We the Living (32 page)

One evening, Kira heard a familiar voice behind the door. A man was saying: “Of course, we’re friends. You know we are. Perhaps—perhaps there’s more—on my part—but I do not dare to hope. I’ve proven my devotion to you. You know the favor I’ve done you. Now, do one for me. I want to meet that Party friend of yours.”

Passing through Marisha’s room, on her way out, Kira stopped short. She saw Victor sitting on the davenport, holding Marisha’s hand. He jumped up, his temples reddened.

“Victor! Were you coming to see me or . . .” Her voice broke off; she understood.

“Kira, I don’t want you to think that I . . .” Victor was saying.

Kira was running out of the room, out of the lobby, down the stairs.

When she told Leo about it, he threatened to break every bone in Victor’s body. She begged him to keep quiet. “If you raise this issue, his father will know. It will break Uncle Vasili and he’s so unhappy as it is. What’s the use? We won’t get the room back.”

In the Institute co-operative, Kira met Comrade Sonia and Pavel Syerov. Comrade Sonia was chewing a crust of bread broken off the loaf she had received, Pavel Syerov looked as trim as a military fashion plate. He smiled effusively: “How are you, Comrade Argounova? We don’t see you so often at the Institute these days.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“We don’t see you with Comrade Taganov any more. You two haven’t quarreled, have you?”

“Why does that interest you?”

“Oh, it’s of no particular interest to me personally.”

“But it does interest us as a Party duty,” Comrade Sonia remarked sternly. “Comrade Taganov is a valuable Party worker. Naturally, we are concerned, for his friendship with a woman of your social origin might hurt his Party standing.”

“Nonsense, Sonia, nonsense,” Pavel Syerov protested with sudden eagerness. “Andrei’s Party standing is too high. Nothing can hurt it. Comrade Argounova doesn’t have to worry and break off a lovely friendship.”

Kira looked at him fixedly and asked: “But his Party standing does worry you because it’s so high, doesn’t it?”

“Why, Comrade Taganov is a very good friend of mine and . . .”

“Are
you
a very good friend of his?”

“A peculiar question, Comrade Argounova.”

“One does hear peculiar things nowadays, doesn’t one? Good day, Comrade Syerov.”

Marisha came in when Kira was alone. Her little pouting mouth was swollen: her eyes were red, swollen with tears. She asked sullenly: “Citizen Argounova, what do you use to keep from having children?”

Kira looked at her, startled.

“I’m afraid I’m in trouble,” Marisha wailed. “It’s that damn louse Aleshka Rilenko. Said I’d be bourgeois if I didn’t let him. . . . Said he’d be careful. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?”

Kira said she didn’t know.

For three weeks, Kira worked secretly on a new dress. It was only her old dress, but slowly, painfully, awkwardly, she managed to turn it inside out. The blue wool was smooth and silky on the inside; it looked almost fresh. It was to be a surprise for Leo; she worked on it at night when he had gone to bed. She put a candle on the floor and opened the big mirror door of the wardrobe and used it as a screen, crouching on the floor behind it, by the candle. She had never learned how to sew. Her fingers moved slowly, helplessly. She wiped drops of blood on her petticoat, when she pricked her finger with the needle. Her eyes felt as if tiny needles pricked them continuously from behind the lids; and her lids felt so heavy that when she blinked they stayed closed and it took an effort to pull them open to the huge yellow glare of the candle. Somewhere in the darkness, behind the yellow glare, Leo breathed heavily in his sleep.

The dress was ready on the day when she met Vava in the street. Vava was smiling happily, mysteriously once in a while, for no apparent reason, smiling at a secret thought of her own. They walked home together, and Vava could not resist it any longer: “Won’t you come in, Kira?” she begged. “For just a second? I have something to show you. Something—from
abroad
.”

Vava’s room smelt of perfume and clean linen. A big teddy-bear with a pink bow sat on the white lace cover of her bed.

Vava opened a parcel carefully wrapped in tissue paper. She handled the objects inside with a frightened reverence, with delicate, trembling fingers. The parcel contained two pairs of silk stockings and a black celluloid bracelet.

Kira gasped. She extended her hand. She hesitated. She touched a stocking with her finger tips, caressing it timidly, like the fur of a priceless animal.

“It’s smuggled,” Vava whispered. “A lady—father’s patient—her husband’s in the business—they smuggled it from Riga. And the bracelet—that’s their latest fashion abroad. Imagine? Fake jewelry. Isn’t it fascinating?”

Kira held the bracelet reverently on the palm of her hand; she did not dare to slip it on.

Vava asked suddenly, timidly, without smiling: “Kira, how’s Victor?”

“He’s fine.”

“I . . . I haven’t seen him for some time. Well, I know, he’s so busy. I’ve given up all my dates, waiting for him to. . . . Oh, well, he’s such an active person. . . . I’m so happy over these stockings. I’ll wear them when . . . when he comes. I just had to throw out my last silk pair this morning.”

“You . . . threw them out?”

“Why, yes. I think they’re still in the waste basket. They’re ruined. One has a big run in the back.”

“Vava . . . could I have them?”

“What? The torn ones? But they’re no good.”

“It’s just . . . just for a joke.”

Kira went home, clutching a soft little ball in her pocket. She kept her hand in her pocket. She could not let it go.

When Leo came in, that evening, his hand opened the door and flung his brief case into the room. The brief case opened, spilling the books over the floor. Then he came in.

He did not take his coat off; he walked straight to the “Bourgeoise” and stood, his blue hands extended to the fire, rubbing them furiously. Then he took his coat off and threw it across the room at a chair; it missed the chair and fell to the floor; he didn’t pick it up. Then he asked: “Anything to eat?”

Kira stood facing him, silent, motionless in the splendor of her new dress and carefully mended real silk stockings. She said softly: “Yes. Sit down. Everything’s ready.”

He sat down. He had looked at her several times. He had not noticed. It was the same old blue dress; but she had trimmed it carefully with bands and buttons of black oilcloth which looked almost like patent leather. When she served the millet and he dipped his spoon hungrily into the steaming yellow mush, she stood by the table and, raising her skirt a little, swung her leg forward into the circle of light, watching happily the shimmering, tight silk. She said timidly: “Leo, look.”

He looked and asked curtly: “Where did you get them?”

“I . . . Vava gave them to me. They . . . they were torn.”

“I wouldn’t wear other people’s discarded junk.”

He did not mention the new dress. She did not call it to his attention. They ate silently.

Marisha had had an abortion. She moaned, behind the closed door. She shuffled heavily across the room, cursing aloud the midwife who did not know her business.

“Citizen Lavrova, will you please clean the bathroom? There’s blood all over the floor.”

“Leave me alone. I’m sick. Clean it yourself, if you’re so damn bourgeois about your bathroom.”

Marisha slammed the door, then opened it again, cautiously: “Citizen Argounova, you won’t tell your cousin on me, will you? He doesn’t know about . . . my trouble. He’s—a gentleman.”

Leo came home at dawn. He had worked all night. He had worked in caissons for a bridge under construction, deep on the bottom of a river on the point of freezing.

Kira had waited for him. She had kept a fire in the “Bourgeoise.”

He came in, oil and mud on his coat, oil and sweat on his face, oil and blood on his hands. He swayed a little and held onto the door. A strand of hair was glued across his forehead.

He went into the bathroom. He came out, asking: “Kira, do I have any clean underwear?”

He was naked. His hands were swollen. His head drooped to one shoulder. His eyelids were blue.

His body was white as marble and as hard and straight; the body of a god, she thought, that should climb a mountainside at dawn, young grass under his feet, a morning mist on his muscles in a breath of homage.

The “Bourgeoise” was smoking. An acrid fog hung under the electric bulb. The gray rug under his feet smelt of kerosene. Black drops of soot fell slowly, with a soft thud, from a joint of the stove pipes to the gray rug.

Kira stood before him. She could say nothing. She took his hand and raised it to her lips.

He swayed a little. He threw his head back and coughed.