The wedding was over, the rabbi sank into a chair, then he left the room and saw tables set up along the entire length of the courtyard. There were so many of them that they stuck their tails out of the gate onto Hospital Street. Velvet-covered tables snaked around the courtyard like snakes with patches of all colors on their bellies, and they sang in deep voices - patches of orange and red velvet.
The apartments were converted into kitchens. A fat flame, a drunken and plump flame, was blazing through the smoky doors. Its smoky rays baked old women's faces, women's shaking chins, and dirty breasts. Sweat, pink as blood, pink as the foam of a mad dog, flowed around these piles of overgrown, sweetly stinking human flesh. Three cooks, not counting the dishwashers, were preparing the wedding dinner, and over them reigned the eighty-year-old Reizl, traditional as a Torah scroll, tiny and hunchbacked.
Before dinner, a young man unknown to the guests wandered into the yard. He asked Benya Krik. He took Benya Krik aside.
Listen, King,” said the young man, “I have a few words to tell you.” Aunt Hana sent me with Kostetskaya...
Well, okay,” answered Benya Krik, nicknamed the King, “what are these couple of words?”
A new bailiff arrived at the station yesterday, Aunt Hana told you to tell...
“I knew about it the day before yesterday,” answered Benya Krik. - Further.
The bailiff gathered the police station and gave a speech to the police station...
The new broom sweeps cleanly,” answered Benya Krik. - He wants a raid. Further…
Do you know when the raid will take place, King?
She will be there tomorrow.
King, she will be here today.
Who told you this, boy?
Aunt Hana said this. Do you know Aunt Hana?
The bailiff gathered the station and gave them a speech. “We must strangle Benya Krik,” he said, “because where there is a sovereign emperor, there is no king. Today, when Creek is marrying off his sister and they will all be there, today we need to make a raid ... "
Then the spies began to be afraid. They said: if we make a raid today, when it’s his holiday, Benya will get angry and a lot of blood will flow out. So the bailiff said: pride is dearer to me...
“Well, go,” answered the King.
What should I tell Aunt Hana about the raid?
Say: Benya knows about the raid.
And he left, this young man. He was followed by about three of Ben's friends. They said they would be back in half an hour. And they returned half an hour later. That's all.
People did not sit at the table according to seniority. Stupid old age is no less pathetic than cowardly youth. And not by wealth. The lining of the heavy wallet is made of tears.
The bride and groom sat in first place at the table. This is their day. In second place sat Sender Eichbaum, the King's father-in-law. It's his right. The story of Sender Eichbaum is worth knowing because it is not a simple story.
How did Benya Krik, the raider and king of the raiders, become Eichbaum's son-in-law? How did he become the son-in-law of a man who had sixty milk cows without one? It's all about the raid. Just a year ago, Benya wrote a letter to Eichbaum.
“Monsieur Eichbaum,” he wrote, “please place, please, tomorrow morning under the gate at 17 Sofiyevskaya, twenty thousand rubles. If you don’t do this, something unheard of will await you, and all of Odessa will be talking about you. With respect, Benya the King."
Three letters, one clearer than the other, remained unanswered. Then Benya took action. They came at night - nine people with long sticks in their hands. The sticks were wrapped in tarred tow. Nine blazing stars lit up the Eichbaum barnyard. Benya took the locks off the barn and began to take the cows out one by one. A guy with a knife was waiting for them. He knocked over the cow with one blow and plunged the knife into the cow's heart. On the ground, drenched in blood, torches bloomed like fiery roses and shots rang out. Benya used shots to drive away the workers who had come running to the barn. And after him, other raiders began to shoot in the air, because if you don’t shoot in the air, you can kill a person. And so, when the sixth cow fell with its death moo at the King’s feet, then Eichbaum ran out into the yard in his underpants and asked:
What will happen from this, Benya?
If I don't have money, you won't have cows, Monsieur Eichbaum. That's twice two.
Come into the room, Benya.
And indoors they agreed. The slaughtered cows were divided in half, Eichbaum was guaranteed immunity and was given a stamped certificate. But the miracle came later.
During the raid, on that terrible night, when the pinned cows mooed and the heifers slid in their mother's blood, when the torches danced like black maidens, and the milkmaids shied away and squealed under the guns of friendly Brownings - on that terrible night, she ran out into the yard in a cut-out shirt, the daughter of old man Eichbaum - Tsilya. And the King's victory became his defeat.
Two days later, Benya, without warning, returned to Eichbaum all the money taken from him and then came for a visit in the evening. He was dressed in an orange suit, with a diamond bracelet shining under his cuff; he entered the room, said hello and asked Eichbaum for the hand of his daughter Tsili. The old man suffered a slight blow, but he got up. The old man still had about twenty years of life left in him.
Listen, Eichbaum,” the King told him, “when you die, I will bury you in the first Jewish cemetery, right at the gate.” I will erect for you, Eichbaum, a monument made of pink marble. I will make you the headman of the Brodsky synagogue. I will give up my specialty, Eichbaum, and join your business as a partner. We will have two hundred cows, Eichbaum. I will kill all the milkmen except you. A thief will not walk along the street where you live. I will build you a dacha at the sixteenth station... And remember, Eichbaum, you weren’t a rabbi in your youth either. Who forged the will, let’s not talk about it loudly?.. And your son-in-law will be a King, not a brat, but a King, Eichbaum...
And he achieved his goal, Benya Krik, because he was passionate, and passion rules over the worlds. The newlyweds lived for three months in lush Bessarabia, among grapes, abundant food and the sweat of love. Then Benya returned to Odessa in order to marry off his forty-year-old sister Dvoira, who was suffering from Graves' disease. And now, having told the story of Sender Eichbaum, we can return to the wedding of Dvoira Krik, the King’s sister.
At this wedding, turkey, fried chicken, geese, stuffed fish and fish soup, in which lemon lakes shone like mother-of-pearl, were served for dinner. Flowers swayed like lush plumes above the dead goose heads. But is it possible that fried chicken is washed ashore by the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea?
All the noblest of our contraband, all that the earth is famous for from end to end, did its destructive, its seductive work on that starry, that blue night. The foreign wine warmed the stomachs, sweetly broke the legs, stupefied the brains and caused belching, sonorous as the call of a battle trumpet. The black cook from the Plutarch, which arrived on the third day from Port Said, carried pot-bellied bottles of Jamaican rum, oily Madeira, cigars from the plantations of Pierpont Morgan and oranges from the outskirts of Jerusalem beyond the customs line. This is what the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea washes ashore, this is what Odessa beggars sometimes get at Jewish weddings. They got Jamaican rum at Dvoyra Creek's wedding, and so, having drunk like club pigs, the Jewish beggars began to bang their crutches deafeningly. Eichbaum, having loosened his vest, looked around the raging meeting with narrowed eyes and hiccuped lovingly. The orchestra played tunes. It was like a division review. Touche - nothing but touche. The raiders, sitting in close ranks, were at first embarrassed by the presence of strangers, but then they dispersed. Lyova Katsap broke a bottle of vodka on his beloved’s head, Monya the Artilleryman fired into the air. But the delight reached its limits when, according to the custom of the old days, the guests began to give gifts to the newlyweds. The synagogue shames jumped up on the tables and chanted the number of donated rubles and silver spoons to the sounds of the bubbling carcass. And then the King’s friends showed what blue blood and the still unextinguished Moldavian knighthood were worth. With a careless movement of their hands they threw gold coins, rings, and coral threads onto silver trays.
Moldavian aristocrats, they were clad in crimson vests, red jackets covered their shoulders, and their fleshy legs had bursting skin the color of heavenly azure.
Straightening up to their full height and sticking out their bellies, the bandits clapped to the beat of the music, shouted “bitterly” and threw flowers to the bride, and she, forty-year-old Dvoira, sister of Benny Krik, sister of the King, disfigured by illness, with an overgrown goiter and eyes bulging out of her sockets, sat on a mountain of pillows next to a frail boy, bought with Eichbaum’s money and numb with melancholy.
The ritual of gifting was coming to an end, the shames became hoarse, and the double bass did not get along with the violin. A sudden light smell of burning wafted across the courtyard.
Benya,” said Papa Krik, an old binder, who was known among the binders as a rude man, “Benya, do you know that it’s mine?” It seems to me that soot is burning here...
Dad,” the King answered his drunken father, “please have a drink and a snack, don’t let this nonsense bother you...
And Father Creek followed his son’s advice. He ate and drank. But the cloud of smoke became more and more poisonous. Somewhere the edges of the sky were already turning pink. And a tongue of flame, as narrow as a sword, shot into the heights. The guests, standing up, began to sniff the air, and the women squealed. The raiders then looked at each other. And only Benya, who did not notice anything, was inconsolable.
Mina’s holiday is being disrupted,” he shouted, full of despair, “darlings, I ask you, have a snack and a drink...
But at this time the same young man who came at the beginning of the evening appeared in the yard.
“King,” he said, “I have a few words to tell you...
Well, speak up, - answered the King, - you always have a few words in stock...
“King,” said the unknown young man and chuckled, “this is downright funny, the site is burning like a candle...
The shopkeepers were speechless. The raiders grinned. Sixty-year-old Manka, the ancestor of the suburban bandits, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled so shrilly that her neighbors swayed.
Manya, you’re not at work,” Benya remarked to her, “in cold blood, Manya...
The young man who brought this amazing news was still laughing.
About forty of them left the site,” he said, moving his jaws, “and went on a raid; So they walked about fifteen steps away when it was already on fire... Run and look if you want...
But Benya forbade the guests to go and look at the fire. He set off with two comrades. The area was regularly ablaze on four sides. The policemen, shaking their butts, ran up the smoke-filled stairs and threw chests out of the windows. The arrested people fled amid the noise. The firefighters were full of zeal, but there was no water in the nearby tap. The bailiff - the same broom that sweeps cleanly - stood on the opposite sidewalk and bit the mustache that was growing into his mouth. The new broom stood motionless. Benya, passing by the bailiff, gave him a military salute.
“Good health, your honor,” he said sympathetically. - What do you say to this misfortune? This is a nightmare...
He stared at the burning building, shook his head and smacked his lips:
Ah ah ah…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And when Benya returned home, the lanterns in the yard had already gone out and the sky was dawning. The guests left, and the musicians dozed with their heads on the handles of their double basses. Only Dvoira was not going to sleep. With both hands she pushed her timid husband towards the door of their marriage room and looked at him carnivorously, like a cat that, holding a mouse in its mouth, lightly tastes it with its teeth.
Reb Aryeh-Leib,” I said to the old man, “let’s talk about Ben Krik.” Let's talk about its lightning-fast beginning and its terrible end. Three shadows block the paths of my imagination. Here is Froim Grach. The steel of his actions - won't it stand comparison with the strength of the King? Here is Kolka Pakovsky. This man's rage contained everything he needed to dominate. And was Haim Drong really unable to discern the brilliance of the new star? But why did only Benya Krik climb to the top of the rope ladder, while everyone else hung below, on the shaky steps?
Reb Aryeh Leib was silent, sitting on the cemetery wall. The green calm of the graves spread out before us. A person thirsting for an answer must be patient. A person who has knowledge becomes important. Therefore, Arie-Leib was silent, sitting on the cemetery wall. Finally he said:
Why he? Why not them, you want to know? So, forget for a while that you have glasses on your nose and autumn in your soul. Stop arguing at your desk and stuttering in public. Imagine for a moment that you are rowdy in public squares and stutter on paper.
You are a tiger, you are a lion, you are a cat. You can spend the night with a Russian woman, and the Russian woman will be satisfied with you. You are twenty-five years old. If there were rings attached to the sky and the earth, you would grab those rings and pull the sky to the earth. And your dad is a Mendel Creek binder. What is this dad thinking about? He thinks about drinking a good shot of vodka, about punching someone in the face, about his horses - and nothing else. You want to live, but he makes you die twenty times a day. What would you do if you were Benny Creek? You wouldn't do anything. And he did. That's why he's the King, and you keep the fig in your pocket.
He - Benchik - went to Froim Grach, who then already looked at the world with only one eye and was what he is. He said to Froim:
Take me. I want to wash up on your shore. The shore to which I wash will be the winner.
Rook asked him:
Who are you, where do you come from and what do you breathe?
Try me, Froim,” Benya answered, “and we’ll stop smearing white porridge on the clean table.”
“Let’s stop spreading the porridge,” Rook answered, “I’ll try you.”
And the raiders called a council to think about Ben Creek. I was not on this council. But they say that they have convened a council. The eldest was then the late Levka Byk.
What's going on under his hat, this Benchik? - asked the late Bull.
And the one-eyed Rook said his opinion:
Benya says little, but he speaks with gusto. He doesn't say much, but you want him to say something more.
If so,” exclaimed the late Levka, “then let’s try it on Tartakovsky.”
Let’s try it at Tartakovsky,” the council decided, and everyone who still had a conscience blushed when they heard this decision. Why did they turn red? You will know this if you go where I lead you.
We called Tartakovsky “one and a half Jews” or “nine raids.” They called him “one and a half Jews” because not a single Jew could contain as much audacity and money as Tartakovsky had. He was taller than the tallest policeman in Odessa, and weighed more than the fattest Jewish woman. And Tartakovsky was nicknamed “nine raids” because the Levka Byk company and company carried out not eight or ten raids on his office, but nine. Beni, who was not yet King at that time, had the honor of making the tenth raid on the “one and a half Jews.” When Froim told him about it, he said “yes” and left, slamming the door. Why did he slam the door? You will know this if you go where I lead you.
Tartakovsky has the soul of a killer, but he is ours. He left us. He is our blood. He is our flesh, as if one mother gave birth to us. Half of Odessa serves in his shops. And he suffered through his own Moldovans. Twice they kidnapped him for ransom, and once during a pogrom they buried him with the singers. Sloboda thugs then beat Jews on Bolshaya Arnautskaya. Tartakovsky ran away from them and met the funeral procession with singers on Sofiyskaya. He asked:
Who is being buried with the singers?
Passers-by replied that they were burying Tartakovsky. The procession reached the Slobodskoye cemetery. Then our people took the machine gun out of the coffin and began to shoot at the suburban thugs. But the “one and a half Jews” did not foresee this. The “one and a half Jew” was scared to death. And what owner would not be afraid in his place?
The tenth raid on a man who had already been buried once, it was a rude act. Benya, who was not yet King then, understood this better than anyone else. But he said “yes” to Grach and on the same day he wrote a letter to Tartakovsky, similar to all letters of this kind:
“Dear Reuben Osipovich! Be so kind as to put it under a rain barrel by Saturday... and so on. If you refuse, as you have recently begun to allow yourself to do, you will face great disappointment in your family life. Respectfully familiar to you
Benzion Creek."
Tartakovsky was not lazy and answered without delay.
“Benya! If you were an idiot, I would write to you like an idiot. But I don’t know you for that, and God forbid I know you for that. Apparently you introduce yourself as a boy. Don’t you know that this year in Argentina there is such a harvest that there are even heaps, and we are sitting with our wheat without initiative?.. And I will tell you, hand on heart, that in my old age I am tired of eating such a bitter piece of bread and to experience these troubles after I worked my whole life like the last drayman. And what do I have after these indefinite hard labor? Ulcers, sores, troubles and insomnia. Stop this nonsense, Benya. Your friend, much more than you realize, - Reuben Tartakovsky».
“One and a half Jews” did his thing. He wrote a letter. But the post office did not deliver the letter to the address. Having received no answer, Benya became angry. The next day he appeared with four friends at Tartakovsky’s office. Four young men in masks and with revolvers burst into the room.
Hands up! - they said and began to wave their pistols.
Work calmer, Solomon,” Benya remarked to one of those who shouted louder than others, “don’t have this habit of being nervous at work,” and, turning to the clerk, white as death and yellow as clay, he asked him:
- “One and a half Jews” in the factory?
“They are not in the factory,” answered the clerk, whose last name was Muginstein, and his first name was Joseph and was the single son of Aunt Pesya, a chicken merchant from Seredinskaya Square.
Who will finally be the owner here? - they began to interrogate the unfortunate Muginshtein.
“I will be the owner here,” said the clerk, green as green grass.
Then, with God's help, give us the cash register! - Benya ordered him, and the opera began in three acts.
Nervous Solomon put money, papers, watches and monograms into a suitcase; the deceased Joseph stood in front of him with his hands raised, and at this time Benya told stories from the life of the Jewish people.
Since he’s playing Rothschild,” Benya said about Tartakovsky, “let him burn with fire.” Explain to me, Muginshtein, as to a friend: he receives a business letter from me; Why doesn’t he take a tram for five kopecks and drive up to my apartment and drink a glass of vodka with my family and eat whatever God sent? What prevented him from speaking his soul to me? “Benya,” let him say, “so and so, here’s my balance, give me a couple of days, let me breathe, let me shrug my shoulders.” What would I answer him? A pig does not meet a pig, but a person meets a person. Muginshtein, do you understand me?
“I understand you,” said Muginstein and lied, because it was not at all clear to him why “one and a half Jews,” a respectable rich man and the first person, had to go on a tram to have lunch with the family of the binder Mendel Krick.
Meanwhile, misfortune was hanging around under the windows, like a beggar at dawn. Misfortune burst into the office noisily. And although this time it took on the image of the Jew Savka Butsis, it was drunk as a water carrier.
Gogu-go,” cried the Jew Savka, “forgive me, Benchik, I’m late,” and he stamped his feet and began waving his arms. Then he fired, and the bullet hit Muginshtein in the stomach.
Are words needed here? There was a man and there is no man. An innocent bachelor lived like a bird on a branch - and now he died through stupidity. A Jew who looked like a sailor came and shot not at some surprise bottle, but at a living person. Are words needed here?
Tick from the office! - Benya shouted and ran last. But, leaving, he managed to say to Butsis:
I swear by my mother’s coffin, Savka, you will lie next to him...
Now tell me, young gentleman, cutting coupons on other people's shares, what would you do in Benny Creek's place? You don't know what to do. And he knew. That’s why he is the King, and you and I are sitting on the wall of the second Jewish cemetery and shielding ourselves from the sun with our palms.
Aunt Pesya's unfortunate son did not die immediately. An hour after he was taken to the hospital, Benya appeared there. He ordered the senior doctor and nurse to be called to him and told them without taking his hands out of his cream pants.
“I have an interest,” he said, “for the sick Joseph Muginstein to recover. Just in case, I introduce myself - Benzion Creek. Camphor, air pillows, a separate room - give with an open mind. If not, then for every doctor, even if he is a Doctor of Philosophy, there is no more than three arshins of land.
And yet Muginshtein died that same night. And then only “one and a half Jews” raised a cry throughout Odessa.
“Where does the police begin,” he yelled, “and where does Benya end?”
The police end where Benya begins, reasonable people answered, but Tartakovsky did not calm down, and he waited until the red car with the music box played its first march from the opera “Laugh, Clown” on Seredinskaya Square. In broad daylight, the car flew up to the house where Aunt Pesya lived.
The car rattled its wheels, spewed smoke, shone copper, stank of gasoline and played arias on its signal horn. Someone jumped out of the car and went into the kitchen, where little Aunt Pesya was struggling on the dirt floor. “A Jew and a half” sat on a chair and waved his arms.
Hooligan face,” he shouted when he saw the guest, “bandit, so that the earth throws you out!” I have adopted a good fashion - killing living people...
Monsieur Tartakovsky,” Benya Krik answered him in a quiet voice, “it’s the second day since I’ve been crying for my dear dead man, like for my own brother. But I know that you didn’t care about my young tears. Shame, Monsieur Tartakovsky - in what fireproof closet have you hidden your shame? You had the heart to send the mother of our late Joseph a hundred miserable Karbovanites. My brain and my hair stood on end when I heard this news.
Here Benya paused. He was wearing a chocolate jacket, cream pants and raspberry boots.
Ten thousand at a time,” he roared, “ten thousand at a time and a pension until her death, may she live a hundred and twenty years.” And if not, then let’s leave this room, Monsieur Tartakovsky, and get into my car...
Then they cursed at each other. “A Jew and a half” scolded Benya. I was not present at this quarrel. But those who were there remember. They agreed on five thousand in cash and fifty rubles monthly.
“Aunt Pesya,” Benya then said to the disheveled old woman lying on the floor, “if you need my life, you can get it, but everyone makes mistakes, even God.” It was a huge mistake, Aunt Pesya. But wasn’t it a mistake on God’s part to settle the Jews in Russia so that they would suffer like in hell? And why would it be bad if Jews lived in Switzerland, where they were surrounded by first-class lakes, mountainous air and all the French? Everyone makes mistakes, even God. Listen to me with your ears, Aunt Pesya. You have five thousand in hand and fifty rubles a month until your death - live one hundred and twenty years. Joseph’s funeral will be according to the first category: six horses, like six lions, two chariots with wreaths, a choir from the Brodsky synagogue, Minkovsky himself will come to perform the funeral service for your late son...
And the funeral took place the next morning. Ask the cemetery beggars about these funerals. Ask about them from the shames from the synagogue, the kosher poultry merchants, or the old women from the second almshouse. Odessa has never seen such a funeral, and the world will never see it. The policemen wore thread gloves that day. Electricity was burning in the synagogues, covered with greenery and wide open. Black plumes swayed on white horses harnessed to a chariot. Sixty singers walked ahead of the procession. The singers were boys, but they sang with women's voices. The elders of the synagogue of kosher poultry traders led Aunt Pesya by the arms. Behind the elders were members of the community of Jewish clerks, and behind the Jewish clerks were attorneys, doctors of medicine and midwives. On one side of Aunt Pesi were the chicken traders from the Old Bazaar, and on the other side were the honorary milkmaids from Bugaevka, wrapped in orange shawls. They stamped their feet like gendarmes at a parade on service day. From their wide hips came the smell of sea and milk. And behind everyone trailed the employees of Reuben Tartakovsky. There were a hundred people, or two hundred, or two thousand. They wore black frock coats with silk lapels and new boots that creaked like pigs in a sack.
And so I will speak, as the Lord spoke on Mount Sinai from the burning bush. Put my words in your ears. Everything that I saw, I saw with my own eyes, sitting here, on the wall of the second cemetery, next to the lisping Moiseika and Shimshon from the funeral office. I saw this, Arie-Leib, a proud Jew living with the dead.
The chariot drove up to the cemetery synagogue. The coffin was placed on the steps. Aunt Pesya was trembling like a bird. Kantor got out of the phaeton and began the funeral service. Sixty singers echoed him. And at that moment the red car flew around the bend. He played “Laugh, Clown” and stopped. People were silent as if killed. The trees, the singers, the beggars were silent. Four people crawled out from under the red roof and with a quiet step brought a wreath of unprecedented roses to the chariot. And when the funeral service was over, four people brought their steel shoulders under the coffin, with burning eyes and protruding chests, they walked along with members of the society of Jewish clerks.
Benya Krik, whom no one had yet called King, walked ahead. He was the first to approach the grave, climbed onto the mound and extended his hand.
What do you want to do, young man? - Kofman from the funeral brotherhood ran up to him.
“I want to make a speech,” answered Benya Krik. And he made a speech. Everyone who wanted to listen heard it. I, Arie-Leib, and the lisping Moiseika, who was sitting on the wall next to me, heard her.
Gentlemen and ladies, - said Benya Krik, - gentlemen and ladies, - he said, and the sun rose above his head, like a sentry with a gun. - You came to pay your last respects to an honest worker who died for a copper penny. On behalf of myself and everyone who is not here, thank you. Gentlemen and ladies! What did our dear Joseph see in his life? He saw a couple of trifles. What was he doing? He was counting other people's money. Why did he die? He died for the entire working class. There are people already doomed to death, and there are people who have not yet begun to live. And now the bullet flying into the doomed chest pierces Joseph, who has not seen anything in his life except a couple of trifles. There are people who know how to drink vodka, and there are people who don’t know how to drink vodka, but still drink it. And so the former receive pleasure from grief and joy, while the latter suffer for all those who drink vodka without knowing how to drink it. Therefore, gentlemen and ladies, after we pray for our poor Joseph, I ask you to accompany the unknown to you, but already deceased Savely Butsis to the grave...
And, having said this speech, Benya Krik came down from the hill. People, trees and cemetery beggars were silent. Two gravediggers carried the unpainted coffin to a nearby grave. The cantor finished his prayer with a stutter. Benya threw down the first shovel and went over to Savka. All the attorneys at law and the ladies with brooches followed him like sheep. He forced the cantor to sing a full dirge over Savka, and sixty singers echoed the cantor. Savka never dreamed of such a memorial service - take the word of Arye-Leib, the old old man.
They say that on that day “one and a half Jews” decided to close the case. I wasn't there. But the fact that neither the cantor, nor the choir, nor the funeral brotherhood asked for money for the funeral - I saw this through the eyes of Arie-Leib. Arie-Leib - that's my name. And I couldn’t see anything else, because people, quietly moving away from Savka’s grave, rushed to run away as if from a fire. They flew in phaetons, in carts and on foot. And only those four that arrived in the red car also left in it. The music box played its march, the car shuddered and sped away.
“King,” said the lisping Moiseika, looking after her, the same one who takes away the best places on the wall from me.
Now you know everything. Do you know who first said the word "king". It was Moiseika. You know why he didn’t call either the one-eyed Rook or the mad Kolka that name. You know everything. But what is the use if you still have glasses on your nose, but autumn in your soul?..
1923
Froim Grach was married once. It was a long time ago, twenty years have passed since then. His wife then gave birth to a daughter for Froim and died in childbirth. The girl was named Basya. Her maternal grandmother lived in Tulchin. The old woman did not love her son-in-law. She spoke about him: Froim is a dray driver by occupation, and he has black horses, but Froim’s soul is blacker than the black color of his horses...
The old woman did not like her son-in-law and took the newborn with her. She lived with the girl for twenty years and then died. Then Baska returned to her father. It all happened like this.
On Wednesday, the fifth, Froim Grach was transporting wheat from the warehouses of the Dreyfus Society to the port on the ship Caledonia. In the evening he finished work and went home. At the turn from Prokhorovskaya Street he met the blacksmith Ivan Pyatirubel.
Respect, Grach,” said Ivan Pyatirubel, “some woman is knocking on your premises...
“Daddy,” the woman said in a deafening bass voice, “the devils are already getting bored of me.” I've been waiting for you all day... Know that grandma died in Tulchin.
Rook stood on the binder and looked at his daughter with all his eyes.
“Don’t flinch in front of the horses,” he shouted in despair, “take the bridle from the horseman, you want to beat my horses...
The rook stood on the cart and waved his whip. Baska took the horseman by the bridle and led the horses to the stable. She unharnessed them and went to get busy in the kitchen. The girl hung her father's footcloths on a rope, she wiped the smoked teapot with sand and immediately began heating it in a cast-iron pot.
You have unbearable dirt, dad,” she said and threw the sour sheepskins that were lying on the floor out the window, “but I will take this dirt out!” - Baska shouted and served her father dinner.
The old man drank vodka from an enamel teapot and ate it right away, which smelled like a happy childhood. Then he took the whip and went out of the gate. Baska came there after him. She put on men's boots and an orange dress, she put on a hat covered with birds, and sat down on a bench. The evening staggered past the bench, the shining eye of sunset fell into the sea beyond Peresyp, and the sky was red, like a red number on a calendar. All trade was already closed on Dalnitskaya, and the raiders drove into a back street to the brothel of Ioska Samuelson. They rode in lacquered carriages, dressed like hummingbirds, wearing colored jackets. Their eyes were bulging, one leg was set back on the footrest, and in their steely outstretched hand they held bouquets wrapped in tissue paper. Their varnished carriages moved at a pace, in each carriage sat one person with a bouquet, and the coachmen, standing on high seats, were decorated with bows, like best men at weddings. Old Jewish women in tattoos lazily followed the course of this familiar procession - they were indifferent to everything, old Jewish women, and only the sons of shopkeepers and shipwrights were jealous of the kings of Moldavanka.
Solomonchik Kaplun, the son of a grocer, and Monya Artillerist, the son of a smuggler, were among those who tried to avert their eyes from the brilliance of someone else's luck. Both of them walked past her, swaying like girls who have recognized love, they whispered among themselves and began to move their hands, showing how they would hug Baska if she wanted it. And Baska immediately wanted this, because she was a simple girl from Tulchin, from a selfish, blind town. She weighed five pounds and a few more pounds; she had lived all her life with the malicious crowd of Podolsk brokers, traveling booksellers, forestry contractors, and had never seen people like Solomonchik Kaplun. Therefore, when she saw him, she began to shuffle on the ground with her thick legs, shod in men’s boots, and told her father.
Hey, Mrs. Grach,” whispered then the old Jew sitting next to him, an old Jew named Golubchik, “I see your child is asking for grass...
“This is a hassle on my head,” Froim answered Golubchik, played with the whip and went to his bed and fell asleep peacefully, because he did not believe the old man. He did not believe the old man and turned out to be completely wrong. Blu was right. Darling was engaged in matchmaking on our street, at night he read prayers over wealthy dead people and knew everything there was to know about life. Froim Grach was wrong. Blu was right.
And indeed, from that day on, Baska spent all her evenings outside the gate. She sat on a bench and sewed her trousseau. Pregnant women sat next to her; piles of canvas crawled over her splayed, mighty knees; The pregnant women were filled with all sorts of things, like a cow's udder fills the pasture with the pink milk of spring, and at this time their husbands, one after another, came from work. The husbands of their scolding wives wrung out their unkempt beards under the water tap and then gave way to the hunchbacked old women. Old women bathed fat babies in troughs, they spanked their grandchildren on their shining buttocks and wrapped them in their threadbare skirts. And so Baska from Tulchin saw the life of the Moldavian woman, our generous mother, - a life filled with sucking babies, drying rags and wedding nights full of suburban chic and soldierly tirelessness. The girl wanted the same life for herself, but she learned here that the daughter of the one-eyed Rook could not count on a worthy match. Then she stopped calling her father father.
Red-haired thief,” she shouted to him in the evenings, “red-haired thief, go to dinner...
And this continued until Baska sewed herself six nightgowns and six pairs of pantaloons with lace frills. Having finished stitching the lace, she began to cry in a thin voice, unlike her voice, and said through her tears to the unshakable Rook.
Every girl,” she told him, “has her own interest in life, and only I live like a night watchman at someone else’s warehouse.” Either do something to me, dad, or I'm doing the end of my life...
Rook listened to his daughter to the end, he put on a sail cloak and the next day went to visit the grocer Kaplun on Privoznaya Square.
A golden sign glittered above Kaplun's shop. This was the first shop on Privoznaya Square. It smelled of many seas and beautiful lives unknown to us. The boy was pouring water from a watering can into the cool depths of the store and singing a song that is only proper for adults to sing. Solomonchik, the owner's son, stood behind the counter; On this counter were placed olives that came from Greece, Marseille butter, coffee beans, Lisbon Malaga, Philippe and Cano sardines and cayenne pepper. Kaplun himself sat in a vest in the sun, in a glass outbuilding, and ate a watermelon - a red watermelon with black seeds, with slanting seeds, like the eyes of sly Chinese women. Kaplun's belly lay on the table under the sun, and the sun could not do anything with it. But then the grocer saw Rook in a canvas cloak and turned pale.
“Good afternoon, Monsieur Grach,” he said and moved away. - Darling warned me that you would be there, and I prepared a pound of tea for you, which is a rarity...
And he started talking about a new variety of tea brought to Odessa on Dutch ships. Rook listened to him patiently, but then interrupted him, because he was a simple man, without tricks.
“I am a simple man, without tricks,” said Froim, “I am with my horses and doing my job.” I give new linen for Baska and a couple of old pennies, and I myself eat for Baska - if this is not enough, let him burn with fire...
Why do we need to burn? - Kaplun answered quickly and stroked the hand of the dray driver. - There is no need for such words, Monsieur Hrach, after all, you are a person with us who can help another person, and, by the way, you can offend another person, and the fact that you are not the Krakow rabbi, so I also did not stand under the aisle with niece of Moses Montefiore, but... but Madame Kaplun... we have Madame Kaplun, a grandiose lady, from whom God himself will not know what she wants...
“And I know,” Hrach interrupted the shopkeeper, “I know that Solomonchik wants Baska, but Madame Kaplun doesn’t want me...
Yes, I don’t want you,” Madame Kaplun, who was listening at the door, shouted then, and she went into the glass extension, all ablaze, with an agitated chest, “I don’t want you, Rook, just as a person doesn’t want death; I don’t want you, just like a bride doesn’t want acne on her head. Don’t forget that our late grandfather was a grocer, our late father was a grocer, and we must stick to our business...
“Stick to your branzhi,” Rook answered the flaming Madame Kaplun and went to his home.
Baska was waiting for him there, dressed in an orange dress, but the old man, without looking at her, spread out the cover under the carts, went to bed and slept until Baska’s mighty hand threw him out from under the cart.
Red-haired thief,” the girl said in a whisper, unlike her whisper, “why should I put up with your Bindyuzhniki manners, and why are you silent like a stump, red-haired thief?..
Baska,” said Grach, “Solomonchik wants you, but Madame Kaplun doesn’t want me... They are looking for a grocer there.”
And, having adjusted the casing, the old man again crawled under the carts, and Baska disappeared from the yard...
All this happened on Saturday, a non-working day. The purple eye of sunset, searching the ground, came across Rook in the evening, snoring under his binder. The swift beam hit the sleeping man with fiery reproach and led him out onto Dalnitskaya Street, dusty and shining like green rye in the wind. The Tatars walked up Dalnitskaya, the Tatars and Turks with their mullahs. They were returning from a pilgrimage from Mecca to their home in the Orenburg steppes and Transcaucasia. The steamer brought them to Odessa, and they walked from the port to the inn of Lyubka Schneeweis, nicknamed Lyubka Cossack. Striped, unbending robes stood on the Tatars and flooded the pavement with the bronze sweat of the desert. White towels were wrapped around their fezzes, signifying a person bowing to the ashes of the prophet. The pilgrims reached the corner, they turned towards Lyubkin's courtyard, but could not get through there, because many people had gathered at the gate. Lyubka Schneeweiss, with a purse on her side, beat a drunken man and pushed him onto the pavement. She hit the face with a clenched fist, like a tambourine, and supported the man with her other hand so that he would not fall off. Streams of blood crawled between the man's teeth and near his ear, he was thoughtful and looked at Lyubka as if at a stranger, then he fell on the stones and fell asleep. Then Lyubka kicked him and returned to her shop. Her watchman Evzel closed the gate behind her and waved his hand to Froim Grach, who was passing by...
Respect, Rook,” he said, “if you want to observe something from life, then come to our yard, there is something to laugh about...
And the watchman led Rook to the wall where the pilgrims who had arrived the day before were sitting. An old Turk in a green turban, an old Turk, green and light as a leaf, lay on the grass. He was covered in pearly sweat, he was breathing hard and rolling his eyes.
“Here,” said Evzel and straightened the medal on his worn jacket, “here is a life drama from the opera “Turkish Illness.” It’s running out, old man, but you can’t call a doctor to him, because the one who ends up on the way from the god Mohamed to his home is considered their first lucky and rich man... Khalvash, - Yevzel shouted to the dying man and laughed, - here comes the doctor to treat you…
The Turk looked at the watchman with childish fear and hatred and turned away. Then Evzel, pleased with himself, led Rook to the opposite side of the yard to the wine cellar. In the cellar the lamps were already burning and music was playing. Old Jews with heavy beards played Romanian and Jewish songs. Mendel Krik drank wine from a green glass at the table and talked about how he was crippled by his own sons - the elder Benya and the younger Levka. He screamed his story in a hoarse and scary voice, showed his ground teeth and let them touch the wounds on his stomach. Volyn tzaddikim with porcelain faces stood behind his chair and listened in stupefaction to the boasts of Mendel Krick. They were surprised at everything they heard, and Rook despised them for it.
“Old braggart,” he muttered about Mendel and ordered himself some wine.
Then Froim called his hostess Lyubka Kazak over to him. She swore at the door and drank vodka while standing.
“Speak,” she shouted to Froim and squinted her eyes in fury.
“Madame Lyubka,” Froim answered her and sat her down next to him, “you are an intelligent woman, and I came before you as if I were my own mother.” I rely on you, Madame Lyubka - first on God, then on you.
“Speak,” Lyubka shouted, ran throughout the cellar and then returned to her place.
And Rook said:
In the colonies, he said, the Germans have a rich harvest of wheat, but in Constantinople the groceries are half free. They buy a pound of olives in Constantinople for three rubles, and sell them here for thirty kopecks per pound... The grocers have become happy, Madame Lyubka, the grocers walk around very fat, and if you approach them with delicate hands, a person could become happy... But I stayed alone in my work, the deceased Leva Bull died, I have no help from anywhere, and here I am alone, as there is only one god in heaven.
Benya Krik,” Lyubka said then, “you tried it on Tartakovsky, why is Benya Krik bad for you?”
Benya Krik? - repeated Rook, full of surprise. - And he’s single, I think?
“He’s single,” said Lyubka, “turn him around with Baska, give him money, bring him out into the world...
Benya Krik,” the old man repeated, like an echo, like a distant echo, “I didn’t think about him...
He stood up, muttering and stuttering. Lyubka ran forward, and Froim trudged after her. They walked into the courtyard and went up to the second floor. There, on the second floor, lived the women whom Lyubka kept for visitors.
Our fiance is at Katyusha’s,” Lyubka said to Grach, “wait for me in the corridor,” and she went into the outer room, where Benya Krik was lying with a woman named Katyusha.
“It’s enough to drool,” the hostess said to the young man, “first you need to get attached to some business, Benchik, and then you can drool... Froim Grach is looking for you. He is looking for a person to work with and cannot find him...
And she told everything she knew about Baska and about the affairs of the one-eyed Rook.
“I’ll think about it,” Benya answered her, covering Katyushina’s bare legs with a sheet, “I’ll think about it, let the old man wait for me.”
Wait for him,” Lyubka said to Froim, who remained in the corridor, “wait for him, he’ll think...
The hostess pulled out a chair for Froim, and he plunged into immense anticipation. He waited patiently, like a man in an office. Behind the wall Katyusha moaned and burst into laughter. The old man dozed for two hours and maybe more. The evening had long since become night, the sky had turned black, and its milky ways were filled with gold, shine and coolness. Lyubkin's cellar was already closed, the drunkards were lying in the yard like broken furniture, and the old mullah in the green turban died by midnight. Then music came from the sea, horns and trumpets from English ships, music came from the sea and died down, but Katyusha, thorough Katyusha was still heating up her painted, Russian and ruddy paradise for Benny Krik. She moaned behind the wall and burst into laughter; old Froim sat motionless at her door, he waited until one in the morning and then knocked.
Man, he said, are you laughing at me?
Then Benya finally opened the doors to Katyusha’s room.
Monsieur Grach,” he said, embarrassed, beaming and covering himself with a sheet, “when we are young, we think of women as a commodity, but it’s just straw that burns for nothing...
And, having dressed, he straightened Katyushka’s bed, fluffed her pillows and went out with the old man into the street. Walking, they reached a Russian cemetery, and there, near the cemetery, the interests of Benny Krik and the crooked Rook, an old raider, converged. They agreed that Baska was bringing her future husband three thousand rubles as a dowry, two blood horses and a pearl necklace. They also agreed that Kaplun was obliged to pay two thousand rubles to Benya, Baska’s fiancé. He was guilty of family pride - Kaplun from Privoznaya Square, he got rich from Constantinople olives, he did not spare Baskina’s first love, and therefore Benya Krik decided to take on the task of receiving two thousand rubles from Kaplun.
“I’ll take it upon myself, dad,” he told his future father-in-law, “God will help us, and we will punish all the grocers...
This was said at dawn, when the night had already passed, and here a new story begins, the story of the fall of the Kaplun house, the story of its slow death, of arson and night shooting. And all this - the fate of the arrogant Kaplun and the fate of the girl Baska - was decided that night when her father and her sudden fiancé walked along the Russian cemetery. The guys then dragged the girls behind the fences, and kisses were heard on the gravestones.
On Moldavanka, on the corner of Dalnitskaya and Balkovskaya streets, stands the house of Lyubka Shneyweis. Her house contains a wine cellar, an inn, an oatmeal shop and a dovecote for one hundred pairs of Kryukov and Nikolaev pigeons. These shops and plot number forty-six in the Odessa quarries belong to Lyubka Schneeweiss, nicknamed Lyubka Kazak, and only the dovecote is the property of the watchman Evzel, a retired soldier with a medal. On Sundays, Evzel goes out to Okhotnitskaya and sells pigeons to city officials and neighborhood boys. In addition to the watchman, Pesya-Mindel, a cook and pimp, and the manager Tsudechkis, a small Jew, similar in height and beard to our Moldavian rabbi Ben Zharya, also live in Lyubkin’s yard. I know many stories about Tsudechkis. The first of them is the story of how Tsudechkis became the manager of the inn of Lyubka, nicknamed Cossack.
About ten years ago, Tsudechkis bought a horse-driven thresher for one landowner and in the evening took the landowner to Lyubka to celebrate the purchase. The buyer wore a bean bag near his mustache and wore patent leather boots. Pesya-Mindle gave him stuffed Jewish fish for dinner and then a very nice young lady named Nastya. The landowner spent the night, and the next morning Evzel woke up Tsudechkis, curled up at the threshold of Lyubka’s room.
“Now,” said Evzel, “you boasted last night that the landowner bought a thresher through you, so be aware that, after spending the night, he ran away at dawn, like the very last one.” Now take out two rubles for an appetizer and four rubles for a young lady. Apparently you are a seasoned old man.
But Tsudechkis did not give the money. Evzel then pushed him into Lyubka’s room and locked him.
“Now,” said the watchman, “you will be here, and then Lyubka will come from the quarry and, with God’s help, will take the soul out of you.” Amen.
Convict,” Tsudechkis answered the soldier and began to look around in the new room, “you know nothing, convict, except your pigeons, and I also believe in God, who will lead me out of here, as he brought all the Jews out - first from Egypt and then from the desert...
The little broker still wanted to tell Evzel a lot, but the soldier took the key with him and left, rattling his boots. Then Tsudechkis turned around and saw the procurer Pesya-Mindle at the window, who was reading the book “Miracles and the Heart of the Baal Shem.” She was reading a Hasidic book with a gold edge and rocking an oak cradle with her foot. In this cradle Lyubkin’s son, Davidka, lay and cried.
“I see good things in this Sakhalin,” Tsudechkis said to Pese-Mindle, “here a child lies and is torn to pieces, it’s pathetic to watch, and you, a fat woman, sit like a stone in the forest, and cannot give him a pacifier...
“Give him a pacifier,” answered Dog-Mindle, without looking up from the book, “if only he will take this pacifier from you, the old deceiver, because he is already big, like a little cat, and only wants his mother’s milk, and his mother jumps all over him.” his quarries, drinks tea with the Jews at the Bear tavern, buys contraband in the harbor and thinks of his son as of last year’s snow...
Yes,” the little broker then said to himself, “you are in the pharaoh’s hands, Tsudechkis,” and he went to the eastern wall, muttered the entire morning prayer with additions, and then took the crying baby in his arms. David looked at him in bewilderment and waved his crimson legs in baby sweat, and the old man began to walk around the room and, swaying like a tzaddik in prayer, sang an endless song.
A-ah-ah,” he sang, “here’s blowing for all the children, and kalats for our David, so that he can sleep both day and night... Ah-ah-ah, here’s fists for all the children...
Tsudechkis showed Lyubka's son a fist with gray hair and began to repeat about blows and rolls until the boy fell asleep and until the sun reached the middle of the shining sky. It reached the middle and trembled like a fly, exhausted by the heat. Wild men from Nerubaisk and Tatarka, who stopped at Lyubkin's inn, crawled under the carts and fell asleep there in a wild, flooded sleep, a drunken workman went out to the gate and, scattering his plane and saw, fell to the ground, fell and snored in the middle of the world, covered in golden flies and blue lightning of July. Not far from him, in the cold, sat the wrinkled German colonists who had brought Lyubka wine from the Bessarabian border. They lit their pipes, and the smoke from their curved chibouks began to get tangled in the silver stubble of unshaven and senile cheeks. The sun hung from the sky like the pink tongue of a thirsty dog, the gigantic sea rolled into the Peresyp in the distance, and the masts of distant ships swayed on the emerald water of the Gulf of Odessa. Day sat in a decorated boat, day sailed towards evening, and towards evening, only at five o’clock, Lyubka returned from the city. She arrived on a roan horse with a big belly and a long mane. A guy with thick legs and a cotton shirt opened the gate for her, Evzel supported the bridle of her horse, and then Tsudechkis shouted to Lyubka from his confinement:
Respect to you, Madame Schneeweiss, and good afternoon. So you left for three years on business and threw a hungry child into my arms...
“Tsit, little mug,” Lyubka answered the old man and got off the saddle, “who is that gaping there in my window?”
“This is Tsudechkis, a seasoned old man,” the soldier with the medal answered the mistress and began to tell her the whole story with the landowner, but he did not finish telling it to the end, because the broker, interrupting him, screamed with all his might.
What impudence,” he squealed and threw down his yarmulke, “what impudence to throw someone else’s child into the arms and be lost for three years... Go give him the qiqiu...
“Here I am coming to you, swindler,” Lyubka muttered and ran to the stairs. She entered the room and took her breasts out of her dusty jacket.
The boy reached out to her, bit her monstrous nipple, but did not get milk. The vein on her forehead puffed out, and Tsudechkis said to her, shaking his skullcap:
You want to grab everything for yourself, greedy Lyubka; you drag the whole world towards you, like children dragging a tablecloth with bread crumbs; you want the first wheat and the first grapes; You want to bake white bread in the sun, but your little child, a child like a star, must choke without milk...
“What kind of milk is there,” the woman screamed and pressed her chest, “when the Plutarch arrived in the harbor today and I walked fifteen miles in the heat?.. And you, you sang a long song, old Jew, better give me six rubles...
But Tsudechkis again did not give the money. He unraveled his sleeve, exposed his hand, and thrust his thin, dirty elbow into Lyubka’s mouth.
“Choke, prisoner,” he said and spat in the corner. Lyubka held someone else’s elbow in her mouth, then took it out,
She locked the door and went into the yard. There Mr. Trottyburn was already waiting for her, looking like a column of red meat. Mr Trottyburn was chief engineer on the Plutarch. He brought two sailors with him to Lyubka. One of the sailors was English, the other was Malay. All three of them dragged contraband brought from Port Said into the yard. Their box was heavy, they dropped it on the ground, and cigars fell out of the box, entangled in Japanese silk. Many women ran to the box, and two newcomer gypsies, hesitating and rattling, began to enter from the side.
Be gone, galota! - Lyubka shouted to them and took the sailors into the shade under the acacia tree.
They sat down at the table there. Evezel served them wine, and Mr. Trottyburn unwrapped his wares. He took from the bale cigars and fine silks, cocaine and files, unbanded tobacco from Virginia and black wine bought on the island of Chios. Each product had a special price, each figure was washed down with Bessarabian wine, smelling of the sun and bedbugs. Twilight ran across the yard, twilight ran like an evening wave on a wide river, and the drunken Malay, full of surprise, touched Lyubka’s chest with his finger. He touched her with one finger, then with all his fingers in turn.
His yellow and tender eyes hung over the table, like paper lanterns on a Chinese street; he sang barely audibly and fell to the ground when Lyubka pushed him with her fist.
Look how well-educated he is,” Lyubka said about him to Mr. Trottyburn, “my last milk will be lost from this Malayan, but that Jew has already eaten me for this milk...
And she pointed to Tsudechkis, who was standing in the window, washing his socks. A small lamp was smoking in Tsudechkis’s room, his bowl was foaming and hissing, he leaned out of the window, feeling that they were talking about him, and screamed in despair.
Fight, people! - he shouted and waved his arms.
Tsit, mug! - Lyubka laughed. - Tsit!
She threw a stone at the old man, but missed the first time. The woman then grabbed an empty wine bottle. But Mr. Trottyburn, the chief engineer, took the bottle from her, aimed it, and hit it through the open window.
“Miss Lyubka,” said the senior mechanic, getting up, and he gathered his drunken legs to himself, “many worthy people come to me, Miss Lyubka, for goods, but I don’t give them to anyone, neither Mr. Kuninzon, nor Mr. Bath, nor Mr. Kupchik , to no one but you, because your conversation is pleasant to me, Miss Lyubka...
And, having established himself on trembling legs, he took his sailors, one Englishman, the other Malayan, by the shoulders, and went to dance with them across the frozen courtyard. The people from "Plutarch" - they danced in thoughtful silence. The orange star, having rolled down to the very edge of the horizon, looked at them with all its eyes. Then they received the money, held hands and went out into the street, swaying like a hanging lamp on a ship. From the street they could see the sea, the black water of the Odessa Bay, toy flags on sunken masts and piercing lights lit in the spacious depths. Lyubka accompanied the dancing guests to the move; She was left alone on an empty street, laughed at her thoughts and returned home. A sleepy guy in a cotton shirt locked the gate behind her, Evzel brought the housewife the day's earnings, and she went upstairs to sleep. There Pesya-Mindle, the pimp, was already dozing, and Tsudechkis was rocking the oak cradle with his bare feet.
How you tortured us, shameless Lyubka,” he said and took the child from the cradle, “but learn from me, vile mother...
He put a small comb to Lyubka's chest and laid his son in her bed. The child reached out to his mother, pricked himself on the comb and began to cry. Then the old man slipped him a pacifier, but Davidka turned away from the pacifier.
Why are you casting a spell on me, old rogue? - Lyubka muttered, falling asleep.
Be silent, vile mother! - Tsudechkis answered her. - Be silent and learn so that you disappear...
The child again pricked himself on the comb; he hesitantly took the pacifier and began to suck on it.
“Here,” Tsudechkis said and laughed, “I excommunicated your child, learn from me so that you disappear...
Davidka lay in the cradle, sucking a pacifier and drooling blissfully. Lyubka woke up, opened her eyes and closed them again. She saw her son and the moon breaking through her window. The moon jumped in the black clouds like a lost calf.
Well, okay,” Lyubka said then, “open the door for Tsudechkis, Dog-Mindle, and let him come tomorrow for a pound of American tobacco...
And the next day Tsudechkis came for a pound of unbanded tobacco from Virginia. He received it and a quarter of tea to boot. And a week later, when I came to Evzel to buy pigeons, I saw a new manager at Lyubkin’s yard. He was tiny, like a rabbi, our Ben Zharya. Tsudechkis was the new manager.
He remained in his position for fifteen years, and during that time I learned many stories about him. And, if I can, I will tell them all in order, because they are very interesting stories.
Isaac Babel
Odessa stories
The wedding was over, the rabbi sank into a chair, then he left the room and saw tables set up along the entire length of the courtyard. There were so many of them that they stuck their tails out of the gate onto Hospital Street. Velvet-covered tables snaked around the courtyard like snakes with patches of all colors on their bellies, and they sang in deep voices - patches of orange and red velvet.
The apartments were converted into kitchens. A fat flame, a drunken and plump flame, was blazing through the smoky doors. Its smoky rays baked old women's faces, women's shaking chins, and dirty breasts. Sweat, pink as blood, pink as the foam of a mad dog, flowed around these piles of overgrown, sweetly stinking human flesh. Three cooks, not counting the dishwashers, were preparing the wedding dinner, and over them reigned the eighty-year-old Reizl, traditional as a Torah scroll, tiny and hunchbacked.
Before dinner, a young man unknown to the guests wandered into the yard. He asked Benya Krik. He took Benya Krik aside.
Listen, King,” said the young man, “I have a few words to tell you.” Aunt Hana sent me with Kostetskaya...
Well, okay,” answered Benya Krik, nicknamed the King, “what are these couple of words?”
A new bailiff arrived at the station yesterday, Aunt Hana told you to tell...
“I knew about it the day before yesterday,” answered Benya Krik. - Further.
The bailiff gathered the precinct and gave the precinct a speech...
The new broom sweeps cleanly,” answered Benya Krik. - He wants a raid. Further…
And when there will be a raid, you know. King?
She will be there tomorrow.
King, she will be here today.
Who told you this, boy?
Aunt Hana said this. Do you know Aunt Hana?
-...The bailiff gathered the station and gave them a speech. “We must strangle Benya Krik,” he said, “because where there is a sovereign emperor, there is no king. Today, when Creek is marrying off his sister and they will all be there, today we need to make a raid ... "
-...Then the spies began to be afraid. They said: if we make a raid today, when it’s his holiday, Benya will get angry and a lot of blood will flow out. That's what the bailiff said - self-esteem is more valuable to me...
“Well, go,” answered the King.
What should I say to Aunt Hana about the raid?
Say: Benya knows about the raid.
And he left, this young man. He was followed by about three of Ben's friends. They said they would be back in half an hour. And they returned half an hour later. That's all.
People did not sit at the table according to seniority. Stupid old age is no less pathetic than cowardly youth. And not by wealth. The lining of the heavy wallet is made of tears.
The bride and groom sat in first place at the table. This is their day. In second place sat Sender Eichbaum, the King's father-in-law. It's his right. The story of Sender Eichbaum is worth knowing because it is not a simple story.
How did Benya Krik, the raider and king of the raiders, become Eichbaum's son-in-law? How did he become the son-in-law of a man who had sixty milk cows without one? It's all about the raid. Just a year ago, Benya wrote a letter to Eichbaum.
“Monsieur Eichbaum,” he wrote, “please place, please, tomorrow morning under the gate at 17 Sofiyevskaya, twenty thousand rubles. If you don’t do this, something unheard of will await you, and all of Odessa will be talking about you. With respect, Benya the King."
Three letters, one clearer than the other, remained unanswered. Then Benya took action. They came at night - nine people with long sticks in their hands. The sticks were wrapped in tarred tow. Nine blazing stars lit up the Eichbaum barnyard. Benya took the locks off the barn and began to take the cows out one by one. A guy with a knife was waiting for them. He knocked over the cow with one blow and plunged the knife into the cow's heart. On the ground, drenched in blood, torches bloomed like fiery roses and shots rang out. Benya used shots to drive away the workers who had come running to the barn. And after him, other raiders began to shoot in the air, because if you don’t shoot in the air, you can kill a person. And so, when the sixth cow fell with a death moo at the King’s feet, then Eichbaum ran out into the yard in his underpants and asked:
What will happen from this, Benya?
If I don't have money, you won't have cows, Monsieur Eichbaum. That's twice two.
Come into the room, Benya.
And indoors they agreed. The slaughtered cows were divided in half by them. Eichbaum was guaranteed immunity and was issued a stamped certificate. But the miracle came later.
During the raid, on that terrible night, when the pinned cows mooed, and the heifers glided in their mother's blood, when the torches danced like black maidens, and the milkmaids shied away and squealed under the guns of friendly Brownings - on that terrible night, she ran into the yard in cut-out shirt, the daughter of old man Eichbaum - Tsilya. And the King's victory became his defeat.
Two days later, Benya, without warning, returned all the money he had taken to Eichbaum and then came for a visit in the evening. He was dressed in an orange suit, with a diamond bracelet shining under his cuff; he entered the room, said hello and asked Eichbaum for the hand of his daughter Tsili. The old man suffered a slight blow, but he got up. The old man still had about twenty years of life left in him.
Listen, Eichbaum,” the King told him, “when you die, I will bury you in the first Jewish cemetery, right at the gate.” I will erect for you, Eichbaum, a monument made of pink marble. I will make you the headman of the Brodsky synagogue. I will give up my specialty, Eichbaum, and join your business as a partner. We will have two hundred cows, Eichbaum. I will kill all the milkmen except you. A thief will not walk along the street where you live. I will build you a dacha at the sixteenth station... And remember, Eichbaum, you weren’t a rabbi in your youth either. Who forged the will, let’s not talk about it loudly?.. And your son-in-law will be a King, not a brat, but a King, Eichbaum...
And he achieved his goal, Benya Krik, because he was passionate, and passion rules over the worlds. The newlyweds lived for three months in lush Bessarabia, among grapes, abundant food and the sweat of love. Then Benya returned to Odessa in order to marry off his forty-year-old sister Dvoira, who was suffering from Graves' disease. And now, having told the story of Sender Eichbaum, we can return to the wedding of Dvoira Krik, the King’s sister.
At this wedding, turkey, fried chicken, geese, stuffed fish and fish soup, in which lemon lakes shone like mother-of-pearl, were served for dinner. Flowers swayed like lush plumes above the dead goose heads. But is it possible that fried chicken is washed ashore by the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea?
All the noblest of our contraband, all that the earth is famous for from end to end, did its destructive, its seductive work on that starry, that blue night. The foreign wine warmed the stomachs, sweetly broke the legs, stupefied the brains and caused belching, sonorous as the call of a battle trumpet. The black cook from the Plutarch, which arrived on the third day from Port Said, carried pot-bellied bottles of Jamaican rum, oily Madeira, cigars from the plantations of Pierpont Morgan and oranges from the outskirts of Jerusalem beyond the customs line. This is what the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea washes ashore, this is what Odessa beggars sometimes get at Jewish weddings. They got Jamaican rum at Dvoyra Creek's wedding, and so, having drunk like club pigs, the Jewish beggars began to bang their crutches deafeningly. Eichbaum, having loosened his vest, looked around the raging meeting with narrowed eyes and hiccuped lovingly. The orchestra played tunes. It was like a division review. Touche - nothing but touche. The raiders, sitting in close ranks, were at first embarrassed by the presence of strangers, but then they dispersed. Leva Katsap broke a bottle of vodka on his lover’s head. Monya The artilleryman fired into the air. But the delight reached its limits when, according to the custom of the old days, the guests began to give gifts to the newlyweds. The synagogue shames jumped up on the tables and chanted the number of donated rubles and silver spoons to the sounds of the bubbling carcass. And then the King’s friends showed what blue blood and the still unextinguished Moldavian knighthood were worth. With a careless movement of their hands they threw gold coins, rings, and coral threads onto silver trays.
Moldavian aristocrats, they were clad in crimson vests, red jackets covered their shoulders, and their fleshy legs had bursting skin the color of heavenly azure. Straightening up to their full height and sticking out their bellies, the bandits clapped to the beat of the music, shouted “bitterly” and threw flowers to the bride, and she, forty-year-old Dvoira, sister of Benny Krik, sister of the King, disfigured by illness, with an overgrown goiter and eyes bulging out of her sockets, sat on a mountain of pillows next to a frail boy, bought with Eichbaum’s money and numb with melancholy.
The ritual of gifting was coming to an end, the shames became hoarse and the double bass did not get along with the violin. A sudden light smell of burning wafted across the courtyard.
The wedding was over, the rabbi sank into a chair, then he left the room and saw tables set up along the entire length of the courtyard. There were so many of them that they stuck their tails out of the gate onto Hospital Street. Velvet-covered tables snaked around the courtyard like snakes with patches of all colors on their bellies, and they sang in deep voices - patches of orange and red velvet.
The apartments were converted into kitchens. A fat flame, a drunken and plump flame, was blazing through the smoky doors. Its smoky rays baked old women's faces, women's shaking chins, and dirty breasts. Sweat, pink as blood, pink as the foam of a mad dog, flowed around these piles of overgrown, sweetly stinking human flesh. Three cooks, not counting the dishwashers, were preparing the wedding dinner, and over them reigned the eighty-year-old Reizl, traditional as a Torah scroll, tiny and hunchbacked.
Before dinner, a young man unknown to the guests wandered into the yard. He asked Benya Krik. He took Benya Krik aside.
“Listen, King,” said the young man, “I have a few words to tell you.” Aunt Hana sent me with Kostetskaya...
“Well, okay,” answered Benya Krik, nicknamed the King, “what are these couple of words?”
– A new bailiff arrived at the station yesterday, Aunt Hana told you to tell...
“I knew about it the day before yesterday,” answered Benya Krik. - Further.
“The bailiff gathered the station and gave the station a speech...
“The new broom sweeps cleanly,” answered Benya Krik. - He wants a raid. Further…
– And when there will be a raid, you know. King?
- She will be there tomorrow.
- King, she will be there today.
-Who told you this, boy?
“Aunt Hana said that.” Do you know Aunt Hana?
-...The bailiff gathered the station and gave them a speech. “We must strangle Benya Krik,” he said, “because where there is a sovereign emperor, there is no king. Today, when Creek is marrying off his sister and they will all be there, today we need to make a raid ... "
-...Then the spies began to be afraid. They said: if we make a raid today, when it’s his holiday, Benya will get angry and a lot of blood will flow out. That's what the bailiff said - pride is more important to me...
“Well, go,” answered the King.
– What should I say to Aunt Hana about the raid?
- Say: Benya knows about the raid.
And he left, this young man. He was followed by about three of Ben's friends. They said they would be back in half an hour. And they returned half an hour later. That's all.
People did not sit at the table according to seniority. Stupid old age is no less pathetic than cowardly youth. And not by wealth. The lining of the heavy wallet is made of tears.
The bride and groom sat in first place at the table. This is their day. In second place sat Sender Eichbaum, the King's father-in-law. It's his right. The story of Sender Eichbaum is worth knowing because it is not a simple story.
How did Benya Krik, the raider and king of the raiders, become Eichbaum's son-in-law? How did he become the son-in-law of a man who had sixty milk cows without one? It's all about the raid. Just a year ago, Benya wrote a letter to Eichbaum.
“Monsieur Eichbaum,” he wrote, “please place, please, tomorrow morning under the gate at 17 Sofiyevskaya, twenty thousand rubles. If you don’t do this, something unheard of will await you, and all of Odessa will be talking about you. With respect, Benya the King."
Three letters, one clearer than the other, remained unanswered. Then Benya took action. They came at night - nine people with long sticks in their hands. The sticks were wrapped in tarred tow. Nine blazing stars lit up the Eichbaum barnyard. Benya took the locks off the barn and began to take the cows out one by one. A guy with a knife was waiting for them. He knocked over the cow with one blow and plunged the knife into the cow's heart. On the ground, drenched in blood, torches bloomed like fiery roses and shots rang out. Benya used shots to drive away the workers who had come running to the barn. And after him, other raiders began to shoot in the air, because if you don’t shoot in the air, you can kill a person. And so, when the sixth cow fell with a death moo at the King’s feet, then Eichbaum ran out into the yard in his underpants and asked:
- What will happen from this, Benya?
“If I don’t have money, you won’t have cows, Monsieur Eichbaum.” That's twice two.
- Go into the room, Benya.
And indoors they agreed. The slaughtered cows were divided in half by them. Eichbaum was guaranteed immunity and was issued a stamped certificate. But the miracle came later.
During the raid, on that terrible night, when the pinned cows mooed, and the heifers slid in their mother's blood, when the torches danced like black maidens, and the milkmaids shied away and squealed under the guns of friendly Brownings - on that terrible night, she ran into the yard in cut-out shirt, the daughter of old man Eichbaum - Tsilya. And the King's victory became his defeat.
Two days later, Benya, without warning, returned all the money he had taken to Eichbaum and then came for a visit in the evening. He was dressed in an orange suit, with a diamond bracelet shining under his cuff; he entered the room, said hello and asked Eichbaum for the hand of his daughter Tsili. The old man suffered a slight blow, but he got up. The old man still had about twenty years of life left in him.
“Listen, Eichbaum,” the King told him, “when you die, I will bury you in the first Jewish cemetery, right at the gate.” I will erect for you, Eichbaum, a monument made of pink marble. I will make you the headman of the Brodsky synagogue. I will give up my specialty, Eichbaum, and join your business as a partner. We will have two hundred cows, Eichbaum. I will kill all the milkmen except you. A thief will not walk along the street where you live. I will build you a dacha at the sixteenth station... And remember, Eichbaum, you weren’t a rabbi in your youth either. Who forged the will, let’s not talk about it loudly?.. And your son-in-law will be a King, not a brat, but a King, Eichbaum...
And he achieved his goal, Benya Krik, because he was passionate, and passion rules over the worlds. The newlyweds lived for three months in lush Bessarabia, among grapes, abundant food and the sweat of love. Then Benya returned to Odessa in order to marry off his forty-year-old sister Dvoira, who was suffering from Graves' disease. And now, having told the story of Sender Eichbaum, we can return to the wedding of Dvoira Krik, the King’s sister.
At this wedding, turkey, fried chicken, geese, stuffed fish and fish soup, in which lemon lakes shone like mother-of-pearl, were served for dinner. Flowers swayed like lush plumes above the dead goose heads. But is it possible that fried chicken is washed ashore by the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea?
All the noblest of our contraband, all that the earth is famous for from end to end, did its destructive, its seductive work on that starry, that blue night. The foreign wine warmed the stomachs, sweetly broke the legs, stupefied the brains and caused belching, sonorous as the call of a battle trumpet. The black cook from the Plutarch, which arrived on the third day from Port Said, carried pot-bellied bottles of Jamaican rum, oily Madeira, cigars from the plantations of Pierpont Morgan and oranges from the outskirts of Jerusalem beyond the customs line. This is what the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea washes ashore, this is what Odessa beggars sometimes get at Jewish weddings. They got Jamaican rum at Dvoyra Creek's wedding, and so, having drunk like club pigs, the Jewish beggars began to bang their crutches deafeningly. Eichbaum, having loosened his vest, looked around the raging meeting with narrowed eyes and hiccuped lovingly. The orchestra played tunes. It was like a division review. Touche - nothing but touche. The raiders, sitting in close ranks, were at first embarrassed by the presence of strangers, but then they dispersed. Leva Katsap broke a bottle of vodka on his lover’s head. Monya The artilleryman fired into the air. But the delight reached its limits when, according to the custom of the old days, the guests began to give gifts to the newlyweds. The synagogue shames jumped up on the tables and chanted the number of donated rubles and silver spoons to the sounds of the bubbling carcass. And then the King’s friends showed what blue blood and the still unextinguished Moldavian knighthood were worth. With a careless movement of their hands they threw gold coins, rings, and coral threads onto silver trays.
The wedding was over, the rabbi sank into a chair, then he left the room and saw tables set up along the entire length of the courtyard. There were so many of them that they stuck their tails out of the gate onto Hospital Street. Velvet-covered tables snaked around the courtyard like snakes with patches of all colors on their bellies, and they sang in deep voices - patches of orange and red velvet.
The apartments were converted into kitchens. A fat flame, a drunken and plump flame, was blazing through the smoky doors. Its smoky rays baked old women's faces, women's shaking chins, and dirty breasts. Sweat, pink as blood, pink as the foam of a mad dog, flowed around these piles of overgrown, sweetly stinking human flesh. Three cooks, not counting the dishwashers, were preparing the wedding dinner, and over them reigned the eighty-year-old Reizl, traditional as a Torah scroll, tiny and hunchbacked.
Before dinner, a young man unknown to the guests wandered into the yard. He asked Benya Krik. He took Benya Krik aside.
Listen, King,” said the young man, “I have a few words to tell you.” Aunt Hana sent me with Kostetskaya...
Well, okay,” answered Benya Krik, nicknamed the King, “what are these couple of words?”
A new bailiff arrived at the station yesterday, Aunt Hana told you to tell...
“I knew about it the day before yesterday,” answered Benya Krik. - Further.
The bailiff gathered the police station and gave a speech to the police station...
The new broom sweeps cleanly,” answered Benya Krik. - He wants a raid. Further…
Do you know when the raid will take place, King?
She will be there tomorrow.
King, she will be here today.
Who told you this, boy?
Aunt Hana said this. Do you know Aunt Hana?
The bailiff gathered the station and gave them a speech. “We must strangle Benya Krik,” he said, “because where there is a sovereign emperor, there is no king. Today, when Creek is marrying off his sister and they will all be there, today we need to make a raid ... "
Then the spies began to be afraid. They said: if we make a raid today, when it’s his holiday, Benya will get angry and a lot of blood will flow out. So the bailiff said: pride is dearer to me...
“Well, go,” answered the King.
What should I tell Aunt Hana about the raid?
Say: Benya knows about the raid.
And he left, this young man. He was followed by about three of Ben's friends. They said they would be back in half an hour. And they returned half an hour later. That's all.
People did not sit at the table according to seniority. Stupid old age is no less pathetic than cowardly youth. And not by wealth. The lining of the heavy wallet is made of tears.
The bride and groom sat in first place at the table. This is their day. In second place sat Sender Eichbaum, the King's father-in-law. It's his right. The story of Sender Eichbaum is worth knowing because it is not a simple story.
How did Benya Krik, the raider and king of the raiders, become Eichbaum's son-in-law? How did he become the son-in-law of a man who had sixty milk cows without one? It's all about the raid. Just a year ago, Benya wrote a letter to Eichbaum.
“Monsieur Eichbaum,” he wrote, “please place, please, tomorrow morning under the gate at 17 Sofiyevskaya, twenty thousand rubles. If you don’t do this, something unheard of will await you, and all of Odessa will be talking about you. With respect, Benya the King."
Three letters, one clearer than the other, remained unanswered. Then Benya took action. They came at night - nine people with long sticks in their hands. The sticks were wrapped in tarred tow. Nine blazing stars lit up the Eichbaum barnyard. Benya took the locks off the barn and began to take the cows out one by one. A guy with a knife was waiting for them. He knocked over the cow with one blow and plunged the knife into the cow's heart. On the ground, drenched in blood, torches bloomed like fiery roses and shots rang out. Benya used shots to drive away the workers who had come running to the barn. And after him, other raiders began to shoot in the air, because if you don’t shoot in the air, you can kill a person. And so, when the sixth cow fell with its death moo at the King’s feet, then Eichbaum ran out into the yard in his underpants and asked:
What will happen from this, Benya?
If I don't have money, you won't have cows, Monsieur Eichbaum. That's twice two.
Come into the room, Benya.
And indoors they agreed. The slaughtered cows were divided in half, Eichbaum was guaranteed immunity and was given a stamped certificate. But the miracle came later.
During the raid, on that terrible night, when the pinned cows mooed and the heifers slid in their mother's blood, when the torches danced like black maidens, and the milkmaids shied away and squealed under the guns of friendly Brownings - on that terrible night, she ran out into the yard in a cut-out shirt, the daughter of old man Eichbaum - Tsilya. And the King's victory became his defeat.
Two days later, Benya, without warning, returned to Eichbaum all the money taken from him and then came for a visit in the evening. He was dressed in an orange suit, with a diamond bracelet shining under his cuff; he entered the room, said hello and asked Eichbaum for the hand of his daughter Tsili. The old man suffered a slight blow, but he got up. The old man still had about twenty years of life left in him.
Listen, Eichbaum,” the King told him, “when you die, I will bury you in the first Jewish cemetery, right at the gate.” I will erect for you, Eichbaum, a monument made of pink marble. I will make you the headman of the Brodsky synagogue. I will give up my specialty, Eichbaum, and join your business as a partner. We will have two hundred cows, Eichbaum. I will kill all the milkmen except you. A thief will not walk along the street where you live. I will build you a dacha at the sixteenth station... And remember, Eichbaum, you weren’t a rabbi in your youth either. Who forged the will, let’s not talk about it loudly?.. And your son-in-law will be a King, not a brat, but a King, Eichbaum...
And he achieved his goal, Benya Krik, because he was passionate, and passion rules over the worlds. The newlyweds lived for three months in lush Bessarabia, among grapes, abundant food and the sweat of love. Then Benya returned to Odessa in order to marry off his forty-year-old sister Dvoira, who was suffering from Graves' disease. And now, having told the story of Sender Eichbaum, we can return to the wedding of Dvoira Krik, the King’s sister.
At this wedding, turkey, fried chicken, geese, stuffed fish and fish soup, in which lemon lakes shone like mother-of-pearl, were served for dinner. Flowers swayed like lush plumes above the dead goose heads. But is it possible that fried chicken is washed ashore by the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea?
All the noblest of our contraband, all that the earth is famous for from end to end, did its destructive, its seductive work on that starry, that blue night. The foreign wine warmed the stomachs, sweetly broke the legs, stupefied the brains and caused belching, sonorous as the call of a battle trumpet. The black cook from the Plutarch, which arrived on the third day from Port Said, carried pot-bellied bottles of Jamaican rum, oily Madeira, cigars from the plantations of Pierpont Morgan and oranges from the outskirts of Jerusalem beyond the customs line. This is what the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea washes ashore, this is what Odessa beggars sometimes get at Jewish weddings. They got Jamaican rum at Dvoyra Creek's wedding, and so, having drunk like club pigs, the Jewish beggars began to bang their crutches deafeningly. Eichbaum, having loosened his vest, looked around the raging meeting with narrowed eyes and hiccuped lovingly. The orchestra played tunes. It was like a division review. Touche - nothing but touche. The raiders, sitting in close ranks, were at first embarrassed by the presence of strangers, but then they dispersed. Lyova Katsap broke a bottle of vodka on his beloved’s head, Monya the Artilleryman fired into the air. But the delight reached its limits when, according to the custom of the old days, the guests began to give gifts to the newlyweds. The synagogue shames jumped up on the tables and chanted the number of donated rubles and silver spoons to the sounds of the bubbling carcass. And then the King’s friends showed what blue blood and the still unextinguished Moldavian knighthood were worth. With a careless movement of their hands they threw gold coins, rings, and coral threads onto silver trays.
Moldavian aristocrats, they were clad in crimson vests, red jackets covered their shoulders, and their fleshy legs had bursting skin the color of heavenly azure.
Straightening up to their full height and sticking out their bellies, the bandits clapped to the beat of the music, shouted “bitterly” and threw flowers to the bride, and she, forty-year-old Dvoira, sister of Benny Krik, sister of the King, disfigured by illness, with an overgrown goiter and eyes bulging out of her sockets, sat on a mountain of pillows next to a frail boy, bought with Eichbaum’s money and numb with melancholy.
The ritual of gifting was coming to an end, the shames became hoarse, and the double bass did not get along with the violin. A sudden light smell of burning wafted across the courtyard.
Benya,” said Papa Krik, an old binder, who was known among the binders as a rude man, “Benya, do you know that it’s mine?” It seems to me that soot is burning here...
Dad,” the King answered his drunken father, “please have a drink and a snack, don’t let this nonsense bother you...
And Father Creek followed his son’s advice. He ate and drank. But the cloud of smoke became more and more poisonous. Somewhere the edges of the sky were already turning pink. And a tongue of flame, as narrow as a sword, shot into the heights. The guests, standing up, began to sniff the air, and the women squealed. The raiders then looked at each other. And only Benya, who did not notice anything, was inconsolable.
Mina’s holiday is being disrupted,” he shouted, full of despair, “darlings, I ask you, have a snack and a drink...
But at this time the same young man who came at the beginning of the evening appeared in the yard.
“King,” he said, “I have a few words to tell you...
Well, speak up, - answered the King, - you always have a few words in stock...
“King,” said the unknown young man and chuckled, “this is downright funny, the site is burning like a candle...
The shopkeepers were speechless. The raiders grinned. Sixty-year-old Manka, the ancestor of the suburban bandits, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled so shrilly that her neighbors swayed.
Manya, you’re not at work,” Benya remarked to her, “in cold blood, Manya...
The young man who brought this amazing news was still laughing.
About forty of them left the site,” he said, moving his jaws, “and went on a raid; So they walked about fifteen steps away when it was already on fire... Run and look if you want...
But Benya forbade the guests to go and look at the fire. He set off with two comrades. The area was regularly ablaze on four sides. The policemen, shaking their butts, ran up the smoke-filled stairs and threw chests out of the windows. The arrested people fled amid the noise. The firefighters were full of zeal, but there was no water in the nearby tap. The bailiff - the same broom that sweeps cleanly - stood on the opposite sidewalk and bit the mustache that was growing into his mouth. The new broom stood motionless. Benya, passing by the bailiff, gave him a military salute.
“Good health, your honor,” he said sympathetically. - What do you say to this misfortune? This is a nightmare...
He stared at the burning building, shook his head and smacked his lips:
Ah ah ah…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And when Benya returned home, the lanterns in the yard had already gone out and the sky was dawning. The guests left, and the musicians dozed with their heads on the handles of their double basses. Only Dvoira was not going to sleep. With both hands she pushed her timid husband towards the door of their marriage room and looked at him carnivorously, like a cat that, holding a mouse in its mouth, lightly tastes it with its teeth.
How it was done in Odessa
Reb Aryeh-Leib,” I said to the old man, “let’s talk about Ben Krik.” Let's talk about its lightning-fast beginning and its terrible end. Three shadows block the paths of my imagination. Here is Froim Grach. The steel of his actions - won't it stand comparison with the strength of the King? Here is Kolka Pakovsky. This man's rage contained everything he needed to dominate. And was Haim Drong really unable to discern the brilliance of the new star? But why did only Benya Krik climb to the top of the rope ladder, while everyone else hung below, on the shaky steps?
Reb Aryeh Leib was silent, sitting on the cemetery wall. The green calm of the graves spread out before us. A person thirsting for an answer must be patient. A person who has knowledge becomes important. Therefore, Arie-Leib was silent, sitting on the cemetery wall. Finally he said:
Why he? Why not them, you want to know? So, forget for a while that you have glasses on your nose and autumn in your soul. Stop arguing at your desk and stuttering in public. Imagine for a moment that you are rowdy in public squares and stutter on paper.
You are a tiger, you are a lion, you are a cat. You can spend the night with a Russian woman, and the Russian woman will be satisfied with you. You are twenty-five years old. If there were rings attached to the sky and the earth, you would grab those rings and pull the sky to the earth. And your dad is a Mendel Creek binder. What is this dad thinking about? He thinks about drinking a good shot of vodka, about punching someone in the face, about his horses - and nothing else. You want to live, but he makes you die twenty times a day. What would you do if you were Benny Creek? You wouldn't do anything. And he did. That's why he's the King, and you keep the fig in your pocket.
He - Benchik - went to Froim Grach, who then already looked at the world with only one eye and was what he is. He said to Froim:
Take me. I want to wash up on your shore. The shore to which I wash will be the winner.
Rook asked him:
Who are you, where do you come from and what do you breathe?
Try me, Froim,” Benya answered, “and we’ll stop smearing white porridge on the clean table.”
“Let’s stop spreading the porridge,” Rook answered, “I’ll try you.”
And the raiders called a council to think about Ben Creek. I was not on this council. But they say that they have convened a council. The eldest was then the late Levka Byk.
What's going on under his hat, this Benchik? - asked the late Bull.
And the one-eyed Rook said his opinion:
Benya says little, but he speaks with gusto. He doesn't say much, but you want him to say something more.
If so,” exclaimed the late Levka, “then let’s try it on Tartakovsky.”
Let’s try it at Tartakovsky,” the council decided, and everyone who still had a conscience blushed when they heard this decision. Why did they turn red? You will know this if you go where I lead you.
We called Tartakovsky “one and a half Jews” or “nine raids.” They called him “one and a half Jews” because not a single Jew could contain as much audacity and money as Tartakovsky had. He was taller than the tallest policeman in Odessa, and weighed more than the fattest Jewish woman. And Tartakovsky was nicknamed “nine raids” because the Levka Byk company and company carried out not eight or ten raids on his office, but nine. Beni, who was not yet King at that time, had the honor of making the tenth raid on the “one and a half Jews.” When Froim told him about it, he said “yes” and left, slamming the door. Why did he slam the door? You will know this if you go where I lead you.
Tartakovsky has the soul of a killer, but he is ours. He left us. He is our blood. He is our flesh, as if one mother gave birth to us. Half of Odessa serves in his shops. And he suffered through his own Moldovans. Twice they kidnapped him for ransom, and once during a pogrom they buried him with the singers. Sloboda thugs then beat Jews on Bolshaya Arnautskaya. Tartakovsky ran away from them and met the funeral procession with singers on Sofiyskaya. He asked:
Who is being buried with the singers?
Passers-by replied that they were burying Tartakovsky. The procession reached the Slobodskoye cemetery. Then our people took the machine gun out of the coffin and began to shoot at the suburban thugs. But the “one and a half Jews” did not foresee this. The “one and a half Jew” was scared to death. And what owner would not be afraid in his place?
The tenth raid on a man who had already been buried once, it was a rude act. Benya, who was not yet King then, understood this better than anyone else. But he said “yes” to Grach and on the same day he wrote a letter to Tartakovsky, similar to all letters of this kind:
“Dear Reuben Osipovich! Be so kind as to put it under a rain barrel by Saturday... and so on. If you refuse, as you have recently begun to allow yourself to do, you will face great disappointment in your family life. Respectfully familiar to you
Tartakovsky was not lazy and answered without delay.
“Benya! If you were an idiot, I would write to you like an idiot. But I don’t know you for that, and God forbid I know you for that. Apparently you introduce yourself as a boy. Don’t you know that this year in Argentina there is such a harvest that there are even heaps, and we are sitting with our wheat without initiative?.. And I will tell you, hand on heart, that in my old age I am tired of eating such a bitter piece of bread and to experience these troubles after I worked my whole life like the last drayman. And what do I have after these indefinite hard labor? Ulcers, sores, troubles and insomnia. Stop this nonsense, Benya. Your friend, much more than you realize, is Reuben Tartakovsky.”
“One and a half Jews” did his thing. He wrote a letter. But the post office did not deliver the letter to the address. Having received no answer, Benya became angry. The next day he appeared with four friends at Tartakovsky’s office. Four young men in masks and with revolvers burst into the room.
Hands up! - they said and began to wave their pistols.
Work calmer, Solomon,” Benya remarked to one of those who shouted louder than others, “don’t have this habit of being nervous at work,” and, turning to the clerk, white as death and yellow as clay, he asked him:
- “One and a half Jews” in the factory?
“They are not in the factory,” answered the clerk, whose last name was Muginstein, and his first name was Joseph and was the single son of Aunt Pesya, a chicken merchant from Seredinskaya Square.
Who will finally be the owner here? - they began to interrogate the unfortunate Muginshtein.
“I will be the owner here,” said the clerk, green as green grass.
Then, with God's help, give us the cash register! - Benya ordered him, and the opera began in three acts.
Nervous Solomon put money, papers, watches and monograms into a suitcase; the deceased Joseph stood in front of him with his hands raised, and at this time Benya told stories from the life of the Jewish people.
Since he’s playing Rothschild,” Benya said about Tartakovsky, “let him burn with fire.” Explain to me, Muginshtein, as to a friend: he receives a business letter from me; Why doesn’t he take a tram for five kopecks and drive up to my apartment and drink a glass of vodka with my family and eat whatever God sent? What prevented him from speaking his soul to me? “Benya,” let him say, “so and so, here’s my balance, give me a couple of days, let me breathe, let me shrug my shoulders.” What would I answer him? A pig does not meet a pig, but a person meets a person. Muginshtein, do you understand me?
“I understand you,” said Muginstein and lied, because it was not at all clear to him why “one and a half Jews,” a respectable rich man and the first person, had to go on a tram to have lunch with the family of the binder Mendel Krick.
Meanwhile, misfortune was hanging around under the windows, like a beggar at dawn. Misfortune burst into the office noisily. And although this time it took on the image of the Jew Savka Butsis, it was drunk as a water carrier.
Gogu-go,” cried the Jew Savka, “forgive me, Benchik, I’m late,” and he stamped his feet and began waving his arms. Then he fired, and the bullet hit Muginshtein in the stomach.
Are words needed here? There was a man and there is no man. An innocent bachelor lived like a bird on a branch - and now he died through stupidity. A Jew who looked like a sailor came and shot not at some surprise bottle, but at a living person. Are words needed here?
Tick from the office! - Benya shouted and ran last. But, leaving, he managed to say to Butsis:
I swear by my mother’s coffin, Savka, you will lie next to him...
Now tell me, young gentleman, cutting coupons on other people's shares, what would you do in Benny Creek's place? You don't know what to do. And he knew. That’s why he is the King, and you and I are sitting on the wall of the second Jewish cemetery and shielding ourselves from the sun with our palms.
Aunt Pesya's unfortunate son did not die immediately. An hour after he was taken to the hospital, Benya appeared there. He ordered the senior doctor and nurse to be called to him and told them without taking his hands out of his cream pants.
“I have an interest,” he said, “for the sick Joseph Muginstein to recover. Just in case, I introduce myself - Benzion Creek. Camphor, air pillows, a separate room - give with an open mind. If not, then for every doctor, even if he is a Doctor of Philosophy, there is no more than three arshins of land.
And yet Muginshtein died that same night. And then only “one and a half Jews” raised a cry throughout Odessa.
“Where does the police begin,” he yelled, “and where does Benya end?”
The police end where Benya begins, reasonable people answered, but Tartakovsky did not calm down, and he waited until the red car with the music box played its first march from the opera “Laugh, Clown” on Seredinskaya Square. In broad daylight, the car flew up to the house where Aunt Pesya lived.
The car rattled its wheels, spewed smoke, shone copper, stank of gasoline and played arias on its signal horn. Someone jumped out of the car and went into the kitchen, where little Aunt Pesya was struggling on the dirt floor. “A Jew and a half” sat on a chair and waved his arms.
Hooligan face,” he shouted when he saw the guest, “bandit, so that the earth throws you out!” I have adopted a good fashion - killing living people...
Monsieur Tartakovsky,” Benya Krik answered him in a quiet voice, “it’s the second day since I’ve been crying for my dear dead man, like for my own brother. But I know that you didn’t care about my young tears. Shame, Monsieur Tartakovsky - in what fireproof closet have you hidden your shame? You had the heart to send the mother of our late Joseph a hundred miserable Karbovanites. My brain and my hair stood on end when I heard this news.
Here Benya paused. He was wearing a chocolate jacket, cream pants and raspberry boots.
Ten thousand at a time,” he roared, “ten thousand at a time and a pension until her death, may she live a hundred and twenty years.” And if not, then let’s leave this room, Monsieur Tartakovsky, and get into my car...
Then they cursed at each other. “A Jew and a half” scolded Benya. I was not present at this quarrel. But those who were there remember. They agreed on five thousand in cash and fifty rubles monthly.
“Aunt Pesya,” Benya then said to the disheveled old woman lying on the floor, “if you need my life, you can get it, but everyone makes mistakes, even God.” It was a huge mistake, Aunt Pesya. But wasn’t it a mistake on God’s part to settle the Jews in Russia so that they would suffer like in hell? And why would it be bad if Jews lived in Switzerland, where they were surrounded by first-class lakes, mountainous air and all the French? Everyone makes mistakes, even God. Listen to me with your ears, Aunt Pesya. You have five thousand in hand and fifty rubles a month until your death - live one hundred and twenty years. Joseph’s funeral will be according to the first category: six horses, like six lions, two chariots with wreaths, a choir from the Brodsky synagogue, Minkovsky himself will come to perform the funeral service for your late son...
And the funeral took place the next morning. Ask the cemetery beggars about these funerals. Ask about them from the shames from the synagogue, the kosher poultry merchants, or the old women from the second almshouse. Odessa has never seen such a funeral, and the world will never see it. The policemen wore thread gloves that day. Electricity was burning in the synagogues, covered with greenery and wide open. Black plumes swayed on white horses harnessed to a chariot. Sixty singers walked ahead of the procession. The singers were boys, but they sang with women's voices. The elders of the synagogue of kosher poultry traders led Aunt Pesya by the arms. Behind the elders were members of the community of Jewish clerks, and behind the Jewish clerks were attorneys, doctors of medicine and midwives. On one side of Aunt Pesi were the chicken traders from the Old Bazaar, and on the other side were the honorary milkmaids from Bugaevka, wrapped in orange shawls. They stamped their feet like gendarmes at a parade on service day. From their wide hips came the smell of sea and milk. And behind everyone trailed the employees of Reuben Tartakovsky. There were a hundred people, or two hundred, or two thousand. They wore black frock coats with silk lapels and new boots that creaked like pigs in a sack.
And so I will speak, as the Lord spoke on Mount Sinai from the burning bush. Put my words in your ears. Everything that I saw, I saw with my own eyes, sitting here, on the wall of the second cemetery, next to the lisping Moiseika and Shimshon from the funeral office. I saw this, Arie-Leib, a proud Jew living with the dead.
The chariot drove up to the cemetery synagogue. The coffin was placed on the steps. Aunt Pesya was trembling like a bird. Kantor got out of the phaeton and began the funeral service. Sixty singers echoed him. And at that moment the red car flew around the bend. He played “Laugh, Clown” and stopped. People were silent as if killed. The trees, the singers, the beggars were silent. Four people crawled out from under the red roof and with a quiet step brought a wreath of unprecedented roses to the chariot. And when the funeral service was over, four people brought their steel shoulders under the coffin, with burning eyes and protruding chests, they walked along with members of the society of Jewish clerks.
Benya Krik, whom no one had yet called King, walked ahead. He was the first to approach the grave, climbed onto the mound and extended his hand.
What do you want to do, young man? - Kofman from the funeral brotherhood ran up to him.
“I want to make a speech,” answered Benya Krik. And he made a speech. Everyone who wanted to listen heard it. I, Arie-Leib, and the lisping Moiseika, who was sitting on the wall next to me, heard her.
Gentlemen and ladies, - said Benya Krik, - gentlemen and ladies, - he said, and the sun rose above his head, like a sentry with a gun. - You came to pay your last respects to an honest worker who died for a copper penny. On behalf of myself and everyone who is not here, thank you. Gentlemen and ladies! What did our dear Joseph see in his life? He saw a couple of trifles. What was he doing? He was counting other people's money. Why did he die? He died for the entire working class. There are people already doomed to death, and there are people who have not yet begun to live. And now the bullet flying into the doomed chest pierces Joseph, who has not seen anything in his life except a couple of trifles. There are people who know how to drink vodka, and there are people who don’t know how to drink vodka, but still drink it. And so the former receive pleasure from grief and joy, while the latter suffer for all those who drink vodka without knowing how to drink it. Therefore, gentlemen and ladies, after we pray for our poor Joseph, I ask you to accompany the unknown to you, but already deceased Savely Butsis to the grave...
And, having said this speech, Benya Krik came down from the hill. People, trees and cemetery beggars were silent. Two gravediggers carried the unpainted coffin to a nearby grave. The cantor finished his prayer with a stutter. Benya threw down the first shovel and went over to Savka. All the attorneys at law and the ladies with brooches followed him like sheep. He forced the cantor to sing a full dirge over Savka, and sixty singers echoed the cantor. Savka never dreamed of such a memorial service - take the word of Arye-Leib, the old old man.
They say that on that day “one and a half Jews” decided to close the case. I wasn't there. But the fact that neither the cantor, nor the choir, nor the funeral brotherhood asked for money for the funeral - I saw this through the eyes of Arie-Leib. Arie-Leib - that's my name. And I couldn’t see anything else, because people, quietly moving away from Savka’s grave, rushed to run away as if from a fire. They flew in phaetons, in carts and on foot. And only those four that arrived in the red car also left in it. The music box played its march, the car shuddered and sped away.
“King,” said the lisping Moiseika, looking after her, the same one who takes away the best places on the wall from me.
Now you know everything. Do you know who first said the word "king". It was Moiseika. You know why he didn’t call either the one-eyed Rook or the mad Kolka that name. You know everything. But what is the use if you still have glasses on your nose, but autumn in your soul?..
Froim Grach was married once. It was a long time ago, twenty years have passed since then. His wife then gave birth to a daughter for Froim and died in childbirth. The girl was named Basya. Her maternal grandmother lived in Tulchin. The old woman did not love her son-in-law. She spoke about him: Froim is a dray driver by occupation, and he has black horses, but Froim’s soul is blacker than the black color of his horses...
The old woman did not like her son-in-law and took the newborn with her. She lived with the girl for twenty years and then died. Then Baska returned to her father. It all happened like this.
On Wednesday, the fifth, Froim Grach was transporting wheat from the warehouses of the Dreyfus Society to the port on the ship Caledonia. In the evening he finished work and went home. At the turn from Prokhorovskaya Street he met the blacksmith Ivan Pyatirubel.
Respect, Grach,” said Ivan Pyatirubel, “some woman is knocking on your premises...
“Daddy,” the woman said in a deafening bass voice, “the devils are already getting bored of me.” I've been waiting for you all day... Know that grandma died in Tulchin.
Rook stood on the binder and looked at his daughter with all his eyes.
“Don’t flinch in front of the horses,” he shouted in despair, “take the bridle from the horseman, you want to beat my horses...
The rook stood on the cart and waved his whip. Baska took the horseman by the bridle and led the horses to the stable. She unharnessed them and went to get busy in the kitchen. The girl hung her father's footcloths on a rope, she wiped the smoked teapot with sand and immediately began heating it in a cast-iron pot.
You have unbearable dirt, dad,” she said and threw the sour sheepskins that were lying on the floor out the window, “but I will take this dirt out!” - Baska shouted and served her father dinner.
The old man drank vodka from an enamel teapot and ate it right away, which smelled like a happy childhood. Then he took the whip and went out of the gate. Baska came there after him. She put on men's boots and an orange dress, she put on a hat covered with birds, and sat down on a bench. The evening staggered past the bench, the shining eye of sunset fell into the sea beyond Peresyp, and the sky was red, like a red number on a calendar. All trade was already closed on Dalnitskaya, and the raiders drove into a back street to the brothel of Ioska Samuelson. They rode in lacquered carriages, dressed like hummingbirds, wearing colored jackets. Their eyes were bulging, one leg was set back on the footrest, and in their steely outstretched hand they held bouquets wrapped in tissue paper. Their varnished carriages moved at a pace, in each carriage sat one person with a bouquet, and the coachmen, standing on high seats, were decorated with bows, like best men at weddings. Old Jewish women in tattoos lazily followed the course of this familiar procession - they were indifferent to everything, old Jewish women, and only the sons of shopkeepers and shipwrights were jealous of the kings of Moldavanka.
Solomonchik Kaplun, the son of a grocer, and Monya Artillerist, the son of a smuggler, were among those who tried to avert their eyes from the brilliance of someone else's luck. Both of them walked past her, swaying like girls who have recognized love, they whispered among themselves and began to move their hands, showing how they would hug Baska if she wanted it. And Baska immediately wanted this, because she was a simple girl from Tulchin, from a selfish, blind town. She weighed five pounds and a few more pounds; she had lived all her life with the malicious crowd of Podolsk brokers, traveling booksellers, forestry contractors, and had never seen people like Solomonchik Kaplun. Therefore, when she saw him, she began to shuffle on the ground with her thick legs, shod in men’s boots, and told her father.
Hey, Mrs. Grach,” whispered then the old Jew sitting next to him, an old Jew named Golubchik, “I see your child is asking for grass...
“This is a hassle on my head,” Froim answered Golubchik, played with the whip and went to his bed and fell asleep peacefully, because he did not believe the old man. He did not believe the old man and turned out to be completely wrong. Blu was right. Darling was engaged in matchmaking on our street, at night he read prayers over wealthy dead people and knew everything there was to know about life. Froim Grach was wrong. Blu was right.
And indeed, from that day on, Baska spent all her evenings outside the gate. She sat on a bench and sewed her trousseau. Pregnant women sat next to her; piles of canvas crawled over her splayed, mighty knees; The pregnant women were filled with all sorts of things, like a cow's udder fills the pasture with the pink milk of spring, and at this time their husbands, one after another, came from work. The husbands of their scolding wives wrung out their unkempt beards under the water tap and then gave way to the hunchbacked old women. Old women bathed fat babies in troughs, they spanked their grandchildren on their shining buttocks and wrapped them in their threadbare skirts. And so Baska from Tulchin saw the life of the Moldavian woman, our generous mother, - a life filled with sucking babies, drying rags and wedding nights full of suburban chic and soldierly tirelessness. The girl wanted the same life for herself, but she learned here that the daughter of the one-eyed Rook could not count on a worthy match. Then she stopped calling her father father.
Red-haired thief,” she shouted to him in the evenings, “red-haired thief, go to dinner...
And this continued until Baska sewed herself six nightgowns and six pairs of pantaloons with lace frills. Having finished stitching the lace, she began to cry in a thin voice, unlike her voice, and said through her tears to the unshakable Rook.
Every girl,” she told him, “has her own interest in life, and only I live like a night watchman at someone else’s warehouse.” Either do something to me, dad, or I'm doing the end of my life...
Rook listened to his daughter to the end, he put on a sail cloak and the next day went to visit the grocer Kaplun on Privoznaya Square.
A golden sign glittered above Kaplun's shop. This was the first shop on Privoznaya Square. It smelled of many seas and beautiful lives unknown to us. The boy was pouring water from a watering can into the cool depths of the store and singing a song that is only proper for adults to sing. Solomonchik, the owner's son, stood behind the counter; On this counter were placed olives that came from Greece, Marseille butter, coffee beans, Lisbon Malaga, Philippe and Cano sardines and cayenne pepper. Kaplun himself sat in a vest in the sun, in a glass outbuilding, and ate a watermelon - a red watermelon with black seeds, with slanting seeds, like the eyes of sly Chinese women. Kaplun's belly lay on the table under the sun, and the sun could not do anything with it. But then the grocer saw Rook in a canvas cloak and turned pale.
“Good afternoon, Monsieur Grach,” he said and moved away. - Darling warned me that you would be there, and I prepared a pound of tea for you, which is a rarity...
And he started talking about a new variety of tea brought to Odessa on Dutch ships. Rook listened to him patiently, but then interrupted him, because he was a simple man, without tricks.
“I am a simple man, without tricks,” said Froim, “I am with my horses and doing my job.” I give new linen for Baska and a couple of old pennies, and I myself eat for Baska - if this is not enough, let him burn with fire...
Why do we need to burn? - Kaplun answered quickly and stroked the hand of the dray driver. - There is no need for such words, Monsieur Hrach, after all, you are a person with us who can help another person, and, by the way, you can offend another person, and the fact that you are not the Krakow rabbi, so I also did not stand under the aisle with niece of Moses Montefiore, but... but Madame Kaplun... we have Madame Kaplun, a grandiose lady, from whom God himself will not know what she wants...
“And I know,” Hrach interrupted the shopkeeper, “I know that Solomonchik wants Baska, but Madame Kaplun doesn’t want me...
Yes, I don’t want you,” Madame Kaplun, who was listening at the door, shouted then, and she went into the glass extension, all ablaze, with an agitated chest, “I don’t want you, Rook, just as a person doesn’t want death; I don’t want you, just like a bride doesn’t want acne on her head. Don’t forget that our late grandfather was a grocer, our late father was a grocer, and we must stick to our business...
“Stick to your branzhi,” Rook answered the flaming Madame Kaplun and went to his home.
Baska was waiting for him there, dressed in an orange dress, but the old man, without looking at her, spread out the cover under the carts, went to bed and slept until Baska’s mighty hand threw him out from under the cart.
Red-haired thief,” the girl said in a whisper, unlike her whisper, “why should I put up with your Bindyuzhniki manners, and why are you silent like a stump, red-haired thief?..
Baska,” said Grach, “Solomonchik wants you, but Madame Kaplun doesn’t want me... They are looking for a grocer there.”
And, having adjusted the casing, the old man again crawled under the carts, and Baska disappeared from the yard...
All this happened on Saturday, a non-working day. The purple eye of sunset, searching the ground, came across Rook in the evening, snoring under his binder. The swift beam hit the sleeping man with fiery reproach and led him out onto Dalnitskaya Street, dusty and shining like green rye in the wind. The Tatars walked up Dalnitskaya, the Tatars and Turks with their mullahs. They were returning from a pilgrimage from Mecca to their home in the Orenburg steppes and Transcaucasia. The steamer brought them to Odessa, and they walked from the port to the inn of Lyubka Schneeweis, nicknamed Lyubka Cossack. Striped, unbending robes stood on the Tatars and flooded the pavement with the bronze sweat of the desert. White towels were wrapped around their fezzes, signifying a person bowing to the ashes of the prophet. The pilgrims reached the corner, they turned towards Lyubkin's courtyard, but could not get through there, because many people had gathered at the gate. Lyubka Schneeweiss, with a purse on her side, beat a drunken man and pushed him onto the pavement. She hit the face with a clenched fist, like a tambourine, and supported the man with her other hand so that he would not fall off. Streams of blood crawled between the man's teeth and near his ear, he was thoughtful and looked at Lyubka as if at a stranger, then he fell on the stones and fell asleep. Then Lyubka kicked him and returned to her shop. Her watchman Evzel closed the gate behind her and waved his hand to Froim Grach, who was passing by...
Respect, Rook,” he said, “if you want to observe something from life, then come to our yard, there is something to laugh about...
And the watchman led Rook to the wall where the pilgrims who had arrived the day before were sitting. An old Turk in a green turban, an old Turk, green and light as a leaf, lay on the grass. He was covered in pearly sweat, he was breathing hard and rolling his eyes.
“Here,” said Evzel and straightened the medal on his worn jacket, “here is a life drama from the opera “Turkish Illness.” It’s running out, old man, but you can’t call a doctor to him, because the one who ends up on the way from the god Mohamed to his home is considered their first lucky and rich man... Khalvash, - Yevzel shouted to the dying man and laughed, - here comes the doctor to treat you…
The Turk looked at the watchman with childish fear and hatred and turned away. Then Evzel, pleased with himself, led Rook to the opposite side of the yard to the wine cellar. In the cellar the lamps were already burning and music was playing. Old Jews with heavy beards played Romanian and Jewish songs. Mendel Krik drank wine from a green glass at the table and talked about how he was crippled by his own sons - the elder Benya and the younger Levka. He screamed his story in a hoarse and scary voice, showed his ground teeth and let them touch the wounds on his stomach. Volyn tzaddikim with porcelain faces stood behind his chair and listened in stupefaction to the boasts of Mendel Krick. They were surprised at everything they heard, and Rook despised them for it.
“Old braggart,” he muttered about Mendel and ordered himself some wine.
Then Froim called his hostess Lyubka Kazak over to him. She swore at the door and drank vodka while standing.
“Speak,” she shouted to Froim and squinted her eyes in fury.
“Madame Lyubka,” Froim answered her and sat her down next to him, “you are an intelligent woman, and I came before you as if I were my own mother.” I rely on you, Madame Lyubka - first on God, then on you.
“Speak,” Lyubka shouted, ran throughout the cellar and then returned to her place.
And Rook said:
In the colonies, he said, the Germans have a rich harvest of wheat, but in Constantinople the groceries are half free. They buy a pound of olives in Constantinople for three rubles, and sell them here for thirty kopecks per pound... The grocers have become happy, Madame Lyubka, the grocers walk around very fat, and if you approach them with delicate hands, a person could become happy... But I stayed alone in my work, the deceased Leva Bull died, I have no help from anywhere, and here I am alone, as there is only one god in heaven.
Benya Krik,” Lyubka said then, “you tried it on Tartakovsky, why is Benya Krik bad for you?”
Benya Krik? - repeated Rook, full of surprise. - And he’s single, I think?
“He’s single,” said Lyubka, “turn him around with Baska, give him money, bring him out into the world...
Benya Krik,” the old man repeated, like an echo, like a distant echo, “I didn’t think about him...
He stood up, muttering and stuttering. Lyubka ran forward, and Froim trudged after her. They walked into the courtyard and went up to the second floor. There, on the second floor, lived the women whom Lyubka kept for visitors.
Our fiance is at Katyusha’s,” Lyubka said to Grach, “wait for me in the corridor,” and she went into the outer room, where Benya Krik was lying with a woman named Katyusha.
“It’s enough to drool,” the hostess said to the young man, “first you need to get attached to some business, Benchik, and then you can drool... Froim Grach is looking for you. He is looking for a person to work with and cannot find him...
And she told everything she knew about Baska and about the affairs of the one-eyed Rook.
“I’ll think about it,” Benya answered her, covering Katyushina’s bare legs with a sheet, “I’ll think about it, let the old man wait for me.”
Wait for him,” Lyubka said to Froim, who remained in the corridor, “wait for him, he’ll think...
The hostess pulled out a chair for Froim, and he plunged into immense anticipation. He waited patiently, like a man in an office. Behind the wall Katyusha moaned and burst into laughter. The old man dozed for two hours and maybe more. The evening had long since become night, the sky had turned black, and its milky ways were filled with gold, shine and coolness. Lyubkin's cellar was already closed, the drunkards were lying in the yard like broken furniture, and the old mullah in the green turban died by midnight. Then music came from the sea, horns and trumpets from English ships, music came from the sea and died down, but Katyusha, thorough Katyusha was still heating up her painted, Russian and ruddy paradise for Benny Krik. She moaned behind the wall and burst into laughter; old Froim sat motionless at her door, he waited until one in the morning and then knocked.
Man, he said, are you laughing at me?
Then Benya finally opened the doors to Katyusha’s room.
Monsieur Grach,” he said, embarrassed, beaming and covering himself with a sheet, “when we are young, we think of women as a commodity, but it’s just straw that burns for nothing...
And, having dressed, he straightened Katyushka’s bed, fluffed her pillows and went out with the old man into the street. Walking, they reached a Russian cemetery, and there, near the cemetery, the interests of Benny Krik and the crooked Rook, an old raider, converged. They agreed that Baska was bringing her future husband three thousand rubles as a dowry, two blood horses and a pearl necklace. They also agreed that Kaplun was obliged to pay two thousand rubles to Benya, Baska’s fiancé. He was guilty of family pride - Kaplun from Privoznaya Square, he got rich from Constantinople olives, he did not spare Baskina’s first love, and therefore Benya Krik decided to take on the task of receiving two thousand rubles from Kaplun.
“I’ll take it upon myself, dad,” he told his future father-in-law, “God will help us, and we will punish all the grocers...
This was said at dawn, when the night had already passed, and here a new story begins, the story of the fall of the Kaplun house, the story of its slow death, of arson and night shooting. And all this - the fate of the arrogant Kaplun and the fate of the girl Baska - was decided that night when her father and her sudden fiancé walked along the Russian cemetery. The guys then dragged the girls behind the fences, and kisses were heard on the gravestones.
Lyubka Kazak
On Moldavanka, on the corner of Dalnitskaya and Balkovskaya streets, stands the house of Lyubka Shneyweis. Her house contains a wine cellar, an inn, an oatmeal shop and a dovecote for one hundred pairs of Kryukov and Nikolaev pigeons. These shops and plot number forty-six in the Odessa quarries belong to Lyubka Schneeweiss, nicknamed Lyubka Kazak, and only the dovecote is the property of the watchman Evzel, a retired soldier with a medal. On Sundays, Evzel goes out to Okhotnitskaya and sells pigeons to city officials and neighborhood boys. In addition to the watchman, Pesya-Mindel, a cook and pimp, and the manager Tsudechkis, a small Jew, similar in height and beard to our Moldavian rabbi Ben Zharya, also live in Lyubkin’s yard. I know many stories about Tsudechkis. The first of them is the story of how Tsudechkis became the manager of the inn of Lyubka, nicknamed Cossack.
About ten years ago, Tsudechkis bought a horse-driven thresher for one landowner and in the evening took the landowner to Lyubka to celebrate the purchase. The buyer wore a bean bag near his mustache and wore patent leather boots. Pesya-Mindle gave him stuffed Jewish fish for dinner and then a very nice young lady named Nastya. The landowner spent the night, and the next morning Evzel woke up Tsudechkis, curled up at the threshold of Lyubka’s room.
“Now,” said Evzel, “you boasted last night that the landowner bought a thresher through you, so be aware that, after spending the night, he ran away at dawn, like the very last one.” Now take out two rubles for an appetizer and four rubles for a young lady. Apparently you are a seasoned old man.
But Tsudechkis did not give the money. Evzel then pushed him into Lyubka’s room and locked him.
“Now,” said the watchman, “you will be here, and then Lyubka will come from the quarry and, with God’s help, will take the soul out of you.” Amen.
Convict,” Tsudechkis answered the soldier and began to look around in the new room, “you know nothing, convict, except your pigeons, and I also believe in God, who will lead me out of here, as he brought all the Jews out - first from Egypt and then from the desert...
The little broker still wanted to tell Evzel a lot, but the soldier took the key with him and left, rattling his boots. Then Tsudechkis turned around and saw the procurer Pesya-Mindle at the window, who was reading the book “Miracles and the Heart of the Baal Shem.” She was reading a Hasidic book with a gold edge and rocking an oak cradle with her foot. In this cradle Lyubkin’s son, Davidka, lay and cried.
“I see good things in this Sakhalin,” Tsudechkis said to Pese-Mindle, “here a child lies and is torn to pieces, it’s pathetic to watch, and you, a fat woman, sit like a stone in the forest, and cannot give him a pacifier...
“Give him a pacifier,” answered Dog-Mindle, without looking up from the book, “if only he will take this pacifier from you, the old deceiver, because he is already big, like a little cat, and only wants his mother’s milk, and his mother jumps all over him.” his quarries, drinks tea with the Jews at the Bear tavern, buys contraband in the harbor and thinks of his son as of last year’s snow...
Yes,” the little broker then said to himself, “you are in the pharaoh’s hands, Tsudechkis,” and he went to the eastern wall, muttered the entire morning prayer with additions, and then took the crying baby in his arms. David looked at him in bewilderment and waved his crimson legs in baby sweat, and the old man began to walk around the room and, swaying like a tzaddik in prayer, sang an endless song.
A-ah-ah,” he sang, “here’s blowing for all the children, and kalats for our David, so that he can sleep both day and night... Ah-ah-ah, here’s fists for all the children...
Tsudechkis showed Lyubka's son a fist with gray hair and began to repeat about blows and rolls until the boy fell asleep and until the sun reached the middle of the shining sky. It reached the middle and trembled like a fly, exhausted by the heat. Wild men from Nerubaisk and Tatarka, who stopped at Lyubkin's inn, crawled under the carts and fell asleep there in a wild, flooded sleep, a drunken workman went out to the gate and, scattering his plane and saw, fell to the ground, fell and snored in the middle of the world, covered in golden flies and blue lightning of July. Not far from him, in the cold, sat the wrinkled German colonists who had brought Lyubka wine from the Bessarabian border. They lit their pipes, and the smoke from their curved chibouks began to get tangled in the silver stubble of unshaven and senile cheeks. The sun hung from the sky like the pink tongue of a thirsty dog, the gigantic sea rolled into the Peresyp in the distance, and the masts of distant ships swayed on the emerald water of the Gulf of Odessa. Day sat in a decorated boat, day sailed towards evening, and towards evening, only at five o’clock, Lyubka returned from the city. She arrived on a roan horse with a big belly and a long mane. A guy with thick legs and a cotton shirt opened the gate for her, Evzel supported the bridle of her horse, and then Tsudechkis shouted to Lyubka from his confinement:
Respect to you, Madame Schneeweiss, and good afternoon. So you left for three years on business and threw a hungry child into my arms...
“Tsit, little mug,” Lyubka answered the old man and got off the saddle, “who is that gaping there in my window?”
“This is Tsudechkis, a seasoned old man,” the soldier with the medal answered the mistress and began to tell her the whole story with the landowner, but he did not finish telling it to the end, because the broker, interrupting him, screamed with all his might.
What impudence,” he squealed and threw down his yarmulke, “what impudence to throw someone else’s child into the arms and be lost for three years... Go give him the qiqiu...
“Here I am coming to you, swindler,” Lyubka muttered and ran to the stairs. She entered the room and took her breasts out of her dusty jacket.
The boy reached out to her, bit her monstrous nipple, but did not get milk. The vein on her forehead puffed out, and Tsudechkis said to her, shaking his skullcap:
You want to grab everything for yourself, greedy Lyubka; you drag the whole world towards you, like children dragging a tablecloth with bread crumbs; you want the first wheat and the first grapes; You want to bake white bread in the sun, but your little child, a child like a star, must choke without milk...
“What kind of milk is there,” the woman screamed and pressed her chest, “when the Plutarch arrived in the harbor today and I walked fifteen miles in the heat?.. And you, you sang a long song, old Jew, better give me six rubles...
But Tsudechkis again did not give the money. He unraveled his sleeve, exposed his hand, and thrust his thin, dirty elbow into Lyubka’s mouth.
“Choke, prisoner,” he said and spat in the corner. Lyubka held someone else’s elbow in her mouth, then took it out,
She locked the door and went into the yard. There Mr. Trottyburn was already waiting for her, looking like a column of red meat. Mr Trottyburn was chief engineer on the Plutarch. He brought two sailors with him to Lyubka. One of the sailors was English, the other was Malay. All three of them dragged contraband brought from Port Said into the yard. Their box was heavy, they dropped it on the ground, and cigars fell out of the box, entangled in Japanese silk. Many women ran to the box, and two newcomer gypsies, hesitating and rattling, began to enter from the side.
Be gone, galota! - Lyubka shouted to them and took the sailors into the shade under the acacia tree.
They sat down at the table there. Evezel served them wine, and Mr. Trottyburn unwrapped his wares. He took from the bale cigars and fine silks, cocaine and files, unbanded tobacco from Virginia and black wine bought on the island of Chios. Each product had a special price, each figure was washed down with Bessarabian wine, smelling of the sun and bedbugs. Twilight ran across the yard, twilight ran like an evening wave on a wide river, and the drunken Malay, full of surprise, touched Lyubka’s chest with his finger. He touched her with one finger, then with all his fingers in turn.
His yellow and tender eyes hung over the table, like paper lanterns on a Chinese street; he sang barely audibly and fell to the ground when Lyubka pushed him with her fist.
Look how well-educated he is,” Lyubka said about him to Mr. Trottyburn, “my last milk will be lost from this Malayan, but that Jew has already eaten me for this milk...
And she pointed to Tsudechkis, who was standing in the window, washing his socks. A small lamp was smoking in Tsudechkis’s room, his bowl was foaming and hissing, he leaned out of the window, feeling that they were talking about him, and screamed in despair.
Fight, people! - he shouted and waved his arms.
Tsit, mug! - Lyubka laughed. - Tsit!
She threw a stone at the old man, but missed the first time. The woman then grabbed an empty wine bottle. But Mr. Trottyburn, the chief engineer, took the bottle from her, aimed it, and hit it through the open window.
“Miss Lyubka,” said the senior mechanic, getting up, and he gathered his drunken legs to himself, “many worthy people come to me, Miss Lyubka, for goods, but I don’t give them to anyone, neither Mr. Kuninzon, nor Mr. Bath, nor Mr. Kupchik , to no one but you, because your conversation is pleasant to me, Miss Lyubka...
And, having established himself on trembling legs, he took his sailors, one Englishman, the other Malayan, by the shoulders, and went to dance with them across the frozen courtyard. The people from "Plutarch" - they danced in thoughtful silence. The orange star, having rolled down to the very edge of the horizon, looked at them with all its eyes. Then they received the money, held hands and went out into the street, swaying like a hanging lamp on a ship. From the street they could see the sea, the black water of the Odessa Bay, toy flags on sunken masts and piercing lights lit in the spacious depths. Lyubka accompanied the dancing guests to the move; She was left alone on an empty street, laughed at her thoughts and returned home. A sleepy guy in a cotton shirt locked the gate behind her, Evzel brought the housewife the day's earnings, and she went upstairs to sleep. There Pesya-Mindle, the pimp, was already dozing, and Tsudechkis was rocking the oak cradle with his bare feet.
How you tortured us, shameless Lyubka,” he said and took the child from the cradle, “but learn from me, vile mother...
He put a small comb to Lyubka's chest and laid his son in her bed. The child reached out to his mother, pricked himself on the comb and began to cry. Then the old man slipped him a pacifier, but Davidka turned away from the pacifier.
Why are you casting a spell on me, old rogue? - Lyubka muttered, falling asleep.
Be silent, vile mother! - Tsudechkis answered her. - Be silent and learn so that you disappear...
The child again pricked himself on the comb; he hesitantly took the pacifier and began to suck on it.
“Here,” Tsudechkis said and laughed, “I excommunicated your child, learn from me so that you disappear...
Davidka lay in the cradle, sucking a pacifier and drooling blissfully. Lyubka woke up, opened her eyes and closed them again. She saw her son and the moon breaking through her window. The moon jumped in the black clouds like a lost calf.
Well, okay,” Lyubka said then, “open the door for Tsudechkis, Dog-Mindle, and let him come tomorrow for a pound of American tobacco...
And the next day Tsudechkis came for a pound of unbanded tobacco from Virginia. He received it and a quarter of tea to boot. And a week later, when I came to Evzel to buy pigeons, I saw a new manager at Lyubkin’s yard. He was tiny, like a rabbi, our Ben Zharya. Tsudechkis was the new manager.
He remained in his position for fifteen years, and during that time I learned many stories about him. And, if I can, I will tell them all in order, because they are very interesting stories.
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel (1894-1940)
Autobiography:
Born in 1894 in Odessa, on Moldavanka, the son of a Jewish merchant.
Life was difficult at home, because from morning to night they forced me to study many sciences. I was resting at school. My school was called Odessa Commercial School named after Emperor Nicholas I...
Then, after graduating from college, I found myself in Kyiv and in 1915 in St. Petersburg. Then, in 1915, I began to distribute my works to editorial offices, but I was driven from everywhere, all the editors convinced me to go to a shop somewhere, but I did not listen to them and at the end of 1916 I ended up with Gorky. And so - I owe everything to this meeting and still pronounce the name of Alexei Maksimovich with love and reverence. He published my first stories in the November book “Chronicles” for 1916...
From 1917 to 1924 - went into public life. During this time, I was a soldier on the Romanian front, then I served in the Cheka, in the People's Commissariat for Education, in the food expeditions of 1918, in the Northern Army against Yudenich, in the First Cavalry Army, in the Odessa Gubernia Committee, and was a publisher in the 7th Soviet printing house in Odessa, was a reporter in St. Petersburg and Tiflis, etc. It was only in 1923 that I learned to express my thoughts clearly and not at very long length.
I therefore date the beginning of my literary work to the beginning of 1924, when my stories “Salt”, “Letter”, “The Death of Dolgushov”, “The King”, etc. appeared.
* * *
Isaac Babel lived and worked in the era of the cult of personality, a period that had a heavy impact both on Russian literature as a whole and on the fate of the writer himself. In 1939, Babel was arrested and soon executed. But, despite such a short life path, neither Russian nor world literature is unthinkable today without his work.
Babel's stories combine the lyrical and the ironic, the high and the low, love and hate, the funny and the scary.
* * *
IN Odessa stories Babel has so much humor, so many subtle and accurate observations that the profession of the main character recedes into the background. Their plot is the formation of the hero-storyteller against the backdrop of life in pre-revolutionary Odessa.
The location of “Odessa Stories” is Moldavanka. The time is on the eve of revolution. The heroes of the stories are Odessa Jews: binders, shopkeepers, bandits and smugglers with numerous families - household members, children and the elderly.
In fact, the characters are so closely connected with each other in Babel’s stories that they seem like one family - noisy, scandalous, the story of which is recounted by the narrator.
In the center of the composition is Benya Krik - the son of a binder, a fearless bandit-extortionist, the king of the raiders, fighting on an equal footing not only with his rivals, but also with the state, with the Odessa police.
QUOTES and PHRASES from Babel's Odessa stories
Forget for a while that you have glasses on your nose and autumn in your soul.Stop arguing at your desk and stuttering in public.
Imagine for a moment that you are rowdy in public squares and stutter on paper.
You are a tiger, you are a lion, you are a cat.
You can spend the night with a Russian woman, and the Russian woman will be satisfied with you.
You are twenty-five years old.
If there were rings attached to the sky and the earth, you would grab these rings and pull the sky to the earth...
Take my words with you and start walking...
Benya says little, but he speaks with gusto.
He doesn't say much, but I want him to say something more.
And he made a speech. Everyone who wanted to listen heard it...
There are people already doomed to death, and there are people who have not yet begun to live...
There are people who know how to drink vodka, and there are people who don’t know how to drink vodka, but still drink it.
And so the former receive pleasure from grief and joy, while the latter suffer for all those who drink vodka without knowing how to drink it.
I'm surprised when a person does something humane
and when he does crazy things, I'm not surprised.
If a Russian person has a good character, then this is truly a luxury...
“Where does the police begin,” he yelled, “and where does Benya end?”
“The police end where Benya begins,” reasonable people answered...
Do you believe in God?
- Let the one who won two hundred thousand believe in God...
On this earth - oh, woe to us! - there is no woman who would not be mad in those moments when her fate is decided...
My brain and my hair stood on end when I heard this news.
Meanwhile, misfortune was hanging around under the windows, like a beggar at dawn.
Misfortune burst into the office noisily.
And although this time it took on the image of the Jew Savka Butsis, it was drunk as a water carrier...
Are words needed here? There was a man and there is no man.
An innocent bachelor lived like a bird on a branch - and now he died through stupidity.
A Jew who looked like a sailor came and shot not at some surprise bottle, but at a living person.
Are words needed here?..
Now you know everything...
You know everything... But what's the use if you still have glasses on your nose, but there's autumn in your soul?..
(quotes from Odessa stories)
* * *
The first story, “The King,” is the story of two weddings. Benya Krik marries the daughter of old man Eichbaum and then marries his overripe sister Dvoira. The police, led by a new bailiff, intending to disrupt the wedding, are forced instead to save the police station, which is set on fire by Beni's people...
The wedding was over, the rabbi sank into a chair, then he left the room and saw tables set up along the entire length of the courtyard. There were so many of them that they stuck their tails out of the gate onto Hospital Street. Tables covered with velvet curled around the courtyard like snakes with patches of all colors on their bellies, and they sang in deep voices - patches of orange and red velvet.
The apartments were converted into kitchens. A fat flame, a drunken and plump flame, was blazing through the smoky doors. Its smoky rays baked old women's faces, women's shaking chins, and dirty breasts. Sweat, pink as blood, pink as the foam of a mad dog, flowed around these piles of overgrown, sweetly stinking human flesh. Three cooks, not counting the dishwashers, were preparing the wedding dinner, and over them reigned the eighty-year-old Reizl, traditional as a Torah scroll, tiny and hunchbacked.
Before dinner, a young man unknown to the guests wandered into the yard. He asked Benya Krik. He took Benya Krik aside.
“Listen, King,” said the young man, “I have a few words to tell you.” Aunt Hana sent me with Kostetskaya...
“Well, okay,” answered Benya Krik, nicknamed the King, “what are these couple of words?”
“A new bailiff arrived at the station yesterday, Aunt Hana told you to tell me...
“I knew about it the day before yesterday,” answered Benya Krik. - Further.
— The bailiff gathered the police station and gave a speech to the police station...
“The new broom sweeps cleanly,” answered Benya Krik. - He wants a raid. Further…
- Do you know when the raid will take place, King?
- She will be there tomorrow.
- King, she will be there today.
-Who told you this, boy?
- Aunt Hana said that. Do you know Aunt Hana?
“The bailiff gathered the station and gave them a speech. “We must strangle Benya Krik,” he said, “because where there is a sovereign emperor, there is no king. Today, when Creek is marrying off his sister and they will all be there, today we need to make a raid ... "
“Then the spies began to be afraid. They said: if we make a raid today, when it’s his holiday, Benya will get angry and a lot of blood will flow out. So the bailiff said: pride is dearer to me...
“Well, go,” answered the King.
— What should I tell Aunt Hana about the raid?
- Say: Benya knows about the raid.
And he left, this young man. He was followed by about three of Ben's friends. They said they would be back in half an hour. And they returned half an hour later. That's all.
People did not sit at the table according to seniority. Stupid old age is no less pathetic than cowardly youth. And not by wealth. The lining of the heavy wallet is made of tears.
The bride and groom sat in first place at the table. This is their day. In second place sat Sender Eichbaum, the King's father-in-law. It's his right. The story of Sender Eichbaum is worth knowing because it is not a simple story.
How did Benya Krik, the raider and king of the raiders, become Eichbaum's son-in-law? How did he become the son-in-law of a man who had sixty milk cows without one? It's all about the raid. Just a year ago, Benya wrote a letter to Eichbaum.
“Monsieur Eichbaum,” he wrote, “please place, please, tomorrow morning under the gate at 17 Sofiyevskaya, twenty thousand rubles. If you don’t do this, something unheard of will await you, and all of Odessa will be talking about you. With respect, Benya the King."
Three letters, one clearer than the other, remained unanswered. Then Benya took action. They came at night - nine people with long sticks in their hands. The sticks were wrapped in tarred tow. Nine blazing stars lit up the Eichbaum barnyard. Benya took the locks off the barn and began to take the cows out one by one. A guy with a knife was waiting for them. He knocked over the cow with one blow and plunged the knife into the cow's heart. On the ground, drenched in blood, torches bloomed like fiery roses and shots rang out. Benya used shots to drive away the workers who had come running to the barn. And after him, other raiders began to shoot in the air, because if you don’t shoot in the air, you can kill a person. And so, when the sixth cow fell with its death moo at the King’s feet, then Eichbaum ran out into the yard in his underpants and asked:
- What will happen from this, Benya?
“If I don’t have money, you won’t have cows, Monsieur Eichbaum.” That's twice two.
— Go into the room, Benya.
And indoors they agreed. The slaughtered cows were divided in half, Eichbaum was guaranteed immunity and was given a stamped certificate. But the miracle came later.
During the raid, on that terrible night, when the pinned cows mooed and the heifers slid in their mother's blood, when the torches danced like black maidens, and the milkmaids shied away and squealed at the gunpoints of friendly Brownings - on that terrible night, she ran out into the yard in a cut-out shirt, the daughter of old man Eichbaum - Tsilya. And the King's victory became his defeat.
Two days later, Benya, without warning, returned to Eichbaum all the money taken from him and then came for a visit in the evening. He was dressed in an orange suit, with a diamond bracelet shining under his cuff; he entered the room, said hello and asked Eichbaum for the hand of his daughter Tsili. The old man suffered a slight blow, but he got up. The old man still had about twenty years of life left in him.
“Listen, Eichbaum,” the King told him, “when you die, I will bury you in the first Jewish cemetery, right at the gate.” I will erect for you, Eichbaum, a monument made of pink marble. I will make you the headman of the Brodsky synagogue. I will give up my specialty, Eichbaum, and join your business as a partner. We will have two hundred cows, Eichbaum. I will kill all the milkmen except you. A thief will not walk along the street where you live. I will build you a dacha at the sixteenth station... And remember, Eichbaum, you weren’t a rabbi in your youth either. Who forged the will, let’s not talk about it loudly?.. And your son-in-law will be a King, not a brat, but a King, Eichbaum...
And he achieved his goal, Benya Krik, because he was passionate, and passion rules over the worlds. The newlyweds lived for three months in lush Bessarabia, among grapes, abundant food and the sweat of love. Then Benya returned to Odessa in order to marry off his forty-year-old sister Dvoira, who was suffering from Graves' disease. And now, having told the story of Sender Eichbaum, we can return to the wedding of Dvoira Krik, the King’s sister.
At this wedding, turkey, fried chicken, geese, stuffed fish and fish soup, in which lemon lakes shone like mother-of-pearl, were served for dinner. Flowers swayed like lush plumes above the dead goose heads. But is it possible that fried chicken is washed ashore by the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea?
All the noblest of our contraband, all that the earth is famous for from end to end, did its destructive, its seductive work on that starry, that blue night. The foreign wine warmed the stomachs, sweetly broke the legs, stupefied the brains and caused belching, sonorous as the call of a battle trumpet. The black cook from the Plutarch, which arrived on the third day from Port Said, carried pot-bellied bottles of Jamaican rum, oily Madeira, cigars from the plantations of Pierpont Morgan and oranges from the outskirts of Jerusalem beyond the customs line. This is what the foamy surf of the Odessa Sea washes ashore, this is what Odessa beggars sometimes get at Jewish weddings. They got Jamaican rum at Dvoyra Creek's wedding, and so, having drunk like club pigs, the Jewish beggars began to bang their crutches deafeningly. Eichbaum, having loosened his vest, looked around the raging meeting with narrowed eyes and hiccuped lovingly. The orchestra played tunes. It was like a division review. Touche - nothing but touche. The raiders, sitting in close ranks, were at first embarrassed by the presence of strangers, but then they dispersed. Lyova Katsap broke a bottle of vodka on his beloved’s head, Monya the Artilleryman fired into the air. But the delight reached its limits when, according to the custom of the old days, the guests began to give gifts to the newlyweds. The synagogue shames jumped up on the tables and chanted the number of donated rubles and silver spoons to the sounds of the bubbling carcass. And then the King’s friends showed what blue blood and the still unextinguished Moldavian knighthood were worth. With a careless movement of their hands they threw gold coins, rings, and coral threads onto silver trays.
Moldavian aristocrats, they were clad in crimson vests, red jackets covered their shoulders, and their fleshy legs had bursting skin the color of heavenly azure.
Straightening up to their full height and sticking out their bellies, the bandits clapped to the beat of the music, shouted “bitterly” and threw flowers to the bride, and she, forty-year-old Dvoira, sister of Benny Krik, sister of the King, disfigured by illness, with an overgrown goiter and eyes bulging out of her sockets, sat on a mountain of pillows next to a frail boy, bought with Eichbaum’s money and numb with melancholy.
The ritual of gifting was coming to an end, the shames became hoarse, and the double bass did not get along with the violin. A sudden light smell of burning wafted across the courtyard.
“Benya,” said Papa Krik, an old bandit worker who was known among the bandit workers as a brute, “Benya, do you know that it’s mine?” It seems to me that soot is burning here...
“Daddy,” the King answered his drunken father, “please have a drink and a snack, don’t let this nonsense bother you...
And Father Creek followed his son’s advice. He ate and drank. But the cloud of smoke became more and more poisonous. Somewhere the edges of the sky were already turning pink. And a tongue of flame, as narrow as a sword, shot into the heights. The guests, standing up, began to sniff the air, and the women squealed. The raiders then looked at each other. And only Benya, who did not notice anything, was inconsolable.
“They’re ruining Mina’s holiday,” he shouted, full of despair, “darlings, I ask you, have a snack and a drink...
But at this time the same young man who came at the beginning of the evening appeared in the yard.
“King,” he said, “I have a few words to tell you...
“Well, speak up,” answered the King, “you always have a couple of words in stock...
“King,” said the unknown young man and chuckled, “this is downright funny, the site is burning like a candle...
The shopkeepers were speechless. The raiders grinned. Sixty-year-old Manka, the ancestor of the suburban bandits, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled so shrilly that her neighbors swayed.
“Manya, you’re not at work,” Benya remarked to her, “in cold blood, Manya...”
The young man who brought this amazing news was still laughing.
“They left the site about forty people,” he said, moving his jaws, “and went on a raid; So they walked about fifteen steps away when it was already on fire... Run and look if you want...
But Benya forbade the guests to go and look at the fire. He set off with two comrades. The area was regularly ablaze on four sides. The policemen, shaking their butts, ran up the smoke-filled stairs and threw chests out of the windows. The arrested people fled amid the noise. The firefighters were full of zeal, but there was no water in the nearby tap. The bailiff - the same broom that sweeps cleanly - stood on the opposite sidewalk and bit the mustache that was growing into his mouth. The new broom stood motionless. Benya, passing by the bailiff, gave him a military salute.
“Good health, your honor,” he said sympathetically. - What do you say to this misfortune? This is a nightmare...
He stared at the burning building, shook his head and smacked his lips:
- Ah ah ah…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And when Benya returned home, the lanterns in the yard had already gone out and the sky was dawning. The guests left, and the musicians dozed with their heads on the handles of their double basses. Only Dvoira was not going to sleep. With both hands she pushed her timid husband towards the door of their marriage room and looked at him carnivorously, like a cat that, holding a mouse in its mouth, lightly tastes it with its teeth.