The Early Ayn Rand (24 page)

There was not a single picture, not a book, not an ashtray. There was a bed because the human being had to sleep; and clothes, because he had to dress; he needed nothing else.

But there was one single object which he did not need, his single answer to any questions people could ask looking at his room, although no one had ever asked them: in a niche where ikons had been now hung, on a rusty nail, Commandant Kareyev’s old Red Army cap.

The unpainted wooden table had been pulled to the center of the room. On the table stood heavy tin dishes and tin cups without saucers; a candle in an old bottle; and no tablecloth.

Commandant Kareyev and Joan Harding were finishing their first dinner together.

She raised a tin jug of cold tea, with a smile that should have accompanied a glass of champagne, and said:

“Your health, Comrade Kareyev.”

He answered brusquely:

“If it’s a hint—you’re wasting your time. No drinks here. Not allowed. And no exceptions.”

“No exceptions and no hints, Comrade Kareyev. But still—your health.”

“Cut the nonsense. You don’t have to drink my health. You don’t have to smile. And you don’t have to lie. You’ll hate me—and you know it. And I know it. But you may not know that I don’t care—so you’re warned in advance.”

“I didn’t know I’ll hate you.”

“You know it now, don’t you?”

“Less than ever.”

“Listen, forget the pretty speeches. That’s not part of your job. If you expect any compliments—you might as well be disappointed right now.”

“I wasn’t expecting any compliments when I took the boat for Strastnoy Island.”

“And I hope you weren’t expecting any sentiment. This is a business deal. That’s all.”

“That’s all, Comrade Kareyev.”

“Did you expect a companion like me?”

“I’ve heard about you.”

“Have you heard what I’m called?”

“The Beast.”

“You may find I deserve the name.”

“You may find I like it.”

“No use telling me about it—if you do. I don’t care what you think of me.”

“Then why warn me about it?”

“Because the boat’s still here. It goes back at dawn. There’s no other for three months.”

She had lighted a cigarette. She held it in two straight fingers, looking at him.

“Were you in the civil war, Comrade Kareyev?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Did you acquire the habit of retreating?”

“No.”

“Neither have I.”

He leaned toward her, his crossed elbows on the table, watching her in the trembling glow of the candle, his eyes narrow, mocking. He said:

“I’ve seen some soldiers overestimate their strength.” She smiled, and reached over and flicked the ashes off her cigarette into his empty plate.

“Good ones,” she answered, “take chances.”

“Listen,” he said impatiently, “you don’t like questions, so I won’t bother you, because I don’t like to talk either. But there’s just one thing I’m going to ask you. That letter from the GPU said you were all right politically, but you don’t look as . . . as you should look at all.”

She blew at the smoke and did not answer. Then she looked at him and shrugged lightly.

“The letter told you about my present. The past is dead. If I’m not thinking of it, why should you?”

“No reason,” he agreed. “Makes no difference.”

A convict, waiting on the Commandant’s table, had removed the dishes, sliding silently out of the room. Joan rose.

“Show me the island,” she said. “I want to get acquainted. I’m staying here for a long time—I hope.”

“I hope you’ll repeat that,” he answered, rising, “three months from today.”

When they walked out, the sky was red behind the monastery towers, a shivering red, as if the light were dying in gasps. The monastery looked silently upon them, with small barred windows like reluctant eyes opened upon a sinful world, guarded by menacing saints of gray stone; cold evening shadows settled in the wrinkles of the saints’ faces cut by reverent hands, stormy winds, and centuries. A thick stone wall encircled the shore, and sentinels walked slowly on the wall, with measured steps, with bayonets red in the sunset, with heads bowed in resignation, watchful and weary like the saints by the windows.

“The prisoners aren’t locked up in their cells here,” Commandant Kareyev explained to her. “They have the freedom to move around. There’s not much space to move in. It’s safe.”

“They get tired of the island, don’t they?”

“They go mad. Not that it matters. It’s the last place they’ll see on earth.”

“And when they die?”

“Well, no room for a cemetery here. But a strong current.”

“Has anyone ever tried to escape?”

“They forget the word when they land here.”

“And yourself?”

He looked at her, without understanding. “Myself?”

“Have you ever tried to escape?”

“From whom?”

“From Commandant Kareyev.”

“Come on. What are you driving at?”

“Are you happy here?”

“No one’s forcing me to stay.”

“I said: are you happy?”

“Who cares about being happy? There’s so much work to be done in the world.”

“Why should it be done?”

“Because it’s one’s duty.”

“To whom?”

“When it’s duty, you don’t ask why and to whom. You don’t ask any questions. When you come up against a thing about which you can’t ask any questions—then you know you’re facing your duty.”

She pointed far out at the darkening sea and asked:

“Do you ever think of what lies there, beyond the coast? Of the places where I came from?”

He answered, shrugging contemptuously:

“The best of that world beyond the coast is right here.”

“And that is?”

“My work.”

He turned and walked back to the monastery. She followed obediently.

They walked down a long corridor where barred windows threw dark crosses on the floor, over the red squares of dying light, and figures of saints writhed on ancient murals. From behind every door furtive eyes watched the stranger. The eyes were eager and contemptuous at once. Commandant Kareyev did not notice them; Joan was braver—she did, and walked on, not caring.

They had reached the foot of the stairs where, at tall windows, a group of prisoners loitered, as if by chance, aimlessly studying the sunset.

Her foot was on the first step when a cry stopped her, the kind of cry she would have heard if the martyrs of the murals had suddenly found voice.

“Frances!”

Michael Volkontzev stood grasping the banister, barring her way. Many people were looking at his face, but his face looked like a thing that should not be seen.

“Frances! What are you doing here?”

The men around them could not understand the question, because of the way his voice sounded—and because he spoke it in English.

Her face was cool and blank and a little astonished—politely, indifferently astonished. She looked straight at him, her eyes calm and open.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, in Russian. “I don’t believe I know you.”

Kareyev stepped between them and seized Michael’s shoulder, asking:

“Do you know her?”

Michael looked at her, at the stairway, at the men around them.

“No,” he muttered. “I was mistaken.”

“I warned you,” said Kareyev angrily, and threw him out of the way, against the wall. Joan turned and walked up the steps. Kareyev followed.

The prisoners watched Michael pressed to the wall, as he had fallen, not moving, not straightening himself, only his eyes watching her go up and his head nodding slowly as if counting each step.

 

There was no door to connect Joan’s cell with Commandant Kareyev’s. For five years Commandant Kareyev had not spoken to a woman, but almost forty years had gone before he had ever spoken to a woman like this guest of his. She was his prize, his reward, the pawn from the red republic for the hours and years of his life, for his blood, for his gray hair. She was his as his salary, as the rations of bread citizens got on their provision cards. But she had helpless white fingers and cool eyes that did not invite and did not forbid and looked at him with an open, wondering calm beyond his understanding. He had waited for five years; he could wait one night longer.

He had closed his door and listened. He could hear the moaning of waves outside; and the steps of sentinels on the wall; and the rustle of her long dress against the stone floor, in the next cell.

It was long after midnight, and the monastery towers had dissolved into the black sky, and only the smoking lanterns of the guards floated over the darkness, when a hand knocked on Joan’s door. She had not been sleeping. She was standing at a bare stone wall, under the faint square of a barred window, and the lighted candle tore out of the darkness the white spots of her hands and bowed face. The wax of the candle had frozen in long rivulets across the table. She hesitated for only a second. She tightened the folds of her long, black robe and opened the door.

It was not Commandant Kareyev; it was Michael.

He put his hand on the door so that she could not close it. His lips were determined, but his eyes were desperate, tortured, pleading.

“Keep quiet,” he whispered. “I’ve got to see you alone.”

“Get out of here,” she ordered, in a whisper. “At once.”

“Frances,” he begged, “this . . . all this isn’t possible. I can’t understand . . . I’ve got to hear a word, a . . .”

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. Let me close this door.”

“Frances, I have to . . . I can’t . . . I must know the reason you . . .”

“If you don’t go, I’ll call Commandant Kareyev.”

“Oh, you will?” He raised his head defiantly. “Well, let me see you do it.”

She opened her door wider and called:

“Comrade Kareyev!”

She did not have to call twice. He threw his door open and faced them, hand on the gun at his belt.

“I didn’t come here to be annoyed by your prisoners, Comrade Kareyev,” she said evenly.

Commandant Kareyev did not say a word. He blew his whistle. Down the long corridor, the echoes of their heavy boots pounding against the vaults, two guards ran to his summons.

“Into the pit,” he ordered, pointing at Michael.

Michael’s eyes were not desperate any longer. A contemptuous smile pulled down the corners of his mouth. His hand went to his forehead in a military salute to Joan.

She stood, motionless, until the guards’ footsteps died in the darkness beyond the stairs, leading Michael away. Then, Kareyev entered her room and closed the door. He looked at her throat, white against the black robe.

“After all,” said Commandant Kareyev, “he had the right idea.”

He did not know whether the soft warmth under his hands was the velvet or the body under the velvet. For one short second, it seemed to him that her eyes had lost their hard calm, that they were helpless and frightened and childish, like the fluffy blond hair that fell over his arm. But he did not care, for then her lips parted in a smile and his closed them again.

Joan was unpacking her trunks. She was hanging her clothes on a row of nails. Just enough light crawled in through the barred window to make the satins and laces glimmer, shivering and surprised, in the stone niche built for monks’ robes.

The light seemed to rise out of the sea and the sky hung over it, a dead gray reflecting feebly a borrowed glow. The leaden waves moved restlessly; they did not run towards the shore; they seemed to boil and knock against each other, furious whitecaps flashing up and disappearing instantly, as if the sea, a huge tank, had been shaken and its waters stirred, swaying against unseen walls.

From her window, Joan could watch the statue of St. George on a cornice. His huge, awkward face looked straight at the far horizon, without bending towards the dragon under his horse’s hoofs. The dragon’s head hung over the sea, limp under centuries of threat from a heavy stone spear, as if the last drops of blood had been drained through its gaping mouth into the waves far below.

Joan was hanging a shawl to cover the niche, a square piece of old linen heavy with crosses of embroidery. Commandant Kareyev entered when she struck her finger with the hammer, trying to drive a nail into the hard wooden frame around the niche.

“It’s your fault,” she said, a little smile softening her lips in a wordless greeting. “You promised to help me.”

He took her hand without hesitation, possessively, and looked, worried, at the little red spot.

“I’m sorry. Here, I’ll nail it for you.”

“You’ve left me alone three times this morning,” she complained.

“Sorry. I had to go. A disturbance down there. One of the fools chopped his toe off.”

“Accident?”

“No. Madness. Thought he’d be sent to the mainland to a hospital.”

“Didn’t you send him?”

“No. Had the doctor tend to him. The doctor’s a useful prisoner to have; been a surgeon at the Medical Academy in St. Petersburg. He’s cauterizing the idiot’s foot now—with red iron. . . . What’s all this here?”

“My clothes.”

“Why do you have so many?”

“Why do you carry that gun?”

“That’s my profession.”

“That”—she pointed to the niche—“is mine.”

“Oh.” He looked at the clothes, at her, frowned. “Yes, and a paying one. . . . And if it paid so well, why did you come here?”

“I was tired. I heard about you—and liked it.”

“What did you hear?”

“I heard that you were the loneliest man in this republic.”

“I see. Pity?”

“No. Envy.”

She bent and took out of the trunk a dress of soft, dark satin.