The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (16 page)

“Monsieur Eichbaum,” he wrote. “I would be grateful if you could place twenty thousand rubles by the gate of number 17, Sofiyefskaya Street, tomorrow morning. If you do not, then something awaits you, the like of which has never before been heard, and you will be the talk of all Odessa. Sincerely yours, Benya the King.”

Three letters, each clearer than the one before, remained unanswered. Then Benya took action. They came by night, ten men carrying long sticks. The sticks were wound with tarred oakum. Nine burning stars flared up in Eichbaums cattle yard. Benya smashed the barns locks and started leading the cows out, one by one. They were met by a man with a knife. He felled the cows with one slash and plunged his knife into their hearts. On the ground drenched with blood the torches blossomed like fiery roses, and shots rang out. The dairy maids came running to the cowshed, and Benya chased them away with shots. And right after him other gangsters began shooting into the air because if you dont shoot into the air you might kill someone. And then, as the sixth cow fell with a death bellow at the Kings feet, it was then that Eichbaum came running out into the courtyard in his underpants.

“Benya! Where will this end?” he cried.

“If I dont have the money, you dont have the cows, Monsieur Eichbaum. Two and two make four.”

“Benya, come into my house!”

And inside the house they came to an agreement. They divided the slaughtered cows between them, Eichbaum was promised immunity and given a certificate with a stamp to that effect. But the miracle came later.

At the time of the attack, that terrible night when the slashed cows bellowed and calves skidded in their mothers’ blood, when torches danced like black maidens, and the milkmaids scattered and screeched before the barrels of the amicable Brownings—that terrible night, old Eichbaums daughter, Zilya, had run out into the yard, her blouse torn. And the Kings victory turned into his downfall.

Two days later, without warning, Benya gave back all the money he had taken from Eichbaum, and then came in the evening on a social call. He wore an orange suit, and underneath his cuff a diamond bracelet sparkled. He entered the room, greeted Eichbaum, and asked him for the hand of his daughter, Zilya. The old man had a small stroke, but recovered—there were at least another twenty years of life in him.

“Listen, Eichbaum,” the King told him. “When you die, 111 have you buried in the First Jewish Cemetery, right by the gates. And, Eichbaum, I will have a monument of pink marble put up for you. I will make you the Elder of the Brodsky Synagogue. I will give up my career, Eichbaum, and I will go into business with you as a partner. We will have two hundred cows, Eichbaum. I will kill all the dairymen except you. No thief shall walk the street you live in. I shall build you a dacha at the Sixteenth Stop
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. . . and dont forget, Eichbaum, you yourself were no rabbi in your youth. Who was it who forged that will? I think Td better lower my voice, dont you? And your son-in-law will be the King, not some snotface! The King, Eichbaum!”

And he got his way, that Benya Krik, because he was passionate, and passion holds sway over the universe. The newlyweds stayed for three months in fertile Bessarabia, among grapes, abundant food, and the sweat of love. Then Benya returned to Odessa to marry off Dvoira, his forty-year-old sister, who was suffering from goiter. And now, having told the story of Sender Eichbaum, we can return to the marriage of Dvoira Krik, the Kings sister.

For the dinner at this wedding, they served turkeys, roasted chicken, geese, gefilte fish, and fish soup in which lakes of lemon shimmered like mother-of-pearl. Above the dead goose heads, flowers swayed like luxuriant plumes. But do the foamy waves of the Odessan Sea throw roasted chickens onto the shore?

On this blue night, this starry night, the best of our contraband, everything for which our region is celebrated far and wide, plied its seductive, destructive craft. Wine from afar heated stomachs, sweetly numbed legs, dulled brains, and summoned belches as resonant as the call of battle horns. The black cook from the Plutarch, which had pulled in three days before from Port Said, had smuggled in big-bellied bottles of Jamaican rum, oily Madeira, cigars from the plantations of Pierpont Morgan, and oranges from the groves of Jerusalem. This is what the foamy waves of the Odessan Sea throw onto the shore, and this is what Odessan beggars sometimes get at Jewish weddings. They got Jamaican rum at Dvoira Krik’s wedding, and thats why the Jewish beggars got as drunk as unkosher pigs and began loudly banging their crutches. Eichbaum unbuttoned his vest, mustered the raging crowd with a squinting eye, and hiccuped affectionately. The orchestra played a flourish. It was like a regimental parade. A flourish, nothing more than a flourish. The gangsters, sitting in closed ranks, were at first uneasy in the presence of outsiders, but soon they let themselves go. Lyova Katsap smashed a bottle of vodka over his sweetheart’s head, Monya Artillerist fired shots into the air. But the peak of their ecstasy came when, in accordance with ancient custom, the guests began bestowing gifts on the newlyweds. The synagogue shamases jumped onto the tables and sang out, above the din of the seething flourishes, the quantity of rubles and silver spoons that were being presented. And here the friends of the King proved what blue blood was worth, and that Moldavanka chivalry was still in full bloom. With casual flicks of the hand they threw gold coins, rings, and coral necklaces onto the golden trays.

The Moldavanka aristocrats were jammed into crimson vests, their shoulders encased in chestnut-colored jackets, and their fleshy legs bulged in sky-blue leather boots. Drawing themselves up to their full height and sticking out their bellies, the bandits clapped to the rhythm of the music and, shouting “Oy, a sweet kiss for the bride!,” threw flowers at her, and she, forty-year-old Dvoira, Benya Kriks sister, the sister of the King, deformed by illness, with her swollen goiter and eyes bulging out of their sockets, sat on a mountain of pillows next to a frail young man who was mute with melancholy who had been bought with Eichbaum’s money.

The gift-giving ceremony was coming to an end, the shamases were growing hoarse, and the bass fiddle was clashing with the violin. A sudden faint odor of burning spread over the courtyard.

“Benya,” Papa Krik, the old carter, known as a ruffian even in carting circles, shouted. “Benya! You know what? I think the embers have blazed up again!”

“Papa!” the King said to his drunken father. “Please eat and drink and don’t let these foolish things be worrying you!”

And Papa Krik followed his sons advice. He ate and drank. But the cloud of smoke became ever more poisonous. Here and there patches of sky were turning pink, and suddenly a tongue of fire, narrow as a sword, shot high into the air. The guests got up and started sniffing, and their women yelped. The gangsters looked at one another. And only Benya, who seemed not to notice anything, was inconsolable.

“My feast! They're ruining it!” he shouted in despair. “My friends, please, eat, drink!”

But at that moment the same young man who had come at the beginning of the feast appeared again in the courtyard.

“King!” he said. “I have a couple of words I need to tell you!” “Well, speak!” the King answered. “You always got a couple words up your sleeve!”

“King!” the young man said with a snigger. “Its so funny—the police stations burning like a candle!”

The storekeepers were struck dumb. The gangsters grinned. Sixty-year-old Manka, matriarch of the Slobodka
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bandits, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled so shrilly that those sitting next to her jumped up.

“Manka! You’re not at work now!” Benya told her. “Cool down!” The young man who had brought this startling news was still shaking with laughter.

“About forty of them left the station to go on the raid,” he said, his jaws quivering. “They hadn’t gone fifteen yards when everything went up in flames! Run and see for yourselves!”

But Benya forbade his guests to go look at the fire. He himself went with two friends. The police station was in flames. With their wobbling backsides, the policemen were running up and down the smoke-filled staircases, throwing boxes out of the windows. The prisoners made a run for it. The firemen were bristling with zeal, but it turned out that there wasnt any water in the nearby hydrant. The chief of police, the new broom so eager to sweep, stood on the opposite sidewalk, chewing on his mustache which hung into his mouth. The new broom stood completely still. Benya walked past and gave him a military salute.

“A very good day to you, Your Excellency!” he said sympathetically. “What bad luck! A nightmare!” He stared at the burning building, shook his head, and smacked his lips: “Ai-ai-ai!”

• • •

When Benya came back home, the lantern lights in the courtyard were already going out and dawn was breaking across the sky. The guests had dispersed, and the musicians were asleep, their heads leaning against the necks of their bass fiddles. Only Dvoira hadn’t gone to sleep yet. With both hands she was edging her timid husband toward the door of their nuptial chamber, looking at him lustfully like a cat which, holding a mouse in its jaws, gently probes it with its teeth.

My first run-in was with Benya Krik, my second with Lyubka Shneiweis. Do you understand the meaning of these words? Can you drink in their full essence? On this road to hell, Seryozhka Utochkin
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was missing. I did not run into him this time around, which is why I am still here to tell the tale. Like a bronze colossus, he will tower above the town—red-haired, gray-eyed Utochkin. Everyone will have to scamper through his bronze legs.

But I must not send my tale down side streets, even if on these side streets chestnuts are ripening and acacias are in bloom. Til start with Benya, and then go on to Lyubka Shneiweis. And that will be that. Then I can say I put the period where it belongs.

I became a broker. Becoming an Odessan broker, I sprouted leaves and shoots. Weighed down with leaves and shoots, I felt unhappy. What was the reason? The reason was competition. Otherwise I would not have even wiped my nose on Justice. I never learned a trade. All there is in front of me is air, glittering like the sea beneath the sun, beautiful, empty air. The shoots need to be fed. I have seven of them, and my wife is the eighth shoot. I did not wipe my nose on Justice. No, Justice wiped its nose on me. What was the reason? The reason was competition.

The cooperative store had been given the name “Justice.” Nothing bad can be said about that store. Sinful is he who speaks ill of it. It was run by six partners, “primo di primo” specialists, if anything, in their line. Their store was full of merchandise, and the policeman they had standing outside was Motya from Golovkovskaya. What more do you want? Can you want more? This deal was suggested to me by the Justice bookkeeper. I give you my word of honor, it was a proper deal, an honest deal! With a clothes brush I brushed my body and sent it over to Benya. The King acted as if he did not notice my body. So I cleared my throat and said: “Ready when you are, Benya.”

The King was having light refreshments. A carafe of vodka, a fat cigar, a big-bellied wife in her seventh or eighth month, I wouldn’t want to lie to you. The terrace was surrounded by nature and wild vines.

“Ready when you are, Benya,” I said.

“When?” he asked me.

“Well, now that you ask me,” I said to the King, “I have to tell you my opinion. If you ask me, the best time of all would be Sabbath night going on Sunday. By the way, none other than Motya from Golovkovskaya will be on guard. We could do this on a weekday, but why turn a nice and easy job into a job that isn’t nice and easy?”

That was my opinion. And the King’s wife also agreed.

“Baby,” Benya said to her. “I want you to go take a rest on the sofa now.”

Then with slow fingers he tore the gold band off his cigar and turned to Froim Stern.

“Tell me, Grach, are we busy on the Sabbath, or are we not busy on the Sabbath?”

But Froim Stern is quick-witted. He is a red-haired man with only one eye in his head. Froim cannot afford to give an open answer.

“On the Sabbath,” he said, “you were thinking of dropping by the Mutual Credit Society.”

Grach acted as if he had nothing more to say, and calmly turned his one eye to the farthest corner of the terrace.

“Excellent,” Benya Krik said to him. “Remind me about Zudechkis on the Sabbath, make yourself a note, Grach!” Then the King turned to me: “Go back to your family, Zudechkis. Sabbath evening, I might very well be dropping in at the Justice. Take my words with you, Zudechkis, and get going.”

The King speaks little and speaks politely. This frightens people so much that they never question him. I left his courtyard and set off down Gospitalnaya Street, turned on Stepovaya, and then stopped to ponder Benyas words. I probed them by touch and by weight, bit down on them with my front teeth, and realized that they had not been the words that I needed.

“I might very well,” the King had said, pulling the gold band off his cigar with slow fingers. The King speaks little and speaks politely. Who can fathom the meaning of the Kings few words? I might very well be dropping by, or I might very well not be dropping by? Between yes and no, a five-thousand-ruble commission hangs in the air. Not to mention the two cows that I keep for my needs—I have nine mouths at home snatching for food! Who gave me the right to run risks? After the Justice bookkeeper came to see me, didnt he drop by at Bunzelmanns? And then didnt Bunzelmann run straight to Kolya Shtift? And Kolya is a fellow who is hotheaded beyond belief. The words of the King lay like a stone block across the road where hunger roamed, multiplied by nine. To make a long story short, I whispered a little warning in Bunzelmanns ear. He was going in to see Kolya just as I was coming out from seeing Kolya. It was hot, and he was sweating. “Relax, Bunzelmann,” I said to him. “You’re rushing for nothing, and you’re sweating for nothing! This is my deal, und damit Punktum, like the Germans say!”

And then the fifth day came. And then the sixth day came. The Sabbath came strolling through the streets of the Moldavanka. Motya was already standing guard, and I was already asleep in my bed, and Kolya was busy working at the Justice. He had loaded half a cart, and was aiming to load another half. Suddenly there was a rumpus in the alley, the clattering of iron-reinforced wheels, and Motya from Golovkovskaya grabbed hold of the telegraph pole and yelled, “Shall I push it over?”