The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (58 page)

I am writing in the garden, a glade, flowers, I feel sorrow for all this.

The military order to leave Zamosc, to go to the rescue of the Fourteenth Division, which is being forced back from Komarow. The shtetl has again been taken by the Poles. Poor Komarow. We ride along the flanks and the brigades. Before us, the enemy cavalry—nothing to hold us back, whom should we butcher if not the Cossacks of Captain Yakovlev.^ An attack is imminent. The brigades are gathering in the forest—two versts from Czesniki.

Voroshilov and Budyonny are with us all the time. Voroshilov, short, graying, in red trousers with silver stripes, always goading, getting on everyones nerves, keeps hounding Apanasenko about why the Second Brigade hasn’t arrived. We are waiting for the arrival of the Second Brigade. Time is dragging with torturing slowness. Do not rush me, Comrade Voroshilov. Voroshilov: Everything is ruined, f— it to hell.

Budyonny is silent, at times he smiles, showing his dazzling white teeth. We must send the brigade first, and then the regiment. Voroshilov’s patience snaps, he sends everyone he has into the attack. The regiment marches past Voroshilov and Budyonny. Voroshilov pulls out his enormous revolver, show the Polish Pans no mercy, his cry is met with joy. The regiment flies off helter-skelter, hurrah, go for it, some gallop off, others hold back, others again move in a trot, the horses balk, bowler hats and carpets.** Our squadron launches an attack. We gallop about four versts. They are waiting for us in columns on the hill. Amazing: none of them so much as move. Sangfroid, discipline. An officer with a black beard. I’m being shot at. My sensations. Flight. The military commissars turn. Nothing helps. Luckily, the enemy doesn’t pursue us, otherwise we would have had a catastrophe on our hands. We try to gather a brigade together for a second attack, nothing comes of it. Manuilov is threatened with revolvers. The nurses are the heroines.

\

* An orderly at the Sixth Cavalry Division headquarters.

^ The Cossack captain fighting on the Polish side.

** Babel is referring to the colorful attire of the Cossacks, some of whom are wearing bowler hats and clothes cut out of carpets, and have draped carpets looted from houses over their saddles.

We ride back. Sheko s
¹⁷
horse is wounded, Sheko has a concussion, his terrible, rigid face. He doesn’t understand what is happening, he is crying, we lead his mare. She is bleeding.

The nurse’s story: there are nurses who are only out for sympathy, we help the fighters, go through thick and thin with them, I would shoot, but what can I shoot with, a f—ing dick, I don’t even have that.

The command staff is crushed, menacing signs of our army’s disintegration. Cheerful, foolish Vorobyov^ recounts his heroic feats, he went galloping up, four shots point-blank. Apanasenko suddenly turns around: You ruined the attack, you bastard.

Apanasenko in a black mood, Sheko pitiful.

There is talk about how the army isn’t in the shape it used to be, it’s high time for a rest. What next? We spend the night in Czesniki, we are frozen through, tired, silent—impassable, all-engulfing mud, autumn, destroyed roads, dejection. Before us somber prospects.

September 1, 1920. Terebin

We set out from Czesniki in the night. We stopped there for two hours. Night, cold, on our horses. We are shivering. The military order to retreat, we are surrounded, we have lost contact with the Twelfth Army,
¹⁸
we don’t have contact with anybody. Sheko is crying, his head shaking, his face that of a hurt child, he is pitiful, crushed. What bastards people are. Vinokurov^ wouldn’t give him the military order to read—he is not on active duty. Apanasenko gives him his carriage, but I’m not their driver.

Endless conversations about yesterday’s attack, lies, sincere regrets, the fighters are silent. That idiot Vorobyov keeps shooting his mouth off. The division commander cuts him off.

The beginning of the end of the First Cavalry Army. Rumors of retreat.

Sheko is a man deep in misfortune.

Manuilov has a temperature of 40°C, fever, everyone hates him, Sheko harasses him, why? He doesn’t know how to comport himself. Borisov, the orderly, cunning, ingratiating, secretive, no one has any pity for him, that’s what’s dreadful. A Jew?

The Fourth Division saves the army. And that with Timoshenko— the traitor.*

We arrive in Terebin, a half-destroyed village, cold. It’s autumn, during the day I sleep in the threshing shed, at night together with Sheko.

My talk with Arzam Slyagit. Riding next to me. We spoke about Tiflis, fruit, sun. I think about Odessa, my soul is torn.

We are dragging Sheko’s bleeding horse behind us.

September 2, 1920. Terebin — Metelin

Pitiful villages. Unfinished huts. Half-naked villagers. We ruin them once and for all. The division commander is with the troops. The military order: delay the enemy’s advance on the Bug, attack in the area of Wakijow-Hostyne. We fight but without success. Rumors about the weakening of the army’s fighting efficiency are becoming more persistent. Desertion. Masses of reports of men going on leave, illness.

The main illness of the division is the absence of command staff, all the commanders are from the ranks, Apanasenko hates the democrats,^ they don’t understand a thing, there’s no one who can lead a regiment into an attack.

Squadron commanders are leading regiments.

Days of apathy, Sheko is recovering, he is depressed. Life is tough in the atmosphere of an army whose side has split open.

September 3, 4, 5, 1920. Malice

We have moved on to Malice.

Orlov is the new chief of staff’s adjutant. A figure from Gogol. A

* An ironic comment. After Timoshenko had been relieved of his command of the Sixth Cavalry Division on August 5, 1920, he became the division commander (August 25) of the Fourth Cavalry Division. He was awarded his second Red Flag Medal for his leadership in the Battle for Zamosc.

t Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, of which there was a Leninist and a non-Leninist wing.

pathological liar, his tongue always wagging, a Jewish face, the main thing: the terrifying ease, when you think about it, with which he talks, chatters, lies, hes in pain (he limps), a partisan, a Makhno* fighter, he went to high school, commanded a regiment. His ease frightens me, what is behind it.

Finally Manuilov has fled, and not without scandal—he was threatened with arrest, how addle-brained Sheko is, they had sent him to the First Brigade, sheer idiocy, Army headquarters sent him to the air force. Amen.

I’m billeted with Sheko. Dull, amiable if you know how to stay on his good side, inept, does not have a strong will. I grovel—and so I get to eat. Boguslavsky, languid, half Odessan, dreams of “Odessan girls,” from time to time will ride out at night to collect an army order.

The First Platoon of the First Squadron. Kuban Cossacks. They sing songs. Staid. They smile. They’re not rowdy.

Levda^ reported sick. A cunning Ukrainian. “I have rheumatism. I am too weak to work.” Three report sick from the brigades, they’re in cahoots. If we’re not given any leave, the division will go under, there’s no ardor, the horses won’t go on, the men are impassive, the Third Brigade, two days in the field, cold, rain.

A sad country, impassable mud, no muzhiks to be seen anywhere, they hide their horses in the forests, women sobbing quietly.

A report from Kniga: Unable to execute my duties without a command staff.

All the horses are in the forests, the Red Army fighters exchange them, a science, a sport.

Barsukov is falling apart. He wants to go to school.

There are skirmishes. Our side is trying to advance on Wakijow-Honiatycki. Nothing comes of it. A strange weakness.

The Pole is slowly but surely pushing us back. The division commander is useless, he has neither the initiative nor the necessary tenacity. His purulent ambition, philandering, gluttony, and probably feverish activity should it be needed.

Our way of life.

'* The Ukrainian anarchist leader.

^ Commander of the Third Brigade of the Fourteenth Cavalry Division.

Kniga writes: The previous ardor no longer exists, the fighters are dragging their feet.

Dispiriting weather all the time, destroyed roads, terrible Russian village mud in which your boots get stuck, there is no sun, it is raining, gloomy, what a cursed land.

I am ill, angina, fever, I can barely move, terrible nights in stifling, smoke-filled huts in the straw, my whole body torn to pieces, flea-bitten, itching, bleeding, there’s nothing I can do.

Our operations continue sluggishly, a period of equilibrium in which, however, the ascendancy is beginning to shift to the Poles.

The command staff is passive, doesn’t even exist anymore.

I rush over to the nurse to pick up bandages, I have to go through kitchen gardens, impassable mud. The nurse is staying with a platoon. A heroine, even though she copulates with many. A hut, everyone smoking, cursing, changing foot wrappings, a soldier’s life, and another person, the nurse. Anyone too squeamish to drink from the same mug as the rest gets thrown out.

The enemy advances. We took Lot, have to give it up again, the enemy pushes us back, not a single attack of ours has brought results, we send off the transport carts, I ride to Terebin on Barsukov’s cart, from there on rain, slush, misery, we cross the Bug, Budyatichi. So—it has been decided to relinquish the Bug line.

September 6, 1920. Budyatichi

Budyatichi is occupied by the Forty-fourth Division. Clashes. They are startled by our division pouring in like a wild horde. Orlov:* Hand this place over to us and get out!

The nurse—a proud woman, pretty and somewhat dim-witted—is in tears, the doctor is outraged at the shouts of “Down with the Yids, save Russia!” They are stunned, the quartermaster was thrashed with a whip, the field hospital demolished, pigs are requisitioned and dragged off without receipts or anything, and before everything had been well ordered, all sorts of representatives go to see Sheko to complain. There you have the Budyonny fighters.

The proud nurse, a kind we’ve never seen before, in white shoes and stockings, a full, shapely leg, they have things nicely organized, respect for human dignity, quick, thorough work.

We are billeted with Jews.

My thoughts of home are becoming increasingly persistent. I see no way out.

September 7, 1920. Budyatichi

We are occupying two rooms. The kitchen is full of Jews. There are refugees from Krylow, a pitiful little bunch of people with the faces of prophets. They sleep side by side. All day long they are boiling and baking, the Jewess works like a slave, sewing, laundering. They pray there too. Children, young girls. The damn bastards, the lackeys, they are continually stuffing themselves, drinking vodka, guffawing, growing fat, hiccuping with lust for women.

We eat every two hours.

A unit is placed on the opposite shore of the Bug, a new phase in the operation.

Its been two weeks now that everyone’s been saying more and more doggedly that the army has to be pulled out for a rest. A rest!— our new battle cry.

A delegation turns up, the division commander entertains them, they’re constantly eating, his stories about Stavropol, Suslov is growing fatter, the bastard has gotten himself a good deal.

Terrible tactlessness: Sheko, Suslov, Sukhorukov have been put up for a Red Flag Medal.

The enemy is trying to cross over to our side of the Bug, the Fourteenth Division acted quickly and pushed them back.

I am issuing certificates.

I’ve gone deaf in one ear. The result of my cold? My body is all scratched up, cuts everywhere, I don’t feel well. Autumn, rain, everything is depressing, deep mud.

September 8, 1920. Vladimir-Volynsk

In the morning I head to the administrative headquarters on a civilian cart. I have to testify, some song and dance about money. Some

demi-rearguard sordidness: Gusev, Nalyotov, money at the Revolutionary Tribunal. Lunch with Gorbunov.

Off to Vladimir with the same nags. An arduous ride, insurmountable mud, the roads impassable. We arrive at night. A squabble about the billet, a cold room in a widow s house. Jews—storekeepers. Mama and Papa are old.

Poor Grandma. The gentle, black-bearded husband. The redheaded, pregnant Jewess is washing her feet. The girl has diarrhea. It is cramped, but there is electricity, its warm.

For supper there are dumplings with sunflower oil—pure bliss. There you have it: Jewish abundance. They think I dont understand Yiddish, they are as cunning as flies. The town is destitute.

Borodin* and I sleep on a featherbed.

September 9, 1920. Vladimir-Volynsk

The town is destitute, dirty, hungry, you cant buy anything with money, sweets cost twenty rubles and cigarettes. Dejection. Army headquarters. Gloomy. A council of trade unions, young Jews. I go to the economic councils and the trade unions, dejection, the military members make demands, act like louts. Sickly young Jews.

Magnificent meal—meat, kasha. Our only pleasure is food.

The new military commissar at headquarters—a monkey s face.

My landlord wants to barter for my shawl. I’m not going to let him hoodwink me.

My driver, barefoot with bleary eyes. Oy Russia!^

A synagogue. I pray, bare walls, some soldier or other is swiping the electric light bulbs.

The bathhouse. A curse on soldiering, war, the cramming together of young, tormented, still-healthy people gone crazy.

The home life of my landlord and his wife, they are taking care of a few things, tomorrow is Friday, they are already preparing themselves, the old woman is good, the old man a little underhanded, they are only pretending to be poor. They say: Better to starve under the Bolsheviks than to eat fancy bread under the Poles.

* An orderly at the headquarters of the Sixth Cavalry Division.

^ Babel uses “Rasseya,” an archaic folksy name for Russia.

September 10, 1920. Kovel

Half the day in the shattered, doleful, terrible train station in Vladimir-Volynsk. Dejection. The black-bearded Jew is working. We arrive in Kovel at night. Unexpected joy: The Polit-otdel train.* Supper with Zdanevich,^ butter. I spend the night in the radio station. Blinding light. A miracle. Khelemskaya is having an affair. Lymph glands. Volodya. She took off all her clothes. My prophecy came true.