The Early Ayn Rand (33 page)

“Kira’s Viking” may be read as a lushly Romantic fairy tale for adults, as well as for children. The language is simple, evocative, Biblical in its cadence and power. Miss Rand’s admirers will recognize the similarity in this regard to her later novelette
Anthem
—and also to the legends about John Galt in
Atlas Shrugged.
Ayn Rand was expert in creating the mood and reality of this kind of haunting, timeless legend, and I could not let this small example of her talent stay buried. (Besides, it is the only fairy tale I know with a viewpoint on the relationship between statism and religion.)

The story was cut, presumably, because it was not necessary for the purpose of the novel at this point—that is, to establish Kira’s character.

The last paragraph of “Kira’s Viking,” which I have placed after a sequence break, originally appeared much later, near the end of the book, in Kira’s death scene; it was cut when the story was cut.

“No” is the world Ayn Rand escaped from. “Kira’s Viking” is why she escaped—what she wanted to find in the world instead.

—L. P.

A month to wait is a fortnight in Paris, a week in New York, a year in Soviet Russia.

“No,” said the saleslady in the bookstore, “we have no foreign magazines, citizen. Foreign magazines? You must be new in Petrograd. We have no more publications from
abroad
than from Mars, citizen. Unsuitable ideology, you know. What can one expect of bourgeois countries? . . . Here’s a nice selection, citizen:
The Young Communist, Red Weekdays, Red Harvest. . . .
No? . . . We have splendid novels, citizen.
Naked Year
—all about the civil war.
Sickle and Hammer
—it’s the class awakening of the village—futuristic, you know—but very profound.”

The shelves were bright with white covers and red letters, white letters and red covers—on cheap, brownish paper and with laughing, defiant broken lines and circles cutting triangles, and triangles splitting squares, the new art coming through some crack in the impenetrable barrier, from the new world beyond the borders, whose words could not reach the little store where a picture of Lenin winked slyly at Kira, from above a sign: “State Publishing House.”

 

“No,” said Galina Petrovna, “we have no money to waste on theater tickets. You ought to be glad we have enough for tramway tickets.”

In the streets, there were big posters with little blue letters announcing the opening season of the “State Academic Theaters”—the three theatrical giants of Petrograd that were called “the Imperial Theaters” five years ago: the Alexandrinsky, with a chariot high on its roof, stone horses’ hoofs suspended over the city, with five balconies of red and gold inside, watching Russia’s best dramas; the Marinsky—blue and silver, solemn and majestic, a temple to operas and the fluttering skirts of ballet; the Michailovsky—orange and silver, friendly and impudent, winking at its two serious brothers with the newest daring plays and the gayest light operas.

“No,” said the cashier, “no tickets under three hundred and fifty rubles. Then we have profunion nights—free tickets from your union. . . . If you’re not a union member, citizen, who cares if you don’t get to see a show?”

 

“No,” said Irina Dunaeva, “I get no new dresses this winter either. So you don’t have to worry, Kira. We’ll look alike. . . . Yes, I have powder. Soviet powder. Doesn’t stay on very well. But do you know Vava Miloslavsky, Victor’s girl—for the time being? Her father’s a doctor—a Free Profession, they call it—you see, he doesn’t ‘exploit labor’ so they leave him alone—and he makes money—and Vava—now don’t talk about it—she has a box of Coty’s powder . . . yes, French. Yes, real. From
abroad.
Smuggled. Ten thousand rubles a box. . . . I think Vava uses lipstick. You know, I think it’s going to be a fashion. Daring, isn’t it? But they say they use it—
abroad
. . . . Vava, she has a pair of silk stockings. Don’t say I told you. She likes to show them off—and I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.”

 

“No!” said the red letters on a poster. “The Proletarian Consciousness is not Contaminated by Paltry Bourgeois Ideology. Comrades! Tighten our Class Welding!”

The poster showed a milling crowd of workers, the size of ants, in the shadow of a huge wheel.

 

“No,” said the student in the red bandanna, “you gotta stand in line for the bread, same as us all, citizen. Sure, it might take two hours. And it might take three hours. What’s the hurry, citizen? You ain’t got anything better to do with your time. Expecting privileges, perhaps? Too good to stand in line with us proletarians? Don’t wiggle your feet, citizen. Certainly, I’m cold, too. . . . Sure, you’ll miss the lecture. And I’ll miss a meeting of the Cell. But this is Bread Day.”

Every student had a provision card. The floor of the University shop was covered with sawdust. The clerk at the counter briskly shoved hunks of dried bread at the line moving slowly past him, and dipped his hand into a barrel to fish out the pickles, and wiped his hand on the bread. The bread and pickles disappeared, unwrapped, into briefcases filled with books.

 

“No,” said the article in
Pravda,
“the New Economic Policy is not a surrender of our revolutionary ideology. It is a temporary compromise with a historical necessity. The fight isn’t over. Come on, comrades, let’s show the fat-bellied foreign imperialists, our new, united ranks on the front of economic recovery! This is the day of the factory and the tractor instead of the bayonet! This is the day to demonstrate our red discipline in the slow, monotonous routine of proletarian State Construction! This is the time of heroic Red weekdays!”

“No,” said Galina Petrovna, “I didn’t break the kerosene stove. There’s no kerosene. If you mix the coarse flour with cold water, it’ll taste like gruel.”

 

“No,” said the militia man, “you can’t cross the street, citizen. What’s the hurry? Don’tcha see there’s a demonstration of the toilers?”

A string of women waddled down Nevsky, spreading to fill its broad expanse, stopping the trucks and tramways, mud flying in little spurts from under heavy shoes. The red banner at the head of the demonstration said:

“The Women of the First Factory of the Red Food-trust Protest Against the Imperialistic Greed of England and Lord Chamberlain!”

The women hid their hands in their armpits, to warm them, and sang:

“No,” said the drunken sailor in the darkness under the window, on the street far below, “I ain’t gonna stop. I’m a free citizen. To hell with your sleep.”

And he pulled the harmonica as if he were going to tear it apart, and it squealed in terror, and he sang, leaning against a lamp post, throwing his raucous words at the moon over the dark roofs above:

“No,” said the Upravdom, “you can’t be no exception, citizen. Even if you are a student. Social duty comes above all. Every tenant gotta attend the meeting.”

So Kira sat in the long, bare room, the largest in the house, in the apartment of a tramway conductor. Behind her sat Galina Petrovna in her oldest dress, and Alexander Dimitrievitch stretching out his run-down boots, and Lydia shivering in a torn shawl. Every tenant in the house was present. The apartment had electrical connections and one bulb burned in the center of the ceiling. The tenants chewed sunflower seeds.

“Seeing as how I’m the Upravdom,” said the Upravdom, “I declare this meeting of the tenants of the house . . . on Moika open. On the order of the day is the question as regards the chimneys. Now, comrades citizens, seeing as how we are all responsible citizens and conscious of the proper class consciousness, we gotta understand that this ain’t the old days when we had landlords and didn’t care what happened to the house we lived in. Now this is different, comrades. Owing to the new regime and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and seeing as how the chimneys are clogged we gotta do something about it, seeing as how we’re the owners of the house. Now if the chimneys are clogged, the stoves won’t burn, and if the stoves won’t burn we’ll have the house full of smoke, and if we have the house full of smoke—it’s sloppy, and if we’re sloppy—that’s not true proletarian discipline. And so, comrades citizens . . .”

The smell of food burning came from the hall and a housewife fidgeted nervously, glancing anxiously at the clock. A fat man in a red shirt was twiddling his thumbs. A young man, with a pale mouth hanging open, was scratching his head, occasionally producing something which he rolled in his fingers and dropped on the floor.

“. . . and the special assessment will be divided in proportion as to the . . . Is that you, Comrade Argounova, trying to sneak out? Well, you better don’t. You know what we think of people what sabotage their social duties. You better teach your young one the proper consciousness, Citizen Argounova. . . . And the special assessment will be divided in proportion as to the social standing of the tenants. The workers pay three percent, and the free professions, ten, and the private traders the rest. . . . Who’s for—raise your hands. . . . Comrade Secretary, count the citizens’ hands. . . . Who’s against—raise your hands. . . . Comrade Michliuk, you can’t raise your hand for and against on the one and same proposition. . . .”

 

In the mornings—there was millet and the smell of kerosene when there was no wood, and smoke when there was no kerosene.

In the evenings—there was millet, and Lydia rocking back and forth on a rickety chair, moaning:

“The pagans! The sacrilegious apostates! They’re taking the ikons, and the gold crosses from the churches. To feed their damn famine somewhere. No respect for anything sacred. What’re we coming to?”

And Galina Petrovna wailed:

“What’s Europe waiting for? How far do we have to go?”

And Alexander Dimitrievitch asked timidly:

“May I, Galina? Just a spoonful more?”

And Maria Petrovna came to visit, trembling by the stove, coughing as if her chest were torn into shreds, fighting with words and coughs:

“. . . and Vassia had another fight with Victor . . . over politics . . . and Irina got nothing but dried fish at the University . . . this week . . . no bread . . . and I made a nightgown out of the old blanket . . . old . . . rips if you breathe on it . . . and Acia needs galoshes . . . and Vassia won’t take a Soviet job, won’t hear of it. . . . Yes, I take cough medicine. . . . Did you hear about Boris Koulikov? In a hurry, tried to jump on a crowded tramway—at full speed—both legs cut off. . . . Acia’s learning to spell at school and what words do they teach it with? Marxism and Proletariat and Electrification. . . .”

 

On the floor crumbled sheets of
Pravda
rustled underfoot:

“Comrades! True Proletarians have no will but that of the collective. The iron will of the Proletariat, the victorious class, will lead humanity into . . .”

And Kira stood by a window, her hand on the dark, cold glass, and her body felt young, cold and hard as the glass, and she thought that one could stand a lot, and forget a lot, if one kept clear and firm one final aim and cause. She did not know what the aim was; but she did not ask herself the question, for the aim was beyond questions and doubts; she knew only that she was awaiting it. Perhaps, it was the twenty-eighth of October.

There was only one book Kira remembered. She was ten years old when she read it. It was the story of a Viking. It was written in English. Her governess gave it to her. She heard later that the author had died very young. She had not remembered his name; in later years, she had never been able to find it.