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

by Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Isaac Babel

  Benya and Sobkov turn into Nikolayevsky Boulevard. The Odessa crowd is surging around them. The flower girl is trudging along in the distance, her dirty thin legs are bare. She is watching Benya with spellbound eyes.

  Nikolayevsky Boulevard. Benya and Sobkov walk up to the railings of the Vorontsov Palace.5 Beyond the railings are lilac bushes not yet in bloom.

  “TELL ME, SOBKOV, WHAT ELSE BESIDES COINS DO THE

  BOLSHEVIKS NEED?”

  Benya asks him. The young baker takes one of Lenins books out of his pocket, but Benya pushes it away.

  Benyas lips slowly part:

  “I DONT NEED NO BOOKS, JUST TELL ME WHAT’S WHAT,

  PLAIN AND SIMPLE, AND TAKE ME TO YOUR COMRADES.

  WHERE ARE THEY?”

  Sobkov opens his arms wide and points to the docks, to Peresip, and to the factories,* and says:

  “THAT’S WHERE THEY ARE!”

  A panoramic shot of Peresip, the shipbuilding yards, and the smoking steamships. Workers are loading cargo. They are enveloped in the smoke that is pouring out of the steamships’ funnels.

  FADEOUT

  The port. A group of carts is waiting by the pier. Sacks of oats are tied to the horses’ muzzles. Midday sun. Froim Grach is sleeping on the warm flagstones under one of the carts. The little flower girl appears at the street corner.

  The girl walks toward Grach’s cart. She tickles him with a bouquet of flowers. Grach wakes up and immediately assumes an expression as if he had not been sleeping at all. The girl quickly hands him a note and runs away.

  The note:

  “GRACH, THERE’S SOMETHING TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT

  BENYA.”

  Grach jumps onto his cart and whips his horses into a gallop.

  FADEOUT

  A Persian teahouse on Provozhnaya Square. Carters and merchants are drinking tea. The Persian, who appeared in Part One, is standing behind the counter. The flower girl enters the teahouse with stumbling steps. The Persian pours her a glass of strong tea, and the girl hands him a note:

  “ABUDULLAH, THERE’S SOMETHING TO TALK TO YOU

  ABOUT BENYA.”

  The Persian hides the note. His face is distorted. He begins clear-

  * Benya and Sobkov are standing at the intersection of Nikolayevsky Boulevard and Ekaterininskaya Street, in Odessa’s most elegant quarter, and are looking down toward the docks and the poorer Odessa neighborhood of Peresip, beyond which lay the impoverished factory neighborhoods of Near Mills {Blizhiye Melnitsy) and Far Mills (Dalniye Melnitsy).

  ing away the tea glasses of his customers, many of whom haven’t finished drinking yet. He pours out the tea, shouts, runs about the teahouse, and begins shoving his customers, who are staring at him in astonishment, toward the door. An old man with side-whiskers wants to pick a fight with him, but the moment he sees the Persians terrible face, the old man suddenly stops in his tracks. Only the flower girl calmly continues drinking her tea.

  The Persian extinguishes the samovar s flame and pours water into its pot.

  FADEOUT

  Lyovka Bik, the animal slaughterer, is standing in his overalls on a platform with a bloody knife in his hand. A crowd of Jewesses have gathered below. They hand the slaughterer (the shoykhet) their chickens and ducks to be slaughtered.

  Lyovka slits a chickens throat.

  Old Reizl hands the shoykhet a cockerel. The cockerel is beating its wings. Lyovka raises his knife to its throat. At that moment the flower girl comes tiptoeing into the slaughterhouse. She is holding a bouquet of flowers. She treads timidly on the cement floor, which is covered in blood.

  The knife trembles in the shoykheh hand and his eyes widen. He stiffens. In his hands the cockerel is still beating its wings.

  FADEOUT

  fpart^our

  Tartakovsky s bookkeeping office. Muginshtein, his assistant, is sitting at the main desk. The Englishman sits working in his cubicle in a cloud of smoke. A clerk brings Muginshtein some papers to be signed. Muginshtein signs them with a flourish. One of the letters, however, does not meet with his approval. He hurls it on the floor and spits in the direction of the clerk who brought it. The clerk, not in the least put out, spits back. Suddenly, four masked men with revolvers in their hands climb in through the open windows from the street.

  Four masked gangsters, drawn up to their full heights, stand on four windowsills.

  “HANDS UP!”

  A medley of raised hands.

  Froim Grach, the Persian, Lyovka Bik, and Kolka Pakovsky are guarding the exits. They are wearing droll masks made of bright calico. They are easy to recognize, particularly Grach, whose mask keeps slipping down.

  Benya enters. He walks over to Muginshtein.

  “WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE WHEN THE BOSS IS OUT?”

  Muginshtein, shivering:

  “I’M IN CHARGE HERE WHEN THE BOSS IS OUT”

  Benya takes hold of Muginshteins raised arms and lowers them. He shakes hands with him pleasantly and leads him to the safe.

  “IN THAT CASE, WITH GOD’S HELP, PLEASE OPEN THE SAFE.”

  Muginshtein, at the end of his tether, shakes his head. Benya takes his revolver out of his pocket and orders Muginshtein:

  “OPEN YOUR MOUTH!”

  Muginshtein slowly opens his mouth. His crooked teeth are visible.

  Benya jams the revolver into Muginshteins mouth and slowly, without lowering his eyes, cocks the safety catch. Spittle trickles out of Muginshteins mouth, and his hands slither down toward his trousers. He pulls out a bunch of keys from a secret hiding place, a little pouch sewn into his long johns.

  The medley of raised hands.

  The massive doors of the safe open. Tartakovsky s riches come into view. The Persians distorted face floats toward the safe, his eyes wide beneath the black arches of his brows.

  Benya wipes the barrel of his revolver, which is dripping with spit, on Muginshteins jacket flap. He puts the revolver away, sits down in an armchair, crosses his legs, and opens a leather bag. Muginshtein hands him a diamond brooch. Benya gets up and walks over to the cashier, whose fat arms are raised, and pins the brooch to her chest.

  The cashiers powerful chest is panting.

  She is bewildered. She looks at Benya and then at the brooch. Her arms are raised. There are large sweat stains around her armpits. Grach walks over to the woman, sniffs at her, and wrinkles his nose. His mask has slipped down to his chin. Benya goes back to his armchair.

  The handing over of the valuables has begun. Muginshtein gives Benya money, stocks, and diamonds. Benya drops the loot into his bag. They work unhurriedly.

  A panoramic view of the office. Lyovka Bik is squabbling with an old clerk who is shouting that he can no longer keep his arms in the air. The old man howls:

  “YOU DAMN ROBBERS! I HAVE A HERNIA!”

  Lyovka carefully probes the old mans stomach and allows him to lower his arms.

  The old man hurries over to the cashier and peers at her brooch. Smacking his lips, he says:

  “A SUPERLATIVE TWO-CARAT!”

  The handing over of the valuables continues without interruption. The hands of Muginshtein and Benya move smoothly.

  Lyovka Bik is strolling through the office. The Englishman, tormented by his inability to smoke, makes imploring signs, nodding his head toward his pipe. Lyovka slides the pipe between the Englishmans yellow teeth and lights a match.

  The movement of Muginshteins and Benyas hands.

  The Englishmans pipe simply will not light—this is because his hands are raised, which keeps him from pressing down the tobacco in his pipe. Lyovka lights one match after another. The lit match in his fingers freezes.

  Drunken Savka has just jumped through the window. He roars and waves his revolver.

  Lyovkas match is burning to the end. It singes his fingers.

  Drunken Savka fires his revolver and Muginshtein collapses. Benya, gripped by horror and rage, shouts:

  “EVERYONE OUT!

  The King grabs Savka by the
lapel, pulls him toward him, and shakes him harder and harder.

  “I SWEAR TO YOU ON MY MOTHER’S HAPPINESS, SAVELI,

  YOU’LL BE LYING NEXT TO HIM!”

  The gangsters run. Muginshtein lies writhing on the floor. The old man with the hernia comes crawling toward him from under a desk.

  Muginshteins death throes, fading into . . .

  . . . the cover of a book: Hygiene and Marriage.

  A curly-headed young maiden is bending over the book. She has an insignificant, freckled face, and she is staring so intently that she looks gloomy.

  The police headquarters of Kerensky, the lawyer6

  Inside the police headquarters. Young women and puny students with Jewish features are sitting at desks, among them Lazar Shpilgagen, now looking even more haggard than on the day of his marriage. The curly-headed young woman is sitting by the telephone, deeply engrossed in questions of hygiene and marriage. For a long time she ignores the rattling telephone bell (the telephone is an old model with a bell on the outside). Finally she lifts idly the receiver.

  “SHPILGAGEN, TELL THE CHIEF THAT TARTAKOVSKY IS

  BEING RAIDED.”

  she tells Shpilgagen, who is sitting next to her, puts back the receiver, and immerses herself once more in her book.

  Shpilgagen totters weakly toward the chief. His shoelaces are undone, and he stops to tie them.

  Chief of Police Tsitsin, also a lawyer

  The office of the chief of police. Tsitsin, a brown-haired man with a haggard, aristocratic face, is holding forth before three crippled war veterans, the same three men for whose benefit the shackles had been auctioned off at Cafe Fankoni. A stream of flowery words washes over

  the war veterans. Shpilgagen enters. At first the chief does not pay attention to what Shpilgagen is saying, but then he becomes extremely agitated.

  The chief runs down the corridor, waving his arms.

  The old man with the hernia is pouring water out of a brass teapot over the fainted cashier, who has fainted. She covers the brooch with her hand.

  A tank slowly rolls out of the courtyard of the police headquarters. Tsitsin’s inspired face is peeking out of one of the tanks embrasures.

  The bakers, with Sobkov at their head, come running toward Tartakovsky’s office.

  A crowd of thousands in Tartakovsky s yard: women, crawling children, idlers, orators. The tank rolls with arduous slowness. Tsitsin jumps out of the tank. Sobkov calls out to him:

  “GIVE ME A FEW FIGHTING MEN AND WE’LL GRAB THE

  KING!”

  Tsitsin waves him away and runs off, the crowd trailing behind him. Only a watchmaker in tattered shoes stays behind. With a bored expression he raises his eyes, fortified with a watchmakers glass, to the sky. The sun with its flaming rays pierces the glass.

  A room in the Kriks’ house. Framed portraits of Tolstoy and General Skoblev are hanging on the wall. Old Reizl is serving soup to Benya and Froim Grach. Grach dips a large piece of bread into the soup and devours it with gusto. Benya pushes his plate away. Reizl places roasted gizzards and sliced eggs in front of him, but Benya refuses everything—his mind is not on gizzards. Sobkov comes bursting into the room.

  “WE DON’T NEED NO CRIMINALS!”

  the baker shouts, and fires at Benya. He misses. Grach throws himself on Sobkov, pushes him down under him, and begins strangling him. Benya pulls Grach off Sobkov.

  “LET HIM GO, FROIM! TRY FIGURING OUT THESE BOLSHEVIKS AND WHAT THEY WANT!”

  Grach gets up. Sobkov, half strangled, remains lying on the floor. Reizl brings in the main course, stepping over Sobkovs sprawled-out body without bothering to glance down, and pours some stew onto their plates. Benya drums his fingers on the table.

  FADEOUT

  Two days later Muginshteins funeral took place. Such a funeral Odessa had never seen, nor will the world ever see the like of it

  A cantor in somber raiment. Behind him march the little synagogue choirboys in black overcoats and tall velvet hats.

  An opulent carriage, three pairs of horses with plumes on their heads, and men from the Funeral Brotherhood in top hats.

  The crowd walking behind the coffin. In the first row, Tartakovsky and another reputable merchant are propping up old Auntie Pesya, the mother of the murdered man.

  The crowd: lawyers, members of the Society of Jewish Shop Assistants, and women wearing earrings.

  Benya Kriks red automobile is tearing through the streets of Odessa.

  Tartakovsky and the coworkers of the deceased, among them the old man with the hernia and the Englishman, are carrying the coffin along the cemetery path. Benya Kriks automobile pulls up at the gates of the cemetery. Benya, Kolka Pakovsky, Lyovka Bik, and the Persian jump out. Benya is carrying a wreath.

  Tartakovsky and the other men carrying the coffin. Benya and his associates catch up with them. The gangsters push away Tartakovsky, the old man with the hernia, and the Englishman, and slide their steel shoulders under the coffin. The procession collapses in disorder. Tartakovsky disappears. The gangsters carrying the coffin tread slowly, sorrowfully, with fiery eyes.

  The whole screen is filled with the coffin swaying on the gangsters’ shoulders.

  By the cemetery gates. Tartakovsky s coachman has left his post to answer the call of nature. His broad back is looming by the corner of the cemetery wall. Tartakovsky comes running out through the gateway. He jumps into his carriage and whips the horses.

  The cantor is praying above the grave. Benya is propping up Auntie Pesya. The cantor takes a handful of earth to throw onto the coffin, but his hand suddenly stops cold. Two fellows come trudging toward him, carrying the deceased Savka Butsis. Benya turns to the cantor:

  “PLEASE PERFORM THE LAST RITES FOR SAVELI BUTSIS, A

  MAN UNKNOWN TO YOU, BUT ALREADY DECEASED.

  The cantor, his whole body shaking, his eyes darting left and right in search of an escape, totters toward Savkas coffin. The gangsters have surrounded the corpse and warily follow the prayers, ready to stave off any attempts the cantor might make to cut corners in the funeral service. The crowd is receding. The people fall back to about ten paces or so from the coffins, and then turn and run.

  Tartakovsky is whipping the horses. His coachman is running after the carriage.

  The cemetery path. Tombstones, praying angels, pyramids, marble Stars of David. The running, panicking crowd.

  The cantor is stammering over Savkas coffin, Auntie Pesya is crying bitter tears, and the gangsters are praying in the tradition of their fathers.

  By the cemetery gates the crowd is trampling down every obstacle in its path: carriages, a tram, even transport wagons are taken by storm.

  The worn-out coachman has given up all hope of catching up with his carriage. He parts the flaps of his padded coat and sits down on the ground to catch his breath.

  The stream of buggies and carts. People are standing on the carts, swaying as if they were standing on the deck of a ship during a storm.

  Two elegantly dressed ladies standing on a coal cart.

  The red automobile plunges into the running crowd and disappears.

  FADEOUT

  The bare backs of Sobkov and his lanky neighbor. The movement of their back muscles.

  In the bakery. Kochetkov is throwing firewood into the blazing oven and the head baker is pulling out finished loaves. Benya enters. He takes Sobkov aside.

  The storeroom. Loaves of bread are cooling in long rows on shelves. Benya and Sobkov enter.

  “TAKE ME TO YOUR COMRADES, SOBKOV, AND I SWEAR ON

  MY MOTHER’S HAPPINESS THAT I’LL GIVE UP GANGSTER-

  ING!”

  Sobkov runs his fingers over the crust of a steaming loaf.

  “WORDS, NOTHING BUT WORDS!”

  He looks at Benya and immediately looks away again. The King comes up very close to him and lays his delicate, ring-covered hand on the bakers bare, dirty shoulder.

  “I SWEAR TO YOU ON MY MOTHER’S HAPPINESS!” he repeats forcefu
lly.

  The long rows of bread cooling on the shelves. The breads perfume rolls like a green wave through the storeroom. A ray of sunlight cuts through the mist.

  Benyas and Sobkov s heads close together behind a hedge of lacquered loaves.

  1

  Slobodka was a rough shantytown neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa.

  2

  A comic twist in the invitation is that the couple marrying is announced with Russian patronymics, although the parents have clearly Jewish names. Though Veras father is called Mendel, she is referred to as Vera Mikhailovna, and though Lazar s father is called Tevya, Lazar is referred to as Lazar Timofeyevich.

  3

  The Provisional Government came to power after the Russian Revolution of February 17, and introduced freedom of speech, assembly, press, and religion, and instituted universal suffrage and equal rights for women.

  4

  Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, 1881-1970, was a leading figure in the Provisional Government, and served as Prime Minister of Russia from June 1917 until the Bolsheviks seized power four months later in the October Revolution.

  5

  Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov, the governor-general of Novorossia and Odessa from 1823 to 1844, had commissioned the building of this palace in the 1820s. By the time of the screenplay the palace had become an engineering institute.

  6

  A humorous, irreverent reference to Kerensky, Prime Minister of the provisional government in the four months leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917. He had been a lawyer by profession.

  IPart^fvOc/

  The End of the King

  A telegram ribbon is unfurling against a black background.

  The ribbon is sliding out of the telegraph apparatus:

  “IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 1919.”