“Don’t misunderstand,” she said. “Vassily is still, in many ways, the kindest, most generous of men. But the world changes and peoples’ hearts change, as well. My brother-in-law is no longer the helpless innocent you had befriended back then. In fact, that is a period in his life of which he loathes to be reminded. You understand me?”
Flushed with anger, I wobbled to my feet and said, “I have no intention of imposing on Vas— Mr. Divanovsky. Other than the 50 rubles, he owes me nothing.” And I turned my head into a kaleidoscope of mirrors, looking for the exit.
In the reflection of one, I saw her pained expression. “I would strongly advise you not to say a word about forged papers to Vassily. You see, to the local officials and bureaucrats it is intolerable that a Jew should be successful. One of the officials’ favorite tricks is to send spies here, provocateurs who claim to be revolutionaries. The first time, Vassily fell for it. He was nearly sent to prison, and ended up having to pay a large bribe. Despite his wealth and prominence, a Jew here has no legal rights. The authorities can expel us at their whim. Ever since that incident, no beggar – forgive me, no one who appears to be in need – has been allowed near him. Surely you can't blame him.”
“But he knows me! He can’t fail to recognize my face. He can’t believe that I’m a government spy.”
“They will not let you get close enough for him to see your face.”
“Madame,” I said. “Do you believe my story?”
A blink of hesitation. But she nodded.
“Then could you not open a door for me?”
She evaded my eye. “I don’t know if my husband would permit it. His own business depends greatly on Vassily’s good will. And if I did anything to interfere. . .”
I needed to hear no more. Balanced on my toes, I bowed to my hostess who, with a sad smile of apology, tugged a pink rope to ring for a servant.
As I left, she tried, with some awkwardness, to hand me two silver rubles. My impulse was to refuse, but I had the good sense not to be too proud.
Outside, the coach swayed in the wind. I climbed up the ladder. The driver set out to return me to the guest-house, but I felt a sudden surge of defiance. Had Vasya not assured me, repeatedly and with his whole heart, that he owed me his life? If I couldn’t get in to see him, I didn’t know what I’d do, but I felt capable of desperate actions.
I tapped the coachman on the shoulder and asked him to take me to the home of Mr. Divanovsky.
He looked at me curiously. Those were not his instructions. “What business do you have with him?”
I showed him a ruble. “Enough to make it worth your while.”
“He’ll likely still be in his office.”
“Then take me there.”
The ruble changed hands, and the wheels rolled in a different direction. Over his shoulder, the coachman said, “Brother, you’re wasting your time. You could more easily get in to see the Czar.”
I shrugged. Fortified with strong tea and sweet cakes, I was ready to risk everything, which admittedly wasn’t much.
Still thinking about how I was going to get in to see Vasya, I didn’t notice which way or how far the coach drove before two immense buildings appeared before me. One of them, surrounded by a wall, must have been a factory. The other was a department store. Although it must have been well past ten o’clock in the evening, both places buzzed with activity.
The coachman jolted us to a halt. “Good luck,” he muttered into his beard.
Before I climbed down the ladder, I asked, “Will you wait for me?”
He gave me a pitying look. “I’ll wait a minute or two. That’s all it should take.”
I knew he meant that was how long it would take until they threw me out. My audacity began to leak out like sawdust. What clerk or porter who valued his job would allow a soiled creature like me to set foot on his polished floors?
I thought about asking the coachman to take me back where I belonged, but he seemed to have fallen asleep. And if I gave up now, I’d be abandoning Pyavka every bit as cruelly as my former comrade seemed to have abandoned me.
My laughable new boots transported me headlong toward the entrance where I stopped. If I came doddering into that building like a second-rate clown, I would never get through the door. So I sat down on the wooden curb and put on my old boots in which, at least indoors, I could walk normally.
I had barely stepped over the threshold when a porter, sturdy as a tank, rose up to bar my way. Understandably, he was more interested in the state of my boots than my fanciful claim that I was there to see Mr. Divanovsky on an urgent personal matter.
He firmly shook his head even as he tried to keep from laughing in my face. And assured me that my request was quite out of the question. In fact, he started to help me leave rather more quickly than I had in mind.
Standing my ground, I threw off his hand, letting him feel enough of my arm to realize there was still some meat left under that threadbare sleeve. “Just tell him my name: Yakov Marateck. I’m an old friend.”
The porter clearly had heard a hundred such preposterous tales. He tried, once again, to push me into the street. After scuffling for a while without progress in either direction, both of us were on the verge of violence when a tall, square-bearded man came down the stairs and demanded, “What is happening here? Who is this man?”
Before the porter could recover his breath, I said, “I’ve come to see Vassily Divanovsky. If you will kindly just tell him my name.”
The tall man motioned to the porter to release my arm. “What business do you have with him?”
All at once, I felt tongue-tied and deathly weary. Had I forgotten that rich people had telephones, and if they called the police I was lost? Not meeting his eye, I mumbled, “It is a personal matter.”
He noted my shredded footgear as well as the good shoes I was doltishly holding in my hand. Nevertheless, he answered civilly enough, “Mr. Divanovsky has a roomful of people waiting. If you wish, you can try again tomorrow.”
I felt too defeated to argue. All I had strength enough to say was, “I can’t wait until tomorrow. Please, just tell him that Yakov Marateck is asking to see him.”
The name seemed to draw a flicker of recognition. Or so I imagined. Glancing past me to the splendid coach in which I had arrived, he motioned to me to follow him up the stairs.
As he ushered me into a high-ceilinged waiting room, I saw that the porter had not lied. I counted eleven people ahead of me. Some were cradling thick leather dispatch cases in their laps. My competitors for Vasya’s attention refrained charitably from looking in my direction.
In the grip of such cheerless thoughts, I began to doze off. I was, in fact, about to topple off my chair when the inner door opened and the Director himself (could this truly be my pitiful old comrade?) stepped out, card in hand, to summon the next petitioner.
Before the other man could creak to his feet, I jumped up, threw my arms open and shouted, “Vasya!” I heard the others gasp at my impertinence.
For a brief but chilling moment, he stared at me from head to foot. Before the receptionist could intervene, I stepped forward and said more humbly, “Mr. Divanovsky, may I ask if you were once with the Novocherkassky Regiment in Petersburg?” Madame Top Hat had warned that he did not take kindly to being reminded of his painful past, but what choice did I have?
“And what is that to you?”
“In the 15th? The ‘Convicts’ Company’?”
My former comrade’s glance down at my boots and then traveled back up to my face, but showed no sign of recognition. He nodded curtly. “Yes, and. . .?”
“Do you remember a soldier named Yakov Marateck?”
“I do, indeed. He died in one of the last battles of the war. His whole company was wiped out.” He peered at me with a flicker of curiosity. “You knew him?”
“Vasya!” I shouted again. “Look at me!”
He took a step closer and stared shortsightedly into my eyes. Then, graceful as a
falling tree, he toppled into my arms. Not to embrace me, but because he had fainted.
The waiting room was in an uproar. Clerks and executives poured out of every niche. One loosened Divanovsky’s collar, one came running with a glass of water, another brought cognac, and yet another did his bit by giving me an accusing glare.
Finally, Vasya opened his eyes. “Yakov!” he shouted. “Yakov, my brother!”
I apologized for having upset him, for not having telephoned or written first. But. . .
“What need is there to apologize?” he shouted. “If only you knew how I suffered when I heard that you were dead!”
Before I could express how much the news had upset me, too, a doctor swept me aside. He took Vasya’s pulse, unbuttoned his shirt, put some kind of horn to his chest, and went through all the flourishes by which doctors reminded you that your life was not in God’s hands but in their own.
He assured Vasya that he was in exemplary health, but must avoid “unnecessary excitement.” At this, his gaze condescended to take me in.
Vasya sat up, clapped for silence and announced, “The office is closed for the night. I am celebrating. My dearest friend has just returned from the dead.” And he ordered a meal prepared for me at his home. To keep my appetite alive until then, his secretary plied me with brandy and cakes, which met little resistance from me.
After three or four drinks slurped down like water, the walls around me no longer stood still. In the midst of my struggle to stay upright, the door flew open. A majestic young woman swept into the room in a rustle of petticoats and silk. This could only be Madame Divanovsky. One look at her exquisite features and I felt the sharp tooth of the Commandment, “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
With barely a glance in my direction, the lady demanded to know what had caused her husband to faint.
Vasya said, “It was nothing, my dearest.” Then he decided, “No, it is something. A beloved old friend has returned from the dead. You’ve heard me speak of Yakov Marateck. I owe this man my life, not once, but a hundred times over. After the war, I had tried with all my heart to find him but was told he had fallen in battle. If not for him, you would not have me for a husband today.”
At the sound of my name, Madame’s smile turned toward me and she embraced me, rags and shaven head and all. “Is that your idea of a proper introduction?” she chided her husband.
Not for the first time since entering this building, I felt ashamed of my appearance.
With a dance-floor sweep of his arm, Vasya said, “Yakov Marateck, meet Zofia, my beloved wife.”
She took my hand and held it. “So you are the man of whom Vasya never stopped talking.” It was then he who looked embarrassed.
Reverting to protocol, Zofia raised her dainty hand for me to kiss. My nostrils filled with the odor of perfumed soap. I tried not to sneeze.
“After what I have heard about you from my husband, I consider you not only his dearest friend but mine, as well. No doubt you must feel some discomfort at the way you are dressed. But you are close to my husband’s size, and until we can summon a tailor to take your measurements, you will share whatever is his.”
The Divanovskys wanted to take me to their residence where dinner was waiting but, wretch that I was, it was not until that moment that I remembered Pyavka abandoned at the railroad station, tattered, lice-ridden, half-starved, and without papers or money. I feared I had become the kind of person who would allow his comrade to die of hunger rather than share his good fortune.
Which brought me a more troublesome thought. How could I bring a habitual thief into the unsuspecting home of these generous friends? Would I not be violating the biblical law of not making a “blind” man stumble by placing him in a position in which the impulse to steal would be beyond his powers to resist?
And yet, after all Pyavka and I had been through together, there was nothing else I could honorably do, regardless of consequences.
To give my new friends a chance to withdraw their offer, I said to Madame, “Shall I tell you how I came to be here?”
“People are in Siberia for many reasons. My own parents were sent here before I was born, and they were not criminals. We know the kind of man you are. And if you need documents or money to clear you in the eyes of the law, we can take care of that, too.”
“I’m an escaped convict,” I insisted. “A revolutionary. I escaped from a work camp together with a friend, a professional thief. A friend I cannot abandon now.”
Madame’s eyes widened with pity. “And where is this friend of yours?"
“At the railroad station. If he hasn’t already been arrested.”
“If he is your friend, he is our friend, too. Bring him here at once.”
Madame sent someone to awaken the coachman, and have him harness the horses, apologizing in the same breath that their motorcar ran only in warm weather. I was prepared to go along, but my hosts wouldn’t hear of it. “Until we can get you a passport, it is not safe for you to be near the depot.”
I gave two of their clerks a detailed description of Pyavka, and asked for paper to write a note assuring him that it was safe to go with these men. It read, “A miracle has happened! We are saved!”
While waiting for Pyavka, I listened open-mouthed as Vasya and his wife discussed, with some heat, which of their twenty-odd guest-rooms was to be mine. Vasya tended to favor the large one at the rear overlooking the gardens, while Zofia demanded that I have a room closer to theirs. I tried to pay attention, all the while fighting the urge to fall onto the carpet and go to sleep.
But Vasya was not done with me yet. While Madame left to supervise my accommodations, my old friend unlocked a drafty passage to the adjoining building where he wastefully turned on the electric lights for all five floors. Our steps echoed across a vast, empty department store. “Are we allowed to be here?” I blurted out.
Vasya smiled and patted my arm. The manager came running. His nose couldn’t help showing some reservations at the way I smelled. Especially when Vasya, without bothering to introduce me, instructed him to act as my personal fitter. My old friend and I strolled up and down the aisles, arms linked, followed by the flustered manager with a tape measure snaked over his shoulders.
At every other counter, Vasya stopped and ordered me to “buy” this or that item of clothing. I was too tired and too drunk to make choices. Impatient with my “indecisiveness,” not to mention my provincial ignorance of the latest styles, Vasya unlocked a cash drawer and, to his manager’s mute horror, snatched out a fistful of paper rubles that, uncounted, he stuffed into one of my ragged pockets.
I did my best to resist. For him to repay my loan there was plenty of time. Or so I hoped. And if I let him give me what may be far more than 50 rubles, would I not be guilty of accepting interest, which was against the Talmud’s law pertaining to loaning money?
Before I could explain this to my generous but unlearned friend, he hauled me upstairs to a department that sold custom-fitted suits while his poor manager groped for some clue as to who I was or what sort of demonic power I held over his master. Made to kneel down and take my measurements, he started to fit me for a fine suit of heavy tweed woven in Łódź.
By now my head had turned to stone; I wanted only to put it down somewhere before it fell off. Next Vasya loaded my arms with silk shirts, a stack of warm underwear, a sable hat with earflaps, and an assortment of shoes ranging from heavy boots to delicate pumps, all without bothering to see if they fit. And since I could not go around in rags until my tailored suits were ready, he made me take one off the rack, which cost far less than the others and which, though I was too intimidated to admit it, I liked best of all.
In all this irresistible generosity, I saw one of Vasya’s less attractive qualities – the impatience of a rich boy accustomed to having his way. Which might have been why some resentful clerk in the Army had shoved him into the “Convicts’ Company” in the first place.
A barber came to unearth my tru
e face. When I saw myself, I was not surprised to find that, over the past six months, I had grown to look less like the son of Shloime Zalman Marateck and more like a common hooligan or gangster. But at least now I looked like a respectable gangster. Once I needed no longer to fear the police, maybe my face would lose its hunted look and I would again resemble the ignorant boy who, once upon a time, had set out for Warsaw to take on the world.
It was near two o’clock in the morning when lights began to be switched off. While my limbs had turned to lead, my heart rattled with the fear that, on account of my earlier laziness, Pyavka may have been arrested and sent Heaven-only-knows where.
Just before three o’clock in the morning, a coach clattered over the cobbled driveway under our window. I was about to run downstairs, but Vasya held me back. “Wait. . .See if he will recognize you.” It was not the kindest thing one could do to a terrified friend at three in the morning, but Vasya was giving the orders and, to be frank, I was also curious to see my partner’s reaction.
The Accidental Anarchist Page 28