The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (37 page)

“Our Ivan thinks like a commissar!” Korotkov, the driver of the first cart, shouted.

“So what if he thinks like a commissar!” Barsutsky muttered, and turned away. “We all do. But we have to stick to the rules.”

“But our deaf friend, he can hear perfectly well!” Akinfiev suddenly interrupted. He twirled his whip with his fat fingers, laughed, and winked at the deacon. The deacon sat on the cart, his large shoulders drooping, his head trembling.

“Well then, go with God!” the medical assistant yelled in desperation. “I hold you responsible, Ivan!”

“HI gladly be held responsible,” Ivan Akinfiev said slowly, and lowered his head. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said to the deacon, without looking back at him. “Make yourself even more comfortable,” he repeated, and took the reins in his hands.

The carts formed a line and hurried off one after the other along the high road. Korotkov drove in front and Akinfiev at the back, whistling a tune and waving the reins. They rode this way some fifteen versts, but as evening fell they came up against a sudden enemy attack.

On that day, July 22, the Poles in a swift maneuver had mangled the rear lines of our army, stormed the shtetl of Kozin, and had taken prisoner many of our fighters of the Eleventh Division. The squadrons of the Sixth Division rushed off to Kozin to counterattack the enemy. The lightning maneuvers of the units threw the cavalry transport into turmoil, and the Revolutionary Tribunal carts rolled through the raging throes of battle for two days and nights, and it was only on the third night that they came out onto the road along which the rearguard staff was retreating. It was on this road at midnight where I ran into the three carts.

Numb with despair, I ran into them after the battle at Khotin. In the battle at Khotin my horse had been killed. After I lost him, I climbed onto an ambulance cart, and gathered up wounded men until evening. Then all the able-bodied men were kicked off the ambulance cart, and I was left behind near a destroyed hut. Night came galloping toward me on swift steeds. The wailing of the transport carts deafened the universe; on the earth enveloped by screams the roads faded away. Stars slithered out of the cool gut of the sky, and on the horizon abandoned villages flared up. With my saddle on my shoulders I walked along a torn-up field path, stopping by a bend to answer the call of nature. Relieved, I buttoned myself up, but suddenly felt droplets falling on my hand. I switched on my flashlight, turned around, and saw lying on the ground the body of a Pole, drenched in my urine. A notebook and scraps of Pilsudski’s proclamation* lay next to the corpse. The Poles notebook had a list of his expenses, a schedule of performances at the Krakow Dramatic Theater, and an entry indicating the birthday of a woman by the name of Marie-Louisa. I picked up Pilsudskis proclamation, wiped the stinking liquid from my unknown brothers skull, and walked on, bent under the weight of my saddle.

At that moment, there was a groaning of wheels close by.

“Halt!” I yelled. “Who goes there?”

Night came galloping toward me on swift steeds, flames danced on the horizon.

“Were from the Revolutionary Tribunal,” a voice smothered by darkness called back.

I rushed forward and ran right into the cart.

“They killed my horse!” I said loudly. “His name was Lavrik.”

No one answered. I climbed onto the cart, put the saddle under my head, fell asleep, and slept till dawn, warmed by the rotting hay and the body of Ivan Akinfiev, my chance neighbor. In the morning, the Cossack woke up later than I did.

“Thank God its light enough to see again,” he said, took his revolver out from under his little trunk, and fired a shot next to the deacon’s ear. The deacon was sitting right in front of us, driving the horses. Airy gray hair fluttered over his large, balding skull. Akinfiev fired another shot next to the deacons other ear, and slipped the revolver back into its holster.

“Good day to you, Ivan!” he said to the deacon, grunting as he pulled on his boots. “So well grab a bite, huh?”

“Hey!” I yelled. “What the hell dyou thinkyou’re doing?”

“Not enough, thats what I’m doing!” Akinfiev answered, unpacking the food. “Its the third day now hes been pretending.”

Then Korotkov, who I knew from the Thirty-first Regiment, yelled back from the first cart, telling me the whole story of the deacon from the beginning. Akinfiev listened carefully, cupping his ear, and then from under his saddle pulled out a roasted leg of ox. It was wrapped in a sackcloth and had straw all over it.

The deacon climbed over to us from the box, carved off a slice of green meat with his knife, and gave everyone a piece. After breakfast, Akinfiev wrapped the leg of ox in the sackcloth and slid it into the hay.

“Ivan,” he said to Deacon Aggeyev, “lets drive out the devil. We have to stop anyway, since the horses need water.”

He took a medicine bottle out of his pocket and a Tarnovsky syringe,
⁴
and gave them to the deacon. They climbed off the cart and walked about twenty paces into the field.

“Nurse!” Korotkov yelled from the first cart. “Adjust your eyes for distance, and youll be dazzled by Akinfievs endowment!”

“I you-know-what you and your endowments,” the woman muttered, and turned away.

Akinfiev pulled up his shirt. The deacon knelt in front of him and gave him his injection. Then he wiped the syringe with a rag and held it up to the light. Akinfiev pulled his trousers up. He waited a moment, went behind the deacon, and fired another shot right next to his ear.

“My humblest thanks, Ivan,” he said, buttoning up his trousers.

The deacon laid the medicine bottle on the grass and got up from his knees. His airy hair flew up.

“I will answer to a higher judge,” he said dully. “You are not above me, Ivan.”

“Nowadays everyone judges everyone else,” the driver of the second cart, who looked like a boisterous little hunchback, interrupted. “They even sentence you to death, just like that!”

“Or even better,” Deacon Aggeyev said, straightening up, “kill me, Ivan.”

“Dont talk nonsense, Deacon!” Korotkov, whom I knew from before, said, coming up to him. “You should realize what kind of man you’re riding with here. A lesser man would have shot you down like a duck, you wouldn’t have had time to quack, yet hes trying to fish the truth out of you, and teach you a thing or two, you defrocked cleric!”

“Or even better,” the deacon repeated obstinately, stepping forward, “kill me, Ivan.”

“As it is, youll kill yourself, you bastard,” Akinfiev answered, going white and breaking into a lisp. “Youre digging your own pit and burying yourself in it!”

Akinfiev waved his arms, tore his collar open, and fell down on the ground in a fit.

“O my dear little sweetheart!” he yelled wildly, and threw sand into his face. “O my bittersweet darling, my sweet darling Soviet power!”

“Ivan,” Korotkov said, coming up to him, tenderly laying his hand on his shoulder. “Dont beat yourself, my dear friend, dont be sad. Come, we have to go now.”

Korotkov filled his mouth with water and spat it into Akinfiev s face, and then carried him over to the cart. The deacon sat on the box again, and we drove off.

There were no more than two versts left to the shtetl of Verba. Countless transport carts had crowded into the town that morning. They were from the Eleventh, the Fourteenth, and the Fourth Divisions. Jews in waistcoats, with raised shoulders, stood in their doorways like bedraggled birds. Cossacks went from yard to yard collecting rags and eating unripe plums. The moment we arrived, Akinfiev curled up on the hay and fell asleep, and I took a blanket from his cart and went to look for some shade to lie down in. But the fields on both sides of the road were covered with excrement. A bearded muzhik in copper-rimmed spectacles and a Tyrolean hat was sitting by the wayside reading a newspaper. He waved to me and said, “We call ourselves human, but we make more filth than the jackals! One is ashamed to face the earth!”

And he turned away and went back to reading his newspaper through his large spectacles.

I headed for the forest to the left, and saw the deacon approaching me.

“Where are you off to, countryman?” Korotkov yelled to him from the first cart.

“To relieve myself,” the deacon mumbled. He grabbed my hand, and kissed it. “You are a fine gentleman,” he whispered with a grimace, shuddering and gasping for air. “I beg you, whenever you have a free moment, to write a letter to the town of Kasimov, so my wife can mourn for me.”

“Are you deaf, Father Deacon, or not?” I shouted into his face.

“Excuse me?” he said. “Excuse me?” And he cupped his ear.

“Are you deaf, Aggeyev, or not?”

“Thats exactly it, deaf!” he quickly said. “Three days ago I could hear perfectly well, but Comrade Akinfiev crippled my hearing with a shot. He was supposed to deliver me to Rovno, Comrade Akinfiev was, but I really doubt he’ll deliver me there.”

And the deacon fell to his knees and crawled headfirst between the carts, completely entangled in his disheveled, priestly hair. Then he got up from his knees, pulled himself free from in between the carts, and went over to Korotkov, who gave him some tobacco. They rolled cigarettes and lit them for each other.

“That’s better,” Korotkov said, and made some space next to him.

The deacon sat down, and both were silent.

Then Akinfiev woke up. He rolled the leg of ox out of the sackcloth, carved off a slice of green meat with his knife, and gave everyone a piece. At the sight of the festering meat I felt overcome by weakness and desperation, and gave my piece back.

“Farewell, boys!” I said. “Good luck to you all!

“Farewell,” Korotkov said.

I took my saddle from the cart and left. As I walked off, I heard the endless muttering of Akinfiev.

“Ivan, you made a big mistake, my friend,” he was saying to the deacon. “You should have trembled at my name, but you just got into my cart without a second thought. You could still have escaped before you ran into me, but now I’m going to hurt you, Ivan, you can bet on it, I’m really going to hurt you!”

Four months ago, Savitsky, our former division commander, took away the white stallion belonging to Khlebnikov, commander of the First Squadron. Khlebnikov had left the army shortly after, and today Savitsky received a letter from him.

Khlebnikov to Savitsky

A
nd no anger upon the Budyonny army can I have longer, my sufferings in that army I understand and keep within my heart purer than anything holy. But to you, Comrade Savitsky, as an international hero, the working masses of Vitebsk, where I am the chairman of the District Revolutionary Committee, send the proletarian cry: "Give us World Revolution!" And we hope that that white stallion will trot beneath you on soft paths for many a year to come in aid of Freedom so beloved by all, and the Brother Republics in which we must keep a sharp eye out for the provincial authorities and the district units in an administrative respect. . . .

Savitsky to Khlebnikov

My true and dear Comrade Khlebnikov,

Which letter you wrote me is very commendable for the Common Cause, all the more after your foolishness when the good of your own hide made your eyes blind and you de-joined our Communist Party of the Bolsheviks. Our Communist Party, Comrade Khlebnikov, is an iron column of fighters sacrificing their blood in the front lines, and when blood flows from iron, then it is no joke, Comrade, but victory or death. The same goes for the Common Cause, the dawn of which I do not expect to see because the fighting is heavy and I have to change commanding officers every two weeks. Thirty days I have been fighting in the rear guard, covering the retreat of the invincible First Red Cavalry, and finding myself facing powerful gunfire from airplanes and artillery. Tardy was killed, Likhmanikov was killed, Gulevoy was killed, Trunov was killed, and the white stallion is no longer under me, so with the change in our fortunes of war, Comrade Khlebnikov, do not expect to see your beloved Division Commander Savitsky ever again. To tell you the truth, we shall meet again in the Kingdom of Heaven, although, from what people say, the old man up there in heaven isn’t running a kingdom, but an all-out whorehouse, and as it is we have enough clap down here on earth—so, who knows, we might not get to see each other after all. Farewell, Comrade Khlebnikov.

Shevelyov, the regimental captain, is dying in an ambulance cart. A woman is sitting at his feet. Night, pierced by the flashes of the cannonade, is stooping over the dying man. Lyovka, the division commander s driver, is warming up food in a pot. Lyovkas forelock is hanging over the fire, the hobbled horses are crackling in the bushes. Lyovka is stirring the pot with a twig and talking to Shevelyov, who is stretched out in the ambulance cart.

“I worked in the town of Temryuk, Comrade, as a circus rider and also as a lightweight wrestler. The women in a small town like that get very bored, so when the little ladies saw me, all the walls came tumbling down. ‘Lev Gavrilich/ they’d say to me, ‘surely you wont turn down a little a la carte appetizer—you wont find it a waste of your time.’ So I went with one of them to a tavern. We order two portions of veal, we order a jug of vodka, we sit there nice and quiet, we drink, I look, and what do I see? Some sort of gentleman bustling over toward me, nicely dressed, clean, but I notice that he is full of himself, not to mention that he was two sheets to the wind.

“ ‘If you will pardon me/ he says to me, ‘what, if I may ask, is your nationality?’

“ ‘For what reason are you touching me about my nationality when I am in the company of a lady?’ I ask him.

“And he: ‘You? You are an athlete?’ he says. ‘In French wrestling they’d finish you off in the twinkle of an eye. Show me your nationali—’ Yet I, believe it or not, still don’t catch what’s going on.

“So I ask him, ‘Why do you—I dont even know your name—why do you try to provoke the kind of misunderstanding where one man or the other will have to lose his life, in other words, lie flat on his back awaiting his last breath?’ ”