We the Living (38 page)

Kira met Vasili Ivanovitch in the street.

It took an effort not to let her face show the change of his. She had seen him but once since Maria Petrovna’s death, and he had not looked like that. He walked like an old man. His clear, proud eyes darted at every face, a bitter look of suspicion, and hatred, and shame. His wrinkled, sinewy hands tottered uncertainly in useless movements, like an old woman’s. Two lines were slashed from the corners of his lips to his chin, lines of such suffering that one felt guilty of intrusion for having seen and guessed.

“Kira, glad to see you again, glad to see you,” he muttered, his voice, his words clinging to her helplessly. “Why don’t you come over any more? It’s sort of lonesome, at home. Or . . . or maybe you’ve heard . . . and don’t want to come?”

She had not heard. But something in his voice told her not to ask him what it was that she could have heard. She said with her warmest smile: “Why, no, Uncle Vasili, I’ll be glad to come. It’s just that I’ve been working so hard. But I’ll be over tonight, may I?”

She did not ask about Irina and Victor, and whether they, too, had been expelled. As after an earthquake, all were looking around cautiously, counting the victims, afraid to ask questions.

That night, after dinner, she called on the Dunaevs. She had persuaded Leo to go to bed; he had a fever; his cheekbones flamed with bright red spots; she had left a jug of cold tea by the bed and told him that she would be back early.

At a bare table without table cloth, under a lamp without a shade, Vasili Ivanovitch sat reading an old volume of Chekhov. Irina, her hair uncombed, sat drawing senseless figures on a huge sheet of paper. Acia slept, fully dressed, curled in an armchair in a dark corner. A rusty “Bourgeoise” smoked.

“Allo,” said Irina, her lips twisting. Kira had never seen her smile like that.

“Would you like some tea, Kira? Hot tea? Only . . . only we have no saccharine left.”

“No, thank you, Uncle Vasili, I’ve just had dinner.”

“Well?” said Irina. “Why don’t you say it? Expelled?”

Kira nodded.

“And Leo, too?”

Kira nodded.

“Well? Why don’t you ask? Oh, I’ll tell you myself: sure, I’m out. What could you expect? Daughter of the wealthy Court Furrier!”

“And—Victor?”

Irina and Vasili Ivanovitch exchanged a glance, a strange glance. “No,” Irina answered slowly, “Victor is not expelled.”

“I’m glad, Uncle Vasili. That’s good news, isn’t it?” She knew the best way to cheer her uncle: “Victor’s such a talented young man, I’m glad they’ve spared his future.”

“Yes,” Vasili Ivanovitch said slowly, bitterly. “Victor is such a talented young man.”

“She had a white lace gown,” Irina said hysterically, “and, really, she has a gorgeous voice—oh—I mean—I’m speaking of the new production of ‘La Traviata’ at the Mikhailovsky Theater—and you’ve seen it, of course? Oh, well, you must see it. Old classics are . . . old classics are . . .”

“Yes,” said Vasili Ivanovitch, “old classics are still the best. In those days, they had culture, and moral values, and . . . and integrity. . . .”

“Really,” said Kira, nervous and bewildered, “I’ll have to see ‘La Traviata.’ ”

“In the last act,” said Irina, “in the last act, she. . . . Oh, hell!” She threw her drawing board down with a crash that awakened Acia, who sat up staring, blinking. “You’ll hear it sooner or later: Victor has joined the Party!”

Kira was holding the book of Chekhov and it clattered down to the floor. “He . . . what?”

“He joined the Party. The All-Union Communist Party. With a red star, a Party ticket, a bread card, and his hand in all the blood spilled, in all the blood to come!”

“Irina! How . . . how could he get admitted?”

She was afraid to look at Vasili Ivanovitch. She knew she should not ask questions, questions that were like knives turned in a wound; but she could not resist it.

“Oh, it seems he had it planned for a long time. He’s been making friends—carefully and judiciously. He’s been a candidate for months—and we never knew it. Then—he got admitted. Oh, they accepted him all right—with the kind of sponsors he had selected to vouch for his proletarian spirit, even though his father did sell furs to the Czar!”

“Did he know this—the purge, I mean—was coming?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. It isn’t that. Of course, he didn’t know that in advance. He’s aiming higher than merely to keep his place at the Institute. Oh, my brother Victor is a brilliant young man. When he wants to climb—he knows the stepping stones.”

“Well,” Kira tried to smile, to say for Vasili Ivanovitch’s sake, without looking at him, “it’s Victor’s business. He knows what he wants. Is he . . . is he still here?”

“If it were up to me, he . . .” Irina checked herself abruptly. “Yes. The swine’s still here.”

“Irina,” Vasili Ivanovitch said wearily, “he’s your brother.”

Kira changed the subject; but it was not easy to keep up a conversation. Half an hour later, Victor came in. The dignity of his expression and the red star in his lapel were very much in evidence.

“Victor,” Kira said. “I hear you’re a good Communist, now.”

“I have had the honor of joining the All-Union Communist Party,” Victor answered, “and I’ll have it understood that the Party is not to be referred to lightly.”

“Oh,” said Kira. “I see.”

But it happened that she did not see Victor’s extended hand when she was leaving.

At the door, in the lobby, Irina whispered to her: “At first, I thought Father would throw him out. But . . . with Mother gone . . . and all . . . and you know how he’s always been crazy about Victor . . . well, he thinks he’ll try to be broad-minded. I think it will break him. . . . For God’s sake, Kira, come often. He likes you.”

Because there was no future, they hung on to the present.

There were days when Leo sat for hours reading a book, and hardly spoke to Kira, and when he spoke his smile held a bitter, endless contempt for himself, for the world, for eternity.

Once, she found him drunk, leaning against the table, staring intently at a broken glass on the floor.

“Leo! Where did you get it?”

“Borrowed it. Borrowed it from our dear neighbor Comrade Marisha. She always has plenty.”

“Leo, why do you?”

“Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I? Who in this whole damn world can tell me why I shouldn’t?”

But there were days when a new calm suddenly cleared his eyes and his smile. He waited for Kira to come home from work and when she entered he drew her hastily into his arms. They could sit through an evening without a word, their presence, a glance, the pressure of a hand drugging them into security, making them forget the coming morning, all the coming mornings.

Arm in arm, they walked through silent, luminous streets in the white nights of spring. The sky was like dull glass glowing with a sunless radiance from somewhere beyond. The could look at each other, at the still, sleepless city, in the strange, milky light. He pressed her arm close to his, and when they were alone on a long street dawn-bright and empty, he bent to kiss her.

Kira’s steps were steady. There were too many questions ahead; but here, beside her, were the things that gave her certainty: his straight, tense body, his long, thin hands, his haughty mouth with the arrogant smile that answered all questions. And, sometimes, she felt pity for those countless nameless ones somewhere around them who, in a feverish quest, were searching for some answer, and in their search crushed others, perhaps even her; but she could not be crushed, for she had the answer. She did not wonder about the future. The future was Leo.

Leo was too pale and he was silent too often. The blue on his temples looked like veins in marble. He coughed, choking. He took cough medicine, which did not help, and refused to see a doctor.

Kira saw Andrei frequently. She had asked Leo if he minded it. “Not at all,” he had answered, “if he’s your friend. Only—would you mind?—don’t bring him here. I’m not sure I can be polite . . . to one of them.”

She did not bring Andrei to the house. She telephoned him on Sundays and smiled cheerfully into the receiver: “Feel like seeing me, Andrei? Two o’clock—Summer Garden—the quay entrance.”

They sat on a bench, with the oak leaves fighting the glare of the sun above their heads, and they talked of philosophy. She smiled sometimes when she realized that Andrei was the only one with whom she could think and talk about thoughts.

They had no reason for meeting each other. Yet they met, and made dates to meet again, and she felt strangely comfortable, and he laughed at her short summer dresses, and his laughter was strangely happy.

Once, he invited her to spend a Sunday in the country. She had stayed in the city all summer; she could not refuse. Leo had found a job for Sunday: breaking the wooden bricks of pavements, with a gang repairing the streets. He did not object to her excursion.

In the country, she found a smooth sea sparkling in the sun; and a golden sand wind-pleated into faint, even waves; and the tall red candles of pines, their convulsed roots naked to the sand and wind, pine cones rolling to meet the sea shells.

Kira and Andrei had a swimming race, which she won. But when they raced down the beach in their bathing suits, sand flying from under their heels, spurting sand and water at the peaceful Sunday tourists, Andrei won. He caught her and they rolled down together, a whirl of legs, arms and mud, into the lunch basket of a matron who shrieked with terror. They disentangled themselves from each other and sat there screaming with laughter. And when the matron struggled to her feet, gathered her lunch and waddled away, grumbling something about “this vulgar modern youth that can’t keep their love-affairs to themselves,” they laughed louder.

They had dinner in a dirty little country restaurant, and Kira spoke English to the waiter who could not understand a word, but bowed low and stuttered and spilled water all over the table in his eagerness to serve the first comrade foreigner in their forgotten corner. When they were leaving, Andrei gave him twice the price of their dinner. The waiter bowed to the ground, convinced that he was dealing with genuine foreigners. Kira could not help looking a little startled. Andrei laughed when they went out: “Why not? Might as well make a waiter happy. I make more money than I can spend on myself anyway.”

In the train, as it clattered into the evening and the smoke of the city, Andrei asked: “Kira, when will I see you again?”

“I’ll call you.”

“No. I want to know now.”

“In a few days.”

“No. I want a definite day.”

“Well, then, Wednesday night?”

“All right.”

“After work, at five-thirty, at the Summer Garden.”

“All right.”

When she came home, she found Leo asleep in a chair, his hands dust-streaked, smears of dust on his damp, flushed face, his dark lashes blond with dust, his body limp with exhaustion.

She washed his face and helped him to undress. He coughed.

The two evenings that followed were long, furious arguments, but Leo surrendered: He promised to visit a doctor on Wednesday.