We the Living by Ayn Rand
"Father, what has Kira . . ." Irina began.
"Irina, the subject is not open to argument."
"The world's all upside down," said Maria Petrovna and coughed.
Victor looked at his father with a bright glance of mutual understanding. But Vasili Ivanovitch did not respond; he turned away deliberately; he had been avoiding Victor for many weeks.
Acia crouched in a corner behind the buffet, sniveling softly, hopelessly.
"Acia, come here," Vasili Ivanovitch ordered.
She waddled toward him slowly, cringing, looking down at the tip of her nose, wiping her nose with her collar.
"Acia, why are your school reports as bad as ever?" Vasili Ivanovitch asked.
Acia did not answer and sniffled.
"What is it that's happened to you again in arithmetic?"
"It's the tractors."
"The what?"
"The tractors. I didn't know."
"What didn't you know?"
"The Selskosoyuz had twelve tractors and they divided them among six poor villages and how many did each village get?"
"Acia, how much is twelve divided by six?"
Acia stared at her nose and sniffled.
"At your age, Irina was always first in her class," said Vasili Ivanovitch bitterly and turned away.
Acia ran to hide behind Maria Petrovna's chair.
Vasili Ivanovitch left the room. Victor followed him to the kitchen. If Vasili Ivanovitch heard his steps following, he paid no attention. It was dark in the kitchen; the window pane was broken and the window had been covered with boards. Three narrow slits of light added three bright stripes to the long cracks of the floor. Vasili Ivanovitch's shirts were piled under the sink. He bent slowly, and stuffed the shirts into a brass pan, and filled the pan with cold water. His big fist closed over a cake of bluish soap. Slowly, awkwardly, he rubbed the collar of a shirt. They had had to let the servant go; and Maria Petrovna was too weak to work.
"What's the matter, Father?" Victor asked.
Vasili Ivanovitch answered without turning: "You know it."
Victor protested too eagerly: "Why, Father, I haven't the slightest idea! Have I done anything wrong lately?"
"Did you see that girl?"
"Kira? Yes. Why?"
"I thought I could trust in her as in my own soul. But it got her. The revolution got her. And--you're next."
"But, Father . . ."
"In my days, a woman's virtue wasn't dragged in the gutter for every passerby."
"But Kira . . ."
"I suppose I'm old-fashioned. I was born that way and that's the way I'll die. But all of you young people are rotted before you're ripe. Socialism, Communism, Marxism, and to hell with decency!"
"But I, Father . . ."
"You. . . . It will get you in another way. I've been watching. Your friends for the last few weeks have been. . . . You came from a party this morning."
"But surely you don't object to a little party?"
"Who were the guests?"
"Some charming girls."
"To be sure. Who else?"
Victor flicked a speck of dust off his sleeve and said: "A Communist or two."
Vasili Ivanovitch said nothing.
"Father, let us be broad-minded. A little vodka with them can't hurt me. But it can help me--a lot."
Vasili Ivanovitch's voice was stern as a prophet's; bubbles gurgled in the cold water under his hands: "There are things with which one does not compromise."
Victor laughed cheerfully and slipped his arm around the powerful, stooped shoulders: "Come on, old man, you and I can understand things together. You wouldn't want me to sit down and fold my hands and surrender--because they hold the power, would you? Beat them at their own game--that's what I'm going to do. Diplomacy--that's the best philosophy of our days. It's the century of diplomacy. You can't object to that, can you? But you know me. It can't touch me. It won't get me. I'm still too much of a gentleman."
Vasili Ivanovitch turned to him. A crack of light from the boarded window fell across his face. The face was not that of a prophet; the eyes under the heavy white brows were weary, helpless; the smile was timid. The smile was an effort; so were the words: "I know it, son. I trust you. I suppose--well, you know best. But these are strange days. And you--well, Irina and you are all I have left."
Irina was the first visitor from Kira's old world to her new home. Leo bowed gracefully, diffidently, but Irina looked straight at him, grinned and said openly:
"Well, I like you. But then, I expected to like you. And I hope you like me, because I'm the only one of your in-laws that you'll see--for a long time. But they'll all question me about you, you can be sure."
They sat in the shadows of the large drawing room and talked about Rembrandt, whom Irina was studying; and about the new perfume Vava Milovskaia had received from a smuggler--real French perfume. Coty's and fifty million rubles a bottle--and Irina had stolen a drop of it on her handkerchief--and Maria Petrovna had cried, smelling it; and about the American movie Irina had seen, in which women wore spangled gowns without sleeves--and there had been a shot of New York at night--real skyscrapers, floors and floors of lighted windows on the black sky--and she had stayed through two shows to see that shot, but it had been so brief--just a flash--she would like to draw New York.
She had picked up a book from the table and was sketching busily on the back of its white paper cover, her pencil flashing. When she finished, she threw the book to Kira across the room. Kira looked at the drawing: it was a sketch of Leo--standing erect, full figure, naked.
"Irina!"
"You may show it to him."
Leo smiled, his lips drooping, looking at Irina inquisitively.
"That's the state that fits you best," she explained. "And don't tell me that my imagination has flattered you--because it hasn't. Clothes hide nothing from a--well, yes, an artist. Any objections?"
"Yes," said Leo, "this book belongs to the Gossizdat."
"Oh, well," she tore the cover off swiftly, "tell them you've used the cover for a revolutionary poster."
Alone with Kira for a moment, before leaving, Irina looked at her earnestly, curiously, almost timidly, and whispered: "Are you . . . happy?"
Kira said indifferently: "I'm happy."
Kira seldom spoke of what she thought; and more seldom--of what she felt. There was a man, however, for whom she made an exception, both exceptions. She made other exceptions for him as well, and wondered dimly why she made them. Communists awakened fear in her, a fear of her own degradation if she associated, talked or even looked at them; a fear not of their guns, their jails, their secret, watchful eyes--but of something behind their furrowed foreheads, something they had--or, perhaps, it was something they didn't have, which made her feel as if she were alone in the presence of a beast, its jaws gaping; whom she could never force to understand. But she smiled confidently up at Andrei Taganov; and pressed tightly against the wall of an empty auditorium at the Institute, her eyes radiant, her smile timid and trusting, like a child appealing to a guiding hand, she said: "I'm happy, Andrei."
He had not seen her for many weeks. He smiled warmly, quietly, looking down into her eager eyes. "I've missed you, Kira."
"I've missed you, Andrei. I . . . I've been busy."
"I didn't want to call on you. I thought you would prefer it if I never called at your house."
"You see . . ." Then she stopped. She could not tell him. She could not bring him to her new home--to Leo's home. Andrei could be dangerous; he was a member of the G.P.U.; he had a duty to fulfill; it was best not to tempt that duty. So she said only: "Yes, Andrei, I'd rather you would never call . . . at my house."
"I won't. But will you be more regular about your lectures? So that I can see you once in a while--and hear you say that you're happy? I like to hear that."
"Andrei, have you ever been happy?"
"I've never been unhappy."
"Is that enough?"
"Well,
"And if you want something toward which you can't move?"
"I never did."
"And if--on your way--you find a barrier that you don't want to break?"
"I never have."
She remembered suddenly: "Andrei, you haven't even asked me why I'm happy."
"Does it make any difference--so long as you are?"
He held her two hands, thin and trusting, in his five strong fingers.
The first signs of spring in Petrograd were tears and smiles: the men smiled, the houses dropped the tears. High on the roofs, the snow was melting, gray with city dust like dirty cotton, brittle and shining like wet sugar, and twinkling drops dripped slowly, trickled in little gurgling brooks from the mouths of drain pipes, and across the sidewalks, and into the gutters, rocking gently cigarette stubs and sunflower-seed shells. Men walked out of the houses and breathed deeply, and smiled, and did not know why they smiled, until they looked up and saw that above the roofs the sky was a feeble, hesitant, incredulous blue, a very pale blue, as if a painter had washed the color off his brush in a huge tub of water, and the water held only a drop of a promise.
Icy mush crunched under galoshes and the sun made white sparks in the black rubber toes; sleigh-runners grunted, cutting brown ridges; a voice yelled: "Saccharine, citizens!"; drops tapped the sidewalks steadily, persistently, like a soft, distant machine gun; a voice yelled: "Violets, citizens!"
Pavel Syerov bought a pair of new boots. He blinked in the sun down at Comrade Sonia and bought her a hot, shiny cabbage cake from a woman on a corner. She chewed it, smiling. She said: "At three o'clock--giving lecture at the Komsomol on 'Our drive on the NEP front.' At five o'clock--giving talk at the Club of the Rabfac, on 'Proletarian Women and Illiteracy.' At seven-- discussion at the Party Club on 'Spirit of the Collective.' Why don't you drop in at nine? Seems I never see you."
He said: "Sonia, old pal, can't take up your valuable time. People like you and me have no private life but that of our class duty."
Lines stood at the doors of shoe stores; the trade unions were giving out cards for the purchase of galoshes.
Maria Petrovna stayed in bed most of the day and watched the sun on the glass of a closed window, and hid her handkerchiefs from the sight of all.
Comrade Lenin had had a second stroke and had lost his power of speech. Pravda said: ". . . no higher sacrifice to the cause of the Proletariat than a leader burning out his will, health and body in the superhuman effort of the responsibility placed upon his shoulders by the Workers and Peasants."
Victor invited three Communist students to his room and they discussed the future of Proletarian Electrification. He let them out through the back door to avoid Vasili Ivanovitch.
England had treacherous designs on the Republic of Workers and Peasants. Teaching of English was prohibited in schools.
Acia had to study German, sniveling over the difference of "der," "die," "das," trying to remember what it was that our German class brothers had done at Rapallo.
The boss at the Gossizdat said: "The city proletariat is marching tomorrow in a demonstration of protest against France's policy in the Ruhr. I expect all our employees to take part, Comrade Kovalensky."
Leo said: "I'll stay in bed. I'm having a headache--tomorrow."
Vasili Ivanovitch sold the shade off the lamp in the drawing room; he kept the lamp because it was the last one.
In the dark, warm evenings, churches overflowed with bowed heads, incense and candle light. Lydia prayed for Holy Russia and for the dull fear in her heart.
Andrei took Kira to the Marinsky Theater and they saw Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" ballet. He left her at the house on Moika and she took a tramway to her other home. A light snow melted on her face, like rain.
Leo asked: "How's your Communist boy friend?"
She asked: "Have you been lonely?"
He brushed the hair off her forehead and looked at her lips, in the deliberate tension of refusing himself a kiss. He answered: "I would like to say no. But you know it's yes."
His warm lips gathered the cold spring rain off hers.
The year 1923, like any other, had a spring.
XII
KIRA HAD WAITED IN LINE for three hours to get the bread at the Institute Cooperative. It was dark when she stepped down from the tramway, her loaf pressed tightly under her arm. At distant corners, lanterns made snakes of light wiggle in black puddles. She walked straight ahead, her shoes splashing through the water, kicking little icicles that clinked like glass. When she turned the corner of her street, a hurrying shadow whistled to her in the darkness.
"Allo!" called Irina's voice. "And whom do I remind you of when I say that?"
"Irina! What are you doing here at this hour?"
"Just left your house. Waited for you for an hour. Had given up hope."
"Well, come on back."
"No," said Irina, "maybe it's better if I tell you here. I . . . well, I came to tell you something. And . . . well, maybe Leo won't like it, and he's home, and . . ." Irina hesitated, which was unusual for her.
"What is it?"
"Kira, how's . . . how're your finances?"
"Why, splendid. Why do you ask that?"
"It's just . . . you see . . . well, if I'm too presumptuous, tell me to shut up. . . . Don't be angry. . . . You know I've never mentioned them before . . . but it's your family."
Kira peered in the darkness at Irina's worried face. "What about them?"
"They're desperate, Kira. Just desperate. I know Aunt Galina'd kill me if she knew I told you, but. . . . You see, the saccharine man got arrested as a speculator. They sent him to jail for six years. And your folks . . . well, what is there left to do? You know. Last week Father brought them a pound of millet. If we only could. . . . But you know how things are with us. Mother so sick. And nothing much left for the Alexandrovsky market but the wallpaper. I don't think they have a thing in the house--your folks. I thought maybe you . . . maybe you would like to know."
"Here," said Kira, "take this bread. We don't need it. We'll buy some from a private store. Tell them you've found, borrowed or stolen it, or anything. But don't tell them it's from me."
On the following day, Galina Petrovna rang the door bell. Kira was not at home. Leo opened the door and bowed graciously.
"I believe it is my . . . mother-in-law?" he asked.
"That's what it would like to be," Galina Petrovna stated.
His smile disarmed her; it was infectious; she smiled.
When Kira came in, there were tears. Galina Petrovna crushed her in her arms, before a word was said, and sobbed: "Kira, my child! . . . . My dear child! . . . God forgive us our sins! . . . These are hard days. . . . These are very hard days. . . . After all, who are we to judge? . . . Everything's gone to pieces. . . . What difference does it all make? If we can just forget, and pull the pieces together, and . . . God show us the way. We've lost it. . . ."
When she released Kira, and powdered her nose from a little envelope full of potato flour, she muttered: "About that bread, Kira. We didn't use it all. I hid it. I was afraid--maybe you need it yourself. I'll bring it back if you do. We took only a small slice; your father was so hungry."
"Irina talks too much," said Kira. "We don't need the bread, Mother. Don't worry. Keep it."
"You must come and see us," said Galina Petrovna. "Both of you. Let by-gones be by-gones. Of course, I don't see why you two don't get . . . Oh, well, it's your business. Things aren't what they were ten years ago. . . . You must visit us, Leo--I may call you Leo, may I not? Lydia is so anxious to meet you."
One could buy bread in the private stores. But the price made Kira hesitate. "Let's go to a railroad station," she said to Leo.
Arm in arm, Kira and Leo walked to the Nikolaevsky station. Drops tapped the sidewalk. The sun dripped to the sidewalk with every drop. Leo bought a bunch of violets on a corner. He pinned it to Kira's shoulder, a purple tuft, young and fragrant on her old black coat. She smiled happily and kicked an icicle in a puddle, splashing water at the passersby, laughing.
The train had arrived. They made their way through an eager crowd that pushed them aside and drove them forward, and stuck elbows into their stomachs, and heels on their toes. Soldiers watched the descending passengers, silent, alert, suspicious.
A man stepped down from the train. He had a peculiar nose; it was so short and turned up so sharply that his two wide, slanting nostrils were almost vertical; under the nostrils there was a wide space and a heavy mouth. His stomach shivered like gelatin as he stepped down. His coat seemed too ragged, his boots too dirty.
Soldiers seized his arms. They were going to search him. He whined softly: "Comrades, brothers! So help me God, you're wrong. I'm nothing but a poor peasant, brothers, nothing but the poorest peasant. Never heard of speculating. But I'm a responsible citizen, too. I'll tell you something. If you let me go, I'll tell you something."
"What can you tell, you son of a bitch?"
"See that woman there? She's a speculator. I know. I'll tell you where she's hiding food. I seen her."
Strong hands seized the woman. Her arms were like a skeleton's in the soldiers' fists; gray hair hung over her eyes from under an old hat with a black feather; the shawl held on her sunken chest by an ancient mosaic pin shook silently, convulsively, a thin, nervous shudder, like that of a window at the distant sound of an explosion. She moaned, showing three yellow teeth in a dark mouth: "Comrades. . . . It's my grandson. . . . I wasn't going to sell. . . . It's for my grandson. . . . Please, let me go, comrades . . . my grandson--he's got the scurvy. . . . Has to eat. . . . Please, comrades. . . . The scurvy. . . . Please. . . ."