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

by Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Isaac Babel

  BENYA: Boyarsky.

  BOYARSKY: Yes?

  BENYA: Give me an estimate, off the cuff, how much a winter suit will cost me.

  BOYARSKY: Double-breasted or single-breasted?

  BENYA: Single-breasted.

  BOYARSKY: What kind of coattails—round or pointed?

  BENYA: Round coattails.

  BOYARSKY: Whose cloth—yours or mine?

  BENYA: Your cloth.

  BOYARSKY: What cloth—English, Polish, or Muscovite?

  BENYA: Which is best?

  BOYARSKY: English cloth, Monsieur Krik, thats good cloth; Polish cloth is just sackcloth with a pattern on it; and Muscovite cloth is sackcloth without a pattern on it.

  BENYA: 111 go for the English.

  BOYARSKY: Your trimmings or mine?

  BENYA: Your trimmings.

  BOYARSKY: So how much will that cost you?

  BENYA: How much will that cost me?

  BOYARSKY [Struck by a sudden idea.]: Monsieur Krik, I’m sure we’ll be able to give you a good deal!

  ARYE-LEIB: I’m sure you’ll be able to give him a good deal!

  BOYARSKY: I’m sure we’ll be able to give you a good deal—I was telling you about Fankoni’s.

  [There is a clatter of metal-reinforced boot heels. MENDEL KRIK enters, carrying a whip, along with NIKIFOR, his head driver.]

  ARYE-LEIB [Suddenly timid.]: Let me introduce you. Mendel, this is Monsieur Boyarsky.

  BOYARSKY [Jumps up.]: Greetings! Boyarsky!

  [Stomping with his boots, old MENDEL crosses the room, ignoring everyone.

  He throws down the whip> sits down on the couch, and stretches out his long, fat legs. NEKHAMA kneels down and begins pulling off her husband's boots.]

  ARYE-LEIB Stutiering.]: Monsieur Boyarsky was telling us about his company. It puts out a hundred fifty suits a month—

  MENDEL: So you were saying, Nikifor?

  NIKIFOR [Leaning against the doorpost, staring up at the ceiling.]: I was saying, master, that people are laughing us out of town.

  MENDEL: Why are they laughing us out of town?

  NIKIFOR: People are saying that there are a thousand masters in your stable and seven Fridays in your week! Yesterday we carted wheat down to the harbor—so I went over to the office to get our money, and there they tell me—“Back off. The young master, Benchik, came over and gave us instructions to pay the money directly into the bank with a receipt.”

  MENDEL: Gave instructions?

  NIKIFOR: Gave instructions!

  NEKHAMA [Has pulled off one of MENDEL s boots and unwrapped his dirty leggings. He stretches out his other leg to her. She looks up at her husband with intense hatred and mutters through clenched teeth.]: May you not live to see the light of day, you torturer!

  MENDEL: So you were saying, Nikifor?

  NIKIFOR: I was saying I was insulted by Lyovka today.

  BENYA [Drinks down his wine, his little finger extended,.]: May all our wishes come true!

  LYOVKA: To our health.

  NIKIFOR: We took the mare Freilin over to the blacksmith to be shod today. So Lyovka suddenly bursts in and starts shooting off his mouth, ordering Pyatirubel the blacksmith to line the horseshoes with rubber. So I say to him, excuse me, who does he think we are to be using rubber on our horseshoes? Police chiefs? Czars? Nicholas the Seconds?

  The master, I tell him, said nothing to me about this. So Lyovka turns red as a beet and shouts: Who do you think is your master?

  [NEKHAMA has pulled off the second boot MENDEL gets up. He yanks the tablecloth. Plates, pies, and preserves fall on the floor,;]

  MENDEL: So who do you think is your master, Nikifor?

  NIKIFOR [Sullenly.]: You are my master.

  MENDEL: And if I am your master [he goes over to NIKIFOR and grabs him by his shirt collar. ... if I am your master, then tear to pieces anyone who dares set foot in my stables—tear out his heart, his tendons, his eyes!

  [He shakes NIKIFOR and then flings him to the side. Stooping forward, dragging his bare feet, MENDEL walks across the room to the door.

  NIKIFOR shuffles behind him. The old woman crawls on her knees to the door.]

  NEKHAMA: May you not live to see the light of day, you torturer!

  [Silence.]

  ARYE-LEIB: What if I told you, Lazar, that the old man didn’t attend one of the better finishing schools?

  BOYARSKY: I’d believe you, and you wouldn’t even have to give me your word.

  BENYA [Gives BOYARSKY his hand.]: I hope you’ll come visit us some other time.

  BOYARSKY: Well, families being what they are, there’s always something going on—sometimes cold, sometimes hot. Good-bye! Good-bye! I’ll come again some other time.

  [BOYARSKY hurries out. BENYA gets up, lights a cigarette, and throws his flashy coat over his arm.]

  ARYE-LEIB: Ibn Ezra once said about an unlucky matchmaker like myself, “Should you take it into your head to sew shrouds for the dead—

  LYOVKA: The old bastard should have his throat cut, like a pig!

  [DVOIRA leans back in her chair and starts screaming,.]

  LYOVKA: Ha, there you go! Dvoira is having a fit!

  [Hepries open his sisters clenched teeth with a knife. She squeals louder and louder. NIKIFOR enters the room. BENYA flings his coat over his left arm, and with his right punches NIKIFOR in the face.]

  BENYA: Harness the bay horse to the buggy!

  NIKIFOR [A few drops of blood slowly trickle from his nose.]: Give me my wages, I’m leaving.

  BENYA [Comes over to NIKIFOR, face-to-face, and speaks in a sweet and tender voice.]: Nikifor, my dear friend, you will die today without eating supper!

  Scene Two

  Night. The KRIKj* bedroom. Black wooden beams across the low ceiling Blue moonlight weaves its way through the window. MENDEL and NEKHAMA are in a double bed. They are covered by a single blanket. NEKHAMA, her dirty gray hair disheveled is sitting up in bed. She is grumbling in a low voice, grumbling endlessly.

  NEKHAMA: Other people live like people . . . other people buy ten pounds of meat for lunch, they make soup, they make meatballs, they make compote! The father comes home from work, everyone sits at the table, everyone eats, laughs. And us? God, oh, God, how dark my house is!

  MENDEL: Let me be, Nekhama! Sleep!

  NEKHAMA: And Benya, our little Benchik, as bright as the sun in the sky, and now look what hes come to! Today one policeman comes around, tomorrow another ... one day people have a piece of bread in their hand, the next they find their legs in irons.

  MENDEL: Let me breathe, Nekhama! Sleep!

  NEKHAMA: And Lyovka! The child will come back from the army and also start marauding. What else is there for him to do? His father is a degenerate, he wont take his sons into his own business—

  MENDEL: Let it be night, Nekhama! Sleep!

  [Si/ence.]

  NEKHAMA: The rabbi said, Rabbi Ben Zkharia . . . Come the new month, Ben Zkharia said, I wont let Mendel into the synagogue. The Jews wont allow me to—

  MENDEL [Throws off the blanket and sits up beside the old woman.]: What wont the Jews allow?

  NEKHAMA: Come the new moon, Ben Zkharia said—

  MENDEL: What wont the Jews allow? And what have these Jews of yours ever given me?

  NEKHAMA: They wont allow you in, into the synagogue.

  MENDEL: A ruble with a chewed-off edge they gave me, these Jews of yours! And you they gave me, you old cow, and this bug-ridden grave!

  NEKHAMA: And what did the Russian pork butchers give you? What did they give you?

  MENDEL [Lies back down.]: Oh, this old cow is sitting on my head!

  NEKHAMA: Vodka, thats what the pork butchers gave you, and a mouth full of foul language, a rabid dogs mouth. . . . Hes sixty-two years old, God, sweet God, and hes as hot as an oven, strong as an oven!

  MENDEL: Pull my teeth out, Nekhama! Pour Jewish soup into my veins! Break my back!

  NEKHAMA: Hot as an oven. . . . God, how ashamed I am! [She tak
es her pillow and lies down on the floor in the moonlight. Silence. Then her grumbling starts up again.] Friday evening people go outside their gates, people play with their grandchildren—

  MENDEL: Let it be night, Nekhama!

  NEKHAMA [Crying.]: People play with their grandchildren . . .

  [BENYA enters the room. He is in his underwear;]

  BENYA: Haven’t you had enough for today, my little lovebirds?

  [MENDEL sits up in bed. He looks at his son in shock.]

  BENYA: Or do I have to go to an inn to get some sleep?

  MENDEL [Gets out of bed. Like his son, he is in his underwear:]: You ... you dare come in here?

  BENYA: Do I have to pay two rubles for a room in order to get some sleep?

  MENDEL: At night, at night you dare come in here?

  BENYA: Shes my mother. Do you hear me, you cheap bastard?

  [Father and son stand face-to-face in their underwear.

  Slowly MENDEL moves closer and closer to his son. In the moonlight NEKHAMA s disheveled head of dirty gray hair is trembling.

  MENDEL: At night, at night you dare come in here. ...

  Scene Three

  A tavern on Privoznaya Square. Night. RYABTSOV, the tavern keeper—a stern, sickly man—is at the counter reading the Bible. His drab, dusty hair is plastered down on both sides of his head. MIRON POPYATNIK, a meekflutist, is sitting on a raisedpla form. They call him the major. A weak, tremulous melody comes from his flute. Gray-haired, black-mustached GREEKS sit at one of the tables playing dice with SENKA TOPUN, BENYA KRIKjt friend. In front of SENKA are a sliced watermelon, a Finnish knife, and a bottle of Malaga wine. Two sailors are sleeping, their sculpted shoulders slumped on the table. In a far comer FOMIN, the contractor, is meekly sipping soda water. A drunken woman— POTAPOVNA—is heatedly trying to convince him of something. MENDEL KRIK is standing by a table in front. He is drunk, inflamed, colossal. With him is URUSOV, the solicitor.

  MENDEL [Bangs his fist down onto the table.]: It’s dark! I feel like I’m in a grave, Ryabtsov, in a black grave!

  [MITYA the waiter, a little old man with close-cropped silvery hair, brings a lamp and puts it down in front of MENDEL.]

  MENDEL: I ordered all the lamps! I asked for singers! I ordered you to bring me all the lamps in the tavern!

  MITYA: They don’t give us kerosene for free, you know. That’s just how it is—

  MENDEL: It’s dark in here!

  MITYA [To RYABTSOV.]: He wants extra light.

  RYABTSOV: That’ll be a ruble.

  MITYA: Here’s a ruble.

  RYABTSOV: Got it.

  MENDEL: Urusov!

  URUSOV: Present!

  MENDEL: How much blood did you say runs through my heart?

  URUSOV: According to science, two hundred pood of blood run through a man’s heart every twenty-four hours. And in America they invented a—

  MENDEL: Hold it! Hold it! .. . And if I want to go to America—is that free?

  URUSOV: Totally free. You just up and go!

  [POTAPOVNA waddles over to the table, wiggling her crooked hip.

  POTAPOVNA: Mendel, sweetie, it’s not America we’re going to, we’re going to Bessarabia, to buy orchards.

  MENDEL: You mean I just up and go?

  URUSOV: According to science, you have to cross four seas—the Black Sea, the Ionian Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean—and two world oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific.

  MENDEL: And you said a man can actually fly across the seas?

  URUSOV: He can.

  MENDEL: And can a man fly over mountains, high mountains?

  URUSOV [Sternly.]: He can.

  MENDEL [Grabs his disheveled head.]: There’s no end, no limit. . . . [To RYABTSOV.] That’s it, I’m going! I’m going to Bessarabia.

  RYABTSOV: And what are you going to do in Bessarabia?

  MENDEL: I’ll do whatever I want!

  RYABTSOV: What can you want?

  MENDEL: Listen here, Ryabtsov, I’m still alive—

  RYABTSOV: You’re not alive if God killed you!

  MENDEL: When is it he killed me?

  RYABTSOV: How old did you say you were?

  A VOICE FROM THE TAVERN: All in all, he’s sixty-two!

  RYABTSOV: It’s sixty-two years that God’s been killing you.

  MENDEL: Listen Ryabtsov, I’m a lot cleverer than God.

  RYABTSOV: Maybe youre cleverer than the Russian God, but not cleverer than the Jewish God.

  [MITYA brings in another lamp. Following him in single file are fourfat, sleepy girls in grease-stained smocks. Each is carrying a lit lamp.

  A blinding lightfills the tavern.]

  MITYA: Well, a bright and happy Easter to you! Girls! Surround this poor fool with lamps!

  The girls put down the lamps in front of MENDEL. The radiance lights up his crimson face.

  A VOICE FROM THE TAVERN: So we re turning night into day, Mendel?

  MENDEL: There is no end!

  POTAPOVNA [Pulls URUSOV by the sleeve.]: Sir, I beg you, please, have a drink with me. . .. You see, I sell chickens at the market, and those damn peasants always foist the oldest and scrawniest hens on me. Do I have to be chained to those damn hens? My daddy was a gardener, the best gardener that ever was! If an apple tree grows wild, you should see me prune it!

  A VOICE FROM THE TAVERN: Are we turning Monday into Sunday, Mendel?

  POTAPOVNA [Her jacket has fallen open over her fat breasts. Vodka, heat, and rapture are stifling her.]: Mendel will sell off his business and, with the Lord’s help, well get some money and set off with my pretty daughter for those orchards. Lime blossoms, sir, will rain down on us, you know. . . . Mendel, darling, Im a gardener, you know, I’m my daddy’s daughter!

  MENDEL [Walks over to the counter.]: Ryabtsov, I used to have eyes . . . listen to me, Ryabtsov, my eyes were stronger than telescopes, and what did I do with my eyes? My legs ran faster than locomotives, my legs could walk on water, and what did I do with my legs? I ran from eating slops to the outhouse, from the outhouse to eating slops. I’ve mopped floors with my face, but now I’m going to garden!

  RYABTSOV: So go ahead and garden! Who’s stopping you?

  A VOICE FROM THE TAVERN: Im sure there are one or two people at home who might very well stop him! They’ll step on his tail, and that’ll be that!

  MENDEL: I ordered songs! Hey, you, musician! Let’s have a military tune. . . . You’re boring me to death! Come on, let’s have some life here! Come on!

  [ Quavering, faltering, MIRON POPYATNIK’.? flute lets out a piercing melody. MENDEL dances, stamping his iron-shod boots.]

  MITYA [ Whispering to URUSOV.]: Are you ready for Fomin, or is it early yet?

  URUSOV: It’s early yet. [To the musician.] Go for it, Major!

  A VOICE FROM THE TAVERN: There’s no point him going for it, the singers are here. Pyatirubel has dragged in the singers.

  [The singers enter—blind men in red shirts. They bump into chairs,

  waving their canes in front of them. PYATIRUBEL, the blacksmith, is leading them. He is a boisterous man, a friend of MENDEL s.]

  PYATIRUBEL: I dragged these devils out of their beds. We’re not going to play, they tell me. It’s night, they tell me, night all over the world, we can’t play anymore. . . . Do you know who I am, I tell them!

  MENDEL [Throws himself at the lead singer; a tall, pockmarked blind man.]: Fedya, I’m going to Bessarabia!

  THE BLIND MAN [In a thick, deep bass.]: Good luck, master!

  MENDEL: A song, one last song for me!

  THE BLIND MAN: Shall we sing “The Glorious Sea”?

  MENDEL: One last song!

  THE BLIND MEN [Start tuning their guitars. They begin singing in deep bass voices.]:

  “O holy Baikal—glorious sea.,

  My barrel of salmon,, my ship so free!

  Hey, oarsman, whip the waves to-and-fro,

  For this brave man has far to go. ”

  MENDEL [Hurls an empty bottle at
the window. The window shatters.]:

  Hit it!

  PYATIRUBEL: Damn! Hes a hero, the son-of-a-bitch!

  MITYA [To RYABTSOV.]: How much shall we charge for the window? RYABTSOV: That’ll be a ruble.

  MITYA: Here’s a ruble.

  RYABTSOV: Got it.

  THE BLIND MEN [Sing.]:

  “Long was I shackled in heavy chains,

  Over mountains I wandered in the rains.

  An old comrade helped me run,

  And I survived to see the sun. ”

  MENDEL [With a blow of his fist he knocks out the window frame.]: Hit it!

  PYATIRUBEL: He’s Satan incarnate, the old bastard!

  VOICES FROM THE TAVERN:

  Go for it! Now he’s really celebrating!

  What do you mean, really celebrating? For him this is normal!

  It can’t be, someone must have died!

  No one’s died! This is his normal celebrating!

  So, what’s the reason? What’s he celebrating?

  RYABTSOV: Go find the reason! With one man its money—he celebrates his wealth, with the next its lack of money—he celebrates his poverty. People are always celebrating.

  [The song rings out louder and louder. The sound of the guitars reverberates against the walls, and inflames hearts. A star flickers through the broken window. The sleepy girls stand by the door and sing, propping up their breasts with their rough hands. A sailor; his big legs spread apart, sways and sings in a clear tenor.]:

  “Shilka and Nerchinsk no longer scare me,

  Guards in the mountains did not snare me,

  By beasts of the forest I wasnt torn apart.

  Henchmens bullets didnt pierce my heart.”

  POTAPOVNA Drunk and happy.]: Mendel, darling, drink with me! Lets drink to my sweet pretty daughter!

  PYATIRUBEL: He punched the post office clerk in the face! That’s the way the old dog is! Then he ripped out the telegraph poles and carried them home on his back. . . .

  “I walked all night and all day long.

  With watchful eye through towns Iflew.