by Isaac Babel
“That’s right,” said Korotkov and cleared a space beside him. The deacon sat down next to him and they fell silent.
Then Akinfiyev woke up. He dumped the ox leg from the bag, sliced the green meat with a little knife and handed each of us a piece. On seeing this rotten leg I felt weakness and despair, and I handed back my meat.
“Goodbye, boys,” I said. “Good luck to you…”
“Goodbye,” replied Korotkov.
I took my saddle from the cart and walked off. Walking off, I heard the endless muttering of Ivan Akinfiyev.
“Vanya,” he was saying to the deacon. “You’ve gone and stepped in it, Vanya. You should’ve been afraid of my name, but you’ve gone and sat in my cart. If you could still hop around before I got my hands on you, you won’t be doing any hopping now. I’ll give you a real good time, Vanya, a good time sure as hell…”
Notes
1 Sergei Sergeyevich Kamenev (1881–1936) was an important Soviet military leader; during the Civil War he served as commander of the Eastern Front from 1918 to 1919, and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the republic from 1919 to 1924.
2 A syringe for the treatment of syphilis, named after the Russian venerologist V.M. Tarnovsky (1837–1906).
THE STORY OF A HORSE, CONTINUED
FOUR MONTHS AGO Savitsky, our former division commander, took a white stallion from Khlebnikov, commander of the First Squadron. Khlebnikov then left the army, but today Savitsky received a letter from him.
Khlebnikov to Savitsky:
And I can’t hold any kind of grudge against Budyonny’s army any more, and understand all my sufferings in that army and keep them in my heart, purer than a shrine. And to you, Comrade Savitsky, a worldwide hero, the toiling masses of Vitebsk, where I’m chairman of the Revolutionary Committee, send a proletarian cry—“Give us the world revolution!”—and hope that the white stallion walks under you for many years along soft trails, for the benefit of the freedom we all love and of the brotherly republics, where we ought to keep a special eye on the local authorities and district units in respect to administration…
Savitsky to Khlebnikov:
My true Comrade Khlebnikov! That letter you wrote to me, it’s very commendable for the common cause, especially, I’d say, after that dumb thing you did, when you draped your own selfish hide over your eyes and marched out of our Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Our Communist Party, Comrade Khlebnikov, is an iron column of fighters, who give their blood in the front rank, and when blood flows from iron, Comrade, it’s no joke—it’s victory or death. The same goes for the common cause, which I don’t expect I’ll see dawning, because the fighting is heavy and I’m changing command staff every two weeks. Thirty days now I’ve been fighting in the rearguard, covering the invincible First Cavalry under the enemy’s effective rifle, artillery and aeroplane fire. Tardy’s dead, Lukhmanikov’s dead, Lykoshenko’s dead, Gulevoy’s dead, Trunov’s dead, and there’s no white stallion under me, so, in accordance with a change in the fortunes of war, don’t expect to see your beloved Division Commander Savitsky, Comrade Khlebnikov—we’ll see each other, to put it plainly, in the kingdom of heaven, but I hear the old man isn’t running a kingdom up there, he’s running a proper whorehouse, and there’s enough clap here on earth, so maybe we won’t be seeing each other. Farewell, Comrade Khlebnikov.
Galicia, September 1920
THE WIDOW
SHEVELYOV, the regimental commander, lies dying on an ambulance cart. A woman sits at his feet. Night, pierced by a cannonade’s flashes, arches over the dying man. Lyovka, the division commander’s coachman, is warming up food in a pot. Lyovka’s forelock hangs over the fire; the hobbled horses crunch in the bushes. Lyovka stirs the pot with a twig, saying to Shevelyov, who’s stretched out on the ambulance cart:
“I worked, dear comrade, in the town of Temryuk—worked as a trick rider, and as a lightweight athlete too. Little town’s a bore for a woman, of course—ladies caught sight of me, started tearing down the walls… ‘Lev Gavrilych, you won’t refuse a snack à la carte, will you? You won’t regret the time you lose…’ So I go off to a tavern with one of ’em. We order two portions of veal, order a jug, and we sit there nice and quiet, drinking… I look around—some kind of gentleman’s making his way towards me, dressed not so bad, neat, but I notice he’s got a lot of imagination to ’im, and he ain’t on his first drink…
“‘Excuse me,’ he says. ‘What, by the way, is your nationality?’
“‘What reason have you got, mister, to touch me on nationality,’ I ask, ‘especially when I’m in the ladies’ society?’
“And he:
“‘You’re no athlete,’ he says. ‘In French wrestling, they knock your kind flat. Prove your nation…’
“But I’m telling you, I still didn’t get it.
“‘Why’d you, and I don’t know your proper name,’ I say, ‘why’d you have to go and provoke such a misunderstanding, so that now someone’s got to die right here, in other words, lie down to the last breath?’ To the last…” Lyovka repeats ecstatically and stretches his arms to the sky, gathering the night about him like a halo.
The tireless wind, the clean wind of night, sings, filled with ringing, gently rocking the soul. Stars blaze in the dark like wedding rings; they fall on Lyovka, get tangled in his hair and fade in his shaggy head.
“Lev,” Shevelyov suddenly whispers to him through blue lips, “come here. Whatever gold I’ve got—goes to Sashka,” says the wounded man. “The rings, the harness—all goes to her. We lived as best we could… I’ll reward her. My clothes, underwear, medal for selfless heroism—to my mother on the Terek. Send it with a letter and write in the letter—with regards from the commander, and don’t cry. The hut’s yours, old woman—live. Anyone bothers you, gallop right off to Budyonny: I’m Shevelyov’s ma. My steed Abramka, I give it up to the regiment, give it up to cover the expenses…”
“I’ll see they get the steed,” Lyovka mutters and waves his hands. “Sash,” he shouts to the woman, “heard what he said?… Declare right in front of ’im—you gonna give the old woman what’s hers or not?…”
“To hell with your mother,” Sashka answers and walks off into the bushes, her back straight as a blind man’s.
“Gonna give up the orphan’s share?” Lyovka catches up to her and grabs her by the throat. “Say it in front of ’im…”
“I’ll give it up. Let go of me.”
Having forced the declaration, Lyovka took the pot from the fire and began pouring the shchi into the dying man’s stiffened mouth. The cabbage soup trickled down from Shevelyov, the spoon rattled against his gleaming dead teeth and the bullets sang ever louder, ever more dreary in the dense expanses of night.
“Hitting us with rifles, the snakes,” said Lyovka.
“Aristo lackeys,” replied Shevelyov. “Cutting us open on the right flank with machine guns…”
And closing his eyes, all solemn, like a corpse on a table, Shevelyov commenced listening to the battle with his large, waxen ears. Lyovka was chewing meat beside him, crunching and panting. When he was finished with the meat, Lyovka licked his lips and dragged Sashka into a hollow.
“Sash,” he said, trembling, belching and wringing his hands. “Sash, we’re all sinners in God’s eyes anyway… Live once, die once. Give in, Sash—I’ll pay you back in blood, if I have to… His time’s come and gone, Sash, but God’s days ain’t running out…”
They sat down on the tall grass. The sluggish moon crept out from behind the clouds and lingered on Sashka’s bare knee.
“You’re getting warm,” muttered Shevelyov, “but it looks like they’ve routed the Fourteenth Division…”
Lyovka crunched and panted in the bushes. The hazy moon drifted across the sky like a beggar woman. Distant gunfire floated in the air. Feather grass rustled on the troubled earth, and August stars fell into the grass.
Then Sashka returned to her previous place. She started to change the wounded man’s b
andages and raised the flashlight over the rotting wound.
“You’ll be gone by tomorrow,” Sashka said, wiping Shevelyov, who was sweating a cold sweat. “Gone by tomorrow, it’s in your guts, death…”
And at that moment a tight, vociferous blow crashed into the earth. Four fresh brigades, led into battle by the enemy’s unified command, fired the first shell over Busk, severing our communications and lighting up the Bug watershed. Obedient fires rose on the horizon; the weighty birds of a cannonade flew up from the flames. Busk burnt, and Lyovka, the stunned lackey, flew through the woods in the Sixth Division commander’s reeling carriage. He pulled at the scarlet reins, striking the lacquered wheels against tree stumps. Shevelyov’s cart raced after him with the attentive Sashka guiding the horses, which were straining at their harnesses.
That’s how they came to the first-aid station at the edge of the woods. Lyovka unharnessed the horses and went to the officer in charge to ask for a horse blanket. He walked through the woods, which were cluttered with carts. The bodies of medical orderlies stuck out from under the carts, and a timid dawn fought through soldiers’ sheepskins. The sleeping men’s boots were thrust apart, their pupils turned to the sky, the black pits of their mouths twisted.
The officer had a blanket; Lyovka returned to Shevelyov, kissed his forehead and drew the blanket over his head. Then Sashka approached the cart. She’d tied her kerchief under her chin and shaken the straw from her dress.
“Pavlik,” she said. “My Jesus Christ.” And she lay down sideways on the dead man, covering him with her immense body.
“Grieving,” Lyovka said then. “No denying it, they had a good life. Now she’ll be under the whole squadron again. Tough…”
And he rode on to Busk, where the staff of the Sixth Cavalry Division had set itself up.
There, about ten versts from town, we were engaging the Savinkov Cossacks.1 The traitors fought under the command of Cossack Captain Yakovlev, who’d gone over to the Poles. They fought bravely. For the second day in a row, the division commander was out with the troops; not finding him at headquarters, Lyovka returned to his hut, brushed the horses, doused the carriage wheels with water and lay down to sleep in the threshing barn. The barn was full of fresh hay, as incendiary as perfume. Lyovka had a good sleep and then sat down to dinner. His hostess boiled him some potatoes and poured sour clotted milk over them. Lyovka was already sitting at the table when the funereal wail of trumpets and the tramping of many hooves sounded in the street. The squadron, with its trumpeters and standards, was moving along the winding Galician street. Shevelyov’s body lay on a gun carriage, covered with banners. Sashka rode behind the coffin on Shevelyov’s stallion; a Cossack song oozed from the ranks at the rear.
The squadron passed along the main street and turned towards the river. Then Lyovka, barefoot and capless, set off running after the retreating detachment and grabbed the reins of the squadron commander’s horse.
Neither the division commander, who’d stopped at the crossroads and saluted the dead commander, nor his staff could hear what Lyovka said to the squadron commander.
“…Underwear…” The wind brought us snatches of words. “…Mother on the Terek…” We heard Lyovka’s incoherent cries. Without hearing him out to the end, the squadron commander freed his reins and pointed to Sashka. The woman shook her head and rode on. Lyovka then jumped into her saddle, grabbed her hair, bent back her head and smashed her face with his fist. Sashka wiped the blood away with the hem of her skirt and rode on. Lyovka climbed down from the saddle, tossed back his forelock and tied a red scarf around his hips. And the howling trumpeters led the squadron on to the gleaming line of the Bug.
Soon he returned to us, Lyovka, the division commander’s lackey, and shouted, his eyes flashing:
“I gave it to her good… I’ll send it to the mother, she says, when time comes. I’ll keep his memory, she says, I’ll remember myself. If you remember, you snake, then don’t you forget… And if you forget—we’ll remind you. Forget a second time—we’ll remind you a second time…”
Galicia, August 1920
Notes
1 Boris Viktorovich Savinkov (1879–1925) was one of the leaders of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, a political organization responsible for a campaign of assassinations of imperial officials at the turn of the twentieth century. After the February Revolution of 1917, he served as Deputy War Minister in the provisional government, but he soon resigned from the post and was expelled from the SRs for supporting an anti-government uprising. After the October Revolution, Savinkov led several failed uprisings against the Bolsheviks before emigrating to France. During the Polish–Soviet War he moved to Poland, forming cavalry and infantry units of Red Army POWs who were willing to switch sides and fight against the Soviet forces; after the war ended, he was expelled from Poland. He was captured while attempting to infiltrate the USSR in 1924 and died in the custody of the secret police.
ZAMOŚĆ
THE DIVISION COMMANDER and his staff lay on a mowed field about three versts from Zamość. The troops were to launch a night assault on the town. We’d been ordered to spend the night in Zamość, and the division commander was awaiting reports of victory.
It was raining. Wind and darkness raced over the drenched earth. The stars had all been stifled by the spreading ink of the clouds. Exhausted horses sighed and shifted from foot to foot in the murk. We had nothing to give them. I tied my horse’s reins to my leg, wrapped myself up in my cloak and lay down in a pit full of water. The sodden earth offered me the soothing embrace of the grave. The horse drew her reins and pulled at my leg. She’d found a tuft of grass and began nibbling at it. Then I fell asleep and dreamt of a barn strewn with hay. The dusty gold of threshing hummed above the barn. Sheaves of wheat flew across the sky, the July day was passing into evening and thickets of sunset were thrown back over the village.
I was stretched out on a silent bed, and the tender caress of hay at the nape of my neck was driving me mad. Then the barn doors parted with a whine. A woman dressed for a ball approached me. She freed her chest from the black lace of her bodice and brought it towards me with care, like a wet nurse. She placed her chest against mine. The agonizing heat shook the very foundations of my soul, and droplets of sweat—living, moving sweat—came to a boil between our nipples.
“Margot,” I wanted to cry out, “the earth is dragging me along on the cord of its calamities, like a jibbing dog, but still I managed to see you, Margot…”
I wanted to cry this out, but my jaws, seized shut by a sudden chill, would not unclench. Then the woman pulled away from me and fell to her knees.
“Jesus,” she said, “receive the soul of thy departed servant…”
She fixed two worn five-copeck pieces onto my eyelids and stuffed the opening of my mouth with sweet-smelling hay. A cry circled my shackled jaws in vain, my dimming pupils turned slowly beneath the copper coins, I couldn’t unclasp my hands and… I awoke.
A peasant with a matted beard lay in front me. He had a rifle in his hands. My horse’s back cleaved the sky like a black crossbar. My leg was stuck up in the air, gripped by the tight noose of the reins.
“Fell asleep, countryman,” the peasant said and smiled with his sleepless, night-time eyes. “Horse hauled you half a verst…”
I untied the strap and stood up. Blood was dripping down my face, lacerated by weeds.
There, just a couple of paces away, lay the front line. I could see the chimneys of Zamość, the furtive lights in the ravines of its ghetto and the watchtower with its broken lantern. The damp dawn came washing over us like waves of chloroform. Green rockets soared above the Polish camp. They’d flutter in the air, come apart like roses shedding petals beneath the moon and fade away.
And in the stillness I heard the distant breath of a groan. The smoke of secret murder wandered around us.
“They’re killing somebody,” I said. “Who’re they killing?…”
“Pole’s getting wo
rked up,” the peasant replied. “Pole’s cutting down Jews…”
The peasant shifted the rifle from his right hand to his left. His beard was bent entirely to one side. He looked at me with affection and said:
“Nights are long on the line—no end to these nights. And a man gets so he wants to talk to another man, but where’s he gonna find another man round here?…”
The peasant made me light my cigarette from his.
“Jew’s guilty in everyone’s eyes,” he said, “yourn and ourn. There’ll be mighty few of ’em left after the war. How many Jews are there in the world, anyway?”
“Ten million,” I answered, and began to bridle my horse.
“There’ll be two hundred thousand left,” the peasant cried out and touched my hand, afraid that I would leave. But I climbed into the saddle and galloped off towards the staff.
The division commander was already preparing to ride off. Orderlies stood to attention in front of him, sleeping as they stood. Dismounted squadrons crawled over wet hillocks.
“They’re putting the screws on us,” the division commander whispered and rode off.
We followed him along the road to Sitaniec.
The rain started again. Dead mice floated down the roads. Autumn laid an ambush around our hearts, and trees—naked corpses set upright on both feet—swayed at the crossroads.
We arrived in Sitaniec in the morning. I was with Volkov, the staff quartermaster. He found us a free hut at the edge of the village.
“Vodka,” I said to the hostess. “Vodka, meat and bread!”
The old woman was sitting on the floor, hand-feeding a calf hidden under the bed.
