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.Still, after all, it was a reward, maybe he wouldn’t.Yakov was now somewhat sorry he hadn’t at once identified himself as a Jew by birth.If that had killed off the reward, at least there would be no self-contempt.The more one hides the more he has to.He did an expert job on the flat—scraped the walls clean of paper, and the ceilings of flakes and loose patches.He plastered where he had to, then thickly calcimined the ceilings—nothing but the best for Nikolai Maximovitch.And he pasted the wallpaper neatly though his experience with papering was limited—in the shtetl only Viskover, the Nogid, was that fancy.Yakov worked all day and into the night by yellow gaslight to get the job done, collect his rubles, and disappear.The landlord, stopping now and then to catch his breath, labored up the stairs each morning to see how the work was progressing, and expressed himself as most pleased.In the afternoon he got out his vodka bottle, into which he had cut strips of orange peel, and by sunset was drunk.Zina, unseen during the day, sent up the cook, Lidya, with a snack at lunchtime—a fish pie, bowl of borscht, or some meat dumplings so delicious it seemed to the fixer he would have done the job for the food alone.One night Zina limped up the stairs, expressing surprise he was working so late.She asked Yakov if he had eaten since lunch, and when he said he was not hungry she suggested, nervously laughing, that he eat supper with her, Papa having already retired and she liking company.The fixer, greatly surprised by the invitation, begged off.He had, he explained, too much to do, and apologized for his clothes.Zina said not to mind that.“Clothes can be shed in a minute, Yakov Ivanovitch, but whether they are or not cannot change a man’s nature.He’s either kind or he isn’t, with or without clothes.Besides I don’t care for excessive formality.” He thanked her but said he couldn’t take the time off from work.There were two more rooms to do.The next evening she came up again and somewhat agitatedly confessed she was lonely; so they ate together in the kitchen downstairs.She had dismissed Lidya and throughout the meal talked constantly, mostly of her childhood, the young ladies’ school she had attended, and the pleasures of Kiev in the summertime.“Days are long and hot, but nights are languorous and starlit.People refresh themselves in their flower gardens and some walk in the parks, drink kvass and lemonade, and listen to the symphonies.Have you ever heard Pag-liacci, Yakov Ivanovitch? I think you would love Marin-sky Park.”He said he did not mind parks.“The Contract Fair opens in the spring, it’s most entertaining.Or if you like there’s a cinematograph to go to on the Kreshchatik.”Her eyes darted glances as she spoke and when he looked at her she glanced away.Afterwards the fixer, made nervous by her chatter, excused himself to go back to work, but Zina followed him up the stairs to watch him paste on the wallpaper she had selected, bunches of blue roses.She sat on a kitchen chair with her legs crossed, the good one over the crippled, and cracked and ate dried sunflower seeds, rhythmically swinging her leg as she watched him work.Then she lit and awkwardly smoked a cigarette.“You know, Yakov Ivanovitch, I couldn’t possibly treat you as an ordinary common laborer for the simple reason that you aren’t one.Certainly not in my eyes.Really you are a guest who happens to be working here because of Papa’s idiosyncratic ways.I hope you realize that?”“If you don’t work you don’t eat.”“Quite true, but you are more intelligent and even genteel—at any rate, sensitive—please don’t shake your head over that—than the average Russian laborer.I can’t tell you how exasperating they can be, particularly Ukrainians, and really we dread having repairs or improvements made.No, please don’t deny it, anyone can sense you are different.And you told Papa you believe in the necessity of an education and would like to further your own.I heard you say that and approve very much.I too love to read, and not only romances.I’m sure you’ll find excellent opportunities for yourself in the future, and if you are alert may some day be as comfortably off as Papa.”Yakov went on papering.“Poor Papa suffers dreadfully from melancholia.He gets quite drunk by nightfall and has no appetite, to speak of, for supper.He usually falls asleep in his chair, Lidya removes his shoes, and with Alexei’s help we get him to bed.At night he awakes and says his prayers.Sometimes he undresses himself, and it’s almost impossible to find his clothes in the morning.Once he put his socks under the rug, and I found his drawers, all wet, in the water closet.Usually he isn’t awake till midmorning.It’s hard on me, of course, but I can’t complain because Papa’s had a difficult life.And there’s no one to keep me company in the evening but Lidya and at times Alexei when he happens to be fixing something, but quite frankly, Yakov Ivanovitch, neither of them has an idea in his head.Alexei sleeps in the basement, and Lidya’s small room is at the back of the flat off the terrace beyond Papa’s bedroom; and since I would rather read at night than listen to her go on and on, I dismiss her early.Sometimes it gives me pleasure to be the only one up in the house at night.It’s very cozy.I light the samovar, read, write letters to old friends and crochet.Papa says I make the most remarkable lace doilies.He marvels at the intricacy of the patterns.But most of the time,” she sighed, “to tell the truth, it can be dreadfully lonely.”She chewed a sunflower seed disconsolately, then remarked that although she had been crippled through illness as a child, she had always been considered attractive by the opposite sex and had had more than one admirer.“I don’t say this to flaunt myself or be brazen but because I don’t want you to think of me as being at a disadvantage with regard to the normal experiences of life.I am nothing of the sort.I have a quite attractive figure and many men notice me, especially when I’m dressed up.Once in a restaurant a man ogled me so insistently Papa went over to him and demanded an explanation.The man humbly apologized and do you know, Yakov Ivanovitch, when I got back home I broke into sobs.”Gentlemen called on her of course, Zina went on, but unfortunately not always the most sensitive or worthy, a situation more than one of her friends had to put up with.Sensitive, dependable men were rare, although such persons could be found in all classes, not necessarily gentry.He listened with one ear, aware that her glance traced his every move.Why does she bother? he asked himself.What can she see in a man like me whose advantages are all disadvantages if I have it right? I have little wit in Russian, it’s a heavy language for me.And if I said “Jew” aloud she’d run in six directions.Yet she often entered his thoughts.He had been a long time without a woman and wondered what it would be like to be in bed with her.He had never had a Russian woman, though Haskel Dembo had slept with a peasant girl and said it was the same as with any Jewess.The crippled leg, Yakov thought, would not bother him.He finished papering the fourth room that night and except for the woodwork the job was done.Two days later when it was all but finished, Nikolai Maximovitch unsteadily ascended the stairs to inspect the flat.He went from room to room, running his fingers over the wallpaper, looking up at the ceilings.“Outstanding,” he said.“Quite outstanding.An honest and attractive piece of work, Yakov Ivanovitch.I congratulate you [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]