brain?”
“And what is the significance of that?” demanded the presiding judge who outranked even my doctor friend.
“That spot is a symptom of a kind of sleeping sickness.” He said it so convincingly that for a moment I wondered how long I had left to live. “A man with those symptoms may sink into a coma at any moment. He should never have been allowed to serve in the army. The only place for him is the hospital.”
He told the other doctors to look into my eyes, and each of them dutifully lit a match, agreed with his diagnosis, and apologized to the court for having overlooked my brain. I was furnished hastily with a chair, and began to enjoy all this sudden solicitude.
Before returning to the clinic, my convert warned the court that such a spot on the brain, if not properly treated, could lead not only to sleeping sickness but also to insanity. With a disgusted look, the presiding officer ordered me taken straight to the hospital. I was not convinced that he believed a word of all this, bu
t form had been satisfied, and if I could produce such an influential supporter, it was probably best not to shoot me.
I assumed that, now that the court-martial had found me not guilty, all of the hospital nonsense would be quietly forgotten and I’d go back to my unit. But my doctor seemed to have enjoyed his little joke too much to let it end there. Clearly, the Jewish spark in him was far from dead.
I was sent to a hospital in Mukden, where I met a number of my old comrades, some of them badly maimed, but all delighted to be out of the war. They told me how some units, owing to inadequate supplies or tactical blunders, were slaughtered even worse than our own. So a soldier who lost only an arm or a foot felt that the rest of his body was pure profit.
I was assigned a bed, examined by a brain specialist, and given food such as milk and white bread whose taste I had long forgotten. In fact, I was given everything but medicine.
After a while, it dawned on me that the doctors knew it was all a put-up job, but weren’t sure who was behind it. So, to avoid trouble, they kept me among the critically ill and the dying, and I ended up eating not only my own food but theirs, as well.
The Accidental Anarchist Page 8