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

by Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Isaac Babel

  “You’re done with fighting, boys?” I shout to the wounded.

  “Were done with fighting,” the wounded answer, and they move their checkers made of bread pellets.

  “Too soon,” I tell the wounded, “too soon have you finished fighting, infantry, when the enemy walks on soft paws not fifteen versts from this town, and when you can read of our international situation in the Krasny Kavalerist newspaper, that its one big disaster and that the horizon is full of black clouds!” But my words bounced off the heroic infantry like sheep dung from a regimental drum, and instead of a discussion the sisters of mercy led us off to some bunks and started all that drivel again about how we should hand in our weapons as if we had already been defeated! They agitated Kustov beyond words, and he began tearing at the wound on his left shoulder above his bleeding heart of a fighter and proletarian. Seeing his struggle, the nurses were quiet, but they only were quiet for the shortest time, and then again the partyless masses began making fim, and in the night the nurses sent volunteers ready to rip our clothes off us as we slept, or force us for Cultural and Educational Work to play theater roles in womens clothes, which is unseemly.

  Unmerciful sisters! They tried more than once to trick us out of our clothes with sleeping powders, so that we started sleeping in shifts with one eye open, and we even went to the latrine in full uniform and with our revolvers. And suffering like this for a week and a day, so that we were already ranting and seeing visions, finally, waking on the accused morning of August 4, we noted on ourselves the following change: that we are lying there in shirts with numbers on them, like prisoners, without weapons and without the clothes sewn by our mothers, poor doddering old women from Kuban. And the sun, we see, is shining nice and bright, but the trench infantry, among who we three Red Cavalrymen are suffering, is hooliganizing us! And along with them the unmerciful sisters, who the night before gave us sleeping powders and now are wiggling their fresh breasts, bringing us trays with cococoa to drink, and milk enough in this cococoa to drown in! This whole frolicking merry-go-round makes the infantry bang their crutches on the ground so loud its dreadful, and they pinch our bottoms like were buyable females, yelling that Budyonnys First Cavalry has also finished fighting. But no, my curly-headed Comrades, you who have stuffed yourselves with such splendid paunches that rattle like machine guns in the night! Budyonny’s First Cavalry has not yet finished fighting! So what we did was we excused ourselves as if we had to go answer a call of nature. Then the three of us went down into the courtyard and from the courtyard we went with our fevers and blue boils to Citizen Boyderman, the chairman of the Revolutionary Committee, without whom, Comrade Investigator Burdenko, it would never have come to this misunderstanding with the shooting—in other words, if it hadn’t been for him, I mean if it hadnt been for the chairman of the Revolutionary Committee, who made us lose our senses completely. And even though we cannot present hard evidence about Citizen Boyderman, when we came in to the office of the chairman of the Revolutionary Committee, we noticed that he was a citizen of advanced years in a sheepskin coat, of Jewish nationality, sitting at the table, and the table is so full of papers that it is a terrible sight to see. And Citizen Boydermans eyes dart first to one side, then to the other, and it is clear he has no idea what these papers are. These papers are a misery to him, even more so when unknown but deserving fighters come threatening, demanding rations, while one after the other local workers interrupt, informing him of the counterrevolution in the surrounding villages. And also regular workers suddenly appear who wish to get married at the Revolutionary Committee as soon as possible and without red tape. And we too announced with loud voices the incidents of treason at the hospital, but Citizen Boyderman only stared at us and his eyes darted again first to one side and then to the other, and he patted us on the shoulder, which already is not an Authority, and unworthy of an Authority! He didnt issue any resolution at all, and only announced, “Comrade Fighters, if you have compassion for the Soviet State, then leave these premises!” But we would not agree to do this, in other words, leave the premises, but demanded a full verification of his person, which, when he would not do that, we lost consciousness. And having lost consciousness, we went out onto the square in front of the hospital, where we disarmed the militia which was made up of one cavalry individual, and with tears in our eyes destroyed the three poor-quality windowpanes in the aforementioned storeroom. Dr. Yaveyn, during this unallowable action, made faces and chuckled, and all that at the very moment when four days later Comrade Kustov was to die of his illness!

  In his short Red life, Comrade Kustov was endlessly distressed about treason, which one moment is winking at us from the window, the next is making fun of the coarse proletariat. But the proletariat,

  Comrades, knows full well how coarse treason is, and we are pained by that, our soul is burning, and its fire tears our bodily prison to pieces.

  Treason, I tell you, Comrade Investigator Burdenko, grins at us from the window, treason creeps in its socks through our house, treason has flung its boots over its shoulders, so that the floorboards of the house it is about to ransack will not creak.

  CZESNIKI

  The Sixth Division had gathered in the forest near the village of Czesniki and waited for the signal to attack. But Pavlichenko, commander of the Sixth Division, was waiting for the Second Brigade, and would not give the signal. So Voroshilov* rode up to the division commander and prodded his chest with the muzzle of his horse.

  “Were dawdling, Division Commander,” he said,“were dawdling!”

  “The Second Brigade is proceeding as you ordered at full trot to the place of engagement,” Pavlichenko answered in a hollow voice.

  “Were dawdling, Division Commander, were dawdling!” Voroshilov repeated, tugging at his reins.

  Pavlichenko took a step back.

  “In the name of conscience,” he shouted, wringing his clammy fingers, “in the name of conscience, do not rush me, Comrade Voroshilov.”

  “Do not rush me?” hissed Klim Voroshilov, the political representative of the Revolutionary War Council, closing his eyes. He sat on his horse, silent, his eyes closed, his lips moving. A Cossack wearing bast sandals and a bowler hat stared at him in amazement. The galloping squadrons went crashing through branches, roaring through the forest like the wind. Voroshilov combed his horses mane with his Mauser.

  “Army Commander!” he yelled, turning to Budyonny. “Say a few words to your troops before we ride! There he is, the Pole, standing on top of the hill like a pretty picture, laughing at you!”

  * Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov, 1881-1969, was a close friend and colleague of Stalin’s, and cofounder with Budyonny of the Red Cavalry.

  As a matter of fact, we could see the Poles through our binoculars. The army staff jumped onto their horses and the Cossacks streamed toward Budyonny from all sides.

  Ivan Akinfiev, the former vehicular driver of the Revolutionary Tribunal, rode past sitting sidesaddle, and prodded me with his stirrup.

  “What? You’re with the troops now, Ivan?” I called out to him. “You’ve got no ribs left!”

  “I you-know-what these ribs,” Akinfiev called back. “Let’s hear what the man has to say!”

  He rode on and pushed his way through right up to Budyonny. Budyonny shuddered, and said in a quiet voice: “Men! Our situations . . . well, it’s . . . bad. A bit more liveliness, men!”

  “To Warsaw!” the Cossack in the bast sandals and the bowler hat yelled, his eyes wild, and he slashed the air with his saber.

  “To Warsaw!” Voroshilov shouted, rearing his horse and vaulting into the center of the squadrons.

  “Fighters and Commanders!” he shouted passionately. “In Moscow, our ancient capital, there rages a power never before seen! A government of workers and peasants, the first in the world, orders you, fighters and commanders, to attack the enemy and bring back victory!” “Draw your sabers!” Pavlichenko sang out from far behind the army commander, and his fat crimson lips g
listened foam-speckled through the ranks. Pavlichenko’s red Cossack coat hung in tatters, his repulsive, meaty face was twisted. He saluted Voroshilov with the blade of his precious saber.

  “In accordance with my duty to the revolutionary pledge,” said the commander of Division Six, wheezing, his eyes darting around, “I hereby report to the Revolutionary War Council that the Second Invincible Cavalry Brigade is at the present time moving at a fast trot to the place of engagement!”

  “Well, get on with it,” Voroshilov answered, waving him away. He tugged at his reins and rode off, with Budyonny at his side. On their long-limbed chestnut mares they rode next to each other in identical military jackets and glittering silver-embroidered trousers. The fighters, whooping, flocked after them, and pale steel gleamed in the puru-lence of the autumn sun. But I did not hear solidarity in the howls of the Cossacks, and, waiting for the attack, I went into the forest, into its heart, to our provision station.

  A wounded Red Army soldier lay there in a delirium, and Styopka Duplishchev, a young, dim-witted Cossack, was rubbing down Hurricane, the division commander’s thoroughbred stallion, which was descended from Lyulyusha, the Rostov record holder. The wounded man was rambling, reminiscing about Shuya, about a heifer and some sort of flax strands. Duplishchev, to drown out the pitiful muttering, was singing a song about an orderly and a fat generals wife. He sang louder and louder, waving his currycomb and patting the horse. But he was interrupted by Sashka, puffy Sashka, the lady of all the squadrons. She rode up to Duplishchev and jumped off her horse.

  “So we’ll do it, or what?” Sashka said to him.

  “Get out of here,” the young Cossack answered, turning his back to her, and began plaiting ribbons into Hurricanes mane.

  “You stick to your word, Styopka!” Sashka told him. “Or are you just a lump of boot wax?”

  “Get out of here!” Styopka answered. “I stick to my word.”

  He plaited all the ribbons into the horses mane, and suddenly turned to me in despair. “Just look at that! See how she tortures me, Kiril Vasilich? For a whole month already you wouldn’t believe what I’ve had to put up with! Wherever I turn to, she’s there, wherever I run to, she blocks my path, always wanting me to let the stallion have a go. But the division commander tells me every day, ‘Styopka,’ he tells me, with a stallion like this one, many will be coming to ask you to let the stallion have a go, but don’t let him, not before he’s four!’ ”

  “I bet you you won’t be letting anyone before he’s fifteen,” Sashka muttered, and turned away. “And when he’s fifteen, you’ll be drooling bubbles, for all I know!”

  She went over to her mare, tightened the saddle strap, and was about to ride off.

  The spurs on her boots clattered, her lace stockings were full of straw and spattered with dirt, her monstrous breasts went swinging toward her back.

  “And to think I brought a ruble with me,” Sashka said to herself, shoving her spurred boot into the stirrup. “I brought it with me but now I’ll have to take it away again.”

  She took out two fifty-kopeck coins, jingled them in her palm, and hid them again in her cleavage.

  “So well do it, or what?” Duplishchev said, his eyes fixed on the silver, and he brought over the stallion.

  Sashka went to a sloping place in the clearing and had her mare stand there.

  “You’d be amazed, but you’re the only one in these mudfields who’s got a stallion,” she said to Styopka, pushing Hurricane into position. “My mare’s a frontline war horse, two years now she hasn’t been humped, so I says to myself—why not get her some good blood?”

  Sashka finished with the stallion, and then led her horse to the side.

  “So, sweetie, we got our stuffing now,” she whispered, kissing her mare’s wet, skewbald lips from which slobbering strands of spittle hung. She rubbed her cheek against the mare’s muzzle, and suddenly noticed the noise thudding through the forest.

  “The Second Brigade’s coming back,” Sashka said sternly, turning to me. “We must go, Lyutov!”

  “Coming back, not coming back, I don’t give a damn!” Duplishchev shouted, the words getting stuck in his throat. “You’ve had your feast, now pay the priest!”

  “My money’s nice and fine where it is!” Sashka muttered, and leaped onto her mare.

  I dashed after her, and we rode off in full gallop. Duplishchev’s howl and the light thud of a gunshot rang out behind us.

  “Just look at that!” the Cossack boy yelled as loudly as he could, running through the forest.

  The wind hopped through the branches like a crazed rabbit, the Second Brigade went flying through the Galician oak trees, the placid dust of the cannonade rose above the earth as above a peaceful hut. And at a sign from the division commander, we launched our attack, the unforgettable attack on Czesniki.

  AFTER THE BATTLE

  The story of my fight with Akinfiev is as follows:

  On the thirty-first came the attack on Czesniki. The squadrons had gathered in the forest next to the village, and hurled themselves at the enemy at six in the evening. The enemy was waiting for us on a hill three versts away. We galloped the three versts on our totally exhausted horses, and when we got to the hill we saw a deadly wall of black uniforms and pale faces. They were Cossacks who had betrayed us at the beginning of the Polish Campaign and had been rounded up into a brigade by Cossack Captain Yakovlev. The Cossack captain formed his horsemen into a square formation, and waited with his saber unsheathed. A gold tooth flashed in his mouth and his black beard lay on his chest like an icon on the chest of a corpse. The enemys machine guns fired at twenty paces; wounded men fell in our lines. We went trampling over them and hurled ourselves at the enemy, but his square formation did not waver, and we turned and ran.

  So the Savinkov Cossacks gained a short-lived victory over the Sixth Division. They gained the victory because they did not turn their faces from the lava flow of our oncoming squadrons. The Cossack captain stood firm that time, and we ran without reddening our sabers with the traitors’ contemptible blood.

  Five thousand men, our whole division, poured down the slope with no one in pursuit. The enemy stayed on the hill, unable to believe their illogical victory and muster their wits to set out in pursuit after us. That is why we survived and went bounding into the valley unharmed, where we were met by Vinogradov, our military commissar. Vinogradov was dashing about on his crazed horse trying to send the fleeing Cossacks back into battle.

  “Lyutov!” he yelled when he saw me. “Get those fighters to turn around or 111 rip your soul out!”

  Vinogradov pounded his tottering stallion with the butt of his Mauser, howled, and tried rounding up the men. I got away from him and rode up to Gulimov, a Kirghiz, who was galloping past.

  “Gulimov! Get back up there!” I yelled to him. “Turn back your horse!”

  “Turn back your own damn horse!” Gulimov yelled back. His eyes darted about thievishly and he fired a shot, singeing the hair above my ear.

  “Turn your own horse back,” Gulimov hissed, grabbed my shoulder with one hand, and tried unsheathing his saber with the other. The saber was jammed in its sheath, the Kirghiz shuddered and looked around. He held my shoulder tightly and brought his head closer and closer.

  “Yours first,” he whispered almost inaudibly, “and mine will follow.” And he tapped me lightly on the chest with the blade of his saber, which he had managed to unsheathe.

  I felt a wave of nausea from deaths closeness and its tight grip. With the palm of my hand I pushed away the Kirghiz’s face, hot as a stone in the sun, and scratched it with all my might. Warm blood rippled under my nails, tickling them. I rode away from Gulimov, out of breath as after a long journey. My horse, my tormented friend, trotted slowly. I rode without looking where I was going, I rode without turning around, until I came across Vorobyov, the commander of the First Squadron. Vorobyov was looking for his quartermasters and couldn’t find them. He and I made our way to Czesniki and sa
t down on a bench along with Akinfiev, the former vehicular driver of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Sashka, the nurse of the Thirty-first Cavalry Regiment, came by, and two commanders sat down on the bench with us. The commanders sat there in silence, dozing. One of them was shell-shocked, shaking his head uncontrollably and winking with one bloated eye. Sashka went to tell the people at the field hospital about him, and then came back to us, dragging her horse behind her by the reins. Her mare resisted, her hooves skidding in the wet mud.