The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (113 page)

“MARANTZ SAW THE CHIEF OF POLICE TODAY!”

Benyas fingers, plucking the mandolin strings, become rigid. A string breaks and spirals around the neck of the mandolin. The mandolin flies onto the bed and is buried in the cushions.

FADEOUT

An empty sleeve, fastened with a ruby pin in the shape of a snake, is hanging from Savka Butsiss shoulder.

A street in the Moldavanka. Savka and the Persian are sitting on a bench outside Marantzs front door. They are immersed in their favorite pastime—cracking sunflower seeds. A buggy pulls up to Marantzs house. A portly coachman with a patriarchal backside and a flowing beard is sitting on the box. Something about the coachman reminds one in a strange way of the gyspy woman in the earlier scenes.

Benya steps out of the buggy and rings the doorbell. A little hatch in the door opens and Marantzs head comes jutting out, a head still safeguarding a few tufts of hair and covered with ink stains and pillow feathers. A terrible fear suddenly streaks across his face. Benya raises his hat to the broker with unsettling politeness.

The coachmans indifferent face. BorecJ, he jingles the coin necklace the gypsy woman had been wearing.

Marantz comes stumbling out into the street. Benya greets him, takes hold of his shoulders, and says in a friendly tone:

“THERE’S MONEY TO BE MADE, MARANTZ!” ,

Benya rubs his thumb and index finger together, signifying that a profitable deal is at hand.

Marantz hesitates. Struggling to guess the reason for this unexpected visit, he peers into Benyas impenetrable face.

Benyas thumb and index finger rub slower and more mysteriously.

“THERE’S MONEY TO BE MADE, MARANTZ!”

The broker has been won over. His wife comes out of the house with his coat, his chocolate-brown bowler hat, and a canvas umbrella. A gaggle of children is peeking out the front door. Clean and nimble Semitic eyes sparkle from their grimy faces. Marantz and Benya get into the buggy. Marantzs wife bows to the “King.” Her long breasts swing, like washing hung to dry in a yard on a windy day. The coachman whips the horses.

The buggy driving off. We see the coachmans burly, reassuring back, Marantzs bowler, and Benyas panama. The buggy drives past a policeman. The policeman salutes Benya.

One-armed Savka motions one of Marantzs sons to come over. The little fellow, wavering between terror and delight at the unknown, comes hobbling up to him in a crooked, halting line.

The seashore. A crashing wave. Above, white dachas with colonnaded facades. The buggy is riding along the edge of the seashore. Benya and Marantz are chatting affably. The bowler and the panama hat bob amicably. The horses are trotting in a brisk canter. The area becomes more and more deserted.

Marantzs misgivings have gradually turned into joy at the beauty of the sea and the rocks. He has sprawled out on the leather cushions and unbuttoned his shirt to catch a little sun. Benya takes out his cigarette case, offers Marantz a cigarette, and casually says:

“WORD HAS IT THAT YOU’VE BEEN BLABBING TO THE

INSPECTOR ABOUT ME.”

Marantzs quaking fingers tap the cigarette on the silver top of Benyas case.

The buggy rolls to a hidden, deserted spot on the shore. Rocks, bushes. The coachman stops the horses, turns his bearded face to the passenger, and swings his legs back into the buggy.

Benya offers Marantz a match. The terrified Jew begins smoking his cigarette. He looks first at Benya, then at the coachman, who is now sitting on the box with his legs dangling into the buggy. The coachman slowly places his feet on Marantzs shoulders and lifts the bowler hat off his head.

The Persian is playing a game favored by all children with Marantzs little son: the little boy lays his palms on those of the Persian and then quickly pulls them back. The Persian pretends he is too slow to hit the little boys palms, and little Marantz squeals with delight. The boy is perfectly happy.

The seashore. A wave breaks beneath the cliffs. Marantzs bowler hat falls into the water.

The buggy drives along the seashore. Benya is wearing his panama hat as before, but Marantz is no longer wearing a hat. His head is lolling disheveled. The coachman raises the buggys top.

The bowler hat is floating on the broad, blue, melting waves.

The horses’ straining, foaming muzzles.

The Persian and the boy are still playing. Savka is tirelessly cracking sunflower seeds.

The buggy, its top up, drives past the policeman. He again salutes.

Savka sees the buggy from a distance. He pats the little boy on the cheek, gives him a fiver, and sends him off with a playful little nudge of his knee.

The buggy stops outside Marantz’s house. Benya gets out and walks to the front door.

Savka and the Persian get up from the bench and walk off, their arms over each other’s shoulders.

“Madame” Marantz opens the door.

“WORD HAS IT, MADAME MARANTZ, THAT YOUR LATE HUSBAND HAS BEEN BLABBING ABOUT ME.”

The woman’s distorted face in the doorway.

Marantz’s body slowly rolls out of the buggy.

The backs of Savka and the Persian as they lazily trudge along the street.

Marantz’s body sprawled out on the ground.

A little heap of the husks of the sunflower seeds that Savka cracked.

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Part
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TiVO

The Kings friends come to Dvoira Kriks wedding

The police station building. A brick wall, three stories high. Jailcell windows, covered with bars, are on the third floor. Prisoners’ faces are peering out of them. The prisoners, overwhelmed by sudden excitement, begin waving to someone with handkerchiefs.

A street in the Moldavanka. A side view of the police station. An old Jewess is sitting on the corner, delousing her granddaughter s hair. There is a sudden noise. The old woman raises her head and looks at the approaching procession.

Gangsters are heading to old Kriks house in archaic wedding carriages. Savka and the Persian are sitting in the first carriage, each holding a gigantic bouquet of flowers in his extended, steely hand. They are dressed in the style of Benya Krik, but instead of panama hats they are wearing tiny bowler hats, cocked to the side. The coachman is wearing a bow tie, and looks more like the best man at a wedding than a coachman.

The second carriage is a gigantic, swaying, black box. Lyovka Bik, one of the Kings closest associates, is sprawled out in the back. He is holding a bouquet of flowers in his hands, and his coachman is wearing a bow tie.

A crowd of well-wishing policemen are standing at the gates of the police station. They watch the opulent procession with envy and respect.

The third carriage. One-eyed Froim Grach is sitting in it (his left eye is missing, gouged out and dried up), presenting a striking antithesis to the other gangsters. He is wearing a canvas cloak and well-polished boots. Next to sullen and drowsy Grach is the coquettish, wrinkled face of sixty-year-old Manka, the matriarch of the Slobodka
¹
bandits. She is wearing a lace kerchief. Urchins and loafers are running behind their carriage.

Froim Grach and Manka, the matriarch of the Slobodka bandits

The episcopal carriage of Froim and Grandma Manka slowly rolls past the police station.

The prisoners wave their handkerchiefs in a frenzy.

The old woman bows with the poise of an empress surveying her troops.

Sokovichs sullen face at a second-floor window.

Sokovichs office. A portrait of Czar Nicholas II is hanging on the wall. Sokovichs squirming back at the window. Glechik, his deputy, a fat man with a soft, rolling stomach, is sitting at the desk in a wide armchair. His shortsighted eyes blinking, he sucks at fruit drops, of which he has a whole box. The chief of polices back manifests extreme excitement, twisting and shuddering as if a flea had bitten it.

Glechik shoves a heap of fruit drops into his mouth. They dont all immediately fit in the opening, which is covered with a lush drooping mustache The chief of police turns around abruptly, walks over to Glechik, and prods him:

“IT’S CURTAINS FOR BENCHIK! WE’LL GRAB THEM TODAY AT

THE WEDDING!”

Glechiks forlorn face. Blinking, he asks:

“WHY BOTHER GRABBING THEM?”

The chief of police waves his hands disparagingly and rushes out of the office. Fat Glechik lifts his rolling stomach and trudges dejectedly after Sokovich. A piece of chicken wrapped in oilpaper is sticking out of his bulging pocket, and a dirty bit of string is hanging down and dragging along the floor.

The chief of police runs down the stairs, Glechik waddling after him.

The peaceful existence of a police station backyard. A fat-faced policeman is washing a pair of long underpants in a tub by the wall; in another corner of the yard, a group of Odessans, among them sage old Jews and stout market women, are eagerly saying good-bye and shaking the hand of a clerk. The handshaking takes a long time, the hands of the Odessans come darting out to him in the strangest ways, and after every convulsive handshake the clerk slips a fifty-kopeck coin into his pocket. Sokovich trots past the sage old men and the stout market women.

The policemen have lined up along the courtyard wall. The chief of police walks up to them. They stare at him intently. He gives them a speech:

“FELLOW OFFICERS! WHEN YOU HAVE HIS MAJESTY THE

CZAR, YOU CAN’T HAVE A KING TOO!

The row of well-fed, mustached faces. The chief of police continues his speech, and the more his enthusiasm grows, the more the faces of the policemen droop.

A flock of doves by a dovecote. Someone shoos them away with a stick.

Glechik pokes a long stick into the dovecote and then throws the stick away. Nothing can cheer him up. Passion and doubt are battling in his fat face.

Deputy Chief Glechik’s tormented soul

Glechik takes a card out of his pocket and reads it with sadness and a sort of secret voluptuousness.

A close-up of the wedding invitation with a noble crown on it. Written in ink on the side: “To his Excellency, Monsieur Glechik.” The printed text:

“Monsieur and Madame Mendel Usherovich Krik, and Monsieur and Madame Tevya Hananevich Shpilgagen request the honor of your presence at the wedding of their children Vera Mikhailovna Krik and Lazar Timofeyevich Shpilgagen, on Tuesday, June 5, 1913. Sincerely, the Parents.”
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Glechik reads the invitation with sadness. A heavy sigh shakes the doleful thicket of his mustache. He is tormented by doubts. He turns his head, closes his eyes, and begins to twiddle his thumbs.

“TO GO OR NOT TO GO ..

Glechiks twiddling thumbs. One thumb bumps against the other: so he will go.

Gripped by a powerful emotion, he throws his chicken to a dog and hurries away.

Glechik hurrying through the yard. He is practically knocked off his feet by a group of policemen who are dragging in a young man by the scruff of the neck. It is Kolka Pakovsky, the same fellow we have already seen in the guise of the gypsy woman and Benyas coachman. Kolkas clothes are in tatters, he is drunk, his legs are dragging as he stumbles after the policemen. He takes the hand of the man propping him up and carefully licks it with drunken tenderness.

Sokovich jerks his leg briskly and continues his speech:

“WE’VE GOT TO CATCH BENYA KRIK’S WHOLE GANG IN

TODAY’S RAID!”

The policemens dejected faces.

Kolka, propped up by the policemen, is dragged before the chief.

They tell the chief of police:

“A KNIFE FIGHT IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, YOUR EXCELLENCY!”

Sokovich looks at Kolka absentmindedly.

“LOCK HIM UP OVERNIGHT WE’LL DEAL WITH HIM

TOMORROW.”

The exchange between the handshakers and the clerk is still continuing.

The policemen are dragging Kolka through the corridors of the police station. Kolka keeps trying to kiss the boots of the men dragging him away.

The policemen open the door of a cell and thrust Kolka in. He goes tumbling head over heels into the cell.

The cell. Kolka tumbling into it. The other prisoners jump up as if on a silent order, and hug their new cell mate.

Kolka calms down in the arms of his cell mates. He takes a few swaggering steps, and collapses on the floor. His cell mates look at him eagerly, as at the bearer of blessed news. Their circle closes over Kolka as he falls.

Shot from above: tousled heads leaning over Kolka. The circle of prisoners slowly opens, Kolka gets up, yet a body is still lying sprawled on the floor.

On the cell floor lies a bloated rubber suit, somewhat reminiscent of a diving suit, and filled with some kind of liquid.

FADEOUT

Puffs of steam and smoke cloud the screen. Two pregnant bellies covered in striped smocks emerge from the fog. The bellies rest side by side against the bar of a stove.

Turkeys, geese, and every dish imaginable are roasting and steam-

ing on the stove. The pregnant cooks are placing food on plates. Tiny eighty-year-old Reizl is reigning over them. Her withered little face, enveloped in puffs of steam, is filled with grandeur and holy impassivity. Reizl is holding a big knife, with which she slices open the stomachs of large sea fish writhing about on the table.

The pregnant cooks with their striped bellies pass the dishes to shabby Jewish waiters wearing white gloves and paper shirtfronts that keep curling up. Warts glow on their cheeks, and tufts of hair stand up in inappropriate places. They grab the dishes and run out of the kitchen.

The dying fish flop over the table, thrashing with their sparkling tails.

The wedding feast in the Kriks’ courtyard. Chinese lanterns are hanging everywhere. The waiters run past tables of beggars and cripples, who are drunk, pulling wild grimaces, banging their crutches, and grabbing hold of the waiters, who tear themselves loose and head for the main table, where the Kings retinue is wreaking havoc. The newlyweds sit at the place of honor: forty-year-old Dvoira, a large-breasted woman with goiter and bulging eyes, and Lazar Shpilgagen, a feeble little creature with a haggard face and thinning hair. Next to them sit Benya, Papa Krik, Lyovka Bik, Savka, the Persian, and their ladies—guffawing Moldavanka women in flaming red shawls. Papa Krik bellows: