The Accidental Anarchist Read Online Free Page A

negotiable.
     
    But Mordechai came through for me. Captain Mikhailoff appeared genuinely glad to have an opportunity to repay his many favors. Mikhailoff assured Mordechai that I had nothing to worry about, nor would I need to incur the expense of a lawyer, for he, himself, would defend me.
     
    I had no way of knowing whether he actually understood the nature of the crime with which I had been charged, or what kind of legal training qualified him to defend a soldier in a court-martial. It did me no good to suggest to Mordechai that, since it was my life, or at least my future for the next twenty or 30 years that would be determined by this military court, perhaps I would be better off with a professional lawyer. But as my brother pointed out, who was I to say “No” to a blood relative of the Czar?
     
    The day of the trial arrived and I still had not so much as set eyes upon my ‘defense attorney.’ The Devil-only-knows how he intended to present my side of the case. In between biting his lips and shouting at me not to be such a worrier, Mordechai conceded that there were some grounds for uneasiness only when the trial had actually begun, and there was still no sign of Mikhailoff.
     
    Meanwhile, my accuser entered the courtroom as though he, personally, were about to sit in judgment of me. I noted that the repairs on his nose and face had been carried out so artistically that, although he still bore a brotherly resemblance to a sheep, he looked notably less ugly than before.
     
    The prosecutor painted our little brawl as an outrage committed by me, alone, an act of unprovoked savagery and insubordination that, unless punished so severely as to set an example for future generations, surely would lead to a speedy and total breakdown of all military discipline and inevitably to the dreaded revolution – a word that, in those days, tended to be followed directly by a death sentence.
     
    I saw immediately that the judge was not in my corner. Any minute now I would be called upon to speak in my own defense. And what could I talk about? “Jewish honor?” I could already see myself blindfolded and tied to a stake.
     
    Especially since my aristocratic defender, who had finally strolled in and taken his seat, one hand vainly attempting to comfort a throbbing brow, listened to the prosecutor like a man who couldn’t wait to put this tedious performance behind him and get back to bed.
     
    The aggrieved sergeant, bearing his scars as officiously as battle wounds, took the stand first. He delivered a good, strong recitation on how I had attacked him, totally without provocation, in what he could only assume to be a Polack Jew’s typical frenzy of rebellion against good, Russian discipline. With each minute he spoke, I could almost see the judge adding another soldier to the firing squad.
     
    At this point, Mikhailoff, who until now had maintained a morose, hung-over, rather self-pitying silence, rose to my defense. Once he had found his feet, he straightened his body with remarkable steadiness. To my horror, though, he did not seem quite certain who in the room was the defendant. Nor, once he found me in response to Mordechai’s frantic chin-wagging, did he pay the slightest attention to any of the charges against me. Instead, he launched into an impassioned attack on those non-coms who, by their unrestrained brutality and total disrespect for the proud traditions of the Imperial Army, had already turned Heaven-only-knows how many innocent and patriotic recruits into embittered revolutionaries against his relative, the holy Czar.
     
    It sounded like a speech he had long been eager to get off his chest, and I suspect he would have made the identical one had I been on trial for blasphemy or wetting my bed. Although my defender was plainly the sort of man who had more growing under his nose than inside his head, I saw the judge repeatedly nod in respectful agreement. However, that still did not dispose of the crime for