Free The Fixer by Bernard Malamud Page A

sum, and though the thought of acquiring such papers gave him severe sweats, he decided he ought to keep it in mind.
    When Proshko brought in the voucher the morning after Yakov had spied on the drivers loading the wagons, though the fixer’s heart beat loudly when he saw the
false figure on the paper, he informed the foreman that Nikolai Maximovitch had told him to be present at night when the wagons were loaded, and since it was his responsibility, he would be there from now on. Proshko, a burly, thick-eared man with a rough beard, who wore high rubber boots muddy with yellow clay and a long dirty leather apron, gazed at the fixer with intense small eyes.
    â€œWhat do you think goes on in the wagons at night? Are the drivers on their knees fucking their mothers?”
    â€œWhat goes on goes on,” said Yakov nervously, “but the number of bricks that you loaded last night and this figure on your paper don’t agree, if you’ll excuse me for saying so.”
    He then wished he had said it differently, though how was it possible to say it differently to a thief?
    â€œHow would you know how many bricks were loaded?”
    â€œI stood near the shed last night, counting them, according to Nikolai Maximovitch’s direction. In other words, I did as he told me.” His voice was thick with emotion, as though the bricks belonged to him, although the strange thing was they belonged to an anti-Semitic Russian.
    â€œThen you counted wrong,” Proshko said, “this is the number we loaded.” He tapped a thick finger on the paper on the table. “Listen, my friend, when a dog puts his nose into shit, he gets it dirty. You have a long nose, Dologushev. If you don’t believe me look in a mirror. A man with a nose like that ought to be careful where he puts it.”
    He left the shack but returned in the afternoon. “What about your papers,” he said, “have you registered them yet? If not, hand them over here and I’ll have them stamped by the District Police.”
    â€œI’m obliged to you,” Yakov said, “but that’s already
been seen to and done. Nikolai Maximovitch took care of it. You don’t have to trouble yourself.”
    â€œTell me, Dologushev,” said Proshko, “why is it you talk Russian like a Turk?”
    â€œAnd what if I am a Turk?” The fixer smiled crookedly.
    â€œHe who runs too fast raises the wind against him.” Lifting his leg Proshko farted.
    Afterwards Yakov felt too uneasy to eat supper. I’m the wrong man to be a policeman, he thought. It’s a job for a goy.
    Yet he did what he was asked to. He appeared in the shed every morning in the 4 A.M. cold and counted the bricks in the wagons. And when he looked out the shack window and saw them loading up during the daylight hours, he went outside to watch. He did it openly, preventing the thieves from their thievery. When Yakov appeared at the shed, no one spoke but the drivers sometimes stopped their work to stare at him.
    Proshko no longer turned in vouchers each morning, so Yakov wrote his own. The bookkeeping was not so difficult as he had thought—he had caught on to the system, and besides there wasn’t that much business. Once a week Nikolai Maximovitch, more drearily melancholic, arrived by sledge for receipts to be deposited in his bank, and after a month Yakov received a long congratulatory letter from him. “Your work is diligent and effective, as I foresaw, and I shall continue to vest in you my utmost confidence. Zinaida Nikolaevna sends her regards. She too applauds your efforts.” But no one else did. Neither the drivers nor their helpers paid any attention to him, even when he tried to make conversation. Richter, the heavy-faced German, spat in the snow at his approach, and Serdiuk, a tall Ukrainian who smelled of horse sweat and hay, watched him, breathing heavily. Proshko, passing the fixer in the yard, muttered,