Sometimes, the crowing of the rooster awakens a desire for revenge. The sun has not risen yet, but a pair of quarrelling cockerels are pecking at the shreds of Novak’s sleep. At moments like these, the colonel regrets that he does not carry a pistol. To his colleagues, he always explains that the Department for Public Security and Order fights a silent war, where any use of firearms would be the mark of failure. “Our cannons are our attentive ears and a good memory,” is his favourite quip. But now, as his head explodes and last night’s meal inches its way up his gullet, ears and memory are of no use to him.
Just one look at the man snoring by his side reminds Novak of everything he would rather forget. On arriving in Grodno yesterday morning, he was dragged into a feast of fools. They had him drinking gruesome wine at noon, and singing ‘Shalom Aleichem’ by the night’s end. At the shtiebel, a new word for his vocabulary, he swayed in prayer and pretended to read their incomprehensible book. And for what? It turns out that the people he was looking for, Fanny Schechter’s relatives, are no longer with us. Novak is beside himself.
He is also beginning to suspect that this Akaky Akakyevich is no innocent lamb. Did he know all along that their arduous journey would end with nothing? If this was his plan from the start, then the pale butler is a knave in parrotfish scales. Very interesting. If Akaky continues to follow his own plans even after Novak’s threats of Siberian prisons, then the colonel is facing a worthy opponent.
Novak is well aware that the chain of inferences that has led him to this bed is not without its weaknesses. What’s more, the ease with which he was coaxed to attend that feast, the tisch, which they held in their honour last night, suggests frivolous, negligent and unprofessional behaviour. And yet, as he remembers the wild joy that clung to those Hasidic men, the attire they made him wear, the food he had to swallow, the dancing that spun his head, he cannot identify a single moment when he’d had an opportunity to escape their clutches. They had simply surrounded him and dragged him along and run next to him and sat him at the table. It is a hard thing to admit, but in their company he had felt a surge of energy – even happiness. They had trampled over his will like a herd of buffalo, and to his surprise, he appeared to welcome the stampede. Even his leg feels a little better, and an entire day is about to go by without him thinking about it once. His slivovitz bottle remains in his pocket, untouched.
Therefore, even though he knows that he must somehow escape and return to Baranavichy, Novak does not protest when two young men enter the hut and invite Akaky and him to the shtiebel. He gets up from his bed and dons the kaftan he was lent the day before. Just look at him now: Colonel Piotr Novak marching arm in arm with three żyds, his head adorned with a spodik – the tall fur hat – the long black kaftan sliding down his body, a cloth gartel around his waist, leaning on his cane on one side and on his “brother”, Avremaleh Rabinovits, on the other.
On their way to the shtiebel, Novak notices a few ducks waddling through the courtyards like drunks and cherry trees laden with flaming-red fruit, and he exchanges smiles and warm handshakes with the other Hasidim. Naturally, if Novak’s colleagues from the secret police were to encounter him right now, he could explain his behaviour down to the last detail: he has given up on his initial intention of meeting Fanny Schechter’s family but he still wants to learn about the żyds way of life well enough to pass for one of them. Nothing wrong with that. Yet if he met his colleagues at this very moment, as he enters the rebbe’s court surrounded by a crowd swaying in prayer, Novak would probably choose not to mention that his heart is racing with joy.
For lunch, he and Akim are invited to join a family: husband, wife and seven children, four of whom are playing hide-and-seek around Novak. One of the little scamps bumps into a table corner and starts to wail. His mother picks him up and scolds his siblings, the grandmother tries to calm everyone and the father offers him a slice of lekach – yet another word added to Novak’s vocabulary – and the boy immediately forgets his pain and focuses on the treat, sparking his brothers’ jealousy. They too are compensated with some cake and a brief quiet ensues.
Novak never understood what he was supposed to do – with his family, that is. He married of course, as was expected of him, and his wife gave birth to two healthy boys. But this family unit, which he was supposed to commend – where does it go? Who does it fight against? What is it defending? How does it define success? His sons received the best education money could buy. Ivan is already a notary, Alexey is studying engineering in Moscow. His wife Anna is not unhappy either, or so it seems. His entire life, Novak has worked hard to provide and care for them, and if he hadn’t risen through the ranks in the army and sent envelopes with bundles of cash each month, they would not have come close to the lives they lead now.
After he had made a great effort to attend his elder son’s wedding, Ivan, the groom, had shaken his hand and said “Thank you very much for coming, sir”, as if he was just an ordinary guest. And when his younger son left for Moscow, Novak travelled to the big city to make sure everything was in order and left in his hand a year’s worth of rent. Alexey had looked at him, embarrassed, and held the notes apprehensively, as if they had been handed to him by a usurer. And even though his son had thanked him profusely, Novak felt that this gesture had set them only further apart.
Now, after watching his hosts’ family life, he excuses himself, leaves his translator behind and goes out to take a quick glass of slivovitz. Then he walks alone along the narrow alleyways, slowly drawn to a broad street that leads to the main road and the large synagogue. Before long, he is back at the market square. Passers-by look at him curiously: his limp provokes either repugnance or pity. Willing to risk everything he has achieved up to this point, he walks straight to his office, by the town hall.