The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (123 page)

But Murashko launched a counterattack.

“Nothing but the creamiest butter bursting with vitamins! How about that, Comrade Friedman?”

1

In 1919 the Civil War was raging all around Odessa as the armies of the Bolsheviks, the Ukrainian Nationalists, the Czarist Whites, and the foreign intervention forces battled each other near Odessa. Throughout much of 1919, the Czarist armies of General Denikin seemed to be gaining the upper hand. In this scene, Tartakovsky is trying to bribe Benya with Czarist banknotes to stay in Odessa and help the Whites reestablish the former status quo.

2

Members of the Komsomol, the Young Communist League.

3

A Chinese radical nationalist party, succeeded by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949.

4

U.S.S.R.

5

Babel is using the word “yumoristicheskii” in a slightly subversive way, as it is unclear if Panyutins face is “humorous,” or if he has a wry, amused expression on his face in reaction to what he is reading in Lenins works.

Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, 1881-1969, close associate of Stalin and Marshal of the Soviet Union. He frequently appears in the Red Cavalry stories, as he had been General Budyonny’s military commissar.

3.

Night. A moving train. A first-class compartment.

Murashko was immersed in an English technical book. Next to him sat a quiet woman of about twenty-six with chestnut-colored hair that was neatly parted in the middle. She was crocheting a collar for a dress.

The woman looked at her watch: “It’s after midnight.”

“I will go outside, Comrade, so that you can lie down,” Murashko said. He went out into the corridor and lit a cigarette.

A tall, dark, long-legged fellow in an Aeroflot uniform came out of the washroom. A towel hung from his shoulder, and he was holding a soap container.

“Murashko! Hello there! Where are you heading?”

“To Voronezh.”

“Anyone sharing your compartment—a man, a woman?”

a A    »

A woman.

“What kind?”

Murashko gave the question some thought.

“The domestic animal kind.”

“Forget it,” the man with the towel said, and went to his compartment.

Murashko stood by the window, smoking his cigarette. Wet, black, quivering fields flew by.

In the meantime, Murashko s traveling companion had managed to change into pajamas and brush her soft hair. She took out a black leather cylinder containing blueprints, put it on the edge of the bed by the wall, and covered it with the sheet. Then she opened her handbag, took out a small revolver, and made sure that it was loaded. She placed the revolver under her pillow, lay down, and covered herself with the blanket.

4.

An indescribable rumpus. Two little boys of about five or six were wielding wooden swords, a nine-year-old was banging on a makeshift drum. The leader of the pack, twelve-year-old Igor, was flying through the room, hanging from a wooden model airship fastened to the ceiling with ropes. Only an old, shaggy dog, dozing stoically by the door, kept his calm.

The small windows were fitted with geraniums and cacti. Above the flowers hung cages with birds: starlings, thrushes, canaries, and birds of an unidentifiable kind. They all sang, chirped, and whistled.

A tub stood on two stools in the corner. A plump woman with puffed-up hair was washing clothes in it, slowly and evenly kneading soap into them, as she read a book propped up on the windowsill.

Murashko, astonished at the strange sight, stopped in his tracks as he opened the door. No one noticed his arrival, only the dog opened one eye and then closed it again.

“Hello, Comrade, I was ringing the doorbell but nobody came.”

Hearing a stranger s voice, the children stopped playing and stared at Murashko in genuine astonishment. The flying boy let himself drop down to the floor, startling the dog.

“Our doors never locked,” the woman with the puffed-up hair answered simply, shaking the suds off her red hands. “Whats there to steal? You want Zhukov? Pyotr!” she shouted. “Pyotr!”

The starling whistled angrily at her.

“Isnt he here?” Murashko asked, disappointed.

The woman dried her hands on her apron.

“He is here. He’s just not answering. He never answers when I call him. Why dont you come in?”

And, forgetting Murashko, she continued reading.

• • •

Zhukov’s room. His windows too were decorated with geraniums and birdcages. Wooden shelves were lined with test tubes, retorts, and vials. In the corner stood a lathe. The floor was littered with stacks of books, and the bed, the table, and the chairs were heaped with blueprints. A man of about fifty, with steel-rimmed spectacles, a black mane of hair, and a futile little beard, sat at a table that was covered in a piece of torn oilskin, sketching with quick movements.

Murashko cleared his throat, waited, shuffled noisily, but the man sitting at the table didnt notice him, or, more probably, was immersed in a mysterious music only he could hear. Murashko cleared his throat more loudly, and Zhukov looked up from his blueprint.

“Yes?”

“IVe come from Moscow, and ...” Murashko began.

“Well?” Zhukov interrupted him.

“I would like to offer you a job.”

Zhukov threw back his head, laughed out loud, and suddenly fell silent.

“I already have a job,” he said abruptly. “I am busy building captive balloons. I dont do odd jobs on the side.”

“YouVe got me wrong,” Murashko interrupted him. “Did you not submit a project proposal for a new airship design to the Council of the People’s Commissars?”

“The council? Damn you! So you re from the council!” he shouted, jumping up. He grabbed a pile of papers from an open box and hurled them at Murashko.

“There! Thats what you wanted!”

“What are these?” Murashko asked.

“Notes from doctors, damn you! Notes saying that Im of sound mind! I will have you know that Professor Tolmazov and his gang have not managed to drive me insane!” he shrieked in a sudden falsetto. “Nor will they!”

Murashkos calm brought Zhukov back to his senses, but he quickly became flustered again. His eyes flashed angrily beneath his spectacles, and he turned away. “What did you come here for?”

“To invite you to work on our Airship Construction Project.”

Zhukov took his sketch pencil and drew a sharp line, leaned back, thought for a few moments, and then said in a calm voice that was more a statement than a question, “You are inviting me to work for you? Are you mad?”

Murashko took out an identity card.

Zhukov recoiled in horror.

“Whats that?” he gasped.

“No, no, its only my identity card proving that I am director of the Airship Construction Project.”

Zhukov glared at Murashko. Tempestuous, stubborn thoughts were blazing behind Zhukovs steel-rimmed spectacles. He ran his fingers through his hair, quickly rolled up a few blueprints, took two document cases, tied everything together with a piece of string, and put on his hat and coat.

“Lets go,” he said.

The two men went into the next room.

“Katya, Im off to Moscow,” he muttered vaguely, and clumsily patted one of his children on the head.

Zhukovs wife dried her hands, came over to her husband, and kissed him on his beard.

“Bring me back some lemons,” she told him.

“Dont forget Ciceros linseed . . . Cicero is our starling,” he said absently to Murashko over the childrens heads, and suddenly roared at them: “And dont give your mother a hard time!”

“Good-bye, Comrade Zhukova,” Murashko said, bowing to Zhukovs wife, who was once more immersed in her book.

“Good-bye!” she said, stopped reading, and asked with childish curiosity: “But what are you taking him away for?”

“I really need him,” Murashko told her.

The dog opened both eyes at the same time. The starling whistled wildly.

• • •

Murashko and Zhukov stopped at the corner of a deserted provincial street to let a car pass.

“Your position will be—”

“When it comes to airship construction, I’m even prepared to sweep the floors,” Zhukov quickly cut in.

Murashko smiled. “You will be our chief engineer, Pyotr Nikolayevich.”

Zhukov’s beard quivered.

“All that is not important! The main thing is that we’ll send them

up!”

“Send who up?”

“The Soviet airships.”

5.

The reception area of the Economic Council of the People’s Commissars. Groups of representatives, directors, and specialists who had come to propose projects—people from all corners of the Soviet Union—sat surrounded by stacks of paper.

A man with a Mongolian face walked past, his embroidered caftan flashing by.

The hallowed doors opened and a man came hurrying out of the conference room, his service jacket awry, his briefcase hanging open with a bundle of papers on the brink of falling out. His deputy, who had been waiting by the door, rushed up to him.

“We have to stick to instruction 380!” the man leaving the conference room whispered angrily.

His deputy stood to attention.

“But allow me to—”

“They won’t allow a thing,” the first man said in a hollow voice.

Murashko was sitting at a table in the reception area studying some papers. His chief bookkeeper glanced at him with fiery eyes and moaned, “Did you hear that, Comrade Murashko?”

The director of Construction Project Four came hurrying out through the hallowed doors, wiping the sweat from his forehead. His black-haired deputy materialized in front of him in a well-tailored suit.

“TheyVe killed it!” the director stammered.

“On what grounds did they kill it?” his deputy asked, stiffening.

“On the grounds that we need to work within the set budget limits.”

Murashkos chief bookkeeper groaned again: “Did you hear that, Comrade Murashko?”

The hallowed doors swung open.

“Airship Construction Project!” the secretary’s voice screeched.

The project specialist, a tall man with a pince-nez hanging on a cord, jumped up. He dragged Murashko after him. The doors closed behind them.

Murashkos bookkeeper    went over to    the    deputy    of Construction

Project Number Four, and in    an instant saw him    to be    a man of his own

way of thinking.

“One thing they simply refuse to take into account is that if a man sees things from the government s standpoint, then that man has to be taken into account!”

• • •

The conference room. Some ten people were sitting at a round table. The project specialist, ingratiating, tugging at the pince-nez hanging on the black cord, poured forth a stream of officialese: “For the most part, our Airship Construction Project has stayed within the parameters of instruction 380. However, given the specificity of the project, some alterations had to be effected on the numbers. As your commission has declared itself ready to increase the maximum on the construction budget, and now proposes a projected funding of 32,446,000 rubles, we would like . . .”

• • •

In the reception area, the bookkeeper was jumping up and down outside the hallowed doors of the conference room.

In the conference room, the concluding words of the chairmans response to the project specialist: “In my opinion, Comrades, as your project proposal is insufficiently fleshed out, and as the miserly cost estimate does not offer realistic possibilities for such an important enterprise as the Airship Construction Project, it is my opinion, Comrades, that you must go back and rework the proposal. The time limit for the construction of the airship should be set at eighteen months. For the time being, the amount of capital investment should be fixed at ninety million rubles. We suggest that the Airship Construction Project submit a reworked proposal and cost estimate based on these criteria. Any objections?”

“No,” Murashko stammered in a suddenly hoarse voice. “No, none.”

The chairman made a sign to the secretary, who was taking the minutes: “No objections.”

6.

A car raced along the highway at incredible speed.

A policeman stopped the car at a crossing.

“Your license.”

Vasya, sitting in the driver s seat, immediately began to haggle: “I was doing sixty-five, Comrade, and not a kilometer more!”

“You were doing a hundred and twenty,” the policeman said. “Whose car is this?”

“Mine!” said Raisa Friedmans voice, and a shoulder draped in a fur boa jutted out of the window.

“And who are you?”

“Im with the Airship Construction Project,” Raisa Friedman answered.

As the car moved on, the shoulder with the fur boa jutted out of the window again: “You should realize who you can stop and who you cant!”

• • •

The car pulled into the airship construction area, steering with difficulty among piles of bricks, planks, logs, and vats of cement. It drove past brick walls under construction, excavators gnawing at the earth, and tractors dragging loaded platforms. The car stopped for an instant to let a miniature train pass that was running on a narrow-gauge track. Window frames and standard-issue doors were stacked in a small, open wagon. The rumbling of the excavators, the grinding of the winches, the music of construction. Raisa Friedman was having a production meeting with Vasya as the car stood waiting by the barrier at the rail crossing.

“What would you say if we were to serve some chopped herring as an hors d’oeuvre tomorrow for the engineering and technical staff?” “Beautiful!” Vasya said.

“And then chicken broth with meatballs.”

“Excellent!” Vasya confirmed.

“And then, as a second course, sweet-and-sour stew.”

Here Vasya hesitated.

“Well. . . Im not so sure about that.”

“Its a fabulous dish!” Raisa Friedman assured him. “And then for dessert, a strudel.”

“Beautiful!” Vasya said, tossing back his head. “Now that youVe come here, life will be sweet!”

At the bend in the road, Raisa Friedman jumped out of the car. “Yes, but think of the price I must pay!” she said as she walked away. “I dont even get to see my husband during the day anymore!” Raisa Friedman walked past the remains of the barracks and a lone willow tree that was still whole as if by a miracle. The barracks were being dismantled with the speed of lightning.