The Name of Hero was published by Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin in 1981. The rights have reverted to the author, Richard Seltzer. He grants permission to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies for non-commercial purposes provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
This historical novel is based on the life of Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian who was an explorer in Ethiopia, a cavalry officer during Russia's conquest of Manchuria in 1900, and later, as a monk at Mount Athos, led a group of "heretics" who challenged the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, asserting the divinity of the Name of God.
You can buy this book in hardcover:
The
Name of Hero by Richard Seltzer. an historical novel based
on the life of Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian who was an explorer in Ethiopia,
and a cavalry officer during Russia's conquest of Manchuria in 1900. Later,
as a monk at Mount Athos, he led a group of "heretics" who challenged the
hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, asserting the divinity of the
Name of God.
You can also buy it on CD ROM with the author's other works:
Everything
But the Internet gathers the complete non-Internet
works of Richard Seltzer on CD, in plain text, with software that lets
you listen as well as read. It includes: The Name of Hero, Ethiopia Through
Russian Eyes, The Lizard of Oz, Without a Myth, Spit and Polish, Mercy,
Rights Crossing, short stories, articles, book reviews, and poems.
You'll find related materials at www.samizdat.com/readers.html#ethiopia
Kupferman and Strakhov didn't know what to make of him or how much to believe or what he said. He seemed to have quite a capacity for invention, but he was willing to talk; and he did, apparently, know a few things about Bulatovich, enough at least to prompt them to break their own rules and serve him vodka. They treated him like a hero, listening again and again to his escape story and inquiring, in passing, about Bulatovich.
"They say that you are one of his favorites," said Strakhov, deliberately flattering him, trying to lead him hon.
"Yes," said Butorin proudly, "me and Starodubov and Shemelin and Login Zabelin, whatever's become of him. We haven't seen him now for two days, not since he was sent up that mountain to stand lookout."
"And why is he so brave?" asked Strakhov, somewhat annoyed by all the digressions.
"He knows what he's about, that Login. He's young, no more than thirty, but he acts like one with many years of experience. Cool courage he has, not hot daring. Hot comes and goes. One day a hero, next day a coward. Cool you can count on."
"Yes, I'm sure this man Login you speak of is a brave man. But Bulatovich, tell us about Bulatovich."
"He, too, is brave. But such bravery I've never seen before. Like hot, like scalding hot, but always it's there. Once I asked him, I said, 'Why do you do these things? For me, I have no family, no yesterday, no tomorrow. Besides, I'm crazy. Sometimes I do things not for women or drink or money; I don't know why. But you with your fine education and your fancy regiment, you have much to live for. Why are you so brave?'
"And he laughed and said to me, 'Oh, I'm not really brave. An Ethiopian general once told me, "You're bold and daring, but true bravery comes only with experience." Yes, Alyosha -- he calls me Alyosha -- 'I need more experience.'
"And I told him, 'General, you say? And he expects bravery greater than yours? Much I pity his enemies.'"
"Indeed," noted Strakhov, pouring him another drink. "Bulatovich is a fine soldier, as you are, too... Alyosha. And we want to know more about our fine soldiers. Come visit us often. We'll drink a little, talk a little. You'll tell us about yourself, about Bulatovich."
"Yes," added Kupferman, "ask Bulatovich about his women. I am very curious."
Butorin laughed, "Always I enjoy talking about women." He proposed a toast. "to women and to Mazeppy!"
"Mazeppy?" asked Kupferman. "What is this Mazeppy?"
"Bulatovich is Mazeppa. Starodubov names him 'Mazeppa,'" explained Butorin, pouring himself more vodka. "So men of Bulatovich are 'Mazeppy.'"
"Mazeppa? They call him Mazeppa?" asked Kupferman.
"The Battle of Poltava," interjected Strakhov. "Ukrainian and Swede against Peter the Great. Mazeppa was a traitor, a rebel, a Ukrainian nationalist.'
"You don't have to explain, Major." Kupferman's voice was frosty. "Pushkin and Byron both wrote long poems about him. Mazeppa had a weakness for women. Like I said before, this man's a puzzle -- why he's here, why he takes the risks he takes -- and the answer is surely a woman."
Butorin watched warily, drinking with abandon the fine vodka they offered him, but weighing his words carefully before speaking them. He was no fool. He knew they were no friends of Bulatovich. But he could hold his liquor, and he saw no reason to pass up free drinks, so long as he kept his wits about him. "You make too much of this name," he said. "We like the sound, that's all. Besides, it's Starodubov's doing. And who can take Starodubov's names seriously? He calls a spendthrift 'Jew' and a celibate 'Father.'"
"But there's got to be a reason," insisted Kupferman, "a reason for the name, a reason for his unnatural bravery. And I believe that some scandal regarding a woman is at the bottom of it."
"Ah, no, sir," suggested Butorin cautiously. "Women he may have and trouble, too. But that's no answer to his fearlessness in battle."
"Then what is the answer?" asked Kupferman.
"It's witchcraft," answered Butorin, taking a long slow swallow and savoring the surprise on their faces. "Some deviltry he picked up in Africa."
"Witchcraft?" asked Kupferman in disbelief.
"At first I thought he was crazy, the risks he takes," explained Butorin, almost convincing himself as he spun his tale.
"But it's not natural, I tell you. Any ordinary man would be dead ten times over. Bullets turn around in midair to miss him. I've seen it with my own eyes. That's not bravery -- that's witchcraft."
Meanwhile the other Mazeppy sat by a nearby campfire. A new set of scouts had just returned form the mountain, where they had been unable to find any trace of Login or the men who had gone with him to stand lookout. Butorin, who had stood guard at a listening post in that vicinity, might have some clue as to their fate or whereabouts, but no one, aside from Strakhov and Kupferman, had had a chance to talk to him since he arrived.
"Hey, Jew!" Sofronov shouted, to break the tension.
Shemelin jumped to his feet, fists clenched.
Everyone but Shemelin broke out laughing. Baiting Shemelin had quickly become a standing joke among them. This time it took their minds off Login and the other two scouts who had been stranded up on the mountain. Too quickly, the laughter died down. Shemelin stood there a moment longer, rather pointlessly. Everyone was starting through the dark toward the mountain.
Just then, Butorin finally emerged from the tarantass, a broad grin on his long roguish fact.
"Where is my brother?" asked Pyotr anxiously.
"What happened out there?" asked Bulatovich.
"How did you get away alive?" asked Starodubov.
Butorin strode dramatically to the campfire. The fire's light cast shifting upward shadows, giving his features a hellish look. Everyone stared at him expectantly. He chuckled inwardly at the effect his silence had on the crowd. Then he launched into his tale.
"I was standing lookout near the foot of the mountain. Hundreds of Chinese must have slipped by, without me seeing them or them seeing me, when the night was at its darkest, before the moon rose. They must have been getting ready for their surprise attack on you back here at Hailar. I heard them before I saw them, jabbering away in whispers. I couldn't make out the words, but I could tell they were all around me. I dropped to my belly and crawled, as quietly as I could, to a nearby ditch. When I reached the ditch, there was a group of them not more than ten paces away. Slowing and quietly, I burrowed my way into the ditch, scraping away sand and soft dirt at the bottom to make it deeper. The moon was due to rise any minute. I covered myself with whatever I could lay my hands on quickly -- straw, sand, and, I was lucky, there was some fresh horse manure right there; I used that too.
"You laugh? You think I'm some sort of fool? Well, think again. Who would look closely at a pile of horse manure? I couldn't have hoped for better camouflage.
"I lay there motionless, through the chills of night. At dawn I heard shots in the distance, hundreds of them, but I didn't dare move. The Chinese had set up a campsite not more than twenty paces from where I lay.
"All day, through the scalding midday sun, I lay there, without food, without water. And I was close enough to hear their every word, to hear the water they spilt carelessly on the ground, to hear the food sizzling over the campfire.
"Once a horse nudged me. I thought that any moment he'd be trampling my back. But I was lucky. The horse just dumped some fresh manure on my back and t rotted off.
"That night it got cold again. I couldn't hear any voices, couldn't hear the crackle of the campfire anymore. I was crazy with hunger and thirst, so I dared to raise my eyes. The ashes of the campfire still glowed, but there was no sign of the Chinese. I raised my head farther and spotted in the distance the grove and the temple on the hilltop outlined by the moonlight. I crawled toward it, figuring that was the direction where you would be, if you were still alive.
"I spotted a Chinese sentry, crawled away to avoid him, and came upon another, and another. I figured I must be inside a chain of sentry posts. My strength was giving out. I had no choice but to kill one of them, quietly, and make a run for it. I took out my knife and crept slowly, making no more noise than the breeze flowing that night. After half an hour, I was halfway to him; then I slowed still more, stopping often. Finally, when I was within three paces and could not risk getting any nearer, I jumped. With one hand I covered his mouth and with the other I drove the knife into his throat from behind, being sure to avoid the heavy knots of his pigtail. Quickly, I drove the blade clear round, cutting the windpipe. When his head ripped off in my hands, I knew he couldn't scream.
"Then I crept, crawled, staggered to my feet, half running, half falling, losing all sense of direction. It was then that I saw Login."
Pyotr jumped. "You saw my brother?" Butorin restrained a laugh. He hadn't had this much attention in years, and he loved attention. He had invented that detail for effect and now wanted to play it for all it was worth.
"Don't just sit there!" shouted Pyotr. "You said you saw my brother. Where? Where is he?"
"There," Butorin pointed, and everyone looked in that direction as if they expected to see him appear at any moment.
"Where?" asked Pyotr, exasperated.
"There. There I tell you. In the moon."
"What?"
"maybe it was having held that head in my hands that did it. That and the full moon. The moon was just behind the hill with the grove and the temple, where I was heading. And suddenly the moon had the face of Login. I swear it. I saw Login's head floating there in the sky, his severed heard. The eyes were open wide, like they had no eyelids. And the mouth seemed about to open. But I didn't wait to hear what he might say. I just ran in the other direction, until I stumbled on Orlov and his troops."
"If that's a joke," said Sofronov, "it's in very bad taste."
No one else said a word. They just sat, staring at the fire or the moon or at their own feet and hands, as quiet as they had been on their way back from Urdingi, when Aksyonov was dying and screaming.
Bulatovich remembered something Molchanov had told him. "It's what people want to believe that they believe, and what they believe governs what they do. They'd rather believe in ghosts and supernatural powers than in the finality of death."
The first light of dawn revealed dozens of large gray eagles soaring around and around the grove and the nearby temple. General Orlov was in a jubilant mood. The Chinese army had withdrawn during the night. The detachment celebrated and prepared to move to more comfortable quarters in the city -- all except the Mazeppy, who moved about listlessly, staring now and again at the eagles.
The bodies of men and horses had all been quickly buried the day before, to avoid the rotting stench they had had to put up with at Ongun.
There had been no fighting in the grove. The Chinese apparently had avoided it out of religious respect. But the
scavenger birds spoke of death.
Finally, Bulatovich ordered, "Starodubov, Shemelin, Butorin, come quickly. It's probably just the carcass of a horse."
As they got close, their horses became restless, perhaps sensing their riders' concern, perhaps sensing something their riders could not yet see.
The temple was empty.
Butorin walked boldly ahead. He was proud of the story he had told, proud of the superstitious fears he seemed to have aroused in his comrades. He was so proud of himself that he nearly tripped.
A pair of binoculars, lenses smashed, lay in the middle of the path. He bent down to pick them up and saw three headless bodies -- Russian soldiers without heads. He fell to his knees laughing hysterically.
The heads were nowhere in sight.
The Mazeppy held a special funeral that night. Bulatovich had agreed that everything should be in accord with the wishes of Login's brothers. They wanted cremation, not burial for their brother, harking back to the early days of the Old Believers, in the seventeenth century. Back then, believing the changes in ritual that were being forced on them by the Church hierarchy and the State were the work of the Anti-Christ and that the end of the world was at hand, tens of thousands of them had burned themselves to death, gathering in their local churches and setting fire to the buildings, chanting psalms and prayers and passages from Revelation as the flames closed in on them.
"'Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed,'" intoned Trofim, reciting with authority the few passages he knew from Revelation.
Several campfires cast conflicting shadows across the Mazeppy, across the sandy hilltop, across the headless corpses, across Trofim himself -- arms outstretched, beard thrust forward, reciting the story of the Apocalypse like a prophet intoning the dread words for the first time. The full moon hung fire-orange on the horizon.
"'Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded...'" Trofim continued staring wildly at Butorin.
Butorin stared back, startled that the precise words of the Bible so matched the present situation. An eerie coincidence.
Trofim changed his voice to distinguish his own improvisations from the exact words of Revelation, to avoid any confusion that might make him subject to the curse called own upon anyone who should alter or add to the words of that Holy Writ. "Praise be to the Lord our God, who gives us signs of the End," he improvised. "Praise to the Lord, the giver of dreams that speak Truth, who makes prophets even of liars to confuse the godless. For the Lord God is with us and in us and verily all things, even suffering and death, come from the Lord.
"I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded," Trofim quoted again, "for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God and who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.
"Praise to our martyred brother!" he improvised again. "He died in a holy case, fighting heathen who slaughter innocent Christians and missionaries. Praise to him, for it is written that such as he -- beheaded in a holy war for Christ -- will come to live and reign with Christ a thousand years.
"The rest of the dead will not come to life until the thousand years are ended," he continued in his somber quotation voice. "This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Chris, and they shall reign with him a thousand years." Trofim fell silent, as if in a trance.
Starodubov stood close to Pyotr and watched him carefully, looking for some sign of emotion. The young boy stood stock still, the little wisps of would-be beard reflecting in the firelight. He had asked no question and shed no tears. Only a deep furrow was forming over his left brow. "Do you share your brother Trofim's beliefs?" asked Starodubov softly.
"God didn't do this," muttered Pyotr. "I pray to God that God did not do this. How could I revenge my brother's death if God did it?"
"But what would vengeance prove?" asked Starodubov.
"And eye for an eye, a head for a head -- only I'll pay them back ten times over; for Login was ten times better than any of them." Pyotr kicked the sand. It scattered and sizzled across a campfire.
Starodubov would have liked to have grabbed the boy and spanked some sense into him -- make him mad at him rather than mad at the world. That's what he had done with his second son when the first had died. The son had fought back, and they had had a bruising tussle, and afterward they got drunk together.
He might have started such a fight even now; but Sofronov drew near, solemnly expressing his condolences to Pyotr and adding softly but in all seriousness, with a priestly tone that outdid even Trofim's solemnity, "Pan-Mongolism! That's the word for it. The End is coming and coming from the East. In this very land the Anti-Christ, the true Anti-Christ will appear. And soon, perhaps even now. And all true believers must join together -- Orthodox and Old Believer, Catholic and Protestant, even the Jews. All must join together to fight the Anti-Christ in these the Final Days."
In the silence, Sofronov's softly spoken words carried. Not just Pyotr and Starodubov, but also all the Mazeppy turned to him. Sofronov, apparently recognizing that he had an audience, raised his arms and raised his voice. "Pan-Mongolism! The modern prophet Solovyov coined the word. 'Pan-Mongolism!' he said. 'Although the name is wild, I find some consolation in the sound, a mystical premonition of the glorious providence of God.' Kill these Mongolian hordes. It's the will of God, I tell you. In the name of God we should kill the beasts who have done this outrage!"
He fell silent, and silence reigned for a moment, until Pyotr whispered, "Revenge!" And others repeated aloud "Revenge!" and Trofim picked it up as if it were part of a litany, "Revenge! And again I say, revenge!" And the Mazeppy, even Bulatovich, caught by the spell of the moment, echoed, "Revenge!"
Trofim grabbed a burning log from the fire and cast it at his brother's corpse. Fire leaped up from all sides, enveloping the body, rising high into the night.
"May his soul be released now to heaven," intoned Trofim. "Praise be to the Lord!"
It had been arranged beforehand -- the kindling carefully stacked around Login's body. (The other two would be buried.) But he ceremony had been so long, and then the sudden gesture, the sudden flame came as a shock. None but Trofim and Pyotr had ever witnessed the burning of a human body.
Butorin started shaking uncontrollably. It finally dawned on him that for him, at least, this funeral wasn't an end, but a beginning. He had always mocked the superstitions of others, but he had some of his own as well; and he had just discovered a new one. Planting a body in the ground seemed final -- let it rot and be forgotten. But fire was another matter. Watching the flames, he thought he saw the spirit being released from the body to wander and haunt. Even now, as in the lie he had so glibly told, the moon seemed to take on the shape of Login's missing head.
At dawn, Trofim gathered the ashes and cast them to the wind, down by the river. And the Mazeppy dispersed -- all but Pyotr and Laperdin.
Pyotr stood and stared at the rising sun and the clouds that kept covering it and uncovering it, until his eyes hurt. He wanted to be alone. He thought he was alone. Then he noticed the reflection of Laperdin's glasses and saw him standing nearby, with a cynical smile, showing his bright white teeth.
"Do you really believe in the resurrection of the dead?" Laperdin chuckled.
Not only the words, but also the fact he spoke at all came as a shock to Pyotr. They had never spoken to one another before. Laperdin was usually withdrawn, and Pyotr shy and reluctant to speak unless spoken to.
"If you really believe in the resurrection," Laperdin continued mockingly, "then why all this talk of revenge? Why should you be so angry if your brother will come to life and reign with Christ for thousand years? You should be happy, if that's what you believe. You should thank the men who made a martyr of him and thank them again for lopping off his head and making him one of the specially chosen."
"Godless wretch," muttered Pyotr, both angry and bewildered at having his basic beliefs questioned and challenged at a time like this.
"I suppose you still think you believe in God," persisted Laperdin. "A common ailment. So often we think we believe long after we've stopped believing. Or does anyone ever believe? Or is it a matter of wanting to believe or not wanting to believe?"
"Get out of here, you bastard," muttered Pyotr, turning away.
"Maybe you do believe in God. Maybe you are that naive, accepting things on little or no evidence."
"Faith it's call, you heathen," Pyotr answered without looking. He should have simply walked away from this nuisance, but despite himself, he felt the need to have the last word, as if what this educated cynical said and believed made some difference.
"Faith. Yes, faith. I have faith in death and suffering, those I've seen. God I have not. Either God doesn't exist, or He's irrelevant, or He's malevolent."
"Why spew your venom at me? Leave me in peace, I pray you."
"I prayed, too. I prayed for peace and for joy and for happiness, when I wasn't much older than you. I prayed for the well-being of those I loved...."
Pyotr turned back to look at him. The sun was behind the clouds again, and Laperdin's dark eyes were clearly visible through the lenses of his glasses. There was no hint of mockery now.
"Yes, I prayed," he continued, "until I learned better, until I learned that the only way to survive in this world, the only way to remain sane is to stop yourself form loving, stop yourself from caring, stop yourself from hoping and praying that the impossible will happen. The dead are dead, and that's the end of it."
Pyotr put his hands to his head and shouted, "Why me? Why can't you leave me alone?"
"Curiosity, I suppose," smiled Laperdin. "Perhaps a touch of sympathy, too. I'm not entirely devoid of it. Maybe you remind me of myself ten or fifteen years ago. So vulnerable. So wide open to all the injustice of life, of chance. I just wanted to give you a little advice -- seal up that heart of yours before the world rips it to shreds.
"You cover your ears. You don't dare to listen to me, but you don't run away either. You should know better than to show such weakness. It just lures the wolves closer. So I'll tell you a little story to give you an idea of who I am, so you'll know that I know what I'm talking about.
"I come from Kiev. For a price, the Cossacks let me settle in Trans-Baikal with no questions asked. I've been here for maybe ten years now.
"I was a medical student, the pride of my parents, until I met Natalya. They had nothing against her personally, and nothing against her family either. Her father and my father were both businessmen. We were a little better off, but not that much. My parents just didn't want me to marry so soon, they said. They wanted me to finish my studies first. And they let it be known that they hoped that once I was a doctor, I'd be in a position to make a more fashionable match -- someone from a family that could provide a richer dowry and better social contacts.
"We were both young and impulsive. We ran off to Kharkov and lived together. We said we were man and wife, but our love was our only bond, that and our poverty; for breaking off all contact with our families and friends, the only work I could get was in a factory. If I had let on that I was educated, sooner or later it would have come out who we were and that we were living together illegally. No one pays much attention to the poor and illiterate. We wanted it that way -- just the two of us, in our pathetic little freedom.
"We had a child, a beautiful baby girl -- 'Natalya' we called her, the image of her mother -- the jet-black hair, so much for such a tiny baby, and the green eyes -- I'm sure they would have stayed green.
"One day the baby died. The mother went hysterical. Her parents, who had been looking for her, were scandalized to find her living in sin -- the shame of it, what people would say seemed to bother them more than the death of the child. They took her away.
"Since I wasn't married to her, I had no rights. They wouldn't tell me where they had sent her, but I found her months later, in an insane asylum. Outside of the immediate family, no visitors were allowed. So I got a job as an orderly.
"She didn't recognize me. She just sat there, hour after hour, knitting baby clothes.
"She had been knitting baby clothes back then when someone had knocked at the door. She had left the room for a moment and when she came back, the baby wasn't breathing -- simply struck dead, without cause, without reason.
"Now she wouldn't leave her chair, she wouldn't leave her knitting without an hysterical fight -- they were trying to kill her baby.
"As an orderly, it was my job to force-feed her as she sat there and to clean up her messes and get her out of that chair into her bed and strap her there each night. She would curse me when she saw me coming, calling me 'murderer,' 'baby killer,' and she'd claw at me and bite me as I dragged her to the bed."
"Why did you stay?" asked Pyotr.
"I don't know."
"Why did you leave?" asked Pyotr.
"She died."
"Oh."
"I killed her with my own hands."
Pyotr stared, repelled, yet fascinated by this strange man and his wild tale. Despite himself, he felt an impulse to befriend this man, but held back, as he had held back in the case of Aksyonov.
Login had always said, "Pick your friends carefully -- that's one way to control your destiny." And he had said, "Pick your friends carefully or one day you may hate the person you become."
But a man needed friends. Login had been a friends as well as a brother. Now Pyotr had no friends, just acquaintances.
There was something compelling about this educated man wit his cynical talk and his sentimental past. It was flattering to have been singled out by him both for the confession and even for the provocative questioning that had come before.
Pyotr had always lived in his brother's shadow. Even the one time when Pyotr had tried to break free of the family and had joined the army for the excitement of battle, Login had joined too, just to watch over him and protect him. And despite himself, Pyotr had welcomed his brother's support and friendship.
Trofim was another matter, caught up in himself and his notions of religion. Pyotr and he were no closer than acquaintances from the same village.
Login's death left a gap, and now here was this Laperdin, singling him out to give him advice.
How could he pick and choose who would influence him? It wasn't' by choice that he was assigned to this particular troop, that he had met men like Bulatovich and Starodubov and now this Laperdin.
Where was the choice? Where was the freedom? Whom could he ask now that Login was gone? What would become of him now that, despite himself, he was one of the Mazeppy?
This site is published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com
Links to the complete novel, The Name of Hero.
To contact Richard Seltzer send email to seltzer@samizdat.com
Sample chapters from The Name of Man
Complete text of From Entotto to the River Baro
Complete text of With the Armies of Menelik II
Return to Readers' Room and Writers' Showcase.
You can buy this book in hardcover:
The
Name of Hero by Richard Seltzer. an historical novel based
on the life of Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian who was an explorer in Ethiopia,
and a cavalry officer during Russia's conquest of Manchuria in 1900. Later,
as a monk at Mount Athos, he led a group of "heretics" who challenged the
hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, asserting the divinity of the
Name of God.
You can also buy it on CD ROM with the author's other works:
Everything
But the Internet gathers the complete non-Internet
works of Richard Seltzer on CD, in plain text, with software that lets
you listen as well as read. It includes: The Name of Hero, Ethiopia Through
Russian Eyes, The Lizard of Oz, Without a Myth, Spit and Polish, Mercy,
Rights Crossing, short stories, articles, book reviews, and poems.
A
library for the price of a book.
Return to B&R Samizdat Express.
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