The Early Ayn Rand (27 page)

“I think I have it,” Joan’s triumphant voice greeted a faint rumble from the loudspeaker.

A blast of jazz music exploded into the room, like a skyrocket bursting out of the loudspeaker, rising and breaking into flaming colors under the dark vaults.

“Abroad,” said one of the men, breathlessly, reverently, as if he were saying: “Heaven.”

The music was the end of a dance. It finished abruptly in a burst of applause. It was an unusual sound to enter the library. The men grinned and applauded, too.

A nasal Oriental voice spoke an announcement in French. Joan translated:

“This is the Café Electric, Tokyo, Japan. We are now going to hear the lightest, gayest, maddest tune that ever conquered the capitals of Europe: the ‘Song of Dancing Lights.’ ”

It was a challenge, it was an insulting burst of laughter right into the grim face of Strastnoy Island. It was like a ray of light split by a mirror, its sparkling bits sent flying, dancing over the dark, painted walls. It was the halting, drifting, irregular raving of a music drunk on its own gaiety. It was the voice of streetlights on a blazing boulevard under a dark sky, of electric signs, of automobile headlights, of diamond buckles on dancing feet.

Still kneeling by the radio, like a solemn priestess to that hymn of living, Joan spoke. She spoke to the men, but her eyes were on Commandant Kareyev. He stood at the door. At one side of him was a painting of a saint burning at the stake, his face distorted into a smile of insane ecstasy, renouncing the pleasures and the tortures of the flesh for the glory of his heaven; at the other side—a poster of a huge machine with little ant-sized men, sweating at its gigantic levers, and the inscription: “Our duty is our sacrifice to the red collective of the Communistic State!”

Joan was speaking:

“Somewhere, they are dancing to this music. It’s not very far. It’s on this same earth. Over there, the man is holding the woman in his arms. They, too, have a duty. It’s a duty to look into each other’s eyes and smile at life an answer beyond all doubts, all questions, all sorrows.”

Her head thrown back, her body on the dark altar steps, tense, listening to the song with its every muscle, seemed a sacrificial offering to the Deity she was serving. The candlelight drowned in her hair, golden as the saints’ halos.

She did not feel Michael’s hungry eyes. She was smiling at Commandant Kareyev.

Commandant Kareyev did not say a word. He walked to the altar. He turned the radio dial without looking at it, his eyes on her. He turned until he found a voice speaking in stern, familiar, Party accents:

“. . . and in closing this meeting of the workers of the first Moscow Textile factory, let me remind you, comrades, that but one devotion has a place in our lives: our devotion to the great aim of the world revolution.”

The radio coughed applause. Another voice announced:

“Comrades! We shall close this meeting by singing our great anthem—the ‘Internationale.’ ”

The slow, majestic notes of the red hymn marched solemnly into the air.

“All men—stand up!” ordered Commandant Kareyev.

It seemed that red banners unrolled under the vaults, under Jesus’ white robes. It seemed that drums beat through the singing chorus, drums and footsteps of men marching gladly, steadily into battle, their lives a ready sacrifice to the call of the song.

Commandant Kareyev did not say a word. He looked at Joan, a little wrinkle of a smile in the corners of his mouth, the song giving her his answer.

Joan stood up. She leaned over the radio. She looked at him, calm, undefeated. Her lips parted in a slow, mysterious, indulgent smile.

Snow was falling beyond the library windows. It gathered on the sills outside, rising slowly, closing the barred squares one by one. White flakes crashed silently into the glass panes and stayed there like fluffy, broken stars. It made the library darker. New candles burned at the altar.

Commandant Kareyev’s hand had long, sinewy fingers. They grasped things tightly, precisely, as if closing over the trigger of an aimed gun. Commandant Kareyev was turning the radio dial impatiently.

“I can’t get it, dear,” he said. “No one seems to be playing our ‘Song of Dancing Lights’ today.”

Joan’s hand covered his and led it, turning the dial slowly, together. She bent over the radio, her cheek pressed to his forehead, her blond hair brushing his temple, blinding him, getting tangled in his dark eyelashes.

They caught the familiar tune in the middle of a laughing sentence. It came like the unseen hand of the outside world, drawing a curtain of tumbling notes over the snow-laden windows, making Commandant Kareyev’s lips smile gaily, eagerly, a young happiness relaxing his stern wrinkles.

The library was deserted. He sat on the altar steps, drawing Joan close to him.

“Here it is,” he said, “the anthem of our duty.”

Her finger was wandering over his forehead, following the veins on his temple. She said:

“They play it well tonight. It’s night in Japan now.”

“And there are lights . . . dancing lights . . .”

“Not candles, like here.”

“If we were there tonight, I’d take you to this place where they are playing our song. And if there’s snow on the ground, like here, I’d carry you out of the car in my arms so that the snow wouldn’t touch your little slippers.”

“They have no snow there. They have cherry trees in blossom—all white.”

“Like your shoulders under the lights. There are men sitting at tables there, the kind of men who wear black suits and diamond studs. They’ll look at you. I want them to look at you. At your shoulders. I want them to know you’re mine.”

“Cherry blossoms and music . . . no footsteps on the wall outside; no groans from the pit.”

“But you came to all this—and to me. And you’ve stayed with me.”

“I came because I was desperate. I stayed because I found something I didn’t expect.”

Her hand moved slowly from his forehead down to his chin, studying tenderly every line.

“It’s strange, Joan . . . I’ve tracked a cross over Russia, through forests and swamps, with a gun and a red flag. I thought I was marching toward the dawn of the world revolution. It has always been there, ahead of me. And now, when I look ahead, the golden dawn is nothing but,” he finished with a laughing tenderness, drawing her closer, “a lock of your hair loose in the wind because you forgot to comb it.”

He sat on the altar steps. She knelt by his side, erect, her hands on his shoulders. Behind them tall candles burned before golden saints; above them was the picture of Lenin; the radio played the “Song of Dancing Lights.”

Through the windows where the rising snow was growing whiter against a darkening sky came the shrill whistle of a boat. He did not seem to notice it, but Joan started.

“The boat,” she said. “The last boat before the sea freezes.”

He did not turn to look at the window. He smiled slyly, happily.

“I have a little surprise for you, Joan. And will you do something for me? Will you wear tonight, for dinner, the blue dress I like?”

She walked to the window and peered through the frosted pattern. The boat had stopped at the old landing. Most of the prisoners had been ordered to unload the cargo; there was more freight than usual.

The general was the first to appear, bent under a huge crated object. Joan heard his heavy steps in the corridor. She opened the library door and watched him pass on his way upstairs.

“I think it’s an armchair,” the general grinned at her, passing by. “It feels like one. Although I’ve never yet felt an armchair from the underside.”

The next one to come was Comrade Fedossitch. He shuffled to the library door and stopped, saluting, out of breath.

“It’s here, Comrade Commandant. It’s arrived,” he reported, servility fighting indignation in his voice. “The boat’s arrived. Don’t you want to come down and watch the men—under the unusual circumstances?”

Commandant Kareyev waved his hand, annoyed.

“I thought I told you to watch them. You can do it. I’m busy.”

More packages came, carried through the corridor, up the stairs to Kareyev’s room. The prisoners’ boots left tracks of dirty, melting snow as they passed.

The professor and the Senator came with a long, heavy roll of carpet. The professor smiled at Joan. The Senator, his beard longer, his cheeks whiter than before, turned his head away.

The young engineer carried a box in which something rattled with a metallic sound. His cheeks were beginning to acquire an unnatural bright rosiness. His eyes sparkled with a feverish vivacity.

“I think it’s for Miss Harding,” he said aloud as if to himself, passing by the library door, rattling the box, watching Joan from the corner of his eye. “I admire the Commandant—for the first time.”

The Count carried a carefully crated box stuffed with straw. He held it with the reverence due a priceless load. The load made the sound of clinking glass.

“Congratulations, Miss Harding,” he smiled triumphantly, winking at the box. “
That
is what I call a real victory!”

Commandant Kareyev watched Joan’s wide, questioning eyes as they followed the procession up the stairs. He did not explain.

Michael stopped at the open door. His tall shoulders were beginning to droop; so did the corners of his mouth. His eyes were darker than usual; and that darkness, like a wave of unbearable pain, seemed to have overflown his eyes and frozen in blue puddles of circles under them. The sparkling defiance of Michael Volkontzev was gone; a brooding bitterness had taken its place.

He carried on his shoulders a large bundle sewn in heavy burlap. It seemed soft and light. He looked at Joan and Kareyev in the doorway, her head resting on his shoulder.

“These are pillows, I believe,” said Michael. “Do they go to your room or her room—or does it make any difference?”

Joan did not raise her head.

“To my room,” said Kareyev.

 

Joan wore her blue dress for dinner. The dark velvet clung to her body tightly, almost too tightly; but a severe military collar clasped her neck high under her chin.

One candle burned on the table in the middle of Commandant Kareyev’s room. It made a little island of light in the darkness, and a bright flame in the black panes of the window. She saw the shadows of long dark drapes; she felt a soft carpet under her feet. Two big armchairs stood at the table. A white stain in the darkness by the wall was a heavy lace spread on the bed with faint glimmers of candlelight in the new satin pillows.

“It’s all for your room,” Kareyev hurried to explain, smiling happily, almost bashfully, before she could say a word. “It’s here . . . just for a surprise.”

Across the swaying candle flame, Joan smiled at him. His eyes did not leave her. He watched for her to notice the snow-white tablecloth, the delicate china dishes, the little red sparks dancing in the silverware and the tall cut-glass goblets.

Joan’s eyes had melted into a soft, dreamy warmth. When she looked at Kareyev they sparkled with more than the candlelight’s reflection. They stopped one second longer than a glance required, lingering in a caress for the two of them alone to understand.

They were not alone. A waiter stood by the wall. It was Michael’s turn to wait on the Commandant’s table.

He stood, hunching his shoulders, thrusting his head forward, watching solicitously Commandant Kareyev’s every movement, stiff and smiling discreetly, an exaggerated picture of a correct waiter. He had thrown a white napkin over his arm—which had never been required. The maître d’hôtel of one of the fashionable restaurants which Michael Volkontzev used to visit would not have approved, however, of the look in that perfect waiter’s eyes.

“This is our anniversary, Joan,” said Kareyev, when they sat down. “Don’t you remember? You came here three months ago.”

She smiled, indicating the table:

“And such is the end of Commandant Kareyev.”

“No. The beginning.”

He leaned closer to her, speaking eagerly.

“I’ll bring everything you want here. I’ll make this island for you—what you make it for me.”

“What I’ve made it—for us.”

She did not notice Michael’s eyes that seemed to gather her every syllable, tearing them, in silent, ferocious agony, off her lips.

Kareyev shook his head slowly. “I don’t like that word. I’ve served it for such a long time. For
us.
We—the people, the collective, the millions. I’ve fought on barricades—for us. I’ve fought in the trenches. I’ve shot at men and men have shot at me. For us, for them, for those countless others somewhere around me, those for whom I’ve given a lifetime, my every moment, my every thought, my blood. For us. I don’t want to hear the word. Because now—it’s for
me.
You came here—for
me.
You’re mine. I won’t share that with anyone on earth.
Mine.
What a word that is—when you begin to understand it!”

She smiled, mocking, a little reproachful.

“Why,
Comrade
Kareyev!”

He smiled timidly, apologetically.

“Yes, Comrade Kareyev—tomorrow. And after tomorrow. And for many days to come. But not tonight. I can have one night for my own, can’t I? Look.” He pointed at the table proudly. “I ordered all this for you—by wireless. I have money in the bank at Nijni Kolimsk. My salary. Had nothing to do with it for five years. . . . I guess it wasn’t money alone that I’ve been missing for five years—for more than thirty-five years.”

“It’s never too late while one lives—if one still wants to live.”

“It’s strange, Joan. I’ve never really known what it was to want to live. I’ve never thought of tomorrow. I didn’t care what bullet ended me—or when. But now, for the first time, I want to be spared. Am I a traitor, Joan?”

“One cannot be a traitor to anything,” said Joan, “except to oneself.”