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

by Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Isaac Babel

  “Why are you laughing?” the doctor asks her, lifting his cap off his tender, balding head to her.

  “It is such fun to be traveling on a Moscow tram,” Rachel answers, her laughter growing stronger.

  The doctor hurries away from her.

  “Another hysterical woman,” he says to himself. “Oh, God, they are all hysterical!”

  • • •

  The Rossiya boardinghouse is located in an old side street in the Varvarka quarter, near Staraya Square. It is run by an old couple, the Butsenkos: Ivan Potapich and Evdokiya Ignatevna. Life there has been clean and happy. They have had many healthy children, all of whom graduated from specialized institutes: the Institute of Land Surveying, the College of Mining, the Petrovsk-Razumovsky Academy. None of Butsenko’s sons suffered from foolish Russian passions. None of them had joined the God-haters or hung themselves in railroad station washrooms or married Jewesses.

  The boardinghouse of old Butsenko and his wife is outstanding for its cleanliness. Its cleanliness shines like the countenance of

  Jesus Christ. In every room a little icon hangs on the prim bed curtains. Grain merchants from Liven, Yelets, and Ryazhsk stay at the Rossiya, men with unmenacing inclinations who expect their food to be brought up to their rooms and that the food be home cooking: it didn’t matter how it was cooked, as long as it wasnt restaurant food.

  The Butsenkos usually had kindhearted maids working for them. These were sickly women from faraway provinces—from Arkhangelsk, from the White Sea—and the Russian they spoke was so colorful and picturesque that if they weren’t employed as maids they would have made good reciters of northern epics and sagas, and crowds would have flocked to the theaters to hear them.

  That is what the Rossiya boardinghouse was like.

  • • •

  The Butsenkos’ kitchen. Evdokiya Ignatevna, a crimson little old woman, is busy cooking at the stove. Ivan Potapich, enveloped by fluffy, aromatic gray hair, is writing out a menu for tomorrow. At the bottom of every page he writes, “Sincerely Yours.” Both he and his wife are wearing aprons and have taut, neatly protruding bellies

  The doorbell rings. Rachel Monko comes into the kitchen and timidly hands Butsenko a letter. He reads it standing, and with the seriousness of a judge listening to witnesses taking their oath, but the further he reads, the brighter and more tender his smile becomes.

  “It’s from Vladimir Semyonich,” he tells the crimson little old woman, “our dear friend.”

  Here is Vladimir Semyonich’s letter:

  Dearest Ivan Potapich. I recommend with all my heart the bearer of this letter, a girl from my town and a very dear person indeed, to be a lodger with full board at your boardinghouse. She left this godforsaken hole with the greatest difficulty, as she wants to pursue dentistry, or some other form of education that might be possible for her and to which this dear girl from my town might feel “an attraction, a consuming passion,” and I hope that you will help her, you and your hardworking Evdokiya Ignatevna (who I remember as if it were yesterday, though if she remembers me I do not know, although I sincerely hope she does). . . .

  Ivan Potapich finishes reading the letter, tenderly and with tears in his eyes, and then clasps Rachels hands in his own soft, grandfatherly hands.

  “How can I forget Vladimir Semyonich!” the old man says. “The year before last we celebrated Christmas together in Ostankino. . . .”

  And Ivan Potapich cant say any more, because it would be hard to explain the tale of his acquaintance with Vladimir Semyonich, a tale of no interest whatsoever to anyone else, but which for him, Ivan Potapich, has many hidden treasures of the soul.

  The year before last, in a wonderful, tranquil snowy winter, Ivan Potapich had gone to visit his eldest son in Ostankino for the Christmas feast, and there met an agronomist, Vladimir Semyonich, who was a friend of some friend or other. The guests had arrived, given presents to the children, thrown snow off the roof for fun, knocked icicles off the drainpipes, and drunk French wine. Vladimir Semyonich, increasingly intoxicated, began telling old Butsenko the kind of secrets one ought not to tell a stranger. But the agronomist spoke with such gravity and candor, so self-mockingly, that there was no shamefulness at all in his confidences, only warm esteem for a stranger, in other words for Ivan Potapich. The agronomist told the old man that his wife was a very silent sort of woman and had managed things in such a way that she would not have to bear his children, and other such secrets.

  The following day the guests had gotten up at noon. Midday looked like morning. The snow glittered, the windows sparkled, and a plump nanny, battling to restrain her joy, kept shuffling and wheezing from one stove to another with more wood.

  Ivan Potapich returned to Moscow with the agronomist in a small sledge pulled by well-trained gray horses with round cruppers, and the old man could not marvel enough at the fact that he had no heartburn or hangover from the wine he had drunk the night before, which made him like his chance companion all the more.

  That was the extent of Butsenko s acquaintance with the agronomist. Vladimir Semyonich had sent two other letters from the provinces asking for little favors that Butsenko was glad to do. In the first letter, he asked for a seed catalogue, in the second he asked Butsenko to find out whether it was really true that the Siementhal milk cows from Derazhny had been given a favorable report at the Moscow

  Agricultural Exhibition, and the third letter was about Rachel. Ivan Potapich is eager to fulfill the third request. He calls out loudly to his wife, “Mother, put the samovar on, and bring some pies!” And he leads Rachel to her room. Outside the window stands a little azure-colored church with yellow onion-shaped cupolas and dark blue stars on the domes. When she sees the church, Rachel realizes that everything in her life has changed for the better, and that her dream to see Moscow has finally come true. The old man, panting and bathed in glistening sweat, hurries in with a jug of water and stands there with a towel, waiting for Rachel to finish washing her face and hands. But she takes a long time. Girls raised in a strict family and who expect much from life take their time washing up. The old man, tired of waiting, leafs through Rachels passport, which she has left lying on the table. The name in the passport is Rachel Hananevna Monko. The heading on the third page reads: “Zones in which Jews are permitted to reside.”

  Rachel has finished washing up and reaches out her strong red hands to take the towel the old man is holding. But the old mans face has become pitiful and angry.

  “How shameful of you to try and trick us!” he says, hiding the towel behind his back. “How shameful!”

  He hurries out of the room with weak steps, and outside the door comes face-to-face with his wife, who is holding a tray and is enveloped in the steam of a samovar, pies, and buns.

  “Take those things back to the kitchen!” Ivan Potapich yells. “You can learn a lesson from people like her whoVe thrown their shame to the dogs!”

  • • •

  Rachel has not found refuge at the Rossiya boardinghouse. She wanders through the streets till midnight looking for a place to stay. At midnight she arrives tired out at Voskresenskaya Square near Iverskaya Street, which is reverberating with the cheerful din of Moscow. Gypsy children dancing in the street rush over to Rachel and form a circle around her, singing and beating their tambourines. An old Persian man approaches Rachel and lays his hand on her shoulder. He slithers a regal finger with a painted nail down to her breast. A holy fool strides up to her on his bare, pink, monstrously thin legs, which are bent and creaking at the joints. Yellow spittle is bubbling in his tangled beard, and a blue ray glimmers on the chain bound around his neck. The blue ray glimmers on the chain the way a frozen tree-lined walk glimmers beneath the moon. In a chapel, candle wax glows and flares up, and the battle, the cheerful battle of Moscow’s streets, rages around Rachel.

  The Persian, fixing her with his eyes, pinches her with his painted fingers, and the gypsy children chase her and start pulling at the hem of her skirt. Rachel r
uns as fast as she can. She runs across Red Square, over the Moscow River, into the Zamoskvoreche quarter, and into a winding back alley. At the end of the alley hangs a smoking lantern over a ramshackle door. “Rooming house for travelers—every convenience,” is written under the lantern. “The Hero of Plevna Rooming House.”

  The stars in this back alley are immense, the snow pure, the heavens deep.

  • • •

  In the office of the Hero of Plevna Rooming House, the attendant, a widower by the name of Orlov, is getting his son Matvei ready for bed. Matvei, a ten-year-old boy, is wrapped in purple and orange rags, his pants are multilayered, and his father pulls off each layer separately. Matvei has just learned a poem by heart as homework for school, and he cannot resist reciting it to his father.

  “With his saber he pierced my soul,” Matvei whispers as he dozes off. “He tore out my beating heart, and wrenching my wound apart, he plunged in some fiery coal.”

  “A beautiful little poem,” Orlov says, and as a good-night blessing makes the sign of the cross three times over his son. “See, all of life can be squeezed into a little poem like that. It’s about us too, you know, how we let every good-for-nothing step on our toes, and its about God, and about mothers.”

  For a long time Orlov continues telling Matvei about life, about mothers and good-for-nothings, but Matvei is already asleep. Orlov shakes out his sons jacket and examines it to see if there are any tears in it, and Rachel enters the office.

  “Could I have a room, please?” she asks timidly.

  “We don’t let in no girls without a fellow,” Orlov answers. He bites

  off a thread and sits down to darn his sons jacket. “Whore you with? Where’s your trick?”

  Rachel has no idea what he means. She has no idea what Orlov is talking about. She goes down the stairs and out into the back alley. The stars in this back alley are immense, the snow pure, the heavens deep. A pregnant woman with a scalded face, her belly protruding crookedly, is sitting on the front step, softly singing a peasant wedding song. A student is standing next to her, a rakish, devil-may-care cap on his brown curls.

  “Well, what have we here?” the student says to Rachel. “Who are you?

  “Im a Jewess,” Rachel answers.

  If at this point the two of them had not been able to come to some kind of agreement, life wouldn’t have been worth all the trouble.

  “The man won’t give you a room because you’re without a fellow, and he won’t give me a room because I’m without a girl,” the student says to Rachel. “My name is Baulin, I’m a fellow you can trust.”

  If at this point Orlov had had enough fire in his soul to be taken aback by anything, then he would have been taken aback by how two people he had thrown out separately could reappear so quickly, and reappear together.

  “We want a room, pops,” Baulin calls out to him without coming into the reception area. Orlov puts down the jacket and spits on his finger, pricked by the needle.

  “Ha! And she said she didn’t have a john!” he mutters, and heads down the hallway with a candle to take them to their room.

  The hallway of the Hero of Plevna smells of grain, bread, and apples, and a pile of broken chamber pots and tin washbasins lies against a wall. In another corner lies a pile of pictures in gold frames. Orlov shuffles down the hallway and opens the door to a room.

  “There we go,” he says. “Hand over the cash now.”

  “Change these holy chasubles here, will you?” Baulin tells Orlov, pointing at the stained sheets.

  “We change the sheets after every client!” Orlov says, whisking off the dirty sheet, draping it over a table, and covering the bed with a damp rag that smells of garlic. Orlov slouches off and comes back clutching a chamber pot.

  “Everything’s in order,” he says, stumbling back because Baulin has thumped him in the chest.

  “Get out of here, you scum,” Baulin whispers in despair, beating Orlovs arms. “Please, get out of here! Please!” Orlov hides the chamber pot behind his back and with bitter triumph says, “You were still dribbling snot all over your mother when I had a family of six to feed!”

  Orlovs cheeks flush, he turns as red as a consumptive, and doesn’t want to leave even after he has been paid for the room. Then he suddenly remembers that he has to wash Matvei’s shirt and walks out of the room, leaving Baulin and Rachel alone. Outside the window lies the black water of the Moscow River and night pierced with golden holes. Rachel looks out the window, rubs the damp glass with the utmost tenderness in her trembling fingers, and begins to cry. She walks over to the mirror, but foul messages have been scratched all over it. One of them had been etched in cursive Church Slavonic script: “Tonight at midnight I had a session with a fabulous girl, but she wont tell me her name. I hope I didn’t catch anything.”

  There are many messages etched onto the mirror, and Baulin pulls Rachel away from that shameful place.

  “My dear friend,” he says, his voice resounding, “you lie down on the bed, and I’ll lie down by the door. We might even catch some sleep.”

  Out of his overcoat he takes a packet of illegal proclamations printed by the Moscow Committee of the Social Democratic Party and lays it under his head, laughs, and goes to sleep.

  It’s two in the morning. The cheerful Moscow bustle has come to an end, the candle has gone out. Baulin has begun to snore. Next door the tedious, melodious voice of a woman whines.

  “You’re such a Yid, Vanya!” the tedious voice whines. “You’re up to your old tricks again! You say you’ll pay me, but may I not live to see another day if I don’t bite the coin you give me!”

  A STORY

  This story is an earlier version of "The Bathroom Window."

  ^7^have an old acquaintance—Fanya Osipovna Kebchik. She had / been a prostitute in her youth, but she assures me that “nothing in the world” would have induced her to take less than five rubles.

  Now she has a “nice, respectable apartment.” There are two girls there, Marusya and Tamara. Marusya is really nice, gentle, and with a delicate build. There are many requests for her. One of the windows in her room has a view of the street, the other—just a small one up by the ceiling—has a view of the bathroom. When I noticed this, I suggested the following deal to Fanya Osipovna Kebchik: for five rubles she would put a ladder by the little window in the bathroom, I would climb up the ladder, and for an hour or two, or for however long I wanted, I would peek into Marusya’s room.

  At first Fanya Osipovna was astonished at my suggestion, but then she said, “Oy, you rogue, you!” And . . . agreed.

  She got her five rubles quite often. Needless to say, I only made use of the little window when Marusya had clients.

  For me there is no greater bliss than passionlessly following the play of passion on people’s faces.

  What astonishing moments I spent! I remember an old, thickset man crying quietly on the edge of the bed, a drunken English soldier, coldly beating the girl with icy malice. There were disgusting types too. I particularly remember a drooling high school boy, his body covered

  with pimples, shivering with impatience and muttering bookishly, “Oh, how I want you! Give yourself to me!”

  Recently something very unpleasant happened. I was standing on the ladder. Marusya had a client. Luckily they hadn’t turned off the light. (They often do, which is bothersome.) Her guest was a fine fellow, cheerful, unassuming, with one of those large, harmless mustaches. He undressed in a funny way, very prim and proper: he took off his collar, looked in the mirror, noticed a pimple under his mustache, went closer to the mirror, studied the pimple, pressed it out, and then quite cheerfully made a few faces. He took off his boots and again rushed to the mirror—might there be a scratch? They lay down, kissed, tickled one another. All very ordinary. I was about to climb down, when I slipped. The ladder fell with a crash, and there I was, dangling in the air. The apartment was suddenly full of commotion. A hysterical screech came from Marusyas room. Everyone came runni
ng, Fanya Osipovna, Tamara, some official in a Ministry of Education uniform. They helped me down. My situation was pitiful. Marusya ran in half dressed, her lanky client in tow, his clothes thrown on hastily. Marusya guessed what had happened, and froze. She looked at me long and hard, and said quietly, and with surprise, “What a bastard, oh, what a bastard!”

  She fell silent, stared at all of us, went over to the lanky man, and for some reason kissed his hand and started to cry softly.

  “My dear, oh, God, my dear!” she said, between kisses and sobs, caressing him.

  The lanky man stood there like a total idiot. My soul turned inside out. I went over to Madam Kebchik.

  Within half an hour, Marusya knew the secret. All was forgiven and forgotten. But I was still wondering why Marusya had kissed the lanky fellow.

  “Madam Kebchik,” I said. ‘Til give you ten rubles if you let me look again.”

  Madam Kebchik assured me that I was out of my mind, but ten rubles is ten rubles. So I stood again on top of the ladder, looked into the room, and saw Marusya, her thin white arms wrapped around her client, kissing him with long, slow kisses.

  Tears were flowing from her eyes.

  “My darling!” she whispered. “Oh, God, my sweet darling!” And she gave herself to him with all the passion of a woman in love.

  She looked at him as if he, the lanky fellow, were the only man in the world.

  And the lanky fellow wallowed in businesslike bliss.

  INFORMATION

  This story is an earlier version of "My First Fee."

  n answer to your inquiry, I would like to inform you that I set out

  ^ on my literary career early in life, when I was about twenty. I was drawn to writing by a natural affinity, and also by my love for a woman named Vera. She was a prostitute from Tiflis, and among her friends she had the reputation of being a woman with a good head for business. People came to pawn things with her, she helped young women launch their careers, and on occasion traded alongside Persians at the Eastern Bazaar. She went out on the Golovinsky Boulevard every evening, hovering before the crowds—tall, her face a radiant white—as the Mother of God hovers before the prow of a fishing boat. I saved up some money, crept after her silently, and finally mustered the courage to approach her. Vera asked me for ten rubles, leaned against me with her soft, large shoulders, and forgot all about me.