Jakob the Liar Read Online Free PDF Page A

one?”
    “On the next-to-last track. The one without a roof.” Mischa is whispering, although the nearest sentry is at least twenty yards away and not even looking in their direction.
    “What about it?” asks Jacob.
    “There are potatoes in that car.”
    Jacob grumbles all through the next haul. So there are potatoes in it, what’s so special about that? Potatoes are only interesting when you have some, when you can cook them or eat them raw or make pancakes out of them, but not when they’re lying around in some freight car or other at a yard like this one; potatoes in that freight car over there are the most boring thing in the world. Even if there were pickled herrings in there or roast goose or millions of pots of
tsholnt
… Jacob goes on and on, trying to get Mischa’s mind off the subject and draw him into conversation.
    Only Mischa isn’t listening; the sentries’ relief will soon show up, something they always turn into a little ceremony, standing at attention and reporting and shouldering arms, and that is the only moment at which to try. Jacob’s objections aren’t worth a second thought, Mischa says, of course there’s a risk — all right, even a great risk, so what? Nobody’s saying the potatoes are as good as eaten; every opportunity is a risk; must one explain that to a businessman? If there were no risk, there would be no opportunity either. Then it would be a sure thing, and sure things are rare in life; risk and the chance of success are two sides of the same coin.
    Jacob knows that time is running out; Mischa is in a state in which no normal conversation is possible with him. And then he sees the relief column marching up: now he has to tell him.
    “Do you know where Bezanika is?”
    “Just a moment,” says Mischa tensely.
    “Do you know where Bezanika is? I said.”
    “No,” says Mischa, his eyes following the column as it covers the last few yards.
    “Bezanika is about two hundred and fifty miles from here.”
    “Oh yes.”
    “The Russians are within twelve miles of Bezanika!”
    Mischa manages to tear his gaze for a moment from the marching soldiers; his unusual eyes smile at Jacob; actually this is very nice of Heym, and he says, “That’s nice of you, Jacob.”
    Jacob almost has a fit. Here you overcome all your scruples, ignore all the rules of caution and all your misgivings, for which there are reasons enough, you carefully choose a blue-eyed young idiot to confide in, and what does that snot-nose do? He doesn’t believe you! And you can’t simply walk away, you can’t leave him standing there in his stupidity, tell him to go to hell, and simply walk away. You have to stay with him, save up your rage for some later occasion, and you can’t even relish the vision of such an occasion. You have to beg for his indulgence as if your own life depended on it. You have to prove your credibility although you shouldn’t need to; he’s the one who needs to. And you have to do all that terribly fast, before the sentries face each other, slap their rifles on their shoulders, and exchange the information that there is nothing special to report.
    “Aren’t you glad?” asks Jacob.
    Mischa smiles at him kindly. “That’s fine,” he says in a voice that, while sounding a little sad, is intended to convey a certain appreciation of Jacob’s touching efforts. And then he has something more important to watch again. The column is approaching, it has already passed the little redbrick building used by the railway men and the sentries.
    Mischa is trembling with excitement, and Jacob tries to get his words out faster than the soldiers can approach. He tells his story in a shortened version — why hadn’t he started it earlier? He tells about the man with the searchlight, about the corridor in the military office, about the door that opened outward and hid him. About the report he heard coming from the room, word for word as he has been repeating it to himself a thousand times during