The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (49 page)

Echoes of battle—galloping horsemen, reports, the wounded, the dead.

I sleep in the churchyard. Some brigade commander or other is sleeping with his head resting on some young lady’s stomach.

I have been sweating, I feel better. I ride to Berezhtsy, the headquarters office is there, a destroyed house, I drink cherry tea, lie down in the landlady’s bed, sweat, aspirin powder. It would do me good to sleep a little. I remember—I have a fever, heat, some soldiers in the churchyard kicking up a fuss, others cool, they are coupling their stallions with mares.

Berezhtsy, Sienkiewicz, I drink cherry tea, I’m lying on a spring mattress, next to me lies a child gasping for breath. I dozed off for about two hours. They wake me. I’m drenched in sweat. At night we return to Smordva, from there we continue, a clearing in the forest. Night journey, moon, somewhere in front of us, the squadron.

A hut in the forest. The muzhiks and their womenfolk sleep along the walls. Konstantin Karlovich
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is dictating. A rare picture: the squadron is sleeping all around, everything is steeped in darkness, nothing can be seen, a chill flows in from the forest, I bump into the horses, at the headquarters everyone’s eating, I feel sick and lie down on the ground next to a tachanka, I sleep for three hours covered with Barsukovs shawl and coat, it feels good.

July 20, 1920. The heights near Smordva. Pelcha.

We set out at five in the morning. Rain, damp, we stick to the forests. The operation is going very well, our division commander chose the right bypass maneuver, we re continuing to detour. Were soaked, forest paths. The bypass is taking us through Bokuika to Pelcha. Information: at 10 o’clock Dobryvodka was taken, at twelve o’clock, after negligible resistance, Kozin. We’re pursuing the enemy, we go to Pelcha. Forests, forest paths, the squadrons are winding on ahead.

My health is better, for inexplicable reasons.

I am studying the flora of the province of Volhynia, there has been much logging, the clearing in the forest with felled trees, remains of the war, barbed wire, white trenches. Majestic green oaks, hornbeams, many pines, the willow is a majestic and gentle tree, rain in the forest, washed-out roads in the forest, ash trees.

To Pelcha along forest paths. We arrive around ten o’clock. Another village, lanky landlady, boring—nemat, very clean, son had been a soldier, gives us eggs, there’s no milk, in the hut it’s unbearably stuffy, it’s raining, washes out all the roads, black squelching mud, it’s impossible to get to the headquarters. Sitting all day in the hut, it’s warm, there, outside the window, the rain. How boring and banal this kind of life is for me—chicks, a hidden cow, dirt, idiocy. An indescribable sadness lies over the earth, everything is wet, black, autumn, whereas back in Odessa . . .

In Pelcha we captured the transport carts of the Forty-ninth Polish Infantry Regiment. The spoils are being divided outside my window,

completely idiotic cursing, nonstop, other words are boring, they avoid them, as for the cursing: the Mother of Christ, the Goddamn Mother, the peasant women cringe, the Mother of God, the children ask questions—the soldiers curse. Mother of God. Til shoot you, damn it! I get a document bag and a saddlebag. Describe this dull life. The peasant doesn’t go to work on the field. I sleep in the landlady’s bed. We heard that England proposed that Sov. Russia and Poland make peace—is it possible this will end soon?

July 21, 1920. Pelcha — Boratin

We have taken Dubno. The resistance, regardless of what we say, has been insignificant. What is going on? The prisoners talk, and it is clear that it is the revolution of the little people. Much can be said about that, the beauty of the Polish pediments, there is something touching about it, Milady. Fate, slighted honor, Jews, Count Ledochowski. Proletarian Revolution. How I drink in the aroma of Europe that flows from over there.

We set out for Boratin by way of Dobryvodka, forests, fields, soft outlines, oak trees, again music and the division commander, and, nearby, the war. A rest stop in Zhabokriki, I eat white bread. Grishchuk sometimes seems dreadful to me—downtrodden. The Germans: that grinding jaw.

Describe Grishchuk.

In Boratin, a hardy, sunny village. Khmil, smiling at his daughter, he is a closemouthed but wealthy peasant, eggs fried in butter, milk, white bread, gluttony, sun, cleanliness, I am recuperating from my illness, to me all these peasants look alike, a young mother. Grishchuk is beaming, they gave him fried eggs with bacon, a wonderful, shadowy threshing shed, clover. Why doesn’t Grishchuk run away?

A wonderful day. My interview with Konstantin Karlovich [Zholnarkevich]. What kind of men are our Cossacks? Many-layered: rag-looting, bravado, professionalism, revolutionary ideals, savage cruelty. We are the vanguard, but of what? The population is waiting for liberators, the Jews for freedom—but who arrives? The Kuban Cossacks. . . .

The army commander summons the division commander for a meeting in Kozin. Seven versts. I ride. Sand. Every house remains in my heart. Clusters of Jews. Faces, ghetto, and we, an ancient people, tormented, we still have strength, a store, I drink excellent coffee, I pour balm on the storekeepers soul as he listens to the rumpus in his store. The Cossacks are yelling, cursing, climbing up to the shelves, the poor store, the sweaty, red-bearded Jew. ... I wander endlessly, I cannot tear myself away, the shtetl was destroyed, is being rebuilt, has existed for four hundred years, the ruins of a synagogue, a marvelous destroyed old temple, a former Catholic church, now Russian Orthodox, enchanting whiteness, three wings, visible from afar, now Russian Orthodox. An old Jew—I love talking with our people—they understand me. A cemetery, the destroyed house of Rabbi Azrail, three generations, the tombstone beneath the tree that has grown over it, these old stones, all of the same shape, the same contents, this exhausted Jew, my guide, some family of dim-witted, fat-legged Jews living in a wooden shed by the cemetery, the coffins of three Jewish soldiers killed in the Russian-German war.
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The Abramoviches of Odessa, the mother had come to bury him, and I see this Jewess, who is burying her son who perished for a cause that to her is repulsive, incomprehensible, and criminal.

The old and the new cemetery, the shtetl is four hundred years old.

Evening, I walk among the buildings, Jews and Jewesses are reading the posters and proclamations: Poland is the dog of the bourgeoisie, and so on. Insects bring death, and dont remove heaters from the railroad cars.

These Jews are like paintings: lanky, silent, long-bearded, not like ours, fat and jovial. Tall old men hanging around with nothing to do. Most important: the store and the cemetery.

Seven versts back to Boratin, a marvelous evening, my soul is full, our landlord rich, sly girls, fried eggs, lard, our men are catching flies, the Russo-Ukrainian soul. All in all, uninteresting.

July 22, 1920. Boratin

Before lunch, a report to army field headquarters. Nice, sunny weather, rich, solid village, I go to the mill, describe what a water mill is like, Jewish workman, then I bathe in the cold, shallow stream beneath the weak sun of Volhynia. Two girls are playing in the water, a strange, almost irrepressible urge to talk dirty, rough slippery words.

Sokolov is doing badly. I give him horses to get him to the hospital. The staff leaves for Leshniov (Galicia, we cross the border for the first time). I wait for the horses. It is nice here in the village, bright, stomach full.

Two hours later I leave for Khotin. The road goes through the forest, anxiety. Grishchuk is dull-witted, frightening. I am on Sokolovs heavy horse. I am alone on the road. Bright, clear, not hot, a light warmth. A cart up ahead, five men who look like Poles. A game: we ride, we stop, where are you from? Mutual fear and anxiety. By Khotin we can see our troops, we ride off, gunfire. A wild gallop back, I yank the horses reins. Bullets buzz, howl. Artillery fire. At times Grishchuk gallops with dark and taciturn energy, and then at dangerous moments he is unfathomable, limp, black, a heavy growth of beard on his jaw. There’s no longer anyone in Boratin. Our transport carts have passed beyond it, a mess begins. The transport-cart saga, aversion and vileness. Gusev is in charge. We wait outside Kozin half the night, gunfire. We send out a scout, nobody knows anything, horsemen ride about the place with an intent air, tall German fellow from the district commander s, night, want to sleep, the feeling of helplessness—you don’t know where they’re taking you, I think it’s the twenty or thirty men we chased into the woods, an assault. But where did they get the artillery from? I sleep for half an hour, they say there was an exchange of fire, a line of our men advanced. We move farther. The horses are exhausted, a terrible night, we move in a colossal train of transport carts through the impenetrable darkness, we don’t know which villages we’re passing through, there’s a great blaze to one side, other trains of transport carts cross our path. Has the front collapsed or is this just a transport-cart panic?

Night drags on endlessly, we fall into a ditch. Grishchuk drives strangely, were rammed from behind by a shaft, there are yells from somewhere far away, we stop every half verst and stand around futilely and for an agonizingly long time.

A rein tears, our tachanka no longer responds, we drive off into a field, night, Grishchuk has an attack of savage, blunt, hopeless despair

that infuriates me: O may these reins burn in hell, burn, burn! Grishchuk is blind, he admits it, at night he cant see a thing. The train of transport carts leaves us behind, the roads are harsh, black mud, Grishchuk, clutching the remnants of the reins, with his surprising jangling tenor: Were done for, the Poles are going to catch up with us, they’re shelling us from all around, our cavalry transport is surrounded. We drive off at random with torn reins. Our tachanka screeches, in the distance a heavy gloomy dawn, wet fields. Violet streaks in the sky.with black voids. At dawn the shtetl of Verba. Railroad tracks—dead, frail— the smell of Galicia. 4 o’clock in the morning.

July 23, 1920. In Verba

Jews, who have been up all night, stand pitiful, like birds, blue, disheveled, in vests and without socks. A wet and desolate dawn, all of Verba crammed with transport carts, thousands of them, all the drivers look alike, first-aid units, the staff of the Forty-fifth Division, depressing rumors and doubtless absurd, and these rumors are circulating despite our chain of victories. . . . Two brigades of the Eleventh Division have been taken prisoner, the Poles have captured Kozin, poor Kozin, I wonder what will happen there? The strategic position is interesting, the Sixth Division is at Leshniov, the Poles are at Kozin, at Boratin, at our rear lines, we are like squashed pies. We are waiting on the road from Verba. We stand there for two hours, Misha in a tall white cap with a red ribbon gallops over the field. Everyone eats bread with straw, green apples, with dirty fingers and reeking mouths. Dirty, disgusting food. We drive on. Amazing, we come to a standstill every five steps, an endless line of provision carts of the Forty-fifth and the Eleventh Divisions, at times we lose our transport unit, then we find it again. The fields, the trampled rye, villages stripped of food and others not yet completely stripped of food, a hilly region, where are we going? The road to Dubno. Forests, wonderful, ancient, shadowy forests. Heat, shade in the forest. Many trees have been felled for military purposes, a curse upon them, the bare forest clearings with their protruding stumps. The ancient Volhynian forests of Dubno—must find out where they get that fragrant black honey.

Describe the forests.

Krivikha: ruined Czechs, a tasty-looking woman. The horror that follows, she cooks for a hundred men, flies, the commissar’s moist and rattled woman, Shurka, wild game with potatoes, they take all the hay, reap the oats, potatoes by the ton, the girl at the end of her tether, the vestiges of a prosperous farm. The pitiful, lanky, smiling Czech, the nice, fleshy foreign woman, his wife.

A bacchanalia. Gusev’s tasty-looking Shurka with her retinue, the Red Army scum, cart drivers, everyone tramping about in the kitchen, grabbing potatoes, ham, pies are being baked for them. The heat is unbearable, you cant breathe, clouds of flies. The tortured Czechs. Shouting, coarseness, greed. And yet my meal is marvelous: roast pork with potatoes and marvelous coffee. After the meal I sleep under the trees—a quiet, shady slope, swings are swaying before my eyes. Before my eyes lie quiet green and yellow hills drenched in sunlight, and forests. The forests of Dubno. I sleep for about three hours. Then were off to Dubno. I ride with Prishchepa, a new acquaintance, caftan, white hood, illiterate Communist, he takes me to see Zhenya. Her husband— a grober mensh
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—rides on his little horse from village to village buying up produce from the peasants. The wife a tasty-looking, languorous, sly, sensual young Jewess, married five months, doesn’t love her husband, and, by the way, she’s flirting with Prishchepa. I’m the center of attention—er ist ein [illegible]^—she keeps staring at me, asks me my surname, doesn’t take her eyes off me, we drink tea, I’m in an idiotic bind, I am quiet, slack, polite, and thank her for every gesture. Before my eyes: the life of a Jewish family, the mother comes by, some young ladies or other, Prishchepa is quite the ladies’ man. Dubno has changed hands quite a few times. Our side, it seems, didn’t plunder it. So once again they are all shivering, once again degradation without end and hatred toward the Poles who tear out their beards. The husband: Will there be freedom to trade, to buy a few things and then sell them right away, no speculating? I tell him yes, there will, everything will be for the better— my usual system—in Russia wondrous things are happening: express trains, free food for children, theaters, the International.
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They listen with delight and mistrust. I think to myself: a sky full of diamonds will be yours, everything will be turned upside down, everyone will be uprooted yet again, I feel sorry for them.

The Dubno synagogues. Everything destroyed. Two small anterooms remain, centuries, two minute little rooms, everything filled with memories, four synagogues in a row, and then the pasture, the fields, and the setting sun. The synagogues are pitiful, squat, ancient, green and blue little buildings, the Hasidic one, inside, no architecture whatsoever. I go into the Hasidic synagogue. Its Friday. What stunted little figures, what emaciated faces, for me everything that existed for the past 300 years has come alive, the old men bustle about the synagogue, there is no wailing, for some reason they all run back and forth, the praying is extremely informal. It seems that Dubno s most repulsive-looking Jews have gathered. I pray, rather, I almost pray, and think about Hershele,
²¹
this is how I should describe him. A quiet evening in the synagogue, this always has an irresistible effect on me, four synagogues in a row. Religion? No decoration at all in the building, everything is white and plain to the point of asceticism, everything is incorporeal and bloodless to a monstrous degree, to grasp it fully you have to have the soul of a Jew. But what does this soul consist of? Is it not bound to be our century in which they will perish?