It wasn’t long before I stopped listening. The words were trite and boring, slippery as polished wood. Nothing was clear—not what the clerk was like, not what she was like.
I looked at Mishka. His eyes were sparkling. He was grinding his dead cigarette butts between his fingers. His dull, gaunt face, horribly distorted with sterile creative ardor, his yellow, fat, protruding nose, and puffy, pale-pink lips, all gradually brightened as he was gripped by the burgeoning power of his creative rapture.
He read with agonizing slowness, and when he finished, he awkwardly put his notebook away and looked at me.
“Well, Mishka,” I said to him slowly. “You see, you need to think it through a little ... The idea is quite original, it is very tender and everything, but, you see, it does need a little work... you see, it sort of needs to be edited down a little.”
Tve been working on it for three years!” Mishka said. “Of course there are still a few rough edges, but as a whole its fine, isn’t it?”
Mishka had sensed something. His lips trembled. He hunched forward and took a terribly long time to light a cigarette.
“Mishka,” I said to him. “What youVe written is marvelous. Your technique isnt quite there yet, but $a viendra. Damn it, there’s so much in that head of yours!”
Mishka turned around, looked at me, and his eyes were like those of a child—tender, radiant, and happy.
“Lets go out into the street,” he said. “Lets go out, I cant breathe.” The streets were dark and quiet.
Mishka squeezed my hand hard and said, “The one thing that I feel with utter conviction is that I have talent! My father wants me to look for a position somewhere. But I wont! In autumn Im off to Petrograd. Sukhotin will take care of everything.” He fell silent, lit another cigarette with the one he was just finishing, and spoke more quietly. “At times my inspiration is so strong that I’m in agony! At such times I know that what I am doing I am doing right! I sleep badly, always nightmares and anguish. I toss and turn for hours before I fall asleep. In the morning my head feels heavy, painful, terrible. I can only write at night, when I am alone, when there is silence, when my soul is burning. Dostoyevsky always wrote at night, drinking a whole samovar of tea—me, I have my cigarettes . . . you know, theres a blanket of smoke beneath my ceiling.”
We reached Mishkas house. His face was lit by a street lamp. A fierce, thin, yellow, happy face.
“Well get there, damn it!” he said, and squeezed my hand tighter. “Everyone makes it big in Petrograd!”
“Anyway, Mishka,” I said, “you’ve got to keep working.”
“Sashka, my friend!” he replied, grinning at me broadly and patronizingly. “I’m no fool, I know what I know. Don’t worry, I’m not about to start resting on my laurels. Come by tomorrow. We’ll go through it again.”
“Very well,” I said. “I’ll come by.”
We parted. I went home. I felt very depressed.
DOUDOU
Back in those days I was a medical orderly in the hospital in the ,^/town of N. One morning General S., the hospital administrator, brought in a young girl and suggested she be taken on as a nurse. Needless to say, she was hired.
The new nurse was called la petite Doudou. She was kept by the general, and in the evenings danced at the cafe chantant.
She had a lithe, springy gait, the exquisite, almost angular gait of a dancer. In order to see her, I went to the cafe chantant. She danced an amazing tango acrobatique, with what I’d call chastity mixed with a vague, tender passion.
At the hospital she worshiped all the soldiers, and looked after them like a servant. Once, when the chief surgeon was walking through the halls, he saw Doudou on her knees trying to button up the underpants of a pockmarked, apathetic little man called Dyba.
“Dyba! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” the surgeon called out. “You should have gotten one of the men to do that!”
Doudou raised her calm, tender face and said: “Ohy mon docteur, do you think I have never seen a man in his underpants before?”
I remember on the third day of Passover they brought us a badly injured French airman, a Monsieur Drouot. Both his legs had been smashed to bits. He was a Breton—strong, dark, and taciturn. His hard cheeks had a slight bluish tint. It was so strange to see his powerful torso, his strong, chiseled neck, and his broken, helpless legs.
They put him in a small, private room. Doudou would sit with him for hours. They spoke warmly and quietly. Drouot talked about his flights and how he was all alone, none of his family was here, and how sad it all was. He fell in love with her (it was clear to all), and looked at her as was to be expected: tenderly, passionately, pensively. And Doudou, pressing her hands to her breast, told Sister Kirdetsova in the corridor with quiet amazement: “Il maime, ma soeur,; il maime.” [“He loves me, Sister, he loves me.”]
That Saturday night she was on duty and was sitting with Drouot. I was in a neighboring room and saw them. When Doudou arrived, he said: “Doudou,, ma bien aimee/” He rested his head on her breast and slowly started kissing her dark blue silk blouse. Doudou stood there without moving. Her fingers quivered and picked at the buttons of her blouse.
“What is it you want?” Doudou asked him.
He answered something.
Doudou looked at him carefully and pensively, and slowly undid her lace collar. Her soft, white breast appeared. Drouot sighed, winced, and clung to her. Doudou closed her eyes in pain. But still, she noticed that he was uncomfortable, and so she unhooked her bodice. He clasped Doudou close, but moved sharply and moaned.
“You’re in pain!” Doudou said. “You must stop. You mustn’t—”
“Doudou!” he said. Til die if you leave!”
I left the window. But I still saw Doudou’s pale, pitiful face. I saw her try desperately not to hurt him, I heard the moan of passion and pain.
The story got out. Doudou was dismissed—in short, she was fired. The last I saw of her she was standing in the hall, bidding me farewell. Heavy, bright tears fell from her eyes, but she was smiling so as not to upset me.
“Good-bye!” Doudou said, stretching out her slim, white-gloved hand to me. “Adieu, mon ami!” She fell silent and then added, looking me straight in the eye: “// gele, il meurt, il est seul il me prie dirai je non?" [“He is cold, he is dying, he is alone, he begs me to, would I say no?”]
At that moment, Dyba, filthy and small, hobbled in at the end of the hall. “I swear to you,” Doudou said to me in a soft, shaking voice. “I swear to you, if Dyba had asked me to, I would have done the same for him.”
SHABOS-NAKHAMU
Morning came, evening came—it was the fifth day of the week. Morning came, evening came—the sixth day of the week. On the sixth day, on Friday evening, one prays. Having prayed, one puts ones best hat on and goes for a stroll through the shtetl and then hurries home for dinner. At home a Jew will empty a glass of vodka—and neither God nor the Talmud forbid him to empty two—he will eat gefilte fish and raisin cake. After dinner he feels quite jovial. He talks to his wife and then dozes off, one eye shut, his mouth hanging open. He dozes, but in the kitchen Gapka, his wife, hears music—as if a blind fiddler had come from the shtetl and was playing beneath the window.
This is how things go with your average Jew. But Hershele is not your average Jew. It wasn’t by chance that he was famous in all of Ostropol, in all of Berdichev, and in all of Vilyuisk.
Hershele celebrated only one Friday evening in six. On other Fridays he sat in the cold darkness with his family. His children cried. His wife hurled reproaches at him, each as heavy as a cobblestone. Hershele answered her with poetry.
Once, word has it, Hershele decided to act with foresight. He set off on a Wednesday to go to a fair to make some money by Friday. Where theres a fair there’s a goyish gentleman, where there’s a goyish gentleman there are sure to be ten Jews hovering about. But you’ll be lucky to squeeze three groschen out of ten Jews. They all listened to Hershele’s routine, but quickly d
isappeared into thin air when the time came to pay up.
His stomach empty as a wind instrument, Hershele shuffled back home.
“What did you earn?” his wife asked him.
“Everlasting life,” he answered. “Both the rich and the poor promised it to me.”
Hersheles wife had only ten fingers, but she had many more curses. Her voice boomed like mountain thunder.
“Other women have husbands who are like husbands! All my husband knows how to do is feed his wife jokes! Come New Year, may God rip out his tongue, his arms, and his legs!”
“Amen!” Hershele said.
“Candles burn in every window as if people were burning oak trees in their houses. My candles are thin as matchsticks, and they give off so much smoke that it rises all the way to heaven! Everyone has made their white bread already, but my husband brings me firewood as wet as newly washed hair!”
Hershele did not say a word. First, why throw kindling on a fire when it is blazing brightly? Second, what can one say to a ranting wife when she is absolutely right?
The time came when his wife got tired of shouting. Hershele went to lie down on his bed and think.
“Why dont I go see Rabbi Boruchl?” he thought.
(As is common knowledge, Rabbi Boruchl had a tendency to fall into a black melancholia, and there was no better cure for him than Hersheles jokes.)
“Why dont I go see Rabbi Boruchl? Its true that the tsaddiks helpers keep the meat and only give me bones. Meat is better than bones, but bones are better than air. Let’s go to Rabbi Boruchl!”
Hershele got up and went to harness his mare. She looked at him severely and morosely.
“This is great, Hershele!” her eyes said. “Yesterday you didnt give me any oats, the day before yesterday you didnt give me any oats, and I didnt get anything today either. If I dont get any oats by tomorrow, I’m going to have to give my life some serious thought.”
Hershele could not bear her penetrating stare. He lowered his eyes and patted her soft lips. Then he sighed so loudly that the horse understood. Hershele decided to go to Rabbi Boruchl on foot.
When Hershele set out, the sun stood high in the sky. The hot road ran on ahead. White oxen slowly pulled carts piled high with fragrant hay. Muzhiks sat on these piles, their legs dangling, and waved their long whips. The sky was blue and the whips were black.
About five versts down the road, Hershele came to a forest. The sun was beginning to set. Soft fires raged in the sky. Barefoot girls chased cows from the pastures. The cows’ pink udders swung heavily with milk.
In the forest, Hershele was met by a cool, quiet twilight. Green leaves bent toward one another, caressed each other with their flat hands, and, softly whispering high in the trees, returned to their places, rustling and quivering.
Hershele did not notice their whispering. An orchestra as large as the ones at Count Potockis feasts was playing in his belly. The road before him was long. An airy darkness drifted from the edges of the earth, closed over Hershele’s head, and scattered over the world. Unmoving lamps lit up in the sky. The world fell silent.
It was night when Hershele came to the inn. A light flickered through the small window by which Zelda the landlady was sitting, sewing swaddling clothes in the warm room. Her belly was so large it looked as if she were about to give birth to triplets. Hershele looked at her small red face and blue eyes and greeted her.
“May I rest here awhile, mistress?”
“You may.”
Hershele sat down. His nostrils flared like a blacksmiths bellows. Hot flames were burning in the stove. In a large cauldron water was boiling, pouring steam over the waiting, snow-white dumplings. A plump chicken was bobbing up and down in a golden soup. The aroma of raisin pie wafted from the oven.
Hershele sat on the bench writhing like a woman in labor. His mind was hatching more plots in a minute than King Solomon had wives.
It was quiet in the room; the water was boiling, and the chicken bobbing in the golden soup.
“Where is your husband?”
“My husband went to the goyish gentleman to pay the money for the rent.” The landlady fell silent. Her childish eyes widened. Suddenly she said, “I am sitting here at the window, thinking. And I would like to ask you a question, Mr. Jew. I am sure you wander about the world quite a bit, and that youVe studied with a rabbi and know about our Jewish ways. Me, I never studied with anyone. Tell me, Mr. Jew, will Shabos-Nakhamu come to us soon?”
“Aha!” Hershele thought. “Not a bad little question! In Gods garden all kinds of potatoes grow!”
“I am asking this because my husband promised that when Shabos-Nakhamu comes to us, we will go visit my mother, and he said 111 buy you a new dress, and a new wig, and we’ll go to Rabbi Motalemi to ask that a son be born to us, and not a daughter, all of this when Shabos-Nakhamu comes. I think he’s someone from the other world.”
“You are not mistaken!” Hershele answered. “God placed these words in your mouth. You will have a son and a daughter. I am Shabos-Nakhamu, mistress!”
The swaddling clothes slipped from Zelda’s knees. She rose and banged her small head against a beam, for Zelda was tall and plump, flushed and young. Her breasts jutted up like two taut sacks filled with seed. Her blue eyes opened wide, like those of a child.
“I am Shabos-Nakhamu, mistress!” Hershele said again. “This is the second month that I am walking the earth helping people. It is a long path from heaven down to earth. My shoes are falling apart. I have brought you greetings from all your loved ones.”
“From Auntie Pesya?” the woman shouted. “And from Papa, and Auntie Golda? You know them?”
“Who doesn’t?” Hershele answered. “I was speaking to them just the way I’m speaking to you now!”
“How are they doing up there?” the woman asked, clutching her belly with trembling fingers.
“They are doing badly,” Hershele said dolefully. “How should a dead person be doing? There are no feasts up there!”
The woman’s eyes filled with tears.
“It is cold up there,” Hershele continued. “They are cold and hungry. They eat just what angels eat, nobody in that world is allowed to eat more than angels. And what do angels need? All they need is a swig of water—up there, you won’t see a glass of vodka in a hundred years!” “Poor Papa!” the devastated woman whispered.
“At Passover he gets one latke. And a blin has to last him a day and a night!”
“Poor Auntie Pesya!” the woman stammered.
“I myself have to go hungry!” Hershele said, turning his head away as a tear rolled down his nose and fell into his beard. “And I’m not allowed to complain, as they think of me as one of them.”
Hershele didnt get any further.
With fat feet slapping over the floor, the woman ran to get plates, bowls, glasses, and bottles. When Hershele started eating, the woman was completely convinced that he was a man from the other world.
To start with, Hershele ate chopped liver with finely diced onions doused in fat. Then he had a glass of the best vodka (orange peels floated in it). Then he had fish, mashing soft potatoes into the aromatic broth, and he poured on the side of his plate half a jar of red horseradish—a horseradish that would have driven five fully decked-out counts to tears of envy.
After the fish, Hershele busied himself with the chicken, and spooned down the soup in which droplets of fat swam. The dumplings, dipped in melted butter, fled into Hersheles mouth like hares fleeing a hunter. I need not dwell on what happened to the pies—what else could have happened to them if one takes into account that at times a whole year would pass without Hershele ever seeing a pie?
After the meal, the woman collected all the things she wanted to send with Hershele to the other world for Papa, Auntie Golda, and Auntie Pesya. For her father she packed a new prayer shawl, a bottle of cherry liqueur, a jar of raspberry jam, and a pouch of tobacco. For Auntie Pesya she brought out some warm gray stockings. For Auntie Golda she pack
ed an old wig, a large comb, and a prayerbook. She also gave Hershele some shoes for himself, a loaf of bread, fat cracklings, and a silver coin.
“Greet everyone from me, Mr. Shabos-Nakhamu! Greet everyone from me!” she called after Hershele as he left, carrying the heavy bundle. “Or why don’t you stay a little longer, until my husband comes back?”
“No,” Hershele said. “I must hurry! Do you think you are the only one I have to see?”
In the dark forest the trees were sleeping, the birds were sleeping, the green leaves were sleeping. The stars that stand watch over us had gone pale and began flickering.
After about a verst, Hershele stopped to catch his breath, heaved the bundle off his shoulder, sat on it, and thought things through.
“One thing I must tell you, Hershele!” he said to himself. “There’s no lack of fools in this world! The mistress of the inn is a fool, but her husband might well be a clever man with big fists and fat cheeks—and a long whip! What if he comes home and then hunts you down in the forest?”
Hershele did not waste time weighing the odds. He immediately buried his bundle and marked the place so that he could find it again.
Then he ran off toward the opposite side of the forest, took off all his clothes, threw his arms around the trunk of a tree, and waited. He did not have to wait long. As dawn approached he heard the lashes of a whip, the smacking lips of a horse, and the clattering of hooves. It was the innkeeper in full pursuit of Mr. Shabos-Nakhamu.
The innkeeper pulled his cart up to Hershele, who stood naked, hugging the tree. He reined in his horse and looked at Hershele with an expression as foolish as that of a monk coming face-to-face with the devil.
“What are you doing?” the innkeeper asked him in a cracked voice.
“I am a man from the other world,” Hershele told him dolefully. “I was robbed—they took some important papers which I was taking to Rabbi Boruchl.”
The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Page 8
