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

by Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Isaac Babel

  bottom with string. Over the usual squeamish expression of his face there is now a powerful, feverish streak. The old man is deeply pensive, but sure of himself. It is clear that he is winning.

  173. The game board. The situation is hopeless for the attendant. His hand making a desperate move.

  174. Rachel enters. She asks:

  175. “COULD I HAVE A ROOM, PLEASE?”

  176. The attendant, without raising his head:

  177. “WE DONT LET IN NO GIRLS WITHOUT A FELLOW.”

  178. Rachel does not understand. The attendant yells furiously:

  179. “WHO’RE YOU WITH? WHERE’S YOUR TRICK?”

  180. Rachels dumbfounded face.

  181. The attendant and the old man are playing feverishly. The old man makes the winning move.

  182. Baulin, the young man with the students cap, is pacing up and down in front of the rooming house. Rachel comes out. She stops, leans against the wall, and closes her eyes. The young man takes off his cap and asks her:

  183. “WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE IN THIS... THIS DEN?”

  184. Rachel opens her eyes.

  185. TM ... I’M A JEWESS.”

  186. Baulin scratches his forehead pensively.

  187. “WELL, COMRADE . . . THEY WON’T LET ME GO INTO THIS PLACE WITHOUT A GIRL, AND THEY WON’T LET YOU IN WITHOUT A MAN. MY NAME IS BAULIN, I’M AN HONEST FELLOW, YOU CAN TRUST ME.”

  188. Rachel looks at him mistrustfully. She hesitates, but then smiles at him and gives him her hand.

  189. The attendant is staring shattered at the game board. He has lost the game. The old man is snidely sipping his tea. The galoshes fall off the attendant’s feet. He scratches one foot with a toenail of the other. Rachel and Baulin come into the office. Baulin:

  190. “WE WANT A ROOM, POPS.”

  191. The attendant gets up and stretches himself.

  192. “HA! AND SHE SAID SHE DIDN’T HAVE NO JOHN!”

  193. A dirty hallway in the hotel. The attendant walks down the hallway, carrying a candle. Rachel and Baulin are following him.

  194. One of the doors in the hallway opens, a womans trembling hand and bare shoulder jut out, but are immediately yanked back into the room, the door slamming shut.

  195. The attendant takes Rachel and Baulin to the door of their room. In the corner of the hallway stands a pile of chamber pots, broken tin washbasins, and pictures in gold frames. The attendant unlocks the door.

  196. The attendant, Baulin, and Rachel enter the room of this “nighttime” hotel. The attendant switches on the light. Baulin comments on the questionable cleanliness of the bed linen.

  197. “CHANGE THESE HOLY CHASUBLES HERE, WILL YOU?”

  198. The attendant, offended, inspects the stained sheets.

  199. “WE CHANGE THE SHEETS AFTER EVERY CLIENT!”

  200. The attendant changes the sheets, and slyly manages to use an old one as a tablecloth.

  201. While the attendant is busy changing the sheets, Rachel reads a note nailed to the mirror.

  202. The note: TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT I HAD A SESSION WITH A FABULOUS GIRL, BUT SHE WON’T TELL ME HER NAME. I HOPE I DIDN’T CATCH ANYTHING.

  203. Rachel steps back from the mirror. Baulin tries to block her view of the graffiti covering the walls. The attendant leaves. Baulin locks the door and turns to Rachel:

  204. “GO TO SLEEP, MY FRIEND. I’LL SEE TO IT THAT YOU’LL BE SAFE.”

  205. Trembling, Rachel climbs onto the bed without taking off her shoes, and curls up. Baulin spreads out his coat by the door, and furtively takes out a bundle of printed leaflets and a batch of proclamations.

  206. A close-up of the illegal proclamations printed by the Moscow Committee of the Social Democratic Party.

  207. Baulin lies down by the door, puts the bundle of leaflets and proclamations under his head, and furtively slips a revolver under his makeshift pillow.

  208. “WE MIGHT EVEN GET SOME SLEEP....”

  209. Rachel lies curled up on the bed listening with horror to the rooming house s habitual night noises.

  210. The room next door. On a disheveled bed, a half-dressed officer in riding breeches and boots is grappling with a woman wearing a prim, high-buttoned, black silk dress. He has pinned her arms behind her back.

  211. Baulin smokes a cigarette, chuckles, reaches out to the switch, and turns out the light. Fadeout.

  ^Part^vur

  212. Night. A squad of policemen enters the back alley.

  213. The policemen silently jimmy the Hero of Plevna’s front door.

  214. They climb the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible.

  215. Orlov, the attendant, is sleeping sonorously beneath an icon. He is again wearing his galoshes. One of the policemen lays his hand on his shoulder. Policeman:

  216. “ANY ILLEGALS1 OVERNIGHT?”

  217. The attendant jumps up. Scratching his head, he answers:

  218. “NO, I DONT THINK THERE’S NO ILLEGALS STAYING HERE.”

  219. The policemen and the attendant leave the office.

  220. In the hallway. A sudden slamming of a door, then silence.

  221. Baulin, lying on his overcoat, is sleeping in the room by the doorway. Hearing the commotion, he jumps up and grabs his revolver.

  222. The policemens stamping feet in the corridor. Their swords are sticking out.

  223. Baulins bundle is lying on the floor along with the package of proclamations.

  224. Rachel lies curled up on the bed, immersed in a sleep of youth and blissful ignorance.

  225. Baulin is listening by the door.

  226. THE RAID.

  227. Window, sky, stars. Baulin jumps onto the windowsill.

  228. The deserted street. A shoeshine man, an old Assyrian, dressed in colorful rags, is shining a policemans shoes. The dozing policeman has settled down on the bench. Suddenly he leaps up.

  229. Baulin jumps out of a second-floor window. He falls to the ground and breaks his leg.

  230. The policeman grabs his whistle and blows it.

  231. Another policeman, a very short man wearing a lot of medals and a very large cap, comes running out of the back alley to assist him.

  232. The crimson, puffed-up face of the first policeman. He does not dare to approach Baulin, who is lying sprawled on the ground, and blows his whistle with ecstasy and voluptuousness, like a cockerel among his hens.

  233. The old teary-eyed Assyrian timidly pulls his shoeshine box toward the policemans boot, which he hasn’t finished shining yet.

  234. Baulins broken leg. Baulin is clawing the dirty street snow covered in dogs urine.

  235. Two policemen, keeping a few steps back, are priming themselves to jump on the defenseless man. They fire themselves up with shouts, wave their revolvers around, and finally throw themselves on Baulin. One begins to strangle him while blowing his whistle with increasing passion, the other begins tying up Baulins broken leg.

  236. Baulins leg, broken at the knee, twisted to the side.

  237. A room in the Hero of Plevna. The figure of a man covered in a sheet lying facedown on a wide bed. The only thing glistening in the dark is his bald pate, and on his bald pate is a bump. On either side of the “guest” lie two frightened prostitutes, about sixteen years old.

  238. The raid on the rooming house continues. The policemen knock furiously on the door of a room. The door opens.

  239. The man wrapped in the sheet does not change his position. He shoves his hand out from under the sheet, his face is not visible, only his glistening bald pate, and on it the bump.

  240. The stretched-out hand holding a passport. The policemans hand takes the passport.

  241. The policeman reads the passport. On his face, suspicion changes to gravity and respect.

  242. A close-up of the passport issued to Apollon Silych Gustovaty, Honorary Guardian and State Councilor.

  243. The “figure” wrapped in the sheet and the prostitutes lie motionless. The policeman respectfully
places the passport on top of the figure and, bowing, leaves the room.

  244. In another room. A prostitute of about forty-five sits sleepily smoking a cigarette as she waits for the police to raid her room. She is wearing a long nightgown with torn lace. A schoolboy of about sixteen is cowering in terror by the wall. He has managed to throw on his school jacket—under his jacket he is wearing his long underwear. The policemen come barging into the room. The inspector asks the boy:

  245. “AND WHAT, IF I MAY BE SO BOLD, ARE YOU DOING HERE, DEAR SIR?”

  246. The schoolboy hiccups:

  247. “IT WAS ... RAINING ... SO I THOUGHT ... IT) COME IN HERE FOR ABIT....”

  248. The inspector gives the old prostitute a push: “Get outside!”

  249. The schoolboy gets a fatherly scolding from the inspector, who then hands him his trousers.

  250. Strastnaya Square. Night. The policemen are leading off the prostitutes they have arrested during the raid.

  251. Street prostitutes run the moment they see the policemen coming. They grab hold of the first pedestrian they find and pretend to be out walking with their husbands, their bonafide companions.

  252. Two prostitutes rush over to an elderly Jew in a large fur coat, each pulling him in a different direction. The Jew, deep in mirthless thought, looks first at one woman, then at the other with his tired old eyes, takes them both by the arm, and walks off with them as if he were out walking with his daughters.

  253. A cab stand on Tverskaya Street. The prostitutes are badgering the cabbies.

  254. A swaggering hunchback cabby in flashy greatcoat. A girl in a fluffy white hat and a beauty spot on her chin comes running up to him. She tells the hunchback she wants him to drive her away as fast as possible. The hunchback:

  255. “THAT’LL BE A TENNER DOWN!”

  256. The woman steps onto the cabs footboard. She says:

  257. “I DONT HAVE ANY MONEY... BUT THERE’S OTHER WAYS I CAN PAY YOU...

  258. The hunchback sizes her up with his blue eyes. “Fair enough,” his blue eyes say, and he whips his horses into a gallop.

  259. One cab after another goes flying up Tverskaya Street with fleeing prostitutes.

  260. The hunchback pulls into a cul-de-sac next to a vacant plot. He halts the horses, gets up from his box, and climbs into the back of the cab where the woman is sitting. Cut.

  261. The policemen are herding the prostitutes they arrested during the raid into the police station.

  262. A large, shadowy room, divided in half by iron bars, behind which the women are gathered.

  263. The prostitutes’ faces pressing against the bars. Among the women: the old prostitute who was spending the night with the schoolboy, Rachel, and the woman wearing the prim, high-buttoned dress who had been fighting in the room with the officer. Her presence at the rooming house and at the police station is inexplicable. She paces up and down nervously, and asks a guard for a cigarette. The guard rolls a cigarette for her, lights a match, and tenderly looks at the “lady,” and then turns away so as not to offend her with his sympathy. The woman shudders, puffs at the cigarette, and immediately throws it away with a sob.

  264. The room in which the prostitutes undergo a medical checkup. A bright electric lamp hangs over the examining chair. Next to it stands a doctor in a white coat (the doctor happens to be the sour bureaucrat with whom Rachel had spoken in the tram), and a medical assistant. A little farther away a clerk is sitting behind a desk. A policeman brings in the prostitute who was spending the night with the schoolboy. She goes over to the examining chair and lies down on it without even being asked. The doctor bends over her. He is holding a medical instrument. Fadeout.

  265. The clerk, a pen behind his ear, is waiting for the diagnosis.

  266. The examination is over. The woman gets up from the chair. The doctor to the clerk:

  267. “SYPHILIS ... SECOND STAGE ... NEXT!”

  268. The woman walks humbly over to the clerk, who writes something in her papers. The policemen drag in Rachel, her clothes tattered and torn.

  269. The doctor, who has seen it all before, prepares his instruments.

  270. The policemen place her on the examining chair. An old policeman with a kind face says to her:

  271. “THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, YOU SILLY GIRL, OTHERWISE GOD KNOWS HOW MANY YOU’LL INFECT!”

  272. Rachels terrorized face beneath the electric lamp.

  273. The doctors face emerges from the darkness. He has recognized her and asks:

  274. “WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

  275. Her lips tremble.

  276. TM ... I’M A JEWESS.”

  277. The clerk with the pen behind his ear is waiting for the diagnosis.

  278. Rachel on the examining chair. The perplexed doctor tells the clerk:

  279. “SHE’S ... SHE’S HEALTHY ... NEXT!”

  280. Rachel walks over to the clerk’s desk. He hands her a stamped piece of paper. Rachel staggers back, asks him, “What’s this?” The clerk:

  281. “A YELLOW SLIP FOR YOUR EXCELLENCY.”

  282. Rachel looks around in dismay, clutching the stamped piece of paper. Suddenly an inspector’s face, overgrown with rampant black hair, moves down toward her. The hair surrounds the fat, hard, greedy face like a shaggy halo. The inspector points at the packet found in her room.

  283. “ARE THESE YOUR PROCLAMATIONS, SWEETHEART?”

  284. The inspector is holding the packet of proclamations.

  285. He is waiting for an answer, his lips apart. On his face, the entreaty of a man not good at his profession: please, confess, I beg you, you sweet little girl you, help me by confessing. Rachel turns her dumbfounded face toward him.

  286. A dark, vaulted room in the police station. A flickering kerosene

  lamp with a ripped standard-issue lampshade is hanging above a table. Baulin is writhing on a torn, oilskin armchair by the wall. He is lying with his back to the audience, his broken leg has been carelessly bandaged. The old policeman with the kind face is leaning over him. He is pouring water into Baulins mouth from the spout of a large sooty teapot.

  287. The inspector brings Rachel into the room and makes a sign to the policeman that the two prisoners should be placed in front of each other. The inspector leans his tousled, shaggy head under the lamp, shoves the proclamations close to Baulins face, and with the same greedy, ingratiating face demands an answer.

  288. “TELL ME HERE AND NOW, MY DEAR FRIEND . . . ARE THESE YOUR PROCLAMATIONS, YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH?”

  289. Baulin squirms in the armchair. He slips, falls on the floor, moans. The old policeman leans over him once more. Baulins fingers squeeze, caress, scratch the policemans plump hand.

  290. Baulins contorted face turns toward the audience. He moans:

  291. “MAMA!”

  292. The policeman whispers into Baulins ear:

  293. “PLEASE, I BEG YOU, CONFESS! WE HAVE TO GET YOU TO A HOSPITAL!”

  294. The inspector sidles up closer to Baulin. The inspector needs a confession, and so, his face pitiful, his eyes fixed on Rachel, he begins squeezing Baulins broken leg.

  295. “ARE THESE YOUR PROCLAMATIONS?”

  296. Baulins face. His whispering lips:

  297. “MAMA!”

  298. Rachel moves toward the inspector. She tells him:

  299. “THEY ARE MY PROCLAMATIONS.”

  300. The inspector stops squeezing Baulins leg and eagerly nods his head.

  301. “GOOD GIRL!”

  302. the inspector says, his face brightening and filling with joy. He wants to hear more.

  303. Rachel makes a false deposition. Her words are crisp and clear, her face lit by the fitful oily light of the lamp.

  304. “I GOT HOLD OF THOSE PROCLAMATIONS!”

  305. she says, and stops to think what she should say next.

  306. The inspector, fearing that Rachel has had second thoughts about giving a deposition, walks over to Baulin and starts squeezing his broken leg
again. Baulin bounds up, cries out in pain, loses consciousness. Rachel immediately begins talking. She prattles and babbles without stopping to catch her breath. The inspector s fat legs are twisting under the table with impatience. With one hand he is caressing Baulins broken leg, and with the other he is patting, twirling, and tugging at his tousled locks of hair. His face is lit with joy, his lips are moving, his eyebrows are quivering, his eyes are sparkling.

  fpart^Wc^

  307. A THOUSAND MILES AWAY FROM THE ROSSIYA BOARDINGHOUSE.

  308. A street in Berlin. A crowd of people walking past a billboard. A gigantic poster is announcing a concert to be given by Leo Rogdai.

  309. A street in Berlin. The majestic building of the Hotel Imperial. On the fifth floor a wall cleaner is moving along the hotels facade, cleaning the sign. The cleaner, a pleasant, cheerful fellow, is caged on a wooden scaffold secured with pulleys to the edge of the roof. The cleaner is singing at the top of his voice. Then he stops and listens.

  310. The street, shot from a fifth-floor perspective, as the cleaner would see it.

  311. The poster. Its date: September 4, 1912.

  312. The cleaner lowers himself to the third floor. He stops his scaffold at an open window, from which come the sounds that have captivated him.

  313. Ratkovichs room on the third floor of the Hotel Imperial. Ratkovich no longer exists—he has turned into Leo Rogdai, the renowned virtuoso. Noon. The virtuosos room: a low, wide, unmade bed, flowers and gifts strewn about, a laurel crown in a case. By the fireplace, a photograph of Rachel. On the table, the remains of a meal and an uncorked bottle of wine. The walls are covered with posters and schedules of concerts in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. Rogdai has changed—he has aged, grown thinner. He is pacing up and down the room half dressed, strums at his violin, and places it under his chin. Fadeout.

  314. A repeat of scene 105: Professor Reti listening to Ratkovich play backstage at the provincial theater.

  315. Rogdai is playing. The cleaners face, filled with reverence, appears outside the window. He takes off his cap and kneads it in his hands.

  316. “MR. VIOLINIST, CAN YOU PLAY A PAS DESPAGNET

  317. Rogdai smiles, walks over to the window, and plays a pas d’Espagne.

  318. The cleaner kneads his dirty cap, his fingers snapping faster and more cheerfully