The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (115 page)

* An elegant and expensive Odessan cafe that attracted a wealthy international clientele before the Revolution.

through. Enthusiasm, spring, and fervor have covered her long nose with delicate pearls of sweat. Tartakovsky is sitting at a table, surrounded by a flock of fawning brokers. The table is heaped with samples: wheat, strips of leather, karakul fur. He drops a twenty-kopeck coin in the girls jar.

The auctioneer on the platform waves the shackles in the air.

The girl with the low-cut blouse weaves her way among the tables. Benya Krik is lounging at a table by the window, carefully writing something on a napkin. Drunken Savka is sitting next to him, eating one cream puff after another. The young lady comes up to Benya. With an elegant flick of the wrist, the King throws a golden coin into her jar. The auctioneer quickly comes down from his platform and brings Benya a link from the shackles. The veterans come hobbling after the auctioneer and thank Benya with lifeless voices. Drunken Savka stares at the spectacle. He gets up, his legs faltering, and peers down the young ladys blouse.

The low-cut blouse and Savka’s sullen, resolute face above it.

Sobkov, dressed in his Sunday best, walks past Benyas table. Benya asks him to sit down.

“YOU’VE WAITED LONG ENOUGH FOR YOUR REVOLUTION,

SOBKOV, AND HERE IT IS!”

Sobkov grins and motions with his head toward the patrons of the cafe.

“THE REVOLUTION WILL BE HERE ONCE WE’VE TAKEN

THEIR COINS FROM THEM.”

Benya wipes the nib of his pen on Savkas jacket and grimaces very expressively.

“WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT THE COINS IS TRUE, SOBKOV!”

he says, and begins writing again. Savka has fallen asleep. Sobkov eyes the patrons of the cafe.

Tartakovsky s table. One of the brokers pours a pile of gold crosses and amulets onto it.

“AND HERE, MONSIEUR TARTAKOVSKY, I HAVE A CONSIGNMENT OF RELIGIOUS RELICS AT HALF PRICE!”

Tartakovsky looks unwillingly at the merchandise and weighs the crosses on his palm.

Benya folds the note, calls the waiter, and asks him to hand the note to Tartakovsky.

Tartakovsky is not interested in the merchandise. He pushes away the ‘consignment of religious relics.” The waiter hands him Benyas note.

Benyas note, scribbled on a flowered napkin:

Monsieur Tartakovsky, I ordered one person to find tomorrow morning by the gate of number 17, Sofiyevskaya Street, fifty thousand rubles. If he does not find it, then something awaits you, the like of which has never before been heard, and you will be the talk of all Odessa. Sincerely yours, Benya the King.

Outraged, Tartakovsky crumples the letter, and makes indignant signs at Benya, furiously tugging at his shirt collar as if to say, “Go ahead, rip the last shirt I own off my back!” And he furiously sets about writing a reply.

The waiter gives the invalids three glasses of grenadine with straws in them. The armless mannequins slurp the grenadine through the straws.

The waiter hands Tartakovsky s reply to Benya.

Tartakovsky s epistle, also written on a napkin:

Benya, If you were an idiot, I would write you as to an idiot. But from what I know of you, you aren’t one, and may the Lord prevent me from changing my mind. I have no money, all I have is ulcers, sores, worries, and no sleep! Drop your foolish thoughts, Benya. Your friend, Rubin Tartakovsky.

Benya puts Tartakovsky’s letter in his pocket, pays the check, and wakes Savka. Savka jumps up, his eyes bulge, and he grabs Benya by the throat. Savka had dreamed that the police descended upon him in the night. He comes to his senses and immediately calms down. Benya, Savka, and Sobkov head for the exit. Tartakovsky is still tugging at his shirt collar—“Go ahead, rip the last shirt I own off my back!” The King spreads out his arms, as if to say: “Well, I did my best!”

The corner of Ekaterininskaya and Deribasovskaya Streets. A beautiful spring day. The strolling Odessa crowd. Benya calls out to a cabbie—shteiger in Odessa slang—and points at drunken Savka. He tells the shteiger.

“DRIVE HIM ABOUT TILL HE COMES TO, VANYA!”

Savka is lolling back on the cab seat with all the hauteur and chic he can muster. The horse starts off at a fast trot.

A group of flower girls on the corner of Ekaterininskaya and Deribasovskaya Streets. The playful women and their flowers against the backdrop of the shop windows of Wagners, the most elegant store in Odessa. Foreign goods are displayed in the windows: elegant luggage, porcelain, bibelots, little bottles of perfume in boxes lined with blue satin. Among the women selling flowers is a girl of about fifteen, dressed in rags. The King goes up to her, buys some violets, and, while Sobkov is not looking, slips some pieces of paper with messages scribbled on them among her bouquets. The girl watches Benya tensely.

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 lawyer
⁶

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