We the Living (65 page)

Waiters glided soundlessly through the crowd and bent over the tables, obsequious and exaggerated, and their flabby jowls conveyed expressions of respect, and mockery, and pity for those guilty, awkward ones who made such an effort to be gay.

Morozov did remember that he had to raise money before morning. He came to the European roof garden, alone. He sat at three different tables, smoked four different cigars and whispered confidentially into five different ears that belonged to corpulent men who did not seem to be in a hurry. At the end of two hours, he had the money in his wallet.

He mopped his forehead with relief, sat alone at a table in a dark corner and ordered cognac.

Stepan Timoshenko leaned so far across a white table cloth that he seemed to be lying on, rather than sitting at, the table. His head was propped on his elbow, his fingers on the nape of his broad neck; he had a glass in his other hand. When the glass was empty, he held it uncertainly in the air, wondering how to refill it with one hand; he solved the problem by dropping the glass with a sonorous crash and lifting the bottle to his lips. The maitre d’hotel looked at him nervously, sidewise, frowning; he frowned at the jacket with the rabbit fur collar, at the crumpled sailor cap sliding over one ear, at the muddy shoes flung out onto the satin train of a woman at the next table. But the maitre d’hotel had to be cautious; Stepan Timoshenko had been there before; everyone knew that he was a Party member.

A waiter slid unobtrusively up to his table and gathered the broken glass into a dust-pan. Another waiter brought a sparkling clean glass and slipped his fingers gently over Timoshenko’s bottle, whispering: “May I help you, citizen?”

“Go to hell!” said Timoshenko and pushed the glass across the table with the back of his hand. The glass vacillated on the edge and crashed down. “I’ll do as I please!” Timoshenko roared, and heads turned to look at him. “I’ll drink out of a bottle if I please. I’ll drink out of two bottles!”

“But, citizen . . .”

“Want me to show you how?” Timoshenko asked, his eyes gleaming ominously.

“No, indeed, citizen,” the waiter said hastily.

“Go to hell,” said Timoshenko with soft persuasion. “I don’t like your snoot. I don’t like any of the snoots around here.” He rose, swaying, roaring: “I don’t like any of the damn snoots around here!”

He staggered among the tables. The maitre d’hotel whispered gently at his elbow: “If you’re not feeling well, citizen . . .”

“Out of my way!” bellowed Timoshenko, tripping over a woman’s slippers.

He had almost reached the door, when he stopped suddenly and his face melted into a wide, gentle smile. “Ah,” he said. “A friend of mine. A dear friend of mine!”

He staggered to Morozov, swung a chair high over someone’s head, planted it with a resounding smash at Morozov’s table and sat down.

“I beg your pardon, citizen?” Morozov gasped, rising.

“Sit still, pal,” said Timoshenko and his huge tanned paw pressed Morozov’s shoulder down, like a sledge hammer, so that Morozov fell back on his chair with a thud. “Can’t run away from a friend, Comrade Morozov. We’re friends, you know. Old friends. Well, maybe you don’t know me. Stepan Timoshenko’s the name. Stepan Timoshenko. . . . Of the Red Baltfleet,” he added as an after-thought.

“Oh,” said Morozov. “Oh.”

“Yep,” said Timoshenko, “an old friend and admirer of yours. And you know what?”

“No,” said Morozov.

“We gotta have a drink together. Like good pals. We gotta have a drink. Waiter!” he roared so loudly that a violinist missed a note of “John Gray.”

“Bring us two bottles!” Timoshenko ordered when a waiter bowed hesitantly over his shoulder. “No! Bring us three bottles!”

“Three bottles of what, citizen?” the waiter asked timidly.

“Of anything,” said Timoshenko. “No! Wait! What’s the most expensive? What is it that the good, fat capitalists guzzle in proper style?”

“Champagne, citizen?”

“Make it champagne and damn quick! Three bottles and two glasses!”

When the waiter brought the champagne, Timoshenko poured it and planted a glass before Morozov. “There!” said Timoshenko with a friendly smile. “Going to drink with me, pal?”

“Yes, co . . . comrade,” said Morozov meekly. “Thank you, comrade.”

“Your health, Comrade Morozov!” said Timoshenko, solemnly, raising his glass. “To Comrade Morozov, citizen of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics!”

They clinked their glasses. Morozov glanced around furtively, helplessly, but no help was coming. He drank, the glass trembling at his lips. Then he smiled ingratiatingly: “This was very nice of you, comrade,” he muttered, rising. “And I appreciate it very much, comrade. Now if you don’t mind. I’ve got to be going and . . .”

“Sit still,” ordered Timoshenko. He refilled his glass and raised it, leaning back, smiling, but his smile did not seem friendly any longer and his dark eyes were looking at Morozov steadily, sardonically. “To the great Citizen Morozov, the man who beat the revolution!” he said and laughed resonantly, and emptied the glass in one gulp, his head thrown back.

“Comrade . . .” Morozov muttered through lips he could barely force open, “comrade . . . what do you mean?”

Timoshenko laughed louder and leaned across the table toward Morozov, his elbows crossed, his cap far back on his head, over sticky ringlets of dark hair. The laughter stopped abruptly, as if slashed off. Timoshenko said softly, persuasively, with a smile that frightened Morozov more than the laughter: “Don’t look so scared, Comrade Morozov. You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m nothing but a beaten wretch, beaten by you, Comrade Morozov, and all I want is to tell you humbly that I know I’m beaten and I hold no grudge. Hell, I hold a profound admiration for you, Comrade Morozov. You’ve taken the greatest revolution the world has ever seen and patched the seat of your pants with it!”

“Comrade,” said Morozov with a blue-lipped determination, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes,” said Timoshenko ruefully. “Oh, yes, you do. You know more about it than I do, more than millions of young fools do, that watch us from all over the world with worshipping eyes. You must tell them, Comrade Morozov. You have a lot to tell them.”

“Honestly, comrade, I . . .”

“For instance, you know how you made us do it. I don’t. All I know is that we’ve done it. We made a revolution. We had red banners. The banners said that we made it for the world proletariat. We had fools who thought in their doomed hearts that we made it for all those downtrodden ones who suffer on this earth. But you and me, Comrade Morozov, we have a secret. We know, but we won’t tell. Why tell? The world doesn’t want to hear it. We know that the revolution—it was made for you, Comrade Morozov, and hats off to you!”

“Comrade whoever you are, comrade,” Morozov moaned, “what do you want?”

“Just to tell you it’s yours, Comrade Morozov.”

“What?” Morozov asked, wondering if he was going insane.

“The revolution,” said Timoshenko pleasantly. “The revolution. Do you know what a revolution is? I’ll tell you. We killed. We killed men in the streets, and in the cellars, and aboard our ships. . . . Aboard our ships . . . I remember . . . There was one boy—an officer—he couldn’t have been more than twenty. He made the sign of the cross—his mother must’ve taught him that. He had blood running out of his mouth. He looked at me. His eyes—they weren’t frightened any more. They were kind of astonished. About something his mother hadn’t taught him. He looked at me. That was the last thing. He looked at me.”

Drops were rolling down Timoshenko’s jowls. He filled a glass and it tottered uncertainly in his hand, trying to find his mouth, and he drank without knowing that he was drinking, his eyes fixed on Morozov’s.

“That’s what we did in the year nineteen-hundred-and-seventeen. Now I’ll tell you what we did it for. We did it so that the Citizen Morozov could get up in the morning and scratch his belly, because the mattress wasn’t soft enough and it made his navel itch. We did it so that he could ride in a big limousine with a down pillow on the seat and a little glass tube for flowers by the window, lilies-of-the-valley, you know. So that he could drink cognac in a place like this. So that he could scramble up, on holidays, to a stand all draped in red bunting and make a speech about the proletariat. We did it, Comrade Morozov, and we take a bow. Don’t glare at me like that, Comrade Morozov, I’m only your humble servant, I’ve done my best for you, and you should reward me with a smile, really, you have a lot to thank me for!”

“Comrade!” Morozov panted. “Let me go!”

“Sit still!” Timoshenko roared. “Pour yourself a glass and drink. Do you hear me? Drink, you bastard! Drink and listen!”

Morozov obeyed; his glass tinkled, shaking, against the bottle.

“You see,” said Timoshenko, as if each word were tearing his throat on its way out, “I don’t mind that we’re beaten. I don’t mind that we’ve taken the greatest of crimes on our shoulders and then let it slip through our fingers. I wouldn’t mind it if we had been beaten by a tall warrior in a steel helmet, a human dragon spitting fire. But we’re beaten by a louse. A big, fat, slow, blond louse. Ever seen lice? The blond ones are the fattest. . . . It was our own fault. Once, men were ruled with a god’s thunder. Then they were ruled with a sword. Now they’re ruled with a Primus. Once, they were held by reverence. Then they were held by fear. Now they’re held by their stomachs. Men have worn chains on their necks, and on their wrists, and on their ankles. Now they’re enchained by their rectums. Only you don’t hold heroes by their rectums. It was our own fault.”

“Comrade, for God’s sake, comrade, why tell it all to me?”

“We started building a temple. Do we end with a chapel? No! And we don’t even end with an outhouse. We end with a musty kitchen with a second-hand stove! We set fire under a kettle and we brewed and stirred and mixed blood and fire and steel. What are we fishing now out of the brew? A new humanity? Men of granite? Or at least a good and horrible monster? No! Little puny things that wiggle. Little things that can bend both ways, little double-jointed spirits. Little things that don’t even bow humbly to be whipped. No! They take the lash obediently and whip themselves! Ever sat at a social-activity club meeting? Should. Do you good. Learn a lot about the human spirit.”

“Comrade!” Morozov breathed. “What do you want? Is it money you want? I’ll pay. I’ll . . .”

Timoshenko laughed so loudly that heads turned and Morozov cringed, trying not to be noticed. “You louse!” Timoshenko roared, laughing. “You fool, near-sighted, demented louse! Who do you think you’re talking to? Comrade Victor Dunaev? Comrade Pavel Syerov? Comrade . . .”

“Comrade!” Morozov roared, so that heads turned to him, but he did not care any longer. “You . . . you . . . you have no right to say that! I have nothing whatever to do with Comrade Syerov! I . . .”

“Say,” Timoshenko remarked slowly, “I didn’t say you had. Why the excitement?”

“Well, I thought . . . I . . . you . . .”

“I didn’t say you had,” Timoshenko repeated. “I only said you should have. You and he and Victor Dunaev. And about one million others—with Party cards and stamps affixed. The winners and the conquerors. Those who crawl. That, pal, is the great slogan of the men of the future: those who crawl. Listen, do you know how many millions of eyes are watching us across lands and oceans? They’re not very close and they can’t see very well. They see a big shadow rising. They think it’s a huge beast. They’re too far to see that it’s soft and brownish and fuzzy. You know, fuzzy, a glistening sort of fuzz. They don’t know that it’s made of cockroaches. Little, glossy, brown cockroaches, packed tight, one on the other, into a huge wall. Little cockroaches that keep silent and wiggle their whiskers. But the world is too far to see the whiskers. That’s what’s wrong with the world, Comrade Morozov: they don’t see the whiskers!”

“Comrade! Comrade, what are you talking about?”

“They see a black cloud and they hear thunder. They’ve been told that behind the cloud, blood is running freely, and men fight, and men kill, and men die. Well, what of it? They, those who watch, are not afraid of blood. There’s an honor in blood. But do they know that it’s not blood we’re bathed in, it’s pus? Listen, I’ll give you advice. If you want to keep this land in your tentacles, tell the world that you’re chopping heads off for breakfast and shooting men by the regiment. Let the world think that you’re a huge monster to be feared and respected and fought honorably. But don’t let them know that yours is not an army of heroes, nor even of fiends, but of shriveled bookkeepers with a rupture who’ve learned to be arrogant. Don’t let them know that you’re not to be shot, but to be disinfected. Don’t let them know that you’re not to be fought with cannons, but with carbolic acid!”

Morozov’s napkin was crumpled into a drenched ball in his fist. He wiped his forehead once more. He said, trying to make his voice gentle and soothing, trying to rise imperceptibly: “You’re right, comrade. Those are very fine sentiments. I agree with you absolutely. Now if you’ll allow . . .”

“Sit down!” roared Timoshenko. “Sit down and drink a toast. Drink it or I’ll shoot you like a mongrel. I still carry a gun, you know. Here . . .” he poured and a pale golden trickle ran down the table cloth to the floor. “Drink to the men who took a red banner and wiped their ass with it!”

Morozov drank.

Then he put his hand in his pocket and took out a handkerchief to mop his forehead. A crumpled piece of paper fell to the floor.

It was the swift, ferocious jerk, with which Morozov plunged down for it, that made Timoshenko’s fist dart out and seize Morozov’s hand. “What’s that, pal?” asked Timoshenko.

Morozov’s foot kicked the paper out of reach and it rolled under an empty table. Morozov said indifferently, little damp beads sparkling under his wide nostrils: “Oh, that? Nothing, comrade. Nothing at all. Just some scrap of waste paper.”