A storm was brewing in Piotr’s body. It rose from his feet, which seemed to be rooted to the spot, so difficult was it to lift them. It rose from the tough, hardened skin of his feet, emerging through the cracks in his toenails, flowing upwards, powerful and wild. At any moment it would explode in his mouth as some inarticulate yell, the roar of a primitive human or a primitive beast, when it suddenly stopped in its tracks, settling in his knees. Piotr’s knees gave way. They began to tremble. His protest was alarmed at its own vehemence and returned whence it had come—back to the earth. Piotr’s body was once more submissive and patient. A fly, coming in at the window and making for the buttered bread-roll one of the clerks was eating just then, settled on Piotr’s shoulder, sought some morsel of nourishment, and immediately flew off.
The gentlemen at the table, like connoisseurs of antique statuary, admired his muscular physique. These weakly citizens were torturing the physically fit, sentencing them to arduous, deadly tasks from which they themselves were exempted. What were they staring at him like that for? Why were they scrutinizing his body so closely? What had they discovered about him? They saw only a broad skull covered with fair hair, they saw prominent cheek-bones, a drooping moustache, squinting eyes that were small, bright but sad, and a short, flat nose. The attention of the commission appeared to be riveted on the powerful, broad chest, on which the purple numbers were already fading. Unbeknown to Piotr Niewiadomski, they were only looking at his eyes to be sure that they would be able to see a target they were aiming at; they were only inspecting his ears to check whether they would hear commands and recognize explosions. The arms were valuable only insofar as they had lifting power. The legs were the most important. They were intended for marching. Anyone with weak legs was unfit for the infantry and was drafted to the cavalry. The teeth were also examined, in view of the tough regimental bread and rusks. But perhaps this was a ritual surviving from the times when the tips of cartridges had to be bitten off.
Some young officer questioned Piotr in Ukrainian and noted down his responses. They were all chatting in some incomprehensible language. Only the colonel, a grey-haired, desiccated little old man, was sitting beneath a portrait of His Imperial Majesty as silent as His Majesty himself.
Doctor Jellinek came over and stood so close to him that Piotr could feel his heavy breathing, like the softly wafting wind. First the doctor tapped him, telling him to take a deep breath. He placed his left hand over his collar-bone, tapping three times with the middle finger of his right hand on the middle finger of his left, on which he wore a gold wedding ring. He repeated the procedure on the other collar-bone. Then he pressed his stethoscope to the collar-bones. He listened at the broad, flat end, then he moved the stethoscope downwards, to the left, to the right, then back up again. Through the narrow black duct of its trumpet the reverberations of Piotr’s lungs made their way into his ear, his head, his mind and his conscience. Piotr’s ribs rose and fell like the gills of a fish. Suddenly, Jellinek removed the stethoscope.
“Hold your breath!”
Piotr obeyed. Then Jellinek turned him round and placed his head on his left breast. He snuggled up to it as though it was a woman’s breast, a mother’s breast, on which he desired to repose. The doctor’s head was cool, round and bald. Yet it was a little rough and gave off an aroma of shaving-powder. For a moment, it lay motionless on Piotr Niewiadomski’s breast. Doctor Jellinek was in direct contact with his heart. There was something mystical in this embrace; like the communion of a pair of lovers. At that moment of suspended breathing, Piotr saw his mother Wasylina and himself—a child on her lap. He experienced a sweet sensation and came close to tears. In his blood was heard the rustling of forests, thickets and poor fields of wheat; he heard his own blood pounding against the walls of his heart.
Jellinek listened for a long time to the subcutaneous sounds of Piotr’s life. He laid his ear against the naked body, as if wishing to convince himself that under the covering of skin there really was a heart beating, and blood flowing. That was, of course, what mattered most in those days. Live reservoirs of blood had to be checked before they were tapped. So the doctors listened to the murmuring, inspecting the manometers of life, and laid their ears against the sons of the earth as though against the earth itself. The juice from these fruits of the earth was not valued highly, but it had to be fresh. The doctors examined the bodies, running their fingers over them as if they wanted to select in advance the place where a bullet would strike. This is how joiners make pencil marks on timber boards, where the nails are to go. The eyes of the Commission were as cold as lead bullets piercing through the bodies.
Something must have been amiss with Piotr’s heart, since Doctor Jellinek spent such a long time examining it. He even frowned, pondering something or other, but no one noticed. Jellinek listened exclusively for his own purpose. What value could the life of a stranger have, for someone who considered his own life to have been wasted? Jellinek was sending people to their death without any pangs of conscience. He took his revenge on life (Life with a capital “L”), delivering its most handsome specimens to death. The more a body exuded life, the more readily he sacrificed it to death. What role did he actually fulfil? What part did he play in this tragicomedy? He was a supplier of bodies, a legal intermediary between the Emperor and death. The Emperor did not obtain the necessary raw material personally. For this, he had trusty Jew-boys, sworn expert factors. What was wrong with Jellinek’s cheating both death and the Emperor—granting exemption to fit bodies for a financial consideration, while making up for it by delivering others that were not so fresh? This money was his commission.
When examining highly educated people, he considerately lowered his voice, and when they complained of lassitude, anaemia or nerves he would say:
“Life in the field will do you good. You will see how you put on weight in a month. Your own mother won’t recognize you. If I had a son,” (how fortunate that he did not!) “I would not hesitate to send him to the front line.” He recommended “life” in the field as though it was life, and not death, that flourished there. But Piotr Niewiadomski was not highly educated. Doctor Jellinek did not need to lower his voice. He didn’t want to talk to him at all.
He drew himself up, abruptly raising his head from Piotr’s chest, then with a smile gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder. Fully cognizant of the fact that he had released two perfectly fit people that day in return for payment, and that he would release the Jew out of pity, he called out to the Commission:
“‘A’! Fit for the infantry!”
Turning to Blumenkrantz, he said: “Next!”
Piotr did not know whether he should thank him, or kiss the hand with which he had so benevolently tapped him on the shoulder. The corporals told him he was “taken” and told him to go out and get dressed in his civilian clothes. He left.
Once again, the clerks noted down his name, entering it in the books and registers. In black ink, which dries immediately, they committed it for centuries to come to the white paper, from where no amount of force could ever remove it. Book would pass it to book, and so it would wander from office to office, in time perhaps wandering back to the Emperor. But that word was already converted into a soldier’s body provided with a regimental number, a body to be sustained and equipped at the expense of the State Treasury. A body whose absence would be punished.