The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine
Page 74
since Alexei Selivanov and his brigade commanders had seen an old woman sitting behind a samovar. It was a pleasant change for them. The old woman was meek and timorous. And quiet as a mouse. But in her gefilte fish (and in her fingers that prepared the samovar) lay (the history of the Jewish people), a true history with a hefty dash of peppery passion.
6.
At first the gefilte fish caused trouble at their new apartment. One of the lodgers, a professors wife, announced in the communal kitchen: God, did the apartment stink! And it was true. With the arrival of the Erlichs, even the hallway began to reek of garlic and fried onions.
I. Babel.
1
The manuscript breaks off at this point.
2
Bogdan Khmelnitsky, 1595-1657, a rebel Cossack leader who had led a successful Ukrainian rebellion against Polish rule in 1648. His armys ruthless massacre of Jews was still remembered centuries later in the shtetls of the region.
3
Narodnaya Volya, the revolutionary terrorist organization that had assassinated Czar Alexander II in 1881.
^ Jules Guesde, 1845-1922, an early leader of the Marxist wing of the French Labor Movement, and Jean Jaures, 1859-1914, French socialist leader, were the foremost leftist orators of the time.
4
Ivan Gonta (d. 1768) and Bogdan Khmelnitsky, 1595-1657, were leaders of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who rebelled against Polish rule in Ukraine and were known for their ruthless massacres of Jews.
5
The Zaporozhian Cossacks, the Cossacks of the Dnieper River region, who during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had managed to stay politically autonomous both from Poland and Russia, briefly even forming a semi-independent state.
t Filipp Orlik, 1672-1742, served in the General Chancery of the Cossack government. Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa, 1644-1709, was a Cossack commander who became hetman (ruler) of Ukraine in 1687.
6
The most important non-Bolshevik socialist party, suppressed by Lenin in 1921, after the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War.
^ Andrei Ivanovich Zhelyabov, 1851-1881, Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich, 1853-1881, and Ivan Platonovich Kalyayev, 1877-1905, were leading members of the Peoples Will Party (Narodnaya Volya), a revolutionary terrorist organization. Kibalchich had been involved in the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881, and Kalyayev assassinated Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the governor general of Moscow in 1905.
7
Semyon Vasilevich Petlyura, 1879-1926, was one of the leading socialist leaders of Ukraine’s unsuccessful fight for independence during the years of the Russian Civil War.
^ In the new Soviet army, every regiment had representatives that reported back to Moscow and dealt with specialized day-to-day military issues. The Political Propaganda Division (Polit-otdel) dealt with the ideological education of the military, the Provision Units (Khoz-chast) with the acquiring and distribution of supplies, the Tribunals (Tribunaly) with military justice and the detection of counterrevolutionary activity in the ranks, and the War Spoils Commission (Trofeinaya Komissiya) was in charge of hindering looting and sending war spoils to the local military authorities.
8
Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny, 1883-1973, the commander of the First Cavalry and later a Marshal of the Soviet Union. One of the major figures in Babel’s Red Cavalry stories.
XIII
PLAYS
The events of 1926 proved to be a major turning point in BabeVs career. In the previous three years his Odessa and Red Cavalry stories had appeared in magazines and newspapers, making him one of the Soviet Unions most celebrated writers, and his collection of Red Cavalry stories was published as a book. His first screenplay, Salt, based on the Red Cavalry story of the same name, anJ mow Jewish Luck, based on Shalom Aleichem’s Menachem Mendel stories, for which Babel had written the subtitles, had premiered in 1925. Now Babel seized the opportunity to try his hand at playwriting. He based his first play, Sunset, on his Odessa stories, whose protagonist was young Benya Krik, the “flamboyant” fewish mobster who rules the Moldavanka (the Odessa neighborhood in which Babel was born) with an uncanny mix of ruthlessness, compassion, and his own peculiar brand of gangster chic. Sunset premiered at the Baku Workers Theater on October 23, 192 7, and played in Odessa, Kiev, and the celebrated Moscow Arts Theater. The reviews, however, were mixed. Some critics praised the play’s powerful anti-bourgeois stance and its interesting “fathers and sons” theme. But in Moscow, particularly, critics felt that the play’s attitude toward the bourgeoisie was contradictory and weak. Sunset closed, and was dropped from the repertoire of the Moscow Arts Theater.
Babel wrote his second play, Maria, in the early to mid-1930s. It was to be performed at the prestigious Vakhtangov Theater in Moscow, but was disallowed during rehearsals and subsequently never performed in the Soviet Union. Alexander Gladkov» an author present at a reading of the play that Babel gave, wrote in his diary that he felt the play’s asimplicity and laconic quality” might be a problem. Babel also read the play to a small gathering in Sorrento, where he was visiting Gorky. After the reading, Gorky did not say anything critical to Babel, but in a scathing letter expressed his extreme doubts about the feasibility of staging it. “It is a well-crafted piece with many masterful traits and much subtle detail. But . . .” Gorky was shocked by Babel’s “Baudelairean predilection for rotting meat. All the characters in your play, startingfrom the invalids, are putrid.” He warned Babel of the play’s dangerous subtexts. “Political inferences” would be made “that will be personally harmful to you.”
SUNSET
A PLAY IN EIGHT SCENES
CHARACTERS
Mendel Krik— owner of a horse carting establishment. 62 years old. Nekhama— his wife, 60.
Their children:
Benya— a flamboyant young man, 26.
Lyovka— a hussar on leave, 22.
Dvoira — an unmarried girl past her prime, 30.
Arye-Leib — shamas of the Carting Union Synagogue, 65.
Nikifor— the Kriks’ chief driver, 50.
Ivan Pyatirubel— a blacksmith and friend of Mendel Krik, 50.
Ben Zkharia— a rabbi of the Moldavanka, Odessa's Jewish section, 70. Fomin — a contractor, 40.
Evdokiya Potapovna Kholodenko — sells live and slaughtered chickens at the market. She is a corpulent old woman with a twisted hip, and an alcoholic. 50.
Marusia— her daughter, 20.
Ryabtsov— a tavern keeper.
Mitya — a waiter at the tavern.
Miron Popyatnik— a flute player at Ryabtsovs tavern.
Madame Popyatnik— his wife. A gossip with frantic eyes.
Urusov— clandestine solicitor. He rolls his rs.
Semyon — a bald peasant.
Bobrinets — a loud Jew. He is loud because he is rich.
Weiner— a rich man with a speech impediment.
Madame Weiner— a rich woman.
Klasha Zubaryeva— a pregnant girl.
Monsieur Lazar Boyarsky— the owner of the Chef d’Oeuvre ready-to-wear clothes factory.
Senka Topun.
Cantor Zwieback.
The action takes place in Odessa in 1913
Scene One
The dining room in the KRIK house. A low-ceilinged homey, bourgeois room. Paper flowers, chests of drawers, a gramophone, portraits of rabbis, and next to them photographs of the KRIK family: stony dark faces, bulging eyes, shoulders like cupboards.
The dining room has been prepared to receive guests. The table is covered with a red tablecloth and bottles of wine, preserves, and pies.
Old NEKHAMA KRIK is making tea. To the side, on a small table, stands a boiling samovar.
In the room, besides NEKHAMA, are ARYE-LEIB and her son LYOVKA, in a hussars parade uniform. Hispeaklessyellow cap is cocked to the side above his brick-red face, and his military greatcoat is flung over his shoulders. Behind him he trails a curved sword. BENYA KRIK, decked out like a Spaniard at a
village fair,; is knotting his tie.
ARYE-LEIB: Ha, fine, Lyovka, very fine indeed! I, Arye-Leib the Moldavanka matchmaker and shamas at the carters’ synagogue, am fully aware of what hacking things to pieces is all about! First they hack down reeds, then they start hacking down men! No one asks you whether you’ve got a mother or not! But explain this to me, Lyovka! Why can’t a Hussar like you take an extra week off until your sister’s happiness has been taken care of?
LYOVKA Laughs. His rough voice is thunderous.]: An extra week? You’re an idiot, Arye-Leib! An extra week off? The cavalry isn’t the infantry, you know! The cavalry spits on the infantry! If I’m even an hour late, the sergeant major will drag me off to his office, squeeze the juice out of my soul and nose, and then have me court-martialed. Cavalrymen are judged by three generals, three generals covered with medals from the Turkish war.
ARYE-LEIB: Do they do this to everyone, or just to Jews?
LYOVKA: A Jew who climbs onto a horse stops being a Jew and becomes a Russian. You re such a blockhead, Arye-Leib! What’s this got to do with Jews?
[DVOIRAs face pokes through the half-opened door.]
DVOIRA: Mama, a girl can beat her brains out in this house before she finds anything! Where did you put my green dress?
NEKHAMA Mumbles without looking up.]: Look in those drawers.
DVOIRA: I’ve already looked, its not there.
NEKHAMA: How about the wardrobe?
DVOIRA: It’s not there either.
LYOVKA: Which dress is it?
DVOIRA: The green one with the frills.
LYOVKA: I guess Papa swiped it.
[DVOIRA enters the room. She is half dressed, herface heavily rouged her hair curled. She is tall and plumps
DVOIRA [In a dull voice.]: Oy, Im dying!
LYOVKA [To his mother.]: I bet you told him, you old cow, that Boyarsky is coming over today to take a look at Dvoira. Of course you did! Well, thats that, then! I saw Papa this morning. He harnessed Solomon the Wise and Muska, gulped some food, guzzled down his vodka like a hog, threw a green bundle into the cart, and drove off.
DVOIRA: Oy, I’m dying! [She starts crying loudly, rips down the curtain from the window, jumps up and down on it, and throws it at her moth-er.] There, take that!
NEKHAMA: May you die! May you die today!
[DVOIRA runs out howling. The old woman shoves the curtain into a drawer.]
BENYA [Knotting his tie.]: Our darling papa, you see, wont cough up the dowry.
LYOVKA: The old bastard should have his throat cut, like a pig!
ARYE-LEIB: Is this the way you talk about your father, Lyovka?
LYOVKA: Well, he shouldn’t be such a bastard!
ARYE-LEIB: Your fathers at least a Sabbath older than you are!
LYOVKA: Then he shouldn’t be such a boor!
BENYA [Sticks a pearl pin into his tie.]: Last year Syomka Munsh wanted Dvoira, but our dear papa simply wouldn’t cough up the dowry, if you know what I mean. He made kasha with sauce out of him and threw him down the stairs!
LYOVKA: The old bastard should have his throat cut, like a pig!
ARYE-LEIB: As the sage Ibn Ezra once said of an unlucky matchmaker like myself, “Should you take it into your head to become a maker of candles, the sun will surely stick like a clod in the sky and never set again!”
LYOVKA [To his mother,;]: A hundred times a day the old man kills us, and you stand there, dumb as a post! Dvoira’s future bridegroom could turn up any minute now. . . .
ARYE-LEIB: It was about an unlucky man like myself that Ibn Ezra said, “Take it into your head to sew shrouds for the dead, and not one man will die from now to the end of time, amen!”
BENYA [Has knotted his tie, taken off the crimson band that keeps his hair in place, donned a tight-fitting jacket, and poured himself a vodka.]: Health to all present!
LYOVKA [In a rough voice.]: To our health!
ARYE-LEIB: May all go well!
LYOVKA: And may all go well!
[MONSIEUR BOYARSKY rushes into the room.
He is a cheerful rotund man. He is an incessant talker;]
BOYARSKY: Greetings! Greetings! [He introduces himself.'] Boyarsky, pleased to meet you, excessively pleased! Greetings!
ARYE-LEIB: Lazar, you said you would be here at four, and it’s six o’clock already!
BOYARSKY [Sits down and takes a glass of tea from old NEKHAMA KRIK.]: God in heaven, we live in Odessa, and here in Odessa you have clients who squeeze the life out of you the way you squeeze pits out of a date—your best friends are ready to swallow you whole, suit and all, forget the salt! Cartloads of worries—a thousand scandals! When does a man have time to think about his health? You’ll ask, what does a merchant need health
for? I barely had time to get myself a hot seawater bath—and I came straight over!
ARYE-LEIB: You take seawater baths, Lazar?
BOYARSKY: Every day, like clockwork.
ARYE-LEIB [To old NEKHAMA.]: You cant get away for less than fifty kopecks a bath!
BOYARSKY: God in heaven, how fresh is the wine that flows in our Odessa! In the Greek Bazaar, Fankonis—*
ARYE-LEIB: You eat at Fankonis, Lazar?
BOYARSKY: I eat at Fankonis.
ARYE-LEIB [Triumphantly.]: He eats at Fankonis! [To the old woman.] You cant even get up from the table there for less than thirty kopecks—I wont tell you forty!
BOYARSKY: Forgive me, Arye-Leib, for daring—as a younger man—to interrupt you. Fankonis costs me a ruble a day, even a ruble-and-a-halfl
ARYE-LEIB [Ecstatically.]: What a spendthrift you are, Lazar! The world has never seen a rascal like you! A whole family can live on thirty rubles, send the children for violin lessons, and still save a kopeck—
[DVOIRA rushes into the room. She is wearing an orange dress, and her powerful calves are squeezed into short, high-heeled boots.]
ARYE-LEIB: This is our little Vera.
BOYARSKY [Jumps up.]: Greetings! Boyarsky!
DVOIRA [Hoarsely.]: Pleased to meet you.
[Everyone sits down.]
LYOVKA: Our Vera is a little dizzy today—too much ironing.
BOYARSKY: To get dizzy from ironing, that anyone can do, but not everyone can be a good person.
ARYE-LEIB: Thirty rubles a month up in smoke! . . . O Lazar, that you should ever have seen the light of day!
BOYARSKY: A thousand pardons, Arye-Leib, but this you must know about Boyarsky: he is not interested in capital. Capital is nothing.
* An elegant and expensive Odessan cafe that attracted a wealthy international clientele.
What Boyarsky is interested in is happiness! I ask you, dear friends, what good is it to me if my firm puts out a thousand—a thousand five hundred—suits, and then on top of that trousers to go with them, and then coats?
ARYE-LEIB [To the old woman.]: Thats five rubles clean, a suit—I wont tell you ten!
BOYARSKY: So what good is my firm to me when my exclusive interest is happiness?
ARYE-LEIB: And my answer to you, Lazar, is that if we do business like human beings, and not like charlatans, then you will be guaranteed happiness till the day you die—may you live to be a hundred and twenty! And I tell you this as a shamas, and not as a matchmaker!
BENYA [Pours wine.]: May all our wishes come true!
LYOVKA [In a rough voice.]: To our health!
ARYE-LEIB: May all go well!
LYOVKA: And may all go well!
BOYARSKY: I was telling you about Fankonis. Let me tell you a story, Monsieur Krik, about an impudent Jew. There I am, dropping in at Fankonis, its packed like a synagogue on Yom Kippur. Everyone is eating, spitting on the floor, worrying like crazy. One fellow worries because his business is bad, the next worries because business is good for his neighbor. And as for finding a place to sit down, forget it! . . . So then I bump into Monsieur Chapellon, a stately-looking Frenchman—and let me tell you, its extremely rare for a Frenchman to be stately-looking—so he gets up to greet me, and invit
es me over to his table. Monsieur Boyarsky, he says to me in French, I hold your firm in the highest esteem, and I have some of the most marvelous coverings for coats—
LYOVKA: Coverings?
BOYARSKY: Coverings—heavy cloth for the outside of a coat—the most marvelous coverings for coats, he says to me, in French, and it would be an honor to invite you, as a firm, to drink two mugs of beer and eat ten crayfish with me—
LYOVKA: I love crayfish.
ARYE-LEIB: You’ll be saying you love toads next.
BOYARSKY: —and eat ten crayfish with me—
LYOVKA [In a rough voice.]: I love crayfish!
ARYE-LEIB: Crayfish, toads—same difference.
BOYARSKY [To LYOVKA.]: Forgive me, Monsieur Krik, for saying this, but a Jew should not hold crayfish in high regard. This I am telling you from experience. A Jew who holds crayfish in high regard will go further with the female of the species than is right, he will utter obscenities at the table, and if he has children, then you can bet your last ruble that they’ll turn into degenerates and billiard players. This I am telling you from experience. So let me tell you this story about an impudent Jew—