We the Living (15 page)

In a hall of the Institute Kira saw Comrade Sonia. She was making a little speech to a group of five young students. Comrade Sonia was always surrounded by a brood of youngsters; and she always talked, her short arms flapping like protective wings.

“. . . and Comrade Syerov is the best fighter in the ranks of proletarian students. Comrade Syerov’s revolutionary record is unsurpassed. Comrade Syerov, the hero of Melitopol. . . .”

A freckled boy with a soldier’s cap far on the back of his head, stopped his hurried waddle down the hall and barked at Comrade Sonia: “The hero of Melitopol? Ever heard of Andrei Taganov?”

He sent a sunflower seed straight at a button on Comrade Sonia’s leather jacket and staggered away carelessly. Comrade Sonia did not answer. Kira noticed that the look on her face was not a pleasant one.

Finding a rare moment when Comrade Sonia was alone, Kira asked her: “What kind of man is Comrade Taganov?”

Comrade Sonia scratched the back of her head, without a smile. “A perfect revolutionary, I suppose. Some call him that. However, it’s not my idea of a good proletarian if a man doesn’t unbend and be a little sociable with his fellow comrades once in a while. . . . And if you have any intentions in a bedroom direction, Comrade Argounova—well, not a chance. He’s the kind of saint that sleeps with red flags. Take it from one who
knows
.”

She laughed aloud at the expression on Kira’s face and waddled away, throwing over her shoulder: “Oh, a little proletarian vulgarity won’t hurt you!”

Andrei Taganov came again to the lecture for beginners, in the crowded auditorium. He found Kira in the crowd and elbowed his way toward her and whispered: “Tickets for tomorrow night. Mikhailovsky Theater. ‘Rigoletto.’ ”

“Oh, Andrei!”

“May I call for you?”

“It’s number fourteen. Fourth floor, on the back stairs.”

“I’ll be there at seven-thirty.”

“May I thank you?”

“No.”

“Sit down. I’ll make room for you.”

“Can’t. I have to go. I have another lecture to attend.”

Cautiously, noiselessly, he made his way to the door, and turned once to glance back at her smiling face.

Kira delivered her ultimatum to Galina Petrovna: “Mother, I have to have a dress. I’m going to the opera tomorrow.”

“To the . . . opera!” Galina Petrovna dropped the onion she was peeling; Lydia dropped her embroidery.

“Who is he?” gasped Lydia.

“A boy. At the Institute.”

“Good-looking?”

“In a way.”

“What’s his name?” inquired Galina Petrovna.

“Andrei Taganov.”

“Taganov? . . . Never heard. . . . Good family?”

Kira smiled and shrugged.

A dress was found at the bottom of the trunk; Galina Petrovna’s old dress of soft dark-gray silk. After three fittings and conferences between Galina Petrovna and Lydia, after eighteen hours when two pairs of shoulders bent over the oil wick and two hands feverishly worked two needles, a dress was created for Kira, a simple dress with short sleeves and a shirt collar, for there was no material to trim it.

Before dinner, Kira said: “Be careful when he comes. He’s a Communist.”

“A Com . . .” Galina Petrovna dropped the salt shaker into the pot of millet.

“Kira! You’re not . . . you’re not being friendly with a
Communist
?” Lydia choked. “After shouting how much you hate them?”

“I happen to like him.”

“Kira, it’s outrageous! You have no pride in your social standing. Bringing a Communist into the house! I, for one, shan’t speak to him.”

Galina Petrovna did not argue. She sighed bitterly: “Kira, you always seem to be able to make hard times harder.”

There was millet for dinner; it was mildewed and everyone noticed it; but no one said a word for fear of spoiling the others’ appetite. It had to be eaten; there was nothing else; so they ate in silence.

When the bell rang, Lydia, curious in spite of her convictions, hurried to open the door.

“May I see Kira, please?” Andrei asked, removing his cap.

“Yes, indeed,” Lydia said icily.

Kira performed the introductions. Alexander Dimitrievitch said: “Good evening,” and made no other sound, watching the guest fixedly, nervously. Lydia nodded and turned away.

But Galina Petrovna smiled eagerly: “I’m so glad, Comrade Taganov, that my daughter is going to hear a real proletarian opera in one of our great Red theaters!”

Kira’s eyes met Andrei’s over the wick. She was grateful for the calm, gracious bow with which he acknowledged the remark.

Two days a week were “Profunion days” at the State Academic Theaters. No tickets were sold to the public; they were distributed at half-price among the professional unions. In the lobby of the Mikhailovsky Theater, among trim new suits and military tunics, a few felt boots shuffled heavily and a few calloused hands timidly removed leather caps with flapping, fur-lined ears. Some were awkward, diffident; others slouched insolently, defying the impressive splendor by munching sunflower seeds. Wives of union officials ambled haughtily through the crowd, erect and resplendent in their new dresses of the latest style, with their marcelled hair, sparkling manicures and patent leather slippers. Glistening limousines drove, panting sonorously, up to the light-flooded entrance and disgorged heavy fur coats that waddled swiftly across the sidewalk, projecting gloved hands to throw coins at the ragged program peddlers. The program peddlers, livid, frozen shadows, scurried obsequiously through the free “profunion” audience, a wealthier, haughtier, better fed audience than the week-day paying guests.

The theater smelt of old velvet, marble and moth balls. Four balconies rose high to a huge chandelier of crystal chains that threw little rainbows on the distant ceiling. Five years of revolution had not touched the theater’s solemn grandeur; they had left but one sign: the Imperial eagle was removed from over the huge central box which had belonged to the royal family.

Kira remembered the long satin trains, and the bare white shoulders, and the diamonds that sparkled like the crystals of the chandelier, moving down the orange carpets of the wide aisles. There were few diamonds now; the dresses were dark, sober, with high necklines and long sleeves. Slender, erect in her soft gray satin, she walked in as she had seen those ladies walk many years ago, her arm on that of a tall young man in a leather jacket.

And when the curtain went up and music rose in the dark, silent shaft of the theater, growing, swelling, thundering against walls that could not hold it, something stopped in Kira’s throat and she opened her mouth to take a breath. Beyond the walls were linseed-oil wicks, men waiting in line for tramways, red flags and the dictatorship of the proletariat. On the stage, under the marble columns of an Italian palace, women waved their hands softly, gracefully, like reeds in the waves of music, long velvet trains rustled under a blinding light and, young, carefree, drunk on the light and the music, the Duke of Mantua sang the challenge of youth and laughter to gray, weary, cringing faces in the darkness, faces that could forget, for a while, the hour and the day and the century.

Kira glanced at Andrei once. He was not looking at the stage; he was looking at her.

During an intermission, in the foyer, they met Comrade Sonia on the arm of Pavel Syerov. Pavel Syerov was immaculate. Comrade Sonia wore a wrinkled silk dress with a tear in the right armpit. She laughed heartily, slapping Kira’s shoulder.

“So you’ve gone quite proletarian, haven’t you? Or is it Comrade Taganov who’s gone bourgeois?”

“Very unkind of you, Sonia,” Pavel Syerov remonstrated, his pale lips opening in a wide grin. “I can compliment Comrade Argounova on her wise choice.”

“How do you know my name?” Kira asked. “You’ve never met me.”

“We know a lot, Comrade Argounova,” he answered very pleasantly, “we know a lot.”

Comrade Sonia laughed and, steering Syerov’s arm masterfully, disappeared in the crowd.

On the way home, Kira asked: “Andrei, did you like the opera?”

“Not particularly.”

“Andrei, do you see what you’re missing?”

“I don’t think I do, Kira. It’s all rather silly. And useless.”

“Can’t you enjoy things that are useless, merely because they are beautiful?”

“No. But I enjoyed it.”

“The music?”

“No. The way you listened to it.”

At home, on her mattress in the corner, Kira remembered regretfully that he had said nothing about her new dress.

Kira had a headache. She sat at the window of the auditorium, her forehead propped by her hand, her elbow on a slanting desk. She could see, reflected in the window pane, a single electric bulb under the ceiling and her drawn face with dishevelled hair hanging over her eyes. The face and the bulb stood as incongruous shadows against the frozen sunset outside, beyond the window, a sunset as sinister and cold as dead blood.

Her feet felt cold in a draft from the hall. Her collar seemed too tight around her throat. No lecture had ever seemed so long. It was only December second. There were still so many days to wait, so many lectures. She found her fingers drumming softly on the window pane, and each couple of knocks was a name of two syllables, and her fingers repeated endlessly, persistently, against her will, a name that echoed somewhere in her temples, a name of three letters she did not want to hear, but heard ceaselessly, as if something within her were calling out for help.

She did not notice when the lecture ended and she was walking out, down a long, dark corridor, to a door open upon a white sidewalk. She stepped out into the snow; she drew her coat tighter against a cold wind.

“Good evening, Kira,” a voice called softly from the darkness.

She knew the voice. Her feet stood still, then her breath, then her heart.

In a dark corner by the door, Leo stood leaning against the wall, looking at her.