We the Living (53 page)

His eyes told her silently that he understood, that he would be cautious, while he shook her hand with a friendly, impersonal smile.

Leo approached them slowly, indifferently. He bowed to Andrei and asked, his voice courteous, his smile insolent: “So you’re a friend of Victor’s, too?”

“As yourself,” Andrei answered.

Kira walked on, without hurry, to congratulate Victor and Marisha. She nodded to acquaintances, and smiled, and talked to Irina. She knew that the eyes of the man by the window were following her; she did not turn to look at him.

She had talked to many guests before she approached Andrei again, as if by chance; Leo was busy listening to Lydia at the other end of the room.

Andrei whispered eagerly: “Victor has always been inviting me. This is the first time that I’ve accepted. I knew you’d be here. Kira, it has been three weeks . . .”

“I know. I’m sorry, Andrei. But I couldn’t. I’ll explain later. I’m glad to see you—if you’re careful.”

“I’ll be careful. What a lovely dress, Kira. New?”

“Oh . . . yes. It’s a present from Mother.”

“Kira, do you always go to parties with him?”

“Do you mean Leo?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you don’t presume to dictate the friends with whom I may . . .”

“Kira!” He was startled by the icy firmness of her voice; he was apologizing: “Kira, I’m sorry. Of course I didn’t mean . . . Forgive me. I know I have no right to say . . . But you see, I’ve always disliked him.”

She smiled gaily, as if nothing had happened, and leaning into the shadow of the window niche, pressed his fingers swiftly.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered and, moving away from him, turned, shaking her hair, throwing at him through the tousled locks a glance of such warm, sparkling understanding that he caught his breath, thrilled by the secret they were guarding together, among strangers, for the first time.

Vasili Ivanovitch sat alone in a corner, under a lamp, and the light of a rose satin shade made his white hair pink. He looked at the shuffling feet, at the military boots of young Communists, at the blue fog of smoke streaks that billowed halfway up to the ceiling, in soft, round waves, like a heavy, transparent mixture boiling slowly, at a gold cross on a black velvet ribbon around Lydia’s throat, a bright spark piercing the fog across the room.

Kira approached and sat down beside him. He patted her hand, and said nothing, and knew that she knew. Then he said, as if she had followed his unspoken thoughts: “. . . I wouldn’t mind so much if he loved her. But he doesn’t. . . . Kira, you know, when he was a little boy with such big black eyes, I used to look at my customers, those ladies that were like paintings of empresses, and I wondered which one of them was the mother of the little beauty, growing up somewhere, who, some day, would be my daughter, too. . . . Have you met Marisha’s parents, Kira?”

Galina Petrovna had cornered Leo; she was saying enthusiastically: “. . . so glad you’re successful, Leo. I’ve always said that a brilliant young man, like you, would have no trouble at all. That dress of Kira’s is magnificent. I’m so happy to see what good care you take of my little girl. . . .”

Victor sat on the arm of a chair occupied by red-headed Rita Eksler. He leaned close to her, holding his cigarette to light the one at her lips. Rita had just divorced her third husband; she narrowed her eyes under the long red bangs and whispered confidential advice. They were laughing softly.

Marisha approached timidly and took Victor’s hand with a clumsy movement of coquetry. He jerked his hand away; he said impatiently: “We can’t neglect our guests, Marisha. Look, Comrade Sonia is alone. Go and talk to her.”

Marisha obeyed humbly. Rita’s glance followed her through a jet of smoke; Rita pulled her short skirt up and crossed her long, thin legs.

“Indeed,” said Comrade Sonia coldly with an accent of final authority, “I cannot say that I congratulate you upon your choice, Comrade Lavrova. A true proletarian does not marry out of her class.”

“But, Comrade Sonia,” Marisha protested, stupefied, “Victor is a Party member.”

“I’ve always said that the rules of Party admission were not sufficiently strict,” said Comrade Sonia.

Marisha wandered dejectedly through the crowd of guests. No one looked at her and she had nothing to say. She saw Vasili Ivanovitch alone by the buffet, lining up bottles and glasses. She approached him and smiled hesitantly. He looked at her, astonished. She said with determination, very quickly, bluntly, running her words together, blushing: “I know you don’t like me, Vasili Ivanovitch. But, you see, I . . . I love him so much.”

Vasili Ivanovitch looked at her, then said: “It’s very nice, child,” his voice expressionless.

Marisha’s family sat in a dark corner, solemn, morose, uncomfortable. Her father—a stooped, gray-haired man in a worker’s blouse and patched trousers—clasped long, calloused hands over his knee; his face, with a bitter slash of a mouth, leaned forward, his fierce, brilliant eyes studying the room fixedly; his eyes were dark and young on a withered face. His wife huddled timidly behind him, pallid and shapeless in a flowered calico dress, her face like a sandy shore washed by many rains into a dull, quiet gray. Marisha’s young brother, a lanky boy of eight, stood holding onto his mother’s skirt, throwing angry, suspicious glances at little Acia.

Victor joined Pavel Syerov and a group of three men in leather jackets. He threw one arm around Syerov’s shoulders and the other around those of the secretary of their Party Cell; he leaned on them both, intimately, confidentially, his dark eyes smiling. Comrade Sonia, approaching, heard him whisper: “. . . yes, I’m proud of my wife’s family and their revolutionary record. Her father—you know—he was exiled to Siberia, under the Czar.”

Comrade Sonia remarked: “Comrade Dunaev is a very smart man.”

Neither Victor nor Syerov liked the tone of her voice. Syerov protested: “Victor’s one of our best workers, Sonia.”

“I said Comrade Dunaev is very smart,” she repeated, and added: “I wouldn’t doubt his class loyalty. I’m sure he had nothing in common with patrician gentlemen such as that Citizen Kovalensky over there.”

Pavel Syerov looked fixedly at Leo’s tall figure bending over Rita Eksler. He asked: “Say, Victor, that man’s name—it’s Lev Kovalensky, isn’t it?”

“Leo Kovalensky, yes. He’s a very dear friend of my cousin’s. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.”

Leo noticed Kira and Andrei sitting side by side on a window sill. He bowed to Rita, who shrugged impatiently, and walked toward them slowly.

“Am I intruding?” he asked.

“Not at all,” said Kira.

He sat down beside her. He took out his gold cigarette case and, opening it, held it out to her. She shook her head. He held it over to Andrei. Andrei took a cigarette. Leo bent forward to light it, leaning over Kira.

“Sociology being the favorite science of your Party,” said Leo, “don’t you find this wedding an occasion of particular interest, Comrade Taganov?”

“Why, Citizen Kovalensky?”

“As an opportunity to observe the essential immutability of human nature. A marriage for reasons of state is one of the oldest customs of mankind. It had always been advisable to marry into the ruling class.”

“You must remember,” said Andrei, “the social class to which the person concerned belongs.”

“Oh, nonsense!” said Kira. “They’re in love with each other.”

“Love,” said Leo, “is not part of the philosophy of Comrade Taganov’s Party. Is it?”

“It is a question that has no reason to interest you,” Andrei answered.

“Hasn’t it?” Leo asked slowly, looking at him. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Is it a question that contradicts your . . . theory on the subject?” Andrei asked.

“No. I think it supports my theory. You see, my theory is that members of your Party have a tendency to place their sexual desires high above their own class.” He was looking straight at Andrei, but he pointed lightly, with his cigarette, at Marisha across the room.

“If they do,” Andrei answered slowly, “they’re not always unsuccessful.” He was looking straight at Kira, but he pointed at Victor.

“Marisha looks happy,” said Kira. “Why do you resent it, Leo?”

“I resent the arrogant presumption of friends—” Leo began.

“—who do not know the limit of a friendship’s rights,” Andrei finished.

“Andrei,” said Kira, “we’re not being gallant to . . . Marisha.”

“I’m sorry,” he said hastily. “I’m sure Citizen Kovalensky won’t misunderstand me.”

“I don’t,” said Leo.

Irina had lined glasses on trays and Vasili Ivanovitch had filled them. She passed them to the guests, smiling vaguely at the hands that took the glasses; her smile was resigned, indifferent; she was silent, which was unusual for her.

The trays were emptied swiftly; the guests held the glasses eagerly, impatiently. Victor rose and the clatter of voices stopped short in a solemn silence.

“My dear friends,” Victor’s voice was clear, vibrant with his warmest persuasiveness, “I have no words to describe my deep gratitude to all of you for your kindness on this great day of my life. Let us all join in a toast to a person who is very dear to my heart, not only as a relative, but as a man who symbolizes a splendid example to us, young revolutionaries starting out on our lives of service to the cause of the Proletariat. A man who has devoted his life to that cause, who had risen bravely against the tyranny of the Czar, who has sacrificed his best years in the cold wastes of a Siberian exile, fighting for the great goal of the people’s freedom. And since that goal is ever paramount for all of us, since it is higher than all thoughts of personal happiness, let us drink our first toast to one of the first fighters for the triumph of the Worker-Peasant Soviets, my beloved father-in-law, Glieb Ilyitch Lavrov!”

Hands applauded noisily; glasses rose, clinking; all eyes turned to the corner where the gaunt, stooped figure of Marisha’s father got up slowly. Lavrov was holding his glass, but he did not smile; his gnarled hand motioned for silence. He said slowly, firmly, evenly:

“Listen here, you young whelps. I spent four years in Siberia. I spent them because I saw the people starved and ragged and crushed under a boot, and I asked for freedom. I still see the people starved and ragged and crushed under a boot. Only the boot is red. I didn’t go to Siberia to fight for a crazed, power-drunk, bloodthirsty gang that strangles the people as they’ve never been strangled before, that knows less of freedom than any Czar ever did! Go ahead and drink all you want, drink till you drown the last rag of conscience in your fool brains, drink to anything you wish. But when you drink to the Soviets, don’t drink to me!”

In the dead silence of the room, a man laughed suddenly, a loud, ringing, resonant laughter. It was Andrei Taganov.

Pavel Syerov jumped up and, throwing his arm around Victor’s shoulders, yelled, waving his glass: “Comrades, there are traitors even in the ranks of the workers! Let’s drink to those who are loyal!”

Then there was much noise, too much noise, glasses clinked, voices rose, hands slapped shoulders, everybody yelled at once. No one looked at Lavrov.

Only Vasili Ivanovitch approached him slowly and stood looking at him. Their eyes met. Vasili Ivanovitch extended his glass and said: “Let us drink to our children’s happiness, even though you don’t think that they will be happy, and I don’t, either.”

They drank.

At the other end of the room, Victor seized Marisha’s wrist, dragging her aside, and whispered, his white lips at her ear: “You damn fool! Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

She muttered, blinking, her eyes full of tears: “I was scared. I knew you wouldn’t like it, darling. . . . Oh, darling, you shouldn’t have . . .”

“Shut up!”

There were many drinks to follow. Victor had provided a good supply of bottles and Pavel Syerov helped to open them speedily. The trays of pastry were emptied. Dirty dishes were stacked on the tables. A few glasses were broken. Cigarette smoke hung as a motionless blue cloud under the ceiling.

Marisha’s family had left. Galina Petrovna sat sleepily, trying to keep her head erect. Alexander Dimitrievitch snored softly, his head on the arm of his chair. Little Acia had fallen asleep on a trunk in the corridor, her face smeared with chocolate frosting. Irina sat in a corner, watching the crowd indifferently. Comrade Sonia bent under the pink lamp, reading a newspaper. Victor and Pavel Syerov were the center of a group at the buffet that clinked glasses and tried to sing revolutionary songs in muffled voices. Marisha wandered about listlessly, her nose shiny, the white rose wilted and brownish on her shoulder.

Lydia staggered to the piano and put an arm around Marisha’s waist. “It’s beautiful,” said Lydia in a thick, sad voice, “it’s beautiful.”

“What’s beautiful?” Marisha asked.

“Love,” said Lydia. “Romance. That’s it: romance. . . . Ah, love is rare in this world. They are few, the chosen few. . . . We wander through a barren existence without romance. There are no beautiful feelings left in the world. Has it ever occurred to you that there are no beautiful feelings left in the world?”

“That’s too bad,” said Marisha.

“It’s sad,” Lydia sighed. “That’s what it is: sad. . . . You’re a very lucky girl. . . . But it’s sad. . . . Listen, I’m going to play something beautiful for you. . . . Something beautiful and sad. . . .”

She struck the keys uncertainly. She played a gypsy love song, her fingers rushing suddenly into quick, sharp trills, then lingering on long, sad chords, then slipping on the wrong notes, her head nodding.

Andrei whispered to Kira: “Let’s go, Kira. Let me take you home.”

“I can’t, Andrei. I . . .”

“I know. You came with him. But I don’t think he’s in a condition to take you home.”

He pointed at Leo across the room. Leo’s head, thrown back, was leaning heavily against an armchair. His one arm encircled Rita’s waist; the other was thrown across the shoulders of a pretty blonde who giggled softly at something he was muttering. Rita’s head rested on his shoulder and her hand caressed his dishevelled hair.