Authors: Ayn Rand

We the Living (74 page)

BOOK: We the Living

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Andrei Taganov was transferred from the G.P.U. to the job of librarian in the library of the Lenin’s Nook of the Club of Women Houseworkers in the suburb Lesnoe.

The clubhouse was a former church. It had old wooden walls that let the wind through, to rustle the bright posters inside; a slanting beam of unpainted wood in the center, supporting a roof ready to cave in; a window covered with boards over the dusty remnants of a glass pane; and a cast-iron “Bourgeoise” that filled the room with smoke. There was a banner of red calico over the former altar, and pictures of Lenin on the walls, pictures without frames, cut out of magazines: Lenin as a child, Lenin as a student, Lenin addressing the Petrograd Soviet, Lenin in a cap, Lenin without a cap, Lenin in the Council of People’s Commissars, Lenin in his coffin. There were shelves of books in paper covers, a sign that read: “Proletarians of the World, Unite!” and a plaster bust of Lenin with a scar of glue across his chin.

Andrei Taganov tried to hold on.

At five o’clock, when store windows made yellow squares in the snow and the lights of tramways rolled like colored beads high over the dark streets, he left the Technological Institute and rode to Lesnoe, sitting at the window of a crowded tramway, eating a sandwich, for he had no time to eat dinner. From six to nine, he sat alone in the library of the Lenin’s Nook of the Club of Women Houseworkers, wrote card indexes, glued torn covers, added wood to the “Bourgeoise,” numbered books, dusted shelves, and said when a woman’s figure in a gray shawl waddled in, shaking snow off her heavy felt-boots:

“Good evening, comrade. . . . No, ‘The A B C of Communism’ is not in. I have your reservation, comrade. . . . Yes, this is a very good book, Comrade Samsonova, very instructive and strictly proletarian. . . . Yes, Comrade Danilova, it is recommended by the Party Council as indispensable to the political education of a conscientious worker. . . . Please, comrade, do not draw pictures on library books in the future. . . . Yes, I know, comrade, the stove isn’t very good, it always smokes this way. . . . No, we don’t carry any books on birth control. . . . Yes, Comrade Selivanova, it is advisable to get acquainted with all of Comrade Lenin’s works in order to understand our great leader’s ideology. . . . Please close the door, comrade. . . . Sorry, comrade, we have no rest-room. . . . No, we have no books by Mussolini. . . . No, we carry no love stories, Comrade Ziablova. . . . No, Comrade Ziablova, I can’t take you to the Club dance Sunday. . . . No, ‘The A B C of Communism’ is not in, comrade. . . .”

In the offices of the G.P.U. they whispered: “Let Comrade Taganov wait for the next Party purge.”

Comrade Taganov did not wait for the next Party purge.

On a Saturday evening, he stood in line at the district co-operative for his food rations. The co-operative smelled of kerosene and rotted onions. There was a barrel of sauerkraut by the counter, a sack of dried vegetables, a can of linseed oil, and bars of bluish Joukov soap. A kerosene lamp smoked on the counter. A line of customers stretched across the long, bare room. There was only one clerk; he had a sty over his left eye and he looked sleepy.

A little man stood in line ahead of Andrei. His coat collar was loose, with a greenish, greasy patch at the nape of his neck. His neck was thin and wrinkled, with an Adam’s apple like a chicken’s craw. He fingered his ration card nervously and fidgeted, peering past the line at the counter. He sniffled sonorously, for he had a cold, and scratched his Adam’s apple.

He turned and grinned amicably up at Andrei. “Party comrade?” he asked, pointing a gnarled finger at the red star on Andrei’s lapel. “Me, too, comrade. Sure, Party member. Here’s my star, too. Cold weather we’re having, comrade. Awfully cold weather. I hope the dried vegetables aren’t all gone before our turn comes, comrade. They’re wonderful for making soup Julienne. Really should have meat for it, though, but I’ll tell you a nice little trick: just let them soak overnight, then boil them in plain water, and when it’s almost ready drop in a spoonful of sunflower-seed oil, just one spoonful, and it makes such nice grease spots float on the surface, just the same as if you had meat, never tell the difference. Yes, I sure like soup Julienne. Hope they’re not all gone before our turn comes. He’s not very fast, that clerk. Only I’m not complaining. No, please, don’t think I’m complaining, comrade.”

He peered at the counter, fingered his card, counted the coupons, scratched his Adam’s apple, and whispered confidentially: “Only I hope the vegetables aren’t all gone. And another thing: I wish they would give us all the stuff in the same place. We wait for the general products here, and tomorrow two hours at the bread store, and day after-tomorrow here again for kerosene. Still, I don’t mind. Next week, they say, we’re going to get lard. That will be a holiday, won’t it? That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?”

When Andrei’s turn came, the clerk shoved the rations at him, seized his card impatiently and growled: “What the hell’s the matter, citizen? Your coupon’s half torn off.”

“I don’t know,” said Andrei. “I must have torn it accidentally.”

“Well, I could have refused to accept it, you know. Not supposed to be half torn off. I got no time to check on all of you mugs. See that it’s right, next month.”

“Next . . . month?” said Andrei.

“Yeah, and next year, too, or else go empty-bellied. . . . Next!”

Andrei walked out of the co-operative with a pound of sauerkraut, a pound of linseed oil, a bar of soap and two pounds of dried vegetables for soup Julienne.

He walked slowly, and the streets were white with a hard, polished snow, and men’s heels cut sharp ridges, creaking. Snow sparkled like salt crystals in the white circles of lamp posts; and in the yellow cones of light at store windows, snow twinkled like splinters of powdered fire. Under a soft, glassy fuzz of frost, a poster showed a husky giant in a red blouse, raising two arms imperiously, triumphantly to the red letters:

WE ARE THE BUILDERS OF A NEW HUMANITY!

Andrei’s steps were steady, calm. Andrei Taganov was always calm when he had reached a decision.

He turned on the light, when he entered his room, and put his packages on the table. He took off his cap and jacket, and hung them on a nail in the corner. A strand of hair fell across his forehead; he brushed it back with a long, slow movement. He had left a few coals smouldering in the fireplace and the room was hot. He took off his coat and straightened the wrinkled sleeves of his shirt.

He looked around slowly. He saw some books on the floor, and picked them up, and put them neatly into a pile on the table.

He lighted a cigarette and stood in the middle of the room, his elbow pressed to his side, like a wax figure in a store window, motionless but for the slow movement of one forearm with a hand tracing an even line in the air, carrying to his lips a cigarette held in two long, straight fingers. Nothing moved in the room but that arm with a motionless hand, and the smoke rising slowly, at his lips, then at his shoulder, then at his lips again, the ashes falling to the floor.

When he felt a hot breath on his fingers and saw that the cigarette had burned, he threw the stub into the fireplace and walked to his table. He sat down and opened the drawers, one by one, and looked through their contents. He took out a few papers and gathered them into a pile on the table.

Then he rose and walked to the fireplace. He knelt and stuffed newspapers into the coals and blew at them until bright orange tongues leaped up. He threw two logs into the fire and stood, watching them until he saw white flames spurt from the creaking bark. Then he walked to the table, took the pile of papers he had selected and threw it into the fire.

Then he opened the old boxes that served as his wardrobe. There were the things he did not want to be found in his room. He took a girl’s black satin robe and threw it into the fire. He watched the cloth shriveling slowly in red, glowing, flameless patches, with long, thin columns of smoke, with a heavy, acrid odor. He watched it, his eyes quiet, astonished.

Then he threw in a pair of black satin slippers, and a little lace handkerchief, and a lace jacket with white ribbons. A sleeve of the jacket rolled out on the blackened bricks by the fireplace; he bent and, lifting it delicately, placed it back over the flames.

Then he found “The American Resident,” the little glass toy with a black imp in a red liquid. He looked at it, and hesitated, and put it cautiously down into the smouldering lace. The glass tube cracked, and the liquid sizzled on the coals with a sharp little puff of steam, and “The Resident” rolled into a crack among the coals.

Then he took out the black chiffon nightgown.

He stood at the fireplace and held the gown in both hands, and his fingers crumpled slowly, softly the light silk that felt like a handful of smoke. He held it on his two palms, and looked at his fingers through the thin black film, and moved his fingers slowly.

Then he knelt and spread it over the fire. For a second, the red coals were dimmed as under a clouded black glass; then the gown shuddered, as in a gust of wind, and a corner of the hem curled up, and a thin blue flame shot out of a fold at the neckline.

He rose and stood watching it; he watched glowing red threads running down the black cloth, and the black film twisting, as if it were breathing, curling, shrinking slowly into a smoke light as the cloth.

He stood for a long time, looking at the motionless black thing with twinkling red edges, that still had the shape of a gown, but it was not transparent any longer.

Then he touched it softly with his foot. It crumbled almost before it was touched, and little black flames fluttered up into the chimney.

He turned away and sat down at the table. He sat with one forearm resting on the table and the other on his knee, his hands hanging down, ten fingers motionless, straight, broken only by the small angles of the joints, so still that they seemed grown fast to the air. An old alarm clock ticked on a shelf. His face was grave, quiet. His eyes were gentle, astonished, wondering. . . .

Then he turned, and took a piece of paper from the drawer, and wrote: “No one is to be held responsible for my death.” And signed: “Andrei Taganov.”

There was only one shot, and because the frozen marble stairway was long and dark and led to a garden buried in deep snow, no one came up to investigate.

ON THE FRONT PAGES OF THE
Pravda
, a square in a heavy black frame carried the words:

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party expresses its profound grief at the death of a heroic fighter of the Revolution, former member of the Red Army, member of the Party since 1915,

COMRADE ANDREI TAGANOV

Under it, another square in a heavy black frame said:

The Leningrad Committee of the All-Union Communist Party sorrowfully announces the death of

COMRADE ANDREI TAGANOV

The funeral will take place tomorrow, on the Field of Victims of the Revolution. The procession will start from the Smolny Institute at 10 o’clock in the morning.

An editorial of the
Pravda
said:

Another name has been added to the glorious list of victims fallen on the field of honor of the Revolution. That name may not be known to many, but it represents and symbolizes the common ranks of our Party, the unsung heroes of our weekdays. In the person of Comrade Andrei Taganov, we pay a last tribute to the unknown warriors of the Army of the Proletariat. Comrade Taganov is dead. He committed suicide under the strain of a nervous collapse caused by overwork. His health and body were broken by the demanding, ceaseless task which his Party membership imposed upon him. Such was his sacrifice to the Revolution. Such is the sacrifice of a Party that rules, not for the sake of personal loot and fame, like the rulers of capitalistic countries, but for the sake of assuming the hardest work, the most pitiless tasks in the service of the Collective. And if, in these days of struggle and privation, some of us may weaken in spirit, let us look up to the great All-Union Communist Party that leads us, that spares not its strength, its energy, its lives. Let us make the Red funeral of a Party hero an occasion of tribute to our leaders. Let all toilers of Leningrad join in the process that will escort Comrade Taganov to his last place of rest.

In an office of the G.P.U., a man with a smile that showed his gums, said to Pavel Syerov: “Well, he gave us a good opportunity for a lot of useful noise, after all. You making the opening speech?”

“Yeah,” said Syerov.

“Don’t forget his Red Army record and all that. Well, I hope this will shut them up, those damn fools, some of those old dotards of the 1905 vintage, who showed an inclination to talk too much about his pre-October Party card and other things, the Kovalensky case among other things.”

“Forget it,” said Pavel Syerov.