Razor

His regimental comrades had had good reason to dub him Razor. The man's face lacked a facade. When his acquaintances thought of him they could imagine him only in profile, and that was remarkable: nose sharp as a draftsman's triangle; chin sturdy as an elbow; long, soft eyelashes characteristic of certain very obstinate, very cruel people. His name was Ivanov.

That nickname of former days contained a strange clairvoyance. It is not rare for a man called Stone or Stein to become a perfectly good mineralogist. Captain Ivanov, after an epic escape and sundry insipid ordeals, had ended up in Berlin and had chosen the very trade at which his nickname had hinted--that of a barber.

He worked in a small but clean barbershop that also employed two young professionals who treated "the Russian captain" with jovial respect. Then there was the owner, a dour lump of a man who would spin the handle of the cash register with a silvery sound, and also a manicurist, anemic and translucent as if she had been drained dry by the contact of innumerable fingers placed, in batches of five, on the small velvet cushion in front of her.

Ivanov was very good at his work, though he was somewhat handicapped by his poor knowledge of German. However, he soon figured out how to deal with the problem: Tack a nicht onto the first sentence, an interrogative was? onto the next, then nicht again, continuing to alternate in the same way. And even though it was only in Berlin that he had learned haircutting, it was remarkable how closely his manner resembled that of the tonsors back in Russia, with their well-known penchant for superfluous scissors-clicking--they'll click away, take aim and snip a lock or two, then keep their blades going lickety-split in the air as if they were impelled by momentum. This deft, gratuitous whirring was the very thing that earned him the respect, of his colleagues.

Without doubt scissors and razors are weapons, and there was something about this metallic chirr that gratified Ivanov's warlike soul. He was a rancorous, keen-witted man. His vast, noble, splendid homeland had been ruined by some dull buffoon for the sake of a well-turned scarlet phrase, and this he could not forgive. Like a tightly coiled spring, vengeance lurked, biding its time, within his soul.

One hot, bluish summer morning, taking advantage of the nearly total absence of customers during those workday hours, both of Ivanov's colleagues took an hour off. Their employer, dying from the heat and from long-ripening desire, had silently escorted the pale, unresisting little manicurist to a back room. Left alone in the sun-drenched shop, Ivanov glanced through a newspaper, then lit a cigarette and, all in white, stepped outside the doorway and started watching the passersby.

People flashed past, accompanied by their shadows, which broke over the edge of the sidewalk and glided fearlessly underneath the glittering wheels of cars that left ribbonlike imprints on the heat-softened asphalt, resembling an ornate lacework of snakes. Suddenly a short, thickset gentleman in black suit and bowler, with a black briefcase under his arm, turned off the sidewalk and headed straight for white Ivanov. Blinking from the sun, Ivanov stepped aside to let him into the barbershop.

The newcomer's reflection appeared in all the mirrors at once: in profile, in three-quarter-face and showing the waxen bald spot in back from which the black bowler had ascended to snag a hat hook. And when the man turned squarely toward the mirrors, which sparkled above the marble surfaces aglitter with green and gold scent bottles, Ivanov instantly recognized that mobile, puffy face with the piercing little eyes and a plump mole by the right lobe of its nose.

The gentleman silently sat down in front of the mirror, then, mumbling indistinctly, tapped his untidy cheek with a stubby finger. Meaning: I want a shave. In a kind of astonished haze, Ivanov spread a sheet over him, whipped up some tepid lather in a porcelain bowl, brushed it onto the man's cheeks, rounded chin and upper lip, gingerly circumnavigated the mole, and began rubbing in the foam with his index finger. But he did all this mechanically, so shaken was he by having encountered this person again.

Now a flimsy (concluded on page 140)Razor(concluded from page 68) white mask of soap covered the man's face up to his eyes, minuscule eyes that glittered like the tiny wheels of a watch movement. Ivanov had opened his razor and begun to sharpen it on a strop when he recovered from his amazement and realized that this man was in his power.

Bending over the waxy bald spot, he brought the blue blade close to the soapy mask and said very softly, "My respect to you, comrade. How long has it been since you left our part of the world? No, don't move, please, or I might cut you prematurely."

The glittering little wheels started moving faster, glanced at Ivanov's sharp profile and stopped. Ivanov removed some excess flakes of lather with the blunt side of the razor and continued, "I remember you very well, comrade. Sorry if I find it distasteful to pronounce your name. I remember how you interrogated me some six years ago in Kharkov. I remember your signature, dear friend. But, as you see, I am still alive."

Then the following happened. The little eyes darted about, then suddenly shut tight, eyelids compressed like those of the savage who thinks closing his eyes makes him invisible.

Ivanov tenderly moved his blade along the cold cheek.

"We're absolutely alone, comrade. Understand? One little slip of the razor, and right away there will be a good deal of blood. Here is where the carotid throbs. So there will be a good deal of blood, even a great deal of blood. But first I want your face decently shaved, and, besides, I have something I'd like to recount to you."

Cautiously, with two fingers, Ivanov lifted the fleshy tip of the man's nose and, with the same tenderness, began shaving above the upper lip.

"The point, comrade, is that I remember everything. I remember perfectly, and I want you to remember too." And, in a soft voice, Ivanov began his account, as he unhurriedly shaved the recumbent, motionless face. The tale he told must have been terrifying indeed, because from time to time his hand would stop, and he would stoop quite close to the gentleman sitting like a corpse under the shroudlike sheet, his convex eyelids lowered.

"That is all," Ivanov said with a sigh, "that's the whole story. Tell me, what do you think would be a suitable atonement for all that? What is considered an equivalent of a sharp sword? And again, keep in mind that we are utterly, totally alone.

"Corpses are always shaved," Ivanov went on, running the blade upward along the stretched skin of the man's neck. "Those sentenced to death are shaved too. And now I am shaving you. Do you realize what is going to happen next?"

The man sat without stirring or opening his eyes. Now the lathery mask was gone from his face. Traces of foam remained only on his cheekbones and near his ears. His tensed, eyeless, fat face was so pallid that Ivanov wondered if he had not suffered a fit of paralysis. But when he pressed the razor to the man's neck, his entire body gave a twitch. He did not, however, open his eyes.

Ivanov gave the man's face a quick wipe and spat some talcum on him from a pneumatic dispenser. "That will do for you," he said. "I'm satisfied. You may leave." With squeamish haste he yanked the sheet off the man's shoulders. The other remained seated.

"Get up, you ninny," shouted Ivanov, pulling him up by the sleeve. The man froze, with firmly shut eyes, in the middle of the shop. Ivanov clapped the bowler on his head, thrust the briefcase under his arm and swiveled him toward the door. Only then did the man jerk into motion. His shut-eyed face flashed in all the mirrors. He stepped like an automaton through the door that Ivanov was holding open, and with the same mechanical gait, clutching his briefcase with an outstretched, petrified hand, gazing into the sunny blur of the street with the glazed eyes of a Greek statue, he was gone.

--Translated from the Russian by Dmitri Nabokov.

"We're alone, comrade. One little slip of the razor, and right away there will be a good deal of blood."