The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine
Page 76
Village women gave bread to make me strong,
And village men the tobacco they grew. ”
MENDEL: Break my back, Nekhama! Pour Jewish soup into my veins!
[He throws himself onto the floor, rolls about, moans, laughs.]
VOICES FROM THE TAVERN:
He’s like an elephant. . .
IVe seen elephants cry real tears . . .
Youre lying! Elephants dont cry . . .
I tell you, IVe seen them cry real tears . . .
At the zoo once I taunted an elephant. . .
MITYA To URUSOV.]: Are you ready for Fomin, or is it early yet? URUSOV: It’s early yet.
[The singers sing with all their might. The song thunders.
The quivering, quaking guitars play fullforce.]
“O holy Baikal—O glorious sea,
A glorious sail, my caftan fluttering free!
Hey oarsman, whip the waves to andfro,
I hear the thunder louder grow. ”
[The blind men sing the last lines with vehement, joyful, weeping voices. Finishing the song, they rise and leave as one.]
MITYA: Is that all?
THE LEAD SINGER: That’s all.
MENDEL [Jumps up.]: I want a war song! Musicians, some life!
MITYA [To URUSOV.]: Is it time for Fomin, or is it early yet?
URUSOV: It’s time.
[MITYA winks at FOMIN, who is sitting in a far corner.
FOMIN quickly walks over to MENDELs table.]
FOMIN: I wish you a pleasant evening.
URUSOV [To MENDEL.]: Now, my dear friend, this is what well do— there’s a time for work, and a time for play. [He takes out a piece of paper covered with writing.] Shall I read it out loud?
FOMIN: If you’re not in the mood to dance, then I guess you should.
URUSOV: Should I just read the final amount?
FOMIN: I am in agreement with your suggestion.
MENDEL [Stares at FOMIN and moves away.]: I ordered some songs!
FOMIN: Don’t worry, well sing, we’ll celebrate, and when it’s time to die, we’ll die!
URUSOV [Reads, rolling his xs.]: “In accordance with the aforementioned points, I cede my carting establishment, with all its assets, as itemized below, to Vasili Eliseyevich Fomin—”
PYATIRUBEL: Fomin, you clown, do you realize what horses you’re buying? These horses have carted millions of bushels of corn and half the world’s coal! With these horses you’re dragging away everything we’ve got here in Odessa!
URUSOV: “—in total, for the sum of twelve thousand rubles, of which a third is to be paid on signing, with the additional sum—”
MENDEL [Points at the TURK, serenely smoking his hookah in the corner.]: That man sitting there, he’s judging me.
PYATIRUBEL: That’s true, he’s judging you. . . . Come on, let’s drink to it! [To FOMIN.] Just watch, he’s going to kill somebody!
FOMIN: I doubt it.
RYABTSOV: You’re crazy, you fool! That man over there, that Turk, is a holy man!
POTAPOVNA: I’m daddy’s little girl.
FOMIN: Right here, Mendel, that’s where you have to sign.
POTAPOVNA [Thumps FOMIN on the chest.]: This is where he keeps his money, that’s where it is!
MENDEL: I should sign, you said? [Dragging his feet, he walks across the tavern to the TURK and sits down next to him. Ha, the girls I’ve had in my time, my dear fellow! The happiness I have seen! I built a house, I had sons—and the price they’re offering me for all that, my dear fellow, is twelve thousand! And then that’s that—you lie down and die!
[The TURK hows, and with his hand touches first his heart and then his forehead. MENDEL kisses him tenderly on the lips.]
FOMIN [To POTAPOVNA.]: Are you trying to make a Yenkel of me?
POTAPOVNA: He’ll sell, Vasili Eliseyevich! On my life, he’ll sell!
MENDEL [Returns to his table, shaking his head.]: How boring!
MITYA: What’s boring is that you have to pay up!
MENDEL: Go away!
MITYA: No, you have to pay!
MENDEL: I’ll kill you!
MITYA: Then you’ll pay for that too!
MENDEL [Lays his head on the table and spits. Saliva hangs from his mouth like a rubber band.]: Go away, I want to sleep. . . .
MITYA: You wont pay? Oy, I’ll kill him!
PYATIRUBEL: Hold on a minute before you start killing him! First, how much have you been swindling out of him per pint?
MITYA [Flares up.]: I’m no pushover! I’ll rip you to pieces!
[Without lifting his head, MENDEL pulls from his pocket some coins and throws them. They roll on the floor. MITYA runs after them, picking them up. A sleepy girl blows out the lamps. It is dark.
MENDEL sleeps, his head resting on the tabled
FOMIN [To POTAPOVNA.]: You couldn’t hold back, could you? Your tongue scampers like a running dog! You ruined everything!
POTAPOVNA [Wiping her tears from her deep, grimy wrinkles.]: Vasili Eliseyevich. It’s my daughter I’m sorry for!
FOMIN: You don’t know what sorrow is yet!
POTAPOVNA: The Yids have surrounded us like lice!
FOMIN: A Yid is no obstacle for a clever man.
POTAPOVNA: He will sell, Vasili Eliseyevich! He’ll swagger about a bit, but then he’ll sell!
FOMIN [Slowly, menacingly.]: But if he doesn’t sell, then I swear to you, old woman, by Jesus Christ our Lord, I will come for you and tear the skin off your back!
Scene Four
POTAPOVNA attic. POTAPOVNA is wearing a colorful new dress, and is leaning out
the window chatting with a neighbor. There is a view of the harbor and the
sparkling sea from the window. On the table is a big pile of purchases: rolls of cloth>
shoes, a silk umbrella.
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: Come over and show off some of your new things!
POTAPOVNA: Don’t worry, I’ll be over to see you!
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: Here we’ve been selling chickens in the same market row for nineteen years now, and suddenly—no more Potapovna!
POTAPOVNA: Maybe I won’t have to stay chained to those damn chickens for the rest of my life after all. It looks now like I won’t have to suffer all my life.
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: It looks like you won’t.
POTAPOVNA: I bet people can’t believe my luck!
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: No, they can’t! Everyone would want to have your luck! You could bake it and sell it by the pound!
POTAPOVNA [Laughs, her large body shaking]: Not everyone, you see, has a pretty daughter.
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: They say, though, your daughter’s a bit too skinny.
POTAPOVNA: Don’t worry, dear! The nearer to the bone, the sweeter the meat!
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: They say his sons are scheming against you.
POTAPOVNA: The girl will outweigh the sons.
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: That’s what I say, too!
POTAPOVNA: It’s not like an old man will just drop a young girl like that.
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: I hear he’ll buy you some orchards.
POTAPOVNA: So, what else are people saying?
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: Nothing, really, they’re just prattling. I can’t make heads or tails of it!
POTAPOVNA: I can! I definitely can! What are they saying about the linen?
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: They say the old man set you up with fifteen yards.
POTAPOVNA: Thirty-five yards!
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: A pair of shoes . . .
POTAPOVNA: Three pair!
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: When old men fall in love—-it’s deadly!
POTAPOVNA: Yes, it looks like we won’t have to stay chained to those damn chickens. . . .
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: I guess you won’t! Come on, dress up and hop over here to show off some of your new things.
POTAPOVNA: I’ll be over in a bit! See you later, dear!
NEIGHBOR’S VOICE: See you later, dear!
/> [POTAPOVNA leaves the window. She waddles about the room humming,
and opens the closet. She climbs onto a chair and reaches up to the top shelf,
where there is a big bottle of liquor. She drinks, and then eats a cream puff.
MENDEL, festively dressed, enters the room with MARUSIA.]
MARUSIA [Boisterously.]: Look where our little birdie has hopped up to! Mama, run over to Moseyka, will you?
POTAPOVNA [Climbing down from the chair.]: What do you want me to get?
MARUSIA: Some watermelons, and a bottle of wine, and half a dozen smoked mackerel. ... [To MENDEL.] Give her a ruble!
POTAPOVNA: A ruble won’t be enough.
MARUSIA: Don’t try that on me! It’ll be enough, there’ll even be change!
POTAPOVNA: A ruble really won’t be enough.
MARUSIA: It will! Come back in an hour. [She shoves her mother out the door, slams it shut, and turns the key.]
POTAPOVNA’S VOICE: I’ll be sitting by the gate! If you need me, call!
MARUSIA: Fine! [She throws her hat onto the table, shakes out her golden hair, and starts plaiting it into a braid. In a ringing voicefull of strength and joy, she resumes her interrupted story.] So we arrive at the cemetery, we look—it’s one o’clock and the funeral is over. No one’s there, only people kissing in the bushes. My godfather s grave was so pretty, you wouldn’t believe it! So I took out the booze, the
Madeira you gave me, two bottles of it, and ran to get Father Yoann. You know Father Yoann—he’s the little old man with little blue eyes.
[MENDEL is watching MARUSIA adoringly. He is trembling and mumbles something in answer—what, is unclear]
MARUSIA: Father Yoann sang the psalms for the dead, then I poured him a glass of Madeira, wiped the glass with a towel, and he drank.
I poured him a second. [MARUSIA has finished braiding her hair; and fluffs the end of her braid. She sits down on the bed., and unties the laces of her fashionable yellow boots. Xenia, in the meantime, is acting like she’s forgotten she’s at her father’s grave. She’s putting on airs, acting like a mouse in a bag of wheat, all made up and everything, ogling her fiance, Sergei Ivanovich, who all the while is making me one sandwich after another! So to spite her I say: Excuse me, Sergei Ivanovich, shouldn’t you be paying at least a little attention to your fiancee, Xenia Matveyevna? Though I said it straight out, it went in one ear and out the other! So we all drank the Madeira you gave me. [MARUSIA takes off her boots and her stockings. She walks barefoot to the window and pulls the curtain shut.] My godmother couldn’t stop crying, but then got pink in the face like a little girl, so pretty, you wouldn’t believe it! I was drinking too—so I say to Sergei Ivanovich [MARUSIA uncovers the bed.]: C’mon, lets all go to Langeron beach for a swim! And he says: Okay, let’s go! [MARUSIA laughs and struggles to take off her dress, which is too tight] And I bet you Xenia’s back is covered with pimples, and she hasn’t washed her ^ feet in three years—you should have heard some of the things she called me! [MARUSIA is hidden from her head to her waist by the dress she is trying to struggle out of] Ha, she tells me, you’re just acting up, all snooty, hankering after the old man’s money—ha, they won’t let you get your hands on it! [MARUSIA pulls off the dress and jumps into the bed.] So I say to her—you know what, Xenia, darling—I say to her—let sleeping dogs lie! Sergei Ivanovich hears us and dies laughing! [She stretches out her exquisite, bare, girlish arm to MENDEL, and pulls him toward her. She takes off his jacket, and throws it on the floor.] So . . . come here and say, “Marusia darling!”
MENDEL: Marusia, darling!
MARUSIA: Say: “Marusia, my sweet little darling!”
[The old man wheezes, shivers, half laughing, half crying
MARUSIA [Sweetly.]: You ugly little pugface, you!
Scene Five
The Carting Union Synagogue in the Moldavanka, Odessa's Jewish quarter Friday evening worship. Lit candles. CANTOR ZWIEBACK, wearing a tallith and boots, is standing in the pulpit. The congregation—red-faced carters—is in deafening communion with God, rocking back and forth, spitting, wandering about the synagogue. Stung by the sudden bee of grace, they emit loud exclamations, sing along with the cantor in rough voices, falter and start muttering to themselves, and then loudly start lowing again, like oxen awakened from slumber. In the depths of the synagogue two ancient Jews—bony, hunchbacked giants, their long yellow beards swept to the side—are bent over a volume of the Talmud. ARYE-LEIB, the shamas, marches grandly back and forth between the rows of worshipers. A fat man with flushed, puffy cheeks is sitting on the front bench with his ten-year-old son between his knees. He is forcing the boy to look at the prayer book. BENYA KRIK is sitting on a side bench. Behind him sits SENKA TOPUN. They give no sign that they know each other.
CANTOR [Proclaims.]: Lkhu nranno ladonai noriio itsur isheinu!
[The carters start singing along. The drone of prayer.]
CANTOR: Arboim shorn okut nbdoir vooimar ... [In a throttled voice.] Arye-Leib, rats!
ARYE-LEIB: Shiru ladonai shir khodosh . . . Oy, lets sing a new song to God! [He goes over to a praying JEW.] How are hay prices doing? THE JEW [Rocking back andforth.]: TheyVe up.
ARYE-LEIB: A lot?
THE JEW: Fifty-two kopecks.
ARYE-LEIB: Well hold out—watch it hit sixty!
CANTOR: Lifnei adonai ki vo, ki vo mishpoit goorets . . . Arye-Leib, rats! ARYE-LEIB: Enough already, you ruffian!
CANTOR [In a throttled voice.]: If I see one more rat, therell be trouble!
ARYE-LEIB [Serenely.]: Lifnei adonai ki vo, ki vo . . . Oy, I am standing, oy, I am standing before God . . . where do oats stand?
SECOND JEW [ Without interrupting his prayer.]: A ruble and four, a ruble and four!
ARYE-LEIB: Im going crazy!
SECOND JEW [Rocks back andforth bitterly.]: It’ll hit a ruble ten, it’ll hit a ruble ten!
ARYE-LEIB: I’m going crazy! Lifnei adonai ki vo, ki vo . . .
[Everyone is praying. In the silence, snippets of muffled conversation between BENYA KRIK and SENKA TOPUN are heard.]
BENYA [Bends over his prayer book.]: Well?
SENKA [From behind BENYA.]: I have a job in the works.
BENYA: What job?
SENKA: Wholesale.
BENYA: What is it?
SENKA: Cloth.
BENYA: A lot?
SENKA: A lot.
BENYA: Police?
SENKA: Don’t worry.
BENYA: Night watchman?
SENKA: He’s in on it.
BENYA: Neighbors?
SENKA: They’ve agreed to be asleep.
BENYA: What cut d’you want?
SENKA: Half.
BENYA: Forget it.
SENKA: Why, as it is, you’re about to lose your inheritance.
BENYA: I’m going to lose my inheritance, am I?
SENKA: So where do you stand?
BENYA: Forget it!
[There is a gunshot—CANTOR ZWIEBACK has shot a rat that was running past the altar. The bored ten-year-old. trapped between his fathers knees, flails about, trying to break loose. ARYE-LEIB stands
frozen to the spot, his mouth hanging open. The TALMUDISTS raise their large, indifferent faces.]
THE FAT MAN WITH THE FLUSHED CHEEKS: Zwieback! That’s a pretty low-down trick!
CANTOR: My understanding was that I would pray in a synagogue, not a rat-infested pantry! [He clicks open his revolver and throws the empty cartridge on the floor.]
ARYE-LEIB: Oyy you bastard! Oy, you lout!
CANTOR [Pointing at the dead rat with his revolver.]: Look at this rat, O Jews, call in the people! Let the people judge if this is not a rat the size of a cow!
ARYE-LEIB: Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!
CANTOR [Cold-bloodedly.]: May there be an end to these rats!
[He wraps himself up in the tallith and holds a tuning fork to his ear. The boy finally wriggles free from his fathers knees, dashes over to the cartridge, snatches it up, and r
uns off]
FIRST JEW: All day long you break your neck working, you come to the synagogue to relax a little—and then this!
ARYE-LEIB [Shrieks.]: Jews, this is a sham! Jews, you know not what is taking place here! The Milkmen’s Union is paying this bastard an extra ten rubles! So why dont you go to the milkmen, you bastard, and kiss their you-know-whats!
SENKA [Bangs hisfist down on his prayer book.]: Can we have some quiet? This isn’t a marketplace!
CANTOR [Solemnly.]: Mizmoir Idovid!
[Everyone prays. ]
BENYA: So?
SENKA: There are people we can use.
BENYA: What people?
SENKA: Georgians.
BENYA: They have weapons?
SENKA: They have weapons.
BENYA: Where do you know them from?
SENKA: They live next to your buyer.
BENYA: What buyer?
SENKA: The one whos buying your business.
BENYA: What business?
SENKA: Your business—your lands, your house, your carting establishment. BENYA [Turns around.]: Are you crazy?
SENKA: He said so himself.
BENYA: Who said?
SENKA: Mendel, your father, said so himself! Hes going with Marusia to Bessarabia to buy orchards.
[The hum of prayer. The JEWS are moaning intricately.]
BENYA: Are you crazy?
SENKA: Everyone knows it.
BENYA: Swear its true!
SENKA: May I not see happiness in this life!
BENYA: Swear on your mother!
SENKA: May I find my mother lying in a pool of blood!
BENYA: Swear again, you piece of shit!
SENKA [Scornfully.]: You’re such a fool!
CANTOR: Borukh ato adonai. . .
Scene Six
The KRIKS * courtyard. Sunset. It is seven o'clock in the evening. BENYA is sitting by the stable on a cart with its shafts raised, cleaning a revolver LYOVKA is leaning against the stable door. ARYE-LEIB is explaining the profundities o/The Song of Songs to IVAN, the boy who had run out of the synagogue on Friday evening NIKIFOR is nervously pacing up and down the courtyard. He is obviously worried about something
BENYA: The time is coming! Make way for time!
LYOVKA: He should have his throat cut, like a pig!
BENYA: The time is coming. Step aside, Lyovka! Make way for time! ARYE-LEIB: The Song of Songs teaches us: “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth”—What does the great commentator Rashi tell us about these words?