The Early Ayn Rand (25 page)

“Hold it,” she ordered, taking out a wrap, shaking its fluffy fur collar, stroking it gently, hanging it carefully in the niche. He held the dress cautiously, his fingers moving slowly in the smooth, lustrous folds, soft and bewildering as some unknown beast’s skin. He said:

“You won’t need such things here.”

“I thought you might like them.”

“I don’t notice rags.”

“Give me that dress. Don’t hold it up by the hem like that.”

“What’s the use of such a thing?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s useless.”

“But it’s beautiful. Isn’t that reason enough to bring it along, Comrade Kareyev?”

“One of us,” said Commandant Kareyev, “has a lot to learn.”

“One of us,” she answered slowly, “has.”

She bent into the trunk and took out a long satin nightgown. She displayed the luxury of her exquisite possessions in a natural, indifferent manner, as if they were to be expected, as if she did not notice Kareyev’s surprised eyes; as if she did not know that this elegance of a fashionable boudoir transplanted into a monk’s cell was a challenge to the frozen walls, to the grim Communist, to the very duty she had accepted. Under the dusty bottle that held a candle on the table, she put down a huge white powder puff.

He asked gruffly:

“Where do you think you are?”

“I think,” she answered with her lightest smile, “that you may wish to think of places where you haven’t been—someday.”

“I don’t have many wishes,” he answered sternly, “except those that come on official blanks with a Party seal. If they tell me to stay here—I’ll stay.”

He looked at the row of dresses in the niche. He kicked an open trunk impatiently.

“Are you through with that?” he asked. “I haven’t much time to waste here helping you.”

“You haven’t given me much time,” she complained. “They have been calling you away all morning.”

“They’ll call me again. I have more important things to do than to hang up that junk of yours.”

She brought out a satin slipper. She studied its buckle thoughtfully, attentively.

“That man who came to my room last night,” she asked, “where did you put him?”

“Into the pit.”

“The pit?”

“Fifty feet under the ground. Could swim down there if all the water on the walls wasn’t frozen. But it’s frozen. And I gave him the limit.”

“The limit of what?”

“Of light. When we give the limit, we close the big shutter over the hole above. Until we open it to throw him food, he might as well be blind for all the good his eyes will do him.”

“How long is his sentence?”

“Ten days.”

She bent for the second slipper. She put them down carefully under the folds of a long robe. She asked with a light smile:

“Do men think that kind of punishment satisfies a woman?”

“What would a woman do?”

“I would make him apologize.”

“You wouldn’t want me to have him shot, would you? For disobedience? He’ll never apologize.”

“Suspend his sentence if he does.”

“He’s a hard one. I’ve broken many a hard one here, but he’s steel—so far. Strastnoy Island hasn’t put its rust on him, yet.”

“Well? Are you only after those you know are easily broken?”

Commandant Kareyev walked to the door, opened it, and blew his whistle.

“Comrade Fedossitch,” he ordered his assistant when shuffling feet stopped at the door, “bring Citizen Volkontzev here.”

Comrade Fedossitch looked, surprised, at Kareyev. He looked into the room at Joan, a veiled glance of resentful hatred. He bowed and shuffled away.

They heard his steps again mingled with the resonant stride of Volkontzev. Comrade Fedossitch pushed the door open with his boot and, stepping aside, drawing his head into his shoulders in the obsequious bow of a headwaiter, his elbows pressed tightly to his body, let Michael enter, approached Kareyev and remarked, smiling softly, his smile timidly apologetic and arrogantly remonstrative at once:

“It’s against the law, Comrade Commandant. The sentence was ten days.”

“Has Comrade Fedossitch forgotten,” Kareyev asked, “that
my
order brought Citizen Volkontzev here?”

And he slammed the door, leaving his assistant outside.

Commandant Kareyev looked at Michael, pale, erect in his old jacket that fitted so well; then, he looked at Joan, who faced the prisoner, studying with an indifferent curiosity the patches on that jacket and the blue, frozen hands in its sleeves.

“You are here, Volkontzev,” said Commandant Kareyev, “to apologize.”

“To whom?” Michael asked calmly.

“To Comrade Harding.”

Michael made a step toward her and bowed graciously.

“I’m sorry, madam,” he smiled, “that you made the worthy Commandant break a law—for the first time in his life. But I warn you, Comrade Commandant, laws are easily broken by . . . er . . . Comrade Harding.”

“Citizen Volkontzev is not a fair judge of women,” Joan answered, her voice expressionless.

“I should hate to judge all women, Comrade Harding, by some I have known.”

“You’re here to apologize,” reminded Kareyev. “If you do, your sentence will be suspended.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ve been here five years and all the prisoners until now have obeyed me. If I stay here longer,
all
of them will learn to obey me. And I’m not leaving—yet.”

“Well, then, you can feed me to the rats in the pit; or you can have me flogged till I stop bleeding; but you won’t hear me apologize to this woman.”

Commandant Kareyev did not answer, for the door flew open and Comrade Fedossitch saluted, out of breath.

“Comrade Commandant! There’s a disturbance in the kitchen!”

“What’s the matter?”

“The convicts on vegetable duty refuse to peel the potatoes. They say the potatoes are frozen and rotten and not fit to cook.”

“Well, they’ll eat them raw.”

He hurried out, and Comrade Fedossitch followed.

In one swift movement, Joan was at the closed door. She listened, her ear and her hands pressed to the panel. She waited till the last step echoed against the vaults far downstairs.

Then, she turned. She said one word, her voice alive, tremulous, ringing like the first blow to a bursting dam, pleading and triumphant and anguished:

“Michael!”

The word slapped him in the face. He did not move. He did not soften, did not smile. Only his lips quivered when he asked almost without sound:

“Why are you here?”

She smiled softly, her smile pleading, radiant. Her hands rose, hungrily, imperiously, to his shoulders. He seized her wrists; it was an effort that shook every muscle of his body, but he threw her hands aside.

“Why are you here?” he repeated.

She whispered, a faint trace of reproach in her voice:

“I thought you had enough faith in me to understand. I couldn’t recognize you yesterday—I was afraid of being watched. I’m here to save you.”

He asked grimly:

“How did you get here?”

“I have a friend in Nijni Kolimsk,” she whispered hurriedly, breathlessly. “A big English merchant, Ellers. His place is right across the street from the GPU. He knows men there, influential men he can
order,
you understand? We heard about that . . . that invitation of Kareyev’s. Ellers arranged it—and I was sent here.”

She stopped, looking at his white face. She asked:

“Why so . . . stern, dearest? Won’t you smile to reward me?”

“Smile at what? My wife in the arms of a foul Communist?”

“Michael!”

“Did you really think that you’d find me willing to be saved—at such a price?”

She smiled calmly. “Don’t you know how much a woman can promise—and how little fulfill?”

“My wife can’t pretend to play a part like that.”

“We can’t choose our weapons, Michael.”

“But there is an honor that . . .”

She spoke proudly, solemnly, her head high, her voice tense, ringing, throwing each word straight into his face:

“I have a shield that my honor will carry high through any battle: I love you. . . . Look at these walls. There’s frozen water in the stone. A few more years—your eyes, your skin, your mind will freeze like that, crushed by this stone, by the days and hours that do not move. Do you want me to go away, to wander through the world with but one thought, one desire, and leave you to wither in this frozen hell?”

He looked at her. He took a step toward her. She did not move. She made no sound, but her bones crackled when his arms tore her off the ground, his lips sinking into her body, hungry with the dreams, the despair, the sleepless nights of two long years.

“Frances! . . . Frances . . .”

She was the first one to tear herself away from him. She listened at the door and threw a long gold thread of hair off her temple with the back of her hand, her fingers drooping limply, a quick, sharp movement.

He whispered breathlessly:

“Do it again.”

“What?”

“Your hair . . . the way you threw it back. . . . I’ve been dreaming—for two years—of how you did that . . . and the way you walked, and the way you turned your head with that hair over one eye. . . . I’ve tried to see it—as if you were here—so many times. And now you’re here . . . here . . . Frances . . . but I want you to go back.”

“It’s too late to go back, Michael.”

“Listen.” His face was grim. “You can’t stay here. I thank you. I appreciate what you’ve tried to do. But I can’t let you stay. It’s insane. There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can. I have a plan. I can’t tell you now. And there’s no other way for me to save you. I’ve tried everything. I’ve spent all the money I had. There’s no way out of Strastnoy Island. No way but one. You have to help me.”

“Not while you’re here.”

She walked away from him, turned calmly, stood, her arms crossed, her hands grasping her elbows, the golden thread of hair falling over one eye, looking at him calmly, the faintest wrinkle of a mocking smile in the corners of her long, thin mouth.

“Well?” she asked. “I’m here. What can you do about it?”

“If you don’t go, I can tell one thing to Kareyev. Just one name. Yours.”

“Can you? Think of it, Michael. Don’t you know what he’d do to me if he learned the truth?”

“But . . .”

“It will be worse for me than for you, if you betray me. You could try to kill him. You’d never succeed, but you’d be executed and you’d leave me alone—in his power.”

“But . . .”

“Or you could kill yourself—if you prefer. It would still leave me—alone.”

She knew that she had won. She whirled toward him suddenly, her voice vibrant, passionate, commanding:

“Michael, don’t you understand? I love you. I ask you to believe in me. There has never been a time when you could prove your faith, as you can do now. I’m asking the hardest of sacrifices. Don’t you know that it’s much harder sometimes to stand by and remain silent than to act? I’m doing my part. It’s not easy. But yours is worse. Aren’t you strong enough for it?”

His face set, his eyes on hers, a new fire in his eyes, he answered slowly:

“Yes.”

She whispered, her lips close to his:

“It’s not for your sake only, Michael. It’s our life. It’s the years awaiting us, and all that is still left to us, still possible—if we fight for it. One last struggle and then . . . then . . . Michael, I love you.”

“I’ll do my part, Frances.”

“Keep away from me. Pretend you’ve never seen me before. Remember, your silence is your only way to protect me.”

The vaults downstairs rang faintly as if from quick electric shocks. Kareyev’s steps hurried up the stairs.

“He’s coming, Michael,” she whispered. “Here’s your beginning. Apologize to me. It will be your first step to help me.”

When Commandant Kareyev entered, Joan was standing by the table, examining indifferently a pair of stockings. Michael stood by the door. His head was bowed.

“Well, Volkontzev,” the Commandant inquired, “have you had time to think it over? Have you changed your mind?”

Michael raised his head. Joan looked at him. Not a line moved in her calm face, not even the muscles around her eyes. But her eyes looked into his with a silent, desperate plea he alone could understand.

Michael made a step forward and bowed slightly.

“I have been mistaken about you, Comrade Harding,” he said steadily, distinctly. “I’m sorry.”