We the Living (48 page)

Kira faced them calmly and said with cold assurance: “Why did you come? I was just starting for your house, as I promised.”

“As you . . .” Galina Petrovna began, but Kira interrupted:

“Well, since you’re here, take your coats off.”

“I’m so happy you’re well again, Leo,” said Galina Petrovna. “I feel as if you were my son. You really are my son. Everything else is just bourgeois prejudices.”

“Mother!” Lydia remonstrated feebly, hopelessly.

Galina Petrovna settled down in a comfortable armchair. Alexander Dimitrievitch sat apologetically on the edge of a chair by the door.

“Thank you for coming,” Leo smiled graciously. “My only excuse for neglecting to call, as I should have, is . . .”

“Kira,” Galina Petrovna finished for him. “Do you know that we haven’t seen her more than three times while you were away?”

“I have a letter for you, Kira,” Lydia said suddenly.

“A letter?” Kira’s voice jerked slightly.

“Yes. It came today.”

There was no return address on the envelope; but Kira knew the handwriting. She threw the letter indifferently down on the table.

“Don’t you want to open it?” Leo asked.

“No hurry,” she said evenly. “Nothing important.”

“Well, Leo?” Galina Petrovna’s voice boomed; her voice had become louder, clearer. “What are your plans for the winter? This is such an interesting year we’re entering. So many opportunities, particularly for the young.”

“So many . . . what?” Leo asked.

“Such a wide field of activity! It’s not like in the dying, decadent cities of Europe where people slave all their lives for measly wages and a pitiful little existence. Here—each one of us has an opportunity to be a useful, creative member of a stupendous whole. Here—one’s work is not merely a wasted effort to satisfy one’s petty hunger, but a contribution to the gigantic building of humanity’s future.”

“Mother,” Kira asked, “who wrote all that down for you?”

“Really, Kira,” Galina Petrovna drew her shoulders up, “you’re not only impertinent to your mother, but I think you’re also a bad influence on Leo’s future.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Galina Petrovna,” said Leo.

“And of course, Leo, I hope that you’re modern enough to outlive the prejudices we’ve all shared. We must admit that the Soviet Government is the only progressive government in the world. It utilizes all its human resources. Even an old person like me, who has been useless all her life, can find an opportunity for creative toil. And as for young people like you . . .”

“Where are you working, Galina Petrovna?” Leo asked.

“Oh, don’t you know? I’m teaching in a Labor School—they used to be called High Schools, you know. Sewing and fancy needlework. We all realize that a practical subject like sewing is much more important to our little future citizens than the dead, useless things, such as Latin, which were taught in the old bourgeois days. And our methods? We’re centuries ahead of Europe. For instance, take the complex method that we’re . . .”

“Mother,” Lydia said wearily, “Leo may not be interested.”

“Nonsense! Leo is a modern young man. Now, this method we’re using at present. . . . For instance, what did they do in the old days? The children had to memorize mechanically so many dry, disjoined subjects—history, physics, arithmetic—with no connection between them at all. What do we do now? We have the complex method. Take last week, for instance. Our subject was Factory. So every teacher had to build his course around that central subject. In the history class they taught the growth and development of factories; in the physics class they taught all about machinery; the arithmetic teacher gave them problems about production and consumption; in the art class they drew factory interiors. And in my class—we made overalls and blouses. Don’t you see the advantage of the method? The indelible impression it will leave in the children’s minds? Overalls and blouses—practical, concrete, instead of teaching them a lot of dry, theoretical seams and stitches.”

Lydia’s head drooped listlessly; she had heard it all many times.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying your work, Galina Petrovna,” said Leo.

“I’m glad you get your rations,” said Kira.

“I do, indeed,” Galina Petrovna stated proudly. “Of course, our distribution of commodities has not as yet reached a level of perfection and, really, the sunflower-seed oil I got last week was so rancid we couldn’t use it . . . but then, this is a transitional period of . . .”

“. . . State Construction!” Alexander Dimitrievitch yelled suddenly, hastily, as a well-memorized lesson.

“And what are you doing, Alexander Dimitrievitch?” Leo asked.

“Oh, I’m working!” Alexander Dimitrievitch jerked as if ready to jump forward, as if defending himself hastily against a dangerous accusation. “Yes, I’m working. I’m a Soviet employee. I am.”

“Of course,” Galina Petrovna drawled, “Alexander’s position is not as responsible as mine. He’s a bookkeeper in a district office somewhere way on the Vasilievsky Island—such a long trip every day!—and just what kind of an office is it, Alexander? But, anyway, he does have a bread card—though he doesn’t get enough even for himself alone.”

“But I’m working,” Alexander Dimitrievitch said meekly.

“Of course,” said Galina Petrovna, “I get better ration cards because I’m in a preferred class of pedagogues. I’m very active socially. Why, do you know, Leo, that I’ve been elected assistant secretary of the Teachers’ Council? It is gratifying to know that the present regime appreciates qualities of leadership. I even gave a speech on the methodology of modern education at an inter-club meeting where Lydia played the ‘Internationale’ so beautifully.”

“Sure,” Lydia said mournfully, “the ‘Internationale.’ I’m working, too. Musical director and accompanist in a Workers’ Club. A pound of bread a week and carfare and, sometimes, money, what’s left after the contributions each month.”

“Lydia is not pliable,” sighed Galina Petrovna.

“But I play the ‘Internationale,’ ” said Lydia, “and the Red funeral march—‘You fell as a victim’—and the Club songs. I even got applauded when I played the ‘Internationale’ at the meeting where Mother made the speech.”

Kira rose wearily to make tea. She pumped the Primus and put the kettle on, and watched it thoughtfully—and through the hissing of the flame, Galina Petrovna’s voice boomed loudly, rhythmically, as if addressing a class: “. . . yes, twice, imagine? Two honorable mentions in our students’ Wall Newspaper, as one of the three most modern and conscientious pedagogues. . . . Yes, I do have some influence. When that insolent young teacher tried to run the school, she was dismissed fast enough. And you can be sure I had something to say about that. . . .”

Kira did not hear the rest. She was watching the letter on the table, wondering. When she heard a voice again, it was Lydia’s and it was saying shrilly: “. . . spiritual consolation. I know. It has been revealed to me. There are secrets beyond our mortal minds. Holy Russia’s salvation will come from faith. It has been predicted. Through patience and long suffering shall we redeem our sins. . . .”

Behind the door, Marisha wound her gramophone and played “John Gray.” It was a new record and the swift little notes jerked gaily, clicking in sharp, short knocks.

Kira sat, her chin in her hands, the glow of the Primus flame flickering under her nostrils, and she smiled suddenly, very softly, and said: “I like that song.”

“That awful, vulgar thing, so overplayed that I’m sick of it?” Lydia gasped.

“Yes. . . . Even if it is overplayed. . . . It has such a nice rhythm . . . clicking . . . like rivets driven into steel. . . .” She was speaking softly, simply, a little helplessly, as she seldom spoke to her family. She raised her head and looked at them, and—they had never seen it before—her eyes were pleading and hurt.

“Still thinking of your engineering, aren’t you?” asked Lydia.

“Sometimes . . .” Kira whispered.

“I can’t understand what’s wrong with you, Kira,” Galina Petrovna boomed. “You’re never satisfied. You have a perfectly good job, easy and well-paid, and you mope over some childish idea of yours. Excursion guides, like pedagogues, are considered no less important than engineers, these days. It is quite an honorary and responsible position, and contributes a great deal to social construction—and isn’t it more fascinating to build with living minds and ideologies rather than with bricks and steel?”

“It’s your own fault, Kira,” said Lydia. “You’ll always be unhappy since you refuse the consolation of faith.”

“What’s the use, Kira?” sighed Alexander Dimitrievitch.

“Who said anything about being unhappy?” Kira asked loudly, sharply, jerking her shoulders; she got up, took a cigarette and lighted it, bending, from the Primus flame.

“Kira has always been unmanageable,” said Galina Petrovna, “but one would think that these are times to make one come down to earth.”

“What are your plans for the winter, Leo?” Alexander Dimitrievitch asked, suddenly, indifferently, as if he expected no answer.

“None,” said Leo. “Nor for any winter to come.”

“I had a dream,” said Lydia, “about a crow and a hare. The hare crossed the road—and that’s an unlucky omen. But the crow sat on a tree that looked like a huge white chalice.”

“You take my nephew Victor, for instance,” said Galina Petrovna. “There’s a smart, modern young man. He’s graduating from the Institute this fall and he has an excellent job already. Supporting his whole family. Now there’s nothing sentimental about him. He has his eyes open to modern reality. He’ll go far, that boy.”

“But Vasili isn’t working,” Alexander Dimitrievitch remarked with a dull, quiet wonder.

“Vasili has never been practical,” stated Galina Petrovna.

Alexander Dimitrievitch said suddenly, irrelevantly: “It’s a pretty red dress you have, Kira.”

She smiled wearily: “Thank you, Father.”

“You don’t look so well, child. Tired?”

“No. Not particularly. I’m fine.”

Then Galina Petrovna’s voice drowned out the roar of the Primus: “. . . and, you know, it’s only the best teachers who are praised in the Wall Newspaper. Our students are very severe and . . .”

Late at night, when the guests had gone, Kira took the letter into the bathroom and opened it. It contained two lines:

 

She led two excursions on the following day. Coming home, she told Leo that she would be dismissed if she did not attend a guides’ meeting that evening. She put on her red dress. On the stair-landing, she kissed Leo lightly, as he stood watching her go: she waved to him, vaulting down the stairs, with a cold, gay chuckle. On a street corner, she opened her purse, took out the little French bottle and pressed a few drops of perfume into her hair. She leaped into a tramway at full speed and stood hanging onto a leather strap, watching the lights swim past. When she got off, she walked, lightly, swiftly, with a cold, precise determination, toward the palace that was a Party Club.

She ran soundlessly up the crumbling marble stairway of the pavilion. She knocked sharply at the door.

When Andrei opened the door, she laughed, kissing him: “I know, I know, I know. . . . Don’t say it . . . I want to be forgiven first, and then I’ll explain.”

He whispered happily: “You’re forgiven. You don’t have to explain.”

She did not explain. She did not let him utter a complaint. She whirled around the room, and he tried to catch her, and the cloth of her coat felt cold in his hands, cold and fragrant of summer night air. He could whisper only: “Do you know that it’s been two weeks since . . .” But he did not finish the sentence.

Then she noticed that he was dressed for the street. “Were you going out, Andrei?”

“Oh . . . yes, I was, but it’s not important.”

“Where were you going?”

“Just to a Party Cell meeting.”

“A Party Cell meeting? And you say it’s not important? But you can’t miss that.”

“Yes, I can. I’m not going.”

“Andrei, I’d rather come tomorrow and let you . . .”

“No.”

“Well, then, let’s go out together. Take me to the European roof.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. Now.”

He did not want to refuse. She did not want to notice the look in his eyes.

They sat at a white table in the roof garden on top of the European Hotel. They sat in a dim corner, and they could see nothing of the long room but the naked white back of a woman a few tables away, with a little strand of golden hair curling at the nape of her neck, escaping from the trim, lustrous waves of her coiffure, with a little golden shadow between her shoulder blades, her long fingers holding a glass with a liquid the color of her hair, swaying slowly; and beyond the woman, beyond a haze of yellow lights and bluish, rippling smoke, an orchestra played fox-trots from “Bajadere,” and the violinists swayed to the rhythm of the golden glass.