The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (46 page)

I am happy, large faces, hooked noses, black, gray-streaked beards, I have many thoughts, farewell to you, dead men. The face of the tsad-diky a nickel-rimmed pince-nez.

“Where are you from, young man?”

“From Odessa.”

“How is life there?”

“People are alive.”

“Here its terrible.”

A short conversation.

I leave shattered.

Podolsky, pale and sad, gives me his address, a marvelous evening. I walk, think about everything, quiet, strange streets. Kondratyev with a dark-haired Jewess, the poor commandant with his tall sheepskin hat, he doesn’t succeed.

And then nightfall, the train, painted Communist slogans (the contrast with what I saw at the old Jews’).

The hammering of the presses, our own electrical generator, our own newspapers, a movie is being shown, the train flashes, rumbles, fat-faced soldiers stand in line for the washerwomen (for two days).

June 4, 1920. Zhitomir

Morning—packages off to Yugrosta, report on the Zhitomir pogrom, home, to Oreshnikov, to Narbut.

I’m reading Hamsun.
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Sobelman tells me his novel’s plot.

A new story of Job, an old man who has lived centuries, his students carried him off to feign a resurrection, a glutted foreigner, the Russian Revolution.

Schulz, what’s most important, voluptuousness, Communism, how we are filching apples from the masters, Schulz is chatting away, his bald patch, apples hidden under his shirt, Communism, a Dostoyevskyan figure, there is something interesting there, must give it some thought, that inexhaustible overindulgence of his, Schulz in the streets of Berdichev.

Khelemskaya, she’s had pleurisy, diarrhea, has turned yellow, dirty overcoat, applesauce. What’re you doing here, Khelemskaya? You’ve got to get married, a husband, an engineer in a technical office, abortion or first child, that was what your life has been about, your mother, you took a bath once a week, your romance, Khelemskaya, that’s how you should live, and you’ll adapt to the Revolution.

The opening of a Communist club in the editorial office. That’s the proletariat for you: incredibly feeble Jews and Jewesses from the underground. March forward, you pitiful, terrible tribe! Then describe the concert, women singing Ukrainian songs.

Bathing in the Teterev. Kiperman, and how we search for food.

What kind of man is Kiperman? What a fool I am, he never paid me back. He sways like a reed, he has a large nose, and he is nervous, possibly insane, yet he managed to trick me, the way he puts off repaying me, runs the club. Describe his trousers, nose, and unruffled speech, torture in prison, Kiperman is a terrible person.

Night on the boulevard. The hunt for women. Four streets, four stages: acquaintance, conversation, awakening of desire, gratification of desire. The Teterev below, an old medical orderly who says that the commissars have everything, wine too, but he is nice about it.

Me and the Ukrainian editors.

Guzhin, whom Khelemskaya complained about today, they re looking for something better. Im tired. And suddenly loneliness, life flows before me, but what is its significance?

June 5, 1920. Zhitomir

Received boots, tunic on the train. Going to Novograd at sunrise. The automobile is a Thornicroft. Everything seized from Denikin. Sunrise in the monastery yard or the schoolyard. Slept in the automobile. Arrived in Novograd at 11. Travel farther in another Thornicroft. Detour bridge. The town is livelier, the ruins appear normal. I take my suitcase. The staff left for Korets. One of the Jewesses gave birth, in a hospital, of course. A gangly hook-nosed man asks me for a job, runs behind me with my suitcase. He promised to come again tomorrow. Novograd is Zvyagel.

A man from the supplies division in a white sheepskin hat, a Jew, and stoop-shouldered Morgan are on the truck. We wait for Morgan, hes at the pharmacy, our little friend has the clap. The automobile has come from Fastov. Two fat drivers. Were flying, a true Russian driver, all our insides thoroughly shook up. The rye is ripening, orderlies gallop by, miserable, enormous, dusty trucks, half-naked, plump, light-blond Polish boys, prisoners, Polish noses.

Korets: describe, the Jews outside the large house, a yeshiva bokher
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in spectacles, what are they talking about, these old men with their yellow beards, stoop-shouldered merchants, feeble, lonely. I want to stay,

but the telephone operators roll up the wires. Of course the staff has left. We pick apples and cherries. Moved on at a wild pace. Then the driver, red sash, eats bread with his motor-oil-stained fingers. Six versts short of our goal the magneto floods with oil. Repairs beneath the scorching sun, sweat and drivers. I get there on a hay cart (I forgot: Artillery Inspector Timoshenko (?) [sic] is inspecting the cannons in Korets. Our generals.) Evening. Night. The park in Hoshcha. Zotov
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and the staff rush on, transport carts go galloping by, the staff left for Rovno, damn it, what bad luck. The Jews, I decide to stay at Duvid Ucheniks, the soldiers try to talk me out of it, the Jews beg me to stay. I wash myself, bliss, many Jews. Are Ucheniks brothers twins? The wounded want to meet me. Healthy bastards, just flesh wounds on their legs, they get about on their own. Real tea, I eat supper. Ucheniks children, a small but shrewd girl with squinting eyes, a shivering six-year-old girl, a fat wife with gold teeth. They sit around me, theres anxiety in the air. Uchenik tells me the Poles were out plundering, then others raided, whooping and hollering, they carried off everything, his wife’s things.

The girl: Aren’t you a Jew? Uchenik sits watching me eat, the girl sits shivering on his lap. “She is frightened, the cellar and the shooting and your people.” I tell them everything will be fine, what the Revolution means, I talk profusely. “Things are bad, we’re going to be plundered, don’t go to bed.”

Night, a lantern in front of the window, a Hebrew grammar, my soul aches, my hair is clean, clean is my sorrow. Sweating from the tea. As backup: Tsukerman with a rifle. A radio-telegrapher. Soldiers in the yard, they chase everyone off to sleep, they chuckle. I eavesdrop on them, they hear something: Halt, who goes there? We’ll mow you down!

The hunt for the woman prisoner. Stars, night over the shtetl. A tall Cossack with an earring and a cap with a white top. They had arrested mad Stasova, a mattress, she beckoned with her finger: Let’s go, I’ll let you have some, I can keep it working all night writhing, hopping, not running away! The soldiers chase everyone off to sleep. They eat supper—fried eggs, tea, stew—indescribable coarseness, sprawled all over the table, Mistress, more! Uchenik in front of his house, he’s on sentry duty, what a laugh, “Go off to sleep!” “I’m guarding my house!” A terrible situation with the fugitive madwoman. If they catch her, they
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ll kill her.

I cant sleep. I meddled, now they say everything’s lost.

A difficult night, an idiot with a piglet’s body—the radio-telegrapher. Dirty nails and refined manners. Discussion about the Jewish question. A wounded man in a black shirt, a milksop and lout, the old Jews are running, the women have been sent off. Nobody is asleep. Some girls or other on the porch, some soldier asleep on the sofa.

I write in my diary. There is a lamp. The park in front of the window, transport carts roll by. No ones going off to sleep. An automobile has arrived. Morgan is looking for a priest, I take him to the Jews.

Goryn, Jews and old women on the porches. Hoshcha has been ransacked, Hoshcha is clean, Hoshcha is silent. A clean job. In a whisper: Everythings been taken and they dont even weep, they re experts. The Horyn, a network of lakes and tributaries, evening light, here the battle for Rovno took place. Discussions with Jews, my people, they think I’m Russian, and my soul opens up to them. We sit on the high embankment. Peace and soft sighs behind me. I leave to defend Uchenik. I told them my mother is a Jewess, the story, Belaya Tserkov, the rabbi.

June 6, 1920. Rovno

Slept anxiously, just a few hours. I wake up, sun, flies, a good bed, pink Jewish pillows, feathers. The soldiers are banging their crutches. Again: Mistress, we want more! Roasted meat, sugar from a cut-glass chalice, they sit sprawled out, their forelocks
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hanging down, dressed in riding gear, red trousers, sheepskin hats, leg stumps swinging boisterously. The women have brick-red faces, they run around, none of them slept. Duvid Uchenik is pale, in a vest. He tells me, Don’t leave as long as they’re still here. A cart comes by to pick them up. Sun, the cart is waiting across from the park, they’re gone. Salvation.

The automobile arrived yesterday evening. At 1 P.M. we leave

Hoshcha for Rovno. The River Horyn is sparkling in the sun. I go for a morning walk. It turns out the mistress of the house hadnt spent the night at home. The maid and her friends were sitting with the soldiers who wanted to rape her, all night till dawn the maid kept feeding them apples, quiet conversations: WeVe had enough of war, want to get married, go to sleep. The cross-eyed girl became talkative, Duvid puts on his vest, his tallith, prays solemnly, offers thanks, flour in the kitchen, dough is being kneaded, they re getting things under way, the maid is a fat, barefoot, thick-legged Jewess with soft breasts, tidying up, talking endlessly. The landlady’s speech—what she wants is for everything to end well. The house comes to life.

I travel to Rovno in the Thornicroft. Two fallen horses. Smashed bridges, the automobile on wooden planks, everything creaks, endless line of transport carts, traffic jam, cursing, describe the transport carts in front of the broken bridge at noon, horsemen, trucks, two-wheelers with ammunition. Our truck drives with crazed speed, even though it is completely falling to pieces, dust.

Eight versts short of our goal, it breaks down. Cherries, I sleep, sweat in the sun. Kuzitsky, an amusing fellow, can immediately tell you your future, lays out cards, a medical assistant from Borodyanitsy, in exchange for treatment women offered him their services, roasted chicken, and themselves, he is constantly worried that the chief of the medical division wont let him go, shows me his genuine wounds, when he walks he limps, left a girl on the road forty versts from Zhitomir, go, she told him, because the divisional chief of staff was courting her. Loses his whip, sits half naked, babbles, lies without restraint, photograph of his brother, a former staff cavalry captain, now a division commander married to a Polish countess, Denikins men shot him.

I’m a medical man.

Dust in Rovno, dusty molten gold flows over the dreary little houses.

The brigade rides past, Zotov at the window, the people of Rovno, the Cossacks’ appearance, a remarkably peaceful, self-confident army. Jewish youths and maidens watch them with admiration, the old Jews look on indifferently. Describe the air in Rovno, something agitated and unstable about it, and there are Polish store signs and life.

Describe the evening.

The Khast family. A sly, black-haired girl from Warsaw takes us there.The medical orderly, malicious verbal stench, coquetry, Youll eat with us! I wash up in the hallway, everything is uncomfortable, bliss, I’m dirty and sweat-drenched, then hot tea with my sugar.

Describe this Khast, a complex fury of a man, unbearable voice, they think I don t understand Yiddish, they argue incessantly, animal fear, the father quite inscrutable, a smiling medical orderly, treats the clap (?) [sic], smiles, lies low, but seems hotheaded, the mother: Were intellectuals, we own nothing, hes a medical orderly, a worker, we don’t mind having them here as long as they’re quiet, we’re exhausted! A stunning apparition: their rotund son with his cunning and idiotic smile behind the glass of his round spectacles, the fawning conversation, they scrape and bow to me, a gaggle of sisters, all vixens (?) [sic]. The dentist, some sort of grandson to whom they all talk with the same whining hysteria as to the old folk, young Jews come over, people from Rovno with faces that are flat and yellow with fear and fish eyes, they talk of Polish taunts, show their passports, there was a solemn decree of Poland annexing Volhynia as well, I recall Polish culture, Sienkiewicz, the women, the empire, they were born too late, now there is class consciousness.

I give my clothes to be laundered. I drink tea incessantly and sweat like a beast and watch the Khasts carefully, intently. Night on the sofa. Undressed for the first time since the day I set out. All the shutters are closed, the electric light burns, the stuffiness is unbearable, many people sleep there, stories of pillaging by Budyonny’s men, shivering and terror, horses snort outside the window, transport carts roll down Shkolnaya Street, night. [The following twenty-one pages of the diary are missing.]

July 11, 1920. Belyov

Spent the night with the soldiers of the staff squadron, in the hay. Slept badly, thinking about the manuscripts. Dejection, loss of energy, I know I’ll get over it, but when will that be? I think of the Khasts, those worms, I remember everything, those reeking souls, and the cow eyes, and the sudden, high, screeching voices, and the smiling father. The main thing: his smile and he is hotheaded, and many secrets, reeking memories of scandals. The mother, a gigantic figure—she is malicious, cowardly, gluttonous, repugnant, her fixed, expectant stare. The

daughters repulsive and detailed lies, the sons eyes laughing behind his spectacles.

I roam about the village. I ride to Kievan, the shtetl was taken yesterday by the Third Cavalry Brigade of the Sixth Division. Our mounted patrols appeared on the Rovno-Lutsk high road, Lutsk is being evacuated.

8th-12th heavy fighting, Dundic killed, Shadilov, commander of the Thirty-sixth Regiment, killed, many horses fell, tomorrow well have the details.

Budyonnys orders concerning our loss of Rovno, the unbelievable exhaustion of the units, the frenzied attacks of our brigades which don’t have the same results as before, incessant battles since May 27, if the army isn’t given a breather, it will become unfit for battle.

Isn’t it premature to issue such orders? No, they make sense: their objective is to rouse the rear lines—Kievan. Burial of six or seven Red Army fighters. I rode behind a tachanka. The funeral march, on the way back from the cemetery, a bravura infantry march, no sign of the funeral procession. A carpenter—a bearded Jew—is rushing around the shtetl, he’s banging some coffins together. The main street is also Shossova.