The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine

by Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Isaac Babel

  “They wouldn’t let us live while they were alive,” Broydin said, kicking a memorial with his boot. “And after their death they wouldn’t let us die.”

  Inspired, he told the director of the Communal Economics Department about his reorganization program for the cemetery and his campaign plan against the Jewish Burial Brotherhood.

  “And get rid of them over there too,” the director said, pointing to the beggars who had gathered by the gate.

  “I am already seeing to that,” Broydin answered. “Step by step, everything’s being taken care of.”

  “Well, keep up the good work,” Mayorov,4 the director, said. “I see you have things under control here. Keep up the good work!”

  He placed his boot on the buggys footboard, but suddenly remembered Fedka.

  “By the way, who was that clown back there?”

  “Just some shell-shocked fellow,” Broydin said, lowering his eyes. “There are times when he loses control of himself—but hes been straightened out, and he apologizes.”

  “That Broydin knows his onions,” Mayorov told his companion, as they drove off. “Hes handling things well.”

  The large horse took Mayorov and the director of the Department of Public Services into town. On the way, they passed the old men and women who had been thrown out of the almshouse. They were hobbling along the road in silence, bent under their bundles. Spirited Red Army fighters were herding them into lines. The invalid carts of the paralyzed were screeching. Asthmatic whistling and humble wheezing tore from the chests of the retired cantors, wedding jesters, circumci-sion-feast cooks, and washed-up sales clerks.

  The sun stood high in the sky. The heat tore into the hearts of the heaps of rags dragging themselves along the earth. Their journey lay along a joyless, scorched, stony high road, past shacks of straw and clay, fields smothered by rocks, gutted houses mangled by shells, and past the plague mound.t This inexpressibly sad Odessan high road led from the town to the cemetery.

  SUNSET

  One day Lyovka, the youngest of the Kriks, saw Lyubka's daughter Tabl. “Tabl” in Yiddish means dove. He saw her and left home for three days and nights. The dust of other streets and the geraniums in other people’s windows were a comfort to him. After three days and nights, Lyovka came back home and found his father in the front garden. His father was eating supper. Madame Gorobchik was sitting next to her husband with murder in her eyes.

  “Get out of here, you lout!” Papa Krik said to Lyovka when he saw him.

  “Papa, pick up your tuning fork and tune your ears,” Lyovka said to him.

  “What might be the issue?”

  “There is this girl,” Lyovka said. “Shes got blond hair on her head. Her name is Tabl. ‘Tabl’ in Yiddish means dove. I’ve clapped my eyes on that girl!”

  “You’ve clapped your eyes on a slop bucket!” Papa Krik said. “And her mother is a gangster!”

  On hearing these paternal words, Lyovka rolled up his sleeves and raised a sacrilegious hand to his father. But Madame Gorobchik jumped up from her chair and threw herself between them.

  “Mendel!” she screeched. “Bash in Lyovka’s ugly kisser! Lyovka, he ate eleven from my meatballs!”

  “What? You ate eleven meatballs from your mother?” Mendel shouted, lunging at his son. But Lyovka dodged his blow and ran out of the yard, and Benchik, his older brother, ran with him. They roamed the streets until nightfall, seething like yeast in which vengeance is brewing, and finally Lyovka turned to his brother Benya, who within a few months was destined to become Benya the King: “Benchik,” he said, “lets act now, and people will be lining up to kiss our feet. Lets kill Papa. The Moldavanka no longer calls him Mendel Krik. The Moldavanka is calling him Mendel the Pogrom. Lets kill Papa—can we wait any longer?”

  “No, the time hasn’t come yet,” Benya answered. “But the time is coming. Listen to its footsteps and make way for it. You must step aside, Lyovka.”

  And Lyovka stepped aside to make way for time. Time, that ancient bookkeeper, set out, and along the way met Dvoira, the Kings sister, Manasseh, the carter, and a Russian girl called Marusya Yevtushenko.

  Ten years ago I still knew men who might have wanted Dvoira, the daughter of Mendel the Pogrom, but now goiter is dangling beneath her chin and her eyes are bulging from their sockets. Nobody wants Dvoira. And yet only recently an elderly widower with grown daughters appeared. He wanted a cart and two horses. When Dvoira heard the news, she rushed off to wash her green dress and hung it in the yard to dry. She wanted to call at the widowers to find out how old he was, what kind of horses he wanted, and whether she could get him. But Papa Krik didn’t like widowers. He took the green dress, hid it in his cart, and left for work. Dvoira heated up the flatiron so she could press her dress, but the dress was nowhere to be found, and Dvoira threw herself on the ground and had a fit. Her brothers dragged her to the water pipe and poured water over her. So, my friends, can you see the workings of their father’s, Mendel the Pogroms, hand?

  And now to Manasseh, the old carter, who harnessed Maid of Honor and Solomon the Wise. To his misfortune, he heard that old Butsis, Froim Grach, and Chaim Drong had their horses shod with rubber. Following their example, Manasseh went over to Pyatirubel and had Solomon the Wise shod with rubber. Manasseh loved Solomon the Wise, but Papa Krik told him, Tm not Chaim Drong and Im not Czar Nicholas II, that my horses should go to work in rubber soles!” And he grabbed Manasseh by the collar, lifted him up into his cart, and went riding out of the courtyard with him. Manasseh was dangling from Papa Kriks outstretched arm as from a gallows. The sunset was boiling in the skies, a sunset thick as jam, the bells of Alekseyevsky Church moaned, and the sun was sinking behind Blizhniye Melnitsy,*[“Near Mills,” a poor factory and shantytown suburb.] and Lyovka, the younger son of the house, ran after the cart like a dog running after its master.

  An immense crowd followed the Kriks as if they were an ambulance cart, Manasseh still hanging from Papa Kriks iron grip.

  “Papa, you are crushing my heart with your outstretched hand!” Lyovka shouted over to his father. “Drop my heart, let it roll in the dust!”

  But Mendel didnt even turn around. The horses galloped, the wheels thundered, and the people enjoyed the circus. The cart veered into Dalnitskaya Street, to Ivan Pyatirubel the blacksmith. Mendel threw Manasseh against the wall of the smithy and then hurled him onto a heap of scrap iron. Lyovka ran off to get a bucket of water, and threw it over the old carter Manasseh. So, my friends, can you see the workings of Papa Kriks, Mendel the Pogroms, hand?

  “Time is coming,” Benchik had said, and his brother had stepped aside to make way for time. And so Lyovka stood to the side until Marusya Yevtushenko got knocked up.

  “Marusyas got knocked up,” people whispered, and Papa Krik laughed when he heard them.

  “Marusyas got knocked up,” he said, laughing like a boy “Woe unto Israel! And who is this Marusya?”

  Benya was just coming out of the stables and laid his hand on his fathers shoulder.

  “I am a fan of womens!” Benchik said sternly to his papa, and gave him twenty-five rubles, because he wanted the cleanup to be done by a doctor in a hospital, and not at Marusyas house.

  Til give her the money,” his papa said, “and she can do a cleanup, or I wont live to see a happy day.”

  And the following morning, at the usual time, he harnessed Baby Burglar and Loving Wife, and drove off. But around lunchtime, Marusya Yevtushenko came to the Kriks’ courtyard.

  “Benchik,” she said, “I loved you, you bastard!”

  And she hurled ten rubles in his face. Put two fivers together and they never come to more than a tenner.

  “Were going to kill Papa,” Benchik said to Lyovka, and they sat down on a bench by the gates, and next to them sat Semyon, Anisim the janitors son, who was seven years old. And who would have thought that a little seven-year-old ragamuffin already has love in his heart as well as hatred? Who would think that he loved Mendel the Pogrom? Bu
t love him he did.

  The brothers sat on the bench trying to figure out how old their papa was, and how long the hidden tail of years behind his admitted sixty might be, and Semyon, the janitors son, was sitting next to them.

  At that hour the sun had not yet reached Blizhniye Melnitsy. It poured into the clouds like the blood of a gouged boar, and the carts of old Butsis went rumbling through the streets, returning from work. The milkmaids were already milking the cows for the third time, and Madame Parabellums women were dragging the pails of evening milk up onto her stoop. Madame Parabellum stood on the stoop and clapped her hands.

  “Women! My own women, and the rest too!” she shouted. “Berta Ivanovna, ice-cream makers, and kefir makers! Come get your evening milk!”

  Berta Ivanovna, a German language teacher who received two quarts of milk per lesson, was the first to be poured her portion. Right after her came Dvoira Krik, with an eye out to check how much water Madame Parabellum might have added to her milk and how much baking soda.

  But Benya pulled his sister aside.

  “This evening, if you see the old man has killed us, then go right up to him and smash his head in with your iron colander. And may that be the end of the firm of Mendel Krik and Sons!”

  “Amen! And joyful the day will be!” Dvoira answered, and went outside the gates. And she saw that Semyon, Anisims son, was no longer in the courtyard and that the whole of the Moldavanka was coming over to the Kriks’.

  The Moldavanka was arriving in droves, as if a wake were being held in the Kriks’ yard. The people came running as they come running to a country fair on the second day of Passover. Ivan Pyatirubel the blacksmith came with his pregnant daughter-in-law and his grandchildren. Old Butsis brought along his niece, who had just come on a boat from Kamenets-Podolsk. Tabl came with a Russian man. She was leaning on his arm and twirling the ribbon of her braid. Last of all came Lyubka, galloping in on her roan stallion. And only Froim Grach came all alone, redheaded as rust, one-eyed, and in a sailcloth cloak.

  The people sat down in the front garden and unpacked the food they had brought with them. Workers took off their shoes, sent their children to get beer, and rested their heads on their wives’ stomachs. And Lyovka said to Benchik, his brother, “Mendel the Pogrom is our father,” he said, “Madame Gorobchik is our mother, and these people here are dogs! We are working for dogs!”

  “We must think things through,” Benya answered, but no sooner had he uttered these words than there was a roll of thunder on Golovkovskaya Street. The sun soared up into the sky and spun like a red bowl on the tip of a spear. Old Kriks cart came flying toward the gates. Darling Wife was covered in lather, and Baby Burglar was straining in his harness. The old man raised his whip over the crazed horses. His powerful legs were firmly planted on the cart, crimson sweat was seething on his face, and he was singing a song in a drunken voice. And suddenly Semyon, Anisims son, slithered through somebody’s legs like a snake and went scuttling out onto the street, shouting at the top of his voice, “Turn back the cart, Uncle Krik! Your sons want to give you a beating!”

  But it was too late. Papa Krik flew into the courtyard with his foaming horses. He lifted his whip, opened his mouth, and—was struck dumb. The people sitting in his front garden were staring at him. Benya was standing on the left side of the yard by the dovecote. Lyovka was standing on the right side of the yard by the janitor’s hut.

  “People, neighbors!” Mendel Krik said barely audibly, lowering his whip. “Take a look at my own flesh and blood lifting a hand to strike me!”

  And the old man jumped off the cart and hurled himself at Benya and smashed his nose with his fist. Lyovka came running, and did all he could do. He shuffled his father’s face like a fresh deck of cards. But the old man was sewn of the devil’s hide, and the stitches of this hide were reinforced with cast iron. The old man wrenched Lyovkas arms back and threw him on the ground next to his brother. He sat on Lyovkas chest, and the women closed their eyes so as not to see the old mans broken teeth and his face covered with blood. And at that moment the people of the indescribable Moldavanka heard Dvoiras voice and fast steps.

  “This is for Lyovka,” she said, “and for Benchik, and for me, Dvoira, and for all the others!” And she smashed her father’s head with the heavy iron colander. The people jumped up and came running toward them, waving their arms. They dragged the old man to the water pipe as Dvoira had once been dragged, and turned on the faucet. Blood flowed like water into the gutter, and the water flowed like blood. Madame Gorobchik elbowed her way through the crowd, hopping up to them like a sparrow.

  “Don’t be silent, Mendel,” she said in a whisper. “Yell something, Mendel.

  But she heard the silence in the courtyard, and saw that the old man had just come from work, that the horses had not been unharnessed, and that nobody had poured water on the heated wheels, and so she went scuttling through the courtyard like a three-legged dog. And the honorable citizens drew closer. Papa Krik lay with his beard pointing upward.

  “Hes done for!” Froim Grach said, and turned away.

  “Cashed in his rubles!” Chaim Drong said, but Ivan Pyatirubel the blacksmith waved his finger right in front of Chaims nose.

  “Three against one,” Pyatirubel said. “A disgrace for all Moldavanka, but its not night yet. I have yet to meet a fellow who could finish off old Krik!”

  “It is night!” Arye-Leib cut in, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. “It is night, Ivan Pyatirubel. Oy, Russian man, do not say it isn’t, when everything around you yells that it is!”

  And Arye-Leib squatted down next to Papa Krik and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, kissed his forehead, and told him about King David, the King of all the Jews, who had many wives, much land and treasure, and who could always weep when the time was right.

  “Stop whining, Arye-Leib!” Chaim Drong shouted, thumping him on the back. “Dont read us a funeral service, you’re not in your cemetery now!” He turned to Papa Krik and said, “Get up, you old drayman! Wet your whistle, say something foul like you always do, you old roughneck, and get a couple of carts ready for the morning—I have some trash I want carted off]”

  And all the people waited to see what Mendel would say about the carts. But for a long time he said nothing. Then he opened his eyes and his mouth, caked with dirt and hair, blood seeping from his lips.

  “I dont have no carts,” Papa Krik said. “My sons have killed me. Let them take over.”

  And yet they who were to take over Mendel Kriks bitter inheritance were not to be envied. They were not to be envied because all the hay troughs in the stable had long been rotting away, and half the wheels needed to be refitted. The sign above the gates had fallen apart, you couldn’t read a single word, and none of the carters had even a single pair of underpants left. Half the town owed money to Mendel Krik, but his horses licked the numbers written in chalk on the walls as they browsed for oats in their feeding troughs. All day long muzhiks came to the dumbfounded heirs demanding money for chaff and barley. All day long women came to get their golden rings and nickel-plated samovars out of pawn. Peace left the house of the Kriks, but Benya, who within a few months was destined to become Benya the King, did not give up, and ordered a new sign: “Horse-Carting Establishment Mendel Krik & Sons.” He wanted this to be written in gold letters on a sky-blue background with garlands of horseshoes painted bronze surrounding them. He also bought a bale of sailcloth ticking so that underwear for his carters could be made, and an unheard-of amount of timber to repair the carts. He hired Pyatirubel for a whole week and wrote out receipts for each customer. And—you can believe what I am telling you—by the evening of the following day he was more worn out than if he had made fifteen trips from the Watermelon Docks to the Odessa Tovarnaya Railroad Depot. And in the evening—you can believe what I am telling you—he didnt find so much as a crumb of bread or a single washed plate. Try fathoming the passionate barbarism of Madame Gorobchik! The dirt lay unswept in the rooms, an unpre
cedented pot of jellied veal was thrown to the dogs. And Madame Gorobchik stood by her husbands bed like a mud-drenched crow on an autumn branch.

  “Keep an eye on them,” Benchik told his younger brother, “keep our two newlyweds under a microscope, because I tell you Lyovka, it looks to me like they re cooking something up.”

  That is what Lyovka was told by his brother Benchik, who could see through everything with the eyes of Benya the King, but Lyovka, the second fiddle, didn’t believe him and went to sleep. His papa was already snoring on the boards, while Madame Gorobchik was tossing and turning. She kept spitting onto the wall and the floor. Her malicious character kept her from sleeping. But in the end she too fell asleep. The stars scattered in front of the window like urinating soldiers, green stars on a blue field. A gramophone at Petka Ovsyanitsy’s house across the street played Jewish songs. Then the gramophone fell silent. The night went about its business, and the air, the rich air, poured through the window to Lyovka, the youngest of the Kriks. He loved the air, Lyovka did. He lay there, breathing, dozing, frolicking with the air. He savored this richness until he heard rustling and creaking from his fathers bed. Lyovka closed his eyes and made his ears stand to attention. Papa Krik raised his head like a mouse sniffing the air, and got out of bed. The old man pulled a bag of money out from under his pillow and swung his boots over his shoulder. Lyovka let him go—for where could he get to, the old dog? So Lyovka crept after his father, and also saw Benchik come creeping along the wall on the other side of the courtyard. The old man stole quietly to the carts and stuck his head in the stable. He whisded to the horses, and the horses came running to rub their muzzles on Mendels head. Night was in the courtyard, night filled with stars, blue air, and silence.