Red Cavalry

by Isaac Babel

  “Nic nie ma,”1 she replied indifferently. “Can’t remember the last time there was anything…”

  I sat down at the table, took off my revolver and fell asleep. A quarter of an hour later I opened my eyes and saw Volkov, hunched over the window sill. He was writing a letter to his bride.

  “My dear Valya,” he wrote, “do you remember me?”

  I read the first line, then took matches from my pocket and set fire to a pile of straw on the floor. The freed flame blazed up and rushed towards me. The old woman lay down with her chest on the fire and put it out.

  “What are you doing, Pan?” the old woman said, retreating in horror.

  Volkov turned, fixed the hostess with his vacant eyes and then went back to his letter.

  “I’m gonna burn you down, hag,” I muttered, falling asleep, “burn you down with your stolen calf.”

  “Czekaj!”2 the hostess shouted in a high voice. She ran out into the entryway and came back with a jug of milk and some bread.

  We didn’t have time to eat half of it before shots broke out, rattling in the yard. There were a lot of them. They kept on rattling for a long time, getting on our nerves. We finished the milk and Volkov went out into the yard to see what was going on.

  “I saddled your horse,” he told me through the little window. “They riddled mine. The Poles are setting up machine guns a hundred paces off.”

  And so we had one horse left for the both of us. She barely carried us out of Sitaniec. I sat in the saddle and Volkov huddled up behind me.

  The transports were fleeing, roaring, sinking in the mud. Morning came oozing down on us like chloroform oozing down on a hospital table.

  “Are you married, Lyutov?” Volkov said suddenly, sitting behind me.

  “My wife left me,” I answered, then dozed off for a few moments and dreamt I was sleeping in a bed.

  Silence.

  Our horse staggers.

  “Mare’s gonna give out in a couple of versts,” says Volkov, sitting behind me.

  Silence.

  “Lost the campaign,” mutters Volkov, and gives a snort.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Sokal, September 1920

  Notes

  1 Nic nie ma: “There’s nothing” (Polish).

  2 Czekaj!: “Wait!” (Polish).

  TREASON

  “COMRADE INVESTIGATOR BURDENKO. I write in response to your question that I’ve got myself a Partisanship, number twenty-four double zero, issued to Nikita Balmashov by the Krasnodar Party Committee. I explain my biography prior to 1914 as a domestic one, wherein I tilled the soil with my parents and then transferred from tilling to the ranks of the imperialists, so as to defend Citizen Poincaré and the hangman of the German revolution, Ebert-Noske, who must’ve been sleeping and seeing in their dreams how to lend a hand to my native Cossack village, Ivan Svyatoy in the Kuban province. And that’s how the thread spun along until Comrade Lenin, together with Comrade Trotsky, turned my ferocious bayonet to the guts it was meant for, to a nicer belly. From that time on I wear the number twenty-four double zero on the end of my clear-sighted bayonet, and it’s pretty shameful and just too funny for me to hear this rotten hogwash about some unknown N—— Hospital from you, Comrade Investigator Burdenko. I could give two shits about this hospital, but I didn’t attack it or take any shots at it, and I couldn’t have, anyway. Being wounded, the three of us, namely the fighters Golovitsyn and Kustov and I, had a fever in the bones and didn’t do any attacking, we just cried in our hospital gowns out in the square amid the free population, Jews by nationality. And concerning the damage to the three window panes, which we damaged with an officer’s revolver, I tell you with all my heart that these window panes weren’t serving their purpose, as they were in the storeroom, which didn’t need them. And Dr Jawein, seeing this bitter shooting of ours, only sneered with all kinds of smirks, standing there in the window of his hospital, which can also be confirmed by the above-mentioned free Jews of the town of Kozin. As to this Dr Jawein, Comrade Investigator, I’ll also submit the following material: he sneered at us wounded men, namely the fighters Golovitsyn and Kustov and me, when we originally enlisted for treatment, and from his first words spoke far too rough, saying, you fighters, go and wash up in the bathroom, each of you, and drop your weapons and your clothes this minute, I’m afraid of contagion, I’m sending them to the arsenal, no doubt about it… And then fighter Kustov, seeing a beast in front of him instead of a man, stepped forward with his broken leg and expressed himself, asking what kind of contagion could there be in a sharp Kuban sabre, except when it comes to the enemies of our revolution, and was also interested to learn about the arsenal, whether there was a Party fighter in there watching over things or, on the contrary, someone from the non-Party masses. And here Dr Jawein evidently saw that we understood treason well enough. He turned his back to us and, without another word, sent us off to the ward, and again with all kinds of smirks, and that’s where we went, hobbling on our broken legs, waving our crippled arms and holding on to one another, as the three of us are countrymen from the Cossack village of Ivan Svyatoy, namely Comrades Golovitsyn and Kustov and I, we’re all countrymen with one fate, and whoever’s got a torn-up leg holds on to a comrade’s arm, and whoever’s missing an arm leans on a comrade’s shoulder. In accordance with the issued order, we went to the ward, where we expected to see cultural-educational work and dedication to the cause, but what, it may interest you to know, did we see in that ward? We saw Red Army men, all infantry, sitting on covered beds and playing checkers, and tall nurses, plenty smooth, standing at the windows and handing out sympathy. We saw all this and froze in place, as if struck by thunder.

  “‘Done fighting, boys?’ I exclaim to the wounded men.

  “‘Done,’ the wounded men answer and move their checkers made of bread.

  “‘Too soon,’ I say to the wounded men. ‘Done too soon, infantry, when the enemy’s prowling on soft paws fifteen versts from town, and when you can read about our international situation in The Red Cavalryman newspaper, read that it’s plain hell, and that the horizon’s full of clouds.’ But my words bounced off the heroic infantry like sheep dung off a regimental drum, and instead of a proper conversation, the merciful sisters led us off to bed and started droning on again about us surrendering our weapons, as if we’d already been defeated. Well, they got Kustov all stirred up, and he started picking at the wound on his left shoulder, right over the bloody heart of a fighter and proletarian. Seeing him straining like that, the nurses quieted down, but they only quieted down for the littlest while, and then they started up with their mockery again like the non-Party masses they were, and they’d send volunteers to pull our clothes out from under us as we slept, or they’d force us to play theatrical roles for cultural-educational work in women’s dress, which isn’t befitting.

  “Merciless nurses. They made more than one attempt at us with sleeping powders, on account of the clothes, so we took to resting in turn, keeping one eye open, and we’d go to the latrine in full uniform, with revolvers, even to urinate. And after suffering like this for a week and a day, we started raving, getting visions, and then, when we woke up on the accursed morning of 4 August, we noticed that a change had taken place, that we were lying there in numbered robes, like convicts, without weapons and without the clothes woven by our mothers, feeble old women from the Kuban… And the sun, we see, is shining real fine, and the trench infantry, that had three Red Cavalrymen suffering in its midst, is riding roughshod all over us, and the merciless nurses, who poured us sleeping powders the night before, are shaking their young breasts, bringing us cocoa on plates, and there’s enough milk in this cocoa to drown us! It was a regular merry carousel, with the infantry knocking around on their crutches loud as hell and pinching our sides like we was whores, bought and paid for, and saying she was done fighting too, Budyonny’s First Cavalry Army. But no, my curly-headed comrades, who grew yourselves some beautiful bellies that go off in the night like machin
e guns, she wasn’t done fighting. No, the three of us made like we needed to go, and then we came out into the yard, where we set off in a fever, with our blue wounds, to Citizen Boyderman, chairman of the District Revolutionary Committee, and if it wasn’t for him, Comrade Investigator Burdenko, this misunderstanding with the shooting might never even have happened, that is, if it wasn’t for the chairman of the District Revolutionary Committee, who made us lose our minds altogether. And though we can’t submit any solid material on Citizen Boyderman, it’s just that when we walked in to meet with the chairman of the District Revolutionary Committee we saw a citizen of mature years in a sheepskin coat, a Jew by nationality, sitting at a desk, the desk so full of papers it’s ugly to look at… Citizen Boyderman looks this way and that, and it’s plain to see he can’t understand a thing in these papers, he’s miserable with these papers, especially since unknown but deserving fighters keep approaching Citizen Boyderman for rations in a threatening manner, and local workers shout over them to report on counter-revolutionaries in the surrounding villages, and then ordinary workers from the Centre show up, demanding to get married in the District Revolutionary Committee straight away and without any red tape… And we too raised our voices and presented the case of treason at the hospital, but Citizen Boyderman just goggled at us, looked this way and that, and caressed our shoulders, which is no longer authority and isn’t worthy of authority. He wouldn’t issue a resolution for the life of him, and only said: comrade fighters, if you pity Soviet authority, then leave these premises, to which we couldn’t agree, that is, to leave the premises, and demanded his general identity card, upon not receiving which, we lost consciousness. And being without consciousness we went out into the square in front of the hospital, where we disarmed the militia consisting of one cavalryman and, with tears in our eyes, violated the three unenviable window panes in the above-described storeroom. Dr Jawein made faces and sneered at this intolerable fact, and this at a moment when Comrade Kustov was going to die of his illness in four days!

  “In his short Red life, Comrade Kustov worried no end about treason, and there it is, winking at us from the window, there it is, sneering at the crude proletariat, but comrades, the proletariat himself knows he’s crude, and it pains us, our soul burns and rends with fire the prison of our body and the jail of our hateful ribs…

  “I tell you, Comrade Investigator Burdenko, treason laughs at us from the window, treason walks barefoot in our house, treason’s tossed its boots over its shoulder, so that the floorboards don’t creak in the house it’s looting…”

  CZEŚNIKI

  THE SIXTH DIVISION was mustered in the woods outside the village of Cześniki, waiting for the signal to attack. But Pavlichenko, the division commander, was awaiting the arrival of the Second Brigade and wouldn’t give the signal. Then Voroshilov rode up to the division commander. He nudged him in the chest with his horse’s muzzle and said:

  “Wasting time, Division Commander, wasting time.”

  “The Second Brigade,” Pavlichenko replied dully, “is moving to the scene of the action at a trot, in accordance with your orders.”

  “Wasting time, Division Commander, wasting time,” said Voroshilov and pulled at his straps. Pavlichenko took a step back.

  “In the name of conscience,” he cried, and began wringing his clammy fingers, “in the name of conscience, don’t rush me, Comrade Voroshilov…”

  “Don’t rush him,” whispered Klim Voroshilov, member of the Revolutionary Military Council, and closed his eyes. He sat on his horse with his eyes closed, silent, moving his lips. A Cossack in bast shoes and a bowler hat gazed at him in bewilderment. The Army staff—strapping general staffers in pants redder than human blood—did callisthenics behind his back and exchanged smiles. The galloping squadrons howled through the woods as the wind howls, breaking branches. Voroshilov combed his horse’s mane with his Mauser.

  “Army Commander,” he shouted, turning to Budyonny, “say a few parting words to the troops. There he is, the Pole, standing on the hill just like a picture, laughing at you…”

  And it’s true—you could see the Poles through field glasses. The Army staff jumped onto their horses and the Cossacks flocked to them from all sides.

  Ivan Akinfiyev, ex-wagoner for the Revolutionary Tribunal, rode past and nudged me with his stirrup.

  “You at the front, Ivan?” I said to him. “But you haven’t got any ribs…”

  “Fuck ribs…” said Akinfiyev, who was sitting on his horse sideways. “Lemme ’ear what the man’s got to say.”

  He rode forward and pressed right up against Budyonny.

  Budyonny shuddered and said quietly:

  “Boys, we’ve got a bad situation on our hands—got to liven it up, boys…”

  “Give us Warsaw!” cried the Cossack in the bast shoes and bowler hat, opened his eyes wide and cut the air with his sabre.

  “Give us Warsaw!” cried Voroshilov, reared his horse up and bolted into the midst of the squadrons.

  “Men and commanders!” he said with passion. “In Moscow, in the ancient capital, an unprecedented power is waging battle. A government of workers and peasants, the first in the world, orders you, men and commanders, to attack the enemy and bring home victory.”

  “Sabres at the ready…” Pavlichenko sang out remotely behind the Army commander’s back, and his foaming, turned-out crimson lips glistened in the ranks. The division commander’s red Cossack coat was in tatters, his fleshy, hateful face contorted. He saluted Voroshilov with the blade of his priceless sabre.

  “In accordance with my duty to the Revolutionary Oath,” said the Sixth Division commander, wheezing and looking around, “I report to the Revolutionary Military Council of the First Cavalry: the Second Invincible Cavalry Brigade is approaching the scene of action at a trot.”

  “Get on with it,” said Voroshilov and waved his arm. He touched the reins and Budyonny rode off beside him. They rode side by side on chestnut mares, wearing identical tunics and shining trousers embroidered with silver. The fighting men moved along behind them, raising a whoop, and pale steel shimmered in the ichor of the autumn sun. But I heard no unanimity in the Cossacks’ whoop; awaiting the attack, I walked off into the woods, deep into the woods, to the first-aid and meal station.

  Two plump nurses in aprons were lying there on the grass. They were nudging each other with their young breasts and pushing each other away. They were laughing the swooning laughter of women and winking at me from below, without blinking. That’s how village girls wink at a parched lad—village girls with bare feet, who squeal like fondled puppies and spend their nights out in the yard, on the agonizing pillows of a hayrick. Farther on from the nurses a wounded Red Army man lay in delirium, and Styopka Duplishchev, a quarrelsome little Cossack, was curry-combing Hurricane, the thoroughbred stallion that belonged to the division commander and had been dammed by Lyulyusha, a prize-winner from Rostov. The wounded soldier was raving, recalling the town of Shuya, a heifer, some flax tow, while Duplishchev, drowning out the man’s pathetic muttering, sang a song about an orderly and a fat general’s wife, singing louder and louder, waving the curry comb up in the air and stroking the horse. But Sashka interrupted him—swollen Sashka, lady of all the squadrons. She rode up to the boy and jumped to the ground.

  “C’mon, let’s do it,” Sashka said.

  “Shove off,” Duplishchev answered, turned his back to her and started braiding ribbons into Hurricane’s mane.

  “You speaking for yourself, Styopka?” Sashka said then. “Or you just putty?”

  “Shove off,” Styopka answered. “I’m speaking for myself.”

  He braided all the ribbons into the mane and suddenly cried out to me in despair:

  “Just look here a minute, Kirill Vasilich, see how she hounds me? The whole month I been putting up with all kinds of things from ’er, can’t even tell you what. Don’t matter where I turn—there she is. Don’t matter where I go—she’s a fence on my path. It’s let ’er
have the stallion, let ’er have the stallion. Sure I will, when the division commander’s telling me every day, Styopka, he says, with a stallion like that, you’ll get lots of folks asking, but don’t you let ’im go till he’s in his fourth year…”

  “Bet they let you go in your fifteenth,” Sashka muttered and turned away. “In your fifteenth, I bet, and nothing came of it, you’re all quiet, just blowing bubbles…”

  She walked over to her mare, tightened the saddle-girths and got ready to ride. The spurs on her shoes jangled, her fishnet stockings were spattered with mud and trimmed with straw, and her monstrous breasts went swinging around to her back.

  “Brought a rouble,” Sashka said, looking off to the side, and placed her spurred shoe into the stirrup. “Brought one, and now I gotta take it back.”

  The woman took out two brand-new fifty-copeck pieces, played with them on her palm and slipped them back into her bosom.

  “C’mon, let’s do it,” Duplishchev said then, without taking his eyes off the silver, and led up the stallion. Sashka chose a sloping place on the meadow and halted her mare.

  “Seems you’re the only one round here with a stallion,” she said to Styopka, and started directing Hurricane. “It’s just that my little mare’s a frontline horse, hasn’t had anyone over her in two years, so I think to myself, might as well get some good blood…”

  Sashka handled the stallion and then led her horse off to the side:

  “Now we’ve got our stuffing, girl,” she whispered, and kissed the mare on her wet, piebald horse lips, with their dangling strands of spittle, rubbed up against the horse’s muzzle, and then listened close to the noise stamping through the woods.

  “The Second Brigade’s coming,” Sashka said sternly, and then turned to me. “We gotta ride, Lyutych…”

  “Coming or not,” Duplishchev cried out, and a spasm seized his throat, “you gotta pony up for what you got…”