We the Living (26 page)

Vava undertook to teach Andrei to dance and dragged him out into the crowd. He followed obediently, smiling, like a tiger that could not hurt a kitten. He was not a bad pupil, she thought. She felt very brave, very daring at the thought that she was actually corrupting a stern Communist. She regretted that the corruption could go no further. It was annoying to meet a man in whom her beauty awakened no response, who looked at her with calm, steady eyes, as he looked at Lydia, as he looked at the anemic girl in the felt boots.

Lydia played “Destiny Waltz.” Andrei asked Kira to dance. Leo glanced at him with his cold smile, but said nothing and walked away from them.

“Vava’s a good teacher,” Kira whispered, as Andrei whirled her into the crowd, “but hold me tighter. Oh, yes, much tighter.”

“Destiny Waltz” was slow and soft; it stopped for a breathless second once in a while and swung into rhythm again, slowly, rocking a little, as if expecting soft, billowing satin skirts to murmur gently in answer, in a ball-room such as did not exist any longer.

Kira looked up into a grave face that was smiling half ironically, half shyly. She pressed her head to his breast; her eyes flashed up at him one swift glance, like a spark; then she jerked her head back; her tousled hair caught on a button of his coat and a few strands remained entwined around the button.

Andrei felt a very soft silk in his arms and, under the silk, a very slender body. He looked down at her open collar and saw a faint shadow parting the flesh. He did not look down again.

Leo danced with Rita, their eyes meeting in a silent understanding, her body pressed to his expertly, professionally. Vava whirled, smiling proudly at every couple she passed, her hand resting triumphantly, possessively on Victor’s shoulder. Kolya Smiatkin watched Vava timidly, wistfully; he was afraid to ask her for a dance: he was shorter than Vava. He knew that everybody knew of his hopeless, doggish devotion to her and that they laughed at him; he could not help it. The anemic girl’s felt boots made the chandelier tremble, its fringe of glass beads ringing softly; once she stepped on Vava’s sparkling patent leather pump. A thoughtful guest added a log to the fire; it hissed and smoked; someone had not been conscientious and had brought a damp log.

At two A.M. Vava’s mother stuck a timid, pallid face through the crack of a half-opened door and asked the guests if they would “Like to have some refreshments.” The eager rush to the dining room cut a waltz short in the middle.

In the dining room, a long table stood frozen in a solemn splendor of white and silver, crystal sparkling in a blinding light, delicate forks laid out with formal precision. Costly dishes of milky-white porcelain offered slices of black bread with a suspicion of butter, slices of dried fish, potato-skin cookies, sauerkraut and tea with sticky brown candy instead of sugar.

Vava’s mother smiled hospitably: “Please take one of everything. Don’t be afraid. There’s enough. I’ve counted them.”

Vava’s father sat, beaming broadly, at the head of the table. He was a doctor who specialized in gynecology. He had not been successful before the revolution; after the revolution, two facts had helped his rise: the fact that, as a doctor, he belonged to the “Free Professions” and was not considered an exploiter, and the fact that he performed certain not strictly legal operations. Within a couple of years he had found himself suddenly the most prosperous member of his former circle and of many circles above.

He sat, his two fists holding his lapels, leaning back comfortably, his round stomach bulging under a heavy gold chain, costly watch-charms tinkling and shuddering with the muscles of his stomach. His narrow eyes disappeared in the thick folds of a white flesh. He smiled warmly at his guests; he was very proud of the rare, enviable position of host, a host who could afford to offer food; he relished the feeling of a patron and benefactor to the children of those before whom he had bowed in the old days, the children of the industrial magnate Argounov, of Admiral Kovalensky. He made a mental note to donate some more to the Red Air Fleet in the morning.

His smile widened when the maid entered sullenly, carrying a silver tray with six bottles of rare old wine—a token of gratitude from one of his influential patients. He poured, filling crystal glasses, chuckling amiably: “Good old stuff. Real prewar stuff. Bet you kids never tasted anything like it.” The glasses were passed down the long table, from hand to hand.

Kira sat between Leo and Andrei. Andrei raised his glass gravely, steadily, like a warrior. “Your health, Kira,” he said.

Leo raised his glass lightly, gracefully, like a diplomat at a foreign bar. “Since you’re toasted by my class superior, Kira,” he said, “I’ll drink to our charming hostess.”

Vava answered with a warm, grateful smile. Leo raised his glass to her and drank looking at Rita.

When they returned to the drawing room, the dying fire had to be revived. Lydia played again. A few couples danced lazily. Vava sang a song about a dead lady whose fingers smelt of incense. Kolya Smiatkin gave an impersonation of a drunk. Victor told anecdotes. Others followed his example; some of the anecdotes were political; cautious glances were thrown at Andrei; words stopped halfway and the teller stammered, blushing.

At five A.M. everyone was exhausted; but no one could go home before daylight; it was too dangerous. The city militia was helpless against burglars and holdup men. No citizen dared to cross a street after midnight.

Doctor Milovsky and his wife retired, leaving the young guests to await the dawn. The stern, starched maid dragged into the drawing room mattresses borrowed from all the neighbors. The mattresses were lined up against the wall. The maid left. Vava turned out the light.

The guests settled down comfortably, in couples. Nothing pierced the darkness but a last glow of the fireplace, a few red dots of cigarettes, a few whispers, a few suspicious sounds that were not whispers. The unwritten law of parties dictated that no one should be too curious in these last, weary and most exciting hours of a party.

Kira felt Andrei’s hand on her arm. “I think they have a balcony,” he whispered. “Let’s go out.”

Following him, Kira heard a sigh and something that sounded like a very passionate kiss from the corner where Vava nestled in Victor’s arms.

It was cold on the balcony. The street lay silent like a tunnel under a vault slowly turning gray. Frozen puddles looked like splinters of glass panes on the pavement. Windows looked like puddles frozen on the walls. A militia-man leaned against a lamp post. A flag bent over the street. The flag did not move; neither did the man.

“It’s funny,” said Andrei, “I never thought I would, but I do like dancing.”

“Andrei, I’m angry at you.”

“Why?”

“This is the second time that you haven’t noticed my best dress.”

“It’s beautiful.”

The door behind them squealed on its rusty hinges. Leo stepped out on the balcony, a cigarette hanging in the corner of his mouth. He asked: “Is Kira nationalized state property, too?”

Andrei answered slowly: “Sometimes I think it would be better for her if she were.”

“Well, until the Party passes the proper resolution,” said Leo, “she isn’t.”

They returned into the warm darkness of the drawing room. Leo drew Kira down on the mattress by his side; he said nothing; she drowsed, her head on his shoulder. Rita moved away with a little shrug. Andrei stood by the balcony door, smoking.

At eight A.M. the window curtains were pulled aside. A dull white sky spread over the roofs, like soapy water. Vava muttered good-byes to her guests at the door; she swayed a little, weary circles under her eyes, one dark lock hanging to the tip of her nose, her lipstick smeared over her chin. The guests divided into groups, to walk together in clusters as long as possible.

In the cold dawn, ice breaking under their feet, Andrei took Kira aside for a moment. He pointed at Leo, who was helping Lydia over a puddle a few steps ahead of them. “Do you see him often?” he asked.

The question told her that he had not learned the truth; the tone of the question—that she would not tell him.

Lights burned in the windows of barred, padlocked shops. Many doors carried a notice:

“Comrade burglars, please don’t bother. There’s nothing inside.”

IN THE SUMMER, PETROGRAD WAS A FURNACE.

The wooden bricks of the pavements cracked into black gashes, dry as an empty river bed. The walls seemed to breathe of fever and the roofs smelt of burned paint. Through eyes hazy in a white glare, men looked hopelessly for a tree in the city of stone. When they found a tree, they turned away: its motionless leaves were gray with parched dust. Hair stuck to foreheads. Horses shook flies off their foaming nostrils. The Neva lay still; little drops of fire played lazily on the water, like clusters of spangles, and made the men on the bridges feel hotter.

Whenever they could, Kira and Leo went away for a day in the country.

They walked hand in hand in the stripes of sun and pine shadows. Like columns of dark brick, like sinewy bodies sunburnt to bronze and peeling in strips of light bark, the pines guarded the road and dropped, jealously, through a heavy tangle of malachite, a few rays, a few strips of soft blue. On the green slopes of ditches, little purple dots of violets bent to a patch of yellow sand; and only the crystal luster of the sand showed water over it. Kira took off her shoes and stockings. Soft dust and pine needles between her toes, she kicked the little black balls of fallen pine cones. Leo swung her slippers at the end of a dry branch, his white shirt unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled above his elbows. Her bare feet pattered over the boards of an old bridge. Through the wide cracks, she saw sparks swimming like fish scales down the stream and polliwogs wiggling in swarms of little black commas.

They sat alone in a meadow. Tall grass rose like a wall around them, over their heads; a hot blue sky descended to the sharp, green tips; the sky seemed to smell of clover. A cricket droned like an electric engine. She sat on the ground; Leo lay stretched, his head on her lap. He chewed the end of a long grass stem; the movement of his hand, holding it, had the perfection of a foreign cigarette ad. Once in a while, she bent down to kiss him.

They sat on a huge tree root over a river. The spreading stars of ferns on the slope below looked like a jungle of dwarf palms. The white trunk of a birch tree sparkled in the sun, its leaves like a waterfall that streamed down, green drops remaining suspended in the air, trembling, turning silver and white and green again, dropping once in a while to be swept away by the current. Kira leaped over the rocks, roots and ferns as swift, agile and joyous as an animal. Leo watched her. Her movements were sharp, angular, inexpressibly graceful in that contradiction of all grace, not the soft, fluent movements of a woman, but the broken, jerking, precise, geometrical movements of a futuristic dancer. He watched her perched on a dead tree trunk, looking down into the water, her hands at straight angles to her arms, her elbows at straight angles to her body, her body at a straight angle to her legs, a wild, broken little figure, tense, living, like a lightning in shape. Then he sprang up, and ran after her, and held her, breaking the straight angles into a straight line crushed against him. The dead trunk hanging over the stream creaked perilously. She laughed, that strange laughter of hers which was too joyous to be gay, a laughter that held a challenge, and triumph, and ecstasy. Her lips were moist, glistening.

When they returned to the city, the stifling dusk met them with posters, and banners, and headlines, four letters flaming over the streets:

The country had a new name and a new constitution. The All-Union Congress of Soviets had just decided so. Banners said:

Demonstrations marched through the hot, dusty streets, red kerchiefs mopping sweating foreheads.

A column of children, drums beating, marched into the sunset: a layer of bare legs, and a layer of blue trunks, and a layer of white shirts, and a layer of red ties; the kindergarten of the Party, the “Pioneers.” Their high, young voices sang:

Once, Kira and Leo attempted to spend a night in the country.

“Certainly,” said the landlady. “Certainly, citizens, I can let you have a room for the night. But first you must get a certificate from your Upravdom as to where you live in the city, and a permit from your militia department, and then you must bring me your labor books, and I must register them with our Soviet here, and our militia department, and get a permit for you as transient guests, and there’s a tax to pay, and then you can have the room.”