Stalin's Barber

by Paul M. Levitt

  Who would transport the fair damsel to the restaurant became a point of contention between the two men. The commander insisted that Pelagia ride and not walk; and since he had a car and driver at his disposal, he would transport her, while Pavel went on foot. But to the chagrin of Antip, Pelagia insisted on accompanying Pavel so that she could “enjoy the lovely fall night and the autumn leaves floating through the evening’s silver light.” Although normally even tempered, Antip had little patience for being refused, and taking no for an answer put him out of sorts for days. Pretending to good manners, he bowed at the waist and invited both to use his car. But Pelagia had made her intention clear and was in no mood to change it.

  A disgruntled Antip, heavily perfumed, was already seated in the restaurant and sipping his second slivovitz when Pavel and Pelagia arrived. Unable to disguise his annoyance, Antip blurted, “You’re needed in Bialystok, Pavel, and though I don’t like to lose you from the regiment, we’ll just have to carry on without you. I should have said something earlier, but I didn’t want to upset your concentration for the big match.”

  Pelagia stared at Pavel dolefully, but he squeezed her hand under the table to reassure her. In Antip’s face, she could see a look of delicious triumph.

  “When do I have to leave?” Pavel asked.

  “By the end of the week. Tomorrow I have to tour the countryside. I’ll be back in two days. You sadis’ i upravliai (sit down and rule).” Pavel thought: Sit down and rule—I!

  It took him only a few minutes to realize that if he was now in charge of the regiment, he could have the soldiers search every barn in Rzeszów for Krasula. But his thoughts were suddenly interrupted. Seated next to the restaurant window, the diners could view the dusty street. When Pelagia saw a flatbed truck with interlocking wood rails carrying five cows, she shouted, “Krasula,” and flew out the door. By the time the men reached her in the street, she was in tears pointing down the road at the disappearing truck.

  “My cow,” she stammered, “she’s on that truck. Catch the thief!”

  Unfortunately, Antip had told his driver to come back in two hours, but Antip managed to commandeer a civilian car and to point the driver in the direction that the truck had taken. The delay, sadly, had given the thief enough time to transport the cow out of town and hide it in any number of barns or houses.

  That night, Pavel had Antip sign a search warrant that granted him access to the local farms. By mid-morning, with Antip absent, Pavel issued orders to search all the barns in the area. But Pavel’s precipitous action left the soldiers bewildered. How were they to identify Krasula from any other cow? Pelagia’s definition hardly helped, except for the collar, which might already have been discovered and removed. Then, too, there was the reluctance of farmers to allow access to their barns. Pavel ordered his men to behave with the utmost civility.

  The Polish farmers, justifiably suspicious of authority and famously conservative, were disinclined to show the cow hunters their barns. And for good reason: Barns held all manner of secrets, such as illicit stills, metal boxes with zlotys that had been kept from the tax collector, stolen goods pilfered from the Germans and Russians and rich farmers, silver crosses and goblets and holy books thieved from the local churches and synagogues and, in some cases, from the unsanctified graves of children born hopelessly crippled in mind or body. Barns were also the places of trysts and could therefore prove embarrassing. But word soon spread among the farmers that the cow hunters had no interest in stills and metal boxes and stolen goods. They were looking for a cow called Krasula, with a special collar. Good luck visited the cow hunters when a farmer’s son who worked for the railroad disclosed that he saw just such a cow herded onto a cattle train destined for Kraków, where the Germans had colonized the city, rounded up Jews, and confiscated farm animals. Hence, cows were selling on the black market for handsome sums. The boy thought it strange that in place of a large cowbell or a simple leather strap, the animal had a special padded collar with three small bells. Did he recognize the man who had led the cow onto the train?

  “Everyone knows the robber Bronislaw Sadkowski.”

  In promising Pelagia that he would find the cow, Pavel had threatened, if necessary, to abandon his regiment. The next morning, he boarded the train for Kraków, dressed as a farmworker. He worried that his lack of Polish might make him stand out. Passing from one car to the next, in search of a seat, he espied Father Henryk Jankowski slumped next to a window, his church garments wrinkled and stained. The priest gave him only a cursory glance. It was clear that he hadn’t recognized him as the soldier to whom he had been introduced at the home of Madam Petukhova. Lucky, thought Pavel, and paid a man in overalls a few zlotys to give up his seat at the end of the car, where Pavel could observe the devious priest.

  Pavel’s mind wandered to Pelagia and their fond farewell. With Antip standing nearby, Pavel had hugged Pelagia and whispered, “I will write. Whatever address I give you, double the number and read it backward.”

  The size of Kraków would have overwhelmed Pavel had he not simply followed Father Jankowski, who seemed to know where to go and how to get there. By streetcar and foot, he shadowed the priest to a large holding pen, where just minutes earlier a black marketeer had sold Krasula to a traveling theatre manager who produced comedy skits. Both men watched as a middle-aged character, dressed in balloon pants, a silk shirt, a floor-length scarf, and a top hat, led Krasula, with collar intact, from the pen and down the road half a mile toward a tent erected in a field owned by Mr. Polanski, a farmer. Trailing behind, Pavel worried lest the priest lay rough hands on the thespian and make off with the collar. So he stopped the priest.

  “You speak Russian?” asked Pavel.

  “Some,” replied a startled Father Jankowski.

  “Do you remember me?” Pavel asked.

  “We have met maybe. Where, who knows?”

  “Madam Petukhova’s house.”

  The priest recoiled as if from a venomous snake. Speaking in his broken Russian, he blurted, “What you knows has with me nothing . . .”

  Pavel interrupted. “I am here because of the family jewels.”

  “Pelagia Petukhova,” he replied falsely, “is my cousin.”

  The ensuing silence reminded Pavel of a cornered thief wielding a knife, as Father Jankowski used his stare like an augur to hollow out Pavel’s innocent eyes. At last, the priest spoke, “Only the best interests of religion I have at heart. Madam Petukhova, she told me, on her deathbed, she wants for the fortune I should build a new church and buy . . . new priestly vestments.”

  Pavel wasted no introductions. He shoved a finger into the priest’s chest. “Pelagia wants the jewels returned.”

  “They to her mother belong.”

  “And to her.”

  Father Jankowski retorted disdainfully, “And now trash—actors.”

  “Actors you plan to steal from.”

  The priest, who had spent his adult life imploring frail people for alms, knew better than to argue with this fellow molded in muscles. Besides, honey attracts more flies than does vinegar.

  “We together work. You and me. Share.”

  Pavel took only a minute to conclude that the best way to keep an eye on this slippery priest was to join him at the hip. “Agreed.”

  Father Jankowski, a consummate rogue, knew that he could act as well as any performer. Years of inveighing from the pulpit against sinners and Jews and Communists and Orthodox Catholics had fine-tuned his delivery to the point of artistry. That evening, the two men attended the opening of The Curse, a skit scheduled to run for a week. The story was simple enough, and the cow played a central role, all of which Father Jankowski subsequently explained to Pavel. A wicked witch, in the form of an Orthodox Russian priest, turns a beautiful Polish girl, Celestyna (the celestial one), into a cow. The acting company, playing on the Catholic sentiments of the audience, also made clear that Celestyna represented Poland. Father Jankowski robustly applauded the message. The only way tha
t the handsome Florian, Celestyna’s beloved, could be reunited with his princess and make her human again was if the wicked witch, namely, the Orthodox priest, kissed the cow on the lips. The fun and laughter of the skit issued from how the witch was deceived into embracing and kissing the cow.

  The actor who played the witch also took several other roles; therefore, Father Jankowski knew how to proceed. He spoke to the manager after the show and volunteered his services without pay to act the cameo role of the witch, thus freeing the regular actor to concentrate on his other parts. Although initially skeptical, the manager auditioned the silver-tongued priest and agreed to consult with the troupe.

  Father Jankowski added, “All I ask is room and board. And should you ever be dissatisfied with me, I will leave without incident.” Any fear the manager may have harbored was allayed when Father Jankowski explained, “I am a former priest, and in these perilous days, with the church under attack, I need to keep myself alive by one means or another. My savings are enough to support my other needs. I will be satisfied with a pillow to rest my head and a modest meal.”

  The manager consulted the company and, for their benefit, had the priest run through the role. A throaty huzzah said it all.

  Father Jankowski quickly learned that the troupe’s previous cow had been confiscated, then carved and cooked. The German officer in charge had described the steaks as delicious. In place of a real cow, the acting company had tried using a papier-mâché one but found it inadequate. The new cow was lodged in the Polanski barn and needed tending. When Father Jankowski and Pavel offered to assume responsibility for its safety, the manager accepted and counseled that if the Germans came, they should hide the animal in the woods.

  Once the cow was put in trust of the two men, the priest observed that he was unaccustomed to sleeping in a barn.

  “Let us therefore divide the spoils now, and I will stay at the boardinghouse with the rest of the troupe.”

  Pavel, who preferred to camp in the barn among the familiar smells of animals and straw, agreed and removed the collar with its three bells. Just as Madam Petukhova had whispered, the restraint was filled with valuable jewels, which the two men divided. But as neither man knew the true worth of the gems, the priest actually left with stones twice as valuable as those that Pavel kept back for himself. Returning the empty collar and bells to the cow, Pavel wrapped his cache in a large checkered handkerchief that he stuffed inside his money belt, and Father Jankowski put his in an old leather feed bag that he covered with hay.

  That same evening, Pavel sat on a milking stool in the moonlight and wrote Pelagia a letter, telling her that he had located the “antique chair” that she wished to purchase. His only problem was which address to give her. Neither the tent nor the barn had one, but the boardinghouse on Wieliczka Street did. Pavel wrote, “It is easy to remember this street. Just think of the salt mine. The number is 32.” Antip, trained in perlustration, opened and read the letter, copied the address, sealed the envelope, and foolishly handed it to Pelagia, upon whom he was daily pressing his attentions. He thought that the letter would make her look favorably upon him; make her think that he was not jealous; make her think, in short, that he was a gentleman. She disappeared the next day, taking the morning train to Kraków. With the Germans and Russians currently allied in the conquest of Poland, Antip decided to ask his German counterpart in Kraków to arrest Pavel and return him to the Russian sector to stand trial for desertion. If Pelagia agreed to his overtures, then Pavel would only be exiled, not shot. Antip felt good about his generosity.

  Pavel told Ada Król, the multilingual lady who ran the boardinghouse, that if a young woman came looking for him, he could be found at the tent theatre. Her quizzical expression prompted him to add, “You need not think immoral thoughts. The woman in question is my Polish cousin, Pelagia.”

  Ada knew all about trysts. Her boardinghouse rang with the sound of bouncing mattresses and the sighs of sex. She had no objection to affairs: She just wanted to be paid extra for serving as a place of assignation. Not believing Pavel, she held out her hand. He, misunderstanding, kissed it—and she laughed.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she said as she walked away.

  That evening, Pelagia, who had been directed by Madam Król to the tent, showed up in the company of Pavel, who had taken the precaution of not entering the theatre until all the performers were onstage. Otherwise, the priest might have seen Pelagia before the show started and decamped with the cow. Pavel viewed the priest not as a holy man of the cloth but as a brigand. To his chagrin, Father Jankowski could see Pelagia in the audience. For her benefit, he threw himself into the part, giving it more passion than he had commanded before. So convincing was his performance that the superstitious peasants insisted that the evil priest be put to death. At the end of the skit, the benighted men refused to leave and demanded that the witch stand before them. To protect his actor, the director-manager was forced to explain that the skit was all fantasy, just make-believe. But one peasant, Kózka, remained unconvinced and vowed that the perfidious priest would pay for his evil deed.

  Kózka, the diminutive name of a goat, had long been called that because his whiskers grew below his chin and down his neck. After a while, no one could remember his given name. His surname was Gorski, a family well known for their piety and for their producing absolute wodka, a skill that the family had learned from living in the “vodka belt”: the crescent of north European countries from Russia to Norway. Kózka followed the priest to his digs. The round-faced, sanguine fellow carried with him a bottle of wodka, ostensibly as a gift for the wonderful performance turned in by Father Jankowski, who had no objection to making himself tipsy with one of God’s finest creations, strong drink.

  The priest greeted Kózka warmly. Few actors will speak ill of a fan or dismiss an admirer. They repaired to the priest’s room, where the peasant asked him how he had become a witch. Father Jankowski, thinking that he was being asked how he came to be cast in the role, related his audition and the approval of the cast. The explanation merely confirmed for the peasant that the priest was a witch.

  “If you convinced everyone, you must be one in the flesh.”

  “When I need to, I certainly can be,” replied the priest proudly.

  Kózka handed the bottle to Father Jankowski. “For you, the witch, the Orthodox priest who cast a spell over Celestyna and brought such terrible grief to Florian.”

  Glowing in his acting abilities, the priest recklessly said, “You have just described me. I am that person.”

  As the priest held the bottle to his mouth to uncork it with his teeth, Kózka asked the most astonishing question: “Do you think you could pose as a priest when you were really a Jew?”

  “Easily,” said the unsuspecting Father Jankowski, leaving the bottle unopened.

  “Then how do I know you’re not doing that now.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he scoffed. “My reputation for Jew-baiting is known all over eastern Poland.”

  The peasant, remembering Isaak the doctor, who had set the broken bone in his leg, replied, “What if I tell you I’m a Jew.”

  “Anyone can see that you’re not.”

  “How so?”

  “You haven’t the money . . . or the sharpness.”

  Father Jankowski had meant “sharpness” as in money dealings, but Kózka took the word the wrong way.

  “I am not stupid.”

  “Who said you were?”

  “You did.”

  The priest, growing impatient with this impertinent fellow, thanked him for the vodka and tried to usher him out by taking hold of his shoulder. But Kózka shrugged him off.

  “You priests wanted Poland without Jews,” persisted the peasant. “Now, in the Russian-held sectors, we have Jews without Poland.”

  Father Jankowski was by now thoroughly confused by this disturbed man. “I thought you said you were Jewish. If you are, you ought to be glad that the Russians have invaded. If you are
not, you should be out in the street killing Jews.”

  “And witches?”

  To humor the poor peasant, the priest said, “Yes, and witches.”

  Kózka pointed to the bottle. “Well, are you gonna open it or ain’t you?”

  The priest removed the cork with his teeth and, having no table, put his Bible on the bed to steady the two glasses that came with the room. He then kneeled to pour.

  Kózka quickly rolled up his right sleeve above the elbow, removed a razor from his pocket, slashed the priest’s throat, and calmly watched. The priest gurgled like a kitchen sink sucking down the last water and slumped forward. Before leaving the room, Kózka looked around. He was surprised to find under the bed a horse’s feed bag, a perfectly useful farm item, which he took as he left.

  Two days later, Antip’s letter arrived, accompanied by a bundle of fliers exhibiting Pavel’s face and offering five hundred rubles for any information leading to the arrest of this army deserter “who is an expert horseshoe player, and who speaks no Polish or German and may be traveling in the company of a young woman, Pelagia Petukhova.”

  When Antip learned of the death of Father Jankowski, about whom he cared little, he attributed the murder to the work of the deserter Pavel Lipnoskii and raised the reward to six hundred rubles. The manager of the theatre troupe, short of money, approached the Germans and declared that although he knew nothing of the whereabouts of the miscreant, he could tell them all about the cow Krasula.

  “What the hell do we care about a cow?” roared a German officer.

  “It’s missing. The cow had a collar with bells.”

  “And you conclude . . . what?”

  The manager wiped his forehead. “Perhaps it explains the death of the priest and the sudden departure of the Red Army man.”