by Isaac Babel
“Where’d you get the undies?”
“My ma knitted them,” the prisoner answered and swayed.
“You’ve got a ma like a factory,” Andrei said, peering at the drawers, and touched the Pole’s manicured nails with the pads of his fingers. “A ma like a factory. Our boys’ve never sewn a thing like that…”
He felt the Jäger drawers again and then took the ninth by the arm, in order to lead him over to the rest of the prisoners who had already been recorded. But at that moment I saw Trunov crawling out from behind a mound. Blood dripped from the squadron commander’s head like rain from a hayrick, his dirty rag had come loose and was hanging down, and he was crawling on his belly, holding his carbine in his hands. This was a Japanese carbine, lacquered and with a powerful charge. From a distance of twenty paces Pashka smashed the youth’s skull and the Pole’s brains spattered onto my hands. Then Trunov ejected the cartridge cases from the gun and walked over to me.
“Cross one out,” he said, pointing to the list.
“I won’t cross anything out,” I said, shuddering. “It seems Trotsky’s orders aren’t meant for you, Pavel…”
“Cross one out!” Trunov repeated and jabbed the paper with a black finger.
“I won’t cross anything out!” I shouted with all my strength. “There were ten, now there are eight—they won’t even look at you at headquarters, Pashka…”
“At headquarters they’ll look at it through this miserable life of ours,” Trunov replied, and began moving towards me, all lacerated, hoarse and covered in smoke. But then he stopped, raised his bloodied head to the skies and said with bitter reproach: “Go on, keep on buzzing. There’s another one buzzing…”
And the squadron commander showed us four points in the sky, four bombers sailing behind the shining, swan-like clouds. These were the planes of Major Fauntleroy’s Air Escadrille—large armoured planes.2
“To horse!” the platoon commander shouted, catching sight of them, and led the squadron off to the woods at a trot, but Trunov did not ride with his squadron. He stayed at the station building, pressed himself against the wall and fell silent. Andryushka Vosmiletov and two machine-gunners, two barefoot fellows in crimson breeches, stood beside him, growing anxious.
“Bore the barrel, boys,” Trunov told them, and blood began to drain from his face. “Here’s my report to Pugachov…”
And on a crookedly torn piece of paper Trunov wrote, in gigantic peasant letters:
“Having to die on this date,” he wrote, “I consider it my duty to add two numbers to the potential downing of the enemy and at the same time hand over my command to Platoon Commander Semyon Golov…”
He sealed the letter, sat down on the ground and, with a great effort, pulled off his boots.
“Use ’em,” he said, handing the machine-gunners his report and the boots. “Use ’em, boots are new…”
“Good luck to you, Commander,” the machine-gunners muttered in reply and shifted from foot to foot, hesitating to leave.
“And good luck to you,” said Trunov. “One way or another, lads…” And he went over to the machine gun standing on the hillock by the station booth. Andryushka Vosmiletov, the ragman, was waiting for him there.
“One way or another,” Trunov said to him, and started aiming the machine gun. “So you’re sticking with me awhile, Andrei?…”
“Lord Jesus,” Andryushka answered fearfully, sobbed, turned white and laughed. “Mother of Christ to the banners!…”
And he started aiming the second machine gun at the aeroplanes.
But the planes were flying ever more steeply over the station, rattling fussily up high, swooping down, describing circles, and the sun’s rosy rays would land on the yellow lustre of their wings.
At that time we, the Fourth Squadron, were sitting in the woods. There, in the woods, we witnessed the unequal battle between Pashka Trunov and Major Reginald Fauntleroy of the American forces. The major and three of his bombardiers displayed considerable skill in this battle. They swooped down to three hundred metres and first strafed Andryushka, then Trunov. None of the cartridge belts that our men let loose caused the Americans any harm; they flew off without noticing the squadron hidden in the woods. And so, after waiting for half an hour, we were able to ride out and retrieve the corpses. Andryushka Vosmiletov’s body was taken away by two of his kin, who were serving in our squadron, while the body of Trunov, our late commander, we brought to Gothic Sokal and buried him there in a solemn place, in a public garden, in a flowerbed, right in the middle of town.
Notes
1 Gaon: a term of respect used for great sages in the Jewish tradition. Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer (1720–97), known as the Vilna (Vilnius) Gaon, was a Talmudist and Kabbalist who opposed the movement of Hasidism, which was founded by Israel ben Eliezer (1698–1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov. Husiatyn was the seat of an important dynasty of Hasidic rebbes.
2 Cedric Fauntleroy (or Faunt le Roy) (1891–1973) was an American First World War flying ace who volunteered to serve in the Polish Air Force during the Polish–Soviet War, joining the Polish Seventh Air Escadrille. He took command of the escadrille in 1919. Made up mostly of American volunteer pilots, the escadrille became known as the Kościuszko Squadron, in honour of Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746–1817), who fought on the American side in the American Revolutionary War and, as supreme commander of the Polish National Armed Forces, led the Poles’ unsuccessful uprising against the Russian Empire in 1794. The narrator later mistakenly refers to Major Fauntleroy as Reginald, not Cedric.
THE IVANS
DEACON AGEYEV had fled from the front twice. For this he’d been turned over to the Moscow “Branded” Regiment. Commander-in-Chief Sergei Sergeich Kamenev1 was reviewing this regiment in Mozhaysk before sending it to its position.
“Don’t need ’em,” said the commander-in-chief. “Send ’em back to Moscow to clean latrines…”
In Moscow, they somehow knocked the branded together into an infantry company. The deacon wound up among them. He arrived at the Polish front and announced that he was deaf. After wasting a week on Ageyev, Medical Assistant Barsutsky of the first-aid detachment marvelled at his perseverance.
“To hell with ’im, the dum-dum,” Barsutsky said to Soychenko, the medical orderly. “Go and get a cart from the transport—we’ll send the deacon to Rovno for a test…”
Soychenko went to the transport and secured three carts. Akinfiyev was the coachman on the first one.
“Ivan,” Soychenko said to him. “You’ll take the dum-dum to Rovno.”
“Can do,” Akinfiyev replied.
“And you’ll bring me back a receipt…”
“Understood,” said Akinfiyev. “What’s the cause of it, anyway—his deafness?…”
“Your own rug’s worth more than some bastard’s mug,” said Soychenko, the medical orderly. “That’s all the cause there is to it. He’s no dum-dum, he’s a faker…”
“Can do,” repeated Akinfiyev, and rode off following the other carts.
Three carts drew up at the first-aid station. In the first one they put a nurse reassigned to the rear, the second was set aside for a Cossack suffering from nephritis, and Ivan Ageyev, the deacon, clambered up into the third.
Having seen to everything, Soychenko called the medical assistant.
“Our faker’s on his way,” he said. “I’ve loaded him on the Revolutionary Tribunal cart against a receipt. They’re taking off now…”
Barsutsky glanced out of the little window, saw the carts and ran out of the house, all red in the face and hatless.
“You’ll do him in!” he cried out to Akinfiyev. “We’ve got to move the deacon.”
“Move ’im where?” some Cossacks standing nearby replied, and broke out laughing. “Wherever you put ’im, our Vanya’s gonna get ’im…”
Akinfiyev was standing right there, beside his horses, with a whip in his hands. He took off his hat and said politely:
“Hello, Comrade
Medical Assistant.”
“Hello, friend,” answered Barsutsky. “You know you’re an animal—we’ve got to move the deacon…”
“I take an interest in knowing,” the Cossack said shrilly, his upper lip twitching, creeping up and quivering above his dazzling teeth, “I take an interest in knowing if it’s suitable for us or not suitable—when the enemy tyrannizes us unspeakably, when the enemy’s knocking the wind out of us, when he hangs like a weight on our legs and wraps snakes around our arms—if it’s suitable to plug your ears in this hour of mortal danger?”
“Vanya’s standing up for the commissars,” shouted Korotkov, the coachman from the first cart. “How he’s standing up…”
“What do you mean, standing,” Barsutsky muttered and turned away. “We’re all standing. We’ve just got to do it properly…”
“Looks like he can hear fine, our dum-dum,” Akinfiyev suddenly interrupted, twirled the whip in his thick fingers, laughed and winked at the deacon. Ageyev was sitting on the cart, his huge shoulders drooping, and moving his head.
“Well, take off, for God’s sake!” the medic cried in despair. “You’ll answer to me for everything, Ivan…”
“I’m willing to answer,” Akinfiyev pronounced thoughtfully and bowed his head. “Get comfortable,” he said to the deacon, without turning. “Get real comfortable,” the Cossack repeated and gathered the reins in his hand.
The carts lined up in a row and raced off down the highway one after the other. Korotkov rode in front, and Akinfiyev was third. He was whistling a song and waving the reins. They covered about fifteen versts, but towards evening were run off course by a sudden flood of enemy troops.
On that day, 22 July, the Poles mangled our army’s rear with a rapid manoeuvre, swooped into the shtetl of Kozin and captured many fighters from the Eleventh Division. The Sixth Division’s squadrons were flung to the area of Kozin so as to counter the enemy. The lightning-fast manoeuvring of the units chopped the transports to bits; the Revolutionary Tribunal carts wandered across the seething salients of battle for two days, and only on the third night did they find their way onto the road along which the rearguard staffs were retreating. It was on this road, at midnight, that I met them.
Numb with despair, I met them after the battle of Khotin. My horse was killed in the battle of Khotin—Lavrik, my comfort on this earth. After losing him I moved over to the ambulance wagon and picked up wounded men till evening. Then those who weren’t wounded were kicked off the wagon, and I was left alone beside a ruined hut. Night flew towards me on swift steeds. The wail of the transports filled the universe. Roads were dying on an earth girdled with squeals. Stars crept out of the night’s cool belly, and deserted villages flared up over the horizon. Shouldering my saddle, I set off along a ravaged boundary path and stopped at the bend to take a piss. Having relieved myself, I buttoned up and felt spray on my hands. I switched on my flashlight, turned around, and saw a Pole’s corpse on the ground, bathed in my urine. It came spilling out of his mouth, sputtering between his teeth, pooling in his empty eye sockets. Beside the corpse lay a notebook and scraps of Piłsudski’s proclamations. The Pole’s notebook contained a record of his expenses, the schedule of performances at the Cracow Dramatic Theatre and the birthday of a woman named Maria Luiza. Using one of Marshal and Commander-in-Chief Piłsudski’s proclamations, I wiped the stinking liquid from my unknown brother’s skull and walked on, bent beneath the saddle’s weight.
At that moment wheels groaned somewhere close by.
“Halt!” I cried, freezing in place. “Who’s there?”
Night flew towards me on swift steeds, and fires writhed on the horizon.
“From the Revolutionary Tribunal,” answered a voice smothered by darkness.
I ran forward and bumped into a cart.
“They killed my horse,” I said, unusually loudly. “His name was Lavrik…”
No one answered. I climbed onto the cart, put the saddle under my head, fell asleep and slept until dawn, warmed by the musty hay and the body of Ivan Akinfiyev, my chance neighbour.
In the morning the Cossack woke up after me.
“Day’s breaking, thank God,” he said, then pulled a revolver from under his little trunk and fired a shot over the deacon’s ear. The deacon was sitting right in front of us, driving the horses. Wispy grey hair fluttered above the bulk of his balding skull. Akinfiyev fired again over his other ear and slid the revolver back into its holster.
“Good morning, Vanya!” he said to the deacon, grunting and pulling on his boots. “Let’s get some grub, eh?”
“Hold on,” I cried, coming to my senses. “What’re you doing?”
“Whatever I’m doing ain’t enough,” Akinfiyev replied, getting out the food. “He’s been feigning with me for three days now…”
Then Korotkov, whom I knew from the Thirty-First Regiment, called back from the first cart and told the deacon’s whole story from the start. Akinfiyev listened to him attentively, cupping his ear, then pulled a roast leg of ox from under a saddle. It was covered in sackcloth and had straw sticking to it. The deacon climbed over to us from the box, sliced the green meat with a little knife and handed each of us a piece. When breakfast was done, Akinfiyev tied the ox leg up in a bag and stuck it in the hay.
“Vanya,” he said to Ageyev, “let’s go chase out the devil. Gotta stop anyway, horses need water…”
He pulled a phial of medicine from his pocket along with a Tarnovsky syringe2 and handed them to the deacon. They got down from the cart and walked about twenty yards into the field.
“Nurse,” Korotkov cried out from the first cart, “fix your eyes into the distance—Akinfiyev’s gifts are liable to strike you blind.”
“Screw you, with your gifts,” the woman muttered and turned away.
Akinfiyev then rolled up his shirt. The deacon got down on his knees in front of him and did the syringing. Then he wiped the syringe with a rag and held it up to the light. Akinfiyev pulled up his trousers; seizing the moment, he went behind the deacon’s back and fired another shot right over his ear.
“Much obliged, Vanya,” he said, buttoning up.
The deacon put the phial down on the grass and rose from his knees. His wispy hair flew up.
“A superior court will judge me,” he said dully. “You’re not above me, Ivan…”
“Deeze days errybody judges errybody,” interrupted the driver from the second cart, who looked like an insolent hunchback. “And condemn ya to death, just like dat…”
“Or better yet,” Ageyev said and straightened up, “kill me, Ivan…”
“Quit fooling around, Deacon,” said Korotkov, whom I knew from the old days, as he approached Ageyev. “Understand what kind of man you’re riding with. Another man would’ve picked you off like a duck, wouldn’t even quack, but he’s fishing the truth out of you and teaching you, you unfrocked priest…”
“Or better yet,” the deacon repeated stubbornly and stepped forward, “kill me, Ivan.”
“You’ll kill yourself, bastard,” replied Akinfiyev, turning pale and lisping. “You’ll dig your own pit, and you’ll bury yourself in it…”
He threw up his hands, tore his collar and fell to the ground in a fit.
“My little drop of blood!” he shouted wildly and started pouring sand on his face. “My bitter little drop of blood, my Soviet power…”
“Vanya,” Korotkov approached Akinfiyev and placed his hand tenderly on his shoulder. “Get a hold of yourself, dear friend, don’t let it get to you. We’ve got to get going, Vanya…”
Korotkov took a mouthful of water and sprinkled it on Akinfiyev, then moved him over to the cart. The deacon sat on the box again and we drove off.
We had no more than two versts to go before we reached the shtetl of Verba. Innumerable transports had huddled together in the shtetl that morning. The Eleventh Division was there, and the Fourteenth, and the Fourth. Jews in waistcoats, their shoulders hunched, stood at their thresholds like plu
cked birds. Cossacks were going from house to house, collecting towels and eating unripe plums. As soon as we arrived, Akinfiyev crawled into the hay and fell asleep, while I took a blanket from his cart and went to look for a place in the shade. But on both sides of the road the field was strewn with excrement. A bearded peasant in copper-rimmed glasses and a Tyrolean hat, who was reading a newspaper nearby, caught my gaze and said:
“Call ourselves men but foul things up worse than jackals. A shame to the earth…”
Turning away, he again began reading the newspaper through his big glasses.
I made for a small wood on the left and spotted the deacon, who was coming closer and closer.
“Where you rolling off to, countryman?” Korotkov shouted to him from the first cart.
“To relieve myself,” muttered the deacon, then grabbed my hand and kissed it.
“You are a fine gentleman,” he whispered, grimacing, shivering and gasping for breath. “I beg you, when you have a minute, write to the town of Kasimov, let my wife cry over me…”
“Are you deaf, Father Deacon,” I shouted point-blank, “or not?”
“Pardon?” he said. “Pardon?” And he brought his ear closer.
“Are you deaf, Ageyev, or not?”
“Yes, that’s right, deaf,” he said quickly. “Two days ago I had perfect hearing, but Comrade Akinfiyev crippled my hearing with his shooting. He was supposed to deliver me to Rovno, Comrade Akinfiyev, but I don’t believe he’ll deliver me…”
And, falling to his knees, the deacon crawled between the carts head first, all tangled in dishevelled priestly hair. Then he rose from his knees, wriggled himself free from between the carts and walked over to Korotkov. The driver poured out some tobacco for him; they both rolled cigarettes and lit each other up.