The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine
Page 100
• • •
The committee members came pouring out of Murashko’s office and into the corridor in a noisy crowd.
“I will burn that damn airship to a crisp!” Friedman said with uncharacteristic gravity to Petrenko, who was walking next to him. “There wont even be anything left for the gravediggers. You don’t know what I’m capable ofl”
“Yes, I do,” Petrenko said.
Murashko walked past them. Polibin, running with dainty steps, caught up with him and took him by the arm. “Polibin asked to join your Airship Construction Project,” Polibin said, “and how was he
treated? He was sent packing! But here I am again! I think you will find you haven’t gained anything by picking a fight with me!”
And he hurried on with mincing, pattering steps. Natasha came rushing past him, borne on the wings of happiness. These wings brought her to Murashko.
“Well, that’s that!” Murashko said to her. “They listened to what I had to say, and their verdict: Murashko will have to suspend all work until everything has been looked into. I’m to get rid of Zhukov, and drag the airship to the nearest scrap heap, or find some pawnshop to pawn it off to.”
“Alexei Kuzmich!” Natasha interrupted him, her whole body trembling.
“And that isn’t even all! We are to hand over everything to the Justice Department.”
“Alexei Kuzmich,” Natasha went on in a hushed voice, taking him by the arm. “I found the flaw.”
13.
Zhukov was drafting. His face was bent low over the table. The magic light of the lamp fell on his mane of hair and the bandage, through which blood was seeping.
The doorbell.
“Come in,” he called, lowering his face even closer to the blueprint.
But it was the front doorbell that was ringing. Natasha, Friedman, and Mop-head were standing outside.
Night. The face of Vasya the driver shimmered through the windshield of his car.
The incessant ringing of the bell.
“He doesn’t hear the bell,” Friedman said, tugging at the door handle.
The door opened. It wasn’t locked. Tiptoeing in, they crossed the hallway and the children’s room in which the four little Zhukovs were asleep.
Zhukov raised his head from the blueprint and saw his guests.
“Comrade Zhukov,” Mop-head said in a trembling voice filled with clumsy severity and emotion. “In the name of the Komsomol
Committee, and in the name of all our Komsomol members, we would like to express our sympathy, and to affirm—”
“I found the flaw,” Natasha said in her caressing voice.
“The airship will fly, Maestro!” Friedman shouted, suddenly stopping short. Zhukov s absent face. The bloodstain, like a star, on his bandage, his eyes fixed over the heads of his guests.
“Comrade Zhukov,” Mop-head said, stepping closer. “We must continue working on the project right away.”
“This is what we have to continue working on!” Zhukov answered, unrolling a blueprint containing the drawing of a strangely shaped monstrosity. “We have to work on the space capsule of the future.”
He tugged at his bandage.
“Here is the realization of interplanetary flight. The flight to the moon! A speed of a thousand kilometers an hour in the outer atmosphere!”
“The moon can wait, Comrade Zhukov,” Friedman said. “Come back with us to the airship dockyard.”
Friedman and the other Komsomols looked troubled, almost frantic.
“While you are hiding here, Murashko is being put under incredible pressure!” Mop-head said, distressed. “Tomorrow another team is coming to take over, and it will be too late.”
“What you are doing is wrong, Comrade Zhukov,” Natasha said. The sound of Natashas steady, hushed voice made Zhukov shrink, then jump up and stiffen.
“It is of vital importance that the USSR 1 pass the test,” she continued.
“Show me what you have there,” Zhukov said, reaching for the notebook with her calculations that she was holding.
Natasha handed it to him.
Mop-head tiptoed into the next room. She picked up the telephone receiver and quickly dialed a number.
“The Central Committee of the Party? Number 518. I want to speak to Comrade Murashko of the Airship Project. . . . Comrade Murashko? Were trying to bring Zhukov back.”
“What state is he in?” Murashko s voice came from the receiver. “His state? He s talking interplanetary space travel. But we re going to drag him over to the airship dockyard now.”
Zhukov was sitting silently in front of Natashas calculations. He got up, and looked about dispiritedly. There was an expression of sadness and helplessness on his face.
“Comrade Zhukov,” Mop-head said timidly. “We are all waiting for you. The whole assembly crew is waiting.”
Zhukov closed his eyes.
“New aerodynamics calculations,” he said, as if speaking to himself. “Changes to the ring. Impossible . . .well never manage.”
He walked up and down the room with uncharacteristic slowness and fatigue. He smiled unexpectedly at Natasha. He tossed his head back, marched off into the adjoining room, picked up the telephone, and dialed a number. Awkwardly, he spoke provincial words into the receiver: “Have I managed to put a call through to the apartment of the academic, Tolmazov? Should Ivan Platonovich wish to come to the telephone, could he please do so?”
The phone in Tolmazov s apartment had been answered by an elderly woman, a typical Moscow professors wife, wearing a bright, youthful smock.
“Ivan Platonovich has been asleep for some two hours now. May I ask who is calling?”
“This is Zhukov, who has some business to discuss with Ivan Platonovich, business which in the Soviet Union nobody but he can attend to.”
“I would prefer that you did not disturb Ivan Platonovich at this hour,” Tolmazov s wife said, and hung up.
“She would prefer . . .” he stammered. “She would prefer that I didnt disturb him. . . .”
14.
Anna Nikolayevna, the professors wife, was wrong. Tolmazov was not asleep. Zhukovs blueprints were spread out on his long table.
Tolmazov was studying one blueprint after another. He was disheveled, and his fingers were trembling. His trembling fingers picked up an ashtray. The ashtray fell.
Anna Nikolayevnas heavily painted and powdered face appeared in the doorway.
“You re not in bed, Ivan Platonovich?”
“As you can see ...”
“That Zhukov fellow called. I didnt call you—”
“Call him back immediately!”
“I simply cannot understand you!” she said in a hurt voice. “One minute youre yelling that hes stark-raving mad, and the next. . .”
Tolmazov was poring over the blueprints.
“As youre not sleeping, Yd like to have a little talk about Tamara. She wants to go to a resort.”
Tolmazov raised his head from the blueprints.
“Zhukov is mad,” he said. “But Tamara is normal, youre normal, Polibin is normal, and along with all of you I too have become normal—I have stopped being Tolmazov!”
“Lord in heaven, Ivan Platonovich! What are you saying?” Anna Nikolayevna gasped, almost in tears. “Everyone is saying that the airship couldn’t land, and here you are—”
“You fool!” Tolmazov said in a stifled voice. “So how come it took off, then?”
“Youre the one who should answer that question,” a voice came from the door.
Tolmazov turned around. Murashko was standing in the doorway.
“How did you get in here?” Anna Nikolayevna whispered.
“The maid let me in.”
The maid, half dressed and flustered, appeared behind him.
“Go away,” Tolmazov said to his wife.
Anna Nikolayevna left the room, bursting into tears the moment the door closed.
Tolmazov stood in front of the blueprints as if he were guarding them.
“We need your help,” Murashko said.
“Why should I get involved?”
“So that we can see the USSR 1 through its test flight, so that the Tolmazov Vortex Theory can be modified and developed, and so that the Soviet Union will recognize that Pyotr Zhukov is one of its most outstanding engineers. These are the reasons why Professor Tolmazov must work on the aerodynamics computations of Zhukovs ring.”
“I dont quite understand what you mean.”
Tolmazov s hands were shaking.
“I think you do understand. And what you must also understand is that it is of the utmost importance ...”
Tolmazov s baffled face.
“... of the utmost importance that the airships fly. The Communist Party, the Soviet Union, charged me with this enterprise. And I shall. . . how should I put it ... I shall carry it out, come what may!” Murashko sat down. “I am waiting for an answer.”
15.
Polibin leaned back in the seat of a very elegant car. Next to him sat Vasilyev, with an even more dour expression than usual.
Fields of ripened rye flew past.
“My young friend,” Polibin proclaimed. “I think one could go so far as to say that you are not quite satisfactory in your position. People come, people go. I personally would prefer to see a little more self-confidence, indeed, aplomb, in a deputy chief engineer.... You should model yourself on Professor Tolmazov.”
“Not much point in that. That test flight really shook him up.” “Its all plain and simple, my young friend. The test flight totally compromised Zhukov and victoriously brought to the fore our celebrated ProfessorTolmazovs vortex theory. It is what billiard players call a lethal combo, when the cue tears the cloth, smashes the lamp hanging over the billiard table, and goes plunging into the opponent s eye. But I have to say that you should have shown more spirit in the high position you were accorded. Had you done so, Zhukov and company would not have strutted about the way they did!”
The car sped past dimly flowing fields toward the airship construction site.
• • •
On the airship dockyard Mop-head s assembly brigade was disassembling components of the ring.
“Keep up the good work, Comrades!” Mop-heads echoing voice rang out. “We, the Komsomol brigade, must not flag!”
“When did we ever flag?” a gangly fellow covered in engine grease said in a deep voice.
Aksinya, ever-present, appeared at the door: “The design department wants you.”
Mop-head hurried off. She had to run fast, as the new director of construction did not like to be kept waiting.
The new director of construction was Ivan Platonovich Tolmazov. “Comrade Maltseva, we shall now test the side sections! Comrade Leibovich, you have four hours to complete the calculations! Where is the assembly brigade leader?”
“Here I am,” Mop-head said timidly.
“What is your name?”
“Anya Ivanova.”
“Hey, did you hear that, everyone?” someone called out. “Mop-head has a name!”
“The ring has to be dismantled by six o’clock, Comrade Ivanova! Zhukov! Are you asleep?”
“No, I’m not asleep,” Zhukov answered.
He looked at Tolmazov, who had taken off his jacket, and peered at him shyly and filled with admiration. Then he went hurrying aimlessly from one drafting table to the next.
“Seryozha,” Tolmazov called out to Vasilyev, who was standing transfixed by the door. “Where did you disappear to? Go check the progress on the ring. Were flying tomorrow!”
“Flying on what?” Polibin s tenor resounded from behind Vasilyev. Polibin scuttled over to Tolmazov on his little legs, leaned toward him, and, unable to contain his rage, shrieked, “Involvement is very praiseworthy in an academic, but in this case possibly too late!”
Murashko appeared at the door. Polibin shuffled his little legs. “Greetings, Comrade Murashko!” he said. “I have come from the Central Office. The investigative commission charged with looking into the crash has been appointed, and I am the chairman of this commission. First things first: I want you to seal the hangar and issue an order for all work to cease immediately!”
“Not until I have that in writing,” Murashko said.
“The written order has already been dispatched,” Polibin, who seemed to have grown in height, announced.
16.
In the building next to the hangar, Vasilyev and Natasha were working quickly and silently linking two cables.
Mop-head and Friedman were crouching behind some bushes next to the gas container and hastily uncoiling an electric cable from a metal container.
In a booth not far from the airship project s main building, Vasya the driver and Varya from the design department were joining wires and attaching a lever to a marble slab.
Vasya looked at his watch and pulled the lever down.
A thick cloud of smoke rose from the metal container in the bushes.
Petrenko sat reading a book in the control room of the airship project building.
A siren wailed, followed by loud bells. Little red lights began to flash, the emergency telegraph system rattled into action, and the many phones on the control-room table began to ring.
Petrenko grabbed two receivers at the same time: “A fire at the gas purification unit? And also in the first and second hangars? And in the depot?”
Petrenko dropped both receivers and picked up the only one that wasn’t ringing.
“Connect me to Murashkos apartment! The director of the Airship Construction Project! The director!”
Petrenkos howl reverberated through the control room.
Clouds of black smoke covered the sky.
Fire engines sped toward the gas purification units.
• • •
“The smoke is nearing the hangar, Comrade Murashko,” Eliseyevs calm voice came over the phone.
“What action do you propose?” Murashko asked.
“I propose that the airship be launched.”
“Follow all the emergency procedures,” Murashko said, placing the receiver back on the hook, and for the first time in many days smiled.
The airmen pulled their uniforms on as they ran.
The launch crew brought the airship out of the hangar as quickly as possible.
A group of Komsomols from Mop-heads brigade came running with fire extinguishers.
Oily black smoke rose, forming a spreading row of clouds in the sky.
The airship went soaring up into the air.
It flew over the highway along which Polibin s car was speeding.
Hearing the drone of the engines, Polibin looked out the window and saw the rising airship.
Murashko came out of his office and turned to his secretary: “Have them turn off the fire alarm.”
Mop-head radioed Murashko from the airship: “Perfect steering! Speed 240! Everything in order!”
The airship unexpectedly turned toward the wind.
“Set the course at 120!” Eliseyev ordered.
“Aye-aye, Captain! Setting the course at 120!” Petrenko replied.
The airship responded smoothly to all the commands, gradually picking up speed.
Then came time to test the toughest maneuver.
“Descend in a spiral!” Eliseyev ordered.
“Aye-aye, Captain! Descending in a spiral!” Friedman answered, anxiously gritting his teeth.
The two-hundred-meter-long silver cigar went into a spiraling nosedive, stopped short in the nick of time, and swung up again in a steep ascent.
Natasha radioed Murashko: “The spiraling descent was successful, Comrade! Everything in order!”
Murashko was leaving the main building when he ran into Polibin, who was carrying a package.
“I wonder what we re paying these firemen for! They are not doing much good!” Murashko said to him, and walked off into the field.
Two old men were sitting on an empty, upturned crate outside the hangar, shading their ey
es from the sun as they watched the airship floating high in the sky. A group of workers and airship builders was standing nearby. An old metallurgist from the assembly crew came over and sat down next to the old men, and, shading his eyes, also watched the airship. The two old men were Zhukov and Tolmazov.
The airfield filled with airmen, journalists, and air force workers, all of whom had come in from Moscow.
It was now the third hour of USSR fs test flight. The records in height and speed had already been broken.
A plain-looking man of about fifty came up to Murashko. He had been the chairman of the commission at the Economic Council of the Peoples Commissariat, which had authorized the higher funding estimates for the Airship Construction Project.
“Well, Comrade, IVe been transferred from the Economic Council,” he said to Murashko.
“Where to?”
“Im now back at the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Im telling you this because I want you to come and see me over there. After all, the Airship Construction Project is no longer a construction
, y yy
project.
The last view of the silvery airship USSR 1 in the fiery sky.
17.
A lean man came out of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party at number 4 Staraya Square. He stopped for a moment, and then headed for the line of cars parked outside the entrance.
The car drove off.
“Moscow?” Vasya asked.
“No, the outskirts.”
Pause.
“Well, Comrade Murashko? Who are we now?”
“Were the high-altitude bomber project, thats who we are. Factory number ...”
Moscow flew past the windows.
TWO SCENES FROM THE FORGING OF STEEL
The following two pieces, “The Germans in the Ukraine”
Petlyurn's Prison, ” screenplay Babel was working on
between November 1937 and February 1938 with the actress Yulia Solntseva. It was based on Ostrovsky s best-selling novel The Forging of Steel (translated into English as The Making of a Hero/ Ostrovsky s novel is a Socialist Realist bildungsroman about a young man achieving maturity as a model Communist during the years of the Russian Civil War (1918-20).
The complete screenplay has not survived. The movie The Forging of Steel, directed by Mark Donskoi, with whom Babel had worked on the Gorky trilogy, premiered in 1942. It is not clear; however, whether Babels screenplay was in any way used.