EDA KRISEOV
A
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acute sense of God; it was God, after all, who had made him a gen–
darme. And Blaha 's God was a watchful, vigilant God, a fiery, ever ob–
servant eye.
Down there in the well I saw some bubbles. One bubble, two - and
that was it. The firemen pumped the well and found the rifle.
With the lead from the autopsy, the rifle from the well, and the fel–
low from the veranda, I had enough to show Prague and get things
straightened out.
It didn't take long. All I had to do was say, Out with it, Ivan,
where 'd you get the rifle? And he said, Well, er, I borrowed it off the
gamekeeper. He'd cut down fifty-one of the priest's trees one night and
the girl had seen him. He got rid of her so she wouldn't turn him in.
We booked him on the trees and premeditated murder. He got
twelve years. We were pushovers.
The people wept when we left in '39. "Don't go," they cried. "You
taught us to live. Don't go now." But we went. We had to. And how
they wept. They remembered the Hungarians' whip, and the Ruthenians
- they needed us to get the Jews.
It took me a long time to get the better of a Jew. A Jew would
take a Ruthenian to court and win his house away from him, sell it two
or three times, then set it on fire and collect the insurance.
The gendarme paced up and down the kitchen, his hands behind his
back and a smile beneath his little mustache. He had come back from
Subcarpathia with three children and an aversion for Jews. Though he
did like matching wits with them. Oh, the joy he felt when they said to
him, "We were too smart for you when you first came, but now ... "
He'd put one over on Moshke all right, but it hadn't been easy.
One day I went to see Vasil Popovich, the
biro
on the other side of
the woods.
What do you say I teach you to sign your name, Vasil my boy.
Two weeks later he came running up , waving his right arm in the air
and cursing both it and me .
Damn this hand, he wailed. If only God had struck it down the
moment I picked up your pen. Moshke needs a dowry for his daughter,
and he shoved a piece of paper in front of me and I wanted to show
him I could sign my name and now lowe him two thousand.
Before you came and showed us everything, I'd put my three X's
under, he said. Now he was in for it.
Listen, Moshke, I said to the Jew. I've had enough of your shenani–
gans. You fork up that money or you'll be sorry. I'll ride you hard, I'll
shut down your slivovitz still. You'll be out a lot more than the two
thousand.
Moshke forked it up. The
biro
was overjoyed when he saw the
