Joseph Roth - Tarabas

“Kontsev,” Tarabas began, and it was the first time he had talked so to his sergeant-major, “my dear old Kontsev, our regiment’s no good. The general told me so today, but we two knew it without that, didn’t we, my Kontsev? My good old Kontsev, there’s nothing to be done about it, we’ll have to let the bad half go tomorrow. And we must get them drunk.”

“Yes, sir,” Kontsev answered him. “We’ll get them drunk, and we’ll get rid of them all right. We’ll get their guns and things away from them. And their ammunition too,” he said after a while, by way of special consolation. He was a good ten years older and two inches taller than Colonel Tarabas, and his manner now was very fatherly.

“Remember the war, Kontsev,” said the colonel. “That was a grand time, wasn’t it? No collecting regiments then. Just shooting, that’s all — and you either got through or you kicked the bucket. Quite simple. Wasn’t it, Kontsev?”

“Yes, it was,” said the colossus. “The war! That was something like! We’ll not have another one though, not while we’re alive — never any more!”

“It was splendid!” said Tarabas.

“Glorious!” Kontsev confirmed him.

“We’ll let them off the march tomorrow,” said Tarabas. “We’ll say the general has given them a day off for drinking. Let them begin at six in the morning. In the evening we’ll get them away under escort.”

“We have four lorries,” Kontsev agreed. “Best go back now, sir.” And once more, bent to a good inch less than nature had made him, he accompanied Colonel Tarabas back to the inn parlour.

“Let me embrace you, Kontsev,” said Tarabas on the threshold. But Kontsev stepped smartly in front of him, pushed open the door, and stood immovable in the doorway until Tarabas had entered. Thereupon he saluted, and with a single giant stride was gone. For a while the tread of his mighty boots could still be heard tramping about in the dark ground of the yard.

Tarabas sat down again at his table, and there he remained, while in front of him the glasses formed up in a row like glittering soldiers on parade. Gradually the officers, one after another, left the room, each with a silent salute to the colonel. Alone at his table Tarabas sat on. Behind the counter sat the inn-keeper Kristianpoller.

It was obvious that Colonel Tarabas had no intention of getting up again that night. On the wall above the bar Kristianpoller’s clock struck hour after hour. In between, one heard only its steady iron ticking, and the regular, hob-nailed footsteps of the sentinel in the yard outside. Each time Colonel Tarabas raised his glass to his lips, Kristianpoller started out of his doze and prepared to fill the next one. More sinister even than the ceaselessly drinking Tarabas seemed to him the perfect silence of this night; it weighed upon him so intolerably that he was positively glad when Tarabas moved to take up his glass and set it down again. From time to time both men glanced towards the window, at the narrow square of the starry, dark blue sky. Then their eyes would meet. And the more often their eyes encountered each other, the more intimate the two men seemed to become.

“Yes, yes, Jew, I know!” said the eyes of Colonel Tarabas. And “Yes, yes, you poor hero, I too!” said the Jew Kristianpoller’s one sound eye.

DAY broke. A fine day. It rose with gentle indifference out of soft mists. Kristianpoller was the first to wake. He had fallen asleep behind his counter; he could not remember at what hour. Colonel Tarabas was with him still. He was asleep. He was snoring powerfully, his head upon his folded arms sprawled across the table, with the glittering empty glasses now a disorderly rout in front of him. The colonel’s broad, now slightly stooping back rose and fell with the heavy breaths he drew. Kristianpoller contemplated the sleeping Tarabas, wondering whether he should dare to take it upon himself to wake him. The clock above the counter said half-past eight. Kristianpoller remembered the tired, gentle, kindly expression which had shone out of the drunken eyes of Colonel Tarabas in the small hours of that night, and crossed resolutely to the table. He touched the shoulder of the terrible one with a timid finger. Tarabas jumped up at once, cheerful, even gay. His sleep had been short, uncomfortable, and very deep. He felt strong. He was in excellent spirits. He ordered tea. He shouted for his orderly, stretched out his legs to have his boots polished while he drank, bit into an enormous slice of bread and butter, and with his mouth still full called for a mirror, which the Jew Kristianpoller took down from the wall and brought to the table, where he stood holding it up to Tarabas.

“Shave!” cried Tarabas. And his orderly brought soap and razor, and Tarabas fitted his red nape into the hard back of the chair. While he was being shaved, he whistled cheerful tunes which he made up as he went along, slapping out the time against his great thighs. The day shone ever brighter and more golden.

“Open the window!” commanded Tarabas.

Through the open window the early but already dense blue of the autumn sky streamed into the room. The merry chatter of the sparrows filled the air as on a warm day before the spring has really come. It seemed as though there was not going to be a winter that year at all.

It was not until he came out into the yard and found his sergeant-major and five of his men already gone, that Tarabas remembered that this was a day on which unusual events were to be expected. He left the inn.

He found the single long main street of Koropta in a state of unwonted animation. In front of their little shops the Jewish shop-keepers had set out their wares on chairs and tables and wooden boxes. There were glass beads, imitation corals, fancy paper in dark-blue, gold, and silver, long scarlet sticks of sweets, cotton aprons ablaze with flowers, gleaming sickles, large pocket-knives with pink wooden handles, kerchiefs for women’s heads in Turkish colours and designs. Little peasant carts moved peaceably along in single file, as though strung on a thread, all the way down the street; here and there one of their little horses neighed, and the pigs lying helpless, fastened by their hind legs in the carts and barrows, grunted into the morning, doleful and happy at the same time.

“What’s all this?” asked Tarabas.

“Friday and pig-market!” answered his orderly.

“My horse!” commanded Tarabas.

Something about it all disturbed his ease. He did not like this Friday, he did not like this pig-market either. If he were to walk to the barracks as he did on other days, something untoward might easily happen on the way. He would have loved to make one sweep of the hand in passing and send the shop-keepers’ whole display tumbling from the high, wooden sidewalks down into the low road, under the wheels of the peasants’ little carts. He could feel a huge rage brewing in him. Friday! He would rather have ridden the whole Friday through, trampled it out of existence under his horse’s hoofs. He mounted and rode among the peasant vehicles, exploding now and then with a thunderous oath when they failed to make way for him in time, sometimes spitting with sure and skilful aim at the unconscious nape of some peasant’s neck moving along in front of him, sometimes tickling the terrified face of another with the thong of his leather riding-crop.

Arrived at the barracks, he saw at the first glance that his good Kontsev had done his duty. The barrels of beer and spirits which had come in on the morning train stood in two rows against the wall of the yard with five of his own men on guard beside them. It was a holiday for everyone. The officers were gathered in the shed of fresh planks which, since Tarabas’s arrival there, had served as the mess. Their talkative, resounding laughter could be heard from afar. Kontsev appeared and saluted, saying nothing. It was a perfectly wordless, throughly eloquent report. Tarabas understood, left him standing, and went on. The men and non-commissioned officers lay or squatted about on the ground. The sun shone down upon the bare yard with ever more benevolence and warmth. Everyone was waiting in a mood of cheerfulness, contentment, and holiday.