We the Living (52 page)

Leo flicked the ashes off his cigarette into an empty can on the counter and asked: “Any cash in the register?”

“Yes, sir, can’t complain, business was good today, sir, and . . .”

“Let me have it.”

The man’s gnarled hand fingered his chin uncertainly; he muttered: “But, sir, Karp Karpovitch said last time you . . .”

“I said let me have it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leo stuffed the bills carelessly into his wallet. He asked, lowering his voice: “Did that shipment arrive last night?”

The clerk nodded, blinking confidentially, with an intimate little giggle. “Shut up,” said Leo. “And be careful.”

“Why, yes, sir, yes indeed, sir, you know I’m the soul of discretion, as they say in society, if I may say so, sir. Karp Karpovitch knows that he can trust a loyal old servant who has worked for him for . . .”

“You could use some flypaper here once in a while.”

“Yes, sir, I . . .”

“I won’t be in again today. Keep the store open till the usual hour.”

“Yes, sir. Good day, sir.”

Leo walked out without answering.

On the corner, the girl in the blue hat rimmed with cherries was waiting for him. She smiled hopefully, uncertainly. He hesitated for a second; then he smiled and turned away; his smile spread a flush of red on the cheeks and nose under the blue brim. But she stood, watching him jump into a cab and drive away.

He drove to the Alexandrovsky market. He walked swiftly past the old wares spread on the sidewalk, ignoring the eager, pleading eyes of their owners. He stopped at a little booth displaying porcelain vases, marble clocks, bronze candlesticks, a priceless loot that had found its way from some demolished palace into the dusty twilight of the market.

“I want something for a gift,” he threw at the clerk who bowed solicitously. “A wedding gift.”

“Yes, indeed,” the clerk bowed. “Ah . . . for your bride, sir?”

“Certainly not. For a friend.”

He looked indifferently, contemptuously at the delicate, cracked dusty treasures that should have reposed on velvet cushions in a museum showcase.

“I want something better,” he ordered.

“Yes, indeed, sir,” the clerk bowed, “something beautiful for a beloved friend.”

“No. For someone I hate.” He pointed at a vase of blue and gold porcelain in a corner. “What’s that?”

“Ah, sir, that!” The clerk reached timidly for the vase and brought it slowly, cautiously to the counter; its price had made him hesitate to show it even to a customer in a foreign overcoat. “Genuine Sèvres, sir,” he whispered, brushing cobwebs out of the vase, upturning it to show the delicate mark on the bottom. “A royal object, sir,” he breathed, “a truly royal object.”

“I’ll take it,” said Leo.

The clerk swallowed and fumbled at his tie, watching the wallet in the gloved fingers of a customer who had not even asked the price.

“Comrades, in these days of peaceful State Construction, the workers of Proletarian culture are the shock battalion in the vanguard of the Revolution. The education of the Worker-Peasant masses is the great problem of our Red weekdays. We, excursion leaders, are a part of the great peace-time army of educators, imbued with the practical methodology of historical materialism, attuned to the spirit of Soviet reality, dedicated to . . .”

Kira sat in the ninth row, on a chair that threatened to fold under her at any moment. The meeting of excursion guides was coming to an end. Around her, heads drooped wearily and eyes looked furtively, hopefully at a large clock on the wall, over the speaker’s head. But Kira tried to listen; she held her eyes fixed on the speaker’s mouth to catch every word; she wished the words were louder. But the words could not drown out the voices ringing in her mind: a voice over the telephone, pleading, trying not to sound pleading: “Kira, why do I see you so seldom?”; an imperious voice in the darkness of her room at night: “What are those visits of yours, Kira? You said you were at Irina’s yesterday. But you weren’t.” How long could she keep it up? She had not seen Andrei for three weeks.

The chairs around her clattered; the meeting was over. She hurried down the stairway. She was saying to a fellow guide: “. . . yes, a splendid speech. Of course, our cultural duty to the proletariat is our primary goal . . .” It was easy to say. It was easy, after she had looked straight at Leo and laughed: “Leo, why those foolish questions? Don’t you trust me?” pressing her hand to her breast to hide the mark of Andrei’s teeth.

She hurried home. In Marisha’s room, two trunks and a wicker basket stood in the middle of the floor; empty drawers gaped open; posters were torn off the walls and piled on the trunks. Marisha was not at home.

In Kira’s room, a maid hurried from the hissing Primus by the window to take her coat.

“Leo hasn’t returned yet, has he?” Kira asked.

“No, ma’am.”

Kira’s coat was old, with rubbed patches on the elbows. Her dress had grease stains on the collar and threads hanging out of its frayed hem. With one swift movement, Kira pulled it off over her head and threw it to the maid, shaking her dishevelled hair. Then she fell on the bed, kicking off her old shoes with run-down heels, tearing off her darned, cotton stockings. The maid knelt by the bed, pulling thin silk stockings up Kira’s slender legs, slipping delicate, high-heeled pumps on her feet; then she rose to help her into a trim dark woolen dress. The maid put the old coat and shoes into a wardrobe that contained four new coats and six pairs of new shoes.

But Kira had to keep her job for the protection of the title of Soviet employee; and she had to wear her old clothes to protect her job.

An extravagant bouquet of white lilies, Leo’s latest gift, stood on the table. The white petals had caught a few specks of soot from the Primus. Kira had a maid, but no kitchen. The maid came for five hours every day and cooked their meals on the Primus by the window.

Leo came home, carrying the Sèvres vase wrapped in newspapers.

“Isn’t dinner ready yet?” he asked. “How many times have I told you that I hate to have that thing smoking when I come home?”

“It’s ready, sir.” The maid hurried to turn off the Primus, her young, round face obedient and frightened.

“Have you bought the present?” Kira asked.

“There it is. Don’t unwrap it. It’s fragile. Let’s have dinner. We’ll be late.”

After dinner, the maid washed the dishes and left. Kira sat at her mirror, carefully outlining her lips with a real French lipstick.

“You’re not wearing that dress, are you?” Leo asked.

“Why, yes.”

“No, you’re not. Put on the black velvet one.”

“But I don’t feel like dressing up. Not for Victor’s wedding. I wouldn’t go at all, if it weren’t for Uncle Vasili.”

“Well, since we’re going, I want you to look your best.”

“But, Leo, is it wise? He’s going to have many of his Party friends there. Why show them that we have money?”

“Why not? Certainly, we have money. Let them see that we have money. I’m not going to act like trash for the benefit of trash.”

“All right, Leo. As you wish.”

He looked at her appraisingly when she stood before him, severe as a nun, graceful as a Marquise of two centuries past, her hands very white and thin on the soft black velvet. He smiled with approval and took her hand, as if she were a lady at a Court reception, and kissed her palm, as if she were a courtesan.

“Leo, what did you buy for them?” she asked.

“Oh, just a vase. You may see it, if you wish.”

She unwrapped the newspapers and gasped. “Leo! But this . . . this cost a fortune!”

“Certainly. It’s Sèvres.”

“Leo, we can’t give it to them. We can’t let them see that we can afford it. Really, it’s dangerous.”

“Oh, nonsense.”

“Leo, you’re playing with fire. Why bring such a present for all the Communists to see?”

“That’s exactly why.”

“But they know that a regular private trader couldn’t afford gifts like this.”

“Oh, stop being foolish!”

“Take that thing back and exchange it.”

“I won’t.”

“Then I’m not going to the party.”

“Kira . . .”

“Leo, please!”

“Oh, very well!”

He seized the vase and flung it to the floor. It burst into glittering splinters. She gasped. He laughed: “Well, come on. You can buy them something else on our way there.”

She stood looking at the splinters. She said dully: “Leo, all that money . . .”

“Will you ever forget that word? Can’t we live without thinking of it all the time?”

“But you promised to save. We’ll need it. Things may not last as they are.”

“Oh, nonsense! We have plenty of time to start saving.”

“But don’t you know what they mean, all those hundreds, there, on the floor? Don’t you remember it’s your life that you’re gambling for every one of those rubles?”

“Certainly, I remember. That’s just what I do remember. How do I know I have a future? Why save? I may never need it. I’ve trembled over money long enough. Can’t I throw it away if I want to—while I can?”

“All right, Leo. Come on. We’ll be late.”

“Come on. Stop frowning. You look too lovely to frown.”

In the Dunaev dining room, a bunch of asters stood in a bowl on the table, and a bunch of daisies on the buffet, and a bunch of nasturtiums on an upright piano. The piano had been borrowed from the tenants; long streaks remained on the parquet, following its trail from the door.

Victor wore a modest dark suit and a modest expression of youthful happiness. He shook hands and smiled and bowed graciously, acknowledging congratulations. Marisha wore a purple woolen dress, and a white rose on her shoulder. She looked bewildered; she watched Victor’s movements with a timid, incredulous pride; she blushed and nodded hastily to the compliments of guests, and shook hands without knowing whose hands they were, her eyes vague, roving, searching for Victor.

The guests shuffled in, and muttered best wishes, and settled down uncomfortably. The friends of the family were strained, suspicious and cautiously, elaborately polite to the Party members. The Party members were awkward, uncertain and helplessly polite to the friends of Victor’s bourgeois past. The guests did not sound quite natural in their loud assurances of happiness, when they looked at the silent, stooped figure of Vasili Ivanovitch with a quiet, anguished question frozen in his eyes; at Irina in her best patched dress, with her jerky movements and her strident voice of unnatural gaiety.

Little Acia wore a pink bow on a stiff strand of hair, that kept slipping toward her nose. She giggled, once in a while, glancing up at a guest, biting her knuckles. She stared at Marisha with insolent curiosity. She snooped around the table that displayed the wedding gifts, an odd assortment of objects: a bronze clock, a China ashtray in the shape of a skull, a new Primus, a complete set of Lenin’s works in red paper covers. Irina watched her closely, to drag her away in time from the buffet and the dishes of pastry.

Galina Petrovna followed Victor persistently, patting him on the shoulder, repeating: “I’m so happy, so happy, my dear boy!” The muscles of Victor’s face were fixed in a wide grin, over his sparkling white teeth; he did not have to smile; he merely turned his head to her and nodded without a change of expression.

When Victor escaped from her, Galina Petrovna patted Vasili Ivanovitch’s shoulder, repeating: “I’m so happy, so happy, Vasili. You have a son to be proud of.” Vasili Ivanovitch nodded as if he had not heard.

When Kira entered, the first person she saw, standing alone by a window, was Andrei.

She stopped short at the door. His eyes met hers and moved slowly to the man who held her arm. Leo smiled faintly, contemptuously.

Kira walked straight to Andrei; she looked graceful, erect, supremely confident, in her regal black gown; she extended her hand, saying aloud: “Good evening, Andrei. I’m so glad to see you.”