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
He should have slept. He was exhausted. But the wound over his left eye itched and sometimes ached, and besides, he needed to talk to Bulatovich about ancestors. After that ride to Urdingi, Shemelin was convinced that Bulatovich knew everything.
Shemelin found Bulatovich sitting outside his odd little tent, awkwardly struggling to pull off his boots. His red regimental cap was crumpled in the dust beside him.
Shemelin stared first at the tent, with all its pockets and contrivances, then at Bulatovich, who looked so small and vulnerable sitting there. It was hard for Shemelin to think of Bulatovich as the mere clumsy mortal that he appeared to be in such a setting.
"Don't just stand there," snapped Bulatovich. "Give me a hand."
Shemelin got down and, after some struggle, managed to pry the boots off. The legs and feet were badly swollen from long hours of standing.
"Well, what do you want?" Bulatovich snapped again, wearily.
"I've been thinking, sir," Shemelin started slowly.
"And what have you been thinking?"
"Sir, have you ever wondered who your father really is?" When Bulatovich didn't answer right away, Shemelin continued. "Often I have wondered. I look at Mother scrubbing clothes like her mother and like her mother's mother. I look at Father plowing another man's fields and reaping another man's harvest, year after year. And I ask, 'How can anything new come from these people? Even with a name that's not like my father's name, or his father's, or his father's father's name, even with a name like Yakov, how can I be but what my father is?' And people look at me and say 'You have your mother's nose, our father's eyes...' But I don't smell with my mother's nose. I don't see with my father's eyes. The village isn't home to me. The plow feels strange to my touch. But can this be if Father is my father and Mother is my mother? Elm does not grow from acorn. Who can say? Maybe I am a Jewish bastard. Sometimes I wish I were a Jewish bastard. Then I'd be a strange new mixture, with a strange new future, not just the plower of another man's fields."
He felt he had expressed himself clearly. He was proud of his turn of phrase. But Bulatovich answered angrily, wearily, irrelevantly, "Why didn't you follow the main road like I told you?"
"But...you didn't...sir..."
"Well, why should I have to tell you every step? Anyone with a little common sense would have realized that troops might already be on their way. All you had to do was follow the main road, and you would have met the cavalry and warned them. As it was, they rode into an ambush."
"I'm sorry, sir..."
"Sorry, we're all sorry. I'm sorry. I'm tired. Just get out of here and let me sleep."
Shemelin wandered off through the camp in the half light of a cloudy dawn. He wanted to be alone, but there were people all about -- cleaning their weapons, drinking and singing, tending to their horses. Why couldn't anyone sleep? Not watching where he was going, Shemelin tripped on the ashes of a campfire, regained his balance and nearly bumped against a young soldier -- no older than sixteen -- brushing his horse.
"You fool!" shouted Shemelin. "Can't you see that that horse has scratches and cuts all up and down his side? Take him to the vet and have him taken care of. Don't just brush him. You're torturing the poor beast."
The boy dropped the brush and stood there starting after Shemelin, who continued on his way, muttering over and over, "If you just had some common sense...a fine way to treat a horse."
Shemelin was just beginning to wonder why he was saying those things, whether he was talking about someone else or himself, when a little beggar boy, no more than six or seven years old, tugged at his pant leg. White but slant-eyed, the boy was of mixed ancestry, Shemelin quickly guessed. Probably the casual offspring of some Russian railway worker. Maybe the result of a rape. Shemelin shook him off and continued on his aimless way. The child followed, but Shemelin ignored him.
An officer came riding by. The boy tugged at his pant leg. The officer kicked him aside and rode off.
Shemelin watched, silently, as the boy picked himself up, blood pouring from his forehead, and ran off without a whimper. For a moment, Shemelin considered following him, offering to help. He thought better of it, took a step or two in the opposite direction, then changed his mind again -- but the boy was gone, and there was no way he could wipe away the guilt. He kept seeing that young boy's bloody face everywhere. But the boy himself he couldn't find. Maybe he had never seen him at all. Maybe it was just a dream. He hoped so. He prayed so. He returned to his tent, poured himself a cup of water, then another; but instead of drinking the second cup, he sat there staring at his reflection. The scar over his left eye was pulling the skin tight and giving it a slant-eyed Asian look, like the young boy.
He threw the cup on the ground. The water splashed on the little book Bulatovich had let him keep -- The Way of the Pilgrim. Quickly, he picked up the book, brushed it off. The damage was slight.
He heard footsteps, looked up, and nearly bumped noses with Sofronov. This was either an extraordinary night or an extraordinary dream. "Ah, Yakov," Sofronov began. "I'm glad that I found you." And he proceeded to crawl into Shemelin's tent, uninvited, making himself comfortable like an old friend. Shemelin stared in disbelief. Before now Sofronov had never said a civil word to him.
"I wanted to apologize," Sofronov continued. "You see, I was only joking those times when I called you 'Jew' and jeered at you. We were all joking, really. You know as well as I that things are a bit lax out in Trans-Baikal. Nowhere else would Cossacks allow Jews to settle on their territory, but in Trans-Baikal they do, openly, for a price -- over five hundred Jews, I've heard, and probably hundreds more who keep their religion a secret officially, and, for a price, no one asks. Yes, we in Trans-Baikal are open-minded about these things. We don't go chasing down the Jews and beating them up every time the crops fail or something else goes wrong, like they do back in the Ukraine and Poland and such. When we called you 'Jew,' it was all in fun. I don't believe any of us are really anti-Semitic."
"Anti-Semitic?" Shemelin had never heard the word before.
"After all, you know, there's no philosophic ground for anti-Semitism. In fact, I have great respect for your people and your beliefs."
"My people?"
"Yes, the Hebrew people. Your belief in one God, your expectation of the Messiah, your interpretation of history as the revelation of God's will. It occurred to me at Login's funeral. I don't approve of cremation, do you? I never knew that there were sects of Old Believer who did such things. In some higher philosophic sense, perhaps they're right. But I must admit I find the burning of human flesh repulsive. And I had to speak to you."
"About the burning?"
"No, about your religion and your people. Trofim's words reminded me of the noble role the Hebrew people will play in the final battle with the Anti-Christ. So I wanted to apologize for making fun of your noble ancestry and beliefs."
"But I am a Christian."
"Marvelous. Was it your father who converted?"
"My father didn't convert."
"Then you, you, Yakov, saw the light." Sofronov was delighted, almost as if he had performed the miraculous
conversion himself.
"But I am not a Jew!" protested Shemelin.
"Of course not," Sofronov readily agreed. "In the eyes of God and even in the eyes of the law, once you have converted you are a Christian and not a Jew, and one of the legal restrictions against Jews apply to you, even back in European Russia. Why, you could live outside the Pale of Settlement; you could buy farmland; you could get an education without worrying about the quota on Jews."
"I never was a Jew!"
"The Lord be praised -- you have been reborn in Christ." Shemelin stared in amazement as Sofronov sank deep in prayer, then emerged and asked "Was there a priest in your village?"
"No," replied Shemelin. "Our village is small. But I learned to read. Few in our village can read, but I have read the Bible."
"My God!" exclaimed Sofronov, in all seriousness. "A natural -- you read the Bible and the Bible itself converted you -- the Word of God without the intermediary of human interpreters. How beautiful and yet how dangerous. It's so easy to misinterpret, to misconstrue God's Truth, to fall into the sin of heresy. But then again, you have a pure Russian soul -- Hebrew blood, but a Russian soul, simple soul of the Russian peasant. Far be it from me to tell you how to interpret God's Word. My mind's so filled with philosophies and heresies, I've been so trained in sophisticated argument, I'm lost in a maze of logic. I'd give anything tot achieve the pure, simple faith of the Russian peasant. That's the meaning of that book, you know."
"The Bible?"
"No, that little book you have in your hand, the one I picked out for you, thinking it might help convert you."
"How many times do I have to tell you? I don't need converting. I never needed converting."
Indeed. Such fervor. So natural. I envy you that naive faith."
"Will you stop listening to yourself and start listening to me? Who are you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what I say. But you, I have no idea what you say or what you mean or who you are." Suddenly Shemelin struck Sofronov on the shoulder.
"What?" asked Sofronov, falling over.
Shemelin quickly helped him back to his sitting position. "Then you really are there. I had to be sure. I can't believe my eyes or my ears anymore, but maybe I can trust my hands."
"Are you mad?"
"I don't know. I've been acting strangely and seeing strange things."
"What things?"
"A beggar boy struck by an officer."
"Not so strange."
"But he boy vanished."
"What do you mean?"
"I saw it. An officer -- he looked familiar, but I don't know his name -- kicked a beggar boy in the face and rode off. The boy's face was bloody. He looked at me. He was asking for help. I turned away, then changed my mind, turned back, but he was gone. He had vanished. Or maybe it was a dream."
"What do you feel about this boy?"
"Regret. I should have helped."
"Then it doesn't matter if the boy was real or a vision. He served a purpose in the spiritual history of your life. He awakened your awareness of your obligations to your fellow man."
"But he could be out there now -- bleeding, cold, hungry."
"How beautiful."
"Beautiful?"
"You pity -- so natural, so Russian. That a Jew could so make himself a simple Russian Christian, by an act of will."
"I am not a Jew!" yelled Shemelin, throwing the little book at Sofronov, who ducked, caught the book, and nearly lost his balance again.
"Certainly, certainly," said Sofronov. "But you need not worry about the boy. He may be suffering, the suffering is not a punishment from God."
"I should hope not."
"God, the Christian God, the Orthodox God does not take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
"Then why does he let such children suffer?"
"It is a test," answered Sofronov.
"A test?"
"Yes. We are here on earth to be tested by God. The hardest tests of suffering force us to use our inner resources of strength, or so I've heard. If we were never put to the test, we would never know what we are capable of, and we could never achieve saintliness."
"What does 'saintliness' have to do with it? He was a mere boy. He never asked to become a saint. Why do you make him suffer?"
"But I didn't make him suffer. You did. You turned your back on him."
Shemelin stared for a moment. His eyes went out of focus as he let the words sink in. Then he quickly turned, crawled out of his tent, and started running wildly, looking again for he boy.
"What audacity!" Kupferman said aloud as he awoke. He had had the strangest dream -- that he was riding through camp, and a dog, some mongrel, had jumped up and bit his pant leg. He kicked it in the head, and the head became that of a young boy. "Probably a beggar, probably deserved it," he told himself in his dream. But some soldier saw him do it and looked at him, shocked, as if he had never seen violence and cruelty before.
How dare a soldier, a mere enlisted man, question his authority? The military depended on order and discipline. A military camp was no place for stray mongrels, beggar boys, and self-righteous young peasants who hadn't learned yet that the world is governed by violence, that order means violence, that a good beating is the best way to teach a boy or a dog good habits.
A wife was a different matter. He would never hit his wife, any more than he would argue with her or take her opinions seriously. But his boys he had beaten often enough with switch and belt. So why should he kick a disorderly beggar boy who dared lay a hand on an officer?
Sleep. He needed sleep. He wished he could sleep. It annoyed him having to be away from home so long. He missed his wife, his favorite chair, his quiet comfortable daily routine. He was a creature of habit, and he enjoyed his habits.
Twenty years earlier, Kupferman would have been delighted by an opportunity for combat. Then he was ambitious and sometimes even enthusiastic, like Strakhov was now.
But Kupferman had lingered at the rank of lieutenant colonel for too many years. He had been passed over for promotion far too many times. He had played the game of military politics as well as he could play it. He had risen as far as he could rise without better connections. He had no future in the army, and he knew it. He envied successful young men like Strakhov and Bulatovich, especially men like Bulatovich who had the connections it took to go far, if he just knew how to use them.
Kupferman was largely reconciled to his own relatively inferior fate. He had given up worrying over that years ago and was now concerned mostly about his present comfort and his future pension.
Domestic tranquillity was perhaps more important to him than anything else. He had come to that conclusion ten years earlier when he first discovered that his wife, Anna, was having an affair with one of his subordinates -- a mere boy and she a mature woman. She and her lover were in the process of disrobing one another in the stable when he saw them. He didn't interrupt. He simply watched while they went about their business.
He never said a word about it, nor did she; but he sensed that she knew that he knew. After a year, when the young man was transferred to another post, and after a brief period of sullen fretting, she became quite warm toward him. He interpreted this warmth as he gratitude for his not having made a scene and disgraced her, or even killed her in a rage, as a typical, undisciplined husband might. She seemed grateful to him for having preserved their sacred domestic tranquillity.
He made a point of venting his frustrations on his subordinates rather than on his wife. Everyone has frustrations. Some people are orderly about the way they deal with them; others just thrash about irrationally. Such lack of self-control had ruined many a marriage, Kupferman felt; and he was determined that his marriage would not suffer that fate.
He treated Anna with utmost consideration. They lived in one of the finest houses in Kazan, near the theological academy. They entertained and were entertained by the most important officials and the wealthiest citizens of that provincial city.
Even when she acted ungrateful and irrational, he never criticized her. when, not long after their marriage, she grew listless and the house began to look disorderly, he hired additional servants without saying a word.
When they had their first child, Anna insisted that she would nurse the child herself. But when it became clear to him that she wasn't equal to the task, that the strain of trying to feed the child, her sore breasts, and the child's interminable crying were disturbing their precious domestic tranquillity, he immediately, without saying a word, hired a wet nurse. He was sure Anna must be grateful to be relieved of such a burden. She cried for a few days, but it meant nothing. She stayed in bed for weeks, but she needed the rest.
He never argued with her. Whatever she said, however foolish, he smiled and agreed. He never discussed anything controversial with her. He never involved her in any decision making. Why should she trouble herself with the complexities of household finance? He gave her a substantial allowance, so she could buy whatever frivolities she cared to. The housekeeper saw to all the necessities.
After her brief spurt of exceptional tenderness and warmth, she had grown listless again. but he didn't say a word. And when she began to put on weight and lose the youthful figure she had tried hard and long to preserve, when she didn't seem to care what she looked like anymore, even in public, that didn't bother him either. Their marriage was firm and strong. He reasoned that now she no longer felt the need to be attractive to other men.
For him, that was one of the happiest periods of his married life. She was so comfortable and predictable. She had become so accustomed to his habits, and she had become so much a creature of habit herself that she took care of little obstacles and annoyances for him automatically, almost before he became aware of them.
Both of their sons (he had hoped to have more but had never expressed his disappointment to Anna) were away at school now. They were relatively well behaved, for children. Someday they would probably be a credit to the family name. But it was so nice when they were away, and the house was quiet. He could imagine Anna now, sitting by the fire, reading as she did every night, and occasionally glancing at his well-worn chair. He longed to sit in that chair.
He had tried to bring along to Manchuria as much familiar furniture as he could, stuffing it all into his tarantass. Why should he, a regimental commander, sleep in a tent? He had even brought along the mattress from his bed at home. He wondered how Anna liked the new one. She still occasionally liked something new. she had been quite unpredictable at first, forever moving furniture about, buying a new this or a new that, always excited about the newness of things, before he had quietly calmed her down.
On duty as well as at home, Kupferman preferred the comfort of the familiar. He liked to see the same orderlies, the same clerks, the same subordinates day after day. The men in his command were promoted only rarely. Mostly, he promoted the men he wanted to get rid of -- like his wife's lover.
The young man had looked so shocked each time he got an undeserved promotion or letter of commendation. And when he was suddenly transferred to a promising post a thousand miles away, his head was so swelled from all his rapid advancement that he probably actually believed that he deserved it, that he had a brilliant career ahead of himself in the army. Why should he hang about this desolate garrison town romancing a middle-aged woman of fading charms? Rapid success had transformed a quiet, retiring, sensitive young man, who didn't know what to do with his life and probably needed mothering, into an egotistical dandy who liked to lord it over his subordinates -- so recently his equals -- and who probably longed to demonstrate his sexual prowess to a new set of ladies, far from the watchful eyes of his present mistress.
Kupferman was quite proud of himself for having arranged things so neatly and quietly and kindly. No one could fault him for his actions. But the young man was most certainly ruined by now, the victim of his own weakness, suffering the just punishment for his sins.
People were so weak-willed, so easily tempted and corrupted, especially young people and disorderly people, people who hadn't properly cultivated habits, people whose habits had developed by chance or who had very few habits. Kupferman's father had been such a disorderly man. A businessman of sorts, he had fled his native East Prussia to escape his creditors, and then had moved time and again in Russia, always promising more than he could deliver, always moving eastward, just beyond the reach of his creditors. His father had lied so often and so flagrantly that no one, not even he himself, had known when he was telling the truth. Kupferman always wondered what his true surname was. Heaven forbid, his father might even have been a Jew.
"Ah, but he could make you love him with that tongue of his," Kupferman's mother had told him, remembering with no bitterness. "I never knew how many names or how many wives he had had, nor did I care. He made me feel like I was at the center of the world, that I mattered to him and that that was all that mattered in the world. I'd have done anything for him, and I did -- running off with him. If only he hadn't been so prone to drunkenness, he wouldn't have fallen under the coach; he'd be with us still today, spinning his tales of people and places, making them far more real than if you'd seen them yourself. The world's never seemed quite as real to me since he's been gone, since he can't tell me about it anymore."
Kupferman had built his life as the antithesis to his father's, helped considerably by his mother's family contacts and the money left to him by her father. Kupferman had shaped his own destiny by deliberately cultivating orderly habits.
He had chosen a secure profession, had married Anna when he was in his mid-forties and she in her mid-thirties -- a quiet dependable woman, attractive but past the peak of her youthful beauty, a docile girl who had taken care of an invalid aunt while her less attractive sisters flirted and married. He was proud of his choice of a wife and of the respectful way he treated her, proud of the stable household in which he had raised his sons, proud of how docile and predictable they were.
He now looked forward to a quiet and comfortable retirement and looked forward to the day when he would be surrounded by grateful, obedient, and admiring grandchildren.
But here he was in Manchuria, far from wife and children, plagued with fleas, diarrhea, insomnia, dreams. "What audacity!" he repeated, suddenly remembering his dream of the dog or the beggar boy and that insolent soldier with his accusing look. It was only a dream, of course, but he was as upset as if it had actually happened.
"Where are my boots?" he yelled.
"Here, sir," replied Iosef, his orderly.
"And what are you doing with them?"
"Cleaning them, sir, as you ordered."
"But you cleaned them last night. Why clean them again?"
"But you were riding, sir. You just got back an hour ago. Remember? You couldn't sleep. and when you got back, you threw me your boots and told me to clean them. There was blood all over one of them. A nasty stain to get out."
"Liar!" bellowed Kupferman, leaping from the tarantass and kicking Iosef to the ground.
Iosef didn't resist. He knew his master's temper. I would pass. All things pass.
Kupferman quickly undid his belt and started beating Iosef as he had many times before. "You liar. You thief. You Jew. Why do I keep a Jew as an orderly? I should know better. I give you a chance. And what do you do? You lie to me. For all I know you wear my boots and my coat and ride through camp kicking beggar boys. You Jew. You dirty thieving Jew."
His anger had nearly run its course when he saw a vision. It seemed like part of his dream come back to haunt him -- that same peasant soldier was staring at him in outraged innocence. Kupferman hit again and again, far harder than he had ever hit Iosef before. Iosef crumpled and squirmed with each blow.
Shemelin stood staring. It was like the dream -- no, he had actually seen it. It had actually happened. He was almost sure that this same officer had kicked the beggar boy, and here he was kicking someone else, someone he called "Jew."
For five heavy blows Shemelin stood there as if paralyzed -- repulsed, feeling he shouldn't interfere with an officer, wanting to turn away and forget it, but also wanting to grab away the belt and beat the officer.
Then Sofronov spotted him and caught up with him. "I want to apologize again, Yakov," he said, clearly upset, trying to make up for the hasty words that had sent Shemelin off so abruptly. "I expressed myself poorly. I wanted to explain the great Christian doctrine of self-sacrifice and suffering."
Suddenly, Shemelin saw Christ on the Cross, suffering. (Christ was a Jew, wasn't he?) He felt a surge of strength, like he had felt on the way to Urdingi, only far stronger. He pushed Sofronov aside and strode defiantly up to Kupferman. Iosef looked up in surprise. Kupferman halted his next swing halfway, and grumbled menacingly.
"What do you want, soldier?"
Shemelin stared him in the eye and said loudly and firmly, "I am a Jew, Jew by birth. If you must beat a Jew, beat me."
An hour later, Starodubov woke Bulatovich in his tent.
"Sir," he repeated, "his back is just bruises and raw flesh."
"What?" asked Bulatovich, barely awake, automatically groping for his glasses among the shadows of his tent.
"Like I said, sir, Colonel Kupferman whipped him, whipped him himself."
"Whipped who?"
"Shemelin, sir."
"And why would he whip Shemelin?"
"Because he asked to be whipped."
"He what?"
"He says he was a Jew. He really believes he was a Jew; that if the Jews of this world must suffer for mankind, then he wanted to be a Jew; and now he has taken on the suffering of the world, he's a Christian, a true Christian. Sofronov explains it so well, but it makes no sense when I say it. I guess I use the wrong words."
Too tired to argue, Bulatovich pulled on his boots, leaving them untied. (His feet were still sore and swollen.) Then he followed Starodubov to the hospital tent.
Bulatovich was more shocked by the way his men were acting than by the ugly wounds on Shemelin's back. He had seen whip wounds before, but never before had he heard the word "Jew" pronounced with such respect, even reverence.
Sofronov tried to explain. "Physically, sir, I don't think he was ever a Jew. I mean, I don't think any of his ancestors were. At first, when he kept denying it so loudly, I thought he was. But now when he says he was, I don't. You see, sir, he made himself a Jew of his own free will. He saw a man suffering, a Jew, one of the downtrodden of the earth, and he wanted to take that suffering on himself, like Christ. Christ, before he became Christ, first had to be a Jew and suffer."
Bulatovich could make no sense out of Sofronov's words. He also couldn't understand why so many men had gathered outside the hospital tent, why they walked and talked so softly, and why they stared at Shemelin in silent awe.
Shemelin himself was a puzzle, too. "My body is weak, but my would is strong," he said, and his eyes burned with enthusiasm, as if he had made some great discovery. "Remember, sir, on the way to Urdingi, we felt this surge of strength, like nothing could touch us. That's how I felt, anyway. We had been nearly dead, and then everything worked like magic -- Starodubov grabbing the flag and standing there like that. Suddenly, we had this strength we'd never felt before, and it was in our muscles ready to do something, and you showed us the way, racing toward Urdingi. I felt something like that, sir. Great waves of restless energy. Then I saw Christ, or thought I saw him, and I knew what I must do. Every stroke of the whip just made me stronger.
"I feel I've been reborn, sir, as a Jew, and by taking on that man's suffering I became a true Christian. Jew by Birth and Christian by religion," he added.
To Bulatovich the words were nonsense. He kept remembering Molchanov's words about people believing what they want to believe, but he couldn't understand why anyone would want to believe what Shemelin seemed to believe. And he could get no rational explanation for why Kupferman had whipped this man or why Shemelin held no grudge against Kupferman for having done it.
Bulatovich got the disquieting feeling, from the way Shemelin looked up at him in awe and thanked him without saying what for, that he was somehow responsible for this man's erratic behavior; maybe by something he had said inadvertently, when he was taking off his boots, exhausted after that long crazy funeral of Login's. Was everyone going crazy? He wondered why Kupferman would have so brutally beaten one of his men unless it were meant as an attack on him -- a gross insult and a warning.
He had a rather low opinion of that over-aged regimental commander who rode about the battle field in a tarantass with feather pillows and mattress. Strakhov, too, he didn't trust since that meeting before the Battle of Ongun when they had argued about the Old Thief, Starodubov. Strakhov seemed too concerned about his own status and authority. He reacted as if he considered Bulatovich a threat of some kind. And Kupferman and Strakhov were close. All those officers brought in from Orenburg and Kazan were close, like back in Petersburg with officers from the same military academy. Envy, thought Bulatovich, remembering how his victories in the steeplechase and at fencing had aroused a certain hostility, how some of the other junior officers, insecurely grouped in closed cliques, had apparently seen his success as a threat to their own advancement.
He wondered what Kupferman and Strakhov would try next and how he should defined himself and his men. How dare they whip his men?
When he arrived at Orlov's tent, Strakhov was already there.
"Ah, Alexander Xavierevich!" Orlov greeted Bulatovich warmly. "We were just talking about you."
"Yes?" replied Bulatovich, angry but cautious, wanting to see the drift of things before having his say.
"I wanted to give you a squadron and send you out again to scout ahead. But Major Strakhov here was most helpful. He wanted to make sure that we didn't make a mistake of protocol that could leave a number of our other officers insulted, and we certainly wouldn't want that. You see, he pointed out that you're only a staff-rotmister and that the regular squadron commanders have the Cossack rank of esaul. They're at least your equals in rank, technically speaking; and it might be bad for morale if I give you a squadron and make one of them subordinate to you."
"Indeed," interjected Bulatovich, trying to assess the situation and work out a plan of defense. If Strakhov hadn't been there and if Orlov simply asked him "Do you want to take a squadron and scout ahead?" Bulatovich would simply have answered "I appreciate your confidence in me, Your Excellency. But my men and I need a rest. Why don't you send someone else instead. Perhaps Bodisko, or Strakhov, even. He knows his soldiering, even if he did learn most of it from books. He performs well under fire. After the way he took charge in that last battle, all the men respect him. And I believe he's anxious for more combat experience." But here was Strakhov actively trying to limit his command authority, trying to keep him out of combat. So Bulatovich offered, "I don't need a full squadron, Your Excellency. A troop will do fine -- the men I know and who know me."
"The Mazeppy?" asked Orlov. "Yes, the name has spread. Everyone knows you now. Certainly, take the Mazeppy. But that's not enough. We have no idea what size force you might encounter. Better that you be prepared to put up a fight."
"But, Your Excellency," interrupted Strakhov, "what about protocol and morale?"
"Yes, Major, you're quite right about protocol, but there are ways to get around such difficulties. Have you never heard of a 'flying detachment'? Alexander Xavierevich, pick any two hundred men and the best horses in the regiment. That will be your 'flying detachment' -- a new and separate unit. The squadron commanders can continue to go about their business." With that, Orlov went walking off to talk to his adjutants about other matters.
For a few moments, Bulatovich and Strakhov stood there, alone and silent. Strakhov seemed to be staring at Bulatovich's untied shoes, at his slept-in uniform and his crumpled red cap. Bulatovich was trying to decide if he should say anything at all or leave matters where they stood. He had never gotten along with superiors who used discipline and protocol to hide their incompetence and protect their authority, officers who considered competent subordinates not as assets but as threats. Strakhov was his own age, apparently alert, active, intelligent, ambitious. Bulatovich wouldn't ordinarily have classed him with a superannuated, self-satisfied incompetent like Kupferman. But maybe this was Strakhov's way of trying to curry favor with a superior. Things were so much simply in Ethiopia, where his status as a Russian military adviser was unique and beyond the realm of traditional protocol, or envy and competition.
Fortunately, here in Manchuria Orlov acted as a buffer. Another patrol -- yes, he must keep on the move, away from this petty game of military politics.
Bulatovich turned to go.
"Are you satisfied?" asked Strakhov.
Bulatovich tuned again and stared back. "That's a question I should ask you."
"What do you want/ Rank? Glory? Do you have to make general like your father did? Or do you just want everyone to call you 'hero'?"
"And what do you have against me?"
"You nearly got me killed. Why didn't you send your second messenger by the main road?"
"Is that why you had him beaten?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Kupferman himself whipped that man today."
"Nonsense. Why should a colonel dirty his hands in such a matter?"
"And why should you meddle in my assignments?"
"The general asked me for advice. I gave it."
Bulatovich turned again. He'd said enough, too much. Why drag it on and further aggravate this envious man?
But Strakhov added, "And stay away from that Chinese girl."
"What?"
"You know who I mean. The one your men found in the church. Sophiya or Sonya she calls herself. The convert."
"I've said no more than two words to her."
"Then leave it that way. Go off on your patrol and forget about her."
"Why should she be your concern?"
"She is. Believe me. Leave it at that."
"But why mention her to me?"
"Because she talks about you."
"About me?"
"Stop playing games with me. I've had enough. She calls you her 'savior.' She talks like you were some kind of god. Stay away, I tell you! Stay away!"
Bulatovich paused a moment, somewhat confused by this outburst, then turned and walked away quickly, surprised, amused, and rather flattered to have aroused jealousy over a girl he had hardly spoken to.
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.
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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.
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